Life in the Spirit According to the Spirit of Life Romans 8:1-4

Life in the Spirit According to the Spirit of Life

Romans 8:1–4 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 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, 4 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.

Romans 8:1 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Despite our sinfulness before we came to Christ, despite our struggle against our sinful nature now that we know Christ, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Now - It provides a contrast between those dominated by their sinful nature and those under the control of the Holy Spirit. This “now” seems to have a similar tone to Paul’s reminder of the Corinthian’s past lives of sin in contrast to their being washed, sanctified and justified through Christ and the Spirit (1 Cor 6:9-11). Believers will not be condemned despite their imperfect sanctification because they are now “in Christ.” Hebrews 10:1-18 carries a similar theme. The law could not make us perfect (10:1), there was a continual reminder of coming condemnation (10:2-4), Christ has come into the world and sanctified us once and for all and perfected us (10:5-14), and the Spirit has given us life and will remember our sins “no more” (10:15-18). Therefore, the “now” of Romans 8:1 is the state of justification by faith which we have by being “in Christ” and it is through Christ that we have been sanctified and perfected (despite our imperfections) and we will never be condemned by the Lord who has forgiven us and treats us as if he has forgotten our sin.

No condemnation - “Condemnation” is the opposite of “justification.” This is the condemnation of Romans 5:18. Just as justification is a judicial concept, God the judge has you declared you righteous, “no condemnation” is used in a judicial sense since it refers to the believer’s deliverance from the penalty of sin but not the complete presence of sin and not “the breaking of sin’s power in all its aspects.”

The condemnation spoken of refers to the punishment that we deserve due to our undeniable guilt.

Therefore, the focus is on “the penalty that the verdict demands.

Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Reality of Freedom—No Condemnation

The truth that there can never be the eternal death penalty for believers is the foundation of the eighth chapter of Romans. As Paul asks rhetorically near the end of the chapter, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (v. 31), and again, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies” (v. 33). If the highest tribunal in the universe justifies us, who can declare us guilty?

In Christ - This is one of the most significant terms in scripture. As believers in Christ we are united with Christ. We are in union with him

Romans 6:1–11 ESV

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Robert Haldane, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans; (1858), 317–319.

“To be in Christ Jesus is to be one with him as united to him by faith. Those and those only who are thus one with him are the persons to whom there is no condemnation. All who are not in Christ Jesus are under the law and its curse. It is not here said that Christ is with his people, or at their right hand, but that they are in him, in order that they may know that being in him they have nothing to fear; for what evil can reach those who are one with the Son of God? This union is represented in Scripture by various terms and by many similitudes; its efficacy and power are shown, when it is said, “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.” It is in virtue of this union that the sufferings and obedience of Christ are imputed to his people, they being one with him who fulfilled the law, and satisfied the justice of God. Their union with him is the source of that spiritual life by which they are quickened together with Christ, and from which they derive their justification, their sanctification and consolation. “It is impossible,” Luther remarks, “for a man to be a Christian without having Christ, and if he has Christ, he has at the same time all that is in Christ. What gives peace to the conscience is, that by faith our sins are no more ours, but Christ’s, upon whom God hath laid them all; and that on the other hand all Christ’s righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it. Christ lays his hand upon us, and we are healed. He casts his mantle upon us, and we are clothed; for he is the glorious Saviour, blessed for ever.” This union was typified under the law in the person of the High Priest, who carried on his breast the twelve stones on which were engraven the names of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel; so that when he appeared before God, all the people appeared in him; thus showing that all believers are before God in Jesus Christ, their great High Priest. They are all delivered from condemnation as being one body with Christ. As the debts of a wife must be discharged by her husband, and as by her marriage all her previous obligations are at once transferred to him, so the believer being married to Christ is no longer exposed to the curse of the law. All its demands have been met and satisfied by his covenant head, with whom, as the wife is one with the husband, so he is one.

It is by the human nature of Jesus Christ that we enjoy union with his Divine nature, and that he is Immanuel God with us. His humanity is the medium by which his divinity communicates itself with all its graces. Under the former dispensation, God communicated with his people through the ark of the covenant, which was a type of the human nature of Jesus Christ, in order to show us that by it we have union with the whole of his person. And by union with the person of Jesus Christ we obtain communion with the Father. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

It is not by nature that we enjoy this union, since by nature we are “children of wrath” and “without Christ.” The means by which we are united to Christ are on his part by his Spirit, and on our part by faith. He communicates his Spirit to us, which is as the soul that unites all the members of the body with the head, so that “he who is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit.” On our part we receive Jesus Christ by faith produced in us by his Spirit, in order that we may reciprocally receive him in our hearts. He dwells in our hearts by faith, and thus we learn what is meant when it is said we are justified by faith, not as being a work, or anything meritorious, but as the medium through which his righteousness, and all the graces and blessings that are in Jesus Christ, are communicated to our souls.

“Faith,” says Luther, “unites the soul with Christ as a spouse with her husband. Everything which Christ has, becomes the property of the believing soul: everything which the soul has, becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses all blessings and eternal life—they are thenceforward the property of the soul. The soul has all its iniquities and sins: they become thenceforward the property of Christ. It is then that a blessed exchange commences: Christ who is both God and man, Christ who has never sinned, and whose holiness is perfect, Christ the Almighty and Eternal, taking to himself by his nuptial ring of faith, all the sins of the believer, those sins are lost and abolished in him; for no sins dwells before his infinite righteousness. Thus, by faith, the believer’s soul is delivered from sins, and clothed with the eternal righteousness of her bridegroom Christ. O happy union! the rich, the noble, the holy bridegroom, takes in marriage his poor guilty and despised spouse, delivers her from every evil, and enriches her with the most precious blessings.”

Romans 8:2 ESV

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

The power of the Spirit is greater than the law of sin and death - sin and death say that you deserve punishment and eternal death

The Spirit of life says: I have made you spiritually alive and placed you in union with Jesus. Jesus overcame sin and rose from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit and since you are in Him, since you are united to Him,you also have defeated death and are raised from the dead because of the you are in Christ and empowered by the Spirit of life.

Therefore you are set free by a greater power: the power of the Spirit and you are therefore no longer a slave to sin!

Romans 8:3 ESV

3 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,

God has done - what the law could not do

The law: James Dunn in his commentary on Romans says that the law has “an ambivalent role” -

The law is ambivalent - what does ambivalent mean?

when used by God it shows the way that the believer should go in order to please God. When used by sin it condemns us forces us to see our failures and our inability to save our selves, trapping us in guilt and shame.

What has God done? - sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin

This is the definition of substitutionary atonement - Christ in our place. And he did this as the incarnate son of God - 100% human, 100% God

Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Route to Freedom—Substitution

He was only in the likeness of, in the outward appearance of, sinful flesh. Although Paul does not here specifically mention Jesus’ sinlessness, his phrasing carefully guards that profound truth.

Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Route to Freedom—Substitution

Jesus Christ condemned sin in the flesh. Whereas sin once condemned the believer, now Christ his Savior condemns sin, delivering the believer from sin’s power and penalty.

What does condemn mean here? overpowering sin and consigning it to its ultimate destruction. Jesus has defeated sin and there will come a day when sin has been banished forever.

Romans 8:4 ESV

4 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.

Jesus has destroyed the penalty and the power of sin in the life of the believer and someday he will deliver us from the presence of sin.

We now see the divine purpose of our union with Christ, the defeat of sin and our rising with Christ in new life: the Spirit enabling us to fulfill the will of the father and to walk, that means to live day by day, moment by moment in the power of the Spirit who is making us more and more like Jesus.

Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans

“Paul is here referring to what happens to the person who is in Christ. Bruce puts it this way: “God’s commands have now become God’s enablings” (so Hendriksen, Lloyd-Jones, Denney, and others).

In the full sense only Christ has fulfilled all the law’s requirements, but when we are in him we in our measure begin to live the kind of life that God would have us live.

Notice that Paul does not say “we fulfil the law’s righteous requirement”, but that “the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us”, surely pointing to the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer.

Before we came to know Christ we were continually defeated by sin. When we came to know him and to receive the indwelling Holy Spirit we were able to attain a standard we could never reach in our own strength.”