Lesson 97
Romans
Chapter Eight
Freedom in Christ through the Holy Spirit
The Dynamic for living the Christian Life
Review:
With this verse, Rom 8:2, Paul is giving the reason for the believer not
being condemned to a life of servitude to the sinful nature:
- In other words, God has provided
a means of deliverance.
The means for that deliverance, he calls here, the
law of the Spirit of life.
- What Paul is leading up to here
is that we as believers have a whole new way of living, a whole new means of
enablement for living, having completely new resources available to us. Part of
the uniqueness being a church age saint in union with the King!
- Several significant things should be noted concerning Paul's statement in Romans 8:2.
1st Paul refers to two distinct laws:
The law of the Spirit of life and the law of sin and death.
- The law of the Spirit of life is the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, which enabling power is related to newness of life (Romans 6:4; 7:6 whole new framework for the believer in Christ).
- The reason that the believer is not condemned to a life of servitude to the sin nature is that the enabling power of the Holy Spirit has set him free from the ruling power of the sin nature.
- 2nd The freedom from the sin nature to which Paul refers to here is different from the freedom from that same nature to which he refers in Romans 6:7. Two things indicate this.
- #1 Paul uses two distinct words for freedom in these passages.
- #2 The freedoms spoken of in these two Passages are obtained through two different means.
Here in Romans 8:2 Paul is saying that someone much
more powerful than the sin nature has intervened on behalf of the believer and
has set him free from the ruling power of his former master. That someone is
the Holy Spirit.
Ø 8:3-4 The provision of our freedom/liberation
- Grace succeeds where the law fails; Grace motivates to holy living; while the law is unable to do so!
- There are things that the law cannot do!
The law is just but it cannot justify anyone;
The law is holy but it can not make anyone holy!
The law demanded righteousness but did not enable one live righteously.
The law points out that I am a sinner but it cannot make me a saint!
- But God intervened and He did this by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh; this phrase is critical.
- key word is likeness o`moi,wma resemblance, similarity; does not bear the co-notation of exactness as eikwn, it stresses similarity but leaves room for differences.
- He came into the world in human form, He resembled sinful humanity but
with a major difference; had no sin nature, He was w/o
personal sin;
1 Pet
- Phil 2:7 says the same thing
1. This expresses the fact that Christ became true humanity, but also was not merely humanity.
2. His becoming man did not exclude His possession of Deity.
- not an exchange but an addition of the 2nd > absolute uniqueness
3. He was in the incarnation and is today at the right hand of the Father, a person of two natures.
Never is the sin nature said to be forgiven; it is condemned!
- What is forgiven when you believe in
Christ?
- The guilt of sin is forgiven, this was dealt with in ch 3-5;
- The focus here is on the root cause of sin, the sin nature and so we have another aspect of the work of Christ on the cross for us, through His death He condemned the sin nature that resides in the flesh.
Ø 8:4 The Why of the provision of freedom for the
believer;
"in order that the requirement of the Law"
- The last phrase describes exactly who is in view; that is the ones in whom the righteous requirement of the Law is being fulfilled. (balance) "who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
- Paul doesn't define his focus at this
point;
- gives us a clue in
13:9-10; also Gal
- What about 1 Pet 1:15-16? This flows from the righteous standard of the
Law. Yet it is addressed to believers of Church age.
Can you fulfill these commandments??
-
That is, the Holy Spirit as He
ministers to you! Illuminating
the Word as He fills and empowers you.
- "who do not walk according
to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
?? Who is doing the walking?
This is a description of living the Normal Christian life!!
- The standard by which we as believers are to walk, is stated here by a negative and a positive. Not this but this!
- What Paul is describing here is the
believer who is empowered, enabled by the Spirit is the one who is not fulfilling the desires of
the flesh but is fulfilling the righteous requirement of the will of God. Living in the sphere of the will of God!
- The normal Christian life is a SUPERNATURAL LIFE and we are given SUPERNATURAL POWER TO LIVE THIS LIFE.