Romans 8:2,3 - Free in Christ Jesus

8:2

“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death”. The “set you” here may actually be “set me”. Paul is not presenting theological theory here, but a living reality, one he experienced in his own life. There are debates about whether it should be “law” or “Law”. I don’t actually think it really matters, for as I have said before, being set free from the Law does not mean that the moral requirements of the Law no longer apply. Rather it is the way of trying to please God, the principle of living by the Law goes as follows. God gives us His requirements and we are told to fulfil them, we are then left to our own devices to rey and do that. The inevitable result is failure, as explained in chapter 7. The gospel presents a new way of serving God.

8:3

The Law was powerless to improve things. Largely because it was powerless to improve us! The Law could tell us how we should live, but it could not change our fundamental nature, which is a sinful nature. The Law was “weakened by the flesh”. So was the Law a failure? No. It was never intended to be the means of salvation, for God is quite clever and knew full well that we could not live up to its demands. So why did God bother with the Law? For there is an awful lot of the Bible taken up with the Law, and many centuries spent with Israel periodically trying to live by the Law, and spending an awful lot of time disobeying the Law. I believe there were two purposes to the Law. One was to demonstrate our need for the salvation of the gospel, salvation in Christ. The other is that it acts as a restraint. It limits the effects of our sinful nature.  Marriage is an example of this. Even not so good marriages benefit individuals and society.

Leviticus 19:18,19 - Do not seek revenge

19:18

“Love your neighbour”. Sceptics are sometimes keen on speaking favourably of “love your neighbour” while condemning the Old Testament laws on sexual morality, forgetting, are morelikely being totally ignorant, of the fact that “love your neighbour” comes in the midst of the holiness code. The “love” here is not sentimentality or wishy-washy love. It is given in the context of not seeking revenge or bearing a grudge. What we are to do instead of seeking revenge or bearing a grudge is dealing with matters. Sometimes matters that upset us are really trivial and the answer is to just forget about them, others are more serious and the matter needs to be properly addressed.

19:19

There are some similar laws on not mixing things in Dt 22:9-11. No reason is given for these prohibitions and we find it hard to see the point. The first two prohibitions may be concerned with not mixing species, not joining what God has separated. The prohibition of mixing two kinds of materials is harder to understand.

Romans 8:1 - No condemnation

8:1

From the gloom of chapter 7 we move to the delights of Romans 8. However, Rom 7:6 gave us a hint of the light, talking about serving in the new way of the Spirit. Chapter 8 also continues the theme of the futility of serving out of the flesh, out of our human nature. It is so vital that we appreciate this futility, for our default position is to try and please God by our own efforts.

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ”. Being “in Christ” is the key to everything, the foundation on which we must build”. Everything stems from Christ, and Jesus said “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). How is there “no condemnation”? I think this occurs in two ways. Formally, or legally, we are no longer under condemnation. Christ has paid the penalty for our sins, and His righteousness has been imputed to us. Paul has spoken about this in the early chapters of Romans, but now he is more concerned with the experiential side. Wanting to do the right thing, to please God, but ending up doing the exact opposite brings about feelings of hopelessness and condemnation (Rom 7:18). This chapter talks about a new way of living. We are not completely transformed in an instant, but we are set on a fruitful road.

Leviticus 19:16,17 - Do not spread slander

19:16

We are not to slander anyone. Sadly this is a common political tactic, either to spread falsehoods about a person, or to bring up stuff from many years ago which can be used to embarrass them. Nor are we to do anything that endangers our neighbours life. How we live has an effect on the lives of others, so we need to be careful how we live. It is not just about me!

19:17

The attitude of our heart is not just a New Testament thing. The Sermon on the Mount did not actually contain much that was radically new, rather it gave a proper interpretation of the Law. The attitude of our heart was important in the Law. We should also note that “heart” is not just about feelings, but is the decision centre. It then tells us to rebuke our neighbour frankly. People will do things against us, or that cause us harm in one way or another. There is a tendency to hide these things, while harbouring vengeful thoughts in our minds. The pseudo-Christian response is to pretend these things don’t matter. The proper Biblical response is to deal with them openly.

Romans 7:24,25 - Wretched man that I am!

7:24

This is a terrible place to be in, and Paul has been describing the nature of this torment. “Wretched man that I am!” This is a body of death. We think that if we want to do the right thing, if we plan to do the right thing, then we will get there, or at least make progress towards it. Instead we find an indomitable force at work within us, the force of sin, a force that is stronger than us. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Is there any hope for us? Is there any way of escape?

7:25

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Yes there is an escape, we do have a saviour, and His name is Jesus Christ the Lord. Having reached this high point Paul then seems to immediately come down again into the depths. What he is doing is summing up the argument of this chapter, and the solution to the problem will be explained in the next chapter. The problem is summed up as being that we serve the Law of God with our mind. I.e. we may genuinely want to live according to God’s ways. Even in the world which has rejected a lot of God’s ways, there is still a desire to do right, even if the world’s concept of “right” is often severely distorted from the truth and is actually “wrong”. So we are committed to doing right, but in practice we find ourselves doing the opposite.

Leviticus 19:14,15 - Do not curse the deaf

19:14

“Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind”. To do any of these things is to show contempt for the person, and thus for their Maker. Every single person was created by God, and we are to respect them as such. If we treat them with contempt we open ourselves up to God’s judgement. This verse also shows that having a disability does not make you less of a person, and they are definitely not to be viewed as someone cursed by God.

19:15

A similar verse can be found in Ex 23:3, and we note again that not perverting justice means neither the rich nor the poor are to be shown favouritism. Everyone is to be judged fairly. Our society with its emphasis on victimhood is going down a wrong road. Obviously the rich and powerful have a far greater ability to act unjustly than the poor and weak, but justice applies to all.

Romans 7:21-23 - I delight in the Law of God

7:21

The Law tells us what is good, but even if we assent to this, commit ourselves to it, we then find that “evil lies close at hand”. We need to accept the true nature of ourselves, and of sin within us. Unless we do so we will never appreciate the need for Christ. It isn’t just a matter of accepting that sin is bad, it is accepting that we cannot in our own strength overcome it.

7:22,23

For we may delight in the Law in our minds, we may truly want to do the right thing. But when we try to act this out, to live this out, we find another law at work, something at work within us that we cannot seem to overcome. There is a conflict within which causes inner torment, something that Luther knew all about and only found release when he truly understood Galatians. This torment is the product of genuinely wanting to live according to God’s ways, and then finding ourselves incapable of doing so, we find a driving force within taking us in the exact opposite direction. So instead of being captive to the Law of God, we find ourselves captive to the law of Sin.