Romans - Chapter 8, Part 1
8:1-8 Sin and death
In the entire history of writings concerning our Lord, there have been no more powerful teaching than the one given in verse one:
“There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus...”
Paul has spent many verses before explaining how God justifies sinners and frees them from divine wrath. He now shows how much more the believer has to enjoy in terms of the freedom that faith in Christ brings. He is saying that God does not condemn His children, who are redeemed, to a life of fear or defeat. Paul uses the word “law” to explain a divine requirement (as opposed to the Law of Moses). It is the operation of the principle of the “Spirit of life” in the believer that sets him apart and frees him from the “law of sin and death”.
Paul closed out chapter seven with the dismal words “with the flesh” showing how sin operates in the human experience. The phrase “in the flesh” is an attitude or inclination operating in complete rejection of the divine will that requires our self surrender.
We should always be mindful that the measure of a believer's devotion is found in the depth of his surrender.
It is in the flesh that the law of sin and death exists and moves.
Paul carefully outlines the stages of God's dealings with sinful human nature, the flesh in which the law of sin and death does it's work. First God gave the Law of Moses, which could not make man right with God nor make him live rightly before God. This lack of ability was not a reflection on the Law, but was a condemnation of human nature after the fall into sin in the garden.
Second, God then sent “... His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin...” (verse 3). It is strongly important that we note that Jesus did not arrive in human flesh (sinful and depraved) but in flesh that was likened to ours but not ours.
Third, Christ came “... for sin...”. He came to accept our sin upon Himself and become our once and forever sacrifice to atone for it. By Him was sin overwhelmed.
Fourth, those who are “in Christ” have come into a new identity (being new creatures) and in this newness have joined with Him, taking the first step to living free from sin's dominion.
8:9-11 Spirit of life.
Up to this point in Paul's presentation of the gospel of Christ, the Holy Spirit has been generally absent in his words. But when the third member of our Holy Trinity is now given His rightful place in this portion of teaching the change is radical and dramatic.
The Holy Spirit is given many titles in scripture but it seems likely that none are more profound than the one Paul now uses, “... the Spirit of life...”. In Him bondage to sin is banished and freedom begins to be ours and from that moment forward that freedom guides our lives.
Paul now begins to describe the divine alternatives which are given to those “in the Spirit” and who live “according to the Spirit”. His reasoning is powerful. He teaches that “... those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (verse 8). Believers do not need to be much concerned about this human limitation because “they are not in the flesh but in the Spirit” (verse 9). Now believers are capable of pleasing the One who has redeemed them. The proof that they are “in the Spirit” is found in the fact of His indwelling presence.
Now Paul goes one step further. He teaches:
“Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His...”
The indwelling presence of Christ, through the Spirit, is the birthright of all believers and the seal of their redeemed status (through our being born again). While we know that the body of man is not exempt from the corruption common to all men after Adam, the spirit of man is preserved into eternal life through the strong power of the Holy Spirit. When we understand the very strong power of indwelling sin that curses us even after salvation, God grants us weapons to battle it. We also come to understand the far greater power of the Spirit that also indwells us because that Holy Spirit is greater than all sin. John allows this particular teaching in 1st John 4:4:
“... greater is he who is in you that he who is in the world...”
8:12-13 Fulfilled righteousness.
Living by the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the flesh.
There are three things that identify this requirement. First, the believer must mind the things of the Spirit rather than those of the flesh. Second the believer must choose to live in that same way, according to the Spirit, not according to the body. Third, the believer is required to persist in that new and chosen way of life to “put to death the deeds of the body”.
Deciding to do something is truly bound up in the decision not to do the opposite. So a courageous act of self denial is needed. This act is so difficult that believers find that it is impossible to accomplish alone even though the believer knows it is right.
But when the believer cultivates the attitude of the Spirit using the greater power the Spirit brings when He arrives into us at conversion, the believer finds that we can be delivered from the law of sin and death in this life and beyond not through our own strength but through the strength given by the Lord.
The quality of life granted to the believer through this dependence on the Holy Spirit for all things is called “the righteousness of the law”. But we must not overlook that this life is not the product of frustrated self effort, but rather is the result of human response to the divine Spirit who indwells.
