1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from, the law of sin and of death.
3 For, (the thing the Law could not do, because it was powerless on account of the flesh) God, having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 that the righteous result of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to flesh, but according to Spirit.
5 For those who are according to flesh, the things of the flesh do mind; but those according to Spirit, peace. 7 Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be: 8 and those being in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His 10 And if Christ is in you, the body, indeed, is dead on account of sin; but the Spirit is life on account of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you. He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.
WE HAVE NOW COME to that great chapter which sets forth that part in our salvation which is exercised by the third Person of the Godhead, the blessed Holy Spirit. Without Christ’s work on the cross there would be no salvation, and without the presence and constant operation of the Holy Spirit, there would be no application of that salvation to us,—indeed, no revelation of it to us!
Let us therefore with the profoundest reverence, and greatest gladness, take up the study here in Romans Eight of that work of the Holy Spirit which is directly concerned with our salvation: for Romans is a book of salvation. Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the message that concerns salvation. Christ Jesus and Him glorified is that which concerns our perfecting as believers. The latter, other epistles will unfold more fully. But the teaching of the work of the Holy Ghost in Romans regards His fundamental operations,—just as it is fundamental phases of Christ’s work that are presented here.
The Eighth Chapter of Romans is the instinctive goal of the Christian. Whether or not he can tell why—whether or not he can give the great doctrinal facts that give him comfort here, he is, nevertheless, like a storm-tossed mariner who has arrived at his home port, and has cast anchor, when he comes into Romans Eight!
The reasons are:
1. He finds himself in the hands of the blessed Comforter, the indwelling Spirit, in whose almighty and loving ministry he finds “life and peace.”
2. He finds himself, without cause in himself, called “God’s elect,”—involved in a great Divine purpose, that will end in his being conformed to Christ’s image, Christ being “the First-born among many brethren.”
3. He finds himself beloved in Christ; and therefore never to be “separated” from that love.
And these are both the “upper and nether springs” of eternal comfort.
This Eighth of Romans, then, comes after the work of Christ—after His atoning blood has put the believer’s sins away; after he has seen, also, that he died with Christ,—to sin, and also to that legal responsibility he had in Adam; after the words, “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under Law, but under Grace”; and, finally, after the hopeless struggle of the apostle has shown “the flesh” to be incurably bad; and that there is a blessed deliverance, which, though not changing “the body of this death,” nevertheless gives freedom therefrom “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Verses 1, 2: There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and of death.
Therefore looks back to the struggle of Chapter Seven, and the thankful shout of verse 25; and not to the expiatory work of Christ for us in Chapters 3:21-5:11. Those that are in Christ Jesus, and none others, can be before us in all this section.
It is on account of the Spirit’s acting as a law of life, delivering the believer from the contrary law of sin and death in his yet unredeemed members, that there is no condemnation. It is of the utmost importance to see this. The subject here is no longer Christ’s work for us, but the Spirit’s work within us. Without the Spirit within as a law of life, there would be nothing but condemnation: for the new creature has no power within himself apart from the blessed Spirit,—as against a life of perpetual bondage to the flesh,—“the end of which things is death” (6:21).
Now the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer as set forth in Chapter Eight is fundamental, essential to the believer’s salvation and must be understood by all of us, for Romans is the book of foundation truth.
In Christ Jesus—Here the verse should end, as see note below.165 The words in Christ Jesus express that glorious place God has given the believer. The question is not at all now one of justification, but one of position, in Christ Risen, “where condemnation is not, and cannot be.” There cannot be degrees here: men either are in Christ, or not in Him.
There is no condemnation—Those in Christ Jesus have more than justification from all things by His blood. They have “justification of life,” which means that they share His risen life. No condemnation—means, no condemnatory judgment. The question of rewards for work for our Lord will indeed come up at His judgment seat—bēma (II Cor. 5:10); but it is after the Church is caught up that this judgment occurs, when Christ comes, “apart from sin, to them that wait for Him.” Blessed hope! (See Heb. 9:28.)
For166the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, freed me from the law of sin and of death. “The law” in both occurrences here indicates “a given principle acting uniformly.” Now as to “the law of sin and of death,” the latter part of Chapter Seven made abundantly clear what that was—the power of sin working in our unredeemed bodies against which even man’s renewed will was powerless.
But now, another “law” has come in: not only has the believer life in the Risen Christ, but to him has been given the Holy Spirit as the power of that life: so that the Spirit becomes the Almighty Agent within the believer, securing him wholly, making effectual in experience that “deliverance which Paul saw when he cried in Chapter 7:24, 25: “Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God [for deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Of course, the deliverance167 is through Christ, for it is Christ’s own risen life the believer now shares. But it is the blessed Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” who makes the deliverance an experience. That is, the constant operation of the Spirit makes effectual in those who have life in Christ Jesus, that deliverance which belongs to those in Christ.
How wonderful, how limitless, the patience of the blessed Spirit of God! Moment by moment, day by day, month by month, year by year, through all the conscious and unconscious processes of tens of thousands of believers, the Spirit acts with a uniformity that is called “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” In the newest convert, in the oldest saint, He gives freedom from the law of sin and of death! “Sin in the flesh, which was my torment, is already judged, but in Another; so that there is for me no condemnation on account of the flesh. . . . We lose communion with God, and dishonor the Lord by our behavior, in not walking, according to the Spirit of life, worthy of the Lord. But we are no longer under the law of sin, but, having died with Christ, and become partakers of a new life in Him and of the Holy Spirit, we are delivered from this law.”
Verses 3, 4: For, (the thing the Law could not do, because it was powerless on account of the flesh), God, having sent His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteous result of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to flesh, but according to Spirit.
Several things appear at once from this passage:
1. God did a thing that the Law could not do.
2. The thing that God did was to make possible a holy life for those walking by His indwelling Spirit.
3. The reason that the Law was unable to bring about this holy life, lay in the flesh (Greek, sarks), the “mind” of which (verse 7) is enmity against God, and not subject to His Law or Will. Thus, though the Law was holy, just, and good, in itself, it only irritated by its commands a sinful flesh that was not subject to it.
4. God’s plan (which, we must remember, is “apart from law,” without law’s help or “rule,” but the very opposite—3.21; 6:14; 7:4, 6) was to send His own Son, who had a body “prepared for Him” (Heb. 10:5), and was born according to the angel’s words to Mary in Luke 1:35:
“The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.” So, although sinless, our Lord Jesus Christ was born in the likeness of “flesh of sin,”—in the likeness of the bodies of the children of Adam, bodies under bondage to sin.
5. God’s purpose, as revealed in this passage, was to get at sin as connected with human flesh, and deal with it at the cross in the way of righteous condemnation, so that sin would no longer have rights in human bodies. The preposition “for” (Gr. peri) in the words and for sin is the common word in the Septuagint for sacrifices for sin. But it refers here in Romans 8:3 not so much to atonement for sin’s guilt before God,—that has already been fully set forth in Chapters Three to Five. The question here (and in Chapters Six to Eight entire) regards the thing Sin itself rather than its guilt.168
It is of the very first importance for the believer to recognize the two great facts which Paul develops concerning Christ’s work on the cross:
First, His blood shed for us in expiation of our guilt. Considering this, one always thinks of the righteous claims of God’s throne against us, and of their being satisfied, fully met, by Christ’s shed blood; and of our being thus brought nigh to God.
Second, Our death with Christ, as “made sin for us.” Because of our condition of sinfulness, as connected with Adam, and thus “in the flesh,” we died with Christ. When we believed upon Him, Christ became our Adam, and God dated our history back to Calvary, and commanded us to reckon ourselves dead to sin because we died with Him federally,—thus our history in Adam was ended before God: so that He plainly says to us, “Ye are not in flesh”—where once we were: Chapters 8:9 and 7:5. Compare Eph. 2:1-3.
Now, in Chapter 8.3, God goes more explicitly into having Christ identified with us, made to become sin on our behalf, our old man crucified with Him. It was that God might thus condemn sin in the flesh, dealing with it judicially: as connected potentially with the whole human race, and actually with believers.
When Adam sinned, his federal relationship involved all his posterity in condemnation (5:18, 19), but he also “begat a son in His own likeness.” ALL since Adam have participated in the fallen nature of Adam. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” “We [now believers] were by nature children of wrath.”
Now, human thoughts and philosophies, being under, and recognizing, this proneness to evil, and referring it to the body as the conscious abode of sin and source of sin’s lusts and temptations, have praised a disembodied state as the only desirable one. Not only the Manicheans and the Buddhists, but real Christians who ought to know better, have regarded a disembodied spiritual state as their hope: “This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise,” etc. “Modernists” today, generally,—as unbelievers in all periods, deny the resurrection of the material body.
But in Romans 8:3 God tells us that sin as connected with flesh has been condemned, dealt with; although it has not yet been removed. Some pious and very earnest people have spoken of and sought after “eradication of the sin-principle from the body.” But the redemption of the body lies in the future, at Christ’s coming. Meanwhile, “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, [disembodied spirits] but that we would be clothed upon . . . with our habitation which is from Heaven” (our glorified bodies at Christ’s coming): “that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life” (II Cor. 5:4).
But the foundation both for the resurrection of the sleeping saints when Christ comes, and for the changing of living believers, lies here in Romans 8:3: sin has been condemned as connected with human flesh. This gives God, speaking reverently, the righteous right to transform and catch up into glory the bodies of His saints.
It also gives the Risen Christ the glorious right to live in these bodies of ours while they are on earth; and to walk in us, therefore, daily, in resurrection victory! The only condition of such victorious life, is that we ourselves walk by that indwelling Spirit which has been given to us.
Again, speaking reverently, the Spirit has no commission in this dispensation to go beyond the work done by our Lord on the cross. But that work on the cross was perfect, and far-reaching indeed. Not only did Christ there put away our guilt before God by His blood, but there our old man was crucified with Him: sin was condemned as having any connection with human flesh!
And for sin—The evident reference to the second phase of the sin-offering is apparent in these words. The question in this verse is not one of atonement for guilt, but of the dealing in judgment with that which was not to be atoned for! The evil of our natures is not atoned for, but judged, at the cross. The first phase of the sin-offering of Leviticus Four is the sprinkling of the blood before Jehovah, outside the veil of the most holy place, and the putting of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Jehovah, which golden altar, according to Heb. 9:3, 4 pertained to the holy of holies, the Shechinah presence of God; and the pouring out at the base of the brazen altar at the door of the tabernacle, the rest of the blood; together with the burning of the fat—symbol of the inner affections—upon that brazen altar.
This first phase is seen to represent the power of the shed blood of Christ to bring us nigh to God—always the first thing.
Then the second phase is seen in verses 11 and 12 (Lev 4), where
—“the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall it be burnt.”
Here, surely, is something further than the putting away of guilt by the shed blood. The fire, burning to ashes that sin-offering, seems to indicate God’s holy dealing with sin itself, after the shed blood has made the offerer nigh. It surely has a most solemn significance, for there is no atonement to be made for our evil nature.
At the cross, God having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and having laid on Him as our Substitute our sins, now secures that opportunity which He sought—to deal with sin itself as connected with flesh. And He did deal in judgment. Sin, as connected with flesh, is a condemned, though not yet removed, thing.169
The thing the Law could not do—was accomplished by God! The law was powerless on account of the flesh. The Law holy, just and good, could command; but the flesh was not subject to it, and could not be. Therefore the Law could forbid, rebuke, reprimand, and curse, sin; but could not effectually condemn it, as connected with the flesh. When Christ comes, thank God, we shall be freed from the very presence of sin. But it has already been condemned in the flesh, and should be reckoned so by us all. Just as really as our sins were put away by the blood of Christ, so was sin in the flesh condemned, judgment executed on it.
In Romans 8:3, God so “condemned” sin,—so dealt with it, that it was thereafter a convict—as regards the flesh.
This had no more been done before, than our sins had been borne before! Not until the Cross were sins borne, and not until the cross was Sin judicially dealt with in the flesh. Sin has thus no more rights in us now, than it will have in our glorified bodies!
As we shall see in verse 9, believers are not in the flesh before God, at all. This is the second glorious truth; the first being that because sin as connected with human flesh has been dealt with by God, all danger from it, all possible condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, is over.
Verse 4: That the righteous result of the Law [which the Law sought in vain] might be fulfilled in us—Now let us say at once that a righteous state of living, while it is to be brought about in the Christian, is not what God primarily seeks; but rather “that we should be holy and without blame before Him IN LOVE.” This will begin to be developed in Romans, but more thoroughly in other epistles. Nevertheless, our first occupation must be with the truth as set forth in God’s order. The Law commanded a wholly righteous walk toward God and toward our neighbor. But David said:
“I have seen an end of all perfection;
Thy commandment is exceedingly broad.”
Throughout the Psalms, and all the Old Testament Saints’ experiences, we find that there is under the Law, an almost constant striving and groaning after a righteous state,—seen, but not experienced, because the Law consisted of outer enactments, to be fulfilled by man. The Law furnished no power. Now in Romans 8:4 we have three things: first, this righteous state or result; second, the fact that it was not fulfilled by us—we have no more power in ourselves than had the Old Testament saints: but it is fulfilled in us—it is the passive voice: be fulfilled. Third, it is fulfilled in us as we consent to reject the flesh and choose to walk according to the Spirit. In the Spirit lies all the power. With us, the responsibility of choice—a blessed, solemn one!
Verse 5: For those who are according to flesh,170 the things of the flesh do mind; but those according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
The word phronousin, “mind,” does not here have reference to intellect or understanding, but to the attention or occupation of the being, caused by its natural disposition. And we find thus two classes; first, those according to flesh. This we believe includes here all those not born of God, that is, still in a state of nature, in which class Ephesians 2:3 shows believers once to have been: “We also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts.” Second, those according to Spirit. These are God’s true children, the Holy Spirit, of whom they were born, indwelling all of them.
The distinction between these two classes is as real as that between the sheep and goat nations at Christ’s coming, or between those written in the book of life and those not written, at the last judgment. An unconquerable sadness rises in our hearts at the fact that after these centuries upon centuries of Divine dealing with man, and especially since the gospel has been preached, as Paul declares, “in all creation under heaven” (Col. 1:23), there are yet those like Cain, Esau, Balaam, Saul, Judas, that are according to flesh. Alas, this description includes the mass of our race, for it is only “a little flock” that can be described as being according to Spirit.
Now all those according to flesh cherish, desire, are occupied with, and absorbed in, talk of, think of, follow after, the things of flesh; those according to Spirit, likewise discern, value, love, are absorbed in, the things of Spirit.171
Those according to flesh “mind” the flesh’s things: its physical lusts,—gluttony, uncleanness, slothfulness; its soulical lusts,—mental delights, pleasures of the imagination, esthetic indulgences, or “tastes”—whether art, music, sculpture, or what not; its spiritual lusts,—of pride, envy, malice, avarice: in a word, every unclean thing, and every good thing used by unclean persons,—that is, persons not cleansed by the blood of Christ, not new creatures in Him. Then, too, there is the “religion” of the flesh, which includes all not of and in the Holy Ghost.
And there are those who are according to Spirit,—who “mind” the Spirit’s things: salvation, the person of Christ, the fellowship of the saints, the Word of God, prayer, praise prophecy, the blessed hope of Christ’s coming, walking as He walked before men. True, many, many of these fall woefully short (as they well know); yet they mind the things of Spirit, the things of God, to some degree, while others will have nothing of them.
The reason immediately appears:
Verse 6: For the mind (phronēma—noun form of the verb of verse 5) of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit, life and peace. It is terrible to contemplate a mind, disposition, purpose, so set on death (which is its end) that it can be said to be death. It is a most solemn contemplation that we who are in Christ were once in the flesh, the mind and disposition of which we could not and would not change, and which was death itself!
The King James rendering in this verse is hopelessly obscure. God does not say that “to be carnally minded” is death, but that the mind of the flesh, in which they are, is death. Further, He does not say, “to be spiritually minded is life and peace,” as if it were a state into which the believer came; but He does say, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. In neither case does God speak of people, but of the flesh and of the Spirit. If you are according to Spirit, having been born of God, there is indwelling you a mighty One, the Comforter, whose whole mind, disposition, and manner of being and ruling within you, is life and peace. This “life” is the life of the Risen Christ, which the Spirit, as “the Spirit of grace,” supplies (Heb. 10:29, Gal. 3:5); and this “peace” is that of Christ as spoken of in Isaiah: “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.”
Verse 7: Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Here the disposition (mind) of the flesh is shown to be the reason why that disposition is death. Perhaps no one text of Scripture more completely sets forth the hideously lost state of man after the flesh. For the disposition (mind) of the flesh is enmity itself toward God! There was indeed, as we saw in Chapter 5:10, reconcilement to God while we were enemies, but it did not in any wise consist in changing the nature of the flesh. On the contrary, we were transferred by death with Christ, into the Risen Christ, the flesh remaining unchanged. Your estate while in the flesh was as lost by nature as that of the demons. For nothing worse could be said of them than that they are enmity toward God and are not able to be subject to His law. God certainly has given the flesh up, and nothing but sovereign mercy ever redeemed a human being.172
Verse 8: And those who are in flesh cannot please God—This is God’s sweeping announcement concerning all mankind that are out of Christ. In this sense, all in the flesh are out of Christ. Those in the flesh, even if, like Cain, they would worship God, would come in their own way,—the flesh’s way, which God cannot accept. Terrible prospect! in a state forever displeasing to Him in whom is all blessing. Such are all not born of God.
Verse 9: But ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Here the great mark of a true Christian is, that the Spirit of God dwells in him. If he is indwelt by the Spirit of God, he is not “in flesh,” but instead an entirely different kind of being,—“in Spirit.” The Spirit becomes now the element in which the believer lives, like water to the fish, or air to the bird, vital, supplying, protecting.
Practically, there are those, like the men of Ephesus—“about twelve (Acts 19:1), who were disciples,” but did not have the Holy Spirit,—a fact Paul instantly discerned. Their answer to his question in verse 2, is wrongly translated in the King James. They really said, “We did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was” (or, “was given”: it is exactly the same form as John 7:39, “The Spirit was not yet; because Jesus was not yet glorified”). John the Baptist had constantly taught about the Holy Spirit, that He that should come after him would give them the Holy Spirit. It was concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that these at Ephesus were ignorant. They were honest: they were converted men; they had been baptized with John’s baptism of repentance. John had said that they should, however, believe on Him that should come after him—on Jesus. Now Paul takes them and instructs them that Christ’s redeeming work having been fully finished on the cross, the Holy Spirit was come, and was given to all believers.
“And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (vs. 6).
Now they were in the full Christian position. Thousands upon thousands of earnest, professing Christians have, we believe, like these, not yet heard “that the Holy Spirit was,” that is, had definitely come on the scene at Pentecost, to be given to every believer. He is here! The gift of Him and His indwelling constitutes the distinctive mark of Christians.
Many sincere people are yet spiritually under John the Baptist’s ministry of repentance. Their state is practically that of the struggle of Romans Seven, where neither Christ nor the Holy Spirit is mentioned, but only a quickened but undelivered soul in struggle under a sense of “duty,” not a sense of full acceptance in Christ and sealing by the Holy Spirit.173
But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
Now this sentence would seem at first to rule out what we have been saying in the foot-note on the Holy Spirit. But, that the apostle is not speaking of those who will shortly have the Spirit of Christ, they being sincere, godly souls, is at once evident when we remember that Cornelius, and those twelve men at Ephesus, were sincere disciples as far as their light went: and in them God is simply showing us the processes of the work of salvation in real saints. Whereas, when Paul says none of His, he is speaking in an absolute way of those who are Christ’s and those who are not. Those who are Christ’s either have or will have the Spirit. Sad to say, it may not be until on a death-bed, when at last the soul renounces all hope but the shed blood of Christ, and is then sealed by the Spirit. Notice also here that the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. This is, of course, the Holy Spirit, (not the mind or disposition of Christ).174 He is called the Spirit of Christ, because Christ promised and sent Him: “The Comforter, whom I will send unto you from the Father,—the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,” (John 15:26); “Having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [Christ] hath poured forth this which ye see and hear” (Acts 2:33). And also because He manifests Christ: “He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you” (John 16:14). Those therefore who belong to Christ have thus His Spirit given to them, always, as we said above, (if they are not still in the preparatory states of repentance, or legal struggle against sin, as in Romans Seven) when they rest believingly in Christ and His work!
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