8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Verse 1 shows us the wonderful reality that there is no condemnation for those of us who have been united with Christ Jesus. Yes, in the life God disciplines us when we sin in order to mature us in our walk, but will never experience the ultimate judgment and penalty of sin because Christ paid that for us.
We have been set free by life given to us by Christ through the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. What is the law of the Spirit of life?
MacArthur....
We have been set free from the mastery of sin... by the law that is really the gospel that comes to us through the Holy Spirit.
And I would just remind you that the gospel is a law. By law the Apostle means something that is binding on us, something that makes demands of us, something that has inherent in it commands with consequences for misbehavior and rejection. And the gospel is a law. It is the command, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved...and he that believeth not is...what?...condemned," John 3 says. So there is a law in the gospel. And it is a law just as much as any other law God gave. You believe it, you will be blessed. And you fail to obey it and you will be condemned. And we have received the law and the law of the gospel here is called "the law of the Spirit," the Spirit who gives life in Christ Jesus in the message of salvation.
The law could convict us of sin, but it couldn't destroy it. It could not redeem us or make us righteous. The OT sacrifices couldn't eliminate sin, they could only symbolize the One who could.we've been learning in the book of Romans that no man shall be justified by the deeds of the law because the law cannot eliminate sin...very important. But God condemned sin. And it means not only that He pronounced a sentence on it, it means that He consigned it to doom and destruction. And it was in the death of Jesus Christ that sin was ultimately defeated because, you see, sin gathered up all its power, threw it at Christ and lost. When He burst out of the grave three days later, sin could not hold its prey, could it? And it showed..it was shown that it was defeated. And so God through Christ condemned the sin that condemned us. And all of us who are in Jesus Christ become beneficiaries of the judgment of sin on the cross of Christ which has released us from the penalty of sin, it has released us from the power of sin, and someday will release us from the presence of sin. What a wonderful thought.
How did He do this? He did it in the flesh, as a human. God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful man. What amazing wording. Jesus was man, but He was not totally like man because man is sinful and Jesus was not. He was fully human. But perfect. So he was like sinful man but not sinful Himself. And He came for one reason - sin. To deal with sin forever. To heap our sin upon Himself and defeat once and for all at Calvary. That is why He came. To be the substitute for us.
MacArthur adds this wonderful truth...
Jesus also demonstrated to us perfect humanity...perfect humanity. He defeated Satan every time he came. He defeated temptation every time it came. Every trial, every temptation that sin brought at Him, Jesus Christ defeated. And He denied therefore sin's right to have any place in the normal human life of a truly restored regenerated child of God. He showed us that sin has no dominion over us by demonstrating that. Sin's mastery over human flesh was broken when it encountered Jesus Christ and it was defeated. You see, every human being that had ever lived had been assaulted by sin and every time they lost, every one of them. There's been only one human being on the face of this earth who ever lived who was assaulted by sin and never fell...and that was Jesus Christ. Sin met Him and tried Him and was utterly defeated. Therefore sin was compelled to yield its supremacy in the flesh to the victor and Christ therefore became the sovereign over sin.
You say, "What does that mean?" That just means that you in Christ can experience the same power with which He defeated sin in His life to defeat sin in your own life. The law couldn't do that. The law cannot enable a man to overcome sin, the indwelling Christ can. It's a great thought. And so I say to you as a Christian, if you sin you have no excuse.
You say, "But I'm weak." I know, and you're going to do it. But it's still not necessary because the victory is available in Jesus Christ. You say, "Well that's kind of a tough tension because on the one hand I'm Romans 7, I can't help it because it's my flesh and my humanness." And that's true generally. But the specific sins are because you yield. And at those points the strength of Christ is available to you, He promises that. For the Bible says, "Greater is He that is you than He that is in the world."
There is no condemnation for the believer for we have been justified by Christ's substitution and the result is our sanctification, our holiness.
Now that Christ lives in us, now that we are united with Him, now that we have available to us His power and the Holy Spirit, it is now possible for us to fulfill God's moral law.
God wants to produce His righteous law in you and He can't do it until you get saved. So you can't do it by just giving you the law, all the law does is damn you. You have to have a Savior who gives you His righteousness, pays the penalty for your sin, puts in you His Spirit and then comes the capacity to fulfill God's law. That's why apart from salvation and apart from Christ, even the good things we try to do, says Isaiah, are filthy rags because they're done apart from any capacity for righteousness....You weren't saved to do whatever you want, you were saved so that God could put in you His Spirit and to enable you to do what? Fulfill the law. You see, the law doesn't change. You say, "Well I'm sure glad I'm not under law." Yes you are. You're under law. You say, "I'm under grace." That's right, you're under both, just like everybody else who has ever lived.....Now everybody's under law and grace but you have you to be saved by grace in order to keep God's law, you understand that? So it works kind of this way, law damns you, grace saves you so you can keep the law. And now that you've been redeemed you haven't been redeemed to do wrong, you've been redeemed for the first time in your life to do right. You weren't saved so you could do wrong and not worry about it, you were saved for the first time in your life so you could do right....
From the Chapter 7 passage we just finished we saw Paul lamenting over his sin....
You know, I look at my life and I love Your law and I want to do Your law but I just find this other law warring against the law of my mind and it's the law of sin in my flesh and I just don't seem to be able to do it, O wretched man that I am. And then comes this wonderful verse in 8:1 which says, "Well even in spite of that there's no condemnation, Christ has paid the ultimate penalty and because He has in Christ He's given you the ability by the power of the Holy Spirit to produce the good law in you."
So don't stay in the wretchedness of chapter 7, get over to the glory of chapter 8 verse 4 and realize that in the power of the Spirit of God you can see God's law fulfilled not perfectly, not perfectly because you still have the flesh, but enough to give you a sense of joy, right? And you know what the joy in my life is? And I think it ought to be the joy in the life of every believer. It isn't that I've reached perfection by any stretch of the imagination, as you well know. It's not that I have reached perfection. But it is that I see in my life the decreasing frequency of sin and the increasing frequency of righteousness. And that is a cause for rejoicing. That is a cause for rejoicing.
"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." May I suggest to you that that is not a command? That is not a call to walk in the Spirit, that is a statement of fact. It can be no other thing in the context of this verse nor in the grammar that it's indicated. It is not calling us to walk in the Spirit. It says we do. Those of us who have been redeemed are those who have entered into the sphere of the Spirit of God..... it is a fact that as a Christian you walk in the Spirit. Now the word "walk" is the most ancient word used in the Bible for the bent of one's life. It indicates the bent of one's life....Our bent is toward the light, toward the righteousness, toward the ordinances of God, toward the commandments, toward the Holy Spirit....The bent of the life of a Christian is toward the Spirit.
Now let me say something. If the bent of your life isn't toward the things of the Spirit, guess what? You're not a Christian. That's what the Bible says.
Now the upshot of all of this is that God has redeemed you, put you in Christ, that is not just forensic, that is not just some articulated fact, that is a reality. You are in Christ not only on the books, but you're in Christ in the sense that Christ is planted in your heart to live in you. And He is in you and you are in Him. And He's there in the presence of His Spirit. And as you live in the Spirit and you have the bent of your life toward the Spirit, you will see the Spirit produce in you the righteousness of God's excellent moral law that is holy, just and good. Now that is a statement of fact in this passage, not open to speculation, nor is it an injunction to do that. It is a statement of fact....
first of all it's a positional thing, God gives you the holiness of Christ, the righteousness of Christ. And then it's a practical thing. He wants you to live up to that righteousness. I used to say this and I probably haven't said it in a lot of years but the Christian life is becoming what you are. That's what it is, becoming what you are. It's living out in your daily practice what you are in your relationship to God. You've been given positionally the righteousness of Jesus Christ, now you need to act like it. You have the status, you have the standing, it's like if you were made a king. It would be one thing to be crowned, it would be something else to act like one, wouldn't it? It's like we say to your kids...now you're old enough to be a little lady, and it's true, she's a little lady...but we say to them, "Now it's time you started to act like it." Same thing is true in the Christian life.
God not only wants a bride who is positionally able to sort of mirror His perfection, but He wants one who practically can reflect His holy perfection as well. So may I suggest this to you as over against what we hear all over the country today...and I was asked this question so many times this week...God is not offering happiness as the objective of the gospel. Did you get that? God is not offering happiness as the objective of the gospel, He is offering holiness...not happiness. As someone said, "He is not the Jolly Spirit, He is the Holy Spirit." And whoever is pure in heart will be happy. Happy are the pure in heart. But the objective of the gospel is not your happiness, it is your holiness so that you may reflect through all eternity the utter glory and holiness of our infinitely holy God....
We were saved to be bent toward doing the things of the Spirit and we do that. But we need to keep doing that and do it consciously and do it willingly.....Everything that is a fact is also a responsibility. It is a fact that if I'm a Christian I will commune with the living God, right? It's also a responsibility that I have a prayer life, true? It is a fact that if I'm a Christian the Spirit of God will teach me. It is also a responsibility that I read the Word of God so that He has the truth there to teach me. It is a fact that I walk in the Spirit, it is a responsibility for me to do that also. It is a fact that if I'm a Christian the Spirit will produce fruit through me and I am yet given the responsibility to bear much fruit. And that is the incredible paradox of the divine tension between what God does in the life of a believer and what the believer must be willing to do in the power of the Spirit within him....
the Christian is not free from commands. He is bound by them. But they are sweet communion and they are a bondage of love. And he is able for the first time to keep them because the bent of his life is toward the Spirit of God who is implanted in him. And that Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and Christ is the one who conquered sin and was never fallen. And therefore in Him is that same strength. And Christ is the one who fulfilled all the law of God and through the believer can do the same.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 8:5-8
1 comment:
Very good post! This gives me lots to think about. Thank you.
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