As with John and Acts, the Person of the Holy Spirit is not only noted in the passages below from Romans, but Whose presence with us and to us is essential in bringing us to any proper understanding of Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit in Romans is revealed primarily in the deep doctrinal (theological) content of this Epistle. As foretold in John, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is not drawing attention to Himself but as a role after the resurrection of Christ pointing us to Jesus in a somewhat comparable way that John the Baptist, and the Holy Spirit in a more limited presence, pointed toward the work of Jesus for the apostles, disciples, and us, before the cross.
Romans
Chapter 1
4
the Holy Spirit
Chapter 2
29
the Spirit
Chapter 7
6
the Spirit
Chapter 8
Chapter 8 of Romans is an interim conclusion of a chain of doctrine and spiritual reasoning that began in Chapter 1, and continued in chapters 2 through 7. As discussed in Three Books, chapters 1 and 2 of Romans are tough reading the first time through because none of us wants to hear that what we genuinely feel internally is wrong, even evil, in the sight of God. None of us escape that reaction, because none of us are free of some desire or many desires deep within of going our own way, unimpeded as adults from any external, especially central, Authority. By our nature, we like the idea of a “Santa Claus God:” someone who threatens us with coal instead of candy because we have been somewhat naughty instead of 100% nice, but by Christmas day, all is forgotten because God is, after all, the reasoning goes, “love” and somehow “love conquers all” else.
God is indeed “love,” but He is also Holy in a way unimaginable to our natural way of thinking. The fabulous news, is that Jesus Christ paid for our sin, both our nature and our deeds–past, present, and future–all made real and evident to us through the work of the Holy Spirit. This great Chapter 8 begins in verse 2 with the pronouncement that just as we received physical life, derived initially in Adam in creation in Genesis Chapter 2, and derivationally through our parents, so in a parallel but much more significant way, God the Holy Spirit gives us true, eternal life, by and in Jesus Christ.
And the Holy Spirit’s work continues every moment, and breath of our eternal lives.
2
the live-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus
4
the Spirit
10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16
the Spirit (6) [the number in parenthesis is the number of occurrences of the cited phrase in the verse range shown just above.
23, 26, 27
the Spirit (5)
Chapter 9
1
the Holy Spirit
Chapter 14
17
the Holy Spirit
Chapter 15
13
the Holy Spirit
16
the Holy Spirit
19
the Spirit
30
the Spirit