March 5 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10).

Devotional

What should we understand by the term "spirit"? It means the Holy Spirit-regenerated spirit of the believer rather than the regenerating Spirit of God. The cheering affirmation of the apostle, then, is that the spiritual part of our nature is recovered from the curse, is renewed, and is made alive with a divine and heavenly life.

If the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. The spirit is life—it is imbued with a new and deathless principle. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the righteousness of his people. Your spirit lives on the solid foundation of God's verdict of justification. From every point of view, Jesus is identified with your spiritual life. You live a life of justification by Christ! You live a life of holiness from Christ! You live a life of faith in Christ! You live a life of immortality with Christ! Thus, in all its phases, "Christ is your life" (Col. 3:4).

Oh glorious truth! Welcome, death! My spirit lives! Welcome, grave! My spirit is beyond you! O death! You can merely touch the material fabric. My inner life towers far above your reach, safely hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). O grave! You can only imprison the body. My soul is at home with Jesus. I live, not because of any righteousness which I have wrought, but because Jesus Christ is my righteousness. I live on account of the Righteous One! I live in the Righteous One! And I shall live forever with the Righteous One.

Thus the spirit is life because of righteousness. Oh, what a glorious immortality is exposed to the eye of faith! If the spirit of the believer must pass through the gloomy portals of death in its transit to eternity, life attends it, and life awaits it, and life crowns it. Vibrant with a deathless existence, clothed with the robe of a new-born immortality, it bursts forth and, smiling back upon death, speeds its way to glory, honor, and endless life.

Ever look forward to this everlasting life. From the life you now experience, live for the life you will soon enjoy. This body must die. But what of it? The spirit is life. And at the resurrection, the life-inspired spirit will re-enter and re-animate the slumbering dust. And then, you will be glorified—soul and body—with Christ and all the saints forever and ever in the new heaven and the new earth in which will dwell righteousness.

A few more years shall roll,
a few more seasons come,
and we shall be with those that rest
asleep within the tomb:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that great day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

A few more storms shall beat
on this wild rocky shore,
and we shall be where tempests cease,
and surges swell no more:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that calm day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

A few more sabbaths here
shall cheer us on our way,
and we shall reach the endless rest,
th'eternal sabbath day:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that sweet day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

'Tis but a little while,
and he shall come again
who died that we might live, who lives
that we with him may reign:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that glad day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

(Horatius Bonar, 1844)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.