<p>8:10&nbsp;<i>And if Christ is in you</i>- Note the parallel with the spirit of God and the spirit of Christ (8:9) and &ldquo;the spirit&rdquo; later here in 8:10. Paul is now exploring what it means to be &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;. It&rsquo;s not just that we opted into Him through baptism; He is in us as much as we are in Him. &ldquo;Christ in you&rdquo; is an idea Paul elsewhere uses (2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:17; Col. 1:27). The exposition of the Spirit which follows in Romans 8 is further insight into what it means to be &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, to be declared right by God, and to believe it insofar as believe into Christ by baptism. The words &ldquo;in&rdquo; and &ldquo;Christ&rdquo; have been frequently used already by Paul in describing us as &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;. But there&rsquo;s a mutuality in our position- we are in Him, but He is also in us. Whilst we need exhortation to live as &ldquo;in Him&rdquo;, Paul here isn&rsquo;t exhorting us- rather is he rejoicing in our status, and seeking to persuade us of it. &ldquo;If Christ be in you&rdquo; shouldn&rsquo;t be read as something uncertain- the idea is clearly &ldquo;Seeing that Christ is in you&rdquo;.</p><p><i>The body is dead because of sin</i>- Because we are in Christ and He is in us, our body is counted as His dead body. The idea has been common throughout Romans 6- because of our baptism into Him, we are &ldquo;dead to sin&rdquo; (6:2), &ldquo;he that is dead is freed from sin&rdquo; (6:7), &ldquo;truly we are dead to sin&rdquo; (6:11). It&rsquo;s as if the day of judgment has come already for us- it was the day of our baptism into Christ. We have sinned and so were counted as if we had already died. How did we die? In that we symbolically connected ourselves with the death of Christ. In going under the water, therefore, we not only align ourselves with Christ&rsquo;s death; we also state our recognition that we have sinned, and that sin brings death. Through doing so, we are enabled to rise again with Christ- as if our final, literal justification in resurrection to eternal life will just as surely take place. In this sense, it can be said that baptism is related to salvation. Not that dipping in water as a ritual can itself save anyone, but because that association with the death and resurrection of Christ really does save-&nbsp; involving as it does a willing recognition of our sinfulness and just condemnation, and only thereby resulting in a part in the resurrection. All this indicates the importance of repentance before baptism; it outlaws any kind of infant baptism, and likewise any attempt to claim a consciously performed baptism into the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection, after repentance, is in any sense invalid and requires rebaptism by other hands.</p><p><i>But the Spirit is life because of righteousness</i>- This surely uses &ldquo;righteousness&rdquo; in the way it has been earlier used in the letter, with reference to the righteousness of Christ which is reckoned to all those in Him. It is from the Spirit that we shall reap life eternal when Christ returns (Gal. 6:8), but through association with the death and resurrection of Jesus in baptism, His righteousness really is counted to us. But as His spirit is counted to us, so in a sense it does actually become our spirit- as Paul has been saying in Romans 7, although in the flesh we sadly do sin, yet in our spirit, which is the spirit / mind of Christ, we delight in God&rsquo;s law.</p><p>We feel at home with Paul's matchless confession of his innate tendency to sin, so strong that &quot;When I would do good, evil is present with me... how to perform that which is good I find not&quot;. Yet it is no accident that this dire recognition of the seriousness of our spiritual position in Romans 7 should lead straight on to Romans 8, one of the most positive passages in all Scripture. It is instructive to trace the parallels between these two chapters. For example, Paul's lament &quot;I am carnal&quot; (Rom. 7:14) is matched by &quot;To be carnally minded is death&quot; (8:6). His argument in Romans 6-8 runs along these lines: 'We are all carnally minded by nature; but Christ had our nature, yet achieved perfection. If we are in Christ by baptism and by His spirit/disposition being seen in us, then God will count us as Christ, and will therefore raise up our bodies to immortality, as His was'. The fact we still retain the old nature in this life means that we will be aware of the tremendous conflict within us between flesh and spirit. &quot;If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin&quot; (Rom. 8:10). Paul obviously didn't mean that we would not have the power of sin active in our natures any more- the preceding chapter 7 makes that crystal clear. The obvious connection with Rom. 6:11 explains the point: &quot;Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin&quot;. The apostle recognized his own innate sinfulness and spiritual failures which were solely his own fault (&quot;When I would do good...&rdquo;, Rom. 7), yet he was confident of salvation (Rom. 8). This was because he intensely believed in Christ's perfection, and that he was in Christ, and that at baptism he had received the condemnation of death which he deserved. &quot;There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus&quot; (Rom. 8:1). There is the certainty of salvation.</p>