“There is therefore no condemnation for those
in Christ Jesus.”
We are doing a side trip into Romans 8. It is an opportunity to summarize GN over the past several years and briefly nail down essentials about being in Christ Jesus. We are not abandoning Hebrews; we will come back to chapter 5 after this significant excursion; we pray it will be a useful jaunt.
Someone has said Romans 8 is the brightest facet of the gospel diamond. God’s deepest love is exposed to those who return His wooing, this is what Romans 8 is all about, knowing the lover of your soul!
In it, not only do we have holy discrimination between the flesh and the Spirit, we also have divine provisioning for man’s soul. We link into Romans 5 because this is where our Romans 8 “Therefore” connects us. The law of the Spirit of Christ “is so much better” flowing into us out from the grace reigning in Romans 5.
In the first eleven verses of chapter 8 Paul explains our Spiritual relationship in flesh. Then, the following 6 verses uncovers our paternal relationship … Spiritually. From verse 18 forward, Paul summarizes our hope and God’s personal ministry in our fleshly exile as brothers. Finally, Paul announces the eternal state of every believer submitting to the eternal provisioning of our Father God, our hope!
Romans 8 opens the door to who we are in Jesus; it reveals what our relationship looks like and affirms us as the object of God’s eternal love. Being who we are intended to be and our capacity to overcome is guaranteed in Him. Chapter 8 succinctly summarizes our righteousness in gospel salvation.
There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus! This bold declaration ought to invigorate our soul and excite our hope. It is a “therefore” statement flowing out from the repeated declarations of “so much more” grace replacing the reign of law in Romans 5.
The old covenant law of Moses is replaced by the law of the Spirit of life within those who are IN CHRIST JESUS. Look what verse two says:
“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
“Wait a minute,” you say, “its not the law of Moses this verse is talking about, it is the law of sin and death.”
Quite so, but what is the law of Moses if not the solution, the payment for the law of sin and death. Redemption is the price paid for the law of sin and death. This is what we will see in our next Romans 5 GN focusing on accepting grace over law. The law of sin and death is currently in force by God’s judgment already rendered, His bowls of wrath are now full. We are all guilty because all have sinned and come short of God’s glory. God’s glory was displayed in us before sin corrupted creation. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord and the law of the Spirit of life comes into play with God’s redemptive gift of grace. This is who we are in Christ Jesus, righteous thru the law of the Spirit of Life!
We don’t often hear about the “law of the Spirit.” Paul typically uses “grace” when speaking about God’s provisions for created, sinful mankind. The “law of the Spirit” actually fits within the context of grace providing structure for Spiritual choices. The law of the Spirit is in force within each believer nurturing Life and revealing sin.
Paul gives us an example of the “law of the Spirit” working out in the lives of believers in Corinth; read 2Corinthians 2:14 continuing through chapter 4. This shows, by actual example, the “law of the Spirit” operating in lives’ of individual believers. The unseen power of the Spirit is making visible to a believer what is unseen to others. Our outer self is wasting away but our new Spiritual self is glorifying God by the law of the Spirit working within each believer!
Paul is speaking about the Spirit of God writing truth in the hearts of believers producing a fragrance. The law of the Spirit continually is changing the heart, mind and will of a new creation into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to the next. This is the fragrance, the aroma of Jesus Christ; it is born again believers being changed inside out.
Once the Spirit of God has begun this Life giving work, He continues to do so until we are removed from this body of flesh. It is the water of life springing up in us because a righteous source has been created within us. It is the law of the Spirit of life and it is God’s work of grace. This is who we are in Christ Jesus.
We need this Spiritual understanding! What happened inside our soul-spirit enables the Life of Jesus Christ to start working thru a believer’s life into his flesh; it’s a process of inside out. This is also what John tells us is the reason for Him writing His gospel. These things are written, John says, so that you might believe, and believing you might have Life in His name! This new Life is working in us; it is the “law of the Spirit of Life.”
We should be familiar with several passages speaking to this reality. It exists in each Spiritually born again person in and by God’s grace. A redeemed believer is birthed as a “child of God” who is born into the family of God.
Peter gives us a passage declaring and affirming this very thing:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence,”
Our Lord Jesus has called us to His own glory and excellence through the knowledge of Him. How do we acquire this special knowledge about our personal calling in Christ? Where is this divine power granting all things pertaining to life and godliness? What exactly is Peter talking about? But this isn’t all, he continues:
“by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in this world because of sinful desire.”
We have become partakers of divine nature! We have escaped the corruption coming from sinful desire? This is the truth of being in Christ but to what extent do we actually experience this reality in our own personal Life?
These first two verses of Romans 8 tells us this same thing we find here in Peter.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
The reality is, both of these passages acknowledge truth flowing out from regeneration and redemption in Christ Jesus. Jesus said it clearly to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus explains a Spiritual miracle occurs when a person is born again; a Spiritual person is actually created inside the person who is regenerated.
Paul put it this way in Ephesians 2, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -by grace you have been saved- …;” and to the Galatians: “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” And John said it clearly in his prologue, “But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” We will look at this in more detail next session but here we see clearly the regenerated, redeemed believer is exclusively an act of supernatural birth by God Himself. This child of God is birthed from above with a Spiritual identity.
This new person has new Life. It is the righteousness of Jesus Himself now residing in this new man whom Paul exhorts believers to “put on.” This person, born of God Himself, has the quality of God Himself. This new person has been set free from the law of sin and death, he is in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is in him with the literal resources of God who is his loving Father. “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, 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.” John says it in this astonishing way, as Jesus is right now in heaven, so we are right now on earth.
By being born from above, by being partakers of God’s own divine nature through new creation, the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us! By being created Spiritually by God Himself, so that the Spirit of God Himself actually dwells in us, we become Holy as He is holy, as He is, so are we in the world! The flesh we occupy is no longer us, in God’s point of view, we have become righteous … on two levels.
The robe of righteousness we wear in Christ is affirmed in the New Testament but it is also true we are a newly created person in Christ’s righteousness. Paul declares in the aorist tense we are righteousness, sanctification and redemption. These are who we already are in Christ, our completed state, created in Christ Jesus by God Himself.
We are no longer under the reign or rule of sin, but our bodies, we must remember, are not are not part of this redemption package. Our bodies are certainly not included in this declaration of righteous redemption, do I hear an Amen? Our identity is Spiritual and wandering into fleshly activity is no longer our nature. We have been created new in Christ Jesus, our new man is not temporal and not carnal. The argument that we have two natures is a distorted view and does not fit the scripture declaration of who we are in Christ. Paul declared to the believers at Colossae, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” We are holy in our new created person, now we are called upon to let the law of the Spirit of Life work out our salvation in our flesh.
Faith cries out for us to accept what is declared as true and to act on this reality of what is clearly true for a believer in Christ and not find theological argument to satisfy our need for sin. It is true the Robe of Christ’s righteousness covers deeds of our flesh. The more righteousness we grow into, the more sinful we realize we are in the flesh, but in the process of sanctification, we are equipped to produce more righteous deeds. Those in the flesh cannot please God!
On one level we are covered with the righteousness of Christ but on the other level we are being matured by the Spirit of God within us to produce the righteousness of Christ into our flesh.
Hopefully, the above clarification will help us look at verses 9 thru 11.
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
This passage explains not only our position in Christ but our condition as well. It also explains the questions in the above Peter passage. Our power is the indwelling Holy Spirit, we are partakers of His Divine Nature being born Spiritually by God. It is this Spiritual birth that explains how our spirit becomes one with God’s Spirit. This is what Jesus meant in His prayer to the Father, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one ….” Jesus also told the disciples He would send a Helper, the Spirit of truth who has been with you but will be in you. Jesus continues to explain: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
We want to make one more indisputable observation. When saints attend the wedding as the Bride of Christ, we are told in unequivocal language that she, the Bride of Christ, has been “granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen will be the righteous deeds of the saints.”
When we appear before our Lord as His bride, it is not His righteousness we will be wearing, it will be our righteous deeds, chosen by our will to be whom He has called us to be. It will be fruit from our tree of righteousness rooted in Him but chosen by our obedience. He is able to glorify us because we have willed in our own heart and mind to allow Him to produce Himself in us. It is the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. The righteous deeds of the saints are the product of His divine nature in us producing His righteousness, producing righteous deeds of the saints.
Lets make sure we are fully clothed with the righteous deeds of the saints when we attend this ultimate wedding!