Previously, on our run down the Roman Road:
When we struggle with sin, let us realize that because of Christ, we have died to the flesh, and no longer have the desire OR the power to sin. Let us realize that because of Christ, we are now alive and WITH Him, serving in the new way of the Holy Spirit, bearing fruit for God.
It is as we’ve always been saying: Sin no longer fits us. It’s the fruit of the Holy Spirit, produced in us, that we were born again for.
We’ve tackled the enormous mountain that is called Romans 7, but now we come to one of my favorite, if not my personal number one Chapter of the entire Bible: Romans 8.
Considering the length of this chapter and the amount of value there is in each and every verse we’re going to go through, I may split our coverage of this Chapter into two articles.
Let’s go.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
You know, every time there’s a ‘therefore’, we ought to look at the verses preceding, and in this case, we’re able to say that there is no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus… BECAUSE we have been delivered from our wretched body of death, through Jesus Christ our Lord; and look, the second part of verse preceding Romans 8:1 (Romans 7:25) ALSO has a ‘then’ before the ‘therefore’: ‘So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.‘
Sure, I could imagine how the end to that chapter was pretty anti-climatic, but the fact of the matter is that this epistle as a whole, when originally composed, wasn’t split into Chapters and Verses. It was one huge letter from Paul to the Romans, in all its unpartitioned, compound-sentenced glory.
Anyway, I’m mentioning all this because although we’d love to appreciate how the verse sounds at face value (personally, I already love the Truth of ‘no condemnation’), there’s so much more to take in when we look at the context – and in this case, Christ has liberated us out of our marriage to sin, He has taken us out of the jurisdiction of the Law of the flesh, and by His death we died, and are therefore free from death.
Though our mind may still be programmed to sin, the flesh, and death, we give thanks to God, because its power over us is gone, replaced by both the desire and the power to serve the law of God.
We’re free from sin, and free to ‘the Law of God’, in Christ Jesus; And, therefore,
(1) there is now no condemnation – of sin, because we have been set free from sin in Christ Jesus; and
(2) there is now no condemnation – of not following God, because Christ has made us alive in Him.
Now before we go any further, I’d like to share that I used to think that this meant that we’re now free to serve the Law, as in the Old Testament Law; however, I’d like to state that although Paul (and we) ‘serve the law of God’, this ‘law’ refers to the ‘new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code’ (Romans 7:6).
There is now no condemnation. We’re no longer slaves to sin, nor are we bound by the stringent obligations of a perfect Law… because Christ has set us free of sin, AND free of the Law, that we would serve, as Paul says in another epistle, ‘a more excellent way’ (1 Corinthians 12:31).
My word, I thought we were doing good by splitting this into two parts, but we’re STILL on Romans 8:1. And it gets better.
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Here’s another confirmation. Paul differentiates the Law we were set free from to the actual law we’re free to serve through Christ. There is no condemnation because we’ve died, set free from the law of sin and death (that is, the Law that points out our sin and death) – and there is no condemnation because we’ve been brought to the law of Spirit and life; Because we now have the Spirit, we live.
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
To arrange things: We could not fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law, because I believe we were not merely weakened by the flesh – no, we WERE of the flesh, which in fact only granted us the power to sin. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born as one of us (in the likeness of sinful flesh), that (1) the condemnation unto death would fall upon Him and (2) the said righteous requirement of the Law would be fulfilled in us.
With that in mind, we can appreciate Christ further, because not only did He take and become sin and died that we would be free from the flesh, but also because He, who is the Way (John 14:6) made us to walk according to the Spirit.
And, seeing how the immediate verses are going, I believe that here in Romans 8 we’re given an idea of this new Law, this new Way we have through Christ, versus the perfect Law and the sham marriage we’ve had with sin and death, as pointed out in Romans 8:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
If, before Christ, our ‘members’ were making us captive to the law of sin, now our entire being has the freedom and power to live according to the Spirit, as through Christ, our minds are no longer set on the things of the flesh, but on the things of the Spirit.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
We’re being brought back to remembering how were were born again, recreated first in our mind – once, all our minds knew was flesh, sin and death, but now we’ve been set free to set our minds on the Spirit, unto life and peace.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Lest we forget: Even if we have all the ‘best’ intentions in the world, and do all we think is good, it all means nothing before God. Before Christ, we were hostile to God, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t please Him, because we were in the flesh. Isaiah elaborated further on our hopeless state of flesh, sin and death:
We have all become like one who is unclean (flesh), and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. (sin)
We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (death)
Isaiah 64:6
Before Christ, we were of the flesh: hostile to God, unclean, unable to submit to God’s Law; All that we do, even our righteous deeds could not please Him, because they were all as a polluted garment. All we had in our future was to fade, as sin takes us away to death.
But again, as Paul says, ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ We have been set free from the flesh, and brought in the Spirit, as the Spirit is brought to dwell in us! Let’s read on:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
We’ve come all the way from saying we have no condemnation, to this: We have Christ, and we have His Spirit dwelling in us. And because of this, we are no longer hostile to God, but reconciled to Him.
We are no longer unclean, but our sins have been washed away, making us clean as snow (Isaiah 1:18).
We are no longer unable to submit to God’s Law, but through Christ, the righteous requirement of the law was fulfilled in us.
We no longer produce filthy rags; Now we are serving in the new way of the Holy Spirit, bearing fruit for God.
On our own, our bodies are dead – but through Christ we have been given life ‘because of (His) righteousness’; and this life, being the ONLY Life there is, is a clean, righteous, fruitful life.
I’m looking at how we’re going through this and I’m thinking I won’t be needed two, but THREE parts, three articles maybe.
Let’s end here for now. This is wonderful, but other things came up.
Until the next post, God bless us all.
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#Righteousness #SpiritualLife #Flesh #Sin #Death #Life #Righteousness #HolySpirit #JesusChrist #PracticalChristianity #BenefitsOfSalvation #Revelations #Reflections #Romans #NewTestament #Bible
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