The Deliverance of the Spirit Life
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Romans 8:1-4
We are now in the eighth chapter of Romans.
As we have gone verse by verse throughout this book we have seen Paul remind us that in our natural state we are sinners that were under the wrath of God.
He told us we cannot save ourselves through any goodness of our own.
He told us the truth of salvation which is only through the Grace of God.
After showing us the life of sin
the life of religious works
the life lived under the law
and showing how each of these fall short of being able to save us.
He now tells us of the life in the Spirit.
Today we will look at the first four verses: the deliverance of the Spirit of Life.
In these verses we are told that we have been delivered from three elements of influence from sin in our lives.
We are delivered from:
I. The Sentence of Sin
I. The Sentence of Sin
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
We have heard already that
“the wages of sin is death...”
There is a sentence for sin…but what has happened now?
We see first...
A. The Edict
A. The Edict
The declaration has been made!
There is therefore now no condemnation
No condemnation!
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
No threat of Hell.
36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
It has been declared that there is now no condemnation! Why? Who doesn’t have condemnation?
We’ve seen that we are all sinners and that there is a penalty for that so who has no condemnation?
Secondly, we see...
B. The Exonerated
B. The Exonerated
“to them which are in Christ Jesus”
The only way you can have no condemnation on you is if you are in Christ Jesus.
Jesus is the only One that can save you
You could be a good person and go to Hell.
You could be a faithful church attender and go to Hell.
You could follow all the rules you want to follow and still go to Hell.
Because the only way you can have this edict of no condemnation declared over you, is to be in Christ Jesus.
When you are in Jesus you are saved to the uttermost fully secure from an eternity without God!
25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
No one can remove you when you are in Christ!
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
We are kept secure by the strongest power there is…the power of God.
5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
You are either in Him or you are not.
You are either already under condemnation or there is no condemnation.
But you can reject this edict.
George Wilson was a career criminal who, in the 1830s, was indicted on six counts of obstructing and robbing the U.S. mail, including threatening a carrier with bodily harm, and violent assault (wounding a carrier). The violent assault carried a penalty of death. Rising public petition against the death penalty prompted then president, Andrew Jackson, to issue a pardon for the assault conviction.
Amazingly, Wilson declined the pardon. “And now, to-wit, this 21 October, 1830, the defendant, George Wilson, being in person before the court, was asked by the court … whether he wished in any manner to avail himself of the pardon referred to, and the said defendant answered in person that … he did not wish in any manner to avail himself, in order to avoid sentence in this particular case, of the pardon referred to.”
The district court was not sure how to handle the complexities of the case, and eventually the matter was referred to the U.S. Supreme Court which later ruled that, “A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. … A pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him. It may be supposed that no being condemned to death would reject a pardon, but the rule must be the same in capital cases and in misdemeanors.”
Further, Chief Justice John Marshall purportedly pronounced that the value of a pardon “must be determined by the receiver … It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives it . . . therefore, George Wilson must die." He was subsequently executed for his crime.
Who in their right mind would reject an opportunity to be pardoned?
We would assume, as the Supreme Court did, that no person "condemned to death would reject a pardon."
Yet, the Bible tells us that
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
In Christ, God has offered a pardon to everyone of us.
Nevertheless, a pardon "has no value apart from that which the receiver gives it."
How many in our world allow day after day to pass without receiving God's pardon?
Sadly, George Wilson didn't have to be condemned and neither do you!
If you will accept the pardon paid for by Jesus.
You either have life or you don’t have life!
12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
So we have seen the Edict - there is therefore no condemnation
We have seen the Exonerated - to them which are in Christ Jesus
Then we have:
C. The Evidence
C. The Evidence
“Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
Some people see this as a conditional statement.
In other words we will not face condemnation as long as we walk in the spirit.
But this does not come together with the rest of the Bible.
The Bible cannot contradict itself, if it is God’s perfect Word.
So we must look at our understanding of what it says.
I don’t believe this is a conditional statement...it’s a statement of fact!
Those who know Christ have the Holy Spirit living and walking with us.
Those who are under condemnation only have the flesh to guide them.
They have nothing that wars against their flesh.
But we have the Holy Spirit who we can walk after.
So we ought to show the evidence of our exoneration.
We should walk in the Spirit
This words walk [peripatéō] after [κατά] give the idea of walk with.
For example, the students of the Greek Philosopher Aristotle were known as the Peripatetics because of their habit of following the philosopher around from place to place as he dispensed his teachings. In Paul’s vocabulary, to "walk in the Spirit" or be "led by the Spirit" means to go where the Spirit is going, to listen to his voice, to discern his will, to follow his guidance
So we are delivered from the Sentence of Sin, and we are delivered from...
II. The Slavery of Sin
II. The Slavery of Sin
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
We have talked about the bondage to sin much in Romans.
he uses two Laws and telling us that one has made us free while one leads to death.
A. The Law of the Sin Life
A. The Law of the Sin Life
When we are lost we have three things controlling us:
the world
the flesh
and the devil
Each of these enemies drive us away from God.
Every single person on earth battles these three forces.
We live in a sinful world that draws us toward self and sin and away from God.
Distracts with the things of this world, money, riches, fame, entertainment.
But Jesus came in to the world to free us from that enemy.
The flesh is always with us, but we now have the Holy Spirit to fight with us.
The devil seeks to destroy us , but Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world!
So before salvation we were under the burden and bondage of the Law of sin and death…but now we are set free by ...
B. The Law of the Spirit Life
B. The Law of the Spirit Life
But when Jesus saved us we were given the Holy Spirit to empower us to stand against the enemies of the World, the flesh and the devil.
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
When we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we will live the life that God wants us to live.
Even though we still have the flesh, God gives us the power to say no to sin but yes to the Spirit.
We will study this more closely later on, but Romans 8:13-14
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
If we are the Sons of God…we must mortify the deeds of the body and be led by the Spirit of God.
To mortify something means to kill it.
We kill the deeds of the body - we treat it as if it were dead…because it is.
Remember, Romans 6:4-8
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
But this is the work of the Holy Spirit as we yield to Him.
Attending church is not enough, we must purposefully yield to Him every day, all day long.
Moon trees were grown from seeds astronaut Stuart Roosa carried in his personal kit on the Apollo 14 mission in early February 1971. About 500 loblolly pine, redwood, sweet gum, sycamore and Douglas fir tree seeds went up with him and orbited the moon 34 times. (Roosa stayed on board while astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell made the third moon landing.)
Roosa had been a smoke jumper (that's a forest fire first responder) for the U.S. Forest Service prior to becoming an astronaut, and he brought the seeds not only to honor the service, but also to run a simple test: Would the seeds that had gone to the moon sprout as easily as Earth-only seeds?
About 450 of the seeds sprouted in similar numbers and as typically as their Earth-only control seeds. After a few years of care at NASA, the now-baby trees were planted in locations across the United States, many as part of the 1976 bicentennial celebrations.
Where are the trees? According to NASA,
A loblolly pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to the emperor of Japan, among others. Trees have also been planted in Washington Square in Philadelphia, at Valley Forge, in the International Forest of Friendship, and at various universities and NASA centers."
...Roosa died in 1994, but a moon sycamore grows at his grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
As it turns out, a moon tree is no different from its earthly counterpart. Merely visiting the moon didn’t change the nature of the seeds. All that changed was the world’s estimation ... it made them famous.
One has to wonder why anyone ever thought that simply orbiting the moon 34 times would somehow change the nature of a seed. Likewise, one has to wonder why it is so many seem to believe that simply attending a church every week will somehow change the nature of a person.
The truth is, people who go to church are subject to the same temptations as people who don’t attend. And many of them fail, just like their non-church attending counterpart. Human nature doesn’t change just because we've spent time in close proximity to a church. However, faith in God’s promise does invite the presence of God's Spirit, resulting in a new capacity to desire the things of God.
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Delivered from the Sentence of Sin
Delivered from the Slavery of Sin
III. The Susceptibility to Sin
III. The Susceptibility to Sin
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
When we live under the law, we are weak in the flesh.
We do not have the capability of our own to fight the flesh.
But when we receive salvation, we now are delivered from the susceptibility of sin.
It doesn’t mean we won’t sin, but we have the ability to say no.
The Bible says that we were weak in the flesh - we didn’t have the strength to fight it.
When a person is sick they do not have the energy.
That is the place we found ourselves before Christ.
The Law could not make men righteous, it just pointed out all of our failures.
But Jesus was born in a human body (in the likeness of sinful flesh - not as sinful flesh) so that we can be without condemnation.
Jesus provided the strength for our weakness through His work on the cross.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.
Verse four continues and tells us because of what Christ did , the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.
We are declared righteous by God.
We are justified...
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
the righteousness of Christ Jesus has been placed on my account.
We have been given the Holy Spirit that has enabled us to do right.
And it’s not our efforts that will make us do right.
It is only yielding continually to the Holy Spirit of God that will enable us to do right.
This is the Deliverance of the Spirit Life.
It is a new life, a better life!
Are you in Christ Jesus tonight?
If so rejoice in your standing before God today!
But let’s live as we are called to live.
Let’s search our hearts this evening and see if we have lived our life in the flesh or whether we have lived our life in the Spirit.