Life in the Spirit
We Have Been Freed!
Through our past five lessons we have learned that God secures the believer’s righteous status in past salvation (John 10:29-30), the believer and the Holy Spirit are to be presently working together to transform him into the image of God (Philippians 1:6, 2:12-13), and Jesus will clothe the believers with a perfect body when the future salvation arrives (Romans 8:22-25). As a result of all this, then Romans 8:2 – 29 is possible. So, move on to verse 2:
“because through Christ Jesus the
law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and
death.”
Hidden in plain sight, this verse contains the answer to the ageless questions, “What’s going to keep me from falling back into sin and continuing in it? Must I simply to keep confessing the same sin over and over?”
This verse takes us back to Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross; and what the Holy Spirit had been given to accomplish in us - “free from the law of sin and death”. Notice that the verse does not state, “Jesus will free us”. It states that we have been set free…past tense. It’s like having money in the bank that had been deposited a long time ago to our credit. The fact that we have been living in spiritual poverty was not the fault of the Holy Spirit; who had provided the credit. The credit has been there for every believer, as a living asset of life in Christ.
The key point in verse 2 is the realization that the Holy Spirit was given in order to accomplish, in us individually, what was made available through the cross of Christ. In other words, the key point is the “grace” that Christ brought (Luke 2:40; John 1:14,16-17). Now we’ll see in verses 3-4 what has been afforded us as a result of this grace.
By Grace!
3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was
weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not
live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Does this mean that God’s divine law can be limited by something that is human? Or, that God has voluntarily limited Himself so that things which He intently desires cannot come to pass? I don’t believe so. By implication, I believe that this verse suggests the fact that God reveals Himself with, in and underneath the material Scriptural revelation of His purpose and His heart. But the words of the Scripture, themselves, are not God. Yet He is all around and through it. Just as the bread and wine in our communion are not the actual body and blood of Christ; but He actually joins it – in, around and underneath. The simple constructs from the Hebrew or Greek syntax itself was powerless to compel a sinner to meet the righteousness in what it conveys. But the God in, with, through and underneath it could; and He did through incarnation (becoming like sinful flesh).
This weakness of our flesh has made it impossible that any of God’s commands of the law would ever be fulfilled in us without the intervention of divine grace to provide the means of fulfillment. No man has ever bridged this grand-canyon size gap between his old nature (flesh) and a single genuine, unselfish obedient response to just one command of the law. Only the divine intervention of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can take us across the depths and bring us into the desired righteous fulfillment. It is the weakness of human flesh that made it necessary for the Lord to do it all for us. Nothing other than divine intervention can affect the human needs that have arisen because of the presence and the result of sin. This weakness of the flesh, the total depravity of humanity, was the dark background and context which underscores the love of Christ as manifested in His incarnation; and its purposes (that first Christmas morn!). There is nothing that we can do for ourselves. For this reason, Romans 8:3 is one of the most important verse in the bible for a discussion about the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:42).
However, God sent Jesus Christ into this world. Through the cross, Christ condemned the sin that is in our flesh. I need to explain this:
Take Osama Bin Laden’s ten years of freedom in
Pakistan. Now, don’t think about how it
ended because that absolutely ruins my illustration (all illustrations require
boundaries). In a very real sense, the
United States had capital punishment written on Osama’s head for his role in
the murder of nearly 3,000 people in America.
But somehow Osama managed to cross the border from Afghanistan into
Pakistan. Meanwhile, the U.S. searched
high and low to find him and put him to death, but could not. Some group within Pakistan (the government,
or some other group) knew that to surrender Osama to U.S. authorities would be
the equivalent of his death. So they hid
him. While in Pakistan, he enjoyed
freedom and kept the same low profile and elusiveness that he had maintained
before his crimes against the American people.
So Osama was both free and condemned to death. But that group in Pakistan had condemned the
U.S’ condemnation. This means that
though death at the hands of the U.S. was justly due to Osama, because of that
Pakistan group, death could not reach him.
We too justly deserved the death penalty for sin. But when the Lord Jesus Christ was placed on the cross by the Father and put to death in accordance with the divine plan, something amazing was offered. By this grace and through faith, God joined us to Christ in death and in the resurrection which followed, which righteously place us under the jurisdiction of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ. We are forever free from the jurisdiction of the law of sin and death. God Himself cannot hold anything us because, by this grace and through our faith, we have been joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. But even though sin, and therefore death, still exists in us, even after we have been joined to Christ, and after we have yielded ourselves to Him, these cannot condemn us, because Christ has condemned the just condemnation due us for sin. Nor can sin and death nullify the work that we do for Him, even with our imperfect and weak hands. Through the rule of sin and death is a real part of our life, we have been made free from that law of sin and death and God himself will never bring us back under that law (Now, forget about them navy seals! They are not in this illustration…smile).
It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that the righteousness demanded by the law can now be fulfilled in the believers. “But how?” you ask! This fulfillment begins with our past salvation and continues throughout life as the believer is walking after the Spirit, and not after the flesh. Our righteous God will perfect us; not us perfecting us, but He will do it. For that He gives more grace still! God has not only redeemed us from the curse of the law by condemning sin and death in us, but He also purposed to get at the problem of sin in our imperfect lives. The Lord Jesus Christ came to redeem and to dwell within our bodies which are decaying and dying. If we understand this teaching, it will keep us from the many false teachings from various schools of thought about perfectionism. Remember, we are not perfect, but throughout our entire life we must surrender to being made perfect (Philippians 1:6). God has begun a good work in us, and will keep on perfecting it!
From This Point Forward It’s Perseverance Not Perfectionism
Scripture teaches perseverance, not perfection. It uses several different metaphors to describe our perseverance. They are:
A Walk That is After the Spirit
We have passed the stage of birth (justification and regeneration) à we have passed the baby stage (made alive in Christ… still not walking) à we have reached the phase of Christian truth (taken hold of this new life and are exercising the power of that new life to persevere in newness of life). We are born, alive, and moving; and our walk is normal, in the Spirit—no longer abnormal, in the flesh. “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16).
There is something indescribable and incomparable about a walking trip which we, in this age of cars and airplanes, are in danger of losing. To see the activity of insects and animals, the movements of plant life and geological and ecological signs of usage or aging, or urban renewal is to see life. When we walk in the Spirit, often we also gleam desirable insights that cannot be put into words, as well as necessary perspectives that we hadn’t thought about acquiring. I do not know how many times since then I have stood — decades and hundreds of miles away from scenes walking away from home in college — and in retrospect mentally breathed once more the air of that experience. I get the same feel when I reflect on my walk with God. While at the same time, it is wonderful to know that certain things from my college days are to be left behind, and that I am to stretch out to the things that lie before me.
It is thrilling to catch a glimpse of some revelation of God, some distant truth, some desired attainment, and then move towards it with the leading of the Spirit, step by step, knowing full well that in His time we shall reach the goal. For to walk after the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and to be led by the Spirit brings the certain knowledge that we are a child of God, an heir of God, and a fellow heir with Christ (Romans 8:14-17).
Putting on the New Self
The progress of the Christian life is described in Scripture as the changing of a garment. We are told”
· “and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24).
· “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” (Colossians 3:9-10).
· “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27).
· “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Romans 13:14).
In other words, our old Adamic nature is compared to a dirty garment which we are to lay aside as we would lay aside any soiled clothing, and we are to put on the new self as we would put on clean, fresh clothing.
Transformation
Here the continuing Christian life is set forth as a metamorphosis, the transformation like that of the caterpillar that comes out of its cocoon to become a butterfly. This is the meaning of the Greek word where we read, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform [or shaped with] to the pattern of this world, but be transformed [metamorphosis] by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1- 2) The figure of speech is quite different from that of putting off a soiled garment and putting on a clean one; but rather of a life passing through a transformation and coming out as something totally different. It is written to genuine believers in Christ who understand the mercies of God, and who move toward this transformation as a result of the love that has been manifested to him/her in Christ.
A New Creation
The metaphor is slightly changed here. We are depicted as being the objects of an entirely new work of God. A straight up new creation! There is less of a metaphor here and more a description of the method by which God is daily working within us. We are said to be “… God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) The metaphor above, of putting on a fresh garment, also contains the teaching that this garment is a new creation (see Ephesians 4:24). Also, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians. 5:17).
The Indwelling Christ
This same divine process that a believer’s life undergoes is set forth in yet another terminology, showing the source of the new life that is within us. Our life in its process of daily transformation is said to be the forming of Christ within us, or the dwelling of Christ within us. "Christ lives in me," Paul told the Galatians (2:20). It was for this purpose that he prayed that we might be strengthened with all faith (see Ephesians 3:17). Again we see the language used in two tenses. He does live in you; let Him live in you. All the way through we find this same dual usage. You are holy; be holy. You are alive; live like men who are alive. The present tense is true in the sense that in us is all that is necessary (in seed form) to be victorious over sin. The future tense is also true in the sense that we must bring that which we have (in seed form) into manifestation.
Conclusion of Spiritual Formation 101
Whatever metaphor helps you understand your moment by moment persevering relationship with Jesus Christ, the bottom line is, He wants you to know Him, and to walk into manifestation the work that He has already secured for you on the cross. There will be memories of the road you’ve walked. You will recall times when you slipped and fell and how He picked you up and set you upon your feet. You will remember how He cleansed you when you got wasted; how He cheered you up when you were faint; how He held you when you were weary. You will remember how He fed you when you were hungry and how He brought you to a fountain when you thirst. But since you live in the present you must know Him as you persevere at the present moment. Then you will discover that it is far, far more wonderful to look at Him and see Him as He reveals Himself to you in today's mile of the road, than it is to try to recall what He was like in some past incident. As you persevere in your present walk with Him, you become a Spirit-determined person, Spirit-led person as distinguished from a carnal person (a person dominated by their own weak vicious human self). You do not want to walk after the flesh like that. You earnestly desire to walk, and keep walking after the Spirit.