Romans Chapter 8:1-8

Life In the Spirit

Before we can live life in the spirit we must understand what we call basic theology, Thus allowing us to live in the spirit of God- The process we call justification- Its fundamental to the Baptist doctrine

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) Theology

: the study of religious faith, practice, and experience especially: the study of God and of God’s relation to the world

Romans 8:1

King James Version Chapter 8

8 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

A man, when the Spirit of God is bringing him to Christ, discovers that his past life has been marred badly, by serious offences against the law of God Before the Spirit of God comes into our soul, we are like being in a room in the dark: we cannot see in it. We cannot discover the cobwebs, the spiders, the foul and loathsome things that may be lurking there. But when the Spirit of God comes streaming into the soul, the man is astonished to find that he is what he is, and especially if he sits down and opens the book of the law, and, in the light of the divine Spirit, reads that perfect law, and compares with it his own imperfect heart and life. He will then grow sick of himself, even to loathing and, sometimes, despair. Take but one command. Perhaps there are some here who will say, “I know I have been very chaste all my life, for the command saith, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ and I have never broken it; I am clean there.” Ay, but now hear Christ explain the command, “He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Now, then, who amongst us can say that we have not done that? Who is there upon earth, if that be the meaning of the command, who can say, “I am innocent”? the law of God, as we are told by Scripture, has to deal, not with our outward actions alone, but with our words, and with our thoughts, and with our imaginations—if it is so exceeding broad that it applies to the most secret part of a man, then who of us can plead guiltless before the throne? No, dear brethren, this must be understood by you, and by me, before we can be justified, that we are full of sin. What if I say that we are as full of sin as an egg is full of meat? We are all sin. The imagination and the thought of our heart is evil, and only evil, and that continually. If some of you plume yourselves with the notion that you are righteous, I pray God to pluck those fine feathers off you and make you see yourselves, for if you never see your own nothingness, you will never understand Christ’s all-sufficiency. Unless you are pulled down, Christ will never lift you up. Unless you know yourselves to be lost, you will never care for that Saviour who came “to seek and to save the lost.” That is a second discovery, then; that it is important to be just before God, but that on account of the spirituality of God’s moral law, and our consequent inability to keep it perfectly, we are very far from standing in that position.

Then there comes another discovery, namely, that consequently it is utterly impossible for us to hope that we ever can be just before God, on the footing of our own doing. We must give it up now, as an utterly lost case. The past is past: that can never be by us blotted out, and the present, inasmuch as we are weak through the flesh, is not much better than the past; and the future, notwithstanding all our fond hopes of improvement, will probably be none the better, and so salvation by the works of the law becomes to us a dreary impossibility. The law said, “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” I was conversing on one occasion with one of our most illustrious Jewish noblemen, and when I put to him the question—he believed himself to be perfectly righteous, and I believe if any man could be so by his moral conduct, he might have fairly laid claim to it; but when I said to him, “Now, there is your own law for it, ‘Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them’: have you continued in all things?” he said, “I have not.” “Then,” I said, “the curse is upon you: how do you hope to escape from it?” and I found that to be a question for which he, at any rate, had no answer; and it is a question which, when properly understood, no man can answer, except by pointing to the cross of Christ and saying, “He was made a curse for us that we might be made a blessing.” Unless you and I keep the law of God perfectly, it matters little how near we get to perfection. It is as though God had committed to our trust a perfect crystal vase, and had said, “if you keep that whole, and present it to me, you shall have a reward.” But we have cracked it, chipped it; ah! my brethren, the most of us have broken it and smashed it to pieces. But we will suppose that we have only cracked it a little. Yes, but even then we have lost the reward, for the condition was that it should be perfectly whole, and the slightest chip is a violation of the condition upon which the reward would have been given. Never you say that you will not break it farther. Nay, but you have broken it. You have thrown yourselves now out of the list. It sometimes seems hard when you tell people that if they have violated the law in one point, they have broken the whole of it; but it is not so hard as it looks to be, for if I tell a man who is going down a coal-mine on a long chain that, if he shall break one link of the chain, it does not matter, though all the other hundreds or thousands of links may be sound; if there is only one link that is broken, down will descend the basket, and the poor miner be dashed to pieces. Nobody thinks that hard. Everybody recognises that as being a matter of mechanical law, that the strength of a chain must be measured by its weakest part. And so the strength of our obedience must be gauged by the very point in which it fails. Alas! our obedience has failed, and, through it, no one of us can ever be just before God.

Now, I want to stop a minute, and put the question round the galleries, and below stairs. Have you all got as far as that? It is important to be just before God: we see that we are not so: do we see that we cannot be so? Are we quite convinced that by our own obedience to the law of God, it is hopeless for us to think of standing accepted before the Most High? I pray the Eternal Spirit to convince you all of this, or you will keep on knocking at the door until you are quite sure that God has nailed it up for ever, and you will go scrambling over that Alp, and tumbling down this precipice, until you are convinced that it is impossible for you to climb it, and then you will give up your desperate endeavour and come to God in God’s way, which is quite another way from your own. I trust that we are all convinced of this.

Let us notice one more preliminary discovery. A man, having found out all this, suddenly discovers that, inasmuch as he is not just before God, and cannot be, he is at the present moment under condemnation. God is never indifferent towards sin. If, therefore, a man be not in a state in which God can justify him, he is in a state in which God must condemn him. If you are not just before God, you are condemned at this very moment. You are not executed, it is true, but the condemnation has gone forth against you, and the sign that it is so is your unbelief, for “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God.” How some of you would spring up from your seats to-night if all on a sudden you got the information that you had been condemned by the courts of your country; but when I say that you have been condemned by the Court of Heaven, this glides across your conscience like drops of water or oil over a marble slab. And yet, my hearers, if thou didst but know the meaning of what I am saying—and I pray God the Holy Ghost to make thee know it—it would make thy very bones to quiver! God has condemned thee. Thou art out of Christ. Thou hast broken his law. God has lifted his hand to smite thee, and, though his mercy tarries for awhile, yet days and hours will soon be gone, and then the condemnation shall take the shape of execution, and where will thy soul be then?

Spurgeon, C. H. (1914). Justification by Faith. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 60, pp. 63–65). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

What is your position with God? Are you still walking after the flesh or the spirit? Ask yourself, what is it going to take for me to surrender my will to God?

Understanding the Deity of Christ and who he is

Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary Incarnation

INCARNATION — a theological term for the coming of God’s Son into the world as a human being. The term itself is not used in the Bible, but it is based on clear references in the New Testament to Jesus as a person “in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3; Eph. 2:15; Col. 1:22).

Jesus participated fully in all that it means to live a human life. But if Jesus were merely a man, no matter how great, there would be no significance in drawing attention to His bodily existence. The marvelous thing is that in Jesus, God Himself began to live a fully human life. The capacity of Jesus to reveal God to us and to bring salvation depends upon His being fully God and fully man at the same time (Col. 2:9).

Our human minds cannot understand how Jesus can be both fully God and fully man. But the Bible gives clear indication of how this works out in practice.

No person may see God and live (Ex. 33:20). He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). Can we, therefore, only know Him from a distance? No, because God has come near in the person of Jesus (Matt. 1:23). He has taken on a form in which He can be seen, experienced, and understood by us as human beings (John 1:14, 18). Jesus reveals God to us perfectly since in His human life He is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4), exhibiting full likeness with the Father (John 1:14). Jesus’ godhood in His manhood is the key to our intimate knowledge of God.

This does not mean, however, that Jesus’ humanity is only a display case for His divinity. Jesus lived out His human life by experiencing all the pressures, temptations, and limitations that we experience (Heb. 2:18; 4:15; 5:2, 7–8). That is why Jesus’ life really is the supreme human success story (Heb. 5:8). Jesus was a pioneer (Heb. 2:10, NRSV), showing in practical terms the full meaning and possibility of human life, lived in obedience to God. In this respect, Jesus is a kind of second Adam (Rom. 5:14–15), marking a new beginning for the human race.

Jesus would have performed a great work if He had done no more than set a perfect example. But His full humanity is also the basis on which it is possible for Him to represent us—indeed, take our place—in dying for us. The Bible makes this clear when it speaks of “one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5–6).

When He ascended to His Father after His resurrection, Jesus left behind some of the human restrictions experienced during His earthly life. He received at that time His original divine glory (John 17:5). But the joining together of deity and humanity that marks His incarnation did not come to an end with His ascension. Jesus took His resurrected body with Him back to heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9). In heaven now He is our divine Lord, our human leader, and the great High Priest who serves as a mediator between God and humankind (Heb. 3:1).

2. Romans 8:2

King James Version Chapter 8

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Romans 8:1–9

(1.) The law could not do it, v. 3. It could neither justify nor sanctify, neither free us from the guilt nor from the power of sin, having not the promises either of pardon or grace. The law made nothing perfect: It was weak. Some attempt the law made towards these blessed ends, but, alas! it was weak, it could not accomplish them: yet that weakness was not through any defect in the law, but through the flesh, through the corruption of human nature, by which we became incapable either of being justified or sanctified by the law. We had become unable to keep the law, and, in case of failure, the law, as a covenant of works, made no provision, and so left us as it found us. Or understand it of the ceremonial law; that was a plaster not wide enough for the wound, it could never take away sin, Heb. 10:4.

(2.) The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus does it, v. 2. The covenant of grace made with us in Christ is a treasury of merit and grace, and thence we receive pardon and a new nature, are freed from the law of sin and death, that is, both from the guilt and power of sin-from the course of the law, and the dominion of the flesh. We are under another covenant, another master, another husband, under the law of the Spirit, the law that gives the Spirit, spiritual life to qualify us for eternal. The foundation of this freedom is laid in Christ’s undertaking for us, of which he speaks v. 3, God sending his own Son. Observe, When the law failed, God provided another method. Christ comes to do that which the law could not do. Moses brought the children of Israel to the borders of Canaan, and then died, and left them there; but Joshua did that which Moses could not do, and put them in possession of Canaan. Thus what the law could not do Christ did. The best exposition of this verse we have Heb. 10:1–10. To make the sense of the words clear, which in our translation is a little intricate, we may read it thus, with a little transposition:—God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, etc., v. 4. Observe, [1.] How Christ appeared: In the likeness of sinful flesh. Not sinful, for he was holy, harmless, undefiled; but in the likeness of that flesh which was sinful. He took upon him that nature which was corrupt, though perfectly abstracted from the corruptions of it. His being circumcised, redeemed, baptized with John’s baptism, bespeaks the likeness of sinful flesh. The bitings of the fiery serpents were cured by a serpent of brass, which had the shape, through free from the venom, of the serpents that bit them. It was great condescension that he who was God should be made in the likeness of flesh; but much greater that he who was holy should be made in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin,—here the best Greek copies place the comma. God sent him, en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias, kai peri hamartias—in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sacrifice for sin. The Septuagint call a sacrifice for sin no more than peri hamartias—for sin; so Christ was a sacrifice; he was sent to be so, Heb. 9:26. [2.] What was done by this appearance of his: Sin was condemned, that is, God did therein more than ever manifest his hatred of sin; and not only so, but for all that are Christ’s both the damning and the domineering power of sin is broken and taken out of the way. He that is condemned can neither accuse nor rule; his testimony is null, and his authority null. Thus by Christ is sin condemned; though it live and remain, its life in the saints is still but like that of a condemned malefactor. it was by the condemning of sin that death was disarmed, and the devil, who had the power of death, destroyed. The condemning of sin saved the sinner from condemnation. Christ was made sin for us (2 Co. 5:21), and, being so made, when he was condemned sin was condemned in the flesh of Christ, condemned in the human nature: So was sanctification made to divine justice, and way made for the salvation of the sinner

3. Romans 8:3

King James Version Chapter 8

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:

300 Quotations for Preachers Justified by Faith, Not Works

It is not from works that we are set free by the faith of Christ, but from the belief in works, that is from foolishly presuming to seek justification through works. Faith redeems our consciences, makes them upright, and preserves them, since by it we recognize the truth that justification does not depend on our works, although good works neither can nor ought to be absent, just as we cannot exist without food and drink and all the functions of this mortal body.

MARTIN LUTHER

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon Who Condemns the Acquitted Prisoner? (Romans 4:25; 8:30, 34)

There is a prisoner at the bar, and the jury has just brought in a verdict of “not guilty.” The judge bids him go free. There are people in the court who gnash their teeth at him; there are persons in the street who hate him; what does he care? “I have been pronounced ‘not guilty’ by the proper tribunal; the judge himself tells me that I am acquitted; not a law officer can touch me; not the fiercest enemy in the world can drag me into court again. I have been tried and found ‘not guilty,’ and who is he that condemns?”

It is just so with the Christian. Christ’s righteousness is put on him. Christ takes his sins, and when he stands before God’s bar, the eternal voice seems to say, “I see no sin in that man.” How can he? All that man’s sins Christ took away.

Are you counting on your works to get you to heaven? 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath sset forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

4. Romans 8:4 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit

Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary Righteousness

RIGHTEOUSNESS — holy and upright living, in accordance with God’s standard. The word “righteousness” comes from a root word that means “straightness.” It refers to a state that conforms to an authoritative standard. Righteousness is a moral concept. God’s character is the definition and source of all righteousness (Gen. 18:25; Deut. 32:4; Rom. 9:14). Therefore, the righteousness of human beings is defined in terms of God’s.

In the Old Testament the term “righteousness” is used to define our relationship with God (Ps. 50:6; Jer. 9:24) and with other people (Jer. 22:3). In the context of relationships, righteous action is action that promotes the peace and well-being of human beings in their relationships to one another.

For example, Adam and Eve would have acted righteously in their relationship with God if they had obeyed Him, because His commands defined that relationship. The Ten Commandments and related laws defined Israel’s relationship with God. To obey those laws was to act righteously, because such obedience maintained the covenant relationship between God and His people.

The sacrificial system in the Old Testament and the cross of Jesus in the New Testament show people’s need for righteousness. Sin is disobedience to the terms that define our relationship with God and with other people. Since the FALL in the Garden of Eden, people have been inherently unrighteous. As the prophet Isaiah said, “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Is. 64:6). We cannot be righteous in the sight of God on our own merits. Therefore, people must have God’s righteousness imputed, or transferred, to them.

Justification by an Imputed Righteousness Proposition

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY FOR SINNERS TO BE JUSTIFIED FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW IN THE SIGHT OF GOD, THAN BY THE IMPUTATION OF THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS LONG AGO PERFORMED BY, AND STILL RESIDING WITH, THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.

The terms of this proposition are easy; yet if it will help, I will speak a word or two for explication. First. By a sinner, I mean one that has transgressed the law; ‘for sin is the transgression of the law’ (1 John 3:4). Second. By the curse of the law, I mean that sentence, judgment, or condemnation which the law pronounceth against the transgressor (Gal 3:10). Third. By justifying righteousness, I mean that which stands in the doing and suffering of Christ when he was in the world (Rom 5:19). Fourth. By the residing of this righteousness in Christ’s person, I mean it still abides with him as to the action, though the benefit is bestowed upon those that are his. Fifth. By the imputation of it to us, I mean God’s making of it ours by an act of his grace, that we by it might be secured from the curse of the law. Sixth. When I say there is no other way to be justified. I cast away TO THAT END the law, and all the works of the law as done by us.

Can you live straight enough to satisfy the holy demands of God?

5. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

In the New Testament, besides these it is also used to denote the sinful element of human nature as opposed to the “Spirit” (Rom. 6:19; Matt. 16:17). Being “in the flesh” means being unrenewed (Rom. 7:5; 8:8, 9), and to live “according to the flesh” is to live and act sinfully (Rom. 8:4, 5, 7, 12).

Easton, M. G. (1893). In Illustrated Bible Dictionary and Treasury of Biblical History, Biography, Geography, Doctrine, and Literature (p. 262). New York: Harper & Brothers.

Galatians 5:16–18 KJV 1900

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

6. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Carnal

CARNAL Anything related to the fleshly or worldly appetites and desires rather than to the godly and spiritual desires. Basic human nature is carnal, sold out to sin and thus living in the realm of death, unable to observe God’s spiritual law (Rom. 7:14). People walk either in the flesh or in the Spirit, leading to death or to life. The carnal person is hostile to God, unable to please God (Rom. 8:1–11). Jesus Christ in human flesh overcame the condemnation of the fleshly way to offer the free life of the Spirit’s way. Paul said that Gentiles had received the spiritual gospel through the Jews and should thus minister to the fleshly or material needs of the Jews (Rom. 15:27; cp. 1 Cor. 9:11).

Even church members can be carnal, being only babes in Christ, as Paul indicated in writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:1–4). Such Christians are jealous of one another and quarrel with one another. Christians should solve their problems with different “weapons” (2 Cor. 10:4). Such weapons serve God’s purposes, destroy human arguments and human divisions, and bring glory to Christ.

Hebrews teaches that Christ had a distinct kind of priesthood from that of Jewish priests. Priests had always served on the basis of commandments written to meet fleshly needs. Christ served on the basis of His indestructible, eternal life (Heb. 7:16). In 9:10 the writer of Hebrews made clear the fleshly nature of the law. It consisted of commandments for the old order dealing with external matters until Christ came to deal with the spiritual matters of eternal redemption, sanctification, cleansing, and eternal life.

Using the same Greek word (sarkikos), Peter issued a battle cry against “fleshly lusts” so that glory would go to God and people would be attracted to His way of life (1 Pet. 2:11).

7. Romans 8:7-8 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary Carnal

CARNAL — sensual, worldly, nonspiritual; relating to or given to the crude desires and appetites of the FLESH or body. The apostle Paul contrasts “spiritual people”—that is, those who are under the control of the Holy Spirit—with those who are “carnal”—those under the control of the flesh (1 Cor. 3:1–4; Rom. 8:5–7). The word “carnal” is usually reserved in the New Testament to describe worldly Christians.

Romans 8:1–9 KJV 1900

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 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. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.