“Therefore, there is no condemnation to them who are 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. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do but 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 the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
The law of the Holy Spirit is alive within believers who are created new in Christ Jesus, setting us free from the law of sin and death!
Romans 3 through 7 establishes the Life change for the created new born-again believer in Christ Jesus. The Jewish community, God’s own chosen people from Abraham’s seed, needs to move from the law of the Old Testament and enter into grace, a new covenant from God which establishes a new Spiritual Identity and Life. Paul has declared this new grace culture in Romans chapters 3-7 as a Life change for the believer setting us up for the “Therefore” in Romans 8:1. This is what the “Therefore” is there for!
Now in Romans 8, we are admonished as new created believers “to put on” the Lord Jesus by setting our minds on things of the Spirit and not things of the flesh. We now have resurrection power, in Jesus, to be whom He now is in heaven, by putting off fleshly priorities and preferences and putting on the Spiritual reality of Jesus Himself. He has shown His love by taking-out upon Himself our flesh and sin, paying the price to gift us, instead, with His righteousness! It is now up to us to put on and wear His righteousness while we are still in conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil!
A summary of these first eight verses of Romans 8 is a statement of contrasts. The law of the Spirit of life has set free those who are in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death, verses 1 thru 4. On the other hand, those spoken of in verses 5 thru 8, includes those whose minds are set on the flesh and cannot please God because they are hostile to God; they are not in Christ Jesus!
Some commentaries see, rather, these first 8 verses speaking of all those who are in Christ Jesus and walking in the Spirit, verses 1 thru 4, and those who are in Christ but not walking in the Spirit, verses 5 thru 8.
In our introduction to Romans 8, we quoted Romans 5:17: “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one-man Jesus Christ.”
In this 5:17 passage, the first Adam is identified as the source for all inherited sin but Jesus, the second Adam, is our free gift of righteousness which includes our Holy Spirit and the resurrection life of Jesus Himself; Jesus, our second Adam, will provide His bride a new body like unto His own when we see Him face to face! In the meantime, it is important for us grasp the reality of who we are now “in Christ Jesus.” The living presence of the Holy Spirit of God is working within the scope of our faith to reveal the resurrection power of Jesus within us!
In Romans 5:17 there is a clear separation of death vs. life, but the order of presentation in Romans 8:1-8 is reversed from “death to life” in 5:17 to life in Jesus vs. death to the flesh in 8:1-8. The first half of 5:18 speaks of the reign of death through the first man, Adam, while the second half speaks of the reign of Life through the one-man Jesus Christ. In our Romans 8:1-8 scripture, Paul presents first the free gift of righteousness reigning since we are those to whom there is no condemnation as compared to those who cannot please God because they are not in Christ Jesus. Paul is taking those who are flesh and law minded’ in chapter 5, into the “in Christ position” where they can now put on Jesus Christ and may now reign in Life, not in death, because in Christ Jesus we are created new.
The Romans 8 passage places emphasis on those who are in Christ, first, as separated from those who are not in Christ Jesus. Paul begins verse 9 with, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” It is here Paul begins speaking concerning those walking in the Spirit of God because we have been created new in Christ Jesus by new birth since there is now no condemnation in us because we walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. This existing reality is not well understood today among born-again, created new, believers whom have within themselves the indwelling Holy Spirit of God! We will deal with this more fully in our next GraceNotes which will be looking into verses 9 thru 11.
We are created new, the old is past and new has already begun living in these bodies of fleshly clay because we have been created new! Part of the deal for us is to contend with flesh as a teaching aid for consuming spiritual life as contrasted to earthly sin devoid of a life in Jesus. We are both sanctified and being sanctified by God’s Spirit living within us until we see Him personally in eternity!
The first Adam represents our fleshly natural body while Jesus, the second Adam, is in our Spiritual soul, a life governed Spiritually rather than dependent on earthly desires and priorities. God’s gift of resurrection life is gifted to us while living in sin polluted bodies influenced by satanic mischief, even after being born-again spiritually into the family of God through Jesus our redeemer. We often use the term “fleshly clay containers” which we borrowed from Paul in 2Corinthians 4:7.
So, we see in both, Romans 5 continuing into Romans 8, this living oxymoron of life focusing on the change in the believer who must “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11) since “sin will no longer have dominion over you, since you are no longer under law but under grace” (Rom. 6: 14). This is possible because we become the workmanship Jesus within us.
As we have seen in our introduction, we are saved by Jesus through redemption while at the same time we are being saved in His Life. There is so much more in our salvation than our jars of clay will permit us to fathom.
Once again, we must widen our perspective to the provisions of God’s amazing agape love to us and in us. To those who have accepted His eternal gift of grace, He has made provisions to pour into our hearts the water of righteousness, washing us clean with the eternal word of our living God. God is Holy and it is out of this reality that we too are drawn into His agape love and holiness. We are instructed to put on His agape love.
But to those who do not accept God’s gift of love and grace, Jesus continues to offer Himself as mediator to God allowing these also to enter into His kingdom until the rapture removes His bride from their earthly bodies of flesh. Jesus, having become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones, faithfully continues offering His love and grace to fallen man until the end when we become bone of His bone completing our redemption from earth.
All of this is possible because we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. One of our failings is not to grabble about our salvation. Jesus not only died and paid for our sin, He also was raised from the dead to provide His living presence within us. It is not about His death without His resurrection, it requires both to produce in our life in His grace. We cannot consume His grace without His resurrection life within us!
Redemption is translated into our English language from several different Greek words. One Greek word is agorazo (αγοραζω). This is a word for buying something from the market place. Another form of this word used for redemption is exagorazo (εχαγοραζω), Ephesians 5:16, meaning to buy out of the market place. This word was used when purchasing a slave for their freedom from the slave market. A third word is lutrao (λυτροω) which means to set free. It is used to tell us that we are already set free from our sin, Titus 2:14.
When we talk about “redemption” in scripture, it includes all these nuances. We are Jesus’ purchased possession; we belong to Him! He has personally set us free from the bondage to sin so as Paul instructs us, “the law of the Spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death.”
This issue for us is, what do we want to do? We have the freedom to consume our Lord’s grace and grow into personal knowledge of who He is right now. Is this our priority? It is our choice and we will be judged by our personal choices.
For those of us living in His grace, here and now, He continues to provide opportunity to enter into a closer fellowship; we are in our spiritual boot camp on earth preparing for heaven. Our opportunity right now is huge!
We may walk on the beach with Jesus and learn, like Peter, about agape love flowing from Jehovah, I AM, into our finite jars of clay, if we want to. He will work in us, making you and me an extension of Jesus here on earth, in our own flesh. Our reward in heaven depends upon our faith to do it on earth!