Lesson 27 & 28 March 3, 2002

Romans Chapter Eight

Freedom in Christ through the Holy Spirit

The Dynamic for living the Christian Life

Introduction:

Overview: help us get a view of the chapter;

1. The believer's liberation/freedom 8:1-11 vs:2 "has set us free"

2. The believer's obligation 8:12-17 v.12 "under obligation"

3. The believer's glorification 8:18-25 v.18 "glory to be revealed"

4. The believer's provision 8:26-30 v.26 "helps our weakness"

5. The believer's protection 8:31-39 series of 4 rhetorical questions:

- Its interesting, I believe, that he begins the chapter with an objective statement of the believers status, no condemnation;

and he ends it by answering a question, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?? No one or nothing at all! Impossible!

Ø 8:1 Our liberation

How does this fit with what we just saw in chapter 7, the struggle, the defeat of 7 and now the glory of chapter 8.

- What we have to ask and answer is this; no condemnation on what basis?

Ø Rom. 8:1 Beginning of the Believers Freedom; The Announcement of No Condemnation

There are actually 2 ways to look at what Paul means by "no condemnation here."

1. You take it to refer back to Rom 3:21-5:21 whole section dealing with justification by faith

2. We can take the retrospective aspect to go back to the more immediate context, that of Rom 7.

There are two questions that should naturally arise, based on the ongoing struggle that we noted in ch-7.

#1 Must we as believers spend our whole life on earth frustrated by ongoing defeats at the hand of the indwelling sin nature?

#2 Is there not a power provided to achieve victory?

Reasons for a shorter look back to immediate context!

- 1st Romans 6--8 deals mainly with the subject of sanctification, not justification.

- 2nd The next verse (Romans 8:2), presents the reason why believers are under no condemnation, deals with freedom from domination by the sinful nature, not with freedom from guilt and penalty of sin.

- 3rd The sentence in which the words "no condemnation" appear is joined to the immediately preceding context by the word "therefore," the conjunction a;ra.

- Paul is saying that, since God has provided the believer with deliverance from the power of the sinful nature, the believer is not condemned to a life of servitude to that nature.

Ø 8:2 Expands on our new freedom

God has provided a means of deliverance.

The means for that deliverance, he calls here, the law of the Spirit of life.

- He has also done something else for us when we believed, and that is what Paul is emphasizing here, "has set us free from the law of sin and of death."

- 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 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.

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.

- 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!

- 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."

- The standard by which we as believers are to walk, is stated here by a negative and a positive. Not this but this!

This is a description of the Normal Christian life!!

- The normal Christian life is a SUPERNATURAL LIFE and we are given SUPERNATURAL POWER TO LIVE THIS LIFE.

Ø Phil 2:12-13 speaks to the balance we have of between choice and the strengthening or empowering of the Holy Spirit.

- Our responsibility in 2:12 to work out our salvation, to carry our salvation to its logical goal and objective is linked here by the causal particle -> gar - which introduces the means, the power and ability available to us to fulfill our responsibilities as believer's.

What Paul is saying here is that God is the source of the power, the enablement to fulfill our responsibilities as Bel's, the goal, the objective He has for us.

*** REM: God never demands anything w/o providing the means the power to execute fully those demands.

"...both to will and to work for His good pleasure.."

The result is the bel'r accomplishing "...His good pleasure..."

** Good translation: "..inspiring both the will and the deed for His own purpose."

We see here in these verses the bringing together of man's responsibility and God's enablement in the life of grace with great power.

All volitional choices are then molded by the will of God, DVPT and the resulting actions of the believer then take place out of loving obedience to God.

The only way we will KNOW the WILL of God, and therefore be able to please Him or as Paul is saying here that our will and desires will be the same as those of God, if we know the Word of God because it is through His Word that we learn who He is and what He desires for us.