Being Thankful And Thoughtful
Someone sent me a book by Philip Yancey, a free-lance author and editor-at-large for Christianity Today, titled Disappointment with God. It grew out of counseling sessions the author had with young Christians, all of whom were disappointed with God and whose complaints boiled down to three accusations: (1) God is not fair; (2) God is hidden; and (3) God is silent—he does not answer prayers.
I am sure these accusations are genuine, and I appreciate Yancey's answers. He replies that "fairness" would send each and every one of us to hell; that God has unveiled himself as fully as possible in the person of the historical Jesus Christ; and that it is out of his periods of silence that God draws forth the precious perfume of human faith.
Romans 8 has brought us to the third and fourth verses. But I want to begin with a story drawn not from the eighth chapter of Romans but from the eighth chapter of John.
Jesus had come from the Mount of Olives, where he had been praying, and was met in the temple courts by a gathering of Pharisees and teachers of the law who had devised a scheme to trap him. They had caught a poor woman in adultery, and now they were bringing her to Jesus with a question: "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" (John 8:4-5). It was a disgusting situation. The law required that there be two or more eyewitnesses to a crime, to the very act, and if this requirement had been met, as the leaders seem to have been claiming, the witnesses would also have had to see the798 man who was involved. That they did not bring him before Jesus suggests this plot must have been a set-up, a trap. In other words, these leaders did not care either for the law or the woman but were only intent on trapping Jesus, whom they hated.
It was a smart trap, too. Jesus was known for being compassionate, so he would be expected to forgive the woman. But if he did that publicly, Jesus could be accused of violating or disregarding God's law. What kind of a prophet would do that? He would be discredited as a teacher sent from God. On the other hand, if he condemned the woman, the leaders would laugh him to scorn and mock his words. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"? Oh, no! "... and I will kill you." They thought they had him in a box from which even God himself could not escape.
You know the story. Jesus fulfilled the law by demanding that all its requirements be met. Let those who witnessed the sin come forward and cast the first stones, as the law required. But let them be sure that they were not guilty themselves, which they would be, because they were a part of the plot to trap this woman. When the accusers failed to come forward, Jesus exercised the right to judge her not on the basis of the law, which she had indeed broken, but on the basis of his coming death for sinners—in exactly the way he saves us.
He asked the woman, "Where are they [the accusers]? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said.
He answered, "Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin" (v. 11)
I).I tell that story because it is an exact illustration of what we find in the first four verses of Romans 8. The opening verse announces the good news of freedom from condemnation for everyone who is in Christ Jesus. It means that God has saved, and is saving, a great company of people by the work of Jesus Christ. We have the law. But, like the woman in John's Gospel we can't keep it. We are condemned by it. We cannot be set free from the law's condemnation by keeping the law, because the law is powerless. But what the law could not do, God did by sending Jesus. It is as if, in these verses, Jesus is saying to us, "Neither do I condemn you; go in peace."
But as we come to verses 3 and 4 we discover that it is not just a question of our being delivered from the law's condemnation. Christ has delivered us from the law's power, too. He died to start the process of sanctification and not just to provide propitiation.... "And so he condemned sin in sinful man, so 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."
A.In other words, to go back to John 8, Jesus is saying, "You are free from all condemnation, but you must now leave your sin."
What this is teaching is that justification and sanctification always go together, so that you cannot have one without the other. Justification is not sanctification. We are not saved because of any good we may do. If that were the case, Jesus would have told the woman: "Leave your life of sin, and if you do that, neither will I condemn you." But Jesus did not say that. It was the other way around. No condemnation! But then you need to live right! Now, just because justification is not sanctification and sanctification is not justification,don't think that sanctification is somehow unimportant. On the contrary, according to Romans 8, sanctification is the very end for which God saved us.
By sending his Son to be a sin offering, God "condemned sin in sinful man, 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."
II). Let me back up and say this another way:Two works,three agents,one goal.
A.Two works. In Romans 8:1 we have two saving works of God. They are justification and sanctification. The first is deliverance from sin's penalty. The second is deliverance from sin's power.... God does this.We don't have the power.
B. Three agents. In delivering us from sin's penalty and power, three divine agents are involved. God is the agent of our justification. It is he who pronounces us "not condemned...." The Holy Spirit is the agent of our sanctification, because he does in us what the law couldn't .Jesus makes both possible by His death on the cross.
C.One goal. All this is aimed at one goal, which is 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."
What Paul says here is the equivalent of what he says in his letter to the Ephesians, that God saved us apart from good works precisely so we might be able to do good works. The pertinent text says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:8-10, emphasis added).