Romans 7-8: Heirs Free to Live in the Spirit

Today our journey through Paul's letter to the Romans continues, and once again Paul delivers more depth and truth in just a few paragraphs than the summation of all of the tweets ever tweeted. Ah, the days when people wrote things that mattered...

The Law

Paul begins by explaining the nature of our relationship to the law in light of Christ's redemptive work. Much like a marriage covenant, he says, the law is only binding during the duration of one's life; a woman is freed from the marriage of her husband if he dies and is able to enter into marriage with another man. In like fashion, we have been freed from our bondage to the law by participating in the death and resurrection of Christ:

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Because of our spiritual death and rebirth, we are freed from the old law and enabled to live in the Spirit instead.

Sin's Grip

Paul then speaks to the terrible and destructive nature of sin, which pervades our flesh like a cancer:

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

This passage paints a regrettably accurate picture of our ineptitude and inability to escape the clutches of our sinful nature. Even when we genuinely will to do good, we are sometimes unable to execute and find ourselves overcome by the sin that dwells within us.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

The Life of the Spirit

In stark contrast to the death that is brought about by the conviction of the law against our sinful flesh, stands the new life that is found in the Spirit of God.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

What great news! How incredible it is that God sent and condemned His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to fulfill the law required of the just and righteous God, allowing us to walk according to the Spirit knowing that no condemnation can be brought against us. Those four sentences capture the most beautiful, loving, praiseworthy event in all of history. It should leave us lying on our faces with tears of joy, overcome by grace so amazing that we can scarcely take it in.

Paul then expounds on what the life of the Spirit looks like, and what it says about how we should then live.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

This incredibly simple concept serves as a useful heuristic for quickly assessing the state of our hearts and desires; if we are constantly setting our minds on the things of the flesh (selfishness, image, sex, material objects, food, etc.), we are living according to the flesh - and that life leads to death. If we are living according to the Spirit, we will be constantly setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. What are we setting our minds on in our daily lives?

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Adopted Heirs

 One of the most important consequences of being made alive in the Spirit is that of adoption - the fact that God has bought as at a price and accepted us into communion with Him as His sons and daughters. Not because we deserve it, not because we did anything right, but because He loves us and chose to make us new.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

The fact that we are adopted sons and daughters means that we have been given the full rights of sonship/daughtership - including being co-heirs in the the Kingdom of God. That alone forms the basis of our true identity; all insecurities and pride vanish in light of the realization that we have been adopted as sons and daughters of the almighty God. We have nothing to earn, no status to prove, or name to make for ourselves. We are children of God.

A Future of Glory

Because of the new life that we have been given, one which will not fade away, we have a completely new perspective on the struggles of the current time.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

 This is completely counter-intuitive to the life of the flesh, which seeks to eliminate hardship and suffering at all costs. Consider also the hardships that Paul experienced in his life when he wrote this - the man suffered more pain and duress in the name of Christ than most of us can even comprehend. And yet he did not even find that suffering worth comparing with the glory that awaited.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Praise be to God!