Romans 8:1-4(NKJV) 1There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
This week we have studied the thought put forth by Paul that there is a better way to live our Christianity than endlessly fighting against the flesh. We have watched Paul in Romans chapter 7 as he struggles to do what he knows to be right. He ends the chapter by declaring how wretched he is because of the conflict between his flesh and spirit. However, we know that he believes there is something better. Hebrews 4:11 and Ephesians 5:16-18 tell us so. There is a rest called walking in the spirit that will bring the conflict to an end.
Romans 8 is the solution to Romans 7. As we began looking at this chapter, there are two things we must receive by faith if we are to walk in the spirit. First we must believe that condemnation is never from God. Second, we must believe that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death in our flesh. The conflict is already over. Jesus won the battle two thousand years ago. Although, according to Hebrews 4:11, there is a labor to be done in order for us to enter this rest of walking in the spirit, we must first believe in the truth that we are already free from sin and its ability to hold us in bondage.
The next two verses expand on what this means and why it is significant. Paul tells us that the law could not free us from sin because it had a weakness. That weakness was the flesh. Now, which of the two laws is he referring to here? Neither. The law he is speaking of here is the Mosaic law. The two laws mentioned in Romans 8:2 are not part of a legal code. These laws are spiritual laws.
Spiritual laws work like natural laws. Natural laws, such as those governing physics, are statements of truth describing the way something works in the natural realm. They are not laws that society punishes you for breaking. They are laws because they are always true. Maybe the most common is the law of gravity.
I will not attempt to state the law in technical terms but we all know the simplified version. What goes up must come down. That is a law. The police will not stop you for violating it. You will not go to jail if you violate it. It just is. It always works. If you violate it by jumping off a building you will probably die, but not because someone killed you. This kind of law has its own consequences.
Spiritual laws are the same type of thing, only they govern the way things work in the spirit. They are not laws that God punishes you for breaking. They are laws that carry their own blessing or curse. If you apply them correctly you will be blessed. If you apply them incorrectly or if you let the wrong law work in you, you will be cursed. It is just that simple.
Many Christians are not successful because they cannot make this distinction. We know that the Mosaic law was and is a legal code. There are punishments that go with it. However, in Galatians 3 Paul tells us the Law of Moses was a school master to preserve us until we could come into something better. The walk of the spirit by faith is that better thing. Under the law of Moses they were just children. In Christ we can grow to become adults.
Our parents had to apply a crime and punishment system to teach us and protect us. Society places us under a crime and punishment legal code in order to protect itself. We are told most of our lives that if we please the right people we will be rewarded and if we do not we will be punished. We naturally apply this to our relationship to God. However this is not the whole truth.
Certainly we need to live in such a way as to please God. Nevertheless, when we look at these verses we must understand that we are no longer living under a crime and punishment law where God is concerned. We are living under cause and effect. As children, we are protected from cause and effect by the rules put forth by our parents. Adulthood means we must understand cause and effect. If something bad happens to us it is not just because we displeased someone. If something good happens it is not because we made the right person happy. There are causes that bring about effects.
The law of Moses gave mankind very elementary parameters to stay within, that enabled a very limited control of causes and effects. Man could manage to stay in relationship with God, but he had to do very specific things in very specific ways. If he broke the Mosaic law, there were punishments. This kept him from experiencing the far worse effects that come with breaking the spiritual law. However there was a weakness to this system. As we have seen in Romans 8:3, that weakness was the flesh.
God’s will for us is to become adults in the spirit. The law could not produce adult believers. Under the law of Moses the spiritual law of sin and death kept us, in a sense, children. We had to be told what to do. We had to control our actions by using our flesh to do what the law said to do and not do what it said not to do. The problem is that the law of sin and death lives in the flesh. Its natural environment is the flesh.
That is why Paul makes such a strong statement. The law could not cause us to walk as upright adults. The law could not free us from sin. The flesh made it impossible for the law to accomplish that. We can only keep a holy law with sinful flesh so long. In the end the spiritual law of sin will win out. Another way to say this is that the “cause and effect statement of truth” will eventually override the “crime and punishment” code of conduct.
The good news for us is that there is another cause and effect law brought into play for the human race by the Gospel. It is a law in the same sense as the law of sin and death. It is called the law of the spirit of life in Christ. This law is not centered in the flesh but in the spirit. This law has the ability to override the cause and effect of sin and death and produce a different set of effects by enabling us to apply different causes. What the Mosaic law could not do, God did by giving us access to this powerful new spiritual law.
Come back tomorrow and we will try to bring all this together. For today meditate on the truth that you have a power at your disposal that can totally free you from the cause and effects of sin and death in your life.
Leave a Reply to Pastor Bill KieferCancel reply