Romans 8:1-3
Now, if you would be seated.
Let’s pray once more. Father, as we approach your word
this morning, we ask that your spirit would illuminate our hearts. We know that your word is a lamp
to our feet and a light to our path, but we know that we dwell,
Lord, in darkness. Everything is obscure to us if
you do not clear our minds and our hearts to know and understand
it. We need you, Lord. We need your grace in this area. We pray that you would effectively
apply the word to our hearts by your spirit, that we would
not be blind to these things. Indeed, that you would open the
eyes of our hearts to see wonderful things in your word. Please bless
us now in that way this morning. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen. The scripture reading the New
Testament reading for this morning. The sermon text is from Romans
chapter 8 verses 1 to 3. That’s on page 944 of your pew
Bible. Romans chapter eight, verses
one to three. Again, this is the inerrant and
infallible word of the Lord. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those 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. By sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin
in the flesh. Someone in this room this morning,
perhaps, does not know that he or she is under condemnation. And for those of you who are
believers, and I suspect that most of you here this morning
are, perhaps you have forgotten how terrible your situation was
before Christ found you. Well, here in this passage, God
declares plainly that we are under condemnation apart from
Christ. In chapter one, Paul tells us
that God directs his wrath and his judgment against all sin. You’ll remember those famous
words in chapter one, verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And then at the end of that chapter,
Paul begins to list out a series of sins that are included. And
if you’ve ever read that list, then you no doubt know that you
and I, we fall into the camp of sinners who apart from Christ
are under the wrath of God. Paul then goes on to say in chapter
two, that we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those
who practice such things. And he says, do you suppose,
O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet
do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? The answer, of course, is no,
we won’t. Apart from Christ, we won’t. Condemnation is a consequence
of sin, and death always accompanies condemnation. That is an iron
law of God’s moral universe. You can see this in Romans chapter
five, verse 12 and following, for example, Paul says that sin
entered the world through one man and death through sin and
so death passed all men because all sinned. Every human being
in this room, every human being on planet Earth falls into one
of two camps. We are either in the camp of
sin, condemnation, and death, or we are in the camp of grace,
justification, and life. And the question this morning
is, how do we move from that first camp to the second? Well,
Paul says clearly here in verse one, there is no condemnation
for those who are in Christ. This is, of course, the constant
theme of the New Testament. You can think of, in Acts chapter
4, Peter’s preaching. There is no other name under
heaven given among men by which we must be saved. There is salvation
from condemnation in no one else but Christ, and in him there
is nothing but salvation. Redemption is in Christ Paul
tells us in Romans 3 eternal life is in Christ He tells us
in Romans 6 the love of God is in Christ Paul tells us later
in chapter 8 Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
is in Christ and we lay hold of Christ by faith faith brings
us into the orbit of Christ and in that solar system there is
no sin there is no condemnation there is no death and Well, Paul
notes earlier in the book of Romans that this has not always
been the case. Freedom from condemnation as
a historical reality has not always been the case. Paul tells
us in Romans chapter three that God in his great mercy had passed
over former sins. He’s referring to the sins of
those who lived before Jesus died and rose again. But then
Paul says that God has now secured redemption in Christ for us to
show his righteousness at the present time that he might be
just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So
when Jesus died and rose from the dead, he ushered in a new
world. The world dramatically changed
before the resurrection of Christ and after the resurrection of
Christ. This new world, where Christ dwells, is called the
kingdom of heaven. That kingdom is characterized
by things like righteousness, joy, peace, freedom from sin,
and all of its effects. And Paul is telling us here when
he says there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, he’s saying
that that kingdom exists for us even now. To be in Christ
is to belong to the spiritual realm. It is to participate in
the heavenly life of the reigning son of God. And we’ll see more
clearly in the following verses this morning that the liberty
that we find here, the liberty of this new life is not only
freedom from the guilt of sin and freedom from the condemning
wrath of God, as well as freedom from the curse of the moral law. It is all of those things, but
our confession actually goes on to say that scripture teaches
that we also have a freedom from the present evil world, bondage
to Satan and dominion of sin. from the evil of afflictions,
the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting
damnation. Paul is summarizing all of those
benefits when he says no condemnation. All of that is included in this
expression. So Christian, God has promised
you freedom this morning. This reality that in Christ we
are delivered from every evil, from sin and all of its effects,
is the ground for Paul’s famous words at the end of chapter eight,
and you all are, I’m sure, familiar with them. He says this, who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger,
or sword? As it is written, for your sake
we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep
to be slaughtered. Know in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That entire list is
Paul’s expression of what he means at the beginning of the
chapter when he says no condemnation. It includes all of that. But to fully appreciate this
redemption, we need to know how God removed our condemnation.
Did he simply pardon our sins? Did he simply sweep it under
the rug? Did we do something that pleased
God enough for him to forgive us, to grant us the heavenly
life that belongs to Christ? And Paul answers in verses two
to three. There he tells us that there
are two laws. There is the law of the spirit
of life, and there is the law of sin and death. Now, when Paul’s
talking about a law here, he doesn’t mean something like the
moral law. He’s not talking about the law
of God. He means a governing or operating
principle in each person’s soul. There is a governing or operating
principle in each person’s soul on this planet. There is a governing
or operating principle in each person’s soul here this morning.
It governs your every thought, your every word, your every action.
It is who you are at a foundational level. You are either governed
by the law of the spirit of life, or you are governed by the law
of sin and death. You can’t be ruled by both. Paul
says that if the one law is operating in you, then you are free from
the other law. Well, since we are governed by
one law or the other, we need to understand these laws. We
can think of that famous Greek expression, nothi saalton, know
thyself. Knowing yourself is essential
to your holiness and it’s essential to your happiness. And so we
need to explore these laws because you’re governed by one or the
other. So first, what is the law of the spirit of life? Well,
in verse 11, Paul refers to the spirit as the one who raised
Jesus from the dead. So the spirit, when he raised
Jesus, brought Jesus into a heavenly post-resurrection life, and then
Christ pours out that same spirit on all who repent and believe
in him. It’s the same spirit that we as believers have Peter
says this in Acts chapter 2 this Jesus God raised up and of that
we all are witnesses being therefore exalted to the right hand of
God and Having received from the father the promise of the
Holy Spirit He has poured out this that you yourselves are
seeing and hearing and Peter said to them Repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit So
the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit
who rules in believers. And the spirit produces in believers
that same heavenly spiritual life that Jesus obtained. And
that’s why Paul calls the spirit the spirit of life. He is the
spirit who produces that heavenly life in the believer. Indeed,
the Spirit is so closely associated with the life that he bestows
that in verse 10 of chapter 8, the Spirit is actually referred
to as life itself. This life includes all the benefits
of redemption that are found in Christ and so includes everything
that Paul means when he says, no condemnation. The law of the
spirit of life is the law of no condemnation. Just as Jesus’s
reign is irreversible because it is a heavenly spiritual life,
so the spiritual life in the believer is irreversible. We
are not only free from the law of sin and death now, we are
free from the law of sin and death forever. So what then is this law of sin
and death from which we have been freed? It refers to the
dominion of sin that Paul discusses in the previous two chapters.
In Romans 6, Paul says that believers walk in newness of life, which
refers to the same life that Paul is talking about in our
passage. And this newness of life means
that, as he puts it, sin will have no more dominion over you.
He goes on in chapter seven to say that this law of sin is opposed
to the law of God. He says, I see in my members
another law waging war against the law of my mind and making
me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched
man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then I myself serve
the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the
law of sin. Now it’s clear from that passage
in Romans chapter seven, and of course it’s clear from our
own experience, that freedom from the dominion of sin, freedom
from the law of sin and death, does not mean freedom from the
presence of sin. And yet the law of the spirit
of life profoundly transforms us to hate sin, to resist it,
to fight against it, to desire its absence, Because the spirit
is opposed to sin, which itself is opposed to the law of God. Therefore, if you have this spiritual
resurrection life in you, you’re going to be inclined to obey
the law of God. You’re going to delight in it.
It’s going to be a joy to you. It’s something you want more
of. Yes, of course, you’re going
to sin. We are not perfected in this life, and indeed, you
may sin grievously, but as a believer with the spiritual life in you,
you will also seek forgiveness and strive by God’s grace to
please the Lord because you’re thankful for the freedom he has
given you and because you delight in his law. So we have, on the
one hand, the law of the spirit of life, and we have, on the
other hand, the law of sin, but it’s not just the law of sin.
Notice it’s also called the law of sin and death, Just as the
spirit is the spirit of life because he produces spiritual
life in the believer, so the law of sin is called the law
of death because sin produces death. Remember what I said at
the beginning, right? That’s an iron law of the universe
that condemnation always follows sin. Death always follows sin. Just as believers enjoy spiritual
life even now, so death is already at work in the souls of unbelievers.
It’s not something that is merely future. For the unbeliever, the
principle of death is already operating in them. If you were here this morning
and you have not rested in Christ, you are spiritually dead already.
And the law of death is at work in you, leading you inevitably
to your final condemnation. Death always follows sin. Death,
physical and spiritual, always follows sin. Paul tells us that
death came through sin. Death expresses sin’s reign.
Sin leads to death. Death is the wages of sin. Sin
produces death. Sin is death’s steam. So not only are the spirit and
sin, these fundamental principles, not only are they absolutely
opposed at every point, but their respective ways of life, obedience
and disobedience, and their ends, life and death, are completely
distinct. If you start off with the principle
of the law of the spirit, it will lead you to obedience and
it will lead to life. If you start off with the law
of sin, it will lead you to disobedience and it will result in death.
This is the very thing that the psalmist is talking about in
Psalm 1, when he sets forth these two different principles and
these two different ways of life. The blessed man who meditates
on God’s law is like a tree planted by streams of water, which bears
its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither, and in
whatever he does, he prospers. But the wicked are not so, they
are like chaff which the wind drives away, therefore the wicked
will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of
the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but
the way of the wicked will perish. So you see there are two different
principles, the blessed man meditates on the law of God, the wicked
do not, two different ways of life, and two completely different
outcomes. But you might ask, why do we
need the spirit to obtain eternal life? If that’s how this works,
If you can be obedient to the law of God and the consequence
of that obedience is a different outcome from disobedience, why
not just simply resist sin, obey, and inherit the spiritual heavenly
life? Well, Paul answers this in verse
three, the beginning of verse three, for God has done what
the law weakened by the flesh could not do. Paul says that
the law is weak. Now, the Greek expression here
is basically it’s unable to do something. It’s weak in the sense
that it’s not capable of doing something. The law isn’t capable
of doing what? Well, it’s incapable of saving
us. Why is that? Well, there’s no problem with
the law. Paul tells us this. 1 Timothy
1, the law is good. Romans 7, the law is spiritual.
Galatians 3, the law is not opposed to God’s promises. Even in Romans
itself earlier, he says, do we then overthrow the law by this
faith? No, on the contrary, we uphold
the law. Love itself, which is a fruit
of the Spirit, is referred to as the fulfillment of the law
in Romans 13. So the law is not the problem.
We are the problem. The law is not the problem. We
are the problem. That’s what Paul means when he says that
the law was weakened by the flesh. It’s not just that the law was
weakened, it’s the law was weakened by the flesh. The flesh here
doesn’t refer to human nature as such. There’s nothing wrong
with being a human being. God created human beings and
he looked at all that he had made and he saw that it was very
good. That’s not what’s in view here. The flesh, rather, describes
our sin nature. It describes this dominion of
sin over us and everything that goes along with it, including
condemnation and death. You can see how Paul uses this
language in the previous chapter. Again, he says, for while we
were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the
law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. For
I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh,
for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability
to carry it out. Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord, so then I myself serve the law of God with my
mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. So the flesh
then is our sin nature. It’s everything that is opposed
to the spirit and his work in us. And so the flesh, for this
reason in part, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, since the
kingdom of God just is the realm of the spirit and spiritual life.
Now, of course, the flesh, as we’ve already said, is also opposed
to the law of God. And perfect obedience to God’s
law is a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom
of heaven, for entrance into this eternal life. So our sin
nature is opposed to both the spirit, it’s opposed to the law
of God, and so it is fully incapable of saving itself. This is the
language of our larger catechism that says all men are not only
utterly unable and unwilling to know and do the will of God,
but prone to rebel against his word and therefore no man since
the fall can attain to righteousness in life by the moral law. If
any of us try to destroy the dominion of sin over us in our
own strength and through our own efforts, we will find that
we are still under condemnation. This is precisely what Paul says
in Galatians 5. You were severed from Christ, you who would be
justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
You cannot do it. It’s not possible. We can’t save
ourselves. But on the other hand, God is a just and holy God. He
can’t just simply ignore our sin brush it up under the rug,
pretend like it never happened. Again, I want to drive this point
home. Death is always a consequence of sin. That is an iron law of
God’s moral universe. That’s why it’s referred to as
the law of sin and death. So the wages of sin and death,
the wages of sin is death, and God, being the just and holy
God that he is, must keep those things in balance. He has to
keep the scales even. So then how are we freed from
condemnation if that’s the case? God could only free us from condemnation
by condemning the law of sin operating in us, and that produces
a problem. How could God do this without
also destroying us? There has to be death to deal
with sin, since by law, sin must end in death. Well, how could
God do that and not kill us? Well, Paul answers this at the
end of verse three. By sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in
the flesh. So why did God the Father send
his son to the world? God did not send his son into
the world merely to be an example for us, though he is. He did
not send his son into the world to be the highest expression
of God’s love for us, although it is. God sent his son into
the world to deal decisively with sin. Indeed, he is called
Jesus because he shall save his people from their sins. Or as
Paul says elsewhere, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And so Paul says here that God
sent his son for sin, that is to say to destroy sin. And how
did he do this? Well, first he came in the likeness
of sinful flesh, This sinful flesh here refers to the same
thing as the flesh that we’ve already seen in verse three.
That is to say it refers to the reign of sin in the heart of
every fallen man. Now we have to be careful here.
The text says that Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh. Jesus came as a human being.
He was fully human as scripture elsewhere attests, but he did
not take on a sinful human nature. Christ himself never had a sin
nature. He was not under the dominion
of sin, and yet he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He came into the closest possible
proximity to sin without himself being a sinner. You’ll recall
that sin always ends in death, and so this is precisely what
happened. The eternal son of God took on a sinless human nature. He bound sin to himself without
again being a sinner. He bore the full wrath of his
father against the sins of his people, and then he died, thereby
destroying sin in his own body. That’s what Paul means when he
says that God condemned sin in the flesh. For our sakes, God made him who
knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. And the wages of that
sin is death, and those wages were paid. Christ was born under
the law, he became a curse for us, and then he was obedient
as far as the end of sin’s dominion, which is death itself. And thereby
he destroyed in himself this entire old age, this realm of
sin, and all of its features, including condemnation, sin,
and again, death itself. This is why Paul can say in Romans
chapter 6 that when Christ died, he died to sin. The body of sin
was brought to nothing, he says. Death no longer had dominion
over him. That entire realm of sin, condemnation,
death died in Jesus. So for those who are united to
Christ then this morning, neither the sin principle nor its effects
have any dominion over you. If you’re united to Christ, you
already belong to that new realm, that spiritual heavenly realm
that is the kingdom of God. This is what Paul means in verse
one when he says there is no condemnation. There is no condemnation
in Christ precisely because Christ is on the other side of condemnation.
He’s already passed through it. So if you’re trusting in Christ
this morning, you are free forever. You’re free from wrath. You’re
free from sin. You’re free from death. And if
nothing else, if you take away nothing else from this text this
morning, that is a cause for worship and rejoicing. That is
why you gather as God’s people on a Sunday morning to celebrate
the victory and the triumph that you have in Christ. Here are
the words of Paul in Ephesians chapter two, describing what
the Lord has done for us. He writes, 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 raised us up
with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable
riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So
take courage. If God loved you that much while
you were still under the dominion of sin, then what good thing
will he not do for you? That’s Paul’s reasoning to the
end of this chapter. If God loved you enough while you were still
under the dominion of sin that he sent his own son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin and condemned sin in his flesh, what
good thing will he not give you? On the other hand, if you were
here this morning and you haven’t trusted in Christ, if there’s
anybody here who is not a believer, then this is a wonderful reason
to trust Christ. You’re under the dominion of
sin. You are a slave. You are spiritually dead. You’re
under God’s wrath and you’re merely waiting for the day of
judgment. That’s all you have to look forward
to. But it doesn’t have to be that
way. You’ve heard this morning in Romans chapter eight, the
mercy and the kindness of God to sinners. He sent his own son
to die in our place. The son came to free us from
our sins by taking on God’s wrath. And he then sent his spirit to
gather his people to him so that they too may enjoy the life that
he obtained in his resurrection. And so if you don’t know Christ
this morning, come to him and be free. Now, if you would, please stand
and take your hymnal, turn to number 265, and let us sing in
Christ alone.