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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.

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Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are delighted to have the opportunity to spend just a few minutes in a consideration of God's Word with you today. Our study is going to come from the Book of Romans, chapter 8. And so we'd invite you to have a Bible or your phone or whatever close by so that you can look at the text, so that you can evaluate what we are saying and what we are saying that it means and how that applies to us. And if there's any place where you see that there's a shortcoming, either in our faithfulness to the Scriptures or in. In our ability to clearly teach that, we want you to reach out to us and express that to us so that we can do so in a way that's more faithful and more helpful. As we try to help people understand God's Word. Our goal really is to go back to the Bible for it all. We want our thinking and our teaching and our living to be shaped by God's Word. And in any place where we're falling short of that, we want to be ready to make correction. Now, in this study, we're going to consider this eighth chapter of the Book of Romans. And I think we need to go back just a little bit in order to make preparation for what we're going to see in this chapter. Remember that in the first four chapters that the Apostle Paul is making the case that justification comes by faith or faithfulness. I think he is demonstrating that God's righteousness, God's faithfulness, his keeping of his covenant promises is ultimately fulfilled in the Gospel and in Jesus. And that the way we come to share in that is by giving our faithfulness our allegiance to Jesus. This was God's purpose in the proclamation of the Gospel, was that there would be the obedience of f faith among all the nations. And so Paul is showing them in Romans chapters 1, 2 and 3, that the Gentile world's sin would not be solved by a shallow response or even by going back under the old law, because that law, chapter three, will show us, has now been fulfilled in Christ and that God has demonstrated his righteousness in the faithfulness of Jesus, who became the sacrifice for our sins so that God could be righteous and make those who are not righteous righteous and remain righteous himself. And so we come into chapter four where we see that Abraham and David, but leaning more towards the Abraham example demonstrate that righteousness has always come by faithfulness, that Abraham was justified by faith while he was, and then later he was circumcised so that he would be the father of faith, both to the circumcised and to the uncircumcised, and that we can have a similar faith to Abraham. Abraham believed that God could bring life from a dead womb. And we believe that God has brought life from, of course, the dead tomb. And In Romans chapter 5, Paul begins to make some application and say, if we have been introduced into this kind of grace, if we have come into Christ by faith, then we can have confidence that the same God who would send Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners, while we were his enemies, now that we are his family, he will not only reconcile us to Himself, but that he will bring us to eternal life. Now, in Romans chapter five, at the end, Paul says there's really two paths. We are all in Adam. In Adam, all sinned. That is because of Adam's sin. The consequence of death has flowed down through all of human history. But. But in Christ we have the hope of eternal life. And that idea there is if we're all going to be in Adam, how is it then that we come to be in Christ? If we all experience the consequences of Adam's one sin, how is it that we can experience the benefits of Jesus? One act of righteousness. Remember, Paul's point is not that Jesus only did one righteous thing, but. But that there was that one act of righteousness, his death, resurrection, that Christ event that produces life. How can we come to share in that? Romans, chapter six. We are dead. We are buried with him. We are raised to walk in newness of life in the waters of baptism. In that we get to share in Christ. We're no longer in Adam, not in Adam. We are in Christ. And because of that, we are no longer a slave to sin. We have been freed from sin, and so we are not under its guilt, and we're ultimately not under its dire consequence. Of course we're still going to die. Unless the Lord returns before then, we will still die. But resurrection is coming for those who are in Christ in some sense. Of course, resurrection is coming for everyone. But eternal life is available for those who have died, who have been buried, and who have been raised with Christ. And so Paul draws the conclusion out through chapter six. Don't live then as if you're still a slave to sin. Don't live as somebody who is still captive to a master that you've been freed from that you've died to. Paul will write to the Romans and say thanks be to God that though you were the slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. So we come into chapter seven, and I think here Paul is drawing some final conclusions on this conversation about the role of the law for the Gentile, because he's writing to Gentile, I believe Christians who know the law well, and perhaps they have even been tempted or maybe they had had the experience of trying to be brought under the law. And I think that's the challenge that's being brought to them now. And the conversation partner, Paul's able to put words in his mouth and he's able to say, listen, if you are somebody who's conscientious and you come under the law as a Gentile, you will find yourself under its standard and under its judgment, but you will not have the freedom that comes from sin. Because the law, while it could make people righteous in its own time, was always pointing forward to Christ. And so for someone to go and put themselves back under the law, they will learn how to covet, because maybe they didn't even know what covetousness was. And now the law has pointed that out, and now they find themselves under that judgment. They'll find themselves in their mind wanting to do right, but with their body doing wrong. And what will the solution be? They will cry out, who can set me free from this body of sin and death? And before Paul can even make it to chapter eight, he says, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. These are Roman Christians. They have been freed from sin and from death. And so they don't need to go back and to subject themselves, for which the answer to all of it was always pointing to Christ. To go back and put themselves under the law would just go to be going back and putting themselves under the law and the judgment and the curse and the consequences. When the law was always intended to point to Jesus anyway. Of course, when God gave the Israelites the book of Deuteronomy, he says, this is life, this is blessing. He gave it to them as a grace and as a gift. It was not something that was in opposition to God's goodness and mercy and grace and salvation. It was for their good. Always Moses said, Deuteronomy, chapter 6, but it was always pointing to Christ. And especially when you think about a Gentile Christian who is now being tempted to go back under the law. It's the exact wrong direction. All it would do would be to leave someone with the consequences and the judgment, because the grace has been fulfilled in Jesus. So now we come to Romans, chapter 8, where Paul is going to contrast what it would look like to living with sin dwelling in us, chapter seven, to where the Spirit is within us. Chapter seven, I think he uses the word Spirit one time. Chapter eight, I think he uses it 21 times. And what we're going to see is there's going to be a radical difference in the nature of the person in chapter seven and the person in chapter eight. Because the person in chapter seven is under the law without Christ, and the person in chapter eight is in Christ. And we'll see what that means. Let's look at chapter 8. Beginning at verse 1. He says, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, which but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh are not able to please God. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. But 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. Notice that Paul says, but now in Christ there is freedom from condemnation. Remember chapter seven. This man stands under condemnation because he can't make his body do what his mind wants. Now the phrase in Christ is so significant how do we come to be in Christ? We die, are buried, and are raised with Him. As many of us as were buried with him in baptism were baptized into Christ. Chapter six says, and now we are in Christ. As we walk by the Spirit, so we benefit from his death and from his resurrection. Because we are in Him. We are under his dominion. We are under his rule and his reign and his control. He is our Master now, living under the law. The reign, the dominion of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus means that we are set free from the dominion of sin and death. I think this is a great summary of the contrast between, between chapter seven and chapter eight. Chapter seven is we are in the law of sin and death. We have come under, in this case, the law of Moses. And I want you to think about this. A Gentile was already under sin and death. Look at chapter one. And they think that coming under the law of Moses, oh, that will be the solution. And this is not to dismiss or, or to minimize the value of the law of Moses. But for a Gentile to come under the law of Moses now and to not come into Christ is just to heap upon themselves a greater burden. It is just to see the rules without the hope. Of course, when we come into Christ, coveting has to go away too. Murder has to go away. Bearing false witness. It is not as if the standard is any lower, but. But under the law that was pointing to Christ, the hope was in him for the forgiveness of sins. Now, the Torah, the law, had pointed to this. But we ultimately find that freedom in Jesus. Why? Because verse three, what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, the Torah, the law ultimately couldn't free us from sin. Think about the person in chapter seven who only found more condemnation. Now why could the Torah, the law, not do that, weak as it was through the flesh? Because it was always pointing to Christ. I believe that we would see that there were people under the law who were in fact righteous. The example that I come back to is Luke and Elizabeth. Luke, Zacharias and Elizabeth. In Luke chapter one, they were both righteous before God. But when Christ comes, Zacharias and Elizabeth could not hope for their righteousness to remain under the law, they would have to come to Christ. And what we see is for those who are under the law, for a Gentile to go back under the law was the exact wrong thing to do in view of the fact it having been fulfilled in Jesus. The law was weak when it was viewed without Christ as its end result. But Jesus broke its power by his sacrifice. It is as if in death, in Jesus death, God rendered a death sentence on sin. Do you see that he condemned sin in the flesh because of Jesus sacrifice, The price has been paid and we can actually be considered not guilty by the law. Notice what he says there. He says in verse four, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. That is, we can live lives of righteousness. We can be as Gentiles under the law. With Christ in view, it was too weak. It could not accomplish what we needed with Jesus in view. But now in Christ, because it sets us free from the law of sin and death. We can live lives of righteousness because we can give our lives to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh. I think that this is to say that we can live walking after the Spirit. Not because these Gentiles, or not because we would have put on some kind of Torah obligations, for example, not because we would have gone through circumcision, or because we refuse certain meats, or because we don't keep, because we keep certain days, but because we live in keeping with God's Spirit. God's Spirit that has revealed and instructed and taught His Word. And it influences and shapes us and guides us all of those things. That is what it means to live in keeping with the Spirit. And we can look at that more as we go. Let me go ahead. I want to jump over to chapter 13, verse for just a moment. We'll come back and talk about this in several weeks, Lord willing. But in chapter 13, in verse 8, Paul there, I think, helps us to see what he means by this. He says, owe no man anything except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. You hear that? If you love your neighbor, you fulfill the law. For this, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not work evil against a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. So he uses three different phrases there. Fulfill the law, summed up in this word and fulfillment of the law. I think the idea there is that if we are in Christ, and if we are led by the Spirit, the calling that we have on our life, to love God and to be faithful to him, and to love and care for one another. If we are doing that, if we are led by the Spirit, then we are not just keeping the aspects of the law that would call us to be righteous, we are surpassing that because we're doing it with Christ in view. And what I mean by that is it's not as if the law was not always pointing to the heart. It was. It was always pointing us to something deeper. But so many thought of it as the Roman Gentile conversation partner does in the book of Romans, they thought of it as something so shallow as just to be external. Circumcision. And Paul is saying how long it's always been so much deeper than that. And we see that ultimately in Christ, Jesus is the perfect embodiment of what it looked like for somebody to follow the law. And when you see somebody like Jesus who follows the law, it's not just externals, it's. It was heart deep from the inside out. He had come to do the will of God. And when we are in Christ, that's what happens. Of course, we're not subjected to things like circumcision or the Sabbath day keeping or fleshly concerns like which meats to eat or not. But that idea of what we are called to be as people, we are everything the law was calling people to be. And it strikes all the way to the heart because. Because we are in Christ and we are led by the Spirit. Now their approach to the law, I think had been in a fleshly way. I think it had been shallow. If we look at the person in chapter two, for example, it seems to me that that person, not only had they been circumcised and kind of missed the whole point of the promises to Abraham being for all nations and. But it doesn't look like the law had always struck very deeply with them. There were lots of questions about their morality and even questions about hypocrisy in chapter two. But if we are in Christ and we are led by the Spirit, then if God's Spirit dwells in us, we are renewed from the inside out. Now what do we mean by the Spirit dwelling in us? This would require much longer conversation. But I want you to look back up in chapter seven where he talks about sin dwelling in us. What did it mean that sin was dwelling in the man of chapter seven? He says that it was in control. It was his master. It dominated his thinking. It was the thing that dictated his steps. I think that's what's happening in chapter eight when we talk about the Spirit of God dwelling in us. He. He has the rule, he has the influence, he has the power. He is making the direction. And what he's saying is, is if our mind is set on the flesh. If our mind is set on those fleshly appetites than we have, then we just cannot please God. It cannot happen. But if we have a mind set on the Spirit, if we have a mind directed towards what God wants us to do and the kind of person that the Spirit has revealed we should be, then not only can we please God, but we can have life and we can have peace. Now, when we consider that we are in Christ and that Christ Spirit, the Holy Spirit is in us, we have the power and we have the motivation to serve Him. One writer used the illustration of us as a sponge, and I love that. I never heard that illustration before. But think about the number of passages that talk about us being in Christ. And then think about the number of passages that talk about Christ and the Spirit and God dwelling in us. And it's just like a sponge, isn't it? You soak that sponge in the water and you say, okay, what part? Where's. Where's the Spirit? Well, it's inside and it's in it, right? And you talk about in Christ and Christ in us, and it's just like a sponge. We are enveloped in his victory and in his freedom and in his forgiveness. And. And we are filled with his will and his word, and we are surrounded and we are filled with Christ and the Spirit, and Christ is in us. Now. Sin had dwelled in the man of chapter 7, verse 17. It had ruled and it had dominion. But now the Spirit dwells in us. It rules and it has dominion. That's accomplished through the transformation that takes place when our minds are renewed as we learn and meditate on the will of God. I'm flipping over again to chapter 12, and I want to see how Paul will say this. In chapter 12, in verse 1, he says, Therefore, I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice living holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve or you may discern what the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. That is, our minds are being changed. We are being transformed from the inside out to be people who are learning the will of God and who have that as our primary mindset. The Spirit of God and Christ dwelling in us is strong enough to overcome the power of the flesh. So we must choose to live by the Spirit. This is not something where the Spirit just comes in and takes over, because all the way through this we see. I don't think the idea here is that, well, if you're by the flesh, you're going to live that way, and if you're by the Spirit, you're going to live that way. It is. You have. He's writing to Roman Christians. You have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, so you have to walk. Verse 12. We are under obligation not to live according to the flesh, but to live in keeping with the Spirit, which we'll look at later. Now the Spirit of God gives us the power to live in this way. Now notice verse 10. If Christ is in you, how is Christ in you? Because he reigns in us. He rules. Though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. We have new life. And as a result, because we have the Spirit dwelling in us, we can have hope not just for the spiritual life we have now, but but for the eternal resurrection life we have coming. I think that's the point of verse 11, verses 10. 11. So we have Christ in us. What's going to happen to our body? Still going to die. Right. So even though the body might be dead because of sin, the Spirit, that inner man, has been made alive. We have died, we've been buried, and we've been raised to walk in newness of life. Now, if that's the case, look at verse 11. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that is God, who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. I want you to see this. Go back up to chapter 7 and verse 24. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death, how am I going to be freed from this body that is condemned to death? Well, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. And you say, yes, but I might be restored in the new man. I might have new life there. But what's happening to my outer man? What's happening to my body? It may die. It will die unless the Lord returns. But what we have is we have the hope that because our Spirit is made alive because of righteousness, that because the Spirit dwells in us, then the one who raised Jesus from the dead will have the very same power and capacity to raise us from the dead. He has given life to our inner man, to our spirit. He will give life to our body as well, he will set us free from the body of sin and death. This is very similar to First Corinthians, chapter 15, where he says that everything we do, whatever we do, is not in vain. In the Lord we can be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because we know our labor is not in vain. Why? Because this earthly body will be transformed, transformed into that immortal, glorious, spiritual body that will be suited for eternity. And so Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 11 is saying, unlike the man in Romans chapter 7 who was enslaved by sin even though he wants to do right, the person In Romans chapter 8 is enslaved by Christ and is dwelled in by the Spirit and is in Christ, and there is no condemnation. He's free from the law of sin and death. And his mind is not set on earthly or fleshly things, but set on heavenly things. And the Spirit is in his mind and is dwelling in him, and he has the hope of eternal life. I hope that that is clear and it's powerful, because what Paul's going to do is he's going to draw several lines of application from that. Now, I want you to notice that the way this is possible is that Jesus came in the flesh just like you and I are. The text here, my text says that he came in the likeness of sinful flesh that is his. He was not born into sin, but he had the very same flesh that you and I are born into. And because that's the case, when he lives that faithful, righteous life, when he is faithful to God all the way to the end, he becomes the pattern by which we can come to share in God's righteousness, where we can come to share in Christ's faithfulness and we can have the hope of eternal life. Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day.