Quest stories captivate us. Whether it’s Bilbo’s journey there and back again or Dante’s ascent to Paradise or Reepicheep’s voyage to find the utter East — we find the pilgrimage narrative irresistible, especially if the road teems with adventure and the hero is transformed into someone lovely. There is a reason The Odyssey has fired man’s imagination for three millennia, a long homeward trek past temptations and monsters innumerable.

We were made to go to God, the Home for our souls, made to enjoy God more and more forever, to really live. And the only way to get there is by following the Way crossing the only Bridge that brings us to God (John 14:6; 1 Peter 3:18). And we can only walk that Way when God’s own breath fills our lungs and animates our steps, when his Spirit sets us walking in a new direction as new creations on new adventures.

We love quests (at least in part) because we were made for a Godward quest led by God’s Spirit. And we can trace the contours of that sojourn by attending to the Spirit’s work in Romans 8. Abraham Kuyper rightly observed, “The Holy Spirit leaves no footprints in the sand.” But those led by the Spirit certainly do.

New Direction

In Romans 8:4, Paul divides the world into just two groups: those who walk according to the flesh and those who walk according to the Spirit. That’s it. Either the flesh directs you or the Spirit does. You are walking according to one power or the other.

Of course, walk is a metaphor, so what does it mean? The emphasis of walk falls not on pace but on direction. Picture a path. One way, the path leads up and into life. The other way leads down and down to death. All people move on this path, and eventually, they will get where they are going — either to life or to death.

Without the Spirit, death draws us like flies to filth. The pull is imperious, inexorable, irresistible. As sons of wrath, we march the wide way to death, following the course of this world, in lockstep with the discordant beat of sin’s siren call (Ephesians 2:1–3). In Eden, our first father forfeited the way of life, setting the feet of all his sons trudging ever downward. The world still rings with the clink, clink, clink of shackled feet chained to sin by choice and blood, making the trek to death. Can you hear it? Do you remember the sound of your own chosen chains?

But the Spirit breaks our bondage. He sets us free from the power of sin and death (Romans 8:2). He snaps the dark enchantment. He breathes life into those who walk in death. He wholly reroutes our hearts, puts us on the path to forever pleasures and full joys, and sets our feet dancing to his rhythm (Psalm 16:11; Galatians 5:25). The Spirit gets us walking in a new direction.

This “new way of the Spirit” leads us into the abundant life Jesus promised (Romans 7:6; John 10:10). We can begin even now to roam the garden paths of Eden — to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). What was lost then, Christians increasingly enjoy now. God with us is realized by God in us. As Tom Schreiner writes, “The future deliverance from death has invaded the present world in the death and resurrection of Christ” (Romans, 294). The life the Father planned and the Son purchased the Spirit guides us into.

As New Creations

But this new direction results from a deeper change wrought by the Spirit. New direction comes from new creation. Who you are determines where you are going. The NASB captures this new way of being:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5)

We were in the flesh; now we are in the Spirit. We were dead in trespasses; now we are alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1–5). We were stonehearted; now we are softhearted (Ezekiel 36:26). We were enemies; now we are reconciled (Romans 5:10). In short, we were one kind of creature; now we are new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Spirit as “the Lord, the giver of life,” effects this change from the Father through the Son.

“The life the Father planned and the Son purchased the Spirit guides us into.”

And our new direction is evidence of our new creation (and no condemnation, Romans 8:1–2). The fleshly person does not and cannot please God (Romans 8:7–8). But the Spirit-led person can and will please him. Leading reveals lineage (Romans 8:14). Sons of Adam follow the flesh to death. The Spirit leads sons of God to life. Direction reveals desires. If the flesh rules, you will gratify its desires. But if the Spirit governs you, his desires will be yours (Galatians 5:16–17).

Just as a compass can be corrupted so that it no longer points north, the soul without the Spirit does not orient to God. Indeed, it cannot! It hates God (Romans 8:7). It points away from him. But the Spirit re-magnetizes the soul. He is the internal principle (the “law” in verse 2) that points us to true North.

How does the Spirit recreate and re-magnetize our souls? He dwells in us! “You . . . are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you” (verse 9).

Christian, you who have the Spirit of Christ, have you considered the wonder and weight of that reality? The Spirit of God lives in you and leads you. The Spirit who brooded over the chaos waters at the beginning of all things, the Spirit who gives life to what lives, the Spirit who led Israel through wild places by fire and cloud, the Spirit who descended like a dove on the long-awaited Messiah, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead with omnipotent power, the Spirit who fell like fire at Pentecost, the Spirit who blows where he will and begets whom he will, the Spirit who is the third person of the eternally happy Trinity — that Spirit dwells in you! How could you expect to be anything less than utterly altered by his presence?

With God in You

New creations really are new. Do not think that setting your mind on the things of the Spirit concerns just your thinking. The change involves “the whole existence of a person,” as Schreiner puts it (Romans, 405). Just as the heart in the Old Testament concerns all the inner life — thoughts, affections, and desires — the mindset here is just as expansive. Everything changes when the Spirit transfers you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13).

If the Spirit dwells in you, God is in you. Imagine you had access to my spirit. You could think my thoughts, know my desires, and feel my affections. God’s Spirit does just this. He pours God’s own love into us (Romans 5:5). He teaches us the very thoughts of God, revealing truth and rerouting the ruts of our minds. He is the mind of Christ in us (1 Corinthians 2:10–13, 16). He gives us godly desires (Galatians 5:16–17).

The Spirit gives us God’s own happiness. When Jesus said that his joy would be in us and our joy would be full (John 15:11), he anticipated this ministry of his Spirit — the same Spirit he rejoiced in (Luke 10:21), the same Spirit that embodied the love and joy of the Father in the Son (Matthew 3:16–17).

Augustine marveled at this mystic reality. He confessed to God,

When people see things with the help of your Spirit, it is you who are seeing in them. When, therefore, they see that things are good, you are seeing that they are good. Whatever pleases them for your sake is pleasing you in them. The things which by the help of your Spirit delight us are delighting you in us. (Confessions 13.31.46)

It boggles the mind, but the Spirit of God in man is God’s own life and fullness in man. Here is a new creation indeed!

On New Adventures

Is it any surprise that new creations going in a new direction embark on new adventures? And adventure really is the right word for the Christian life. To be on an adventure is to participate in a story, to embark on a journey perilous but full of promise, to engage in daring action in hope of glorious reward. We were made new, crafted by Christ, to walk these new paths and perform these great deeds (Ephesians 2:10).

But Spirit-led adventures are unlike the adventures we’re used to. On this adventure, if you walk, you will arrive. The end is written. The Ring will be destroyed; yet you must walk it into Mordor and throw it in Mount Doom. Again, you will get where you are going, but you really do have to go.

Paul highlights this fast friendship between God’s sovereignty and man’s agency:

If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:13–14)

The Spirit empowers the Christian life (“by the Spirit”), but believers act it out (“you put to death”). We must work the miracle. For Paul, the reality that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” does nothing to undermine the agency, yes, and the urgency of “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12–13).

Quest of Life and Death

What does this Spirit-led, man-walked adventure look like? On the one hand, it looks like death — if you put to death the deeds of the body. The way is soaked in the blood of slain sin. Dragon carcasses litter the roadside. Crosses, thick as a forest, mark where “the flesh with its passions and desires” have been crucified (Galatians 5:22–24). Trash heaps piled high with worldly lusts — sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness — lie smoldering by the way, torched with holy fire. The signs of wars waged and battles won are everywhere.

Pilgrim, if you walk by the Spirit, this is your adventure, your battleground. And there is no place for parley on this path! You must slay and crucify, torch and kill, and give no quarter to your dragon-lusts. Put to death the deeds of the body.

And if you do, you will live. This is the way of life (Psalm 16:11). There is no other. The way may be paved in daily death, but the end is eternal life. After all, we are walking in the footsteps of our older Brother, who endured the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2). By his Spirit, we follow his direction, doing the will of his Father, sharing in his suffering, imitating his stride. The Spirit-led adventure looks like increasingly looking like Christ (Romans 8:29). By the Spirit, the adopted sons of the Father walk the way of the Son. The adventures of the Spirit never stray outside the happy land of the Trinity. Where the Spirit leads, there is the Son and Father, and there is eternal life (John 17:3).