Romans
11
In Paul’s day the punishment for a murderer was gruesome in the extreme. The dead body was fastened to the body of the sentenced prisoner. It was strapped on forehead-to-forehead, nose to nose etc. The living man became a human cross on which the corpse hung. The power of death slowly overcame life and soon there were two corpses instead of one.
When Paul cries out in Romans 7:24: “What a wretched man I am!” the Greek word for ‘wretched’ indicates a person who is exhausted after a battle. He’s desperate. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” i.e. the old nature.
He’s tried everything until he’s sick of trying. Have you despaired of yourself or do you suppose if you read more, pray more, fast more, you’ll be a better Christian?
Paul isn’t the only born again believer to discover what a problem he is to himself. He realises that of himself, he could not obey God’s law. He hadn’t got it in him. “Someone, help me “ is his plea. The answer is in Christ alone.
The first words of the delivered man in Romans 7:25 are very precious: “Thanks be to God” – not “thanks be to Paul” – It was God who did it “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
If Romans 6 was all about “How to stop doing bad things”, Romans 7 has been about “How can I ever do anything good?” The big issue is to avoid legalism at all costs. The legalist suggests you can become holy and please God by obeying laws. You measure your spirituality by conforming to a list of do’s and don’ts. That is arrant nonsense. As Warren Wiersbe points out, “You were not justified by keeping the law and you can not be sanctified by keeping the law.” The weakness of legalism is that it sees sins (plural), but not sin, which is the root of the trouble.
The bottom line is “Who’s in charge of your life?” The old nature (the flesh) or the new nature (the spirit)? It’s as if a tug-o-war is going on inside every believer just as the twins were struggling inside the womb of Rebekkah. There was Esau – born first, a type of the carnal nature, with no interest in spiritual things. He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. And Jacob, a spiritual man, often crafty and up to no good, but eager to advance spiritually. He even wrestled with the angel until he was blessed. Are you limping after God because He’s broken you or is your natural strength still unsurrendered to His Lordship?
Romans 8 begins with a great victory cry. It’s a declaration of freedom. “Therefore” – in view of all the arguments that have been so carefully laid out like a forensic scientist presenting incontrovertible evidence – “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
The person “in Christ” is free forever from the threat of condemnation. In Christ Jesus I stand justified. It depends not on what I am or do, but entirely upon what Christ is and has done. The law – good though it is – was powerless to do anything to put me right with God.
As Paul said in Romans 3:20 “No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law.” We’re just not good enough. God has provided a righteousness that is not a goal to be achieved, but a gift to be received. And it’s got nothing to do with keeping laws.
Romans 8 has been called the chapter of the Spirit. The book of Romans contains 25 references to the Spirit, 19 of which occur in Romans 8.
There are two laws. “The law of sin and death” which, like gravity, holds us to the ground, spiritually. As long as we’re ‘in Adam’, that law reigns.
Then there’s the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus – the reign of grace through righteousness unto eternal life. This law triumphs over the law of sin and death. This is a superior law.
You can’t break the law of gravity, but you can introduce another law – the law of aerodynamics – and begin to fly. Let me put it another way. “The law of sin and death” is there all the time, but God has put another law into operation. It’s like switching on the light. It doesn’t come on automatically. It is a stronger law, but you have to turn it on.
Paul had groaned at the end of the last chapter to be rescued from himself. He loved God’s law in his mind, but kept transgressing it in his body. Now, in Romans 8:2, he declares the answer: “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
The walk of the Spirit is the King’s highway, the way of holiness. God has done what the law could not do. It’s God’s business to make Christians, only He can do it. No one can make himself a Christian. The very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death (Romans 7:10). I couldn’t live up to it. However, Jesus found the law no obstacle; He fulfilled it and He’s become the door to the King’s highway of holiness for His people.
The Living Bible tells us plainly in Romans 8:3 what God has done, “He sent His own Son in a human body like ours – except that ours are sinful – and destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins.”
The natural man is unregenerate. He lives according to his sinful nature, his mind is hostile to God and he cannot please God. Flesh gives birth to flesh. It will always be flesh. The carnal mind is the mind of the old nature. It does not submit to God. To live according to the flesh means to live a worldly life, to live in my own strength, under my own direction.
Nothing happens to the flesh by regeneration. I am no less subject to temptation today than before I was saved. My flesh is the same, but the person occupying the body has changed. The same sinful desires await their opportunity to spring into action, but now with the mind I serve the law of God. I have a new loyalty: I desire to live for God.
Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace. If the Spirit of God controls you, you are a Christian and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to Christ. How is it with you, my friend? Are you saved or not yet saved?