49 | Romans | Romans 8:1-8 | Life in the Spirit

MAIN IDEA

Because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the believer has been removed from the law, that is realm and power, of sin and death into the law of the Spirit of life, so that, under grace, he no longer lives for the passions of the flesh but sets his mind on the things of the Spirit and walks in life and peace.

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INTRODUCTION

Let’s go back to an old question.

I mean, as we have seen, the struggle against the flesh is difficult.

… even when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

And, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Romans 6:1 — Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

BY NO MEANS!

Paul has been saying since Romans 6 that the believer is to leave behind the way of sin.

Romans 6:2 — How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:12 — Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Romans 6:17–18 — But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Romans 6:22 — But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

But again, in Romans 7, even though the believer is dead to sin and alive in Christ …

… there is a deep conflict ongoing in life of the believer.

Romans 7:21 — So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

So, thus far, in recent chapters of Romans we have:

… established the ground of faith

… been counted righteous in Christ

… heard the call to lay aside sin

… seen the reality of the inner conflict

… and confessed that God in Christ is our glorious and only hope!

Now, as we turn to Romans 8 we see that hope open up …

… not only as a new ground to stand upon in Christ

… but a new way to live in the Spirit.

PRAY

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THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

No Condemnation

We considered what this means last week, on Easter.

I want you to feel two things:

The weight of condemnation and joy and peace of release from condemnation.

Our sin and shame died on a Roman cross … and lies dead in a borrowed grave.

Christ is risen! Our condemnation remains in the grave.

No condemnation opens up for us a new way to walk, a whole new way to live.

Two Laws

Read v2.

The law of the Spirit of life is contrasted with the law of sin and death.

Paul, in chapter 7, has already dealt with the fact that the law of God is good.

2 Corinthians deals with the law and the Spirit in a similar way

2 Corinthians 3:6 ESV

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

For the sinner, still under condemnation, the letter or law is death!

But for the believer, who has been released from the law and transferred to the domain of the Spirit, there is life.

John 6:63 ESV

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

What were the words of Jesus?

They were the words of the gospel of the kingdom of God.

The words of Jesus are the letter of the kingdom, the very realm and power of the Spirit of God.

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God is life! His Spirit gives life.

Because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …

… there the believer has been removed from an old realm of sin and death

… to a new realm of the Spirit, which is life.

The believer lives not under the law, bound by sin and its curse …

… but under grace through faith, and its freedom.

Now, because the law is spiritual (Romans 7:14), by consideration of the law …

… the believer may see in it, as in a mirror, the evil of sin

… and, in the law, as a tutor, the goodness of God and his way.

But, he does not live either …

… under the weight of the laws demands

… nor under any power of the law to work righteousness in him.

The believer, in Christ Jesus, lives under the law of the Spirit of life.

That is, he lives not by subjection to the law, but by faith …

… in the freedom of grace

… in the imputed righteousness of Christ

… and in the power of the Spirit to walk in the way of life and peace.

Read v2.

Sanctification, the way of righteousness, to walk in holiness, all comes down to this question.

WHO SHALL REIGN?

Under whose dominion do you now live?

Do you live under the law of sin and death?

Or, is there now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus?

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Read v3-4.

v3-4 — FREE FROM SIN AND DEATH

God Has Done …

The most important thing here is that “no condemnation” is what God has done!

Throughout Romans, Paul uses the word God to refer to the God the Father.

It is God who has done it, through Jesus Christ, the Son!

And he has done it “according to the Spirit” (Romans 1:4).

This is why Romans 1:7 begins: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord our God has done what no one and nothing else could do.

Even the law, given by God, could not do it.

Read v3a.

law, weakened by the flesh could not do

The law is spiritual and good.

But for the one bound by sin, as sin deceives the flesh …

… there is nothing in the law’s demands

… that can set the individual free from sin’s power.

In the weakness of our flesh, we are bound, slaves to sin.

So, it isn’t the law that is weak, but it is the flesh faced with the laws demands that fails.

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And how has God done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do?

By sending his own Son

in the likeness of sinful flesh

The word likeness is key here.

Jesus shared the same flesh as sinners.

He was even saddled under the burden of decay and death.

But, even his human nature, in the man Jesus Christ, there was no sin!

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And Jesus was sent for sin

Though he was without sin, he was sent because of sin.

The ministry of Jesus isn’t just to deal with judgement, but to deal with sin itself.

This is crucial for understanding Romans 8.

Is the work of redemption merely a solution to the issue that a bunch of sinners were destined to perish under their just condemnation?

And so, Jesus died in their place, only so that they would not be condemned?

…

he condemned sin in the flesh

No, Jesus is not merely dealing with judgement, he is dealing with sin itself!

Jesus was not only condemning the condemnation of sinners.

Jesus was condemning the sin in sinners!

Jesus isn’t just putting away judgment.

He is putting away sin on account of which judgment has come.

That’s why the rest of the sentence in v4 follows.

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us

The work of Jesus is to justify sinners.

And on account of that justification, to make those very sinners righteous!

The triune work of God …

… is to rescue a people and then fashion a people

… for himself to walk in his way

… both in this life and the next

… who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

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APPLY

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

In the past, prior to justification, the individual is bound to sin …

… a slave of unrighteousness, not free in any way to serve any other master by the flesh as it is enslaved by sin.

Now, there is a new way of freedom:

In his struggle against the flesh … as the believer again submits to the reign of sin, sin will work unrighteousness through the members of the body.

But, having been freed from the reign and power of sin … as the believer submits to the reign of God, God will work righteousness through the members of the body.

This is the new way, the new life and the new mind, that has been opened to the one for whom there is therefore now no condemnation.

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Read v5-6.

v5-6 — TWO LIVES; TWO MINDS

Romans 7:24 ESV

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Romans 8:5-6 answers the question of just what deliverance looks like.

Sin wins when the mortal passions are obeyed.

But for the redeemed, who has been delivered from death …

… the very meaning of justifying faith is to trust the goodness of God to provide for self, rather than the self to provide for its passions.

So, Paul reminds us of our former way, prior to faith …

… and then holds out the new way that we have entered into by faith.

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According to the Flesh

The life that is lived according to the flesh …

… has a mind occupied by the flesh.

Again, that is a mind occupied by the mortal passions.

The mind of the flesh wakes up in the morning with one line of thought.

How can I satisfy my flesh?!

And sin, wakes up in him also, and is just chomping at the bit to answer.

According to the Spirit

The life that is lived according to the Spirit …

… has a mind occupied by the Spirit.

The Spirit himself awakens the believer to a whole new mind.

It is a mind that does not first ask, what do I want …

… but, in faith has already believed that the things of God will satisfy body and soul.

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The matter of these two minds is a matter of asking, what do you want?

The man with the mind of the flesh has his appetites enflamed by sin, so that he is enslaved to his sinful flesh.

He has a desire. Sin enflames the desire. The sinner walks according to the flesh in unrighteousness.

The man withe the mind of the Spirit has his appetites informed by the Spirit of life, so that he is brought into a new way.

Instead of the first movement and instinct of his mind being: what do I want—that is, what does the flesh desire?

The first movement and instinct of his mind is, what is the way of the Spirit of life—that is, what does the Spirit desire?

ILL: What do you want to eat?

Well, um, taste buds and the will of the flesh resound quite clearly and unanimously:

Um … chocolate, buttery popcorn and, well, more chocolate!

But there is another way to ask the question.

It does not begin with, hey, flesh, salivating mouthy desires.

It asks, what is good for food? What has God himself has given to fill the body to full satisfaction and joy?

It turns out that even taste buds will be satisfied by God’s table of delights.

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APPLY

I think this is the point.

When the scripture says “things of the flesh”, it doesn’t mean you walk around thinking about sin all the time.

It means you walk around thinking about your flesh, your desires, your wants all the time.

That’s ripe ground for the lies of sin to grow.

When scripture says “things of the Spirit”, it means instead of beginning by asking what does the flesh want …

… the believer begins with a faith-filled question, and Spirit empowered confidence that the way of the Lord is both good and satisfying.

He meditates on the way of the Lord …

… because he figures if the Lord sets the table its gonna be good to eat.

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Read v6

Mind of the Flesh is Death

James 1:14–15 ESV

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

It’s an easy slide down the path to destruction.

And that path begins by giving prime consideration to the desires of the flesh.

Mind of the Spirit is Life and Peace

The path of life begins by giving prime consideration not of the things natural to man, but to the way of the Spirit.

This path begins by faith, considering the things that are alien to the self, but leads upward to man’s greatest fulfillment …

… which is to know God.

Romans 5:1 ESV

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a new pattern of life, and only life according to the mind of the Spirit of life is properly called life at all.

APPLY

test

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WHO CAN PLEASE GOD?

We’ll leave this mostly for our consideration for next week …

… but these verses nail home the point Paul is making here at the beginning of Romans 8.

The problem in which we found ourselves, when we were enslaved to sin, isn’t merely that we didn’t always do the right thing.

I still don’t always do the right thing even today.

The problem was that in our bondage to sin, we lived lives openly hostile to God.

Ephesians 2:3 ESV

… we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

And, in bondage to the flesh, we can be nothing but hostile to God.

Read v8.

Only those who are filled with the mind of the Spirit …

… are free to live lives that are pleasing to God.

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APPLY

ILL: Sometimes I have a hard time going to sleep because I feel like there is more life to be lived today.

I can’t turn off my mind because I’m spinning on how I could get more out of the day to satisfy my dissatisfaction.

But, what is life? What is satisfaction?And, what is peace?

What if I remembered that the Spirit is life.

That, God Himself is life itself.

To be most alive means living in close communion and fellowship with God.

Contrast these two ways of engaging the world:

The fleshly, idolatrous mind consumes good things like beautiful music, the pleasures of food, or the creativity of art …

… purely for self-pleasure, and so turns them into idols.

So, this is why the flesh cannot please God.

The redeemed way, freed to live with the mind of the Spirit, receives these gifts, music and food and art …

… as icons or images pointing to their source and what they signify

… God’s beauty, God’s abundant goodness and God’s creativity and order.

By enjoying good gifts in the manner God intended—to know and delight in him through them …

… one draws near to the true source of life.

This is the life of genuine rest—life and peace …

… as one no longer needs to strive or consume more to feel alive

… receiving God’s good gifts for the day through the Spirit.

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