Romans 8:14 - Discipline and affection

We need to appreciate the fundamental nature of our relationship with God, and we need to consider what we think that relationship is. Many atheists and secularists see God as an enemy or a tyrant. Many religious people see Him as a master. When we come to Christ we become children of God. In his teaching Jesus repeatedly spoke of God as Father, not just His Father, but our Father. Now, particularly in our dysfunctional society, we need to be careful of interpreting what it says here through the lens of our society's views of fathers and families. Children were loved with affection, but there was also discipline. The two go together. We tend to focus on the affection without the discipline and this gives a wrong view. Some have focused just on the discipline without the affection. If we are to appreciate the nature of our relationship with God we need to understand both the affection and the discipline (Heb 12:7-11).

Romans 8:12,13 - Obligations

8:12

Here the distinction between “flesh” and “sinful nature” is vital to understanding what Paul is saying. In saying that “we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it” Paul is not saying we must not live according to our sinful desires. Now it is absolutely true that we should not live according to our sinful desires, but that is not what he is saying here. Paul’s argument is chapters 7 and 8 is about how we live to please God. Do we do it by living by law, ie trying to do good by our own efforts, or do we do it by the way of the Spirit? The Jews thought they had an obligation to obey the Law, to live according to it. For all of us there is a sense of what is right and wrong. That sense, or our conscience, is often good, but we then feel that we have an obligation to live out of the flesh, to seek to do good out of our own strength. We do have an obligation, but it is not to live by the flesh.

8:13

The reason we do not have an obligation to live according to the flesh is that it leads only to death. Yet it seems so right, it seems to make sense. We know what is the right, therefore we should do our best to live up to that standard. But doing so will not work because of the deep-rooted nature of sin within us, because of our corrupt nature, or total depravity, to use a Calvinist term. Instead we are to live by the Spirit, and by the Spirit we put to death the misdeeds of the body. Note that Paul certainly recognises that our bodies have wrong desires and we do wrong things, and that something needs to be done about it. It is the way we go about it that matters. Only by the Spirit can we put the misdeeds of the body to death, not out of our fleshly strength.

Romans 8:10,11 - If Christ is in you

8:10

When we gave our lives to Christ a whole series of fundamental changes took place. First, Christ is in us. Jesus said that the Father and the Son would come to make their home with us (John 14:23). Being a Christian is most definitely not about getting a ticket to heaven, it is not about giving an intellectual assent to some doctrines, it is not an emotional response. It is about being born again (John 3:3), about becoming a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). Now your body is still subject to death. This is true physically and spiritually. We all know that we still age, we still get diseases. Sometimes God may heal us miraculously but eventually this body is going to die. We also know that we still have a battle with sin. We find wrong desires within us, and sometimes these seem to have a strong hold on us. But the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.  The Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. “because of righteousness”. This can be taken in two ways. It is only because Jesus’ blood has justified us that the Holy Spirit can dwell within us. Jesus said He had to go away in order for the Spirit to come (John 16:7). Part of the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to produce righteousness in us, to sanctify us.

8:11

So the way of the flesh, the way of Law, is to have a set of rules and seek to follow these rules by our own efforts. This inevitably leads to failure, even if the rules themselves are very good. But now a new way is open. If the Holy Spirit is living in us then He will give life to our mortal bodies. Now look at this more carefully. The Holy Spirit was involved in the raising of Christ from the dead. Notice the subtle transition “He who raised Christ from the dead”. The He here is the Father, and He too will give life to us, through the Spirit. The Spirit gave life back to Christ, and He will give life to our mortal bodies as well. In the context that means that we will start to enable us to live more Christlike lives. It is also essential that the Spirit is alive and He is a person. Notice too that all this is as a result of what God does, and see the trinitarian nature of all this. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all distinct and all working perfect unity as the One God.

Romans 8:9 - Realm of the Spirit

We are no longer in the realm of the flesh, but in the realm of the Spirit. Rebellious man tries to live without God, he makes his own decisions on what is right and wrong and relies on his own resources and abilities to live. When he realises this isn’t working he might turn to God and to His ways, but if he then tries to fulfil God’s law, God’s ways, in his own strength he is still in the realm of the flesh. We might have a better set of rules or laws or principles, but the results will actually be no better because we are still in the realm of the flesh, relying on our own resources. The futility if this way is what Paul has been talking about in the previous verses. We, however, are now in the realm of the Spirit. However, we are so used to living by the flesh that we need to unlearn old ways, and learn the new way of living. A man who is in the realm of the Spirit receives inspiration and direction from the Spirit, we receive strength from Him.

Now we are only in the realm of the Spirit if we belong to Christ, and if we belong to Him His Spirit lives in us. There is no halfway house about this. If we do not have the Spirit then we do not belong to Christ.

Notice the use of the word “realm” in NIV, though the Greek actually just says in the flesh or in the Spirit. The question is, “how are we living”, by the flesh or by the Spirit.

Romans 8:7, 8 - A mind hostile to God

The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. This is where the “sinful nature” translation really falls down. The mind set on lust, lying, hatred, thieving etc is clearly hostile to God, but that is not what Paul is saying here. The person trying to please God by his own strength has his mind set on the flesh, and he will be hostile to God. Our flesh, or our human nature, will do all it can to avoid being vulnerable, to avoid having to trust in God completely, to avoid suffering. It will subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, seek its own agenda, its own independence instead of God dependence. So such a mind will not submit to God, despite outward appearances. Indeed it is utterly incapable of submitting to God. We need to realise how unnatural it is for us to trust God, to recognises the forces within ourselves that will fight against us doing so. So if our mind is controlled by the flesh, if we are relying on human effort, we will find we are completely unable to please God. A radical change in our approach to life is needed.

Romans 8:5,6 - What is your mind set on?

8:5

The NIV omits the “for” at the beginning of this verse. As I have said before, the term “sinful nature” is unhelpful, “flesh” is far better. Paul’s argument here is about how to live for Christ. The term sinful nature makes us think of overtly sinful things such as lying, sexual lust, hatred, bitterness etc. Of course these things are wrong and are often a product of the flesh, but the flesh includes much more than that. We do not realise how fundamentally opposed to God our flesh is. Our flesh does not like being vulnerable, it does not like having to depend totally upon God, it does not like suffering. If we live our lives based on the flesh, based on our human nature, we cannot please God. The choice we have is whether to make our flesh the guiding principle, or the Spirit. Now the way of law makes our flesh the guiding principle. It acknowledges that God’s ways are right and then seeks to fulfil them by relying on human effort. But our soul is utterly corrupted by sin and this will rise to the surface and thwart our attempts to please God. It is like trying to solve the problem of a polluted water supply by installing a new pump. The pump may be very good but the source of water is still polluted, so the water will still be polluted. Our souls are polluted and the only solution is to live by the Spirit.

8:6

So the mind controlled by the flesh is death. Death is the only fruit we will get from it. If instead we allow our minds to be controlled by the Spirit we will have life and peace. If we are relying on human effort we never have peace, indeed we cannot for failure is the inevitable outcome. The way of man is that the world influences our flesh and we then decide what to do. This leads to death and the world corrupts the soul. Instead we are to let the Spirit influence our spirit, our soul, we then begin to influence the world around us. There needs to be a complete reversal in the way that we live.

Romans 8:4 - Righteous requirement met in full

Because Jesus paid the price for our sins the righteous requirements of the Law are met in us. Now look at the situation. There were those who claimed that you needed to live by the Law in order to please God. Superficially this seems convincing, as does every exhortation to live a better life by human effort, but such attempts are doomed to end in failure. So how can we be righteous? The death of Jesus has paid for our sins. There are those who deny “penal substitutionary atonement”, such people are simply wrong. Unless Jesus paid the price for our sins then we are still guilty, still under condemnation. I am so glad, so relieved, that Jesus bore the price, the punishment, that should have been mine.

Now understand the role of this statement in Paul’s argument in Romans. He is now talking about living by the Spirit, and the first question is “what about your sins?”, “what about the things you have done in the past”. This is the question the Jew asked, it is also a question many sceptics will ask, though maybe in a slightly different form. The cross is the answer to that part. Jesus has paid for my sins. In the next part of chapter 8 Paul will expound on the futility of trying to live by the flesh, ie trying to please God by relying on our own strength, and the alternative of living by the Spirit.

Romans 8:3 - Sin condemned

The Law could not save, because it was powerless to do so. It could tell us what the right way to live was, and so it showed up how we all failed, how we are all guilty, but it was powerless to do do anything about the problem. It could not pay for our sins, and most importantly it could not change our human nature. “Sinful nature” is a bad translation here (as throughout chapter 8) as some translations have. The most recent NIV version has corrected this and now uses “flesh”. In Romans “flesh” is not inherently evil, rather it is weak. The root of sin lies in a very nature. So God sent His Son to save us. He sent Him in the “likeness of sinful flesh”. Now some cannot see if Jesus was fully human he could be sinless, but this is an example of where we must be very careful to follow what Scripture says. Elsewhere it says that Jesus was tempted just as we are, yet did not sin. This does not mean the temptation was not real, rather it means that Christ has triumphed over sin. Jesus is fully human and fully God. The fact that although He was truly tempted He resisted temptation means that we too can overcome temptation. Now I am not arguing for sinless perfectionism, such a notion is completely without foundation, and about two minutes of experience is usually sufficient to disprove the notion. But it does mean we can overcome, little by little, step by step, we can gain victory. We do not appreciate how wonderful man is when he lives as he is meant to do, in perfect faith and obedience to the Father. “to be a sin offering” is wrong, ESV,and NIV margin, is better “for sin”. Jesus came and lived as He did, and died as He did, because of our sin. He came specifically to deal with the problem of our sin, my sin and your sin.

Sin was condemned in human flesh. Humanity had to pay a price for sin, in Christ that price was paid. On the cross our sin was condemned. Jesus has taken all my condemnation.

Romans 8:2 - Set free

How has this happened? Why is there no longer any condemnation? “The law of the Spirit” may seem an unusual phrase, but remember (as I Frequently remind you) there were no chapter and verses in the original, and this follows on directly from what we read in chapter 7. And in the later stages of that chapter Paul has been speaking about finding “this law at work “(7:21), “the law of my mind” and being “a prisoner to the law of sin” (7:22). So it makes perfect sense for him to speak of “the law of the Spirit”. A new principle is at work in us. We have been set free. The Spirit gives us life. The gospel is about getting a new life, living a new life. The Holy Spirit is the One who gives us that life. When we are experiencing death, ie experiencing the reality of sin within us we should look to the Spirit, and we should look with hope. For it is His role and His desire to give us life. We should look to live differently, and to receive power and strength from a new source. We have been set free from the law of sin and death. Sin and death are the inevitable consequences of our fallen state, but in Christ, through the Spirit, there is freedom, there is an alternative.

Romans 8:1 - No condemnation

This is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, but probably one that we do not fully appreciate. Indeed, if we did fully appreciate it our lives would be so much richer in terms of being more Christlike. So we do well to study the chapter and seek to gain greater understanding. It has been pointed out that there is not a single imperative in the chapter, ie no direct commands. Instead it is about the new reality of life in the Spirit, and in the early parts about how the old way of life needs to go. We also need to appreciate that it all part of all that has gone before, especially the stuff in chapter 7.

There is now no condemnation. The condemnation of the old life applies in two ways. First there is the guilt and the fact that we are deserving of punishment. Then there is the condemnation we can experience as a result of chapter 7. Sometimes we sin out of lust or greed. We set out to sin and we sin. We may feel guilty at the end of it, but we knew what we were doing. That is bad enough and brings condemnation. But then, as described in chapter 7, we may decide we want to turn from our sin, we may decide that we want to do right, to be rid of our sin and do good. Then we find this terrible law at work in us, the law of sin (7:22) and instead of doing good we do more evil. This brings further condemnation, not just the guilt, but the condemnation of realising our utterly depraved state. In Christ we are set free from both these forms of condemnation. Through the blood of Jesus we are declared righteous, the price of our sin has been paid in full upon the cross. And through the Spirit we are enabled to live a new life, a life pleasing to God. It is this latter point that Paul is now focusing upon.

This freedom from condemnation applies to those who are in Christ. This is more than an intellectual assent to the gospel, more than an emotional response. We are in Christ, and He in us. We were united with Him in His death, and in His resurrection.

Romans 7:24,25 - A wretched man

7:24,25

So what are we to do? Again there are many who think this cannot refer to a post-Christian person for why would he say “what a wretched man I am”. I believe such a view fails to see what Paul is doing. He has prepared the way for what comes in chapter 8, and part of that preparation was all that he has said in the latter half of chapter 7. Being a Christian, having good intentions, but seeking to fulfil them by our own effort, living by the principle of law is utterly doomed to failure. We will find all the things he has been speaking of at work. If we are honest we all experience this at times, we try to do the right thing based on our own effort, driven by our own enthusiasm. If we do this we will fail. When we do this we may well feel like a wretched man, subject to death. But there is good news, we have been delivered through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The term “sinful nature” is a poor translation, “flesh” (as used by older translations, ESV ). As a Christian I now want to do God’s will, but I still need to overcome the flesh, I need to learn to be free from the flesh. Chapter 8 will tell us how!

Romans 7:20-23 - A law at work in me

7:20

This is almost an exact repeat of verse 17. In saying “it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” Paul is not absolving us of responsibility. Rather he is emphasising the nature and seriousness of our predicament. Being free from sin is not simply a matter of changing our mind and deciding to live differently, for we will find that we are totally unable to do that. The problem of sin is much more deep-rooted. We need to be forgiven for the guilt of sin, and we need to be set free from the power of sin. The only way that that can be achieved is through the blood of Jesus and the power of the Spirit.

7:21

If we seek righteousness, and here we mean righteousness in the sense of righteous living rather than right standing, by following the Law (or law) we will be confronted with the reality that another law is at work in us. Evil is at work in our lives, living and active.

7:22,23

Why is this so? In my inner being I may well delight in God’s law, but sin is there within me as well. Sin wages war on my mind, it is opposed to what God wants. Before I knew Christ I was a prisoner to sin. Now I know Christ, if I still try to live by the principle of law, ie by trying to do the right thing in my own strength, I will find that I am still a prisoner. Being forgiven is not enough! But more importantly, being forgiven is only part of the gospel. The cross is not the end of the gospel, it is the means to the end.

Romans 7:18,19 - I cannot do what I want to do

7:18

Many think we are fundamentally good, but that is not so. If we were fundamentally good we would both desire the good and be able to do it, but we find that we cannot. Now everyone of us is made in the image of God, but sin has corrupted that image so that we can no longer do the good we desire to do. Now we need to realise Paul here is using hyperbole. We do sometimes do good, but not all the time, and we will fail at the most crucial times. We judge ourselves so often by our desires and judge others by their actions, because we know that we are affected by others actions.

7:19

This is more or less a repeat of what Paul has already said in verses 15 and 16. He wants to do good, but ends up doing evil instead. This is something we all experience. We can have the best of intentions, but end up making a complete mess of things, sometimes even doing wrong things. Now the debate about whether Paul is speaking about pre or post Christian experience is really rather sterile and fruitless. Some argue that a Christian is no longer a slave to sin so the stuff Paul is talking about cannot be post-Christian. There are two things that can be said about this. First pre-Christian it could be questioned whether a person would have such an acute sense of right and wrong that Paul is assuming here, and, if you lean towards the Calvinist side, would tend to be against our total depravity. Secondly, and more importantly, I would venture that every Christian knows exactly what Paul is talking about here. There are times when it most definitely is our experience! Now this should not be the case all the time, but it is some of the time. For we are in the process of being sanctified, we are in the process of learning how to live a new life in the power of the Spirit. Paul is demonstrating how the way of Law cannot enable us to live a life pleasing to God. There were no chapter divisions when Paul wrote Romans, and Romans 7 and 8 are all part of the same argument. In Chapter 8 he will contrast living by the flesh and living by the Spirit.

Romans 7:15-17 - Sin is alive in me

7:15

Sin is not just something we do, it almost has a life of its own and it takes control of our lives. We may even not want to sin. Now this may seem strange as sin is usually associated with giving into pleasurable temptations. Well they may be pleasurable for a time, but then they start taking over, demanding ever more. We may then wish to be free of the sin, able to do be different and do different, but we find that we cannot. Paul is describing the battle against sin that we all experience. What he is doing here is demonstrating the futility of trying to overcome sin by purely human effort.

7:16

The fact that we do what we do not want to do shows that the Law is good. Ie we agree that the Law is right, but we are unable to do the right thing. Coming to terms with our inability is vital, otherwise we will persist in trying to overcome sin by our own strength, failing to face up to the root of the problem.

7:17

Sin takes over our lives. We are still responsible for our actions, but we lose control. Some might argue that it is unfair then for God to judge the sinner. To such a person I would ask this: Is it unfair to judge a drunken driver? Is it unfair to judge a drug addict? We make the initial choice to sin, but then find that it leads us to become increasingly addicted to the sin. We rightly judge the drunken driver because he or she should not have chosen to drink and drive, and so endanger others. We rightly detest drug addicts who make others’ lives a misery as well as their own. That is the effect of sin, it is what sin does to us and what our sin does to others. Of course, at the same time as judging and detesting we should hold out the way of salvation, the escape route that is open to all.

Romans 7:11-14 - Seizing the opportunity

7:11,12

This is clear evidence that Paul is using death in the spiritual sense. The Law is good and holy, but sin seized the opportunity. How did sin do this? The root and heart of sin is rebellion against God, it is not just a series of moral infringements. See Psalm 51:4. When we see sin as only a matter of breaking some rules, even rules which have serious consequences for others, we miss the heart of sin. The root of our problem is our rebellion against God. Sin is also deceptive, which is why we must not listen to it, and every time we do we get in a mess.

7:13

So now Paul states clearly that it is not the Law’s fault that we died, it only highlighted the nature of our predicament. The Law is good, but it only tells us what is good, it cannot change our heart, our nature. So why did God send the Law and make it so central to Israel when it was not going to save them? He did this so that the nature of sin might be made abundantly clear. Having the right laws is not enough, we need to have the right heart. For sin is active within us, it needs to be put to death, and we need to receive new life.

7:14

The Law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual. This is the root of the problem. The Law is good and its commands are good, but we, by nature, are not good. We were sold as slaves to sin. Now this verse is one which causes some to say Paul must be speaking of the unregenerate man, not the saved person. For we are no longer slaves to sin. But that is not the whole story. We do not yet enjoy complete freedom. We are hopefully better than we were, and are moving in the right direction, but we are not yet perfect. So we all experience the conflicts that Paul speaks about in this chapter. We should also remember that chapter 8 is to come. While we experience defeat, we are not destined to always experience defeat. We can overcome, but we need to understand the nature of the battle. We need to know what we have been saved from. We were slaves to sin, we need to realise how serious the situation was.

Romans 7:8-10 - Living sin

7:8

The Law brought sin alive. Being told not to covet produced in Paul the desire to covet. Sin is almost alive. We need to realise that sin is not just something we do, it is something we become, and is an active entity and without Christ we are enslaved to it. Apart from the Law, sin is dead. We need to understand that the fundamental feature of the Law is that it comes from God, from the heart of God. So it energises the rebellious nature within.

7:9

It is difficult to know exactly what Paul means when he says I was once alive apart from the Law. Perhaps he means that before he knew about the Law he was alive. Then he learnt about the Law. Far from setting him free or giving him life, it brought death, for it made him aware of what sin was. So he became more aware of his sinfulness, and the sin within him became all the more active. So he died. As an aside, there are debates regarding earlier chapters about whether death is physical or spiritual. Here Paul must be speaking about spiritual death.

7:10

Now the Law promised life yet it produced death. There is a fundamental point here, one which Paul will say more about shortly. The Law is good, there is nothing wrong about its commands. Some no longer apply, such as the ceremonial and sacrificial ones, but the morality and spirit of the Law is good. If a man, or a nation, had been able to fully keep the Law they would indeed have found life.  

The Redeemed of the Lord - Sermon preached at GCI March 13th 2016

A sermon on Isaiah 35, and a bit on Isaiah 51

Romans 7:7 - Is the law sinful?

There is great debate about whether Paul is talking about his own personal experience, and whether he talking about pre or post Christian. We need to remember that his primary concern is about the Law and its proper place in the life of a Christian. However, he now starts using the word I, something he has not done since chapter 1. So it would seem that there is at least some personal element to what he is saying. Moreover, he is not interested in the place of the Law from purely academic standpoint, in fact not at all from an academic standpoint. Paul is concerned about eternal life, about receiving and living the life that God gives us through Christ. As to the matter of whether it is pre or post conversion I suspect it is at least part post-conversion. Prior to his conversion Paul was blinded to the truth, only after that were his eyes fully opened. Moreover, our salvation is not fully realised this side of eternity. We are all too aware of the battle with sin that goes on within us, but now it is a battle that we are starting to win. In order to do that, and to make more rapid progress, we need to have a right understanding.

So Paul has said that the Law cannot bring salvation, even more than that, we are divorced from the Law. So is the Law sinful? In speaking of the Law Paul certainly has the Law (rather than “law”) in mind as he quotes from the ten commandments. The Law brought a true realisation of what sin is. He quotes the commandment on coveting and it is interesting, and perhaps significant, that this is a commandment that deals with the inner man, not just our outward actions.

Romans 7:5,6 - Serving in a new way

7:5

The latest version of the NIV says “when we were in the realm of the flesh”, older versions (along with some other translations) say “when we were controlled by our sinful nature”. “flesh” is a better translation, for “sinful nature” implies things that are overtly sinful, such as lust, hatred, immorality, selfishness etc. Now these things certainly are sinful, and if we live according to them it will certainly do us, and others, no good. However, what Paul is saying here and throughout chapter 8 is that it is our human nature, or flesh, that is inherently corrupt and will produce corruption. The law was good but our nature was not, so the good commands had the effect of arousing sinful desires. When society tries to deal with a problem it does so by producing a mountain of laws and regulations. Some of these may be good, but they will not solve the problem. The fundamental problem is us, and it is us that need to be changed. This is what the gospel does.

7:6

The old way of serving will not do any good, and we have been released from that way of life. We have died to the flesh. So we are to serve in a new way, the way of the Spirit. We are still to serve, serving God is fundamental, what is new is the way in which we serve. Serving by the way of the Law cannot work for it relies on our corrupt human nature and so will produce only bad fruit. It is like replacing the pump on a well that is drawing from contaminated water. Changing the pump does no good for the water is still coming from a contaminated source. Likewise getting a new set of rules on its own does no good. We need a new way, and that way is the way of the Spirit. We are justified through faith, and we live by the Spirit.

Romans 7:3,4 - Died to the law

7:3

This is where the confusion arises, if we interpret what Paul says strictly. However, if we remember that he is explaining a spiritual principle and not a point of law there really is no problem. If a married woman (or man) marries another man (or woman) she commits adultery. However, if the man dies then she is no longer bound by the marriage for death has ended it. She is free to marry another man. The point that Paul is making is that death ends the agreement, ends the marriage covenant. So as we died with Christ our commitment to the principle of law has ended.

7:4

Now we are described as the ones who died. Death and resurrection are fundamental to the gospel. They are fundamental to what Christ has done, and fundamental to our participation in it. We died to the law through the death of Christ. Jesus died the death we deserved to die, He suffered the penalty that should have been ours. Once the penalty is paid that is the end of the agreement, the Law no longer has any hold over us nor claim on us. And Christ died so that we could belong to another. God’s plan is not that continue on the old way of the law, but that we live a new life. We now belong to Christ, and have been released from the old way so that we could bear fruit. See that the goal is that we bear fruit for Christ. Under the old way we will not bear fruit for God.

Romans 7:2 - Released from the law

Now Paul uses the specific illustration of marriage. His use is in some ways confused as in the illustration it is the husband who dies, but in the application it we who have died, but the fundamental point is that we are free from previous commitments and we start a whole new relationship. When we give our lives to Christ everything changes.

There is a deep emotional and psychological commitment to living by law, whether it be “law” or “the Law”. This was especially true of the Jews and the Law. Their whole way of life was centred around the Law and trying to keep it. A moral person will be equally focused on trying to be good. Paul has shown in the earlier parts of Romans that such a person is still a sinner, they have still fallen short of the glory of God. Through the cross we are justified by the blood of Jesus, declared righteous. Does it matter how we live? Yes, it certainly does as Paul has said in chapters 5 and 6. How then do we live a “good life”, how do we live to please God. Our natural reaction will be to try and do this by law, ie be relying on our own efforts. If we do this we will have the same failed results as we had before we came to Christ. We need to appreciate that we are no longer bound to this way of living. There is a new way, which Paul will not get on to until chapter 8, the way of the Spirit. First he establishes our freedom to stop living by law, and the futility of trying to live by law.

Romans 7:1 - As long as you live

The term “law” here could apply specifically to the Mosaic Law, or Paul could be referring to law in general. Given that many of his readers were from a Gentile background law in general seems more likely, but given that Paul has been arguing about the place of the Law the Mosaic Law seems more appropriate. It is possible to make sense of the passage with either interpretation, and actually isn’t that crucial. For the principle of law applies to all. The argument in Romans has moved from being right with God on to how we can live a good life. How do we live for God? The human way of doing this is to have a set of rules or laws and to try and keep these by human effort. This was the way the Jews tried, and of course it was the Law that they tried to obey. Now the Law was, and is, good, but it was never intended as the means of salvation. However, as human beings we are deeply wedded to the way of law. This was particularly true of the Jews and the Law, but is true of all human beings. But the law has authority over someone only as long as they are alive. Our dying with Christ was a central part of the argument in chapter 6, and it remains so in this chapter.

Romans 6:21-23 - What good does sin do you?

6:21

What good did sin do you? There is a myth that in denying us the “right” to sin God is denying us something good. This is not true. When we say that homosexuality or transgenderism are not good we are accused of being homophobic or transphobic. This is not true. Homosexuality and transgenderism are not good and are not good for us, and nor is any sexual immorality. The gospel seeks to set us free from sin. Drunkenness and drugs are not good for us. Greed is not good for us, hatred and bitterness are not good for us. Nor, by the way, is our sin good for other people. Sin brings shame and it brings death. Sometimes it brings physical death, it always brings spiritual death.

6:22

Now things have changed. We have been set free from sin and are “slaves” of God. That is the benefit of the gospel, it is what the gospel is all about. So once we lived a life dictated by sin. Now we live a life guided by God, we live for Him. This has great benefits for our lives, it leads to holiness and eternal life. Now this does not mean that we earn eternal life by it, but that it produces eternal life. Eternal life is to do with the nature and quality of life as well as the never-endingness of life. We will notice changes within ourselves.

6:23

So the situation is this. The wages of sin are death, the gift of God is eternal life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin leads to death, death is the product of sin, it is what we get for sinning. In the gospel God freely gives us the gift of eternal life, and that is life lived in and for Christ Jesus. If you still think sinning is a desirable or viable option then you have zero understanding of what the gospel is about, or what life is about.

Romans 6:19,20 - Under the control of sin

6:19

Paul says he is using an everyday example because of their human limitations. Sin has a blinding effect on us, and even when we come to know Christ we do not see all things clearly. Indeed, even after knowing Christ for many years we all still have blind spots. So Paul uses an illustration to hopefully open their eyes. Before they were saved they offered themselves to impurity and ever increasing wickedness. This is normal behaviour for many unbelievers, though not all. Now we must offer ourselves to righteousness, this will lead to holiness. We are to live lives that are pleasing to God. This does not earn salvation, rather it is part of salvation, it is part of the fruit of salvation.

6:20

“When you were slaves to sin”. There is no debate, no argument, before we knew Christ we were slaves to sin. At that time we were free from the control of righteousness. A slave can only serve one master, not two. Righteousness did not matter. Now we should remember the context in which Paul is using righteousness in Romans. It is not just a “good” life, it includes the righteousness that Christ was earned for us, that has been given to us as a free gift. So we have received the free gift and now we are under the control of righteousness.

Romans 6:17,18 - Slaves to roghteousness

6:17

All this talk of being slaves to sin is hypothetical in the sense that Paul is just trying to show how ridiculous the notion of presenting continuing to sin as a desirable option is. In the gospel we have been set free from slavery to sin. We used to be slaves to sin, but because of what Christ has done that is no longer the case. Now see what he says next, “you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching ..” Believing the gospel, believing in Jesus, involves obedience, it involves a change of heart, it involves committing ourselves to a “pattern of teaching”. Cheap grace teaching is not gospel teaching.

6:18

So we used to be slaves to sin, we are now slaves to righteousness. In the next verse Paul makes clear that he is just using this terminology to illustrate a point. The new paragraph in the NIV is unfortunate. What he is saying is that while our lives used to be dominated by sin, so now they are to be dominated by righteousness. The analogy of a slave is useful in describing the power that sin had over us. A slave will obey its master, often the master will mistreat the slave. The sinner will obey sin, but he will rarely be happy doing it, often getting beaten up by the sin.

Romans 6:15,16 - Everyone has to serve somebody

6:15

So then? Does grace mean we should sin. Absolutely not! There is a common misconception that because we are freely and completely forgiven it means that we can do what we like and God will forgive us. Nothing could be further from the truth and shows nothing but a complete and utter failure to comprehend what the gospel is about. Moreover there is an implicit assumption that sin is actually good for you, or that life will somehow be more enjoyable or better if you sin. This is not the case. Sin is utterly destructive, it destroys you and those around you. Our lives are so much better if we do not sin, in fact the less we sin the more alive we are. If you think of the gospel as being a means of sinning and getting away with it then you are an utter fool. You need to open your eyes and see the truth. Instead, what the gospel offers is a way of being free from sin. Forgiven for the sins we have committed and set free from slavery to sin.

6:16

Sin tempts us to obey it, to follow its enticements. But if we do that we then find ourselves as slaves to sin. For we are choosing to obey sin. Have you ever thought of it like that when tempted? It puts a whole different complexion on things. The next time we feel tempted we should ask ourselves “do I want to obey sin?”. The choice is whether we obey sin and so become a slave, and a slave to something that leads to death. Or do we obey God and become a slave to obedience that leads to righteousness? Who do you want as your master: sin or God?

Romans 6:13,14 - Sin shall no longer be your master

6:13

What do we offer ourselves to? As Bob Dylan famously said, everybody has to serve somebody. The question is what are we going to do with our bodies? Are we going to ourselves to sin? For that is what we do when we choose to sin, and we will become an instrument of wickedness. Is that what we want to be? Or are we going to offer ourselves to God? For we have been brought from death to life, why continue to live in death? If we ourselves to God we will be instruments of righteousness. So there is a choice set before us and the choice should be obvious.

6:14

When we sin, sin is our master. Do we want to be under slavery? We were set free, we were saved so that we could be free, not so that we could continue to be slaves. When we were under Law we had no choice, we were by nature slaves. But we are now under grace, not under the Law, and far from giving an excuse to sin, it is the reason, the motivation and the enabling for us to live a life for God.

Romans 6:11,12 - A great answer to a stupid question

6:11

We now get the answer to the “stupid question” - should we go on sinning? We should count ourselves dead to sin. Sin makes demands upon us, insisting that we give in to its temptations and act according to its ways. What is our response to be? To count ourselves dead to sin. A tyrant can make as many demands as he likes of a dead person, he will get no response. No matter how powerful the tyrant is, no matter what power he used to have over the slave, once the slave is dead he has no power left. We should consider ourselves in the same position with regard to sin. We count ourselves as dead to sin. We do not listen to it, do not pay any heed to it.

Instead we consider ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus. We listen to Him, we respond to Him, we seek to please Him and follow His ways.

6:12

It is in this chapter that we get the first commands or instructions from Paul. In verse 11 we had “count yourselves ...”, now we get “do not let  sin reign in your mortal body”. The gospel is all about what God has done through Jesus Christ. How He has justified us. How He has conquered death. How He has given us new life. But all this is to enable us to be a people who can obey Him, who can live Christlike lives. Instead of being people who are slaves to sin, we become people who are free to serve. And we have to take action. We have to choose, we have to make decisions. The flesh still makes demands upon us, it still has evil desires. But now we are able to do battle and to win. We will not suddenly become sinless, any such teaching is wrong and leads down a blind alley. But step by step we can gain the victory, we can take territory in our lives.

Romans 6:9,10 - Do you want to live for God?

6:9

Atheists like to caricature Christianity as believing something despite the evidence. Nothing could be further from the truth. “We know Christ was raised from the dead”. Our faith is based upon solid facts, and the most fundamental is that Christ was raised from the dead. Christ’s resurrection was very different from that of Lazarus, for Lazarus died of something else later. Christ rose never to die again. He was raised to eternal life, and we too will be raised to eternal life. When we are raised things will change forever, we will change forever. Death no longer has mastery over Christ.

6:10

So why did Christ die? For He was perfect, He was without sin, yet He still died. He died because of our sin, and He died to sin. He died to make an end of sin, to do away with it. Remember Paul is still dealing with the nonsensical question “shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase” (6:1). So suppose I say I believe in Christ, what am I believing in? I am saying I believe that Christ died for my sins, He died carrying the guilt of my sin. And then He rose again, and the life He lived before the cross, and the life He lives now He lives for God. He died to that I too can live for God. Only become a Christian if you want to live for God. In fact the offer of the gospel is “do you want to live for God?”. If you don’t then the gospel has nothing to offer you and you can continue on your not so merry way to hell.

Romans 6:7,8 - Set free

6:7

The Greek doesn’t actually say “has been set free from sin”, but “has been justified from sin”. In the previous verse Paul has said that Christ died so that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Now he says this is because we have been justified from sin. Our justification in Christ means that sin no longer has any claim on us. A master can tell his slave what to do and can beat him up if he refuses to do it. But if the slave has died then the master can do nothing.

But why does being “justified from sin” make us free from sin? Part of the judgement on sin is that we are made slaves to it. In earlier chapters Paul has spoken of God giving people over to sinful desires. We are no longer under that judgement, for we have been declared righteous. We have no longer been given over to sin.

6:8

But being set free is not the whole story, dying to sin is only part of it. We have also been raised with Christ so we will also live with Him. The cross is central to the gospel, but we need to realise that it is not the goal, rather it is the means to the goal, or the gateway through which we must pass. The goal is that we become like Christ, that we live a new life, a resurrection life. Christ died so that we could live. Being forgiven and set free from sin was a necessary part of it, without which nothing else could happen. But it is not the end, rather it is the beginning. We are set free for a reason.

Romans 6:5,6 - United in death, united in life

6:5

So far Paul’s emphasis has been on our being united with Christ in His death, now he puts more emphasis on our being united with Him in His resurrection life. The phrase “united with him” can be looked at as being “grafted in” in the sense in which one plant can be grafted onto another. We were not naturally part of Christ, but through faith have been grafted onto Him. Through faith we become a part of Him, we are “in Christ”. This means we are united with Him in His death, and united with Him in His life. Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father, He has now been raised from the dead. So we share in a life of obedience, and a life that is being set free from sin, death and the devil. In such a scenario seeing sin as a viable option is a nonsense.

6:6

“old self” has connotations of a worn out old self. Our old self has proved itself to be defective, useless. Our old-self was crucified with Christ. This does not mean that we will never struggle with sin, for the following sections, along with every book in the New Testament, give us instruction on how to overcome sin, and on seeking forgiveness and forgiving others. It does mean we have consigned the old-self to the scrapheap. And the purpose of this was that we be set free from slavery to sin. To be a sinner is not actually a desirable state. There may be short-term pleasures, but the result is always the same. The sin enslaves and brings destruction. But the purpose of the cross is that we are set free from sin, that we are no longer slaves. Any other view of the gospel is seriously warped and mistaken.