《Romans—Verse by Verse (Vol. 2)》(William R. Newell)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Eight.
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
Chapter Eleven.
Chapter Twelve.
Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter Fourteen.
Chapter Fifteen.
Chapter Sixteen.
Spiritual Order of Paul’s Epistles
Chapter 8The Holy Spirit's Work in the Believer: as Against the Flesh, verses 1-13;
As Witnessing our Sonship and Heirship--even though Suffering, verses 14-25;
As Helping our Infirmity by Intercession, verses 26, 27.
God's Great Purpose in His Elect: Conformity to Christ's Image, and Association with Him: Their Heavenly Destiny. All Earthly Providences for their Good. Verses 28-30.
Triumphant Response of Faith to These Things! Verses 31-34.
No Separation from God's Love, since it is IN Christ Jesus our Lord! Verses 35-39.
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. 6 For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and 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 Rom 3:21-5:11(Rom 3:21-31, Rom 4:1-13, Rom 4:14-25, Rom 5:1-11). 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" (Rom 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--bema(G968) (2Co 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.)
For[166]the 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(Rom 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 deliverance [167] 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, sarx(G4561)), 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--Rom 3:21; Rom 6:14; Rom 7:4, Rom 7:6) 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 Luk 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(G4012)) in the words and for sin is the common word in the Septuagint for sacrifices for sin. But it refers here in Rom 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(Rom 8:9) and 7:5(Rom 7:5). Compare Eph 2:1-3.
Now, in Chapter 8.3(Rom 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 (Rom 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 Rom 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" (2Co 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 Rom 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 (Leviticus 4)(Lev 4:11-12), 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]