There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 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, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered. He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–27 1. There is then, etc. After having described the…
1. There is then, etc. After having described the contest which the godly have perpetually with their own flesh, he returns to the consolation, which was very needful for them, and which he had before mentioned; and it was this, — That though they were still beset by sin, they were yet exempt from the power of death, and from every curse, provided they lived not in the flesh but in the Spirit: for he joins together these three things, — the imperfection under which the faithful always labor, — the mercy of God in pardoning and forgiving it, —and the regeneration of the Spirit; and this indeed in the last place, that no one should flatter himself with a vain notion, as though he were freed from the curse, while securely indulging in the meantime his own flesh. As then the carnal man flatters himself in vain, when in no way solicitous to reform his life, he promises to himself impunity under the pretense of having this grace; so the trembling consciences of the godly have an invincible fortress, for they know that while they abide in Christ they are beyond every danger of condemnation. We shall now examine the words.
After the Spirit. Those who walk after the Spirit are not such as have wholly put off all the emotions of the flesh, so that their whole life is redolent with nothing but celestial perfection; but they are those who sedulously labor to subdue and mortify the flesh, so that the love of true religion seems to reign in them. He declares that such walk not after the flesh; for wherever the real fear of God is vigorous, it takes away from the flesh its sovereignty, though it does not abolish all its corruptions.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 The fruits of the Spirit, or effects of sanctification,…
The fruits of the Spirit, or effects of sanctification, which is begun in us, do not ingraft us into Christ, but do declare that we are grafted into him.
A conclusion of all the former disputation from Rom 1:16 even to this place: Seeing that we being justified by faith in Christ, do obtain remission of sins and imputation of righteousness, and are also sanctified, it followeth hereof, that they that are grafted into Christ by faith, are out of all fear of condemnation.
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Follow not the flesh for their guide: for he is not said to live after the flesh, that hath the holy Ghost for his guide, though sometimes he step away.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–27 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them…
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Ver. 1. There is therefore now] Now, after such bloody wounds and gashes, chronicled Rom 7:1-25. Though carried captive, and sold under sin, yet not condemned, as might well have been expected. This the apostle doth here worthily admire.
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No condemnation] Non una condemnatio; ουδεν κατακριμα, not one condemnation. There is none in heaven, God doth not condemn them: none on earth, their own heart and conscience doth not condemn them: no word, no commandment, no threatening. An unbeliever shall have a double condemnation; one from the law which he hath transgressed, and another from the gospel, which he hath despised: as a malefactor, that being condemned and dead in law, rejecteth his prince’s pardon. But it is otherwise with those that are in Christ Jesus. The law cannot condemn them, because they have appealed: the gospel cannot, because they have believed. God will "cast out condemnation for ever," as one renders that place, Mat 12:10, εως αν εκβαλη εις νικος την κρισιν. (Lud. de Dieu.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–27 There is therefore now; seeing things are so as…
There is therefore now; seeing things are so as I have said, since believers do not allow themselves in sin, Rom 7:15, and are in part delivered from it, as Rom 8:25, therefore it follows as it is here.
No condemnation; or no one condemnation. He doth not say, there is no matter of condemnation, or nothing damnable in them that are in Christ, there is enough and enough of that; but he says, there is no actual condemnation to such: see Joh 3:18; 5:24. There is a meiosis in the words, more is understood than is expressed; he means, that justification and eternal salvation is the portion of such. The positive is included in the negative; it is God’s condemnation only, from which such as are in Christ are exempted; they are nevertheless condemned and censured by men, and sometimes by their own consciences too.
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To them which are in Christ Jesus; so we fill it up, but in the original it is only, to them in Christ Jesus. The phrase imports, that there is a mystical and spiritual union between Christ and believers. This is sometimes expressed by Christ’s being in them, Rom 8:10; 2Co 13:5; Col 1:17; and here by their being in Christ: see 1Co 1:30; 1Jo 5:20. Christ is in believers by his Spirit, and believers are in Christ by faith.
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit: this clause describes the persons who are united to Christ, or who are exempted from condemnation; they are such as walk not, & c. By flesh understand the corrupt nature that is in man: see Rom 7:18,25; Joh 3:6; Gal 5:17; to walk after it, is to be led and guided by the motions of it. That is, it is not their principle and guide, there is another nature or principle in them, by which they are guided and acted; and what that is the next words tell you.
By the Spirit some understand the person of the Spirit; others, the grace of the Spirit, the new or divine nature (as it is called) which is implanted in the soul in the work of regeneration: this is called the Spirit, Mat 26:41; Joh 3:6; Gal 5:17. To walk after the Spirit, is to be led and guided by the counsels and motions thereof. It is to regulate and order the whole conversation according to the rule of the new creature, or according to the line and square of God’s word and Spirit. You have the same phrase, Gal 5:16,25. To walk after the Spirit, is not only now and then to have some good motions, or to do some good actions, but it is to persevere and go forward therein; walking is a continued and progressive motion. The connexion of these two shows that negative holiness is not enough; we must not only abstain from evil, but do good.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27 Observe here, 1. The apostle doth not say, there…
Observe here, 1. The apostle doth not say, there is no corruption in them that are in Christ Jesus, but there is no condemnation to them. Perfection in holiness is the saint’s aim in this life, his attainment only in the next.
2. He doth not say, there is no correction belongs to them, but no condemnation; corrected they may be, condemned they never shall be; yea, they are therefore corrected, that they may never be condemned.
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3. The apostle doth not say, there is nothing that deserves condemnation, nothing damnable in them,; but not actual condemnation belonging to them.
4. He doth not say, there is no condemnation to this or that particular believer, to himself, and such as had attained to the like measures and degrees of grace with himself; but he extends the privilege to all believers indefinitely, There is no condemnation to them; that is, to any of them that are in Christ Jesus.
5. He says not, there shall be no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but there is now none: he hath everlasting life, and is already passed from death to life.
6. Our apostle doth not say, there are not many condemnations belonging to them, but not any: dzeey, not one either from law or gospel; for the gospel has its condemnatory sentence as well as the law; yea, the highest and sorest condemnation is that which the gospel denounces, This is the condemnation, that light, &c Joh 3:19.
Learn hence, 1. That it is a great felicity and happiness, not to be obnoxious to condemnation.
2. That this felicity and happiness is the portion of all those, and only those, that are in Christ Jesus; not by external federation, and visible profession only, but by virtue of a personal implantation into him by faith.
Learn, 3. That such as are thus in Jesus Christ, obey not the inclinations of corrupt nature, but the holy motions of the blessed Spirit of God.
Learn, 4. That a uniform and constant course of holy walking in the paths of sincere obedience, is both the indubitable mark and character, and also the indispensable duty and obligation, of all such as are freed by Christ from condemnation.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 17, 26 I. The apostle here beings with one signal privilege…
I. The apostle here beings with one signal privilege of true Christians, and describes the character of those to whom it belongs: There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, Rom 8:1. This is his triumph after that melancholy complaint and conflict in the foregoing chapter - sin remaining, disturbing, vexing, but, blessed be God, not ruining. The complaint he takes to himself, but humbly transfers the comfort with himself to all true believers, who are all interested in it. 1. It is the unspeakable privilege and comfort of all those that are in Christ Jesus that there is therefore now no condemnation to them. He does not say, "There is no accusation against them," for this there is; but the accusation is thrown out, and the indictment quashed. He does not say, "There is nothing in them that deserves condemnation," for this there is, and they see it, and own it, and mourn over it, and condemn themselves for it; but it shall not be their ruin. He does not say, "There is no cross, no affliction to them or no displeasure in the affliction," for this there may be; but no condemnation. They may be chastened of the Lord, but not condemned with the world. Now this arises from their being in Christ Jesus; by virtue of their union with him through faith they are thus secured. They are in Christ Jesus, as in their city of refuge, and so are protected from the avenger of blood. He is their advocate, and brings them off. There is therefore no condemnation, because they are interested in the satisfaction that Christ by dying made to the law. In Christ, God does not only not condemn them, but is well pleased with them, Mat 17:5. 2. It is the undoubted character of all those who are so in Christ Jesus as to be freed from condemnation that they walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Observe, The character is given from their walk, not from any one particular act, but from their course and way. And the great question is, What is the principle of the walk, the flesh or the spirit, the old or the new nature, corruption or grace? Which of these do we mind, for which of these doe we make provision, by which of these are we governed, which of these do we take part with?
II. This great truth, thus laid down, he illustrates in the following verses; and shows how we come by this great privilege, and how we may answer this character.
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1. How we come by these privileges - the privilege of justification, that there is no condemnation to us - the privilege of sanctification, that we walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh, which is no less our privilege than it is our duty. How comes it about?
(1.) The law could not do it, Rom 8:3. It could neither justify nor sanctify, neither free us from the guilt nor from the power of sin, having not the promises either of pardon or grace. The law made nothing perfect: It was weak. Some attempt the law made towards these blessed ends, but, alas! it was weak, it could not accomplish them: yet that weakness was not through any defect in the law, but through the flesh, through the corruption of human nature, by which we became incapable either of being justified or sanctified by the law. We had become unable to keep the law, and, in case of failure, the law, as a covenant of works, made no provision, and so left us as it found us. Or understand it of the ceremonial law; that was a plaster not wide enough for the wound, it could never take away sin, Heb 10:4.
(2.) The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus does it, Rom 8:2. The covenant of grace made with us in Christ is a treasury of merit and grace, and thence we receive pardon and a new nature, are freed from the law of sin and death, that is, both from the guilt and power of sin - from the course of the law, and the dominion of the flesh. We are under another covenant, another master, another husband, under the law of the Spirit, the law that gives the Spirit, spiritual life to qualify us for eternal. The foundation of this freedom is laid in Christ's undertaking for us, of which he speaks Rom 8:3, God sending his own Son. Observe, When the law failed, God provided another method. Christ comes to do that which the law could not do. Moses brought the children of Israel to the borders of Canaan, and then died, and left them there; but Joshua did that which Moses could not do, and put them in possession of Canaan. Thus what the law could not do Christ did. The best exposition of this verse we have Heb 10:1-10. To make the sense of the words clear, which in our translation is a little intricate, we may read it thus, with a little transposition: - God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, etc., Rom 8:4. Observe, [1.] How Christ appeared: In the likeness of sinful flesh. Not sinful, for he was holy, harmless, undefiled; but in the likeness of that flesh which was sinful. He took upon him that nature which was corrupt, though perfectly abstracted from the corruptions of it. His being circumcised, redeemed, baptized with John's baptism, bespeaks the likeness of sinful flesh. The bitings of the fiery serpents were cured by a serpent of brass, which had the shape, through free from the venom, of the serpents that bit them. It was great condescension that he who was God should be made in the likeness of flesh; but much greater that he who was holy should be made in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, - here the best Greek copies place the comma. God sent him, en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias, kai peri hamartias - in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sacrifice for sin. The Septuagint call a sacrifice for sin no more than peri hamartias - for sin; so Christ was a sacrifice; he was sent to be so, Heb 9:26. [2.] What was done by this appearance of his: Sin was condemned, that is, God did therein more than ever manifest his hatred of sin; and not only so, but for all that are Christ's both the damning and the domineering power of sin is broken and taken out of the way. He that is condemned can neither accuse nor rule; his testimony is null, and his authority null. Thus by Christ is sin condemned; though it live and remain, its life in the saints is still but like that of a condemned malefactor. it was by the condemning of sin that death was disarmed, and the devil, who had the power of death, destroyed. The condemning of sin saved the sinner from condemnation. Christ was made sin for us (Co2 5:21), and, being so made, when he was condemned sin was condemned in the flesh of Christ, condemned in the human nature: So was sanctification made to divine justice, and way made for the salvation of the sinner. [3.] The happy effect of this upon us (Rom 8:4): That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. Both in our justification and in our sanctification, the righteousness of the law if fulfilled. A righteousness of satisfaction for the breach of the law is fulfilled by the imputation of Christ's complete and perfect righteousness, which answers the utmost demands of the law, as the mercy-seat was as long and as broad as the ark. A righteousness of obedience to the commands of the law is fulfilled in us, when by the Spirit the law of love is written upon the heart, and that love is the fulfilling of the law, Rom 13:10. Though the righteousness of the law is not fulfilled by us, yet, blessed be God, it is fulfilled in us; there is that to be found upon and in all true believers which answers the intention of the law. Us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This is the description of all those that are interested in this privilege - they act from spiritual and not from carnal principles; as for others, the righteousness of the law will be fulfilled upon them in their ruin. Now,
2. Observe how we may answer to this character, Rom 8:5, etc.
(1.) By looking to our minds. How may we know whether we are after the flesh or after the Spirit? By examining what we mind, the things of the flesh or the things of the spirit. Carnal pleasure, worldly profit and honour, the things of sense and time, are the things of the flesh, which unregenerate people mind. The favour of God, the welfare of the soul, the concerns of eternity, are the things of the Spirit, which those that are after the Spirit do mind. The man is as the mind is. The mind is the forge of thoughts. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he, Pro 23:7. Which way do the thoughts move with most pleasure? On what do they dwell with most satisfaction? The mind is the seat of wisdom. Which way go the projects and contrivances? whether are we more wise for the world or for our souls? phronousi ta tēs sarkos - they savour the things of the flesh; so the word is rendered, Mat 16:23. It is a great matter what our savour is, what truths, what tidings, what comforts, we do most relish, and are most agreeable to us. Now, to caution us against this carnal-mindedness, he shows the great misery and malignity of it, and compares it with the unspeakable excellency and comfort of spiritual-mindedness. [1.] It is death, Rom 8:6. It is spiritual death, the certain way to eternal death. It is the death of the soul; for it is its alienation from God, in union and communion with whom the life of the soul consists. A carnal soul is a dead soul, dead as a soul can die. She that liveth in pleasure is dead (Ti1 5:6), not only dead in law as guilty, but dead in state as carnal. Death includes all misery; carnal souls are miserable souls. But to be spiritually minded, phronēma tou pneumatos - a spiritual savour (the wisdom that is from above, a principle of grace) is life and peace; it is the felicity and happiness of the soul. The life of the soul consists in its union with spiritual things by the mind. A sanctified soul is a living soul, and that life is peace; it is a very comfortable life. All the paths of spiritual wisdom are paths of peace. It is life and peace in the other world, as well as in this. Spiritual-mindedness is eternal life and peace begun, and an assuring earnest of the perfection of it. [2.] It is enmity to God (Rom 8:7), and this is worse than the former. The former speaks the carnal sinner a dead man, which is bad; but this speaks him a devil of a man. It is not only an enemy, but enmity itself. It is not only the alienation of the soul from God, but the opposition of the soul against God; it rebels against his authority, thwarts his design, opposes his interest, spits in his face, spurns at his bowels. Can there be a greater enmity? An enemy may be reconciled, but enmity cannot. How should this humble us for and warn us against, carnal-mindedness! Shall we harbour and indulge that which is enmity to God our creator, owner, ruler, and benefactor? To prove this, he urges that it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The holiness of the law of God, and the unholiness of the carnal mind, are as irreconcilable as light and darkness. The carnal man may, by the power of divine grace, be made subject to the law of God, but the carnal mind never can; this must be broken and expelled. See how wretchedly the corrupt will of man is enslaved to sin; as far as the carnal mind prevails, there is no inclination to the law of God; therefore wherever there is a change wrought it is by the power of God's grace, not by the freedom of man's will. Hence he infers (Rom 8:8), Those that are in the flesh cannot please God. Those that are in a carnal unregenerate state, under the reigning power of sin, cannot do the things that please God, wanting grace, the pleasing principle, and an interest in Christ, the pleasing Mediator. The very sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, Pro 15:8. Pleasing God is our highest end, of which those that are in the flesh cannot but fall short; they cannot please him, nay, they cannot but displease him. We may know our state and character,
(2.) By enquiring whether we have the Spirit of God and Christ, or not (Rom 8:9): You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. This expresses states and conditions of the soul vastly different. All the saints have flesh and spirit in them; but to be in the flesh and to be in the Spirit are contrary. It denotes our being overcome and subdued by one of these principles. As we say, A man is in love, or in drink, that is, overcome by it. Now the great question is whether we are in the flesh or in the Spirit; and how may we come to know it? Why, by enquiring whether the Spirit of God dwell in us. The Spirit dwelling in us is the best evidence of our being in the Spirit, for the indwelling is mutual (Jo1 4:16): Dwelleth in God, and God in him. The Spirit visits many that are unregenerate with his motions, which they resist and quench; but in all that are sanctified he dwells; there he resides and rules. He is there as a man at his own house, where he is constant and welcome, and has the dominion. Shall we put this question to our own hearts, Who dwells, who rules, who keeps house, here? Which interest has the ascendant? To this he subjoins a general rule of trial: If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. To be Christ's (that is, to be a Christian indeed, one of his children, his servants, his friends, in union with him) is a privilege and honour which many pretend to that have no part nor lot in the matter. None are his but those that have his Spirit; that is, [1.] That are spirited as he was spirited-are meek, and lowly, and humble, and peaceable, and patient, and charitable, as he was. We cannot tread in his steps unless we have his spirit; the frame and disposition of our souls must be conformable to Christ's pattern. [2.] That are actuated and guided by the Holy Spirit of God, as a sanctifier, teacher, and comforter. Having the Spirit of Christ is the same with having the Spirit of God to dwell in us. But those two come much to one; for all that are actuated by the Spirit of God as their rule are conformable to the spirit of Christ as their pattern. Now this description of the character of those to whom belongs this first privilege of freedom from condemnation is to be applied to all the other privileges that follow.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–27 There is therefore now, no condemnation,.... The apostle having…
There is therefore now, no condemnation,.... The apostle having discoursed largely in the preceding chapter, concerning the struggle and combat believers feel within themselves, and opened the true causes and reasons of the saints' grievances and complaints, and what gives them the greatest uneasiness in this life, proceeds in this to take notice of the solid ground and foundation they have of spiritual peace and joy; which arise from their justification and adoption, the purposes and decrees of God, and particularly the everlasting and unchangeable love of God in Christ, the source, spring, and security, of all the blessings of grace. The chapter begins with a most comfortable account of the safety of believers in Christ; the apostle does not say there is nothing condemnable in them, for sin is in them and is condemnable, and condemned by them; and is hurtful to their spiritual joy and comfort, though it cannot bring them into condemnation, because of their being in Christ Jesus: he says there is , "not one condemnation" to them, or one sentence of condemnation against them; which must be understood not of illegal ones, for they are liable to many condemnations from their hearts, from the world and the devil; but of legal, justifiable ones, and there are none such, neither from God the Father, for he justifies; nor from the Son, for by his righteousness they are justified; nor from the Holy Spirit, who bears witness to their spirits, that they are in a state of justification: there is not one condemnation lies against them, with respect to their numerous sins, original and actual, though every sin deserves one; not one from the law of God, of which sin is a transgression, for though that is a condemning law, yet it is only so to them that are under it; not to them that are Christ's, whom he has redeemed from it: moreover, the apostle says, that there is no condemnation now to the saints; which "now" must not be considered, as if it supposes that there was formerly condemnation to them; it is true indeed they were under a sentence of condemnation, as considered in Adam, and under a covenant of works with him, and in their own apprehensions when convicted; but as considered in Christ, as the elect of God always were, and who was their surety, and so their security from all eternity, they never were in a state of condemnation: nor does this suppose, that there may be condemnation to them hereafter, though not now; for sin, the cause of condemnation, is removed; Christ has bore the condemnation their sins deserved in himself; their justification is from all sin, past, present, and to come; their union to Christ is indissoluble, and neither the love of Christ, nor the justice of God, will admit of their condemnation; for this "now", is not an "adverb" of time, but a "note of illation"; the apostle inferring this privilege, either from the grace of God, which issues in eternal life, Rom 6:23; or from that certain deliverance believers shall have from sin, for which he gives thanks, Rom 7:24; The privilege itself here mentioned is, "no condemnation": condemnation is sometimes put for the cause of it, which is sin, original and actual; now though God's elect are sinners, both by nature and practice, and after conversion have sin in them, their sanctification being imperfect, yet there is none in them with respect to justification; all is transferred to Christ, and he has removed all away; he has procured the pardon of all by his blood, he has abolished all by his sacrifice, he justifies from all by his righteousness, and saves his people from all their sins: condemnation may also be considered with respect to guilt; all mankind are guilty of Adam's sin, and are guilty creatures, as they are actual transgressors of the law; and when convinced by the Spirit of God, acknowledge themselves to be so; and upon the repetition of sin, contract fresh guilt on their consciences; but an heart sprinkled with the blood of Christ, is clear of guilt; for all the guilt of sin is removed to Christ, and he has took it away; hence there is no obligation to punishment on them, for whom Christ died: again, condemnation may design the sentence of it: now though the law's sentence passed upon all in Adam, and so upon God's elect, as considered in him; yet as this sentence has been executed on Christ, as their surety, in their room and stead, there is none lies against them: once more, condemnation may mean actual damnation, or eternal death, the wages of sin, which those who are in Christ shall never die; they are ordained to eternal life, and are redeemed from this death; they are made alive by Christ, and have eternal life secured to them in him, and which they shall certainly enjoy: the persons interested in this privilege are described, as such
which are in Christ Jesus; not as mere professors are in Christ, who may be lost and damned: but this being in Christ, respects either that union and interest which the elect of God have in Christ, from everlasting: being loved by him with an everlasting love; betrothed to him in a conjugal relation; chosen in him before the foundation of the world; united to him as members to an head; considered in him in the covenant of grace, when he engaged for them as their surety; and so they were preserved in him, notwithstanding their fall in Adam; in time he took upon him their nature, and represented them in it; they were reckoned in him when he hung upon the cross, was buried, rose again, and sat down in heavenly places; in consequence of which union to Christ, and being in him, they are secure from all condemnation: or this may respect an open and manifestative being in Christ at conversion, when they become new creatures, pass from death to life, and so shall never enter into condemnation: hence they stand further described, as such
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who walk not after the flesh; by which is meant, not the ceremonial law, but the corruption of nature, or the corrupt nature of man, called "flesh"; because propagated by carnal generation, has for its object fleshly things, discovers itself mostly in the flesh, and makes persons carnal and fleshly; the apostle does not say, there is no condemnation to them that have no flesh in them, for this regenerate persons have; nor to them that are in the flesh, that is, the body; but who walk not after the flesh, that is, corrupt nature; and it denotes such, who do not follow the dictates of it, do not make it their guide, or go on and persist in a continued series of sinning:
but after the spirit, by which is meant, not spiritual worship, in opposition to carnal ordinances; but rather, either a principle of grace, in opposition to corrupt nature, called "Spirit", from the author, subject, and nature of it; or the Holy Spirit of God, the efficient cause of all grace: to walk after him, is to make him our guide, to follow his dictates, influences, and directions; as such do, who walk by faith on Christ, and in imitation of him, in the ways of righteousness and holiness; and such persons walk pleasantly, cheerfully, and safely: now let it be observed, that this walk and conversation of the saints, is not the cause of there being no condemnation to them; but is descriptive of the persons interested in such a privilege; and is evidential of their right unto it, as well as of their being in Christ: and it may be further observed, that there must be union to Christ, or a being in him, before there can be walking after the Spirit. The phrase, "but after the Spirit", is left out in the Alexandrian copy, and in the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions; and the whole description of the persons in some copies, and in the Ethiopic version.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 There is therefore now no condemnation - Either for…
There is therefore now no condemnation - Either for things present or past. Now he comes to deliverance and liberty. The apostle here resumes the thread of his discourse, which was interrupted, chap. vii, 7.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–27 The happy state of those who believe in Christ,…
CHAPTER VIII.
The happy state of those who believe in Christ, and walk under
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the influence of his Spirit, 1, 2.
The design of God in sending his Son into the world was to
redeem men from sin, 3, 4.
The miserable state of the carnally minded, 6-8.
How Christ lives and works in his followers; their blessedness
here, and their happiness hereafter, 9-17.
Sufferings are the common lot of all men; and from which
Gentiles and Jews have the hope of being finally delivered,
18-23.
The use and importance of hope, 24, 25.
The Spirit makes intercession for the followers of Christ,
26, 27.
All things work together for good to them that love God, and
who act according to his gracious purpose in calling them, 28.
The means used to bring men to eternal glory, 29, 30.
The great blessedness, confidence, and security of all genuine
Christians, whom, while they hold fast faith and a good
conscience, nothing can separate from the love of God, 31-39.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII.
Verse 1. There is, therefore, now no condemnation] To do justice to St. Paul's reasoning, this chapter must be read in the closest connection with the preceding. There we have seen the unavailing struggles of an awakened Jew, who sought pardon and holiness from that law which he was conscious he had broken; and in which he could find no provision for pardon, and no power to sanctify. This conviction having brought him to the very brink of despair, and, being on the point of giving up all hope, he hears of redemption by Jesus Christ, thanks God for the prospect he has of salvation, applies for and receives it; and now magnifies God for the unspeakable gift of which he has been made a partaker.
Those who restrain the word now, so as to indicate by it the Gospel dispensation only, do not take in the whole of the apostles meaning. The apostle has not been dealing in general matters only, but also in those which are particular. He has not been pointing out merely the difference between the two dispensations, the Mosaic and the Christian; but he marks out the state of a penitent under the former, and that of a believer under the latter. The last chapter closed with an account of the deep distress of the penitent; this one opens with an account of his salvation. The now, therefore, in the text, must refer more to the happy transition from darkness to light, from condemnation to pardon, which this believer now enjoys, than to the Christian dispensation taking the place of the Jewish economy.
Who walk not after the flesh, c.] In this one verse we find the power and virtue of the Gospel scheme it pardons and sanctifies; the Jewish law could do neither. By faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the penitent, condemned by the law, is pardoned; the carnal man, labouring under the overpowering influence of the sin of his nature, is sanctified. He is first freely justified; he feels no condemnation; he is fully sanctified; he walks not after the FLESH, but after the SPIRIT.
This last clause is wanting in the principal MSS., versions, and fathers. Griesbach has excluded it from the text; and Dr. White says, Certissime delenda; it should most undoubtedly be expunged. Without it, the passage reads thus: There is, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of life, c. It is a fairly assumed point, that those who are in Christ Jesus, who believe in his name, have redemption in his blood are made partakers of his Spirit, and have the mind in them that was in him; will not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit: therefore the thing itself is included in the being in Christ, whether it be expressed or not: and it was probably to make the thing more obvious, that this explanatory clause was added by some copyist, for it does not appear to have made an original part of the text; and it is most likely that it was inserted here from the fourth verse.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26 Rom 8:1. There is, &c. — As a further…
Rom 8:1. There is, &c. — As a further answer to the objection mentioned Rom 3:31, that the doctrine of justification by faith made void the law, the apostle here proceeds, with great feeling and energy, to display the many powerful motives which that doctrine, as explained in the preceding chapters, suggests, for engaging both the understanding and the affections of believers to a continued pursuit of holiness. The first motive which he mentions is that contained in this verse, that now, under the new dispensation of the covenant of grace, namely, that of the Messiah, there is no condemnation to true believers, who walk as he here describes, although they may not observe the ceremonies of the Mosaic law. “This greatest of all considerations the apostle begins with, after having pathetically described the terror of the awakened sinner arising from his consciousness of guilt, because if mercy were not with God, he could neither be loved nor obeyed by men.” There is therefore now — In respect of all that has been advanced, since things are as has been shown; no condemnation — From God, either for things present or past. He now comes to speak of deliverance and liberty, in opposition to the state of guilt and bondage described in the latter part of the preceding chapter; resuming the thread of his discourse, which was interrupted, Rom 7:7. To them which are in Christ Jesus — Who are united to Christ by a lively faith in him, and in the truths and promises of his gospel, and so are made members of his mystical body. “The phrase, to be in Christ, saith Le Clerc, is often used by Paul for being a Christian; which observation he borrowed from Castalio, who renders it, Christiani facti; [being made Christians;] but if either of them mean only Christians by profession, or by being only members of the Christian Church, this will by no means agree with this place, or any other of like nature; since freedom from condemnation, and other benefits conferred upon us through Christ, will not follow our being Christians in this sense, but only upon a lively faith in Christ, our union to him by the Spirit, and our being so in him, as to become new creatures, according to Rom 8:9: If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his; to 2Co 5:17, If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; and to Gal 5:24, They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” — Whitby. Who walk not after the flesh — Who are not governed, as to their dispositions and actions, by those appetites which have their seat in the flesh, or by worldly views and interests, or by the dictates and motions of the natural corruption, which in some degree may yet remain in them: but after the Spirit — Namely, the Spirit of God; that is, who are not only habitually governed by reason and conscience, enlightened and renewed by God’s Spirit, but who follow the drawings, exercise the graces, and bring forth the fruits of that Spirit, Eph 5:9; Gal 5:22-23 : where see the notes.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–27 There is, therefore, now - This is connected with…
There is, therefore, now - This is connected with the closing verses of Rom. 7. The apostle had there shown that the Law could not effect deliverance from sin, but that such deliverance was to be traced to the gospel alone; Rom 7:23-25. It is implied here that there was condemnation under the Law, and would be still, but for the intervention of the gospel.
No condemnation - This does not mean that sin in believers is not to be condemned as much as any where, for the contrary is everywhere taught in the Scriptures; but it means,
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(1) That the gospel does not pronounce condemnation like the Law. Its function is to pardon; the function of the law is to condemn. The one never affords deliverance, but always condemns; the object of the other is to free from condemnation, and to set the soul at liberty.
(2) There is no final condemnation under the gospel. The function, design, and tendency of the gospel is to free from the condemning sentence of law. This is its first and its glorious announcement, that it frees lost and ruined people from a most fearful and terrible condemnation.
(The first verse of this chapter seems to be an inference from the whole preceding discussion. The apostle having established the doctrine of justification, and answered the objections commonly urged against it, now asserts his triumphant conclusion, “There is therefore, etc.; that is to say, it follows from all that has been said concerning the believer’s justification by the righteousness of Christ, and his complete deliverance from the Law as a covenant, that to him there can be no condemnation. The design of Paul is not so much to assert the different functions of the Law and the gospel, as simply to state the fact in regard to the condition of a certain class, namely, those who are in Christ. To them there is no condemnation whatever; not only no final condemnation, but no condemnation now, from the moment of their union to Christ, and deliverance from the curse of the Law. The reason is this: that Christ hath endured the penalty, and obeyed the precept of the Law in their stead.
“Here,” says Mr. Haldane on the passage, “it is often remarked that the apostle does not say, that there is in them (believers) neither matter of accusation, nor cause of condemnation; and yet this is all included in what he does say. And afterward, in express terms, he denies that they can be either accused or condemned, which they might be, were there any ground for either. All that was condemnable in them, which was sin, has been condemned in their Surety, as is shown in the third verse.”)
Which are in Christ Jesus - Who are united to Christ. To be in him is an expression not seldom used in the New Testament, denoting close and intimate union. Phi 1:1; Phi 3:9; 2Co 5:17; Rom 16:7-11. The union between Christ and his people is compared to that between the vine and its branches Joh 15:1-6, and hence, believers are said to be in him in a similar sense, as deriving their support from him, and as united in feeling, in purpose, and destiny. (See the supplementary note at Rom 8:10.) Who walk. Who conduct, or live. Note, Rom 4:12. Not after the flesh. Who do not live to gratify the corrupt desires and passions of the flesh; Note, Rom 7:18. This is a characteristic of a Christian. What it is to walk after the flesh may be seen in Gal 5:19-21. It follows that a man whose purpose of life is to gratify his corrupt desires, cannot be a Christian. Unless he lives not to gratify his flesh, he can have no evidence of piety. This is a test which is easily applied; and if every professor of religion were honest, there could be no danger of mistake, and there need be no doubts about his true character.
But after the Spirit - As the Holy Spirit would lead or prompt. What the Spirit produces may be seen in Gal 5:22-23. If a man has these fruits of the Spirit, he is a Christian; if not, he is a stranger to religion, whatever else he may possess. And this test also is easily applied.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, 26 Notwithstanding this law of sin opposing the law of…
Notwithstanding this law of sin opposing the law of the spirit, and endeavouring to captivate us to sin, we can, by the succour of the grace of Jesus Christ, preserve ourselves from sin and damnation, by resisting sin, and attaching ourselves strongly to Jesus Christ, by faith and charity. Concupiscence is not sin. And they who have received a spiritual birth in Jesus Christ by baptism, and have remained faithful to the grace of their justification, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, shall receive a recompense proportionate to their combats and labours. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Romans Chapter 8
Romans Chapter 8
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those which are in Christ Jesus” (chap. 8). He does not here speak of the efficacy of the blood in putting away sins (all-essential as that blood is, and the basis of all the rest), but of the new position entirely beyond the reach of everything to which the judgment of God applied. Christ had indeed been under the effect of the condemnation in our stead; but when risen He appears before God. Could there be a question there of sin, or of wrath, or of condemnation, or of imputation? Impossible! It was all settled before He ascended thither. He was there because it was settled. And that is the position of the Christian in Christ. Still, inasmuch as it is by resurrection, it is a real deliverance. It is the power of a new life, in which Christ is raised from the dead, and of which we live in Him. It is-as to this life of the saint-the power, efficacious and continued, and therefore called a law, by which Christ was raised from the dead-the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; and it has delivered me from the law of sin and death which previously reigned in my members, producing fruit unto death. It is our connection with Christ in resurrection, witness of the power of life which is in Him, and that by the Holy Ghost, which links the “no condemnation” of our position with the energy of a new life, in which we are no longer subject to the law of sin, having died to it in His death, or to the law, whose claims ‘have ceased also necessarily for him who has died, for it has power over a man as long as he lives. Christ, in bearing its curse, has fully magnified it withal. We see, at the end of Eph 1:1-23, that it is the power of God Himself which delivers; and assuredly it had need be so-that power which wrought the glorious change-to us this new creation.
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This deliverance from the law of sin and death is not a mere experience (it will produce precious experiences); it is a divine operation, known by faith in His operation who raised up from the dead, known in all its power by its accomplishment in Jesus, in the efficacy of which we participate by faith. The difficulty of receiving it is that we find our experience clashing with it. That Christ has put away my sins, and that God has loved me, is a matter of simple faith through grace. That I am dead is apt to find itself contradicted in my heart. The process of chapter 7 must be gone through, and the condemnation of sin in the flesh seen in Christ’s sacrifice for sin, and I alive by Him judging sin as a distinct thing (an enemy I have to deal with, not I), in order to have solid peace. It is not all that Christ has put away our sins. I live by Him risen, and am linked with this husband, and He being my life-the true “I” in me, I can say that I have died because He has. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” If so, I have died, for He has; as one taken into partnership has the advantages belonging to that acquired, before he was taken into it. That this is so is evident according toRomans 8:3. God has done it in Christ, the apostle says; he does not say “in us.” The result in us is found inRomans 8:4. The efficacious operation, by which we reckon ourselves dead, was in Christ a sacrifice for sin. There sin in the flesh was condemned. God has done it, for it is always God, and God who has wrought, whom he brings forward in order to develop the gospel of God. The thing to condemn is indeed in us; the work which put an end to it for our true conscious state before God, has been accomplished in Christ, who has been pleased in grace, as we shall see, to put Himself into the position necessary for its accomplishment. Nevertheless, through participation in the life that is in Him, it becomes a practical reality to us: only this realisation has to contend with the opposition of the flesh; but not so as that we should walk in it.
One other point remains to be noticed here. InRomans 8:2, we have the new life in its power in Christ, which sets us free from the law of sin and death. InRomans 8:3, we have the old nature, sin in the flesh, dealt with, condemned, but in the sacrifice for sin in which Christ suffered and died, so that it is done with for faith. This completes the deliverance and the knowledge of it.
The key to all this doctrine of the apostle’s, and that which unites holy practice, the Christian life, with absolute grace and eternal deliverance from condemnation, is the new position entirely apart from sin, which death gives to us, being alive in Christ now before God. The power of God, the glory of the Father, the operation of the Spirit, are found acting in the resurrection of Christ, and placing Him, who had borne our sins and been made sin for us, in a new position beyond sin and death before God. And by faith I have part in His death, I participate in this life.
It is not only satisfaction made by Christ for sins committed, and glorifying God in His work-the basis, indeed, of all-but the deliverance of the person who was in sin, even as when Israel was brought out of Egypt. The blood had stayed the hand of God in judgment; the hand of God in power delivered them for ever at the Red Sea. Whatever they may have been, they were for that time with God who had guided them to His holy habitation.
Moreover, the first verses of this chapter sum up the result of God’s work with regard to this subject in chapters 5:12 to the end, 6 and 7: no condemnation for those who are in Christ; the law of the Spirit of life in Him delivering from this law of sin and death; and that which the law could not do God has done.
It will be remarked that the deliverance is from the law of sin and death: in this respect the deliverance is absolute and complete. Sin is no longer at all a law. This deliverance, to one who loves holiness, who loves God, is a profound and immense subject of joy. The passage does not say that the flesh is changed-quite the contrary; one would not speak of the law of a thing which no longer existed. We have to contend with it, but it is no more a law; neither can it bring us under death in our conscience.
The law could not work this deliverance. It could condemn the sinner, but not the sin while delivering the sinner. But that which the law could not do-inasmuch as it required strength in man, while on the contrary he had only strength for sin-God has done. Now it is here that Christ’s coming down among us, and even unto death, is set before us in all its importance-His coming down without sin unto us and unto death. This is the secret of our deliverance. God, the God of all grace and of glory, has sent Him who was the eternal object of His delight, His own Son, in whom was all the energy and divine power of the Son of God Himself, to partake of flesh and blood in the midst of men, in the position in which we all are; ever in Himself without sin, but-to go down to the depth of the position in which we were, even to death-emptying Himself of His glory to be a man, “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and being a man humbling Himself unto death, in order that the whole question of sin with God should be decided in the person of Christ, He being considered as in our position [42]; when in the likeness of sinful flesh He was made sin for us-”for sin,” as it is expressed (that is, a sacrifice for sin). He undertook to glorify God by suffering for that which man was. He accomplished it, making Himself a sacrifice for sin; and thus, not only our sins have been put away, but sin in the flesh (it was the state of man, the state of his being; and Christ was treated on the cross as though He were in it) has been condemned in that which was a sacrifice of propitiation for the sinner.
The Son of God-sent of God in love-has come, and not only has He borne our sins, but (He having offered Himself up freely to accomplish His will, whose will He was come to do, a spotless victim) God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He has placed Himself, ever without sin (in Him it was grace and obedience), in the place in which our failure in our responsibility here below had set man, and, made in the likeness of men, died to glorify God in respect of sin, so that we are discharged by the cross from the burden on the conscience of the sin that dwells in us. He takes on Himself before God the whole charge of sin (but according to the power of eternal life and the Holy Ghost that was in Him)-offers Himself as a victim for it. Thus placed, He is made sin; and in His death, which He undergoes in grace, sin in the flesh is totally condemned by the just judgment of God, and the condemnation itself is the abolition of that sin by His act of sacrifice-an act which is valid for every one that believes in Jesus who accomplished it. We have died with Him and are alive through Him. We have put off the body of the flesh, the old man; we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, our old man crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be annulled. I have no doubt that the full result will be the putting of sin out of the whole scene of heaven and earth, in that new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. But here I speak of the state of conscience in respect of the glory of God.
What a marvellous deliverance! What a work for the glory of God! The moral import of the cross for the glory of God is a subject which, as we study it, becomes ever more and more magnificent-a never-ending study. It is, by its moral perfection, a motive for the love of the Father Himself with regard to Jesus. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.”
What a perfect work for putting away sin from the sight of God (setting before Him in its stead that perfect work itself which removed the sin) and for delivering the sinner, placing
him before God according to the perfect abolition of the sin and the value of that work in His sight! It is possible we may have known the forgiveness of sins before we go through Rom 7:1-25, and some have said that chapter 3 comes before chapter 7. But the subjects are quite distinct. In the first part we have God dealing in grace with the sinner as guilty for his justification, and that part is complete in itself: “we joy in God.” The second part takes up what we are, and experiences connected with it; but the work of chapter 7 is always essentially legal, the judgment of what we are, only hence in respect of what is in us, not of what we have done-struggle, not guilt. The form of experience will be modified. The soul will say, I hope I have not deceived myself, and the like. But it is always law, and so the apostle gives it its proper character in itself.
The practical result is stated in Rom 8:4: “In order that the righteousness of the law,” its just requirement, “might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” We are perfect before God in Christ without any righteousness by the law; but, walking according to the Spirit, the law is fulfilled in us, although we are not subject to it. He who loves has fulfilled the law. The apostle does not go farther in fruits of righteousness here, because the question was that of subjection to the law and man’s fulfilling it. Grace produces more than this as in Ephesians, Colossians, and elsewhere, reproduces the character of God, not merely what man should be for God, but what Christ was. But here he meets the question of law, and shews that in walking by the Spirit we so fulfil it.
In this new nature, in the life of resurrection and of faith, that which the law demands is accomplished in us because we are not under it, for we walk according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh. The things now in opposition are the flesh and the Spirit. In fact the rule, from the yoke of which as a system we are set free, is accomplished in us. Under the law sin had the mastery; being set free from the law, that law is fulfilled in us. [<A href=“#43” 43] But it is the Spirit working in us and leading us which characterises our position. Now this character (for it is thus the apostle presents it) is the result of the presence, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in us. The apostle supposes this great truth here. That is to say, writing to Christians, the fact (for it was a fact that is in question here) of the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is treated as a well-known fact. It publicly distinguished the Christian as the seal and mark of his profession. The individual knew it for himself; he knew it with regard to the assembly. But in the latter aspect, we leave it aside here, for Christians individually are the subject. They had the Spirit; the apostle everywhere appeals to their consciousness of this fact. “After that ye believed ye were sealed.” “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?” etc. It is the individual moral effect, extending, however, to the resurrection of the body, which is here spoken of. The two things are connected: the acknowledged fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost; and the development of His energy in the life, and afterwards in the resurrection of the believer. This had been seen in Christ; resurrection itself was according to the Spirit of holiness.
We come then now into the practical effect, in the Christian on earth, of the doctrine of death with, and life through, Christ, realised by the dwelling in us of the Holy Ghost who has been given us. He is distinct, for He is the Spirit, the Spirit of God; nevertheless He acts in the life, so that it is practically ourselves in that which is of the life of Christ in us.
We will examine the apostle’s teaching briefly on this subject.
He introduces it abruptly, as characterising the Christian-”us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Those who are after the flesh desire the things of the flesh; those after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. It is not a question here of duty, but of the sure action of the nature according to which a person subsists; and this tendency, this affection of the nature, has its unfailing result-that of the flesh is death, that of the Spirit is life and peace. Because the affection of the flesh is enmity against God. It has its own will, its own lusts; and the fact that it has them makes it not subject to the law of God-which, on the contrary, has its own authority-and the flesh cannot, indeed, be subject; it would cease to exist if it could be so, for it has a will of its own which seeks independency, not the authority of God over it-a will which does not delight either in what the law requires. Therefore those who are in the flesh, and who have their relationship with God as living of this nature, of this natural life, cannot please God. Such is the verdict on man, living his natural life, according to the very nature of that life. The law did not bring him out thence: he was still in the flesh as before. It had a rule for man, such ashe is as man before God, which gave the measure of his responsibility in that position, but which evidently did not bring him out of the position to which it applied. So that man being in the flesh, the workings of sin were, by means of the law itself, acting to produce death.
But the principle of the believer’s relationship with God is not the flesh but the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us. It is that which characterises our position before God. In His sight, and before Him, we are not in the flesh. This, indeed, supposes the existence of the flesh, but having received the Holy Ghost, and having life of the Holy Ghost, it is He who constitutes our link with God. Our moral existence before God is in the Spirit, not in the flesh or natural man.
Observe here, that the apostle is not speaking of gifts or manifestations of power, acting outside us upon others, but of the vital energy of the Spirit, as it was manifested in the resurrection of Jesus and even in His life in holiness. Our old man is reckoned dead; we live unto God by the Spirit. Accordingly this presence of the Spirit-all real as it is-is spoken of in a manner which has the force rather of character than of distinct and personal presence, although that character could not exist unless He were personally there. “Ye are in Spirit, if so be that Spirit of God dwell in you.” [44] The emphasis is on the word God, and in the Greek there is no article before Spirit. Nevertheless it plainly refers to the Spirit personally, for it is said “dwell in you,” so that He is distinct from the person He dwells in.
But the force of the thing is this: there is nothing in man that can resist the flesh or bring man out of it; it is himself. The law cannot go beyond this boundary (namely, that of man to whom it is addressed), nor ought it, for it deals with his responsibility. There must be something which is not man, and yet which acts in man, that he may be delivered. No creature could do anything in this: he is responsible in his own place.
It must be God. The Spirit of God coming into man does not cease to be God, and does not make the man cease to be man; but He produces divinely in the man, a life, a character a moral condition of being, a new man; in this sense, a new being, and in virtue of the cleansing by Christ’s blood. He dwells-Christ having accomplished the work of deliverance, of which this is the power in us-in the man, and the man is in Christ and Christ in the man. But having thus really a new life, which has its own moral character, the man is, as such, before God; and in His sight, what he is in this new nature inseparably from its source, as the stream from the fountain; the believer is in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost being in consequence of Christ’s work active in, and the power of, the life He has given. This is the Christian’s standing before God. We are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us. There is no other means. And it is indeed the Spirit of Christ-He in the power of whom Christ acted, lived, offered Himself; by whom also He was raised from the dead. His whole life was the expression of the operation of the Spirit-of the Spirit in man. “Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” It is the true and only link, the eternal reality, of the new life in which we live in God.
We have to do with reality. Christianity has its realisation in us in a conformity of nature to God, with which God cannot dispense, and without which we cannot enjoy or be in communion with Him. He Himself gives it. How indeed can we be born of God, unless God acts to communicate life to us? We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But it is the Spirit who is its source and its strength. If any one has not the Spirit of Christ, if the energy of this spiritual life which was manifested in Him, which is by the power of the Spirit, is not in us, we are not of Him, we have no part in Christ, for it is thus that one participates in Him. But if Christ is in us, the energy of this spiritual life is in Him who is our life, and the body is reckoned dead; for if it have a will as being alive, it is nothing but sin. The Spirit is life, the Spirit by whom Christ actively lived; Christ in Spirit in us is life-the source of thought, action, judgment, everything that constitutes the man, speaking morally, in order that there may be righteousness; for that is the only practical righteousness possible, the flesh cannot produce any. We live only as having Christ as our life; for righteousness is in Him, and in Him only, before God. Elsewhere there is nothing but sin. Therefore to live is Christ. There is no other life; everything else is death.
But the Spirit has yet another character. He is the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from among the dead. This God did with regard to the Christ. If the Spirit dwells in us, God will accomplish in us that which He accomplished in the Christ, [45] because of this same Spirit. He will raise up our mortal bodies. This is the final deliverance, the full answer to the question, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
Observe here, that the Spirit is designated in three ways: the Spirit of God, in contrast with sinful flesh, with the natural man, the Spirit of Christ, the formal character of the life which is the expression of His power (this is the Spirit acting in man according to the perfection of the divine thoughts); the Spirit of Him that raised up the man Christ from among the dead. Here it is the perfect and final deliverance of the body itself by the power of God acting through His Spirit. Thus then we have got the full answer to the question, “Who shall deliver me?” We see that Christian life in its true character-that of the Spirit, depends on redemption. It is by virtue of redemption that the Spirit is present with us.
In Rom 8:10-11, we have present death to flesh and sin, and actual resurrection; only, since there is nothing but sin if we live of our own natural life, Christ being in us, our life, we reckon even now, while still living, our body to be dead. This being the case, we have that which was seen in Christ (chap. 1:4)-the Spirit of holiness and resurrection from the dead. We should observe how (thus far according to the force of the expression, “the Spirit is life”) the Person of the Spirit is linked with the state of the soul here, with the real life of the Christian. A little lower down we find Him distinct from it. We understand this: for the Spirit is truly the divine Person, but He acts in us in the life which He has imparted. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Thus it is indeed the Spirit who produces practical righteousness, good thoughts; but He produces them in me so that they are mine. Nevertheless I am entirely dependent, and indebted to God for these things. The life is of the same nature as its source according to Joh 3:1-36, but it is dependent; the whole power is in the Spirit. Through Him we are dependent on God. Christ Himself lived thus. Only the life was in Him, and no sin in the flesh to resist it: whereas, if God has given us life, it remains always true that this life is in His Son. “He that hath the Son hath life.” And we know the flesh lusts against the Spirit, even when we have it.
But to proceed with our chapter. The apostle concludes thus exposition of the spiritual life, which gives liberty to the soul, by presenting the Christian as being thus a debtor, not to the flesh, which has now no longer any right over us. Yet he will not say directly that we are debtors to the Spirit. It is indeed our duty to live after the Spirit; but if we said that we are debtors, it would be putting man under a higher law the fulfilment of which would thereby be yet more impossible to him. The Spirit was the strength to live, and that through the affections which He imparts-not the obligation to have them If we live after the flesh, we are going to die; but if by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live. The evil is there, but strength is there to overcome it. This is the effect according to the nature of God and of the flesh. But there is another side of the subject-the relationship which this presence and operation of the Spirit gives us towards God Instead then of saying “legal debtors to the Spirit,” the Spirit Himself is our power, by which we mortify the flesh and thus are sure of living with God; and we are the sons of God, being led of the Spirit. For we have not received a spirit of bondage to be again in fear (that was the condition of the faithful under the law), but a Spirit that answers to our adoption to be sons of God, and this is its power-a Spirit by which we cry, “Abba,
The apostle again connects the Spirit of God in the closest union with the character, the spirit, which He produces in us, according to the relationship in which we are placed by His grace in Christ, and of which we are conscious, and which in fact we realise by the presence of the Holy Ghost in us: He is in us a Spirit of adoption. For He sets us in the truth, according to the mind of God. Now as to the power for thus, as to its moral reality in us, it is by the presence of the Holy Ghost alone that it takes place. We are only delivered from the law and the spirit of bondage in that the Spirit dwells in us, although the work and the position of Christ are the cause. This position is neither known nor realised except by the Spirit, whom Jesus sent down when He had Himself entered into it in glory on high as man. [46] But this Spirit dwells in us, acts in us, and brings us in effect into this relationship which
as been acquired for us by Christ, through that work which He accomplished for us, entering into it Himself (that is, as man risen).
The apostle, we have seen, speaks of the Spirit in us as of a certain character, a condition in which we are, because He instils Himself into our whole moral being-our thoughts, affections, object, action; or, rather, He creates them; He is their source; He acts by producing them. Thus He is practically a Spirit of adoption, because He produces in our souls all that appertains to this relationship. If He acts, our thoughts, our affections, act also; we are in the enjoyment of this relationship by virtue of this action. But having thus identified (and it could not be otherwise) the Holy Ghost with all that He produces in us, for it is thus that the Christian knows Him (the world does not receive Him because it does not see Him, nor know Him; but ye know Him because He is with you, and dwells in you: precious state!)-when the Holy Ghost Himself is the source of our being and of our thoughts, according to the counsels of God in Christ and the position which Christ has acquired for us-the apostle, I repeat, having spoken of the Spirit as characterising our moral existence, is careful to distinguish Him as a person, a really distinct existence. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The two things are equally precious: [47] participation in the Spirit, as the power of life by which we are capable of enjoying God, and the relationship of children to Him; and the presence and authority of the Spirit to assure us of it.
Our position is that of sons, our proper relationship that of children. The word son is in contrast with the position under the law, which was that of servants; it is the state of privilege in its widest extent. To say the child of such an one, implies the intimacy and the reality of the relationship. Now there are two things which the apostle lays open-the position of child and its consequences, and the condition of the creature in connection with which the child is found. This gives occasion for two operations of the Spirit-the communication of the assurance of being children with all its glorious consequences; and His work of sympathy and grace in connection with the sorrows and infirmities in which the child is found here below.
Having thus completed the exposition of the child’s condition, he ends this account of his position in Christ with a statement of the certainty of the grace-outside himself-in God, which secures him in this position, and guards him, by the power of God in grace, from everything that could rob him of his blessing-his happiness. It is God who gives it him, and who is its Author. It is God who will bring to a good end the one whom He has placed in it. This last point is treated in Rom 8:31-33. Thus in Rom 8:1-11, we have the Spirit in life; in Rom 8:12-30, the Spirit as a power acting in the saint; in Rom 8:31-33, God acting for, not in, us to ensure our blessing. Hence, in the last part, he does not speak of sanctification.
The first point then we have to touch on in this second part is, that the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of the family of God. That is to say, that as the Holy Ghost (acting in us in life, as we have seen) has produced the affections of a child, and, by these affections, the consciousness of being a child of God, so He does not separate Himself from this, but, by His powerful presence, He bears witness Himself that we are children. We have this testimony in our hearts in our relationship with God; but the Holy Ghost Himself, as distinct from us, bears this testimony to us in whom He dwells. The true freed Christian knows that his heart recognises God as Father, but he knows also that the Holy Ghost Himself bears His testimony to him. That which is founded on the word is realised and verified in the heart.
And, if we are children, we are heirs-heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Glorious position in which we are placed with Christ! And the witness of this is the first part of the Spirit’s personal office; but this has its consequences here, it has its character here. If the Spirit of Christ is in us, He will be the source in us of the sentiments of Christ. Now in this world of sin and of misery Christ necessarily suffered-suffered also because of righteousness, and because of His love. Morally this feeling of sorrow is the necessary consequence of possessing a moral nature totally opposed to everything that is in the world. Love, holiness, veneration for God, love for man, everything is essential suffering here below; an active testimony leads to outward suffering. Co-heirs, co-sufferers, co-glorified-this is the order of Christian life and hope; and, observe, inasmuch as possessors of the whole inheritance of God, this suffering is by virtue of the glorious position into which we are brought, and of our participation in the life of Christ Himself. And the sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.
For the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Then shall its deliverance come. For, if we suffer, it is in love, because all is suffering around us. The apostle then explains it. It is our connection with the creature which brings us into this suffering, for the creature is subjected to misery and vanity. We know it, we who have the Spirit, that all creation groans in its estrangement from God, as in travail, yet in hope. When the glory shall set the children free, the creature will share their liberty: it cannot participate in the grace; this is a thing which concerns the soul. But glory being the fruit of God’s power in outward things, even the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption and partake in the liberty of the glory. For it is not the Will of the creature which made it subject (it has none in that respect); but it was on account of him who subjected it, on account of man.
Now the Spirit, who makes us know that we are children and heirs of glory, teaches us by the same means to understand all the misery of the creature; and through our bodies we are in connection with it, so that there is sympathy. Thus we also wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body. For as to possession of the full result, it is in hope that we are saved; so that meanwhile we groan, as well as understand, according to the Spirit and our new nature, that all creation groans. There are the intelligence of the Spirit, and the affections of the divine nature on the one side; and the link with fallen creation by the body, on the other. [48] Here then also the operation of the Holy Ghost has its place, as well as bearing witness that we are children and heirs of God with Christ.
It is not therefore creation only which groans, being in bondage to corruption in consequence of the sin of man; but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit-which God has given in anticipation of the accomplishment of His promises in the last days, and which connects us with heaven-we also groan, while waiting for the redemption of our body to take possession of the glory prepared for us. But it is because the Holy Ghost who is in us takes part in our sorrow and helps us in our infirmities; dwelling in us, He pleads in the midst of this misery by groans, which do not express themselves in words. The sense of the evil that oppresses us and all around us is there; and the more conscious we are of the blessing and of the liberty of the glory, the more sensible are we of the weight of the misery brought in by sin. We do not know what to ask for as a remedy; but the heart expresses its sorrow as Jesus did at the grave of Lazarus-at least in our little measure. Now this is not the selfishness of the flesh which does not like to suffer; it is the affection of the Spirit.
We have here a striking proof of the way in which the Spirit and the life in us are identified in practice: God searches the hearts-ours; He finds the affection of the Spirit, for He, the Spirit, intercedes. So that it is my heart-it is a spiritual affection, but it is the Spirit Himself who intercedes. United to the creature by the body, to heaven by the Spirit, the sense which I have of the affliction is not the selfishness of the flesh, but the sympathy of the Spirit, who feels it according to [49] God. What a sweet and strengthening thought, that when God searches the heart, even if we are burdened with a sense of the misery in the midst of which the heart is working. He finds there, not the flesh, but the affection of the Spirit; and that the Spirit Himself is occupied in us, in grace, with all our infirmities: What an attentive ear must God lend to such groans!
The Spirit, then, is the witness in us that we are children, and thereby heirs; and He takes part in the sorrowful experience that we are linked with creation by our bodies, and becomes the source of affections in us, which express themselves in groans that are divine in their character as well as human, and which have the value of His own intercession. And this grace shews itself in connection with our ignorance and weakness. Moreover, if after all we know not what to ask for, we know that everything works together under God’s own hand for our greatest good [50] (Rom 8:28).
This brings in, thirdly, another side of the truth-that which God does, and that which God is for us, outside ourselves, to assure us of all blessing. The Holy Ghost is life in us; He bears witness to our glorious position; He acts in divine sympathy in us, according to our actual position of infirmity in this poor body and this suffering creation; He becomes, and makes us, the voice of this suffering before God. All this takes place in us; but God maintains all our privileges by that which He is in Himself. This is the last part of the chapter, from verse 28 or 31 to the end. God orders all things in favour of those who are called according to His purpose. For that is the source of all good and of all happiness in us and for us.
Therefore it is, that in this beautiful and precious climax, sanctification and the life in us are omitted. The Spirit had instructed our souls on these points at the beginning of the chapter. The Spirit is life, the body dead, if Christ be in us; and now He presents the counsels, the purposes, the acts, the operation of God Himself, which bless and secure us, but are not the life in us. The inward reality has been developed in the previous part; here, the certainty, the security, in virtue of what God is and of His counsels. He has foreknown His children, He has predestinated them to a certain glory, a certain marvellous blessing, namely, to be conformed to the image of His Son. He has called them, He has justified them, He has glorified them. God has done all this. It is perfect and stable, as He is who willed it, and who has done it. No link in the chain is wanting of all that was needful in order to bind their souls to glory according to the counsels of God.
And what a glory! what a position-poor creatures as the saved are-to be conformed to the image of the Son of God Himself! This, in fact, is the thought of grace, not to bless us only by Jesus, but to bless us with Him. He came down even to us, sinless, in love and righteousness, to associate us with Himself in the fruit of His glorious work. It was this which His love purposed, that we should have one and the same portion with Himself; and this the counsels of the Father (blessed be His name for it!) had determined also.
The result of all for the soul is, that God is for us. Sweet and glorious conclusion, which gives the heart a peace that is ineffable, and rest that depends on the power and stability of God-a rest that shuts out all anxiety as to anything that could trouble it; for if God be for us who can be against us? And the way of it shuts out all thought as to any limit to the liberality of God. He who had given His Son, how should He not with Him give us all things? Moreover, with regard to our righteousness before God, or to charges which might be brought against the saints, as well as with regard to all the difficulties of the way, God Himself has justified: who shall condemn? Christ has died, He has risen, and is at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us: who shall separate us from His love? The enemies? He has already conquered them. Height? He is there for us. Depth? He has been there; it is the proof of His love. Difficulties? We are more than conquerors: they are the immediate occasion of the display of His love and faithfulness, making us feel where our portion is, what our strength is. Trial does but assure the heart, which knows His love, that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus. Everything else is the creature, and cannot separate us from the love of God-a love of God, which has entered also into this misery of the creature, and gained the victory for us over all. Thus the deliverance, and liberty, and security of the saints by grace and power are fully brought out.
We have thus in three ways God’s being for us unfolded: in giving, justifying, and no possible separation. Two triumphant questions settle the last two points, on which the heart might easily raise questions. But the two questions are put:-Who shall condemn? Who shall separate? Who shall condemn when God Himself justifies? It is not said justified before God. God is for us. The second is answered by the precious fact that in all that might seem to do so, we have seen, on the contrary, His love proved. Besides it is the creature which might tend to separate, and the love is the love of God. The beginning ofRomans 8:34 should be read with 33.
We have advanced here to a fuller experimental state than in chapter 5, following on what unfolds the exercises of a soul learning what it is in itself, and the operation of the law, and what it is to be dead with Christ, and to be alive through and associated with Him, and coming out, as in Him before God, with the consciousness of God for it. But there is in chapter 5 more of the simple grace of God, what He is in His own blessed nature and thoughts, as above sin, towards the sinner. We have the Christian’s place more fully with God here, but what God is simply in grace more fully in chapter 5. Chapter 5 is more what God is thus known through the work of Christ; chapter 8 more our place in Christ before Him. Blessed to have both!
Footnotes for Romans Chapter 8
42: The reader will understand that Jesus could take this position and be made sin, precisely because He was Himself absolutely exempt in every way from it. The power of resurrection in Christ dead was the power of holiness in Christ living. It was also the power of that love which He displayed while living, and which we know in perfection in His death. He was the just object of divine delight.
43: Abstracting the flesh, the life by which we live is in fact Christ. He is our life, and, as to life, what we are before God is that by which we live here. Our life is hid with Christ in God, and Christ is our life down here. And therefore it is that John-who had displayed Christ as being this life-can say, “he that is born of God cannot sin, because he is born of God.” It is the same Christ in us and in heaven. Practically this life is developed in the midst of the opposition of the flesh. Our weakness-guilty weakness-comes in, and it is quite another thing.
44: Note here, we are said to be in Christ in the beginning of the chapter, and in the Spirit here: so to have the Spirit of Christ, and then “if Christ be in you”; because it is by the Spirit we are in Christ. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit (compare Joh 14:1-31). And this gives its true character to our life and place before God. In Christ and Christ in us constitutes, in many places in scripture, the Christian position, known too by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us (compare Joh 14:1-31).
45: Observe here, that Jesus is the personal name of Christ. Christ though it became so, is properly a name of position and office-the Anointed. He who raised up the Christ will quicken the bodies of those connected with Him.
46: Though ever walking as Son down here of course, and that not merely when publicly entering on His ministry and proclaimed such, as we know from what happened in the temple when He was about twelve years old. Indeed we are sons before we receive the Spirit of adoption. It is because we are sons the Spirit of the Son is sent into our hearts (Gal 4:1-31). But Christ, entering into the full place of glory as man, according to the purpose of God through His work, received (Act 2:1-47) the Spirit so as to confer it on us and associate us with Him there.
47: We shall see, farther on, that the Epistle to the Colossians speaks only of life: the Ephesians, of the Holy Ghost.
48: In this how much more perfect (all in Him was absolute) was the sympathy of Christ! For though capable of sympathy as truly a man, He was not linked in His own state with the fallen creation, as we are. He felt for it, a true man, but as man born of the Holy Ghost; we as above the flesh and by faith not in it, still in fact are linked with it in the earthen vessel we are in.
49: “The will of” should not be inserted here.
50: Here read in the text, “but we know.” “We know not what to ask for as we ought, but we do know that everything works together for our good.”
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 18 Sixth Section.—Christian life, or life in the Spirit of…
Sixth Section.—Christian life, or life in the Spirit of Christ as the new life according to the law of the Spirit, is a blessed life in the adoption of God; is free from condemnation and death; and leads to perfect blessedness in the glory of God. The principle of the new life as the principle of the freedom and glorification of the Christian, of believing humanity, and even of the creature; chap. 8.
Divisions: I. Life in the Spirit a life of opposition to the flesh; and the Spirit as witness of adoption; Rom_8:1-17. II. The renewal of the body by the life in the Spirit, and the Spirit as the security for glorification; Rom_8:18-39.
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I. Life in the Spirit in opposition to the flesh, and the Spirit as the witness of adoption
Rom_8:1-17
1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which [those who] are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit [omit all afterChrist Jesus].1 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 3[freed me]2 from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that [because] it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh [literally, the flesh of sin], and for [or, on account of] sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4That the righteousness [or, requirement]3 of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after [according to]4 the flesh, but after [according to] the Spirit.
5For they that [those who] are after [according to] the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that [those who] are after [according to] the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6For to be carnally minded [the mind of the flesh]5 is death; but to be spiritually minded [the mind of the Spirit] is life and peace. 7Because the carnal mind [the mind of the flesh] is enmity against God: for it is not subject [doth not submit itself]6 to the law of God, neither indeed Song of Solomon 8 be [it]. So then [And]7 they that [those who] are in the flesh cannot please God.
9But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have [hath]8 not the Spirit of Christ, he Isaiah 10 none of his. And [But] if Christ be [is] in you, the body is dead because of 11sin; but the Spirit [spirit] is life because of righteousness. But [And] if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus9 from the dead dwell [dwelleth] in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall [will]10 also quicken [quicken even] your mortal bodies by [on account of]11 his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
12Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.13For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through [by]12 the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,13 ye shall live. 14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the [omit the]14 sons of God. 15For ye have not received [did not receive]15 the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have [omit have] received the Spirit of adoption, whereby [ἐν ᾧ, wherein] we cry,Abba, Father. 16The Spirit itself beareth witness with [or, to]16 our spirit, that we are the [omit the] children of God: 17And if children, then [also] heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together [glorified with him].17
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
First Section.—The life in the Spirit18 as the new life, in opposition to the life in the flesh (Rom_8:1-17)
Summary.—a. The vital principle of Christians, or the law of the Spirit as freedom from the antagonistic law of sin (Rom_8:1-4). b. The principle of carnal life in contradiction to the Spirit and to God (Rom_8:5-8). c. Application of what has been said to the fundamental standpoint of believers (Rom_8:9-11). Their life in the Spirit excludes life in the carnal principle. Their Christianity amounts to nothing, if the Spirit is wanting. If Christ is in the spirit, the body is nothing. But the body shall be renewed at the resurrection by the Spirit d. Transition from the ideal and fundamental standpoint to the practical application. The conflict resulting from the victory, and the maxims of this conflict (Rom_8:12-16). No obligation to the flesh.—Spiritual life the means of destroying the surprises of involuntary carnal motions.—Following the guidance of the Spirit.—No fear of the power of the flesh. Childlike recourse to the Father.—The sense of adoption strengthened by the Spirit of God. Rom_8:17 : transition to the following section.19
Meyer: chap. 8. Happy condition of man in Christ.—De Wette: Blessed results of newly-animated morality. Tholuck: For thus the Christian, who has become freed from the law, has also become free from condemnation, and is subject to the guidance of the Spirit of adoption, by virtue of which he will become a joint-heir with Christ (Rom_8:1-17). The same: “We are here at the climax of the Epistle, ‘at the heart and kernel of the whole Epistle;’ as Spener says: Si scripturam sacram annulo comparemus, epistolam Pauli ad Romanos gemmam credo, cujus summum fastigium in capite octavo exsurgit (Spener, Consilia Theol. Lat., iii. 596).” [Bengel: Nunc venit ad liberationem et libertatem.—R.]
Rom_8:1. There is therefore now no [Ο ὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν. The force of οὐδὲν must not be overlooked—an absolute negation, with an undoubted reference to the completeness of the freedom from condemnation (Forbes).—R.] The ἂρα is quite plain, if we have perceived the alternative in the preceding verse: If I am in the νοῦς, I serve God. If we ignore this alternative, the meaning of the present passage must be doubtful. Tholuck: The older expositors do not generally furnish any proof of the connection of this ἂρα with the preceding chapter. Yet the following connection of it with Rom_7:25, by Augustine, is, in the main, correct: “To him, now, who, as a Christian, non amplius consentit pravis des deriis, and is planted in Christ by baptism, the prava desideria can no more be condemnation.” The Catholic expositors follow him. Bucer, Beza [Alford], and others, connect Rom_8:25 with the thanksgiving; but this assumes that the second half of Rom_8:25 is an interruption. Calixtus, Bengel [Stuart], and others, go back even to Rom_7:6; others [Hodge, Haldane], to the whole argument for justification by faith. Meyer: If I am left to myself to serve the law of God with my reason, but the law of sin with my flesh, then it follows that, since Christ has interposed, there is no condemnation, &c.—[The question of connection is mainly decided by the view of the preceding section. Those who refer it to the regenerate, connect this either with the whole preceding argument, or, with Philippi, with the preceding verse, in the sense: Although I am thus divided in service, still, being in Christ Jesus, there is now, therefore, &c.; or with the thanksgiving. If Lange’s view of the alternative be admitted, we must also accept his view of the connection. It seems to be an unwarranted breaking up of the current of thought, to go back as far as Rom_7:6; and to refer to the whole train of argument, seems out of keeping with the continuous experimental character of the whole passage. It is best to connect, therefore, with the thanksgiving.—R.]—Νῦν, the intervening state of faith, expressed last in Rom_8:25. [Νῦν is temporal, in distinction from ο ὖν (Rom_8:25), which is inferential. Hence the continuance of this state is implied.—R.]
No condemnation [κατὰκριμα, Verdammungsurtheil, sentence of condemnation (Lange). See p. 184 (Rom_5:16), where it is used in antithesis to δικαἱωμα. It may be limited to the justifying act of God at the beginning of the Christian life, but, joined with οὐδὲν, seems to have a wider reference here.—R.] Origen, Erasmus, Luther, and others, explain: nothing worthy of condemnation; but this is opposed by the τοῖς. See also Rom_8:34. Comp. Rom_5:16. Koppe generalizes nullæ pœnœ [Alford: no penal consequence of sin, original and actual], which so far at le belongs to the affair that even the temporal punishment, as punishment, and as prelude to the final condemnation, is abolished in the case of Christians. And this is so, not only because their sins are forgiven (Pareus), but because they are in Christ in consequence thereof.
[The question of the reference to justification or sanctification must affect the interpretation of condemnation, since Rom_8:2, beginning with γἀρ, seems to introduce a proof. The position of the chapter in the Epistle, as well as a fair exegesis of the verses, sustain the reference to sanctification. (Not to the entire exclusion of the other, any more than they are sundered in Christian experience.) We must, then, take no condemnation in a wide sense, either as deliverance both from sin and death (Forbes), or as having indeed a reference to the justifying act already past, but meaning, rather, the continuance in a state of justification; culminating in final acquittal and glory. The point of connection with Rom_8:24 (“death”), is the former reference; with the succeeding proof, the latter. This avoids sundering salvation into two distinct parts. The significant phrase which follows favors this view. Still, the position of the verse warrants us in finding a very distinct reference to the act of pardon, as preceding (and involving as a gracious consequence) the work of sanctification.—R.]
[To those who are in Christ Jesus, τοῐς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ]. This does not mean precisely, to have the Spirit of Christ, or Christ in you (Meyer), but it denotes the permanent continuance in justification—a life whose effect is the life of Christ in us. [This deeply significant Pauline phrase must never be weakened or limited. As to its beginnings, Augustine is excellent: Christus in homine, ubi fides in corde. As to its continuance, Bucer: A Christo pendere atque ejus spiritus in omnibus agi. But the best explanation is Joh_15:1-7, and Eph_1:23, &c. Hodge says: in Him federally, vitally, by faith; but the vital union seems always prominent; especially is it so here.—R.]
On the addition, see Textual Note. [Besides what is there remarked, the question of connection suggests, that the interpolation may have been occasioned by a desire to relieve the apparent difficulty in making Rom_8:2 prove the justification of the believer. To do this, the clause which makes prominent the Christian walk, so easily borrowed from Rom_8:4, was inserted.—R.]
Rom_8:2. For the law of the Spirit of life, &c. [ὁγὰρνὸμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ]. Rom_8:2 specifies the ground20 why Christians are free from condemnation. The principal question here is, whether, ἐν κριστῷ is to be referred to the following ἠλενυ ἑρωσεν, or to the foregoing, and how far to the foregoing? Meyer, in accordance with Theodoret, Erasmus, Rückert (not “Tholuck”), Olshausen, Philippi, and De Wette has also connected the ἐν χριστῶ with ἠλενθ. But this distorts the thought, as if that Spirit of life could possibly deliver without Christ. Certainly ἐν χριστῷ refers not alone to the foregoing ζωῆς (Luther, Beza, and others); and ζωή here is not the believer’s subjective life in Christ, but Christ’s original divine-human life itself. We must also not go back to τοῦ πνεύμ. τῆς ζωῆς alone (Flatt), but to the whole ὁ νόμος τοῦ πνεύμ. τ. ζ. (Calvin, Köllner, Tholuck).21 The fulness of life in Christ is the Spirit (see Joh_6:63); it is complete in itself, conscious, actual, and communicates itself as a unity with the Holy Spirit. It is just for this reason, also, the glorification of the νόμος, the personal righteousness; and as it has proved itself to be the completed νόμος, the ideal and dynamical principle of the Divine law in the obedience of Christ, so does it now prove itself to those who are in Christ; that is, justification becomes in them the principle of sanctification. But because this life-giving law takes the place of the Mosaic law—which could not deliver, but was completed by sin and death—there lies in the appropriation of this glorified law freedom from the law of sin and death.22
The law of the Spirit is not identical with the νόμος τοῦ νοός (Köllner, Schröder), but still the latter is connected with the former. The νόμος of the νοῦς is the ontological disposition which has attained its complete historical and concrete realization in the νόμος of the Spirit. Meyer observes, that the Christian institution of salvation is not meant, as νόμος πίστεως in Rom_3:27. Yet it is surely identical, to a certain degree, with the νόμοςπίστ., but not with the Christian institution of salvation.23
Of the Spirit. Meyer explains: of the Holy Spirit. And this is, indeed, substantially the fact; but the Holy Spirit is spoken of so far as He reveals himself concretely in the vital plenitude of Christ. Tholuck’s exposition is in the same direction: “The Spirit of life is that by which the spiritual life is effected in believers.” The law of the Spirit is the impulse and guidance of the Spirit, under the reciprocal action between the principle of faith and the administration of God’s government in the occurrences of life.
Freed me [ἠλευθέρωσέν με. The verb is aorist, referring to a past act, viz., the deliverance both from sin and from death, which took place at regeneration. Not completed, but begun when in Christ Jesus, and to be completed in Him.—R.] This expression constitutes an antithesis to the bringing me into captivity, just as the law of the Spirit of life is an antithesis to the law of sin and death [τοῦνόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου.]24 Because the false law of sinful propensity in the members is, according to Rom_7:23, a law of sin, so is it also a law which tends to death, according to Rom_8:24. Although the Apostle the designs to say that this freedom is followed by freedom from the Mosaic law (Rom_6:14), it is nevertheless utterly wrong to understand, by the expression before us, the moral law (Wolf), or the Mosaic law (Pareus, and others). How far has the believer been made free from this law? Evidently, freedom from the dominion of sin (Greek and Roman Catholic expositors), effected by freedom from the penalty of sin (Protestant expositors), is meant. Yet the νόμος πνεύμ. is not altogether identical with the νόμος πίστ. (Calovius). In the law of faith, the emphasis rests on the faith, but here on the νόμος; there, the question is the principle of justification, but here, the principle of holiness. The individualizing με ceases here.
Rom_8:3. For what the law could not do [τὸ γὰρ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου]. The Mosaic law was incapable of effecting this liberation; therefore redemption took its place. On account of the connection of thought with the foregoing, the explanatory and appositional conclusion, what to the law was impossible, is made antecedent as apposition; by Winer, it is defined as an accusative, governed by ἐποίησε (Winer, p. 217, § 32. 7); by Olshausen, as accusative absolute (“as far as the possibility of the law was concerned”); [Hodge: in view of the impotency of the law.—R.]; and by Rückert, Meyer, Fritzsche, and De Wette, as an antecedent nominative. For analogous forms, see Meyer25 and Tholuck; particularly κεφάλαιον δέ, Heb_8:1. As nominative, the word acquires the character of a superscription, to be introduced with a colon; yet not as “rhetorical emphasis,” but as making prominent the difference between law and gospel. Erasmus and Luther supply an ἐποίησε before θεός, not agreeably to the forms, yet certainly in harmony with the thought. The genitive νόμου denotes the incapacity of the law to deliver from sin (Vater has referred the νόμ. to the law of the Spirit; Schulthess, to the law of Divine and human love).
In that it was weak. The ἐν ᾧ cannot mean while here; Meyer translates, in so far as, which appears too limited. [Luther, Calvin, Tholuck, De Wette, Philippi, Stuart, Hodge, render because, which is demanded by the context.—R.] The ἠσθένει again takes up the idea of incapacity.
Through the flesh [διὰ τῆς σαρκός]. Meyer: Through the guilt of the flesh. Besser: Through effect of the flesh. We must not forget the fact, that the division of the σάρξ has also made out of the law a division of the carnal letter. [The preposition διά with the genitive here marks the medium through which the law proved its weakness and inability, viz., the flesh (in its strict ethical sense). The law acted not on spiritual, but carnal men, and, through this medium, its inability to do what God did in sending His Son was proven.—R.]
God sending his own Son. The Apostle describes the redeeming act of God both in its pertinent meaning and in its medium. The medium was: God sent His own Son (in antithesis to the sending of the law by angels; Gal_3:19; Heb_2:2); and He sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh, or, of the flesh of sin, and on account of sin.—He sent him. Declaration of preëxistence. [Philippi rightly finds in this verse not only a declaration of the preëxistence of Christ, but of His existence as Son; the description which follows having a soteriological, rather than a christological reference.—R.]
In the likeness of sinful flesh [ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας. Sinful flesh is not altogether exact. Σάρξ must mean the whole human man nature; the ethical force, however, lies in the genitive, which defines it: whose attribute and character was sin (Alford). The Orthodox fathers (comp. Theodoret, Theophylact, Tertullian) rightly use this text. “Christ did not appear in the flesh of sin, which was the Ebionite view, nor in the likeness of flesh, which was Docetic, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin, which is the Biblico-Pauline view” (Philippi).—R.] As He became truly man, He appeared in the full likeness of sinful flesh (Php_2:7), and yet not in equality with it. Meyer: “So that He appeared in an external form, which was similar to human nature, contaminated with sin. Christ did not appear ἐν σαρΖὶ ἁμαρτ., but also not Docetically (contrary to Krehl).” See Tholuck’s citation of the views of the Docetæ and of the Mystics (for example, Valentine Weigel, who held that the external body of Christ came from the Virgin,26 but His inward body from heaven), as well as the opposite views of Dippel, Hasenkamp, Menken, and Irving. “According to them, ὁμοιωμα does not denote likeness, but equality. But although ὃμοιος combines both meanings, yet that of likeness alone belongs to the substantives ὁμοιωμα and ὁμοιωσις; besides, the other meaning is contradicted by the analogy of Scripture in Heb_4:15.”
And on account of sin [καὶ περὶἁμαρτίας. The καἱ connects with the preceding. If this be forgotten, the interpretation may be too largely affected by the clause which follows.—R.] This was the motive of His mission. But the connection by καἱ expresses a second condescension of God and His Son. The first was, that Christ appeared in the form of a sinner, of the servant of sin (see chap. 7.), of the σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας, of the false σάρξ; the second, that a mission on account of sin was undertaken by the Son of God himself (see Mat_21:37). “Καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτ. has been connected with κατέκρινε by the Itala (per carnem), Tertullian (de res carn., c. 66), the Vulgate (de peccato), Chrysostom, Theodoret, Luther, Baldwin, and Bengel. But the καὶ is against this;” Tholuck. The ἁμαρτία in περὶ ἁμαρτ. itself has been variously interpreted. Thomas Aquinas, of the passion of Christ on account of its likeness to sin; Hervæus, of death; Origen, Pelagius, Melanchthon, Calvin, Bucer, Baumgarten-Crusius, of the sin-offering27 חַטּאה; Theophylact, Maier, and others, the destruction and removal of sin. Meyer: “It is rather the whole relation in which the mission of Christ stood to human sin;” but this is already indicated by the foregoing explanation (see 1Jn_3:5). The mission of Christ was related to sin; its aim on every side was its abolition. But the immediate effect of His mission was, that God, by the innocence of Christ’s life in the flesh, distinguished and separated sin, as a foreign and damnable object, from the flesh.
Condemned sin in the flesh [κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί. The article is used here with ἁμαρτίαν, the sin already referred to. This is a final argument against interpreting “sin” as = sin-offering, in the clause above. Whether “in the flesh” is to be joined with “condemned,” or with “sin,” is a matter open to discussion (see below).—R.] To the general idea of the mission of Christ: on account of sin, this declaration is now added, as a specific idea, to describe what His mission effected in relation to sin in the flesh. And we must criticise the different interpretations accordingly. Since the Redeemer, or God through Him, performs a condemnatory deed, we must especially avoid an incorrect generalization of the idea. Erasmus, De Dieu, and Eckermann, have very appropriately pointed out the thought, that He represented sin as damnable; yet we must emphasize sin in the flesh, and add: He separated it from the flesh fundamentally in Christ, in order thereby to cast it out from the flesh in the life of believers. This is, therefore, the sense: Christ, by becoming man in the flesh (which appeared to be the source of sin), and yet having a sinless fleshly nature, so maintained this sinlessness, and even holiness of His flesh, through His whole life, that He could give His flesh to His followers as a seal of His favor and as the organ of His Spirit. By this means He made it manifest: 1. That sin does not belong to the flesh in itself, but is inherent in it as a foreign, unnatural, condemnable, separable, alienable, and abstractly spiritual element; 2. That sin in the flesh is condemned and rejected in its carnal appearance; 3. That sin in the flesh should be separated from the entire human nature by means of the Spirit proceeding from Christ.
Other explanations: 1. Allusions to the eradication of the guilt of sin. This “is the prevailing ecclesiastical view in Origen, Chrysostom, &c. So, too, the Catholic expositors, with the exception of Justin; the Protestant, with the exception of Beza; even the Arminian and Socinian writers, and, indeed, the most of the later ones—Usteri, Rückert, Baumgarten-Crusius, Philippi,28 and Schmid (Bibl. Theol.);” Tholuck. For what has been and can be said in favor of this explanation, see, at length, in Tholuck, p. 392 ff. “Yet the absence of the αὑτοῦ from ἐν τῆ σαρκἰ (comp., on the contrary, Eph_2:5) is an obstacle.” We may add, that the context is also an obstacle. The question has been, chap. 3, concerning Christ as the propitiator. Here He is represented as a “fountain of holiness.”
2. Allusions to the removal of sinfulness. “The procession of the delivering Spirit of life from Christ is only clearly proved by Rom_8:3, in case there is in this verse the thought that Christ has gained the victory over sin by His pure and holy personality in His own humanity, and that this sinless Spirit now passes over by faith to believers;” Tholuck. The same writer adduces a number of the defenders of the obedientia activa; especially Beza, of the Reformation period; the following later expositors seem also to belong here: Winzer, Stier, Neander, Meyer, De Wette, and Hofmann.29—Yet Tholuck finally turns to the allusion of this passage to the guilt of sin, and thus we must understand by σάρξ (p. 394) not the σάρξ of Christ, but “the sinful human nature, which, although only kαθ’ ὁμοίωμα, was also possessed by Christ (Philippi, De Wette).” The latter does not belong here. But then there would also follow from this an atonement καθ’ ὁμοιωμα. The interpretation of the κατέκρινε by interfecit (Grotius, Reiche, &c.), does not suit the nature of Christ. Meyer properly observes, that the κατάκριμα has been chosen in reference to the κατάκριμα in Rom_8:1. If we thus condemn ourselves, we shall not be condemned; and if that condemnatory process against sin in the flesh has passed from Christ upon us, the object of the future condemnation is removed.
[Besides these views, Philippi advocates a primary reference to the death of Christ, but includes the fact that thus sin is eo ipso done away and extirpated, so that those who are in Christ Jesus have both the pardon and the removal of sin, because of the indissoluble unity of both in Him.30 This suits the wider meaning of no condemnation (Rom_8:1). All interpretations deviate from the strict meaning of the verb; the reference to punishment involves an added thought, not less than that to the extirpation of sin. Besides, the law could condemn sin, and, to a certain extent, punish it; but its great weakness was its inability to remove sin. It is perfectly gratuitous to infer that the modern interpretation implies that we are justified on the ground of inherent goodness, since this assumes that Rom_8:1 refers only to declarative righteousness, and overlooks the fact that the controlling thought is union to Christ. Still, should any prefer to find here an allusion to Christ’s passion as a penal condemnation of sin, it must be allowed as involved, though this must not then be used to force the same meaning on the next verse.—R.]
[In the flesh. This is referred by many to the human nature of Christ. Were this the exclusive reference, we would probably find αὑτοῦ. The ethical sense must be adopted by those who join it with sin; but against this is the meaning of sin as a principle (Alford), and also the indifferent sense of σάρξ in the earlier part of the verse. It is better, then, to join it with the verb, and include in it human nature, our human nature, which Christ shared.31 This seems to be Dr. Lange’s view, though he adds to it some remarks which seem to echo his pseudo-plasmatic interpretation of chap. 7. We paraphrase the whole verse: “What could not be done by the law (was thus done), God sending His own Son in the likeness of that flesh, which was characterized by sin, and, on account of sin, condemned entirely (both as to punitive and polluting effects) in that flesh (which He shared with us) that sin.” Yet this is not an accomplished fact as respects our release from the power of sin; that is to be fulfilled, and this end (ἳνα) is set forth in the next verse.—R.]
Plainly, this verse declares the condemnableness of the sinful propensity. An expression of Irenæus is important for the interpretation of this passage: condemnavit peccatum et jam quasi condemnatum ejecit extra carnem. The beautiful words of Augustine denote the objective medium by which the sinlessness of Christ becomes our liberation: Quomodo liberavit? Nisi quia reatum peccatorum omnium remissione dissolvit, ita u, quamvis adhuc maneat, in peccatum non imputetur. Yet Beza properly observes: Neque nunc Apostolus agit de Christi morte, et nostrorum peccatorum expiatione, sed de Christi incarnatione, et naturœ nostrœ corruptions per eam sublata. Only, as far as the transmission of sinlessness from Christ to us is concerned, we must bear in mind Rom_6:1 ff. By virtue of the connection of Christ with us, He has redeemed us; by virtue of His connection with us in our guilty misery, He has atoned for us; and by virtue of the connection of His nature with our flesh, He has given His flesh to die, in order that, in His spiritual position toward us, He might make us free from the flesh by the communion of His Spirit as spiritual man, and, with the flesh of His risen life, implant in us a sanctified nature for the future resurrection.
Rom_8:4. That the righteousness [or requirement] of the law [ἳνα τὸδικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου. Ἵνα, telic, introducing the purpose of the condemnation of sin in the flesh. Lange renders δικαὶωμα: Gerechtsein. On the word, see p. 184. Stuart: the precept of the law; Hodge: the demands of the law (and also, the sentence of justification); Alford (following Meyer): all the requirements of the law combined here as one. Perhaps it is more exact to paraphrase: that righteous act (viewing all the acts as a unit) which meets the requirements of the law. This is Lange’s view.—R.]. Meyer explains the δικαὶωμα (“quite simply, as Rom_1:32; Rom_2:26; comp. also Rom_5:16”) as the requirement of the law; that which the law stipulates. Yet we have seen above, that δικαὶωμα is that which satisfies and fulfils the law. The righteousness of life shall proceed from the righteousness of faith. Or, as the former proceeds originally from the latter as freedom in Christ, so shall it also proceed actually from it in more gradual fulfilment—in the holiness of our life. The surprise of the expositors at the explanation of Chrysostom and Theodoret, ὁ σκοπὸςτοῦ νόμου (see Tholuck, p. 396), is therefore without ground. Certainly that cannot mean, that the purpose of the law is to justify, but that it is its limit and end; see Rom_13:10. Explanations:
1. The imputatio of Christ’s righteousness. Calvin: The transferrence to us of the destruction of guilt which Christ effected (Bullinger, Beza, Calixtus [Hodge], and others). Also the transferrence of Christ’s obedience to us (Brenz, Aretius [Haldane, apparently]: therefore also the obedientia activa). Köllner, Fritzsche, and Philippi: The sententia absolutoria is meant. Tholuck properly suggests, that the πληροῦν and the ἐν are against these interpretations.
2. The principle of the righteousness of life imparted to believers. This view seems to indicate a slight fear of the thought that Christians shall be holy in the form of believing spontaneity. Tholuck cites Meyer’s view: “in order that this fulfilment of the law become apparent in the whole conduct,” and adds (in accordance with Olshausen), “then Christians would be regarded as though they were only the possessors of a principle fulfilling the law.”
3. The real holiness of believers proceeding from the principle of the righteousness of faith. [So Tholuck, Olshausen, Meyer, Alford, John Brown, and many others; among them some who refer the previous verse to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ.—R.] The passive form (instead of πληρώσωμεν) is a safeguard against a semi-Pelagian misconstruction. De Wette: in our inward activity of life. Reiche and Klee give special prominence therewith to the real inwardness of the fulfilment of the law.
[Might be fulfilled in us, πληρώθη̣ ἐν ἡμῑν. The verb is passive. The fulfilment is wrought by God. In us; not by us, not on us (some shade of this meaning is involved in all those interpretations which refer the verse to imputed righteousness or holiness), and certainly not among us. The only objection to be considered is that of Calvin, and others: that, in this sense, the fulfilment does not take place. Granted—not at once, nor in this life, perhaps; but surely this must be the end (comp. Eph_2:10; Col_1:22), and that it is in the Apostle’s mind here, is evident from the latter part of the chapter.—R.]
Who walk not according to the flesh, &c. [τοῖς μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν,ὰλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα. Κατἁ may be expanded into: according to the impulses of (so Meyer). These phrases express the actual life of those in the flesh and in the Spirit.—R.] This addition states not only the characteristic, but also the necessary condition32 of believers. Tholuck holds that the participial clause does not contain the condition, as many of the earlier expositors maintain, but only the specification of the method. Meyer holds, that κατὰ πνεῦμα designates only the sanctifying Divine principle itself, as objective, and different from the human πνεῦμα! But it must not be viewed subjectively as the pneumatic nature of the regenerate, restored by the Holy Spirit, as (in accordance with Chrysostom) held by Bengel, Rückert, Philippi, and others. We would then have to ask at once, whether there is not another expression for the human spiritual life in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit? Further, whence the antagonism of the Holy Spirit and the human σἁρξ, since the most direct antithesis would be man’s unholy spiritual life? Universally, wherever the question is the antithesis of spirit and flesh in man himself, man is nevertheless considered as man, and not merely as flesh. [To this position of Dr. Lange there are decided objections. On the whole subject, the reader is referred to the Excursus, p. 235. It is better to hold (with Meyer, Alford, Hodge, and many others, against Stuart, Philippi, Lange, &c.), that πνεῦμα here refers to the Holy Spirit, and not to the spiritual natured imparted by the Holy Spirit, or the subjective spiritual life-principle (Lange). This seems to be required by Rom_8:2 (“the law of the Spirit of life”) and Rom_8:5 (“the things of the Spirit”), where πνεῦμα evidently means the Holy Spirit.—The E. V. has very properly expressed this by the use of the capital letter.—R.]
Second Paragraph, Rom_8:5-8
Rom_8:5. For those who are according to the flesh [οἱ γὰρ κατὰ σάρκα ὄντες]. The εἶναι κατὰ σἁρκα is identical with the εἶναι ἐν σαρκἰ, and the latter means, to be in the carnal principle, under the supposition that the σάρξ is the absolute principle of life. This εἶναι, as the controlling tendency of life, is the source of the φρονεῖν, and the φρονεῖν is the causa efficiens of the περιπατεῖν.—Meyer says that this expression is a wider notion than that conveyed by “who walk after the flesh,” which is not the case.33 Tholuck explains εἶναι κατά τι: “To bear in one’s self the qualities of something; therefore = οἱ σαρκικοἱ.” But it is these, first of all, in their principle of life, which then certainly results in the walk in the flesh. [It may be admitted that the principle of life is more prominent than the ethical state in this verse. Yet the phrases, “in the flesh” and “according to the flesh” (especially the former) include the characteristic state as well. Hence the view of Tholuck is preferable.—R.]
Do mind the things of the flesh [τὰ τῆς σαρκὸς φρονοῦσιν. The verb means, think of, care for, strive after (Alford). Meyer notices the presence of the article, making σάρξ objective, as though it were something independent. This accords with the view, that Spirit here is the objective and operative Holy Spirit.—R.] The false objects of the desires of the false independence of the flesh. The antithesis, those who are according to the Spirit, οἱ δὲ κατὰ πνεῦμα, completes the thought that the two tendencies totally exclude each other.—[It also follows that τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος, the things of the Spirit, which belong to the Holy Spirit, and hence to the spiritual life, exclude the things of the flesh. Dr. Hodge well remarks, therefore, that the latter phrase means “not merely sensual things, but all things which do not belong to the category of the things of the Spirit.”—R.]
Rom_8:6. For the mind of the flesh is death [τὸ γὰρ φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς θανατός]. The connection here formed by γὰρ is singular. Tholuck: “It could serve to prove only the second half of Rom_8:5, while the correspondence of the members of the sentence leads us to expect a proof of both halves of Rom_8:5. Thus the view gains probability, that, according to the Greek and Hebrew (כּי) use of language, the proof in Rom_8:6 performs for that in Rom_8:5 the parallel service of assigning reasons for the τοῖς μὴ, κ.τ.λ., in Rom_8:4.” Meyer makes the γὰρ the proof of the second half of Rom_8:5, οἱ δὲ κατα πνεῦμα. “Motive why they make the interests of the πνεῦμα the end of their efforts.”34 We regard, however, the γὰρ as proof that the εἶναι κατὰ has a corresponding φρονεῖν and φρόνημα35 as a result. For the σάρξ has a φρόνημα, yet all its φρόνημα is nothing but death; not only aiming at death against its will, but also proceeding from death, moving in the element of death; that is, in constant dissolution of the unity between life and its source of life, between spiritual and physical life, and even between the opposition of the desires of the individual members. The copula, to be supplied here, is not, has as its results, but, is, amounts to. Philippi: “Death is here conceived as present (comp. 1Ti_5:6; Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5), not merely as a result, but as a characteristic mark, an immanent definition of the carnal mind.”—R.]
[But the mind of the Spirit, τὸ δὲ φρόνημα τοῦ πνεὺματος.] The opposite is the φρόνημα τοῦ πνεύματος (for the εἶναι κατὰπν. is itself πν.); it is life and peace.36 It is therefore from true life, moving in life, directed to life. Peace means the soul of life. Opposition is the separation and dissolution of life; peace with God is connection with the source of life; peace with one’s self, a blessed sense of life; peace with the government of God and His world, an infinitely richer life. The third characteristic must be specially emphasized in both clauses: directed to the end: life and peace.
Rom_8:7. Because the mind of the flesh. [Διότι introduces a proof, here confined to the former half of Rom_8:6. This proof hints at an antithesis to both life and peace, the latter being more evident, as it is in human consciousness also.—R.] The reason why φρόνημα, &c., = θαν., lies in its opposition to the source of life, its enmity against God [ἒχθρα εἰς θεόν], with which the displeasure of God necessarily corresponds.37 Since the Apostle does not prove the second half, it follows that here the effort of the flesh constitutes the principal point of view. Enmity against God is, in the first degree, the actual opposition to God in almost unknown (but not unconscious) form; but afterwards the opposition established also in the consciousness. Melanchthon appropriately says: “Loquitur Paulus principaliter de cogitationibus de deo, quales sunt in mente non renata, in qua simul magna confusio est dubitationum, deinde et de affectibus erga deum. In securis est contemtus judicii dei, in perpere factis indignatio et fremitus adversus deum.”
For it does not submit itself to the law of God [τῷ γὰρ νόμω̣ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ ὑποτάσσεται. The verb is middle. The law of God is in emphatic position. The clause proves what precedes, by adducing a fact. This mode of proof concurs with the statements already made respecting man’s character and that of the law.—R.] Paul’s positive declaration of the manifestation of this enmity. This enmity, which is very deep-seated, becomes manifest in disobedience to, and rebellion against, God’s law.
Neither indeed can it [οὐδὲ γὰρ δύναται]. Subjection to the law of God is not possible on the carnal standpoint. Or rather, it cannot be effected by carnal effort. A divided life, according to the blind course of the lusts, is in outright contradiction to the central procession of life from within, according to the principle of the Spirit. Tholuck justly opposes Zeller, by bringing out the fact, that the antithesis is not man’s sensuous and spiritual nature in itself, but that σάρξ denotes human nature with the accessory idea of its sinful character. But to this it may be said, that the question is not the σάρξ in itself, but a φρόνημα τῆς σαρκός; that is, a σάρξ morbidly excited and demonized by a selfish spirituality. [Comp. the Excursus in chap. 7. That chapter is a proof of this declaration. The fact is undoubted. Paul is but declaring the cause of the manifestation of enmity to God in the form of opposition to His law, the inability of the carnal man to be subject to it. The question of ability to believe is not under discussion, yet Pelagianism and legalism are obviously precluded by this statement.—R.]
Rom_8:8. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God [οἱ δὲ ἐν σαρκὶ ὂντες θεῷἀρέσαι οὐ δύνανται. The E. V. strengthens δέ into so then, following Beza, Calvin, and others, who made it = οὖν. (So Hodge.) It is much better, with De Wette, Philippi, Meyer, to consider it metabatic. It continues the thought of the first clause of Rom_8:7. There seems to be no necessity for assuming a suppressed μέν, as Alford does. On this account we render and instead of but.—R.] Ὄντες ἐν σαρκί = ὂντες κατὰ σάρκα, but the expression here is stronger; see above. The incapacity in Rom_8:8, then, follows from the incapacity of Rom_8:7. It is said, in a mild way, that they are objects of the Divine displeasure, children of wrath. But the expression is significant, in that it destroys the notion of those who are legalists, and rely on the righteousness of their works, and who, although ὂντες ἐν σαρκί, fancy that they can merit the pleasure of God by their works and endeavors. For we must by no means lose sight of the fact, that the Apostle does not speak merely of the gross service of sin, but also of an observance of the law, which accepts the law as merely external, as γράνμα and σάρξ. [The connection renders obvious what is distinctly stated elsewhere, that this is no negative position, involving only negative results. The mind of the flesh is death.—R.]
Third Paragraph, Rom_8:9-11
Rom_8:9. But ye are not in the flesh, &c. [ὑμεῖς δέ, Ζ.τ.λ. Δέ is distinctive (Stuart).—If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you, εἲπερ πνεῦμα θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν]. The antithesis. The more specific exhortation does not appear here, but in Rom_8:12. The εἴπερ may be thus distinguished from εἲγε: it (= “provided that”) generally expresses slight doubt, while εἲγε expresses rather an assurance in the sense of if indeed. Yet the εἲπερ here must be understood as only purely conditional, in conformity with the antithesis by which the Apostle represents the standpoint of the spiritual life of believers as purely fundamental and ideal. With such a representation, the application to individuals can only take place with an εἲπερ; likewise without positive doubt. Chrysostom and Olshausen take it as ἐπειδήπερ, quando quidem; Tholuck and Meyer prefer the hortatory construction, on account of the antithesis. [It seems most natural to account for the conditional form, by admitting “an indirect incitement to self-examination” (Meyer). Πνεῦμα is without the article, yet it must mean the Holy Spirit; hence we claim this as its usual meaning throughout the passage. The use of πνεύματι, seemingly in distinction from πνεῦμα, is not against this, since, in the first clause, the Spirit is represented as the element in which they live; in the second, as the indwelling power causing them to live in this element.—On οἰκεῖ, comp. 1Co_3:16; 1Co_6:17; 1Co_6:19; 2Ti_1:14; Joh_14:23.—In you must not be weakened to among you.—R.]
Now if any man hath not, &c. [εἰ δέ τις πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ οὐκ ἔχει. The antithesis is not very strong; δέ may well be rendered now (E. V.). The unconditional negative belongs to the verb (Alford). See Textual Note8.—R.] This antithetical declaration certainly expresses the possibility, that what has been said has no reference to particular individuals, and that here no half measures are of any avail.
The Spirit of Christ. The question here is, belonging to Christ; hence, the Spirit of Christ. It is the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of His righteousness of life as brought home to the inward life of believers. [There can be no reasonable doubt that it is identical with Spirit of God, above; though the connection with “none of His” has occasioned the use of this particular phrase. The genitive is possessive, Spirit belonging to, or proceeding from, Christ. Comp. Php_1:19; Gal_4:6; 1Pe_1:11. Notice the terms, “Spirit of God,” “Spirit of Christ,” “Christ,” all applied to the Divine spiritual indwelling. Hence Bengel well says: Testimonium illustre de sancta Trinitate ejusque œconomia in corde fidel um. It must be admitted that such statements generally have reference to the economy of grace, but they form the basis for the doctrinal statements of the Church. This text is therefore a dictum probans for the Western doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son (filioque, Synod of Toledo, A. D. 589). This was the final contribution to the doctrinal statement of the Trinity. On its importance, &c., see Schaff, History of the Christian Church, iii., pp. 688 f.; comp. Kahnis, Lehre vom Heiligen Geiste, Halle, 1847. Philippi has an excellent note in loco. On the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ, comp. Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26; Joh_16:7; Joh_16:13-14.—R.]
[He is none of his, οὗτος οὐκ ἒστιναὐτοῦ.] The Apostle does not regard a merely external belonging to Christ as of any value. Where the Christianity of the inward life is extinct, there the Christianity of the whole man is extinct. Meyer: “Not those who are not Christians, but nominal Christians.”
Rom_8:10. But if Christ is in you [εἰ δὲκριστὸρ ἐν ὑμῖν]. That is, as a principle of life. [Δέ contrasts with the last verse. (Is is substituted for be, to indicate the strong probability that this is the case.) Comp. Joh_6:56; Joh_15:4; 2Co_13:5; Gal_2:20; Eph_3:17; Col_1:27; also Joh_14:23, as justifying the remark of Bengel: Qui Spiritum habet, Christum habet; qui Christum habet, Deum habet. The mystical union of Christ and the believer has, as its underlying basis, the yet more mysterious unity of the Persons of the Godhead.—R.]
The body is dead [τὸ μὲν σῶμα νεκρόν]. Explanations of Rom_8:10-11 :38
1. Death and life in their strict sense. Therefore the body lapsed to death (Augustine, Beza, Bengel [mortuum pro moriturum], Usteri, Rückert, and Fritzsche). [So Hodge, Alford, Wordsworth.] According to Meyer, the νεκρός is proleptic: “Ye have the following blessed results to enjoy: although the body is a prey to death because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness. But He who raised Christ will also raise your mortal bodies, because the Spirit of Christ dwelleth in you.” [In favor of this view are: the natural sense of dead, the connection with Rom_8:11, and the subsequent course of thought; its not attaching an ethical meaning to body. Against it: the comprehensive meaning of death throughout this part of the Epistle, the necessity for a wide meaning in its antithesis ζωὴ, as well as in ζωοποιὴσει (Rom_8:11, not ἐγειρεῖ); also the use of σῶμα in an implied ethical sense in Rom_8:13.—R.]
2. The body is dead, slain by sin (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Erasmus, Grotius, Baumgarten-Crusius [Stuart], and others. [These, for the most part, take Rom_8:10 in a moral or spiritual sense. This view is most objectionable, since it disturbs the harmony of the two verses, takes σῶμα in a strict ethical sense, and gives to νεκρόν (which seems to be chosen rather to avoid a direct antithesis to ζωή) the widest possible meaning.—R.]
3. The misery of sin as bearing in itself the germ of death (De Wette, and others). [De Wette claims that the physical and ethical senses must be combined here, as in Joh_5:21 ff. This view is sufficiently correct if properly restricted. The physical death of the body is to be viewed as a moral result of the indwelling sin, but only because the body has not yet shared in the full results of redemption.—R.]
But all this does not furnish us with the definition, that, on account of sin—that is, because of sinfulness—we have to lead a divinely partial life from the principle of the Spirit, in which the body is declared to be dead in an ideal and dynamical respect (see Rom_6:4). But thereby the spirit as life, and the principle of life, is concentrated still more in itself. [The objection to this view is, its confusion of human spirit and Divine Spirit, on which the whole interpretation rests.—R.]
But the spirit is life [τὸ δὲ πνεῦμαζωή]. Meyer also holds, that here the spirit is not the Holy Spirit (as Chrysostom, Calvin, and others suppose), but the human spirit. Although the human spirit is here regarded as filled by the Holy Spirit, we must not include (with Philippi, following Theodoret and De Wette) the pneumatic nature of the regenerate. For, says Meyer, that must remain there. [The meaning is evidently that under III. B. in the Excursus above, p. 235.—R.] Ζωή, life; not merely living, but life which is thoroughly actual, life-giving, and life-supporting. [Whatever view be taken of dead, the change in the form here, from the adjective to the noun, warrants an extension of meaning; as indeed the word ζωή itself, and its reference to the human spirit permeated by the Divine Spirit, demand.—R.]
Because of sin [δυὰ ἁμαρτἰαν, on account of sin, as an indwelling principle. Not the special sins of the body, nor that the body is the special seat of sin; but, having shared in the results of sin, it has not yet shared in the results of redemption. How and when it will, is afterwards stated.—R.] As this can only mean, to constitute a pure opposition to the sinful propensity cleaving to the members, so can because of righteousness [διὰ δικαιοσύνην] only mean, to maintain and develop the righteousness of faith in the righteousness of life. According to Meyer, the justitia imputata is meant, as the foundation of the ζωή. (The most of the elder expositors, together with Rückert, &c., favor the same view.) But then the διά would have to be construed with the genitive. The reference to the righteousness of life (Erasmus, Grotius, De Wette, Philippi [Hodge, Alford], and others) is opposed by Meyer in the words: “Because the righteousness of life can never be perfect, it can never be the ground of the ζωή. But the question is not the ground of the ζωή, but the greater promotion of life, so that it may prove itself to be purer life. The concern is, to preserve spotless the white robe of bestowed righteousness, and, being clad in it, to strive for the crown of righteousness.” (Meyer holds, according to this, that the ἁμαρτ. does not imply our own individual sin, and thus, too, that the δικ. does not imply our own “righteousness.”) In harmony with the sense, many expositors, particularly Calixtus, connect the justitia imputata with the inchoata.39
Rom_8:11. But if the Spirit [εἰ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα]. The Apostle here prepares his transition from his description of adoption, regarded as a partial spiritual life, to his description of the glory in which body and spirit shall be in perfect harmony, when the body shall be glorified into the perfect organ of the Spirit. Meyer thus construes the connection: “After Rom_8:10, death still retains some power—that over the body; Paul now removes this.”
Of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, &c. [τοῦ ἐγειραντος Ἰησοῦν ἐκ νεκρῶν, κ.τ.λ.]. The spiritual resurrection must be followed by the physical; it is a prophecy of the physical resurrection. For the author of the spiritual resurrection is the Spirit of the wonder-working God, which has raised Christ, and elevated Him to the majesty of the glorified life. What the Spirit [now dwelling in you] has done to Him, in conformity with the connection of body and spirit, He will also do to His members (see Eph_1:19 ff.). He has raised Jesus from the dead—that is, as the first-fruits of the resurrection. Therefore He
Will quicken even your mortal bodies, &c. [ζωοποιήσει καὶ τὰ θνητὰ σώματαὑμῶν, κ.τ.λ. The use of the word θνητὰ, mortal, immediately after νεΖρὀν (Rom_8:10) seems to justify the reference of the latter to physical death; as, indeed, σώματα here opposes any ethical sense of that word in Rom_8:10. Since, however, the verb ζωοποιεῖν is one of wide meaning, a large number of commentators (Calvin, Stuart, De Wette, Philippi, and others) refer this verse also to something which takes place even here, to be completed, indeed, at the time of actual resurrection. Against this is the καἰ, also, even, which is unnecessary, unless the reference be to something which has not yet taken place, and which seemed most unlikely to take place. The quickening of the body, as a tool of unrighteousness, has already begun. The objection of Stuart, that then this would only mean to declare the bodily resurrection, a truth already well known, betrays a want of appreciation of the importance attached to that truth by the Apostle. Furthermore, even admitting a secondary reference to a present moral quickening of the body, the primary reference to the actual physical resurrection seems to be demanded by the experience of Christians, which certainly shows them that the last seat, both of the strength and the effects of sin, is in the body. It does not revive; no spiritual power here renews it. It is mortal, yet even it shall share in the life-giving influence. The verb means more than raising from the dead indeed, but, as used here, the emphasis rests on this.—R.]
[On account of his Spirit that dwelleth in you, διὰ τὸ ἐνοικοῦν αὐτοῦ πνεῦμα ἐνὑμῖν. See Textual Note11]. We have decided above for the accusative, δια τὸ ἐςοιΖοῦν, in opposition to the genitive. We do this for important reasons. The Spirit which dwells in believers prepares the resurrection-body; but the resurrection is thereby only provided for. The resurrection itself is still to be the final deed of God. And this is the question here (see Rom_8:18). But it is a miraculous deed of God, which is not only occasioned, but also brought to pass, by the presence of the Spirit of life in believers.
The change of terms is remarkable: Jesus and Christ. [Bengel: Appellatio Jesu spectat ad ipsum; Christi, refertur ad nos; true even to its eschatological reference (Meyer).—R.]
If, now, the ζωοποιὴσει also refers to the resurrection, the choice of the expression yet indicates, at the same time, the holiness of the corporealness by the operation of the resurrection power of the Spirit, as this holiness constitutes the transition and interposition for the final miracle of the resurrection (see 2Co_5:5). From the very nature of the case, the question here can be neither an ethical vivification alone, nor a physical one alone; but the idea of vivification comprises both these (according to Calvin, De Wette, Philippi, and others). Calvin: “Non de ultima resurrectione,40 quœ momento fiet, habetur sermo, sed de continua spiritus operatione, quœ relinquias carnis paulatim mortificans cœlestem vitam in nobis instaurat.” But De Wette properly observes, against the notion that the spiritual power of resurrection alone can consummate the process of renewal (in conformity with the reading διὰ τοῦ, &c.), that the Jewish opinion that the Holy Ghost quickens the dead (Shamoth Rabba, &c.) cannot prove any thing here.
Fourth Paragraph, Rom_8:12-17
Rom_8:12. Therefore, brethren [ἂρα οὖν, ἀδελφοἰ. An inferential exhortation. In Rom_6:12 a similar exhortation is found, but without ἀδελφοἰ. The first person naturally follows.—R.] The ἂρα draws an inference from the necessity of leading the life in the Spirit in opposition to the life in the flesh, in hope of the reanimation of the body. Tholuck says, though not in the sense of the textual construction: “The Apostle allows himself to be led off from the train of thought commencing with Rom_8:10-11, by the necessity of an exhortation, and afterwards returns from another point to the eschatological expression.”
We are debtors, not to the flesh [ὀφειλέται ἐσμὲν οὐ τῇ σαρκἰ. The negative applies to the succeeding clause as well. The antithesis is obvious. Σάρξ has the article here, where it is personified, but not in the next clause, where it corresponds with the use made of it in Rom_8:4-5.—R.] According to Meyer, the Apostle has suppressed his antithesis in consequence of the vivacious movement of his language. But he was prevented by something else—namely, a desire to guard against misunderstanding, as if Christians had no duties in reference to their flesh or their physical life (comp. Eph_5:29). [So Chrysostom; see Alford in loco.—R.] Therefore he defines his proposition more specifically: not to live after the flesh [τοῦ κατὰ σάρκα ζῇν]; that is, not to live according to the principle of carnal desires, or of external motives at all. The genitive τοῦ is sufficiently explained as designation of the infinitive of result. (Fritzsche takes another view; see Meyer.)41 The antithesis, after the Spirit, follows indirectly in Rom_8:13.
Rom_8:13. Ye shall die [μέλλετε ἀποθνήσκειν]. Strictly, then ye shall go continually to death, or, toward death (μέλλετε). Meyer understands this to mean here only eternal death. This is contrary to Philippi, who properly retains the general idea of death.42 According to Rückert, this declaration would exclude the resurrection. But the Apostle takes cognizance not only of the difference between the first and second resurrection (1Co_15:23), but also of a resurrection which begins immediately after death (2Co_5:1); and pure life is in antithesis to a final resurrection to judgment. The explanation of Œcumenius, τὸν ἀθάνατον θάνατον ἐν τῇ γεέννῃ, precludes neither the resurrection on the one hand, nor, on the other, a constant connection of physical and psychical corruption with ethical corruption.
But if ye through the Spirit [εἰ δὲ πνεύματι. ΙΙνεύματι here is undoubtedly not subjective, but the Holy Spirit (comp. Rom_8:14). An instrumental dative.—R.] By means of the life of the Spirit (by virtue of the Holy Spirit, says Meyer). Therefore the Apostle says, the deeds of the body should be mortified, not by bodily exercise, restraint, and penance, but by the power of the life of the Spirit.
The deeds [τὰς πράξεις]. The stratagems. Machinations (Luk_23:51; Col_3:9). These consist in the predominance of illegal impulses as irresistible necessities, as proofs of liberty, as the poetry of life, &c. The word occurs in the later Greek writers in the meaning of cunning designs, especially in relation to sins of lust (see Tholuck).43 Yet the general treatment in the present section requires a general interpretation of the word.
[Of the body, τοῦ σώματος. See Textual Note13.] The expression σώματος has been very strange to many; therefore Codd. D. E. F. G., and the Vulgate, read σάρκος. Τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας, Rom_6:6, cannot be cited in favor of the expression, since the question here is a real body, but not there. Yet Meyer correctly asserts, contrary to Stirm, that Paul remained true to his customary use of language. The body has its autonomous desires, which express themselves faithfully in the normal life of man, and willingly subordinate themselves to the dominion of the Spirit. In the sinful man, who is not converted, these express themselves as imperious commands. In the believer, on the contrary, from whom the law in the members is removed, they can morbidly express themselves still, though in only deceptive forms, and so far as the body, which should be the organ of the spirit, is autonomous in unguarded moments. But its πράξεις are then motions of the σάρξ, which appear as πράξεις of the body, because the body has its physiological rights. [Thus we avoid giving an ethical sense to body. If the bad sense of deeds be emphasized, then the ethical force is found there. We must avoid, on the other hand, taking the phrase, “deeds of the body,” as metonyme for sinful, carnal deeds (Stuart, Hodge); for there must be a reason for the choice of this word. Alford, following De Wette, explains it: “=τῆς σαρκός, but here concrete, to give more vivid reality.”—R.]
Θανατοῦτε [comp. Rom_7:4, and the stronger expression, νεκρώσατε, Col_3:5; Lange’s Comm., pp. 63, 64.—R.] Mortify can only mean: exhaust and abnegate to the very root. Wicked practises, as roots of sin, are included.
Ye shall live [ζήσεσθε. Alford: “not μέλλετε ζῆν; this life being no natural consequence of a course of mortifying the deeds of the body, but the gift of God through Christ; and coming, therefore, in the form of an assurance, ‘ye shall live,’ from Christ’s Apostle.”—R.] In the higher, and even highest sense.
Rom_8:14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God [ὂσοι γὰρ πνεύματι θεοῦἂγονται. Comp. Gal_5:18. Lange’s Comm., p. 137. Γάρ introduces the reason why they shall live, implying, at the same time, that such mortification was the result of the Spirit’s influence, as is expressed in Rom_8:13. Hence πνεῦμα, in the former case, must refer to the Spirit of God. That this leading means a continued and special influence of the Divine Spirit, is obvious.—R.] The Spirit of God is not identical with the Spirit in Rom_8:13 (Meyer); but it is Christian spiritual life, to be led by the Spirit of God. The passive form expresses its complete dominion, without at the same time denying the voluntary being led on the part of the human will.
They are sons of God [οὒτοι υἱοί εἰσιν θεοῦ. See Textual Note14. The reading adopted here places the emphasis on οὒτοι, these, and none other, but gives a secondary emphasis to υἱοί; comp. Gal_3:7. Philippi finds no essential difference between υἱοί and τέκνα θεοῦ, except that, in the former, the idea of maturity is more prominent. Hence Christ is called νἱός, never τέκνον θεοῦ. (So Alford.) On the significance of the phrase, see Doctr. Note10, and the Exeg. Notes on Rom_8:15-16.—R.] Sons, in the real sense, in contrast with the symbolical children of God of the old theocracy. It is those, and those alone, who bear in themselves the mark that the Spirit of God leads them. On the other hand, the merely symbolical adoption by God under the law is strictly a bondage, according to Rom_8:15. Comp. Gal_5:18.
Rom_8:15. For ye did not receive the spirit of bondage [οὐ γὰρ ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα δουλείας. An appeal to Christian consciousness, to confirm (γάρ) his statement. The verb is aorist, referring to a definite time (when they became Christians).—R.] Meyer translates: “A spirit of bondage, adoption.” We hold that the definitions are sufficiently united by the exclusive antithesis. What must we understand by the expression, spirit of bondage? Tholuck: “The negative form of this clause caused the earlier expositors great difficulty, since the question is not a communication of the spirit in the Old Testament, and since the spirit there imparted, so far as it was a spirit of bondage, could not be derived from God; and finally, as the πνεῦμα, which, in consequence of the antithesis of πνεῦμα υἱοθεσἰας, must be viewed as the Holy Spirit, could produce the spirit of bondage.” Explanations:
1. Augustine incidentally: The devil is the author of the slavish spirit (Heb_2:14-15). Luther: The spirit of Cain in opposition to Abel’s spirit of grace (Fritzsche: malus dœmon, &c.).
2. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Œcumenius: The gift of the law itself, as πνευματική, according to Rom_7:14. Likewise Augustine, elsewhere: The spirit of the external gift of the law: idem spiritus in tabulis lapideis in timore, in tabulis cordis in dilectione.
3. Most of the later expositors: The same Holy Spirit is described in His twofold operation; here, as far as He exercises His penal office (Joh_16:8). In that case, the operation of the mere attritio not designed by the Spirit is made prominent.
4. Grotius, Philippi, and others: πν. is in both cases a subjective spiritual disposition. [Philippi defends this view very ably. Stuart: a servile spirit; a filial spirit. Alford admits also the subjective sense. De Wette remarks, that the objective source is indicated in the verb “received.”—R.].
5. Fritzsche, Meyer, and Tholuck: πν. δουλ. denotes what the received filial spirit is not. Likewise Monachus, in the seventh century. Therefore the spirit of bondage is regarded as a hypothetical antithesis. This is undoubtedly correct, in a measure, so far as the Spirit which they have received can be regarded only as a Spirit of adoption; but a spirit of bondage would be really a perverse spirit. [It should be remarked, that all views which give πνεῦμα a subjective meaning, must either take it in the first case as = disposition, and, in the second, = the human spirit as influenced by the Holy Spirit, thus having no exact correspondence; or, assume a hypothetical antithesis in the first case. It may be added, that it is difficult to account for the use of the word “receive” (especially the definite aorist), if these views be accepted, since the servile spirit was the natural spirit. We are thus driven to the interpretation, that πνεῦμα means the same spirit in both cases, defined first negatively, then positively. The probability of a reference to the Holy Spirit is very great in that case.—R.]
But yet the Apostle intimates that Judaism has made of the Old Testament a spirit (a spirit-like, complete system) of bondage, and that it might attempt to make such a perverse spirit of the New Testament. This intimation is brought out prominently by the πάλιν εἰς φόβον, which denotes a fact. At Sinai the Jews made of the law a law εἰς φόβον in the bad sense (Exo_20:19, &c.). On the other hand, the repetition of the ἐλάβετε favors the view given above: ye have not received a spirit of bondage, because that would be a contradiction.
Again to fear. This denotes the bound: wicked fear of slavish legalism. [De Wette, Meyer, Philippi, join πάλιν with εἰς φόβον as = in order again to fear. The πάλιν may imply that the condition under Judaism was one of fear, but it does not follow that the Roman Christians were mainly Jewish (Philippi), for this fear is a result of all unchristian religiousness. The πάλιν points to their previous condition in all cases.—R.]
But ye received the Spirit of adoption [ἀλλὰ ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα υἱοθεσιας. Meyer finds in the repetition of ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα something solemn. The force of the genitive must be determined largely by the meaning of πνεῦμα. Meyer: A spirit which is the ruling principle in the condition of adoption. Philippi, arguing, from Gal_4:5-6, that adoption precedes the impartation of the Holy Spirit, finds another reason for the subjective sense of spirit; but the adoption may be taken, not as the act, but the state, which is more accordant with the context, since ἐν ᾧ, wherein, refers to a state or element of life. Out of this comes the subjective feeling, the cry, Abba, Father. The genitive then points to an effect as in bondage, which also has a descriptive clause appended.—R.]
De Wette: “υίοθεσία, strictly, adoption instead of a child;” which meaning can be so urged, that they who were by nature the children of wrath (Eph_2:3), have been adopted, or appointed (Eph_1:15), the children of God (Fritzsche, Meyer, and Olshausen). The same commentator says: “But it is a question whether—as even in the Old Testament (Deu_32:6), and in the New Testament (Joh_1:12; 1Jn_3:9; 2Pe_1:4), and also in Paul, agreeably to the new creation (Gal_6:15), the idea of transformation into children of God occurs—there is not, consequently, in υἱοθ. rather the idea of sonship, of the real relation of children to the father (Luther, Usteri, &c.), than of adoption (Fritzsche, Meyer, and Tholuck). The expression, πνεῦμα νἱοθ., and the use made of the word in Rom_8:23, harmonizes better with this view.” Tholuck, on the contrary, appeals to Eph_5:1; Rom_9:4; to the designation of the adopted child by υἱὸςθετός (υἱὸς εἰσποίητος); and to the adoptio filiorum of the Vulgate. But Chrysostom, Theodoret, and other Greek expositors, on the other hand, have taken the word also in the sense of υἱότης. It is easy to see that the Apostle chose the expression in order to distinguish the children of faith, as adopted through grace, from the υἱὸς ἴδιος. But he had the further reason of not wishing to press the idea: for then he could not have said, with reference to the Hebrew law of inheritance, “And if children, then heirs.” Likewise, the new birth by Christ and His Spirit denotes real υἱοί. [The actual sonship has already been mentioned in Rom_8:14. It seems more natural, then, to take this expression in the confirmatory verse in its literal sense, adoption, as implying the method of their becoming sons; the more so, as an appeal is made to the experience of the readers, which experience would revert to the time when they passed out of one state into the other.—R.]
Wherein we cry (1Co_2:3) [ἐν ᾧ κράζομεν. The E. V., whereby, is not exact. Hodge: “which enables us to address God as our Father.” Such an instrumental sense of the preposition is very doubtful. The first person is here used, probably from the deep feeling of fellowship which the thought awakens.—R.] The ἐν here designates the Spirit as the principle [element] of life, which has the full παῤῥησία as its result (Heb_10:19-23). κράζειν, loud praying; the voluntary, childlike exclamation. “Chrysostom raises the doubt, that, even in the Old Testament, God is called the Father of Israel; and he replies to it, by saying that the Jews did not use this term in their prayers; or, if they did, it was only ἐξ οἰκείας διανοίας, and not ἀπὸ πνευματικῆς ἐνεργείας κινούμενοι. Yet God certainly has the name of Father in the Old Testament, only in the same incomplete sense as the people the name of son—namely, as founder and protector of the people (Jer_3:4; Jer_3:19, and elsewhere), and always in reference to the community, and not to the relation of the individual;” Tholuck. In the Apocrypha, He is first addressed thus by individuals (Book of Wis_14:3; Sirach xxiii. 1; li. 14). But we must not overlook the fact that, even in the Old Testament, the centre of the filial relation is the Messiah (2 Samuel 7; Psalms 2; Isaiah 9); and that, consequently, from the perfect New Testament centre of the relation of the Father to Christ, all υίοθεσία extends.
Abba, Father. Ἀββᾶ [אַכָּא], the Syriac name for father (Gal_4:6; Mar_14:36). Why is the πατήρ added? Explanations:
1. The usual view (Rückert, Reiche, Köllner, &c.) is, the πατήρ helps to explain the Syriac Abba. [So Hodge: “Paul chose to call God his Father, in his own familiar tongue. Having used the one word, however, the Greek, of course, became necessary for those to whom he was writing.” But Paul does not always deem it necessary thus to translate (comp. 1Co_16:22); and in the three cases where this phrase occurs, the usual mark of interpretation (τοῦτ’ ἒστι) is wanting.—R.]
2. The repetition of the name is an expression of childlike fondness (Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsvestia, and Grotius [Alford]).
3. An expression of God’s fatherhood for Jews and Gentiles (Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Estius, and others).
4. The name “Abba” has passed from Jewish into Christian prayer, and has received, through Christ himself, the consecration of a special sanctity. Therefore the Greek-speaking Christians retained the word as a proper noun, and added thereto the πατήρ as an appellative, so that the Abba, Father, remained in force; Meyer. [So De Wette, Philippi, Lightfoot; comp. Lange’s Comm. Galatians, p. 98.—R.] This would be, in reality, a duplication arising from a misconception. Tholuck unites with Luther, in favor of Chrysostom’s view. Luther: “It is the calling to, just as a young child lisps to its father in simple, childlike confidence.” If it be necessary to refer to the passage in Mark, the πατήρ there undoubtedly serves as an explanation. It is without any admixture of misconception that a liturgical use (as Hallelujah, Hosanna, Amen) has been made of this passage, because, in the most significant manner, there is in one salutation an invocation of the Father of Christ and the Father of Christians, the Father of the believers of the Old Testament and the New, the Father of Jews and Gentiles, and thus of the Father of all believers in all nations.
Rom_8:16. The Spirit itself [αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα. The parallel passage, Gal_4:6, is conclusive in favor of a reference to the Holy Spirit, even if the context did not demand it.—R.] Αὐτό. Not the same (Erasmus, Luther), but the Spirit itself (Vulgate: ipse spiritus; Beza: ipse ille spiritus). We cry in the spirit, and the Spirit itself beareth us witness.
Beareth witness with [or to] our spirit [συμμαρτυρεῖ τῷ πνεὐματι ἡμῶν]. It may be asked whether συμμαρτυρεῖ is to be taken in the sense of the strengthened, uncompounded word: He bears witness to our spirit, as the Vulgate, Luther, Grotius, Koppe, De Wette [Alford], and many other expositors hold; or, whether it should read: He bears witness with our self-consciousness: I am God’s child. Meyer holds this opinion, insisting upon the συν here, as everywhere (Rom_2:15; Rom_9:1). But the latter view would give rise to the question, To whom do both bear witness? And thus there would follow the conclusion: even self-consciousness bears witness to self-consciousness.44 This view is hardly tenable. Chrysostom distinguishes as the two witnesses, the Holy Spirit and the grace given to us; and Hervæus, Calvin, Tholuck, and others, take the same position. Pareus even applies the legal maxim, “out of the mouth of two witnesses.” “According to this old Protestant interpretation, the witness of our own spirit consists in the communication of the declaration of Divine pardon to the believing subject; but the witness of the Holy Spirit is regarded as a twofold one. On the one hand, it consists in the general witness by the Scriptures and the sacraments, and then in the applicatio and obsignatio produced by the Holy Spirit, while the declarations of the obsignatio fidelium are applied here.”
Yet it seems clear from the antithesis, the Holy Spirit and our spirit, that the Holy Spirit should be regarded as the testifying part, but that our spirit, on the other hand, should be regarded as the part which is testified to. For the witness of our spirit has, as a special witness, no value beside that of the Holy Spirit (see Tholuck, p. 416, 417). And yet the question ever arises, To whom is the witness made? We hold that the expression συναντιλαμβάνεται (Rom_8:26) is an illustrative parallel, and must give importance to the consideration that there the explanatory word ὑπερεντυγχάνει is added. But we thereby approach nearer the explanation, that the συν in both cases has the meaning of a strengthened simple word. But it yet remains for us to conclude concerning a twofold function of the same Holy Spirit in the life of the soul. He operates in the filial life of the soul of believers as an impulse to prayer, but He also operates as the sealing witness of adoption. And thus He hastens in advance of our consciousness of faith with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom_8:26). The συν, though it be not a mere simple prefix, does not always signify the equality of two different parts in one function. Sometimes it denotes the effect (συνάγω, συναθροίζω), and sometimes the conjoint conclusion of the act specified in the verb with a kindred fact (συνίημι). This is the case here.
It is important that the earlier theologians regarded this passage as a proof of the certitudo gratiœ, in opposition to the Catholic doctrine. Meyer very properly refers to the fact, that it is a witness against all pantheistic confusion of the Divine Spirit with that of man. It testifies to the living unity of both.45 Melanchthon correctly observes against fanatics, that “the efficacy of the Spirit enters into the believer prœlucente voce evangelii.”
[That we are children of God, ὂτι ἐσμἐντέκνα θεοῦ. The purport of the testimony. Alford: “not υἱοί, because the testimony respects the very ground and central point of sonship, likeness to and desire for God.”—R.] The word τέκνα emphasizes the heartiness of the filial feeling.
Rom_8:17. And if children, also heirs [εἰ δὲτέκνα, καὶ κληρονόμοι]. We must supply ἐσμὲν both times. The being heirs arises from the very idea and right of a child (Gal_4:7).46
Heirs of God [κληρονόμοι μὲν θεοῦ]. The inheritance is the kingdom of glory. God, as the eternally living One, is like the earthly testator, in that He gives His children every thing for an inheritance; but He gives them himself as the treasure of all treasures. He will be their inheritance, as they are to be His inheritance—a relation prefigured already in the Old Testament (Exo_19:5 : Israel the peculiar treasure of God. Num_18:20 : Jehovah is the inheritance of the Levites, as they are His inheritance, clerus). As He himself will be all in all, so shall His children receive with Him, in His Son, every thing for an inheritance (1Co_3:21 ff.). In Luk_15:12 the inheritance, in another sense, is spoken of. [Including in this the highest idea of eternal life, the declaration of the Apostle (Rom_8:13): ye shall live, is abundantly proven.—R.]
And joint-heirs with Christ [αυνκληρονὀμοι δὲ χριστοῦ]. Conformably to the υἱοθεσία, the υἱόί are in the most intimate fellowship with the υἱός, to which the common inheritance corresponds; Gal_4:7. The second designation characterizes the Divine inheritance of believers in its majesty, its infinite extent, and its nature, as the kingdom of perfect love in the glorified world. The view urged by Fritzsche, Meyer, and Tholuck, that here Paul does not have in mind the Hebrew, but the Roman right of inheritance (with reference to adopted children), Philippi correctly terms “an untheocratic reference to the Roman right of inheritance.”47
If so be that we suffer with him [εἲπερσυνπάσΖομεν. On the particle, see Rom_8:9. Here, as there, it implies a slight admonition, since it introduces a condition sine quâ non. The order, not the reason, of obtaining full salvation, is set forth (Calvin).—R.] Suffer with Christ—for Him, His gospel, His witness (1Pe_4:13; 2Co_5:5; Php_3:10; Col_1:24;48 2Ti_2:11). Suffering with Christ has the promise of being glorified with Him. Meyer says, strangely, that “Olshausen (comp. also Philippi) intermixes something totally wrong: ‘Share in the conflict with sin in ourselves and in the world.’ ” Just this is the very nerve of the suffering with Christ.
[That we may be also glorified with him, ἳνα καὶ συνδοξασθῶμεν.] As Meyer properly says, against Tholuck, the ἳνα is not dependent on “joint-heirs,” but on “suffer with Him.” [This view is now given up by Tholuck, who correctly adds, however: “That does not describe the subjective, but the objective, divine design. (So Alford).—R.] On the relations of the right of inheritance in Rome, and other nations, see Tholuck, p. 419 [and the note on “joint-heirs”]. We must here hold to this much, at least, of the idea of adoption: that the joint-heirs with Christ become heirs of God through Christ, in and with Him as the truly Universal Heir.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The correct understanding of this eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans depends essentially on the following conditions: (1) It must be regarded in connection with the whole section beginning with Rom_5:12; (2) The antithesis in this chapter must be perceived. The fundamental thought is indicated in the superscriptions: Sin and the life of Christ, as opposite principles of life in the world. The foundation is given in Rom_5:12-21. The abrogation of the old principle in its two fundamental forms: Service of sin, service of the law; Rom_6:1 to Rom_7:6. The transition from the old to the new nature; the inwardness of the law; Rom_7:7-25. With chap. 8. there appears the new life of believers in Christ, and of Christ in believers. This new life itself constitutes again an antithesis. It is: a. An exclusively spiritual standpoint, in opposition to the flesh, and contemplates the extirpation of the old, sinful motions; b. A standpoint of renewal—whose object is the resurrection and the glorification of the world—proceeding from the Spirit, and embracing the flesh and the whole created world.
2. The Spirit of Christ’s life being communicated to believers, it becomes to them a law of the Spirit for the new life. The law of the Spirit is a potency which extends further than the spirit of the law; much less is it a nova lex in the sense of the Catholic dogmatics. Life in the entire spiritual view and experience of Christ’s life constitutes a universal principle of life, which becomes the rule for every more general relation of life, and an ἐντολή of the living Divine will for every individual situation.
3. On Rom_8:3, see the Exeg. Notes. It is totally foreign to the context to give this passage a special application to the propitiation for the guilt of sin (for the discussions on the subject, see Tholuck). [Those who thus do, are careful to defend their position against antinomianism; but, practically, the danger from a too exclusive application of all possible passages to justification, lies in another direction, viz., that of legal efforts after holiness. The connection between pardon and holiness is thus obscured; the believer fails to see Christ as his life-giving Saviour; the law is again sought; “the spirit of bondage” returns, and the conflict of Rom_7:14-25 is all too common. Whatever may be the logical and theological antithesis, the Christian pastor finds this to be the practical effect.—R.]—It is likewise a disregard of the definite expression to overlook the real meaning of the ὁμοίωμα. Because Christ appeared in the truth and reality of the σάρξ, He also appeared, according to the universal human view, in the likeness of sinful flesh. The Apostle expresses exactly the same thought in the words, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος; Php_2:7. The reality of His human nature resulted in the likeness of His appearance and suffering life to the picture presented by the life of men. Baur’s spiritualistically gross misconception of this declaration (Philippians 2) makes a sort of Gnosticism out of it; the realistic obscuration of the term, on the other hand, allows Christ himself to have assumed sinful flesh. The simple thought is too grand for both these stunting and mutilating tendencies. God has unmasked and judged sin in the flesh, and condemned it to be cast out as a foreign element, a ruinous pseudo-plasma in the flesh, by Christ’s assuming a pure and consecrated σάρξ, and by His keeping His white robe spotless on the whole filthy road of His pilgrimage, and maintaining its holiness until it was illuminated in glorified splendor. Thus the question, whether Christ assumed human nature in its paradisiacal state before the fall, or the fallen nature of Adam, is a thoroughly incorrect one, for it rests on a misconception of biblical facts. Christ assumed neither the unfallen nor the fallen human nature, but the nature raised from the fall and made holy. See the Bible-Work on Joh_1:14.
4. On the connection of the doctrine of the obedientia activa to Rom_8:3, see Tholuck, p. 395.
5. On Rom_8:4. The righteousness of Christ should be realized also in believers, from the principle of the righteousness of faith to the righteousness of life. See the Exeg. Notes.
6. The antithesis, walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit, separates into these elements: a. Being or living in the flesh; being or living in the Spirit; b. The seeking of the flesh as enmity against God; the seeking of the Spirit as enlivened and impelled by the Spirit of God; c. The end—on one side, death; on the other, life and peace.
7. Those who live in the flesh cannot please God. Those imagine that they please God who, following the letter of the law, lead an analytically divided, rent, and fragmentary life, or a false life in outward observances. But God is one; His Spirit is one; His law, as the principle of life, is one; and salvation lies in the dynamical synthesis of life from a shedding abroad of the Spirit. See Mar_12:32 ff.
8. The real, fundamental thought of this section appears in Rom_8:10. See the Exeg. Notes. The body is dead by the necessarily positive standpoint of Christian life in the Spirit, and it is dead in its propensity to sin and death, in order that it may be raised from its state to a new life, and inherit the resurrection (1Co_9:27; 2Co_4:14; Eph_2:5; Col_2:12; Php_3:11). Also John 6, and the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, belong here. The effecting of the future resurrection by the renewal of the inner life, is questioned by Meyer, against De Wette and Philippi, for he does not place a correct estimate on the real relations of the kingdom of God (p. 246). On pneumatic corporeity, see Tholuck, pp. 485, 486.
9. On Rom_8:13. By the Spirit, and not by the scourge [mit dem Geist, nicht mit der Geissel], should the deeds of the body be mortified. See the Exeg. Notes.
10. On the difference between the symbolical and real children of God, see the Exeg. Notes on ver 14. On υἱοὶ θεοῦ, see Tholuck, p. 409.—That the νἱοθεσία, in the Apostle’s sense, can be adoption only in form and mode, and not in its essence and substance, arises from the fact that believers, as the children of God, have the Spirit of God and of Christ; that they pray in filial confidence; and that they are destined to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. [In interpreting the phrase, “sons of God,” two errors must be guarded against: (a.) limiting it to something like this: the objects of God’s favor; (b.) extending it so as to obliterate any real distinction between the Son and the adopted children. The latter may occur, either through a denial of the specific and eternal Sonship of Christ, or through some too spiritualistic view of the work of Redemption, which makes the children of God in essence and substance children. Pantheistic fancies follow the same tendency. Between these two lies the true definition. A Christian, as a son of God, is new-born of the Spirit of God; hence, has a likeness to God in character, is the object of God’s special love, and entitled to special privilege and dignity. Yet even this is not all. The term is not merely figurative, as this passage shows, save as all language about our relations to God is figurative. The relation is real—grounded on, yet differing from, the relation of the Eternal Son. Only those in Him are “sons.” They are “sons” in such a sense as to become partakers of the Divine nature (1Pe_1:23). A further definition is now impossible. “Now are we sons of God; but it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1Jn_3:3). The fact remains established; the manifestation of its full significance is to come; Rom_8:19.—R.]
11. The dogmatic spirit of the Middle Ages made of Christianity a religion πάλιν εἰς φόβον. Rome in particular did this, in spite of these words to the Romans, in Rom_8:15. Even the Old Testament and its law aimed at a higher fear of God, as the beginning of wisdom. See Psalms 1 and Psalms 19 on communion with the law of God.
12. On the υἱοθεσία, and its origin in the Old Testament, see the Exeg. Notes.
13. In relation to adoption, the Spirit is our witness; in relation to future glory, it is our pledge. [On the witness of the Spirit. This consists in the gracious fruits and effects wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. “His whole inward and outward efficacy must be taken together; for instance, His comfort, His incitement to prayer, His censure of sin, His impulse to works of love, to witness before the world,” &c. (Olshausen). Yet filial feelings of those happy moments when we are conscious that we live by the Spirit, love God and goodness, desire and delight in pleasing God, must not be excluded; since, whether the witness be to or with our spirits, such results may be expected. Because enthusiasm has pushed this matter to an extreme at times, the assurance of salvation is not to be deemed unattainable, nor filial emotions toward God checked by the sneer about fanaticism. “That the world deny any such testimony in the hearts of believers, and that they look on it with scorn and treat it with derision, proves only that they are unacquainted with it; not that it is an illusion. It was a sensible and true remark of the French philosopher Hemsterhuys, in regard to certain sensations which he was discussing: ‘Those who are so unhappy as never to have had such sensations, either through weakness of the natural organ, or because they have never cultivated them, will not comprehend me’ ” (Stuart).—R.] The conclusion, “and if children, then heirs,” connects this section with the following.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Why do we, as those who are in Christ Jesus, have no more fear of condemnation? 1. Because the law of the Spirit of Christ has made us free from the law (that is, the power) of sin and death; 2. This has been effected by the act of God in condemning sin in the flesh.—Contrast between the law of the Spirit of Christ and the law of sin: 1. The former brings life; 2. The latter, death (Rom_8:2).—The appearance of the Son of God in the form (likeness) of sinful flesh: 1. In its meaning; 2. In its effects (Rom_8:3-4).—The sending of God’s Son an act of God (Rom_8:3).—He who becomes united with Christ ever more fully performs the righteousness required by the law (Rom_8:4).—Why is carnal-mindedness death? Because: 1. It is enmity against God; and, 2. As such, it is disobedience to God’s law (Rom_8:5-7).—All who have Christ’s Spirit are not carnal, but spiritual. This is shown thus: 1. Christ’s Spirit reigns in their spirit; and therefore, 2. Their spirit reigns in their body (Rom_8:9-11).—“If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” This declaration is: 1. Perfectly true; but, 2. Fearful in its truth (Rom_8:9).—A question of conscience in two forms: 1. Have we Christ’s Spirit? 2. Are we His? (Rom_8:9.)—The Spirit of God as pledge of our resurrection from the dead (Rom_8:11.)—The preparation of our bodies for the day of resurrection by the Spirit of God (Rom_8:11).—The glorification of physical life by God’s Spirit (Rom_8:11).—The opposition between carnal and spiritual-mindedness one of death and life: 1. Demonstration (Rom_8:5-8); 2. Reference to the members of the Christian communion (Rom_8:9-11); 3. Inference for their moral life (Rom_8:11-13).—If we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God, we are God’s children, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Reasons: 1. Because this spirit is not slavish, but filial; 2. Because He bears witness with us that we are children of God; 3. Because we are assured by Him of eternal glory (Rom_8:14-17).—The leading power of the Spirit of God (Rom_8:14).—The difference between Divine adoption in the Old Testament and the New (Rom_8:15).—The Spirit of God a spirit of prayer (Rom_8:15).—The Abba-Father cry of believing Christian souls: 1. So filially humble; 2. So filially joyous (Rom_8:15).—The inward witness of the Spirit: 1. Who bears this witness? 2. To whom is it borne? 3. What is its import? (Rom_8:16.)—How rich the children of God are! They are: 1. Heirs of God; 2. Joint-heirs with Christ (Rom_8:17).—Let us suffer with Christ, in order that we may be raised to glory with Him.
Luther: Although sin still rages in the flesh, we are not condemned, if the spirit is righteous, and fights against it. But where there is not this spirit, the law is weakened and overpowered by the flesh; so that it is impossible for the law to help man, except to sin and death. Therefore God sent His own Son, and placed upon Him our sins, and thus helped us to fulfil the law by His Spirit (Rom_8:1-4).
Starke: Sin and death are connected together; who will separate them? Therefore, if you would escape death, you must flee from sin; Jam_1:15; Sir_21:2-3 (Rom_8:2).—Is sin sweet to thee, O man? Then remember that its fruit will be bitter (Rom_8:2).—Hedinger: It is a false trust, to wish to be righteous in Christ, and, at the same time, to desire to walk after the flesh. Where sin reigns, there is condemnation, though Christ had died a thousand times. The flesh must die on the cross with Him, and His Spirit must live in the sinner; otherwise the salvation purchased by Christ will be of no use; 1Pe_2:24 (Rom_8:1).—Starke: Adam (merely) out of us does not injure us; and Christ (merely) out of us does not help us (Rom_8:10).—People of the world seek immortality in wrong ways. Seek tire right way, which is, to let God’s Spirit dwell in you; Isa_55:2 (Rom_8:11).—It is better that we kill sin, than that sin kill us (Rom_8:13).—Nihil vilius, quam a carne vinci, nihil gloriosius, quam carnem vincere; Jerome.—Qui sequuntur carnem, flagellantur in carne: in ipsa est censura supplicii, in qua fuit causa peccati; Bernard (Rom_8:12).—Starke: One may speak of God without the Holy Spirit; but he cannot speak to Him in a way that the prayer will be granted (Rom_8:15).—If little children can move their parents’ hearts by “papa” and “mamma,” so can believers move God by the word “Abba” (Rom_8:15).—Hedinger: To suffer, and to inherit, stand together. Very well! Heaven is worth a toilsome pathway. Si vis regnare mecum, porta crucem meam tecum; Gerson.
Spener: God sent His Son to assume flesh; for the Word became flesh, not merely outwardly, but truly and in very deed. But such flesh in Him was not sinful; but it was only in the form of, or uniformity with, sinful flesh, so that he who saw it only outwardly might regard it just as sinful flesh as ours (Rom_8:3-4.)—Christianity enjoins not only that we do good, and thus perform spiritual works, but that we should also be spiritually, and not carnally, minded (Rom_8:5).—The witness of the Holy Spirit is as glorious as it is necessary. This witness is the foundation of the highest consolation of the child of God. Yet but little can be told of it, for no man can understand it except him who feels it. It is “a new name,” which nobody knows except him who receives it; Rev_2:17 (Rom_8:16). It is a great dignity, indeed, to be heirs of God, and to stand with Christ as though in the possession of equal rights. For it is the inheritance of the Almighty God, and therefore consists of eternal possessions. Yet such an inheritance has the certain condition of having previously suffered with Christ (Rom_8:17).
Roos: Being in Christ Jesus presupposes longing for Christ Jesus; fleeing to Him; submission to Him; being planted in Him as the Vine; union with Him; and, consequently, faith in Him; just as even the continued being, or remaining, in Christ Jesus, rests upon a continuous faith in Him (Rom_8:1-4).—The man who is in Christ Jesus does not walk any more after the flesh; and thus the righteousness, or righteous requirement, of the law, which is spiritual, is fulfilled in him; it is so far fulfilled as his spiritual life and walk in the Spirit extend (Rom_8:4).—In short, just as the Spirit comprises spiritual-mindedness, and walking after the Spirit comprises every thing which is good, praiseworthy, holy, and well-pleasing to God; so do the words flesh, carnal-mindedness, and walking after the flesh, comprise every thing wicked and sinful (Rom_8:6-8).—Suffering does not precede glory by mere accident; it does so by God’s design, and makes fit for great glory. It is only a nature crushed by suffering that can be glorified. But the suffering must be: 1. A suffering with Christ; 2. In fellowship with Christ; 3. In the likeness of the suffering and mind of Christ. Then will we be also raised to glory with Christ, in whom we are by faith (Rom_8:17).—Bengel: The carnal mind cannot, and may not. Hence comes the pretext of impossibility with which those seek to excuse themselves who are even here convicted as carnal (Rom_8:7).
Gerlach: What seems remote and difficult to man under the law, is made easy by grace; indeed, is even accomplished by grace (Rom_8:2-3).—Both flesh and spirit are mighty and active forces in man (Rom_8:5).—“The Spirit should be as much the Lord of our life, as the helmsman is guide of the ship, and the driver is guide of his team;” Chrysostom (Rom_8:14).—The Spirit of adoption is the Spirit of the Son of God. In Him we cry, Abba, dear Father! He encourages us to call, with childlike joy and confidence, upon God, whom Christ thus called on (Mar_14:26); and whom Christ, after the atonement was completed (Joh_20:17), calls His God and ours, His Father and ours (Rom_8:15).—The witness of the Spirit of God consists in the consciousness of peace with God, and of access to Him in childlike, believing prayer; which witness we have received through faith in Christ (Rom_8:16).—The believer enters upon the inheritance of God as “joint-heir with Christ;” but it is not a dividing joint-heirship, by which one receives what another is deprived of. It is a possession like that of the sunlight, which every one enjoys to the full, without any robbery of another (Rom_8:17).—The life of the Christian is really a life of suffering, both inwardly and outwardly, except that the consciousness of Divine adoption rises high above suffering and oppression (Rom_8:17).
Lisco: The certainty of the attainment of perfect salvation by believers, rests upon their fellowship with Christ, and upon their being and living in Him; and it is from this true fountain that their ever-progressive sanctification flows (Rom_8:1).—What prospects, what hopes! Yet the order is, that we, like Christ, shall attain future glory through suffering.—Luther: “He who would be Christ’s brother and joint-heir, must bear in mind to be also a joint-martyr and joint-sufferer; not feeling Christ’s sufferings and shame after Him, but with Him, as Rom_8:10; Rom_8:32-33, declare” (Rom_8:17).
Heubner: The guiltlessness of true Christians (Rom_8:2).—We must preach duties so conformably to the gospel, that they will be a pleasure (Rom_8:3).—Faith in Christ gives no aid to indolence. The design of the atonement is our sanctification (Rom_8:4).—The carnal mind and religion do not agree together (Rom_8:7).—Christ’s Spirit is the true Spirit; men out of Him are spiritless, however full of the Spirit such unchristian people may fancy themselves (Rom_8:9).—Life after the flesh destroys all Christian prosperity, spiritual enjoyment, vital force, and eternal salvation (Rom_8:13).—The Spirit can overpower the flesh; therefore no Christian can say, that the power of the flesh is too great, too insurmountable (Rom_8:13).—The guidance of the Spirit of God is: 1. Not irregular, but regular, and its traces are to be found rather within than without; 2. Nor a sudden impulse, an emotion; but a continuous guidance, extending through the whole life, and operating in all Acts 3. And finally, this guidance is effected by means of the Word; it is free, and without compulsion (Rom_8:14).—The Abba-cry is an uninterrupted thinking upon God, and longing after Him.—No cross, no crown.—Besser: The impulsive power of the Holy Spirit is twofold: He leads us to receive in faith, and give in love.—The glorification of Christians begins with Christ under the cross.
The Pericope (Rom_8:12-17) for the 8th Sunday after Trinity.—Heubner: The adoption of Christians with God: 1. It is holy; 2. It is saving.—The difference between the children of the world and the children of God.—Genzler: Those whom the Spirit of God leads, are God’s children. The Apostle praises: 1. The filial mind; 2. The filial joyfulness; and, 3. The filial hope of those who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of God.—Petri: The children of God: 1. Their nature; 2. condition; 3. and inheritance.—Harless: The poverty and wealth of the legacy of Jesus Christ.—Tholuck: The witness of Divine adoption is the surest pledge of eternal life. 1. In what is the witness of Divine adoption manifested? 2. Why is it a pledge of eternal life?—Kapff: The healing of sinful corruption by Jesus and His Spirit. Through Him we become: 1. Children of God; 2. Praying men of the Spirit; and, 3. Joint-heirs with Christ.
[Burkitt (condensed): All men show the true temper of their minds, and the complexion and disposition of their souls, by willingly, cheerfully, and constantly minding either the things of the Spirit or the things of the flesh.—Three things are implied in our being glorified with Christ: 1. Conformity—we shall be like Him in glory; 2. Concomitancy—we shall accompany Him, and be present with Him in glory; 3. Conveyance or derivation—His glory shall be reflected upon us, and we shall shine in His beams.—Henry: It was great condescension, that He who was God should be made in the likeness of flesh; but much greater, that He who was holy should be made in the likeness of sinful flesh.—The Spirit witnesses the privileges of children to none who have not the nature and privileges of children.—Doddridge: The Spirit of God will not dwell with those whom He does not effectually govern.—Macknight: The minding of the things of the flesh, to the neglecting of the things of the Spirit, disqualifying men for heaven, stands in direct opposition to God’s friendly intentions; consequently, is enmity against God, and is deservedly punished with death.—Wesley (sermons on the Witness of the Spirit): The witness of the Spirit is a consciousness of our having received, in and by the Spirit of adoption, the tempers mentioned in the Word of God as belonging to His adopted children—a loving heart toward God, and toward all mankind; hanging with childlike confidence on God our Father; desiring nothing but Him; casting all our care upon Him; and embracing every child of man with earnest, tender affection, so as to be ready to lay down our life for our brother, as Christ laid down His life for us. It is a consciousness that we are inwardly conformed, by the Spirit of God, to the image of His Son, and that we walk before Him in justice, mercy, and truth, doing the things which are pleasing in His sight.—Clarke: Rom_8:15. The witness of the Spirit is the grand and most observable case in which intercourse is kept up between heaven and earth; and the genuine believer in Christ Jesus is not left to the quibbles or casuistry of polemic divines or critics, but receives the thing and the testimony of it from God himself. Remove the testimony of adoption from Christianity, and it is a dead letter.—Hodge: There can be no rational or scriptural hope without holiness; and every tendency to separate the evidence of the Divine favor from the evidence of true piety, is antichristian and destructive.—Barnes: If a man is not influenced by the meek, pure, and holy spirit of the Lord Jesus; if he is not conformed to His image; if his life does not resemble that of the Saviour, he is a stranger to religion. No test could be more easily applied, and none is more decisive.
[Homiletical Literature on the 8th of Romans: Bishop Cowper, Heaven Opened, &c., 5th ed., Lond., 1619; E. Philips, Nineteen Sermons; E. Elton, The Triumph of a True Christian Described, or, An Explanation of the 8th Chapter of Romans, 1623; H. Binning, The Sinner’s Sanctuary; being 48 Sermons on the 8th Chapter of Romans; T. Jacomb, Several Sermons on the whole 8th Chapter of Romans, London, 1672; T. Horton, Forty-six Sermons on the whole 8th Chapter of Romans, London, 1674; T. Manton, Forty-seven sermons in Works (vol. 2); Mestrezat, Sermons sur la 8e chap. de l’Epitre aux Romains, Amsterdam, 1702; T. Bryson, Comprehensive View of the Real Christian’s Character, &c., London, 1794; Bishop Short, The Witness of the Spirit with our Spirit, Illustrated from the 8th Chapter of Romans (Bampton Lectures), Oxford, 1846; Winslow, No Condemnation in Christ Jesus, as Unfolded in the 8th Chapter of Romans, London, 1857.—J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
[1] Rom_8:20.—[Lange puts a full stop after hope. Meyer, and many others, a comma, connecting the next verse: that the creation, &c. (the purport of the hope). Forbes gives the parallelism thus:
19. a. Ἠγὰρ ἀποκαραδοκία τἦς κτίσεως
b. τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀπεκδέχεται,
20. τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑποτάγη,
ουκ ἑκοῦσα ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα,
21. a. ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς
b. εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ.
19. a. For the earnest expectation of the creation
b. Is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God,
20. For the creation was made subject to vanity,
Not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it,
21. a. In hope, that the creature itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption,
b. Into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
This makes the whole of Rom_8:20, except in hope, parenthetical, and connects Rom_8:21 with that phrase, as giving the purport of the hope. On this last view, Forbes does not insist, however. In hope is thus made to refer to both lines of the parenthesis, yet with a main reference to ἀπεκδέχεται, is waiting. The two lines of Rom_8:19 find their parallels in Rom_8:21, while a. a. refer to the expectation or hope that animates creation; b. b. to the final consummation to which it points. At the beginning of Rom_8:21, Lange reads denn, Alford, because, but Tholuck, Phillippi, Meyer, Amer. Bible Union, Noyes, five Anglican clergymen, &c., favor that, introducing the purport of the hope.
[2][This verse, which, taken in its subjective sense, as the purport of the hope, seems to favor the reference of κτίσις to humanity, and the longing to the instincts of immortality (so Stuart throughout), loses its force if thus understood. The striking phrase: “the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” becomes very vague, unless we adopt the view that nature is here personified as in expectation. And it is easier to believe that the verse is true of all nature, than of all men. Whatever may be our wishes, the sharing of nature in the future glory is more probable, judging from the facts of the material world, than the participation of all men in the same, judging from the facts of the moral world. The sighs after immortality among the heathen are audible enough; but had Paul referred to these, he would undoubtedly have spoken more distinctly of the future conversion of the heathen. He is too fond of references to his personal Saviour and His work, to omit every allusion to these, where his thought really concerns the salvation of persons. It seems, therefore, in the highest degree improbable that mankind (as distinguished from the natural world) is referred to at all.—R.]
[3][Professor Stuart urges that the longing of the natural world was not so familiar to all, that the Apostle could thus appeal to consciousness. But this objection is of weight only in case the meaning of οἴδαμεν be extended to human consciousness in general. That Paul uses it in appeals to Christian consciousness, is evident from Rom_2:2; Rom_3:19; Rom_7:14; Rom_8:26; Rom_8:28; 2Co_5:1; 1Ti_1:8; comp. the frequent use of οἴδατε in 1 Corinthians 6.—R.]
[4][Calvin: “Particula Hactenus, vel ad hunc usque diem, ad levandum diuturni languosis tædium pertinet. Nam sutot sæculis durarunt in suo gemitur creaturæ, quam inexcusabilis erit nostra mollities vel ignavia, si in brevi umbratilis vitæ curriculo deficimus?”—R.]
[5]Rom_8:23.—[So, or this should be supplied; the meaning is: Not only it this so. The E. V. is therefore inexact. The latest revisions adopt so.
[6][Alford, who adopts ἡμεῖς with the second καὶ αὐτοί, says it is “inserted to involve himself and his fellow-workers in the general description of the last clause.”—R.]
[7][Both 1 and 2 take the genitive as partitive, which is undoubtedly the common usage. In every case in the New Testament where ἀπαρχή is followed by a genitive, it has this force; comp. Rom_16:5; 1Co_15:20; 1Co_16:15; Joh_1:18. The same is true of the LXX. and classical authors. It is difficult to sustain any other view here. If we adopt the meaning: the first-fruits of a harvest, which is the Spirit given to us, and refer it to the common gift of the Spirit in this life, rather than to the gift of the Spirit in that particular age, all seems to he gained that Dr. Lange seeks in view 3, while we do not unnecessarily depart from the usus loquendi. The reference to the first Christians is perhaps slightly favored by adopting ἡμεῖς at some point in the text, although Meyer rejects it, and yet upholds this reference. In his comments on Rom_8:26, Dr. Lange says that here the new spiritual life is spoken of, not the Holy Spirit itself. This subjective sense can only be admitted if the partitive sense of the genitive be given up. The term “body” cannot, in any case, be regarded as antithetical; did “flesh” occur, there might be some reason for taking “Spirit” in this sense of “spiritual life,” a meaning for which our author has an unusual fondness.—R.]
[8][De Wette urges the instrumental sense, on account of the definite aorist; but the fact of salvation is regarded as placing us in a condition of hope. The hope differs from faith, but is inseparably connected with it. Alford says the hope is “faith in its prospective altitude.” Philippi: “Inasmuch as the object of salvation is both relatively present and also relatively future, hope is produced from faith and indissolubly linked with it; for faith apprehends the object, in so far as it is present; hope, in so far as it is still future.”—R.]
[9]Rom_8:24.—[ א. A. C. K. L., read τί καί (Rec., Meyer, Wordsworth, Lange); B. D. F. omit καί (Lachmann, Alford. Tregelles). The latter reading gives the sense: Why doth he hope (at all)? the former, which is preferable: Why doth he still hope for? καί = etiam.
[10][On ὑπομονή, see p. 162; also Col_1:11; Lange’s Comm., p. 19. Constancy seems to be always prominent in the word. The preposition διά with the genitive denotes that through which, as a medium, our waiting takes place (Alford). It is more than an accompaniment—it is the state which characterizes the waiting throughout. On the connection of hope and patience, comp. 1Th_1:3; Heb_10:36.—R.]
[11] [Against this, see notes in loco, where Dr. Lange himself does not defend this view. It is opposed to the most natural grammatical construction of that passage, and objectionable on other grounds. Comp. the additional notes on Rom_8:16; Rom_8:23, and the excursus, chap. 7—R.]
[12]Rom_8:26.—[Instead of ταῖ ς. ἀσθενείαις (Rec., K. L.), which was probably a marginal gloss, א. A. B. C. D., most cursives, versions, and fathers, read τῇ ἀσθενίᾳ; adopted by most editors.
[13][Dr. Hodge refers to the fact that heathen philosophers urged this as a reason why men ought not to pray. The Apostle intimates that what is true of men in general, is true still of Christians (οἴδαμεν), because their knowledge is as yet in no respect such as to make their prayer (καθὸδ εἴ) as it ought to be. Hence the reference is to a continuing state, rather than to times of special weakness.—R.]
[14]Rom_8:26.—[Ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν (Rec. א3. C. K. L.) is omitted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Wordsworth, Lange, Tregelles, on the authority of א1. A. B. D. F. G. Probably added for closer definition.
[15][The meaning unutterable, which cannot be expressed in words, is favored by the analogy of verbals in -τος, and is adopted by Luther, Calvin, Beza, Meyer, Tholuck, De Wette, Hodge, Stuart, Alford, and many others. Philippi admits this sense, but includes with it that of unspoken, which are not expressed in words. Comp. 2Co_12:4; 1Pe_1:8.—R.]
[16][It is held by many commentators (among them Stuart, Hodge, Meyer), that if ὅτι be taken as causal, οι̇͂δε must be rendered approves; i. e., He approves what is the mind of the Spirit, because, &c. Dr. Lange’s estimate of Meyer’s interpretation is very just, and he seems to be equally correct in denying the necessity for the pregnant sense of οι̇͂δε. Comp. Alford in loco. The E. V. is exceedingly happy in its rendering of this verse.—R.]
[17] [Alford: “All these pleadings of the Spirit are heard and answered, even when inarticulately uttered. We may extend the same comforting assurance to the imperfect and mistaken verbal utterances of our prayers, which are not themselves answered to our hurt, but the answer is given to the voice of the Spirit, which speaks through them, which we would express, but cannot.”—R.”]
[18][See Textual Note14. Tholuck would refer the σύν to the loving God, but the simplest sense is that of coöperating (Bengel, Alford, and others). Meyer, however, finds in it the idea of the fellowship, in which He who supports necessarily stands to him who is supported. So Philippi and others, all taking συνεργεῖ as = βοηθεῖ.—R.]
[19] [Tholuck: “They are not called merely according to a Divine decree (nude), but according to one whose stages are set forth up to the final goal of the ἐδόξασε.” Meyer: “The πρόθεσις is the free decree, formed by God in eternity, of saving the believers through Christ (Rom_9:11; Eph_1:11; Eph_3:11; 2Ti_1:9, al.). According to this, the call of God to the Messianic salvation through the preaching of the gospel (Rom_10:14; 2Th_2:14) is promulgated to those who are included in that decree. When, therefore, Paul calls the Christians κλητοί, it is self-evident that the call, in their case, meets with success (1Co_1:24), and hence has been united with the converting effect of Divine grace; although this is not found in the word itself, which in that case would be equivalent to ἐκλεκτοί. ? Weiss (Jahrbücher für D. Theologie, 1857, p. 79) aptly says: ‘Election and calling are inseparable correlative ideas; where one takes place, the other does also; only the former, as a pre-temporal, internally Divine act, cannot be perceived, but the latter, as a historical fact, is made manifest.’ ” The remarks of Alford in loco may well be appended at this point in the exegesis of the Epistle: “It may suffice to say, that, on the one hand. Scripture bears constant testimony to the fact that all believers are chosen and called by God—their whole spiritual life in its origin, progress, and completion, being from Him; while, on the other hand, its testimony is no less precise that He willeth all to be saved, and that none shall perish except by wilful rejection of the truth. So that, on the one side, God’s sovereignty, and, on the other, man’s free will, is plainly declared to us. To receive, believe, and act on both these, is our duty and our wisdom. They belong, as truths, no less to natural than to revealed religion; and every one who believes in a God, must acknowledge both. But all attempts to bridge over the guy between the two are futile, in the present imperfect condition of man.” See chap. 9 throughout. He who would understand the Epistle to the Romans, must assume this position, and remember that the difficulty belongs to Theism, not to Christianity alone, much less to the Calvinistic conception of it.—R.]
[20][Jowett thus avoids the tautology: “Foreknew, as the internal purpose of God—if such a figure of speech may be allowed; and predestined, as the solemn external act by which He, as it were, set apart His chosen ones.” See the view of Dr. Hodge, below.—R.]
[21][So Jowett, Stuart (substantially), and Calvinistic interpreters generally. Dr. Hodge thus presents this view: “It is evident, on the one hand, that πρόγνωσις expresses something more than the presence of which all men and all events are the objects; and, on the other, something different from the προορισμός (predestination) expressed by the following word: ‘whom he foreknew, them he also predestinated.’ The predestination follows, and is grounded on the foreknowledge. The foreknowledge, therefore, expresses the act of cognition or recognition—the fixing, so to speak, the mind upon, which involves the idea of selection. If we look over a number of objects with the view of selecting some of them for a definite purpose, the first act is to fix the mind on some, to the neglect of the others; and the second is, to destine them to the proposed end. So God is represented as looking on the fallen mass of men, and fixing on some whom He predestines to salvation. This is the πρόγνωσις, the foreknowledge, of which the Apostle here speaks. It is the knowing, fixing upon, or selecting those who are to be predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son of God.” As little can be gained by a philological discussion of the word, and as theological bias will affect the views of many, it need only be added, that the πρόθεσιν of Rom_8:28 gives the best clue to the meaning of πρό, in the compounds of this verse; that the words should be as little as possible confused by the introduction of the ideas of approving, loving, &c.; that Rom_11:2, where προέγνω is used of Israel, most of whom were not saved, does not affect the specific sense here; for there, the matter under discussion is a whole people as a chosen people; here, individuals, who are first of all brought into prominence as personal lovers of God, then as “called according to His purpose:” that the idea of the certainty of salvation is so clearly the main thought of the passage, as to warrant us, where two meanings are presented, in leaning to that which offers the best ground for such security. Hence we adopt the predestinarian view throughout.—R.]
[22][This seems to be the view of Wordsworth, and many Anglican divines, who would avoid both Calvinism and Arminianism. Wordsworth is very full, both in his introduction and notes, upon this subject, but lacks clearness.—R.]
[23][If any thing is gained in clearness by this distinction, it should by all means be accepted, as distinguishing the foreknowledge from the predestination; but many will fail to find more than a verbal difference in the phrases employed.—R.]
[24] [Alford: “His foreknowledge was not a mere being previously aware how a series of events would happen, but was coordinate with, and inseparable from, His having preordained all things.” That the word means foreordained, predestinated, is certain; that it is here applied to individuals, is obvious; that it implies a preterrestrial act of the Divine mind, is in accordance with the current of thought in the chapter, the scriptural conception of God’s purpose, and the use of the word in other passages. It is only one side of the truth, indeed, but the other side is not more firmly established by ignoring this. The only reconciliation of the difficulty is in practical Christian experience, and Paul is addressing himself to this throughout. And we know (Rom_8:28).—R.]
[25][Comp. Lange’s Comm., Colossians, p. 21 ff. on πρωτότοκος, where all three ideas are involved, that of time being specially prominent there.—R.]
[26][As the Apostle is speaking of God’s acts not ours, there is no mention of faith, or any other human exercises, and there need be none; for who can misunderstand him, when this side of the matter is in question? The justice of Dr. Lange’s view of “called” is apparent. For the whole verse with remarkable particularity declares that the same persons were predestinated, called, justified, glorified; and to understand by the calling only the general invitation to believe and accept the gospel, weakens the force of the passage. Besides, it is not true, that those whom God invites to believe through the gospel. He justifies also, and glorifies. To admit this, is to obliterate the distinction between the wayside and fruitful hearers (Mat_13:18-23)—to fly in the face of fact, as well as the plain teaching of the Word of God. Dr. Hodge, and Calvinistic interpreters generally, make “called” = effectually called. Undoubtedly the call is effectual, linked inseparably with predestination and justification; but since the technical meaning of effectual calling is really regeneration, we may hesitate in giving to the word here used a force so extended. The subjective aspect of effectual calling is not introduced, at all events, we have only the order of the Divine acts respecting the salvation of individuals, as presenting the objective certainty of that salvation.—R.]
[27][So Philippi, De Wette. Alford combines with it that of Grotius, much as Dr. Lange does: “The aorist ἐδόξασεν being used, as the other aorists, to imply the completion in the Divine counsel, of all these, which are to us, in the state of time, so many successive steps—simultaneously and irrevocably.”—R.]
[28][Dr. Hodge adopts a modification of this view, though he suggests that the aorist may imply frequency, almost = the present. Neither of these seem so satisfactory as that of Meyer, or that of Lange himself.—R.]
[29][The omission of “them he also sanctified,” which we would expect to find in the chain, were “glorified” limited to the future, is a sufficient ground for this position of Dr. Lange, and favors also the view, that the certainty is prominent, rather than the completion of all these in the purpose of God. Of course, the objective certainty rests on this completion in God’s purpose, but the latter is included only by implication.—R.]
[30][As the whole passage can only be of encouragement when viewed in this light, Wordsworth deprives it of its force entirely, when he says that the Church of England teaches: ‘She considers these things as done; for in God’s will, and, on His side, they are done, for all members of the visible Church of Christ;” and then makes the whole matter so dependent on us, “that, unless we perform our part, all God’s gracious purposes toward us will fail of their effect.” See his lengthy notes, which touch (scarcely grapple) this difficult subject.—R.]
[31][Meyer takes Rom_8:31-39 as a conclusion from Rom_8:29-30; “The Christian has; then, nothing to fear that can be detrimental to his salvation, but he is, with the love of God in Christ, certain of this salvation.” This whole passage (notice the logical relation of ὅτι, Rom_8:29, and ου̇͂ν, Rom_8:31,) is a commentary on Rom_8:28—and what a commentary!—R.]
[32][His own Son. Tholuck, Olshausen, Philippi, Stuart, Hodge, and many others, find an implied antithesis here, viz., his adopted sons (Rom_8:19, &c.), to which Meyer and De Wette object. At all events, the emphasis resting on ἰδίου requires us to understand it as son in a specific sense, μονογενής. The christological hearing of the passage is unmistakable.—R.]
[33][Most commentators admit the special reference to death. It is not necessary to restrict it to this, but the thought is certainly prominent in Paul’s expressions concerning Christ.—Us all, evidently means believers here. The value or the efficacy of the atonement is not brought into view at all. To this commentators of all doctrinal tendencies agree.—R.]
[34][As remarked in Textual Note.16, this view is doubly doubtful. The reading is quite uncertain, and to render Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, Christ is Jesus, is almost fanciful. Dr. Lange’s remark that the article (which might have been expected before Ἰησοῦς, were this the meaning) is found in the attributive clause (ὁ ἀποθανών), will not meet the grammatical objection. So forced a construction would be admissible only in the absence of any other satisfactory explanation. Certainly the thought that the slain yet risen Christ shall judge the world, that our Intercessor is really the only Condemner, is not so unscriptural or unpauline as to create a difficulty from which we must escape by this singular exegesis.—R.]
[35][See Textual Note.17 The καί before ἔστιν is also omitted in א1. A. C., but inserted in the majority of MSS.—R.]
[36][Calvin adds a third meaning: our sense of Christ’s love to us. This is implied in the excellent remarks of Dr. Hodge: “The great difficulty with many Christians is, that they cannot persuade themselves that Christ (or God) loves them; and the reason why they cannot feel confident of the love of God, is, that they know they do not deserve His love; on the contrary, that they are in the highest degree unlovely. But it is the very thing we are required to believe, not only as the condition of peace and hope, but as the condition of salvation. If our hope of God’s mercy and love is founded on our own goodness or attractiveness, it is a false hope. We must believe that His love is gratuitous, mysterious, without any known or conceivable cause, certainly without the cause of loveliness in its object.”—R.]
[37][In the LXX., Ps. 43:23. The only variation is ἕνεκεν here, on the authority of א. A. B. D. F. L., while (Rec.) C. K have ἕνεκα. It must be remarked, however, that the reading of the LXX. itself varies in the same manner.—R.]
[38][Sχ Alford: “It is no new trials to which we are subjected: what if we verify the ancient description?”—R.]
[39]Rom_8:37.—[Instead of the well-supported τοῦ ἁγαπήσαντος, D. E. F. G., and many Latin fathers, read: τὸνἀγαπήσαντα; objectionable on both critical and exegetical grounds.
[40][This would refer to Him as the efficient cause; but since the context clearly upholds the reference to Christ, it scarcely seems a “smoother exegetical interpretation” than that which presents Him. as the instrumental cause. It represents the union in victory as more intimate to follow the better supported reading, διὰτ ον ῦἀγ.—R.]
[41]Rom_8:38.—[The order in א. A. B. C. D. F. is οὕ τεένεσ τῶτα, οὔ τεμέλλοντα, οὔ τεδυνάμεις; adopted by Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Tregelles, and critical editors generally. The Recepta puts οὔ τεδυνάμεις first (K. L., some versions). This may readily be accounted for; δύναμις is associated with ἅγγελοι or ἀρχή in Eph_1:21; 1Co_15:24; 1Pe_3:22, hence the seeming necessity for a closer connection here. In Col_2:15, δυνάμεις is omitted, but in all the passages cited, ἐξουσία is found; hence we find it as a variation here, but very slightly attested.
[42][Here the generic idea of time is evidently the prominent one. So Philippi, and most. Alford: “no vicissitudes of time.”—R.]
[43][Meyer takes δυνάμεις in its widest sense: powers of every kind. Undoubtedly, if the order of Rec. could be adopted, a difficulty would be avoided. (Dr. Hodge takes no notice of the correct reading.) It seems strange that the evil forces should be introduced here. The simplest solution, to my mind, is that which refers this word to earthly powers, since it is connected with “things present, things to come.” This is still more probable, if “angels” and “principalities” be taken as including all superhuman created beings.—R.]
[44][This subject has been a special study with Dr. Lange. His notes, which are as profound as they are exhaustive, are left without additions, since to add would be to mar the unity.—R.]
[45][This view of Dr. Lange is one to which exception has been taken throughout the Exeg. Notes, from Rom_7:14 to the close of chap. 8; it is not necessary, then, to enter upon a new discussion of it here.—R.]
[46][This distinction presents no valid objection to the intercession of the Holy Spirit. For it is one made in and through us, as that of Christ is for us.—R.]
[47][These Notes of Dr. Lange are very just, in their opposition to such a sundering of the acts of God in our salvation (here represented, as they necessarily must be to our finite minds, as successive), as will make of election and predestination something arbitrary on the part of God. The guard he sets about the doctrine of human personality is very necessary, especially for minds trained in the school of hyper-Calvinism. Still he has not solved the problem. The Apostle himself does not do it. He but presents, for the security of believers, the objective ground of their confidence. Those rightly read, who read to learn for their comfort what God has done for them in eternity. How He, to whom all time is present, whose eternity enters into these very acts, did these gracious acts, is beyond our comprehension. Why He did them, is answered, so far as it can he answered here, only by the responsive love of a believer’s heart. We need only hold fast to the fact; that it is a fact in general, the Apostle makes abundantly clear; that it is a fact in our case, can only be clear according to the measure of our consciousness of being in Christ, “in whom he hath chosen us, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love” (Eph_1:4). Comp. chap. 9 on the more difficult phases of this subject.—R.]
[48]
Rom_8:1.—[The clause, added in Rec.: μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα, is now rejected by the best critics as a gloss from Rom_8:4. It is not found in א. B. C. D.1 F., most older versions and fathers. The first half only is added in A. D.2 some versions. 3.א adds the whole. The MS. authority is sufficiently against it to warrant a decided rejection. Forbes: “The results of Parallelism coincide with the decisions of criticism, and with the authority of the best MSS., in rejecting the words.”
1. Οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριμα
τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.
2. Ὀ γὰρ νόμος τοῦ πνεύμτος τῆς ζωῆς
ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠλευθέρωσέν με
ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτι̇ας καὶ τοῦ θανάτου.
3. Τὸ γὰρ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου.
ἐν ῷ ἠσθένει διὰ τῆς σαρκός,
ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἐαυτοῦ υἱὸν πέμψας
ἐν ὸμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας
κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί.
The first and tenth lines correspond; the parallelisms of second and fourth, third and fifth, sixth and eighth, seventh and ninth, are obvious, and the gain in interpretation is considerable. Fritzsche avails himself of it also.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–27 For the law of the Spirit of life in…
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free--rather, "freed me"--referring to the time of his conversion, when first he believed.
from the law of sin and death--It is the Holy Ghost who is here called "the Spirit of life," as opening up in the souls of believers a fountain of spiritual life (see on Joh 7:38-39); just as He is called "the Spirit of truth," as "guiding them into all truth" (Joh 16:13), and "the Spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord" (Isa 11:2), as the inspirer of these qualities. And He is called "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," because it is as members of Christ that He takes up His abode in believers, who in consequence of this have one life with their Head. And as the word "law" here has the same meaning as in Rom 7:23, namely, "an inward principle of action, operating with the fixedness and regularity of a law," it thus appears that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" here means, "that new principle of action which the Spirit of Christ has opened up within us--the law of our new being." This "sets us free," as soon as it takes possession of our inner man, "from the law of sin and death" that is, from the enslaving power of that corrupt principle which carries death in its bosom. The "strong man armed" is overpowered by the "stronger than he"; the weaker principle is dethroned and expelled by the more powerful; the principle of spiritual life prevails against and brings into captivity the principle of spiritual death--"leading captivity captive." If this be the apostle's meaning, the whole verse is to this effect: That the triumph of believers over their inward corruption, through the power of Christ's Spirit in them, proves them to be in Christ Jesus, and as such absolved from condemnation. But this is now explained more fully.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 (d) Blessed individual process of justified and spirit-guided life,…
(d) Blessed individual process of justified and spirit-guided life, Rom_8:1-17.
1. Therefore now—With the self-surrender in faith to Christ of Rom_8:24, last chapter, deliverance from sin and law ensue, and with justification the Holy Spirit is given as the inspirer of regenerate life. As said above, the apostle here resumes his description of the gospel freedom from law rule, which he had suspended at Rom_7:6.
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No condemnation—For justification is acquittal, the opposite of condemnation.
In Christ—(See note on Rom_6:2.)
After the flesh—After the suggestions of the carnal nature.
After the Spirit—After the dictates of the conscience vivified by truth and divine influence.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–27 Ch. Rom_8:1-13. Security of the justified. The mind of…
Ch. Rom_8:1-13. Security of the justified. The mind of the Spirit, not the mind of the flesh, is their characteristic
1. therefore] To what does “therefore” refer? To the discussion of the inner conflict just previous? Or to something remoter in the argument? The text is sometimes so printed as to carry on the connexion unbroken from ch. 7 some distance into this ch., and thus to make the discussion in Rom_7:7-25 the premiss of this “therefore.” But against this we think that, (a), both in contents and in tone, ch. 8 is a whole in itself, with one grand topic, the Security of the Saints, traceable throughout; and that (b) there is nothing in the last paragraphs of ch. 7 to suggest directly the present statement, though much to illustrate and enforce it. Had ch. 7 ended with “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,” it might have seemed otherwise, (though see note on those words;) but ch. 7 actually ends with the strongest assertion of the sin-awaking and sin-detecting power of the Law and the consequent strife of the soul. It is thus far better to refer this exordium of ch. 8 to the whole previous argument, but specially to such parts of it as detail the way of Justification. More specially still it is connected with chh. 5 and 6, and the first section of ch. 7, which state (under various imagery) the union of the justified with their Head, Master, and Bridegroom.
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Hitherto the Epistle has discussed and explained, from many sides, the great matter of Justification, and its immediate results, (union with Christ, bondservice to God, the liberation of the will, &c.). The last topic thus considered is the attitude of the Law towards the soul—an attitude such that the Law cannot (in the regenerate or unregenerate) subdue sin, but can only expose and condemn it. This has been shewn partly to vindicate the holiness of the Law, partly to expose the malignity of sin, partly to re-inforce the truth, already proved, that Justification is to be attained by another way.
Now, to the close of ch. 8, the argument (without wholly leaving former topics and reasonings) rises to a fuller view of present results, and to the first full statement of the eternal Sequel. It is needless to point out the majesty and splendour which mark the whole passage.
no condemnation] The word “no” is strongly emphatic in the Greek. The Gr. for “condemnation” here occurs elsewhere in N. T. only ch. Rom_5:16; Rom_5:18. The cognate verb is frequent, and occurs e. g. Mar_16:16; 1Co_11:32 (last clause). As regards the soul, the verb means to pass sentence of death. Such sentence “is not,” for those who are in Christ; they “shall not come into condemnation, but are passed from death unto life.” (Joh_5:24.) “Who is he that condemneth?” (Rom_8:34.)
Observe that the word “is” is not in the Gr. There is no specification of time. Q. d., “such a condemnation is inconceivable.”
in Christ Jesus] See for parallels to this important phrase, Rom_6:11, (E. V. “through, &c.,”) Rom_12:5, Rom_16:7; 1Co_1:2; 1Co_15:18; 2Co_5:17, &c. And cp. Eph_5:30, where the key to its special meaning appears. The brethren of the Second Adam are regarded as solidaire with Him in the sense both of holy dearness and inseparable interest; specially the latter. The former idea is conveyed rather under the figure of the Spouse; the latter under that of the Body and the Head.—The whole previous argument of the Epistle makes it plain that those who are “in Christ” are those who have been “justified through faith.” (Ch. Rom_5:1.). No merely external position of opportunity or privilege can satisfy the phrase, in view of such a verse as this, or as 2Co_5:17. On the other hand, the phrase (strictly speaking) indicates not the inner experience of the justified—which rather appears in the phrase of “Christ in them” (Col_1:27, &c.,)—but their standing and interest.
who walk, &c.] Better, walking, as they do, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. If these words are retained, they must be taken as a description rather than a definition. The condition of freedom from doom is, to “be in Christ Jesus;” but that happy position does, as a fact, result in, and so is characterized by, a “walk after the Spirit.” The words will thus serve as a caution against the abuse of the doctrine of gratuitous justification; but not as a modification of it. The point is admirably elucidated by Calvin’s remark, that “it is faith alone which justifies, but the faith which justifies can never be alone.”
But it is probable that the words from “who walk” to “after the Spirit” are to be omitted here. Almost for certain the last clause, “but after the Spirit,” must so be omitted. Very possibly they were inserted here by copyists, who conceived the previous statement too absolute to be trusted alone to the reader, and so borrowed a quasi-note from Rom_8:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–27 (1) Therefore.—The Apostle had already, at the end of…
(1) Therefore.—The Apostle had already, at the end of the last chapter, “touched the confines” of that state of deliverance and of liberty which he is now going on to describe. The opening of this chapter is, therefore, connected in form with the close of the last. The intervention of Christ puts an end to the struggle waged within the soul. There is therefore no condemnation, &c.
Condemnation.—The condemnation which in the present and final judgment of God impends over the sinner, is removed by the intervention of Christ, and by the union of the believer with Him. By that union the power and empire of sin are thrown off and destroyed. (Comp. Rom_8:3.) There is a certain play on the word “condemn.” By “condemning” the law of sin, Christ removed “condemnation” from the sinner. He removed it objectively, or in the nature of things, and this removal is completed subjectively in the individual through that bond of mystical and moral attachment which makes what Christ has done his own act and deed.
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To them which are in Christ Jesus.—Those “who live and move and have their (spiritual) being” in Christ. To “have the Spirit of Christ” is a converse expression for the same idea. In the one case the believer is regarded as reaching upwards, as it were, through faith, and so incorporating and uniting himself with the Spirit of Christ; in the other case, the Spirit of Christ reaches downwards and infuses itself into the believer. This is the peculiar mysticism of the Apostle.
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.—These words are wanting in the foremost representatives of every group of authorities (except, perhaps, those which belong to the region of Syria), and must certainly be omitted. They have been brought in here from Rom_8:4.
(1-11) A result is thus attained which the law of Moses could not accomplish, but which is accomplished in the gospel. The Christian is entirely freed from the law of sin and death, and from the condemnation that it entails. But he is so upon the condition that this freedom is for him a reality—that it really proceeds from the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26 Vers. 1-39. (c) The blessed condition and assured hope…
Vers. 1-39. (c) The blessed condition and assured hope of such as are in Christ Jesus. The summary of the contents of this chapter, which follows the Exposition, may be referred to in the first place by the student, so as to assist comprehension of the line of thought.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. (The additional words of this verse in the Textus Receptus have but slight support, having probably been supplied from ver. 4. They are out of place here.) "Nunc venit ad liberationem et libertatem. Non autem ponit adversativam de , autem, sed conclusivam ara , ergo; quia jam in fine capitis 7. confinia hujus status attigit. Nunc etiam plane ex diverticulo eximio in viam redit quae habetur cap. 7:6" (Bengel).
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"No condemnation.
In reading this chapter, it cannot but be felt that there was, in the mind of the apostle, a very vivid sense of the contrast between the character, the position, and the prospects of the true Christian, and those of unbelievers, whether Jews or Gentiles. This contrast is kept up, either verbally or implicitly, from the beginning to the close of what is felt to be one of the most encouraging and precious portions of the apostle"s writings.
I THE CHRISTIAN"S CONDITION AND CHARACTER. It is plain that, in the view of St. Paul, personal religion did not consist in external condition or relationships, in association with any family, or nation, or visible society. Christians are those who are "in Christ Jesus.
1. The language is instructive as to the Divine provision for man"s spiritual welfare made in the incarnation, ministry, and sacrifice of the Son of God. To be accepted and approved by the great Ruler and Lord of all is a condition made dependent upon association with that Being in whom God at once revealed his character and purposes, and reconciled the world to himself.
2. A spiritual union is implied. To be "in Christ Jesus" is what he himself has enjoined: "Abide in me." And the New Testament represents Christ"s people as "in him," "found in him," "standing in him," "walking in him;" and after this life as "sleeping in him," and "dead in him.
3. The purposes of union with Christ are involved in this description.
(1) Christians are hidden in Christ for safety; as in the cleft of a rock which affords shelter from the storm, as in the city of refuge whither the fugitive flees, and in which he finds himself safe from the pursuer.
(2) Christians are grafted in Christ for life; they are branches in the living Vine.
(3) They are joined to him for guidance, as members of the mystical body.
4. The power and principle of union with Christ are assumed. On the human side the union is effected by faith; on the Divine side it is rendered possible by the impartation of the grace of the Holy Spirit.
II THE CHRISTIAN"S EXEMPTION AND IMMUNITY.
1. What is the condemnation from which those who are in Christ are relieved? Doubtless, the penal consequences of sin, the Divine displeasure and judicial anger, the present punishment of remorse and fear, the future punishment of destruction and death.
2. Who removes it? The Lord and Judge, whose prerogative it is to pass sentence of condemnation, retains in his own hands the right to remit the punishment of those sentenced, and to set guilty but repentant criminals free to enjoy a spiritual liberty.
3. On what grounds, and in virtue of what provision, does the righteous Lord remove the condemnation? For his own mercy"s sake, and in virtue of the redemption which was wrought by Jesus Christ our Saviour, so fully stated and explained in this Epistle.
4. With what results? The conscience of the sinner is relieved; the favour of the holy God is vouchsafed; the privileges and pleasures of the Christian life are opened up, and final acquittal is definitely and certainly assured.
APPLICATION.
1. Let the Christian rest in no inferior view of his position; for this assurance of liberty is one which every believer in the Lord Jesus is invited and is warranted to take to himself.
2. Let those who are under condemnation by reason of sin remember that there is one way of escape and acquittal, and only one; and let this be sought and found without delay.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1-11. The judgment-day, and how to prepare for it.
The apostle speaks much in the language of the Law. He himself was not only acquainted with the useful handicraft of tent-making or sail-making, but he was also trained in the profession of the Law brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. He had a considerable acquaintance, too, with the practice of the law-courts. From the brief references in the Acts of the Apostles to his personal history before his conversion, it would appear as if previous to that time he had been engaged as a public prosecutor of the Christians. After he became a Christian, he was frequently called upon, for Christ"s sake, to appear at the bar of Jewish and Roman courts of justice. On his first missionary visit to Europe he was dragged before the magistrates at Philippi, and again before Gallio at Corinth. Then, again, he stood before the Jewish council at Jerusalem; before Felix, Festus. and Agrippa at Caesarea; and, finally, before Nero himself at Rome. On the present occasion he is writing to residents at Rome. Rome at the time was the metropolis of the world, the centre of the world"s legislation. To stand at Caesar"s judgment-seat was to stand before the highest earthly authority then in existence, and to be tried by the greatest code of laws which, with the exception of British law, the world has ever known. The laws of the XII Tables, as they were called, which were the basis of all the Roman laws, were engraved upon twelve tables of brass, and set up in the comitium, or public meeting-place, so that every one might be able to read them. Every educated Roman youth learned by heart these XII Tables. It was to a people thus familiar with the ideas and the practice of courts of justice that Paul, himself a well-trained lawyer, was writing. He keeps before their minds and his own the thought that there is a higher than all human authority; that there is a judgment-seat more terrible than that of Caesar; and that the great concern of every human being is how he or she shall fare in that great day of reckoning that day which bulks so largely in St. Paul"s mind, which stands out so prominently before his mental vision, that he constantly speaks of it as that day. " It is an important subject, how to prepare for meeting God in the judgment.
I THE PREPARATION OF THE CHRISTIAN. The apostle speaks of the Christian as being prepared for a judgment-day. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." That day needs a preparation. "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." The thought of that judgment makes strong men tremble. Felix trembled as Paul the prisoner reasoned with him of righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come. It is that dread of something after death that makes the murderer"s sleep so restless, and that makes the dishonest man"s gains like a weight of lead upon his mind. Conscience does, indeed, make cowards of us all. The Christian recognizes that there is a terror in the judgment, as Paul did when he spoke of "the terror of the Lord"; (2Co_5:11) but the judgment brings no terror to him. He knows that he too will be judged according to his deeds, that the fire will try every man"s work of what sort it is, and, therefore, he will realize his responsibilities and privileges. But he knows that one thing is certain, and that is that he is safe from condemnation. He carries his pardon in his hand. The Christian"s confidence comes from the very Judge himself who sits upon the throne. That Judge is Jesus Christ himself. But before he would sit to judge men, he came into the world to die for them as their Saviour. To every one who receives him and accepts his salvation he gives the white stone, (Rev_2:17) the token of acceptance and pardon. He becomes their High Priest, their Advocate with the Father. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." In Christ! What a sense of security that brings with it! In Christ! Not till we stand before the great white throne, and our names are found written in the Lamb"s book of life, shall we fully realize what that means. In Christ! That was Paul"s great wish for himself. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him." In Christ! Yes. Jesus is the Ark, into which we may betake ourselves from the dangers of temptation and destruction. He is the City of Refuge, to which we may flee from death, the avenger of blood. He is the sure Foundation, on which we may build with perfect confidence all our hopes for eternity. He is the Rock, in the clefts of which we may hide ourselves, and feel that all that concerns us is safe. Your pledge of safety at the judgment-day is the character and promise of the Judge himself. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day Let it not be said that this confidence leads to carelessness; that because we are delivered from condemnation, therefore it does not matter how we live. The verses which follow the declaration that there is no condemnation are the answer to this suggestion. "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. " (vers. 3, 4). No true Christian ever thought or acted as if, because he was delivered from condemnation, he was thenceforth free to commit sin. If we are Christ"s, we have no longer a guilty fear of death and condemnation, but we have a filial fear that shrinks from offending and grieving our heavenly Father. We are constrained by the love of Christ in our hearts to love what he loves, and to hate what he hates. We are constrained by a feeling of gratitude. We have been bought with a price; therefore we will strive to glorify God in our bodies and spirits, which are his. We have the hope of heaven in our hearts; and therefore we seek to walk worthy of our high calling, to purify ourselves, to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. So far from being a motive to carelessness, the Christian"s safety in Christ is the grandest motive to holiness and usefulness of life.
II THE PREPARATION OF THE CHRISTLESS. At the judgment-day there will be just two classes those whose names are found written in the Lamb"s book of life, and those whose names are not there; the Christian and the Christless; those who are "in Christ," and those who are not. Many are relying upon their moral life, though it may be utterly worldly and godless, as their hope for eternity. But whatever human expectations may be, God"s Word makes it very plain how it will fare on the judgment-day with all who are out of Christ. It is not the fault of God the Father. He so loved the world that he gave his own Son for our salvation. It is not the fault of the Son. Christ says, "I am come that ye might have life." It is not the fault of the Spirit, who is constantly striving with us. If Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, surely it is clear that there is no salvation in any other. "He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God". C.H.I. (Joh_3:18)
HOMILIES BY T.F. LOCKYER Vers. 1-5. What the Law could not do.
The perpetual conscience-cry that rings through all the struggles of Ro 7 is, "Condemnation!" But "to them that are in Christ Jesus"? "No condemnation now!" The heavens smile, the earth is glad. All things are made new. Such is the opening note of this eighth chapter; a sweet song of joy in place of the old cry of despair. And we have here following God"s work in Christ; Christ"s work in us.
I GOD"S WORK IN CHRIST. The great work referred to here is the practical condemnation of sin. And it is set forth, in regard to Christ and in regard to ourselves, negatively and positively.
1. Negatively, by contrast with the impotence of mere Law: "What the Law could not do." The Law of God, whether inwardly in conscience, or outwardly as through Moses, sufficiently condemns sin theoretically; but practically? through the flesh." All this has been emphatically demonstrated in the previous chapter: "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man; but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind," etc. (vers. 22, 23). The flesh dominates, and there is no power to render effectual the better aspirations.
2. Positively, in the holy, loving life of Christ: "God, sending his own Son," etc. He came into the realms of sin, and wearing the nature which sin had weakened and destroyed, but resolutely resisting sin"s power, defying sin"s assaults. "The flesh in him was like a door constantly open to the temptations both of pleasure and pain; and yet he constantly refused sin any entrance into his will and action. By this persevering and absolute exclusion he declared it evil and unworthy of existing in humanity "(Godet). Yes; God in Christ "condemned sin in the flesh," by practically casting it out from that humanity. Casting it out? nay, it was not suffered to intrude. The history of the temptation, and of the last agony, is the emphatic illustration of these words.
II CHRIST"S WORK IN US. In Christ, then, there is a practical and immediate condemnation of sin, by its utter exclusion from his life. But is there not in this a pledge of the like condemnation in those who are joined to him by faith? And is not this pledge fulfilled to those who are in Christ Jesus "When we see the king"s son enter the revolted province without opposition, and know that he has come because or the revolt, we are sure that the king is both able and determined to overthrow the rule of the usurper" (Beet). And in us who believe, and who therefore "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," the usurper is dethroned, and "the ordinance of the Law" is "fulfilled.
1. Negatively, or "after the flesh." to "mind the things of the flesh." As above, our state by nature is one of bondage to "the flesh;" the lower impulses master us. And though the aspirations of the spirit may be quickened, yet we sigh vainly for freedom and strength. We do but realize the more bitterly our bondage to sin. How shall the bondage be destroyed? "Through Jesus Christ our Lord." He has broken the condemnation of the past by the offering of himself, once for all; he destroys our present captivity by the incoming of his Spirit, received by faith in that same sacrificial love. Thus the aspirations are realized by this blessed inspiration.
2. Positively. "After the Spirit," to "mind the things of the Spirit:" Christ, who conquered for us, conquers in us. we are joined to him, and "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit". (1Co_6:17) Thus "we are transformed into the same image," and "walk even as he walked." Now, then, we more than realize our first estate; our manhood is redeemed; "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" makes us "free." Our service is the glad, spontaneous service of sonship; we are not commanded to an impossible obedience from without, but animated by the impulse of a boundless love within; and this love, with the free obedience which it begets, is nourished and strengthened evermore by our fellowship with God in Christ. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report" we "think on these things;" and "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, guards our hearts and our thoughts in Christ Jesus. (Php_4:7, 8)
The one supreme question for us is Are we in Christ? If so, the determining element of our life is new, all things are new. But if not, we abide in death I And how shall Christ be received? By simplest faith. He offers himself freely, we are to receive him freely. Believe! yes, believe with the heart in all his boundless love, and live by it. T.F.L.
HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE Vers. 1-4. "No condemnation.
This is a glorious beginning to a glorious chapter. As in some great musical work, we can tell its character from the opening bars. The apostle, having been treating some of the darkest human problems, delights to emerge into the brightness of the new condition achieved for our fallen humanity by Christ Jesus.
I HOW CLOSE IS THE UNION BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE! The preposition "in" denotes an altered state, men no longer reckoning themselves according to their genealogy from Adam, but as grafted into the stock of Christ. It is not hearing merely of the gospel, but being vitally united to its Author, deriving life from him, as the branches in the vine are nourished by its sap. Or, as the apostle puts it in Ro 7, we are "married to" Christ, made "members of his flesh, of his body and of his bones." The relationship is effected on God"s side by his Spirit, on man"s side by repentance and faith. No other religion claims such an intimate association to exist between its founder and its votaries. The union is mystical, but very real. Christ is our City of refuge from the avenger, our Ark of salvation, our Haven of peace. "Abide in me " is his cheering counsel to all his disciples.
II IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO CONDEMN THOSE WHO ARE THUS UNITED TO HIS SON. This would mean severing himself from the Son of his love. He did conceal his presence from the crucified One, but only for a season. "God hid his face, but held him by the hand" The Saviour said, "Father, into thy hands," etc. The resurrection was the seal of God"s approbation of the Messiah"s career. And Christ"s people, by their faith in the Redeemer, virtually place his Person and work between themselves and the condemnatory Law. Though metaphors are inadequate, we may assert that justice cannot demand a double payment. If Christ our Representative was accepted and glorified, we may triumphantly await the judgment. The very "weakness of the flesh" which made the Law unable to condemn sin was compelled, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin, which tried to seduce him from holiness, and, failing, wounded him unto death. In the flesh was an offering made for sin, demonstrating the guilt of human nature, and yet redeeming it from the deserved penalty. As the "hue and cry," or the preparation of the scaffold for the execution of some sentenced wretch, does not alarm the innocent, so the threatenings of the law of sin and death do not concern or terrify those who have received the law of the Spirit of life. We are not saved by understanding accurately the rationale of the plan of Divine mercy; but to be able, like the apostle, to see the truth grounded on an adequate foundation, is to feel our feet on the granite rock which no wave of wrath"s sea can shake.
III THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF LIFE SECURED BY UNION WITH CHRIST RENDERS CONDEMNATION IMPOSSIBLE, The apostle speaks strongly of the requirements of the moral law being "fulfilled" in Christians. They walk no longer "after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Thus the Law sees its end accomplished, its goal reached. The affections are placed on things above, the thoughts are cleansed, the will is submissive to the dictates of God. The most rigid code could not produce holiness. But to love Christ, to learn of him, to walk in him, is to cut up sin at the roots. Christ is not only a Pattern of obedience, but a Power to his associates, enabling them to become like him, "fulfilling all righteousness." The husk of the Law being stript off, the kernel is acknowledged to be "just and good." If the Law ventured to prefer a complaint against the infirmities and failings of Christians, all objection is banished by the assurance of the Master that his scholars shall grow in grace and knowledge till they are not only saints in name, but in character and deed. They shall be presented faultless before the throne of judgment. S.R.A.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-11. "Paradise regained.
The last chapter, after bringing out the insufficiency of Law to sanctify, ends by declaring the sufficiency of Christ. Through him, as our Deliverer from the body of death, we are enabled to enter upon an experience which has been rightly denominated "Paradise regained." In the first section, which we are now to consider, we have the victory set before us which the Holy Spirit secures over sin and over death.
I THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST ESTABLISHES THE SOUL IN HOLINESS. (Vers. 1-4) After what has been stated in Ro 7, it is seen that "there is not now any condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." The soul has died to Law in the death of Jesus Christ, and, now risen, is married to another, even the risen Christ. And this better Husband has put the soul under another and better law of life, what is called in this passage "the law of the Spirit of life," and we are enabled by Paul"s statements to see how it operates. And here it is well to premise that law and Spirit are not antitheses. The Spirit has, in fact, his law of operation, and it is this we have here set before us.
1. The Spirit emancipates the soul from the law of sin. Law, that is, the Law of Moses, could never do this. It was weak through the flesh, and had not the necessary power. On the other hand, the Spirit takes Christ"s life, applies it, and produces the emancipation through it. The grace of God is seen in "sending his own Son," that is, "the Son of himself;" and he made his advent "in the likeness of sinful flesh," that is, he came not as an apparition, but in a real body, yet it differed from other human bodies in that it was not "sinful flesh." And his purpose in assuming sinless flesh was that he might be "an Offering for sin" (Revised Version), and thereby might "condemn sin in the flesh." His whole life in the flesh was, indeed, a condemnation of sin; but the condemnation reached its climax when on the cross Jesus expiated human guilt. As a powerful writer has well stated the truth of the passage, "believers are made "partakers of the Divine nature." The nature of the Father through the Son is made known unto them and as the rays of light which pass through a coloured medium take the hues of the medium through which they come, so the Spirit of God, coming to us through Christ incarnate, is baptized in the humanities of his Person, and hence becomes the Dispenser of the Divine mercy, as that mercy was revealed in the flesh. So that "what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh had no sympathetic power to touch the emotional nature, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the Law which requires love, but cannot produce it might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2. The Spirit enables the soul to fulfil the righteousness of the Law by walking, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. "The righteousness of the Law," in ver. 4, is given in the Revised Version as "the ordinance of the Law" (dikaiwma , not dikaiosunh). But the idea is clear. The perfect life is the ideal of the Spirit. He accordingly comes to inspire as well as to condemn. He prompts us to "walk after the Spirit," in the spiritual path our Saviour trod, and so we find ourselves, through the appreciation of the life of Jesus, becoming progressively holy in character, approximating steadily towards the perfect righteousness which dwelt in him. It is this inspiration to holy living which defeats the law of sin. This is the real victory. Salvation is not so much from the uncomfortableness of hell, as from the greater misfortune of sin. As one has very properly said, "If my religion is to make me comfortable in spite of ill temper, and slipshod ways of business, and words that are not exactly true, then I say deliberately, better the very fires of hell than that comfort, if they could only burn into me and through and through me a great abhorrence of all that is evil.
II THROUGH DESTROYING SIN, THE SPIRIT DESTROYS DEATH. (Vers. 5-11) For as long as we "mind the things of the flesh," that is, are occupied with them to the exclusion or subordination of spiritual things, we are, as "carnally minded," in a state of spiritual death. This mind of the flesh is death" (so Revised Version). And when we analyze this death of the soul, we find it consists in at least these three things:
(1) Enmity to God (ver. 7);
(2) rebellion against his Law; and
(3) separation from him as those that are not pleasing in his sight (ver. 8). The result of such a state is misery. "Paradise lost" is the true expression for the carnal state. It is into this state of misery, then, that God"s Spirit inserts himself, and proposes:
1. To destroy this spiritual death by destroying sin. The moment we become "spiritually minded," we have passed the boundary between "Paradise lost" and "Paradise regained." We find that both "life and peace" result from spiritual-mindedness. "Here," says De Rougemont, "we are in full life and in full peace; there is in some way upon the mountain of God the terrestrial paradise of faith and of hope; there is the sweet sun of Eden, there are its sweet shades, there are its limpid waters which murmur, there is its tree of life whose fruits are the envy of the angels, if they have not similar ones in abundance. No one before Jesus Christ had known the way and passed the portal of this garden of delight. The Son of God descended to the lowest parts of the earth, and taught the existence of it to his disciples. They were suddenly transported there on the Day of Pentecost by the impetuous breath of the Spirit of God.
2. The Spirit also proposes to destroy the mortality of the body by resurrection. Alas! at conversion we do not become immortal. The change of heart has doubtless its good effect on the body, but it does not replace a bad constitution by a good one, nor rehabilitate the body. The body remains dead because of sin, even when the spirit has become life because of righteousness. But the justified and sanctified spirit within man is not going to be perpetually chained to a dying body. The Spirit of God, who has effected the vital change within, is the Spirit who raised up Jesus from the dead. That resurrection of our Lord is the pledge of our bodily resurrection. God is not going to leave his work half-done. Having raised our dead hearts out of the grave of trespass and of sin, he is not going to leave us in a state of physical mortality. The Head having been raised, the members shall be also "resurrected." The cemeteries shall not be left as trophies of the king of terrors. They shall be despoiled of their prey by the quickening power of the Divine Spirit. God means to save his people out and out, body as well as soul. Thus our gospel is that of the Resurrection. The tree of life in the midst of Paradise regained shall prove victorious over our mortality, and we shall have conferred upon us in body as well as soul an immortality like our Master"s. "No longer must the mourners weep, Nor call departed Christians dead For death is hallowed into sleep, And every grave becomes a bed. Now once more Eden"s door Open stands to mortal eyes; For Christ hath risen, and man shall rise! Now at last, All things past, Hope and joy and peace begin; For Christ hath won, and man shall win! It is not exile, rest on high; It is not sadness, peace from strife; To fall asleep is not to die; To dwell with Christ is better life. Where our banner leads us We may safely go; Where our Chief precedes us, We may face the foe. His right arm is o"er us, He will guide us through; Christ hath gone before us; Christians! follow you! (John Mason Neale) R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26 For the law of the Spirit of life in…
Rom_8:2
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
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Law cancelling law
1. Few words are oftener on our lips than the word law. But we are in danger of using the word as though laws were impersonal forces, independently of a controlling mind.
2. But a law is not a force. It is only the invariable manner in which forces work. Better still, it is the unvarying method in which God is ever carrying out His infinite plans. How wise and good it is that God generally works in this way, so that we are able to calculate with unvarying certainty on natural processes.
3. And when He wills some definite end He does not abrogate the laws that stand in His way, but cancels their action by laws from higher spheres which counterwork them, e.g., The flight of birds is due to very different causes from a balloons. Balloons float because they are lighter, but birds are heavier. The law of the elasticity of the air sets the bird free from the law of gravitation that would drag it to the ground. In the autumn fields the children, in gathering mushrooms, unwittingly eat some poisonous fungus which threatens them with death. Some antidote is given, which, acting as the law of life, counterworks the poison, and sets the children free from the law of death, which had already commenced to work in their members. So the law of the spirit of life in spring sets the flowers free frown the law of death of winter. And the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, set Lazarus free from the law of sin and death which imprisoned him in the tomb. And, similarly, the law of life communicated through the Holy Spirit will set us free from the law of sin and death which reigns in our hearts.
I. There is in each one of us the law of sin and death.
1. This evil tendency is derived from our connection with the human family. Races and children alike are affected by the sins and virtues of their ancestors. In every man there is a bias towards evil, just as in the young tiger there is predisposition to feed on flesh, and in the duckling to swim.
2. That tendency survives conversion. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Its strivings may be suppressed; but it is still there, only waiting till His repressive influences are withdrawn to spring up in all its pristine vigour. Conversion is the insertion of a new principle of life, side by side with the old principle of death. Consecration is simply the act by which we put the culture of our spirit into the blessed hands of Jesus. There is nothing, therefore, in either of these acts to necessitate the crushing out of any principle of the old nature.
II. God does not mean us to be enslaved by sin. What a contrast between Rom_7:23-24, and the joyous outburst of this text! The one is the sigh of a captive, this the song of a freed bond slave.
1. Captivity: you have its symbol in the imprisoned lion, or royal eagle; you have it in the disease which holds the sufferer down in rheumatism or paralysis. But there are forms of spiritual captivity equally masterful. Selfishness, jealousy, envy, and ill will, sensual indulgence, the love of money.
2. But it is not Gods will that we should spend our days thus. We were born to be free; not, however, to do as we choose, but to obey the laws of our true being. When we free an eagle we never suppose that he will be able to dive for fish as a gull, or to feed on fruits as a hummingbird. But henceforth it will be able to obey the laws of its own glorious nature.
III. We become free by the operation of the law of the Spirit of life. The law of sin and death is cancelled by the law of the Spirit of life. Life is stronger than death; holiness than sin; the Spirit than man. The mode of the Holy Spirits work is thus--
1. He reveals to us that in the intention of God we are free. So long as you consider captivity your normal state and expect nothing better there is little hope of deliverance.
2. He makes us very sensitive to the presence of sin.
3. He works mightily against the power of evil.
4. He enables us to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin (chap. 6:11). This is the God-given way of overcoming the suggestions of sin. When sin approaches us we have to answer: He whom thou seekest is dead, he cannot heed or respond.
Conclusion:
1. Walk in the Spirit; live in the Spirit; yield to the Spirit. Do not be content to have merely His presence, without which you could not be a Christian, but seek His fulness. Let Him have His way with you. And in proportion as the law of the Spirit becomes stronger, that of the flesh will grow weaker, until as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, you will now yield them to righteousness unto holiness.
2. And as you find the Spirit of life working within you you may be sure that you are in Jesus Christ, for He only is the element in whom the blessed Spirit can put forth His energy. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The law of sin
I. The law of sin.
1. The word law taken properly is the edict of a person in authority, wherein he orders something to be done, backing his or their commands with promises of rewards, as also their prohibitions with threatenings of punishment. In this sense there is a law of sin. For--
(1) A law is a commanding thing: it lays its imperative injunctions upon men and expects their obedience (Rom_7:1). Now, in this respect sin is a law; therefore you read of the reigning of sin, of obeying sin, of the dominion of sin (Rom_6:12; Rom_6:14). The subject is not more under the law of his Sovereign, nor the servant of his master, than the sinner is under the laws of sin. As there is this domination on sins part so there is subjection on the sinners part; no sooner doth it command, but it is presently obeyed (Mat_8:9). And where it commands and is obeyed there it condemns, which distinguishes it from all other laws. It rules of itself properly, but it condemns as it lays the foundation of condemnation by another--the law of God. And this speaks the inexpressible misery of the unregenerate.
(2) A law is backed with rewards and punishments for the furtherance of mens obedience. Answerably now to this, sin will be pretending to rewards and punishments, which, though in themselves they are but sorry things, yet they have a great power. For instance, sinner, saith sin, do but obey me, and pleasure, honour, profit, shall be thine. But if these enticing arguments will not do, sin then threatens derision, poverty, persecution, and what not. But note--That sin considered as simply commanding is not a law, but it then becomes formally and completely a law when the sinner obeys; so then he owns the power of it. The laws of usurpers, merely as imposed by them, are no laws, because not made by persons in lawful authority; but if a people freely own these usurpers and willingly put themselves under subjection to them, then, to them their laws become valid and obligatory.
2. The word law is taken improperly for anything that hath an impelling virtue in it. It hath the force of a law, and doth that which a true law uses to do. And, therefore, when sin is the principle which efficaciously excites a person to those things which are suitable to its own nature, there sin may be called a law.
II. Its mode of operation.
1. Sin exerts its powers in its vehement urging to what is evil. Sin in the habit is altogether for sin in the act; indwelling sin is wholly for dwelling in sin. Though there was no devil to tempt the graceless sinner, yet that law of sin which is in himself would be enough to make him sin. Corrupt nature is continually soliciting and exciting the unsanctified man to what is evil; it will not let him alone day or night unless he gratify it. What an instance was Ahab of this. Sin put him upon the coveting of Naboths vineyard, and this it did with such violence that he would eat no bread because he could not have his will (1Ki_21:5; see Pro_4:16).
2. This law of sin shows itself in its opposing and hindering of what is good. It is a law which always runs counter to Gods law. Doth that call for such and such duties? Are there some convictions upon the sinners conscience about them? Doth he begin a little to incline to what is good? How doth sin now bestir itself to make head in the soul against these convictions and good inclinations!
III. Its miserable bondage. Such being under the law of sin, it follows that they are under bondage the very worst imaginable. We pity those who live under tyrants. But, alas! what is that if compared with this. The state of nature is quite another thing than what men imagine it to be; they think there is nothing but freedom in it, but God knows it is quite otherwise (2Pe_2:19). To better convince you of the evil and misery of this bondage, and excite to the most vigorous endeavours to get out of it, note--
1. That bondage to sin is always accompanied with bondage of Satan. The devils reign depends upon the reign of sin; he rules in the children of disobedience, and takes men captives at his will. Shall a damned creature be thy sovereign--he who will be thy tormentor hereafter?
2. What sin is.
(1) Look upon sin in itself. It is the vilest thing that is: the only thing which God never made. It is the only thing that God cannot do.
(2) Look upon sin in the management of its power. Usurpers often make good laws; and indeed they had need use their power well who get it ill. The philosopher tells us that the intention of the legislator is to make his subjects good; but sins intention is only to make its subjects bad. Then, this sin is not only out of measure sinful in the exercise of its power, but it is also out of measure tyrannical. All the Neros, Caligulas, Domitians, etc., that ever lived were nothing to it. This first acted the part of a tyrant in them before they acted the part of tyrants over others. The tyranny of sin appears in many things. Its commands are--
(a) Innumerable.
(b) Contrary. Lust clashes with lust (Tit_3:3).
(c) Rigorous. It must have full obedience or none at all (Eph_2:3).
(d) Never at an end.
(e) So imperious and cruel that its vassals must stick at nothing.
3. That it is a soul bondage. The bondage of Israel in Egypt was very evil, yet not comparable to this, because that was but corporal and external, but this is spiritual and internal. There may be a servile condition without and yet a free and generous soul within; but if the soul itself be under servitude then the whole man is in servitude.
4. That of all bondage this is the most unprofitable. As to ether bondage the master may be cruel enough, but then he makes some amends by giving good wages; but the sinner serves that master which pays him no wages at all--death excepted (Rom_6:21).
5. That the worst of this bondage is that they who lie under it are altogether insensible of it. Where it is external and civil bondage men groan under it, would fain be rid of it (Exo_2:23). But the poor deluded sinner, like some distracted persons, plays with his chains.
6. That it is the most hurtful and most dangerous bondage: for it makes way for and most certainly ends in eternal death. Death puts an end to other bondage (Job_3:18-19); but the worst of spiritual bondage follows after death. You have in the text the law of sin and the law of death coupled together (see also Rom_6:16; Rom_6:21; Rom_6:23). (T. Jacomb, D. D.)
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ
1. Men of the world think that the gospel has to do only, or chiefly, with death, and that its atmosphere is generally repressive. But the fact is the reverse. The gospel gives life for death, joy for sorrow; a conquering power of soul to meet the disability of the flesh; an abounding sphere beyond this world.
2. Every life force is mysterious. We cannot explain the forces of nature. Nor can we explain the mystery of this unique transformation, but we may study its effects and ask ourselves if they are realised in us. Contemplate the change wrought--
I. In human activities. I will not select one whose life has been abandoned, but who is no stranger to religion, and who has led an outwardly correct life under the guidance of self-respect, and with regard to the good opinion of others. When renewed by the Spirit of God and freed from the law of sin and death he comes under the control of new influences. The love of Christ constrains, not prudence or sagacity. The charm of the Scriptures and of the sanctuary is something never known before. Resistance to sin is not, as before, a feeble, prudential avoidance, but a vehement hate. Love for holiness is ardent, and Christian work not a burden, but a joy.
II. On ones mental convictions. I would not refer to the scoffer, but rather to one who regards himself orthodox. He accepts Christianity as the most rational interpretation of nature. He accepts also the historic Christ, and redemption as well. But when such a person is born again, and sees God as his own Father, and the Saviour as his own Redeemer; when he sees the atonement, not as a philosophic scheme, but as a transcendent fact, involving greater resources than those of creation, a patience and love that shrunk not from the Cross, then a flood of light bursts on epistle, gospel and apocalypse, and a glory in the future rises on his view which is unspeakable. This intellectual elevation comes not from a study of the catechism, from a course of eloquent sermons, or from mere reflection upon the Word of inspiration, but as the result of that transforming power called the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
III. On the temper of his heart. The ordinary attitude of a thoughtful mind toward the realities of religion is one of wonder and admiration. Yet all this sentimentality is inert and inoperative. There is no personal affection for the Saviour. Sometimes the character of an acquaintance is dim and commonplace, until some critical exigency arises which gives beauty and worth to that character. Then a personal and passionate attachment is roused. So with the waking of the new life in the soul, Christ appears in new and alluring loveliness. He seems no more afar off, but near at hand, in closest fellowship day by day. With such a Saviour, daily duties are delights however humble. The temper of heart is changed toward Christs followers as well. The Christian loves his brethren for the Masters sake. His love is not founded on social or intellectual considerations, but grows out of spiritual unity and kinship, because of likeness to Christ. This change of temper and taste is the result of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus alone.
IV. In the expectations of the future. All men, pagan as well as Christian, look forward to a future existence. Unconverted men hope to be Christians before they die, but their ideas of the future are dim. With the believer death is seen to be but a transitional step, the mere portal to the shrine. While the worlds law is death in life, the gospels law is life in death. So the gospel fronts the world. Which is the better? Conclusion: Learn--
1. That it is in this gospel that life asserts its freedom. All departments of thought and effort, religious and secular, are alike ennobled and quickened.
2. This is a life which tends to consummation and perfection. The snow-bound field lies bare beneath the fetters of frost. It seems dead and barren, but with the melting warmth of spring there comes a verdure in place of ice and snow. All things are changed. So when this spiritual life force is allowed to exert its renewing and transforming energy on the soul of man, life is perfected and crowned. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)
The Christian liberty achieved; or, the law of the Spirit of life making free from the law of sin and death
The therefore now does not introduce an inference from the immediately preceding argument--which could not warrant it--but one grounded on the previously affirmed effectiveness of the gospel to accomplish that for believers which the law never could. The justifying ground of this discharge from condemnation was set forth in Rom_3:21-26. The principle upon which it proceeds was illustrated in Rom_5:12-21. The persons to whom it is extended, and the new life of which they become the participators was specified in Rom_6:1-11. The reason for the impotence of the law was stated in Rom_6:14, and this impotence had supplied the theme for illustration in Rom_7:6-25, and the power of the gospel which had been distinctly stated in Rom_7:6, with an eye to which the apostle had penned (Rom_7:25). Note--
I. The law of sin and death from the power of which believers obtain deliverance in Christ. It will be observed that the apostle does not speak of two laws, but of the one. Not that the two things are one, but that the one law pervades them both, and binds them together (Rom_5:12-21; Eze_18:4; Jam_1:15; Eph_2:1-5; Eph_4:17-19). This one law renders it impossible that the sinner can of himself regain the possession of innocence and peace, and evermore impels him onwards and downwards in the fearful descending circle of transgression and punishment. Man in the very act of sinning dies; or, being already dead, plunges into a still deeper death (Heb_9:14).
II. The sphere within which liberation has been provided--In Christ.
1. In Christ the double necessity of mans case has been provided for; the two-fold difficulty has been solved; the one by the death of the Son of God, the other by His life (Rom_4:25; cf. Rom_5:18; cf. Rom_5:21).
2. The actual liberation is conferred on men only as they become united to Christ. It is indeed true that there has come a dispensation of grace and renewed probation to all men; but the actual discharge from condemnation, and the liberty from the law of sin and death, do not come to any but to those who are found in Christ by faith (cf. Eph_1:1-23)
.
III. For all those who are in Christ the liberation is actually accomplished.
1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ: He was condemned on their account, and they were condemned in Him. He died for their sins, and they died in Him (Rom_6:7-8).
2. The liberation from sin is secured to believers in the active life; for the law of the Spirit of life, etc.
(1) The law of sin is a law of death; and the law of the Spirit is a law of life. Sin deals death, and thereby perpetuates both itself and its punishment; but the Spirit inspires life, and thereby liberates both from sin and death, and insures everlasting victory and blessedness.
(2) But how does the law of this new life in Christ exert within us its liberating power? Does it seize upon us from without, as the Spirit of inspiration seized upon the prophets? Or does it come upon us as a new constituent element of being? Or is it not the law of a new life which is infused into our spirit by the Spirit of God?
(3) The new law acts upon the conscience through the medium of the light and truth of the gospel (Joh_17:3; 2Co_4:6; 1Pe_1:23). This living and abiding Word supplies--
(a) That precious knowledge of the redemption in Christ which provides peace for the guilty conscience.
(b) That knowledge of the royal and perfect law of liberty which is a sure and sufficient guide for conscience in the practical life.
(c) That knowledge of God, as a God of love, as our God and Father in Christ, which imparts joyous courage and prevailing power to conscience. Conclusion:
1. Secure this glorious liberty.
(1) Ponder well the terrible power of this law, and the dreadful consequences of remaining beneath its dominion.
(2) There is now in Christ a perfect liberty from this law available for all who will accept it. Lay hold, by faith, of the hope now set before you in the gospel of Christ.
2. Having secured this inestimable liberty see that you hold it fast. (W. Tyson.)
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ
I. The law of the Spirit signifies the power of the Holy Spirit, by which He unites the soul to Christ, in whose righteousness it therefore partakes, and is consequently justified. This law is the gospel, whereof the Holy Ghost is the Author, being the authoritative rule and the instrument by which He acts in the plan of salvation. It is the medium through which He promulgates the Divine testimony; by which also He convinces of sin and testifies of the almighty Saviour. The gospel may be properly denominated a law, because it bears the stamp of Divine authority, to which we are bound to submit (Rom_10:3). It requires the obedience of faith (Rom_1:5; Rom_16:26); and when men refuse this submission, it is said that they have not obeyed the gospel (Rom_10:16). Although, therefore, the gospel is proclaimed as a grace, it is a grace accompanied with authority, which God commands to be received. Accordingly, it is expressly called a law (Isa_2:3; Mic_4:2); and in Psa_110:2, referring to the power exerted by its means, it is said, The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies--namely, by thine almighty power. The gospel, then, is the law of the Spirit by which He rules, and the rod of His strength, by which He effects our salvation, just as, in Rom_1:16, it is denominated the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is itself called the Spirit, as being administered by the Holy Spirit (2Co_3:8).
II. The gospel is the law of the Spirit of life, the ministration of which giveth life, in opposition to the letter or old covenant that killeth (2Co_3:6; cf. Joh_6:63; Eze_37:14; 1Co_15:45). Christ is the life itself, and the source of life to all creatures. But here the life is that which we receive through the gospel, as the law or power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which the apostle calls the life of God (Eph_4:18).
III. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ is set before us in two aspects. As God, the Spirit of life resides essentially in Him; but as Mediator, the Spirit of life has been given to Him to be communicated to all who are one with Him. On this account the Spirit was not given in His fulness (Joh_7:39) till Jesus Christ as Mediator had entered into heaven, when the Father, solemnly receiving His satisfaction, gave this testimony of His acceptance, in pouring out the abundance of the Spirit on His people (Joh_16:7; Eph_1:3). That the Spirit of life is in Jesus Christ, not only as God, but also as Mediator, is a ground of unspeakable consolation. It might be in Him as God, without being communicated to men; but as the Head of His people, it must be diffused through them as His members, who are thus complete in Him. Dost thou feel in thyself the sentence of death? Listen, then This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son. I am come that they might have life. Because I live ye shall live also. This life, then, is in Jesus Christ, and is communicated to believers by the Holy Spirit, by whom they are united to Christ, and from whom it is derived to all who through the law of the Spirit of life are in Him. (R. Haldane.)
Law of the Spirit of life
The law in the text, whether that of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, or that of sin and death, is a constraining influence--a moral force, an active power--an agency that acts mightily on the soul. And it is plain from the statements made regarding them, that these laws respectively are paramount at the time; they govern the whole being, either one or the other sits upon the inner throne of a man and governs him. It is a matter of life and death--of happiness or of misery, of freedom or of slavery, of everlasting weal or eternal woe.
I. The inquiry relates to the law of sin and death. This must be an influence or force which is evil, which is the parent of sin, driving us along in the path of transgression, and which is not only of the nature of spiritual death, but which also issues in eternal death.
1. In order that we may ascertain its nature, let some thought be given to the process by which it is first established in the human soul.
2. As a mighty force this law is seen in those ruling passions of mankind which discard the authority of God. What is supreme love of money but self-gratification at the expense of ones allegiance to the Most High.
3. We further discover the might of this law of sin and death in the sins of man against his fellow man. When one overreaches another in trade, does he not gratify his desire for gain at the expense of another?
II. Some general characteristics of this law.
1. It is often subtle in its actings.
2. It is a law of death as well as of sin.
3. It is slavery. This law of sin and death befools and degrades, and it is an unmitigated despotism. Woe to the soul under its unrestrained power!
4. It has had control universally.
III. We have to ask concerning the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
1. It is a Divine implantation. The Spirit of life is undoubtedly the Holy Spirit, who is the Author of spiritual life in the soul. When He cometh, He shall convince the world of sin. Until He speaks inwardly, the mind seems unaware of the presence and power of the law of sin and death. It is also His gracious office to attract the soul to a vital union with Christ. Under the blessed light which He kindles around and within the heart, the redemption of Christ appears in its true aspect as most full, glorious, and adapted to save.
2. As the other is a law of Sin and death, this is one of obedience and life. Self-love now seeks its gratification in pleasing God and doing His will.
3. Observe throughout that it is in Christ Jesus. To those who receive Him, He gives the privilege to become the sons of God. The Cross of Christ slays the enmity of the heart.
IV. This law sets free from the other. If it be established as the governing principle the other cannot be. They are in their own nature opposites. Self-love is gratified in the one case, in opposition to the claims of God and the well-being of others; in the other, by obedience and devotion to the supreme law of our being, love to God and man. Conclusion:
1. The adaptation of the religion of Christ to man.
2. We discover where true freedom and true happiness are found.
3. What we all need, and what the world needs, is to be delivered from the law of sin and death by the working in us of this ennobling force. What a glorious object of pursuit! How well worth all self-sacrifice! (H. Wilkes, D. D.)
Believers are freed through the law of the Spirit of life
I. The deliverance obtained--
1. By nature we are all (chaps. 6, 7) in spiritual bondage. We are sold under sin, and so necessarily are under death (Rom_5:12). The law of sin and the law of death are one and the same principle disclosing itself in different manifestations and degrees. Poisonous fruit is sap worked up, legitimately developed.
2. This evil principle drives man from God.
(1) As it is darkness (1Jn_1:5-7; 1Jn_2:9), it drives him from the fountain of soul light.
(2) As it is death, from the fountain of life (Act_17:28).
3. From this evil principle believers are made free. Not from death, though its sting is taken away; nor even from sin perfectly. But over against death faith sees the resurrection placed, and over against sin the unblemished perfection of the redeemed.
II. The agency whereby this deliverance is accomplished. Law counteracting law.
1. The term law may mean--
(1) A certain code like the Decalogue and the laws of nations.
(2) A principle operating with all the regularity and fixedness of statute--in which sense laws of thought, gravitation, refraction, are laws.
2. The latter is the signification here.
(1) The law of the Spirit this new victorious law is called. It is contrary to whatever is of the flesh. In its origin, nature, mode of working, it is Divine. From God it comes. For God it moves. To God it leads.
(2) It is the law of the Spirit of life. As the same Spirit is named the Spirit of wisdom, counsel, etc. (Isa_11:2), of holiness (Rom_1:4), of truth (Joh_14:17; Joh_15:26), because He makes wise, holy, leads into all truth, so He is here named the Spirit of life, as He leads into life, and works life. Of all soul life He is the Author, Promoter, Regulator, Perfecter (Joh_6:63; 1Pe_3:18). This law of the Spirit of life as the stronger man casts out the strong (Luk_11:22). Water poured into a vessel expels the air.
III. The sphere within which this agency is so efficiently operative. Like laws of nature, it works within certain limits. Iron, not glass, will conduct electricity. Dews, droughts, hurricanes are conditioned by varied zones of atmospheric circumstances; so outside the region of being in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life does not effect its hallowing results upon our souls. Within that radius, however, its might is sovereign. It frees believers. Conclusion: Note--
1. The urgent importance of ascertaining which of these laws is supreme in our soul. If not conscious of resistance to the law of sin, we are under its sway. We may even be troubled about the commission of certain sins, and give heed to certain duties, and yet be in utter servitude to it (Eze_33:31).
2. The great need of asking the promised Spirit (Mat_7:11 : Luk_10:13). Regeneration, sanctification only obtainable through His power.
3. The duty of consciously living in this freedom, not confusing liberty with license (Luk_1:74-75). Carefulness against presumption and despondency alike is indispensable (Eph_6:11-13).
4. The strong consolation of knowing that ultimate perfection can be calculated upon with all the certainty of a result of law. Given the reign of the law of the Spirit of life in a soul, then amid and in spite of all conflicts the beauty of the renewed life will be patent and increase (Psa_138:8; Heb_12:23; Heb_13:21). (J. Gage, B. D.)
The law of the Spirit frees from the law of sin
Note--
1. The Spirit frees from the law of sin. In reference to this you may consider Him either essentially as He is God, or personally. As it is the Sons proper act to free from the guilt, so it is the Spirits proper act to free from the power of sin, it belonging to the Son to do all without and to the Spirit to do all within. That which God once said in reference to the building of the temple--Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit--is applicable here.
2. This is done by the Spirit of life. This refers either to the Spirit as He is a living Spirit, or refers to the time when the Spirit quickens and thus regenerates, or to the method of regeneration itself. The Spirit who renews, when He renews, by renewing, brings sin under.
3. It is the law of the Spirit by which this is done. Here is law against law, the power and efficacy of the Spirit against the power and efficacy of sin (Eph_3:20). The law of sin has a moral and a physical power; and so with the Spirit. He hath His moral power, as He doth persuade, command, etc.; and He hath His physical power, as He doth strongly, efficaciously incline and impel the sinner to such and such gracious acts; yea, as He doth effectually change his heart, make him a new creature, dispossess sin of its regency, and bring him under the government of Christ. And herein the law of the Spirit is above the law of sin. Set corrupt nature never so high, yet it is but a finite thing, and so hath but a finite power; but the Spirit is an infinite being, and puts forth an infinite power. For the better opening of the truth in hand, note--
I. The necessity, sufficiency, efficacy of the power of the Spirit in freeing men from the power of sin.
1. The necessity of the power of the Spirit. Omnipotency itself is requisite thereunto; that is the strong man which keeps the palace till Christ, through the Spirit (which is stronger than it), comes upon it and overcomes it. The power of nature can never conquer the power of sin, for natures greatest strength is on sins side. That the power of the Spirit is thus necessary if you consider that--
(1) Sin is in possession.
(2) It hath been so a long time.
(3) Its dominion is entire; it hath all on its side.
When there is a party within a kingdom ready to fall in with the foreign force that comes to depose the tyrant, he may with more facility be vanquished; but if all the people unanimously stick to him, then the conquest is the more difficult. Christ said, The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me; so the poor sinner may say, The sin-subduing Spirit comes, but He finds nothing in me to close with Him.
(4) The natural man likes the power of sin.
(5) Sin is very resolute for and in the maintaining of what it hath; it will fight it out to the last, and die rather than yield.
(6) Satan sets in with it, and upon all occasions gives it all the help he can, as allies do.
2. Its sufficiency. As Christ is able to save to the utmost from sins guilt, so the Spirit also is able to save to the utmost from sins power. God once said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee (2Co_12:9). Now, as that grace is sufficient to bear up under the heaviest afflictions, so this grace is sufficient to bring down the strongest corruptions. Who is sufficient for these things? Why He, and none but He, who hath infinite power.
3. Its efficacy.
(1) He doth not only in a moral way advise, counsel, persuade the sinner to cast off sins bondage, but puts forth an insuperable strength upon him, and so goes through with the work.
(2) When He comes about this or any other saving act, He doth not leave the sinners will in suspense, but, in a way congruous to its liberty, He overcomes and determines it for God against sin, so as that it shall neither hesitate nor make any resistance to His grace.
II. In what ways the Holy Spirit doth exert his power.
1. He effectually works upon the understanding, that being the leading faculty.
(1) Whereas He finds it under darkness, He acts as a Spirit of illumination, filling the soul with saving knowledge. It required Omnipotency to say, Let there be light; no less a power is requisite to the saving enlightening of the sinner (Eph_5:8). But this being done, sin is broken in its power by it; for ignorance is one of its royal forts.
(2) Whereas it lies under sad mistakes, therefore the Spirit doth rectify it and makes it to judge aright.
(3) Whereas it is full of high and proud thoughts, of strange imaginations and reasonings, He casts them down (2Co_10:5).
2. He then proceeds to the will.
(1) Of all the faculties, sin contends most for the will, which, when it hath once gained, it will not easily part with. And so, too, the Spirit contends most for the will. He puts forth the greatest efficacy of His grace for the setting of that right and straight for God, that it may choose and cleave to His holy commands in opposition to the laws and commands of sin.
(2) Yet though He acts thus efficaciously, He doth not at all violate its liberty, but exerts all this power in such a way as agrees with that liberty (Psa_110:3; Son_1:4). He removes that averseness, obstinateness, reluctancy, that is in it against what is holy and spiritual.
3. In acting on the affections, He disengages them from sin, and sets them directly against it, and so freeing the sinner from the love of sin.
Application:
1. Let such who desire this mercy betake themselves to the Spirit for it.
(1) See that you pray in faith, believing in the sufficiency of His power.
(2) Let all other means be joined with prayer. They are but means, and therefore not to be relied upon; yet they are means, and therefore not to be neglected.
2. Let such who are made free from this law of sin own the Spirit of life as the author of their freedom, and ascribe the glory of it to Him.
3. Greatly to love and honour the Spirit.
4. As you have found the law of the Spirit in your first conversion, so you should live under the law of the Spirit in your whole conversation.
5. Set law against law--the law of the Spirit against the law of sin. (T. Jacomb, D. D.)
The believers freedom from the law of sin
I. The leading terms of the text.
1. By the Spirit of life we are here to understand the Holy Ghost. Men are spiritually dead; the animal and intellectual life remains; but the spiritual life--the life which connects man with, and qualifies him for the enjoyment of God--was extinguished by the fall, and can only be restored by the Spirit of life. And hence we are said to be born again of the Spirit. And as it is His office to restore spiritual life, so He maintains it. All good comes from Him and depends on Him.
2. He is called the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Because--
(1) We are indebted to Christ for the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is owing to Christs meritorious sacrifice that we are enabled and entitled to receive the Spirit.
(2) It is the office of Christ to dispense the Spirit. From His fulness it is that we are to receive grace upon grace.
II. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. By this we are to understand the gospel, applied by the Spirits power to the hearts of men. The gospel is often called a law--The perfect law of liberty; The isles shall wait for His law; The law of Messiah shall go forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. What law ever went forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth but the gospel?
1. A law is an enactment or command issuing from supreme authority, fully published and made known, and enforced by sanctions of reward to the obedient, or of punishment against the disobedient. This constitutes, when it is published or made known, the rule of action, the standard of character, and the ground of decision and judgment; this is law in general. The gospel answers to this general definition in every particular.
(1) It is an enactment or command. It comes with authority. It is not a statement of historical facts, an exhibition of truth, a collection of promises only; it comes to us with authority, that the facts should be credited, the truths received, the blessings included in the promises sought by us; so it may be said of us that we are Gods witnesses that the gospel is a law. Where there is no knowledge of the gospel there can be no obligation to receive it; but the moment the gospel comes to a man, from that time it becomes binding upon his conscience, and it is at his peril if he neglect or disobey it.
(2) It is enforced by sanctions; there is reward to the obedient, punishment for the disobedient.
(3) It issues from the highest authority in the universe.
(4) It is duly published and made known. Whatever may be said of the condition of those who live in the dark places of the earth, generally speaking, at least, ignorance of the gospel among ourselves is wilful, and therefore criminal.
(5) It constitutes the standard of character and the rule of decision. God will judge the secrets of all hearts, says Paul, according to my gospel.
2. But why is it called the Spirits law? Because it is the instrument by which the Spirit most efficiently operates upon the understanding, the will, the conscience, and the character of the man. By, and with it, he operates with the force and the authority of a law, overcoming and reducing and governing the mind. The power that accomplishes the great work of regeneration is the power of the Spirit; but the instrument He employs is the Word of truth.
III. The law of sin and of death.
1. By this some understand the moral law considered in its application to fallen man, as the covenant of works. This law, when given to man innocent and holy, in the possession of Divine and spiritual life, was well adapted to his case. But when man became a transgressor, then that which was ordained unto life began to operate unto death. It is the law of sin to all the unconverted, its very object being to make sin appear exceeding sinful. By the law is the knowledge of sin. Let a man apply it to his own character, and it will prove, to the conviction of his conscience, that he is a sinner; and, of course, wherever it proves sin it pronounces the sentence of death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
2. But others understand (and the general scope of St. Pauls argument is favourable to the opinion) the sinning principle in the nature of fallen man. Wherever this principle of unsubdued enmity to God and holiness exists in the heart, it will manifest itself in outward acts of sin. And these acts become habits, by repetition; and thus sin becomes master. There his law is a law of death. Wherever there is sin in the root, there is death in the fruit; the end of these things is death. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
IV. The law of the Spirit of life makes us free from the law of sin and death.
1. This is true of the law of sin and death, understood as the covenant of works, the broken moral law. It is in reference to this that the apostle seems to be speaking in ver.
1. Before they were in Christ, they were condemned by the law for having broken it. But no sooner did they put their souls, by penitence and faith, into the Saviours bands, than all the mass of transgressions and guilt which rested upon them was removed. And now there is no condemnation, they are made free from the condemnatory demands of the moral law, from the curse of the covenant of works.
2. But true believers are delivered from the sinning principle which contaminates our fallen nature. Sin shall have no dominion over you.
V. Practical inferences. The salvation of Christ is--
1. Of indispensable necessity. It is, in fact, the one thing needful; our souls without it die.
2. A present salvation. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free.
3. That connected with satisfactory evidence of its existence. St. Paul does not speak as if he were at all doubtful; as if it were a business of mere conjecture or probability, of inference or anticipation. He had a consciousness of his freedom.
4. A personal affair. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free. (Jabez Bunting, D. D.)
Freedom from law achieved by law
We see this principle at work in the material world. A higher law comes into play and overrides ordinary law. Thus dynamic law subjugates mechanical force, as in the steam engine; chemical law, in turn, annihilates dynamic force; and intellectual power is superior to vital law, and moral to intellectual. The lower laws take effect upon the lower natures. The mechanical law of gravitation affects stones; but let a higher law of affinity come into operation, and those stones will be transformed into other combinations, such as gases, which will be above the laws of gravitation, and will form food for plants, etc. Mechanical law, however applied, cannot convert stones into bread. Chemical law can. If you mechanically pound ice or melt it, you can get nothing but water; but chemistry transforms it into power, and gas, and food. In the text the apostle is presenting to us in the kingdom of grace what is taking place in the kingdom of nature--law conquering law--e.g., a human body subject to chemical law ferments, putrefies, decays; but the vital law holds all these in check. It is only when the higher vital law is gone that the lower law reigns. (Percy Strutt.)
The two laws
I. What is meant by law.
1. Law is an authoritative code framed by a master for the regulation of his servants. But when we speak of the laws of nature, we denote the process by which events invariably follow each other. The law which accountable creatures are hound to obey is one thing; the law, in virtue of which creatures are always found to make the same exhibition in the same circumstances, is another.
2. It is not difficult, however, to perceive how the same term came to be applied to things so distinct. For law, in the first sense of it, is not applicable to a single command which may never be repeated. True, like all the others, it is obeyed, because of that general law by which the servant is bound to fulfil the will of his master; yet it does not attain the rank of such a denomination unless the thing enjoined be habitual. Thus the order that doors shall be shut, or that none shall be missing after a particular hour, or that Sabbath shall be observed, may be characterised as the laws of the family--not the random orders of the current day. Now this common circumstance of uniformity has extended the application of the term law. Should you drop a piece of heavy matter, nothing is more certain nor more constant than its descent--just as if constrained so to do by the authority of a universal enactment on the subject, and hence the law of gravitation. Or, if light be made to fall on a polished surface, nothing more mathematically sure than the path by which it will be given back again to the eye of the beholder, and hence in optics the law of reflection. Or if a substance float upon the water, nothing more invariably accurate than that the quantity of fluid displaced is equal in weight to that of the body which is supported; and all this from a law in hydrostatics. But the difference lies just here. The one kind of law is framed by a living master for the obedience of living subjects, and may be called juridical law. The other is framed by a living master also, for it is God who worketh all in all; but obedience is rendered by the force of those natural principles wherewith the things in question operate in that one way which is agreeable to their nature. This kind of law would by philosophers be called physical law.
II. In which of these two senses shall we understand law in the text. To determine this, we shall begin with the consideration of--
1. The law of sin and death. It is quite obvious that this is not a law enacted in the way of jurisprudence. It is neither more nor less than the sinful tendency of our constitution. It is called a law because, like the laws of gravitation or electricity, it has the property of a moving force, inasmuch as it incessantly aims after the establishment of its own mastery. Death comes as regularly and as surely in the train of our captivity to sin as the fruit of any tree, or the produce of any husbandry, does by the laws of the vegetable kingdom.
2. The law of the Spirit of life just expresses the tendency and the result of an operative principle in the mind that has force enough to arrest the operation of the law of sin and death. The affection of the old man meets with a new affection to combat and to overmatch it. If the originating principle of sin be shortly described as the love of the creature, the originating principle of the spiritual life might also be briefly described as the love of the Creator. These two appetites are in a state of unceasing hostility. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
III. The second of these laws.
1. Is called--
(1) The law of the Spirit, because referable to the Holy Ghost, by whose agency the new moral force has been made to actuate the soul and give another direction to the whole history.
(2) The law of the Spirit of life, because he in whom this law is set a-going is spiritually minded; and as to be carnally minded is death, so to be spiritually minded is life. It is like the awakening of man to a new moral existence, when he is awakened to the love of that God whom before he was glad to forget; like a resurrection from the grave when, aroused from the deep oblivion of nature, man enters into living fellowship with his God. It is only now that he has begun to live.
2. When does this visitation of the Spirit descend upon the soul? This is shown by the words In Christ Jesus. As surely as when you enter a garden of sweets one of your senses becomes awakened to the perfumes; as surely as when emerging from the darkness of a close apartment to the glories of an unclouded day another of your senses is awakened to the light and beauty, so surely when you enter within the fold of Christs mediatorship, and are united with Him, then there is an awakening of the inner man to the beauties of holiness. We refer to a law of nature, the impression of every scene, in which he is situated, on the senses of the observer; and it is also by the operation of such a law that, if in Christ, we become subject to a touch that raises us to spiritual life, and maketh us susceptible of all its joys and all its aspirations.
3. What have we to do that we may attain this condition. I know of no other instrument by which the disciple is grafted in Christ Jesus, even as the branches are in the vine, than faith. And the Holy Ghost is given to those who believe. The promise of the Spirit is unto faith. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Delivered from the law of sin
Sin and death are partners of one throne and issue one law (cf. verses 14, 21)
. To obey the one is to obey the other. In former days Paul was compelled to do the bidding of sin. But the Holy Spirit has set him free by making His own will the rule of Pauls life. Just so a conqueror, by setting up his own laws in a conquered country, makes the former laws invalid. That the country obeys the new laws is a proof of conquest. Similarly, the presence and guidance of the Spirit have made Paul free front the rule of sin. This is not a change of bondage, but freedom from all bondage. For the law of the Spirit is the will of our Maker, and therefore the law of our being. And to obey the law of our being is the only true freedom. In Christ. Pauls deliverance took place objectively in the human body of Christ (Rom_3:24); subjectively, by Pauls spiritual union with the risen Saviour (Rom_6:11). (Prof. J. A. Beet.)
Free from the law of sin and death
I. The misery of all men by nature. And that it consists of a state of bondage and captivity, which is here in this Scripture called the law of sin and death. We shall speak of the law of sin. Sin, in those which are unregenerate, does exercise a tyrannical power and authority over them, therefore it hath the denomination of a law given unto it; not that it hath anything which is good or lawful or regular in it, for it is properly the transgression of a law. But it is called a law in regard of that rule which it bears in the hearts of all those that are entangled with it. This is the condition of sin, that it carries with it the nature of a law to the subjects of it. First, in the constant actings of it; sin is like a law so. Things which are acted by law they are acted with a great deal of constancy. The ordinances of heaven and earth, the sun, moon, and stars, they keep their course by a settled decree which is upon them. Even so is it also with those who are carried by this law of sin; it is that which is usual with them, they make a constant course and practice of it as their trade and life. Secondly, it hath the motion of a law in that men are carried to it powerfully and irresistibly without opposition. So is sin to an unregenerate person; it commands him and has power over him, it rules and reigns in him. This is first of all grounded upon that curse which was laid upon man for his first rebellion. But, secondly, sin gets a great deal of power by custom, which has the force of a second nature with it, and in that regard the notion of a law. The Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, and the leopard his spots, as they may cease to do evil that are accustomed to it. Now, for the further illustration of it, we may take notice of the misery of this bondage in these following aggravations. First, in the subject of this thraldom; and that is the soul itself--the immortal soul--that part of man which had the image of God in a special manner imprinted upon it. For this to be in slavery and servitude is a very sad business indeed. We know in the way of the world how bondage is usually aggravated from the quality and condition of the person that is brought into it. Secondly, consider it also in the persons which men are in thraldom to by it, and that is to Satan and his instruments. For a man to be in bondage to a stranger it is not very desirable, but to be in bondage to an enemy or adversary is very abominable. Thirdly, there is an aggravation also in it from the nature and quality and condition of the servitude itself, in all the circumstances of it. Of all servants we count them to be in the worse case that are sold. To this we may further add the insensibleness of this their condition which is usually attendant hereupon. We count them most desperately miserable who discern not the misery which they are in, as mad men that sing in their chains. And so much may be spoken of the first branch of a natural mans captivity, as it is considerable in his thraldom to evil expressed here in the text by the law of sin. The second is as it is considerable in his obligation to punishment: and that is here also expressed by the law of death, which is added and joined to the other and goes along with it. There is a three-fold death which the Scripture makes mention of, and they are all of them the wages of sin. First, natural death, which consists in the separation of the soul from the body (chap. 5:12). Secondly, there is also a spiritual death, which consists in a deprivation of the image of God upon the soul, and the withdrawing of His favour from it. When a man is void of all grace and comfort too, he is then thus far in a state of death (Eph_2:1). Thirdly, there is eternal death also, which consists in the separation of soul and body from God forever in hell. Therefore let us accordingly look upon sin and death in this conjunction. Let us not separate or divide these things which God hath thus put together, but in all temptations to the one think of the other.
II. The second is the happy recovery and restoration of believers by grace in these words, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free. First, here is the remedy itself which is mentioned, The law of the Spirit of life which is, etc. Where, first, of the meaning of the words. First, there are three terms here before us; there is life, and the Spirit of life, and the law of the Spirit. By life here we are to understand the grace of holiness and sanctification. By the word Spirit joined to life we are to understand either the original, because it is wrought by the Spirit, or the activity and intention of it. By the law of the Spirit we are to understand the power and efficacy of it. For law it is a word of command and hath prevalency with it. Now the point which is here observable of us is thus much, that in the human nature of Christ there is a law of the Spirit of life. There is a fulness and sufficiency of all grace and holiness in Christ considered as He was man. This the Scripture doth sufficiently intimate and confirm unto us in sundry places of it, as in Col_1:19, It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell. This was requisite thus to be upon a two-fold ground and consideration especially--First, in regard of the personal union of His human nature with His Divine. Secondly, as this was requisite in regard of His personal union, so also in regard of His work of mediatorship. First, take it in the preparatory reference; and so the Spirit of life in Christ, it did fit Him and dispose Him and qualify Him for the work of the mediatorship. This we may conceive it to have done in these respects--First, in the sanctifying of the flesh of Christ in the womb of the Virgin. Secondly, it also dignified this nature and advanced it above all other creatures. Thirdly, this Spirit of life in Christ it did also fill His human nature with as much grace as it was capable of, and with all these perfections whereunto the nature of grace doth reach and extend itself. Again, further, it is also considerable in the exertions and transactions of it. Whatever Christ did as mediator, He was more particularly enabled hereunto from this Spirit of life. As first of all, it was this which quickened Him and encouraged Him in His entrance upon it. Secondly, it likewise sustained Him, and upheld Him in the very performance itself. Thirdly, in that moreover it at last revived Him and raised Him from the dead. Adam, he brought down our nature and subjected it to a great deal of disparagement by his transgression; but Christ by His purity and holiness hath set it up, and taken off that disparagement from it which was formerly upon it. Again, further, here is comfort as to the point of continuance of grace and perseverance in it. Forasmuch as that grace and holiness which we now partake of under the gospel, it is in good and safe hands. The grace which we had given us in Adam we lost, but that grace which we have now in the new covenant we have it upon better and surer terms, being such as is now rooted in Christ as the proper subject of it. This law of the Spirit of life it is in Christ Jesus. The second is the efficacy of this remedy upon St. Paul and all other believers, Hath made me free from the law of sin and death: where the remedy is as large as the disease, and the plaster as broad as the sore. Here is the law of the Spirit in opposition to the law of the flesh, and the law of life in opposition to the law of death in us. First, as to matter of justification. This holiness of Christ it frees us from the law of death and condemnation. But secondly, it holds good in point of sanctification likewise. The pure and holy nature of Christ is the spring and original of all holiness in us. And of His fulness do we all receive, and grace for grace, as the apostle tells us (Joh_1:12). The Spirit of God does not bestow grace upon us immediately, but he bestows it upon us through Christ. Let us learn from hence to bless God for Christ, and give Him the glory of His own holiness in us. (Thomas Horton.)
Spiritual emancipation
The word law may denote commandment, or the customary habit or state of any creature. In the one sense we talk of the laws of God, or the laws of kings; in the other sense we talk of the laws of nature, of matter, or of mind. It seems much better to understand the verse according to the second or subjective use of the word law, and then its reference is seen to be to the believers sanctification.
I. Mans natural state of moral, thraldom.
1. There is a principle of depravity in every human heart (Rom_3:23; Gal_3:22). The whole work of Christ, as tasting death for every man, is based upon the assumption that all the world is guilty before God; for if not, there must be some for whom Christ has not died, inasmuch as they needed no atonement. Yet where are these to be found? This principle of evil may be described according to its various modes of manifestation. It is--
(1) The love of the creature, in opposition to the love of the Creator.
(2) Self-will, or self-assertion, in opposition to the will of God and the requirements of His law.
(3) Sensualism, in contrast with that which is intellectual and spiritual.
(4) Pride and self-preference.
(5) Selfishness and self-seeking.
(6) A tendency to falsehood and guile.
2. This principle operates with the regularity of a natural law, determining all our volitions and affections. Man sins with the same certainty that an apple, loosened from the tree, drops to the ground. It is natural for the sun to rise and set, for the moon to wax and wane, for the tides to ebb and flow, for the seasons to revolve, and for the generations of men to be born and die: to do otherwise, in any of these instances, would imply a miracle or a violence done to the uniformity of nature. So likewise it is natural and inevitable that men, unrenewed by grace, should sin.
3. This law of sin is likewise a law of death. God by express enactment has appointed death as the wages of sin. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But in addition to that external decree, there is an internal tendency in sin to fructify in death (Jam_1:15), and to destroy the life of the soul.
II. The state of moral freedom achieved for us by the gospel.
1. There is a principle of life in them that believe. They live, by having their minds enlightened with the knowledge of God, by feeling the burden of their sins removed, and by being able to look up to God with filial confidence and trust, by having the conscience cleansed from dead works to serve the living God, by being inspired with new emotions, animated by new aims.
2. This life is imparted and sustained by the Holy Ghost. It is not self-generated, but it is given from above. He who receives it is born of the Spirit.
3. This principle of life operates with the regularity of a law. The Spirit takes up His residence in the breast of the converted man, and goes on working till every thought is brought into subjection to Christ, and the work of the believers sanctification is complete.
4. This Spirit of life is realised only by our being in Christ. (T. G. Horton.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 12, 26 Chapter 17
Chapter 17
THE JUSTIFIED: THEIR LIFE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT
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Rom_8:1-11
THE sequence of the eighth chapter of the Epistle on the seventh is a study always interesting and fruitful. No one can read the two chapters over without feeling the strong connection between them, a connection at once of contrast and of complement. Great indeed is the contrast between the paragraph Rom_7:7-25 and the eighth chapter. The stern analysis of the one, unrelieved save by the fragment of thanksgiving at its close, (and even this is followed at once by a restatement of the mysterious dualism,) is to the revelations and triumphs of the other as an almost starless night, stifling and electric, to the splendour of a midsummer morning with a yet more glorious morrow for its future. And there is complement as well as contrast. The day is related to the night, which has prepared us for it, as hunger prepares for food. Precisely what was absent from the former passage is supplied richly in the latter. There the Name of the Holy Spirit, "the Lord, the Life Giver," was unheard. Here the fact and power of the Holy Spirit are present everywhere, so present that there is no other portion of the whole Scripture, unless we except the Redeemers own Paschal Discourse, which presents us with so great a wealth of revelation on this all-precious theme. And here we find the secret that is to "stint the strife" which we have just witnessed, and which in our own souls we know so well. Here is the way "how to walk and to please God," {1Th_4:1} in our justified life. Here is the way how, not to be as it were the victims of "the body," and the slaves of "the flesh," but to "do to death the bodys practices" in a continuous exercise of inward power, and to "walk after the Spirit." Here is the resource on which we may be forever joyfully paying "the debt" of such a walk; giving our redeeming Lord His due, the value of His purchase, even our willing, loving surrender, in the all-sufficient strength of "the Holy Ghost given unto us."
Noteworthy indeed is the manner of the introduction of this glorious truth. It appears not without preparation and intimation; we have heard already of the Holy Ghost in the Christians life, Rom_5:5; Rom_7:6. The heavenly water has been seen and heard in its flow; as in a limestone country the traveller may see and hear, through fissures in the fields, the buried but living floods. But here the truth of the Spirit, like those floods, finding at last their exit at some rough cliffs base, pours itself into the light, and animates all the scene. In such an order and manner of treatment there is a spiritual and also a practical lesson. We are surely reminded, as to the experiences of the Christian life, that in a certain sense we possess the Holy Ghost, yea, in His fulness, from the first hour of our possession of Christ. We are reminded also that it is at least possible on the other hand that we may need so to realise and to use our covenant possession, after sad experiments in other directions, that life shall be thenceforth a new experience of liberty and holy joy. We are reminded meanwhile that such a "new departure," when it occurs, is new rather from our side than from the Lords. The water was running all the while below the rocks. Insight and faith, given by His grace, have not called it from above, but as it were from within, liberating what was there.
The practical lesson of this is important for the Christian teacher and pastor. On the one hand, let him make very much in his instructions, public and private, of the revelation of the Spirit. Let him leave no room. so far as he can do it, for doubt or oblivion in his friends minds about the absolute necessity of the fulness of the presence and power of the Holy One, if life is to be indeed Christian. Let him describe as boldly and fully as the Word describes it what life may be, must be, where that sacred fulness dwells; how assured, how happy within, how serviceable around, how pure, free, and strong, how heavenly, how practical, how humble. Let him urge any who have yet to learn it to learn all this in their own experience, claiming on their knees the mighty gift of God. On the other hand, let him be careful not to overdraw his theory, and to prescribe too rigidly the methods of experience. Not all believers fail in the first hours of their faith to realise, and to use, the fulness of what the Covenant gives them. And where that realisation comes later than our first sight of Christ, as with so many of us it does come, not always are the experience and action the same. To one it is a crisis of memorable consciousness, a private Pentecost. Another wakes up as from sleep to find the unsuspected treasure at his hand-hid from him till then by nothing thicker than shadows. And another is aware that somehow, he knows not how, he has come to use the Presence and Power as a while ago he did not; he has passed a frontier-but he knows not when.
In all these cases, meanwhile, the man had, in one great respect, possessed the great gift all along. In covenant, in Christ, it was his. As he stepped by penitent faith into the Lord, he trod on ground which, wonderful to say, was all his own. And beneath it ran, that moment, the River of the water of life. Only, he had to discover, to draw, and to apply.
Again, the relation we have just indicated between our possession of Christ and our possession of the Holy Ghost is a matter of the utmost moment, spiritual and practical, presented prominently in this passage. All along, as we read the passage, we find linked inextricably together the truths of the Spirit and of the Son. "The law of the Spirit of life" is bound up with "Christ Jesus." The Son of God was sent, to take our flesh, to die as our Sin Offering, that we might "walk according to the Spirit." "The Spirit of God" is "the Spirit of Christ." The presence of the Spirit of Christ is such that, where He dwells, "Christ is in you." Here we read at once a caution, and a truth of the richest positive blessing. We are warned to remember that there is no separable "Gospel of the Spirit." Not for a moment are we to advance, as it were, from the Lord Jesus Christ to a higher or deeper region, ruled by the Holy Ghost. All the reasons, methods, and issues of the work of the Holy Ghost are eternally and organically connected with the Son of God. We have Him at all because Christ died. We have life because He has joined us to Christ living. Our experimental proof of His fulness is that Christ to us is all. And we are to be on the guard against any exposition of His work and glory which shall for one moment leave out those facts. But not only are we to be on our guard; we are to rejoice in the thought that the mighty, the endless work of the Spirit is all done always upon that sacred Field, Christ Jesus. And every day we are to draw upon the indwelling Giver of Life to do for us His own, His characteristic work; to show us "our King in His beauty," and to "fill our springs of thought and will with Him."
To return to the connection of the two great chapters. We have seen how close and pregnant it is; the contrast and the complement. But it is also true, surely, that the eighth chapter is not merely and only the counterpart to the seventh. Rather the eighth, though the seventh applies to it a special motive, is also a review of the whole previous argument of the Epistle, or rather the crown on the whole previous structure. It begins with a deep reassertion of our Justification; a point unnoticed in Rom_7:7-25. It does this, using an inferential particle, "therefore," αρα -to which, surely, nothing in the just preceding verses is related. And then it unfolds not only the present acceptance and present liberty of the saints, but also their amazing future of glory, already indicated, especially in Rom_5:2. And its closing strains are full of the great first wonder, our Acceptance. "Them He justified"; "It is God that justifieth." So we forbear to take chap. 8 as simply the successor and counterpart of chap. 7. It is this, in some great respects. But it is more; it is the meeting point of all the great truths of grace which we have studied, their meeting point in the sea of holiness and glory.
As we approach the first paragraph of the chapter, we ask ourselves what is its message on the whole, its true envoi. It is our possession of the Holy Spirit of God, for purposes of holy loyalty and holy liberty. The foundation of that fact is once more indicated, in the brief assertion of our full Justification in Christ, and His propitiatory Sacrifice (Rom_8:3). Then from those words, "in Christ," he opens this ample revelation of our possession, in our union with Christ, of the Spirit who, having joined us to Him, now liberates us in Him, not from condemnation only, but from sins dominion. If we are indeed in Christ, the Spirit is in us, dwelling in us, and we are in the Spirit. And so, possessed and filled by the blessed Power, we indeed have power to walk and to obey. Nothing is mechanical, automatic; we are fully persons still; He who annexes and possesses our personality does not for a moment violate it. But then, He does possess it; and the Christian, so possessing and so possessed, is not only bound but enabled, in humble but practical reality, in a liberty otherwise unknown, to "fulfil the just demand of the Law," "to please God," in a life lived not to self but to Him.
Thus, as we shall see in detail as we proceed, the Apostle, while he still firmly keeps his hand, so to speak, on Justification, is occupied fully now with its issue, Holiness. And this issue he explains as not merely a matter of grateful feeling, the outcome of the loyalty supposed to be natural to the pardoned. He gives it as a matter of divine power, secured to them under the Covenant of their acceptance.
Shall we not enter on our expository study full of holy expectation, and with unspeakable desires awake, to receive all things which in that Covenant are ours? Shall we not remember, over every sentence, that in it Christ speaks by Paul, and speaks to us? For us also, as for our spiritual ancestors, all this is true. It shall be true in us also, as it was in them.
We shall be humbled as well as gladdened; and thus Our gladness will be sounder. We shall find that whatever be our "walk according to the Spirit," and our veritable dominion over sin, we shall still have "the practices of the body" with which to deal-of the body which still is "dead because of sin," "mortal," not yet "redeemed." We shall be practically reminded, even by the most joyous exhortations, that possession and personal condition are one thing in covenant, and another in realisation; that we must watch, pray, examine self, and deny it, if we would "be" what we "are." Yet all this is but the salutary accessory to the blessed main burthen of every line. We are accepted in the Lord. In the Lord we have the Eternal Spirit for our inward Possessor. Let us arise, and "walk humbly," but also in gladness, "with our God."
St. Paul speaks again, perhaps after a silence, and Tertius writes down for the first time the now immortal and beloved words. So no adverse sentence is there now, in view of this great fact of our redemption, for those in Christ Jesus. "In Christ Jesus"-mysterious union, blessed fact, wrought by the Spirit who linked us sinners to the Lord. For the law of the Spirit of the life which is in Christ Jesus freed me, the man of the conflict just described, from the law of sin and of death. The "law," the preceptive will, which legislates the covenant of blessing for all who are in Christ, has set him free. By a strange, pregnant paradox, so we take it, the Gospel-the message which carries with it acceptance, and also holiness, by faith-is here called a "law." For while it is free grace to us it is also immovable ordinance with God. The amnesty is His edict. It is by heavenly "statute" that sinners, believing, possess the Holy Spirit in possessing Christ. And here, with a sublime abruptness and directness, that great gift of the Covenant, the Spirit, for which the Covenant gift of Justification was given, is put forward as the Covenants characteristic and crown. It is for the moment as if this were all-that "in Christ Jesus" we, I, are under the fat which assures to us the fulness of the Spirit. And this "law," unlike the stern "letter" of Sinai, has actually "freed me." It has endowed me not only with place but with power, in which to live emancipated from a rival law, the law of sin and of death. And what is that rival "law"? We dare to say, it is the preceptive will of Sinai; "Do this, and thou shalt live." This is a hard saying; for in itself that very Law has been recently vindicated as holy, and just, and good, and spiritual. And only a few lines above in the Epistle we have heard of a "law of sin" which is "served by the flesh." And we should unhesitatingly explain this "law" to be identical with that but for the next verse here, a still nearer context, in which "the law" is unmistakably the divine moral Code, considered however as "impotent." Must not this and that be the same? And to call that sacred Code "the Law of sin and of death" is not to say that it is sinful and deathful. It need only mean, and we think it does mean, that it is sins occasion, and deaths warrant, by the unrelieved collision of its holiness with fallen mans will. It must command; he, being what he is, must rebel. He rebels; it must condemn. Then comes his Lord to die for him, and to rise again; and the Spirit comes, to unite him to his Lord. And now, from the Law as provoking the helpless, guilty will, and as claiming the sinners penal death-behold the man is "freed." For-(the process is now explained at large) the impossible of the Law-what it could not do, for this was not its function, even to enable us sinners to keep its precept from the soul-God, when He sent His own Son in likeness of flesh and sin, Incarnate, in our identical nature, under all those conditions of earthly life which for us are sins vehicles and occasions, and as Sin Offering, expiatory and reconciling, sentenced sin in the flesh; not pardoned it, observe, but sentenced it. He ordered it to execution; He killed its claim and its power for all who are in Christ. And this, "in the flesh," making mans earthly conditions the scene of sins defeat, for our everlasting encouragement in our "life in the flesh." And what was the aim and issue? That the righteous demand of the Law might be fulfilled in us, us who walk not flesh-wise, but Spirit-wise; that we, accepted in Christ, and using the Spirits power in the daily "walk" of circumstance and experience, might be liberated from the life of self-will, and meet the will of God with simplicity and joy.
Such, and nothing else or less, was the Laws "righteous demand"; an obedience not only universal but also cordial. For its first requirement, "Thou shalt have no other God," meant, in the spiritual heart of it, the dethronement of self from its central place, and the session there of the Lord. But this could never be while there was a reckoning still unsettled between the man and God. Friction there must be while Gods Law remained not only violated but unsatisfied, unatoned. And so it necessarily remained, till the sole adequate Person, one with God, one with man, stepped into the gap; our Peace, our Righteousness, and also by the Holy Ghost our Life. At rest because of His sacrifice, at work by the power of His Spirit, we are now free to love, and divinely enabled to walk in love. Meanwhile the dream of an unsinning perfectness, such as could make a meritorious claim, is not so much negatived as precluded, put far out of the question. For the central truth of the new position is that THE LORD has fully dealt, for us, with the Laws claim that man shall "deserve" acceptance. "Boasting" is inexorably "excluded," to the last, from this new kind of law fulfilling life. For the "fulfilment" which means legal satisfaction is forever taken out of our hands by Christ, and only that humble "fulfilment" is ours which means a restful, unanxious, reverent, unreserved loyalty in practice. To this now our "mind," our cast and gravitation of soul, is brought, in the life of acceptance, and in the power of the Spirit. For they who are flesh-wise, the unchanged children of the self-life, think, "mind," have moral affinity and converse with, the things of the flesh; but they who are Spirit-wise, think the things of the Spirit, His love, joy, peace, and all that holy "fruit." Their liberated and Spirit-bearing life now goes that way, in its true bias. For the mind, the moral affinity, of the flesh, of the self-life, is death; it involves the ruin of the soul, in condemnation, and in separation from God; but the mind of the Spirit, the affinity given to the believer by the indwelling Holy One, is life and peace; it implies union with Christ, our life and our acceptance; it. is the state of soul in which He is realised. Because-this absolute antagonism of the two "minds" is such "because"-the "mind" of the flesh is personal hostility towards God; for to Gods Law it is not subject. For indeed it cannot be subject to it; -those who are in flesh, surrendered to the life of self as their law, cannot please God, "cannot meet the wish" of Him whose loving but absolute claim is to be Lord of the whole man.
"They cannot": it is a moral impossibility. "The Law of God" is, "Thou shalt love Me with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself"; the mind of the flesh is, "I will love my self and its will first and most." Let this be disguised as it may, even from the man himself; it is always the same thing in its essence. It may mean a defiant choice of open evil. It may mean a subtle and almost evanescent preference of literature, or art, or work, or home, to Gods will as such. It is in either case "the mind of the flesh," a thing which cannot be refined and educated into holiness, but must be surrendered at discretion, as its eternal enemy.
But you (there is a glad emphasis on "you") are not in flesh, but in Spirit, surrendered to the indwelling Presence as your law and secret, on the assumption that (he suggests not weary misgivings but a true examination) Gods Spirit dwells in you; has His home in your hearts, humbly welcomed into a continuous residence. But if anyone has not Christs Spirit, (who is the Spirit as of the Father so of the Son, sent by the Son, to reveal and to impart Him,) that man is not His. He may bear his Lords name, he may be externally a Christian, he may enjoy the divine Sacraments of union; but he has not "the Thing." The Spirit, evidenced by His holy fruit, is no Indweller there; and the Spirit is our vital bond with Christ. But if Christ is, thus by the Spirit, in you, dwelling by faith in the hearts which the Spirit has, "strengthened" to receive Christ {Eph_3:16-17} - true, the body is dead, because of sin, the primeval sentence still holds its way "there"; the body is deathful still, it is the body of the Fall; but the Spirit is life, He is in that body, your secret of power and peace eternal, because of righteousness, because of the merit of your Lord, in which you are accepted, and which has won for you this wonderful Spirit-life.
Then even for the body there is assured a glorious future, organically one with this living present. Let us listen as he goes on: But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus, the slain Man, from the dead, dwells in you, He who raised from the dead Christ Jesus, the Man so revealed and glorified as the Anointed Saviour, shall also bring to life your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit, dwelling in you. That "frail temple," once so much defiled, and so defiling, is now precious to the Father because it is the habitation of the Spirit of His Son. Nor only so; that same Spirit, who, by uniting us to Christ, made actual our redemption, shall surely, in ways to us unknown, carry the process to its glorious crown, and be somehow the Efficient Cause of "the redemption of our body."
Wonderful is this deep characteristic of the Scripture; its Gospel for the body. In Christ, the body is seen to be something far different from the mere clog, or prison, or chrysalis, of the soul. It is its destined implement, may we not say its mighty wings in prospect, for the life of glory. As invaded by sin, it must needs pass through either death or, at the Lords Return, an equivalent transfiguration. But as created in Gods plan of Human Nature it is forever congenial to the soul, nay, it is necessary to the souls full action. And whatever be the mysterious mode (it is absolutely hidden from us as yet) of the event of Resurrection, this we know, if only from this Oracle, that the glory of the immortal body will have profound relations with the work of God in the sanctified soul. No mere material sequences will bring it about. It will be "because of the Spirit"; and "because of the Spirit dwelling in you," as your power for holiness in Christ.
So the Christian, reads the account of his present spiritual wealth, and of his coming completed life, "his perfect consummation and bliss in the eternal glory." Let him take it home, with most humble but quite decisive assurance, as he looks again, and believes again, on his redeeming Lord. For him, in his inexpressible need, God has gone about to provide "so great salvation." He has accepted his person in His Son who died for him. He has not only "forgiven him" through that great Sacrifice, but in it He has "condemned," sentenced to chains and death, "his sin," which is now a doomed thing, beneath his feet, in Christ. And he has given to him, as personal and perpetual Indweller, to be claimed, hailed, and used by humble faith, His own Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, the Blessed One who, dwelling infinitely in the Head, comes to dwell fully in the members, and make Head and members wonderfully one. Now then let him give himself up with joy, thanksgiving, and expectation, to the "fulfilling of the righteous demand of Gods Law," "walking Spirit-wise," with steps moving ever away from self and towards the will of God. Let him meet the world, the devil, and that mysterious "flesh," (all ever in potential presence,) with no less a Name than that of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Let him stand up not as a defeated and disappointed combatant, maimed, half-blinded, half-persuaded to succumb, but as one who treads upon "all the power of the enemy," in Christ, by the indwelling Spirit. And let him reverence his mortal body, even while he "keeps it in subjection," and while he willingly tires it, or gives it to suffer, for his Lord. For it is the temple of the Spirit. It is the casket of the hope of glory.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–27 1–4. There is therefore. The “therefore” points to the…
1–4. There is therefore. The “therefore” points to the argument of chapter VII., which shows that in Christ we are delivered from sin and from the curse of the law. No condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. As those in Christ have died with him (6:1–4), they have in him satisfied the law, and hence they cannot be under condemnation. He, the sinless One, “was made sin for us;” so we, forgiven through him, are “made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). This blessed condition depends on a vital union with Christ. “Baptized into Christ,” we must walk in him, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Compare John 15:1–7, and Eph. 1:23.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 14, 15, 18, 19, 24, 26 Rom_8:1. Who walk not after the flesh, but after…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_8:1. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.—Wanting in oldest manuscripts. Supposed to be a mistake. A wise addition.
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Rom_8:2.—Acquitted, all claim of sin is at an end.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_8:1
The natural and the spiritual man.—This admirable chapter has been called the chapter beginning with no condemnation and ending with no separation. Spener is reported to have said that, if Holy Scripture were a ring, and the Epistle to the Romans its precious stone, chap. 8 would be the sparkling point of the jewel. Almost every verse in the chapter is a sparkling point; it dazzles with beauty from the beginning to the ending. The apostle seems to have been changed from the logician to the rhetorician. He leaves behind the dry process of reasoning, and gives scope to the workings of an enlightened and a spiritual imagination. He idealises, but his ideals are the outcome of true experience. Here are no pictures that do not represent that which is true in the spiritual realm, so that we may safely follow where our apostle leads. Here in the first verse is a true picture of the believer’s happy condition. It suggests the contrast between the natural and spiritual man.
I. The natural man.—He is:
1. In a state of condemnation. This is testified by the witness of nature, by the voice of conscience, and by the verdict of God’s word. In studying nature we ask, Why do discordant notes obtrude themselves amid the harmony? why do noisome weeds choke the flowers? why do earthquakes yawn, avalanches sweep, thunders roll, and pestilences destroy? We can only find one consistent explanation. The words of the old record strike our ears with new emphasis: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.” Man’s conscience testifies to the fact of man’s guilt. Systems of idolatry are built upon the fact of man’s sense of condemnation and need of deliverance. The baskets of the Druids, the wheels of Juggernaut, the shrines where firstborns have been slain for the sin of the soul, testify that man’s conscience says that he is in a state of condemnation. Priests could not have made a successful trade of religion if man had been free from condemnation. The moral demand of man’s nature for a remedial scheme created the supply of false religions; but this demand can only be truly met in the gospel of Jesus. The word of God witnesses to man’s condemnation: “Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God.” Again the word says, “For that all have sinned.” The sentence is that of universal condemnation.
2. In a condition of alienation. The natural man is estranged from God, from truth, and from goodness. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” It does not like to entertain the thought of God. The natural man may profess to be a seeker after truth and an admirer of goodness; but he only seeks for the truth that he desires, and admires that kind of goodness which is not foreign to the depraved leanings of his nature.
3. In a position of danger. The sentence is passed, execution is delayed; but the decree is unalterable—“The wages of sin is death.” Unalterable, if sin be persistently pursued. Therefore hasten to escape from the consequences of sin by finding refuge in Jesus, sin’s destroyer.
II. The spiritual man.—He is:
1. Free from condemnation. God’s word has declared it, and that word must be true. The conscience of the spiritual man echoes the sweet declaration of God’s word, for it says there is peace instead of trouble, rest in the place of unrest. The bells of heaven have rung in the soul the gracious chimes that tell of sins forgiven. Angels minister heaven’s viands to the ransomed soul.
2. A state of friendship. Freedom from condemnation is not only acquittal, but introduction to divine friendship. Abraham was the friend of God, and thus he is the father of all the forgiven ones. What a privilege!—the friend of God.
3. A condition of safety. What harm can happen to him who is free from condemnation, and who is the friend of God? Omniscience is the spiritual man’s guide. Omnipotence is His protector. All things in heaven and in earth move to his final welfare. Let us try to enter into the broad meaning of the ancient words, “There shall no evil happen to the righteous.” Seeming evil there may be, but human seeming is not always divine reality.
III. The ground of the spiritual man’s privilege.—“There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” A familiar expression with St. Paul: “In Christ Jesus.” The spiritual man is “in Christ Jesus.”
1. As a substitute. If I am condemned to death and another suffers my sentence, I am in that substitute virtually. My crime is atoned for, my punishment is borne. Thus we are in Christ as our substitute. “By His stripes we are healed”; “He was wounded for our transgressions.”
2. As the ark of safety. Noah escaped condemnation and death. Might not others have entered the ark and have been saved? Surely, for God is always merciful. However, all may fly the devouring waters of condemnation, and find safety in the ark Jesus Christ.
3. As the pacifier. Jesus is the peace-bringer, but He only brings true peace to the soul that sails with Him in the boat that He guides. My soul has peace when it hears the soothing strains of infinite love.
4. As the harmoniser. There must be divine adjustments in the soul if there is to be freedom from condemnation and consequent peace. The sense of condemnation is not completely eliminated from the nature until every power is brought into harmony with divine plans and purposes.
5. As the perfecter. Our translators have fittingly added the words, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Christ must perfect and develop the upward tendencies of the renewed man. Every step taken according to the flesh leads to condemnation, but every step taken according to the motions of the life-giving Spirit tends to peace and untold blessedness.
IV. How do we get into Christ?—Through faith by grace. “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves.” The act of faith may be either definite or indefinite. Some people can point to a period when there was the conscious stretching forth of the hand of faith, laying hold of the hand of Jesus Christ. Others seem to grow up in the faith. They have been trained to look to Jesus as their Saviour. They are conscious of no startling spiritual changes; but they are conscious of faith in Jesus Christ, of love to His person, of devotion to His cause. They have peace. Jesus says to the man with the withered limb, Stretch forth thy hand. He says to all, Stretch forth thy hand of faith. It is powerless; well, obey the command, and strength will be imparted, and strength will increase. Christ seeks to lay hold of you. Do you then lay hold of Christ. If you feel your weakness, cast yourself into the arms of the powerful Saviour. Believe, and live.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_8:1
Sin not in the body.—Some philosophers have maintained that all sin has its seat in the body and originates from it, but that the soul is absolutely pure. Does the apostle mean that Christians live according to the principles of the soul, not the evil motions of the body? No; since our Lord teaches us the heart is the seat and foundation of moral evil, for out of it proceeds all that defiles the man. Therefore when exhorted to cleanse ourselves “from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” it is not implied that any moral good or evil attaches to the material body, but that we ought to abstain from those sing of which the body is the instrument and subject, such as sensuality in its various forms, and from those of which the body is not necessarily the instrument, such as pride, malice, covetousness, and other sins of fiends who have no bodies. Christians live by the grace of God, not according to the flesh or their corrupt nature, but according to the spirit, or their regenerated nature. Their spiritual principles, motives, and aims give a character of spirituality to their secular as well as to their religious acts; for whether they eat or drink, or whatsoever they do, they do all to the glory of God.—Parlane.
MAIN HOMILETIGS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_8:2
Perfect liberty.—The apostle carries out his parallelism. One part of this passage is set over against the other, and we are not therefore to be surprised as we read, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The ruling power in the natural man is “sin and death”; the ruling power in the spiritual man is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The law of the Spirit is the controlling power imposing itself on the will, guiding the understanding, regenerating the affections, and elevating the nature. The freedom we contemplate is perfect, but this perfection will not be reached till by death we are set free from all the enthralling forces. The Holy Spirit is the gift of Jesus Christ, the result to man of the Saviour’s mediatorial work. The Spirit is communicated to us through Christ. The gospel frees not by its own power, but by Christ. We must come to the great central truth that Jesus Christ is the true emancipator of the race. If we have any freedom it must be in, by, and through Jesus Christ. Let us seek then to follow out the wide teaching of the text, and ask in what senses Jesus Christ makes His people free.
I. Jesus Christ makes men free by discharging from prison.—It is impossible accurately to explain the precise nature of the bearing of the Redeemer’s sacrifice upon God’s moral government and man’s spiritual relations. Theologians may fail to give full satisfaction to the curious inquirer; nevertheless we may adhere to the truth that man was and is a sinner, and that Jesus Christ died in the penitent and believing sinner’s room and stead. Man had incurred a great debt by transgression, and had not wherewith to discharge the claim; for Jesus Christ teaches the prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Man is under a curse, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” Men are guilty before God, for he that offends in one point is guilty of all. Guilty the man stands in the presence of almighty God, and is as a man in prison. When a man comes to feel his guilt, he longs to be set free. His cry is, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the bondage, who shall set my conscience free from the chains with which the law has bound? And the gracious answer comes: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” Jesus takes away man’s guilt by becoming Himself as one guilty. “Jesus is laid in the borrowed tomb, indicative of the fact that He carried borrowed sins.” When the debt-bound man is set at liberty, the clouds are swept away, sweet sunshine enters the soul, the time of singing birds returns, the flowers give forth their fragrance, and all things are revived. So it is when the sinner believes that Christ Jesus has discharged every claim.
II. Christ Jesus makes men free by finding congenial employment.—When a man has been in prison for a term of years and is set at liberty, he finds it difficult to adapt himself to his new state of life. A man had been in prison so long that his hair had grown grey through the confinement, and his old friends did not know him, and now most of them had passed away from this world; the old familiar scenes of childhood looked strange and almost repulsive to him; he had forgotten the employments and the amusements in which he was accustomed to engage long, long ago, in what seemed to him another life. He came back to the prison doors, and with tears in his eyes begged to be readmitted, that he might end his days in his beloved cell. Better the confinement of the prison than the liberty of the man who does not know what to do with himself and who finds no sphere for the exercise of his powers. Now Jesus Christ introduces the freed to blessed companionships, to holy employments, to scenes and engagements where their natures will find satisfaction and their love repose. Christ Jesus makes men free by renewing the nature, and then by finding employment for that changed condition.
III. Christ Jesus makes men free by surrounding with wholesome restraints.—There are those who imagine that restraint and freedom are opposed; but so far from that being the case, restraint is the true conservator, the true sweetener, of liberty. Now Jesus Christ surrounds His people with wholesome restraints that conserve and promote Christian liberty, and that enable them to enjoy the blessings of divine freedom. He places them within the circle of truth and of duty, their satisfied desires have no longings to overleap the bounds of that circle, and there they enjoy highest freedom. The true law of the Christian life is liberty to do right and restraint in the direction of wrong doing. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Liberty in loving service. Slavery and freedom combined. Bondage compatible with liberty. The bird flies far and wide on the wings of love to provide for her young ones; but however large her circuit, however wide her flight, she is bound to the nest, and seeks not to loose herself from the invisible bond. The angels in heaven find loving service liberty. We shall never experience true freedom until we know how to serve in Christian love.
IV. Christ Jesus makes men free by binding them to Himself with the cords of love.—It is a burlesque on freedom to imagine that it consists in shaking oneself loose from all family, social, and national restraints. There is a gracious freedom in the loving heart which it alone can experience, and which it cannot explain to any other. The heart of man is full of trembling and uncertainty, till it be fixed in the beloved object, till it has returned unto God, the soul’s true rest. Away from the binding influences of the Saviour’s love, we may have the so-called freedom of the homeless wanderer who goes up and down the earth seeking rest and finding none, but gathered into that love we have the home feeling of those welcomed by dear ones. When the spirit is bound to God by faith and love, it soars in the highest regions; but when it breaks those bonds, its powers are curtailed, and it lies in wretchedness. If the Son makes free by binding to Himself with love, then are men free indeed.
V. Christ Jesus makes men free by causing them to love the pathway of of holiness.—The pathway of holiness is the way to freedom, and is itself freedom. It emancipates the spirit from selfishness as the rule of life, from those low passions which cramp the immortal nature, and leads upwards to those heights where the spirit revels in ever-expanding liberties. Christ Jesus is the world’s great liberator. Sin is the prison-house where Satan causes his victims to serve, and holiness is the bright sphere where Jesus leads His delighted followers. “But now being made free from sin, and become the servants of the living God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Liberated men must let the world see that sin has no mastery. It is as Christ Jesus is born in the heart that men are made free from sin. “Though Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem, and not in thee, thou remainest eternally a slave.” If the cross of Golgotha is not erected in thy heart, it cannot deliver from the evil one. Looking upon striking pictures of the Crucifixion will not save. Wearing gold or ivory crosses will not redeem. There must be loving attachment to the Saviour’s person; there must be believing recognition of the sacrificial nature of His death.
VI. Christ Jesus gives men a real freedom.—“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” These words denote the singular excellency and the certain nature of that freedom which Jesus imparts. The opponents of the reign of Jesus talk about those trammels which religion places on the persons of His followers. But the true outcome of Christ’s religion is liberty, progress, improvement. Wherever Christianity has existed in its purity, there has likewise existed the greatest liberty. Christianity and liberty are as cause and effect—the former must in the long-run produce the latter. No slavery can long exist in that atmosphere which has been permeated with Christianity. Where are our statues in honour of Jesus, the world’s greatest liberator? They are widely spread. Statues not in brass or in marble. Loving hearts in many climes set free by Jesus are the monuments of His glory. Enfranchisement of thought, freedom of utterance, and the liberty of the press all testify to the influence of the Christian religion. The onward march of improvement, the flourishing of every good and noble cause, the suppression of vice, and a large public practice of and still wider public sentiment in favour of virtue, speak to the blessedness of Jesus. Before the coming of Jesus Christ truth was bound by men’s blind traditions; but He spoke the all-powerful word, and truth stood forth in its native majesty and blessed the world with its benign influence. And thus Jesus is at once the world’s liberator both intellectually and spiritually. And it is as a spiritual liberator that He is now working and shall continue to work. He sets men free from sin and fear and guilt. He gives the glorious liberty of divine sonship. His people are no longer children of the bondwoman, but of the free. But the soul cannot taste the bliss of full freedom so long as it is trammelled with the body of this flesh, and it anticipates the period when it will be fully emancipated and fly away to that more perfect sphere where there will be uninterrupted freedom and unalloyed happiness.
“The law of the Spirit of life.”—The apostle, in the first verse, says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” In the seventh chapter he had given an account of his own experience, from his conviction of sin till he triumphs in the Lord Jesus. In the text he sums up the work of salvation. Consider:—
I. The law of sin.—Sin is not a single act, it is a principle. It takes possession of the transgressor the moment he violates the law of God. Sin is a tyrant, whom none can conquer but the Almighty. To know what sin is, and to be delivered from it, is heaven begun on earth.
II. Consider the law of God, and what sin does in opposition to it. The apostle Paul had learned the truth in his own heart. “Sin taking occasion of the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me.” This teaches us the awful truth that sin commands in exact proportion as we discover the holiness and purity of the law of God. Sin says, “Oppose it.” Its purity presents itself in new glories. Sin says, “Oppose it still, persevere against the Almighty in all the glories of His legislation; laugh at all His curses, and sin on.” Such is the monster which inhabits our own hearts. The secret of true religion is first in knowing ourselves as sinners. But this is not all that can be said of transgression. We should not be surprised that a criminal should curse the judge who consigns him to the gallows; but we should be surprised to find a criminal, to whom the king sends a reprieve, spurning it, and cursing the sovereign. It is not in hell that we behold sin in its deformity, it is on earth. When the gospel is proclaimed, unless the Holy Spirit change the heart, the tyrant issues his edict, “Curse God, despise His commands and invitations, laugh at heaven and hell.”
III. The law of death—that is, the punishment of sin; the curse due to the transgressor. Sin comprises its own punishment wherever found. In the presence of a God of justice every sin will have the punishment due to it. Neither the commands nor curses of God’s holy law emanate from the sovereignty of God, but from His essential holiness. The punishment of sin will be tremendous in the extreme, while the sinner will be his own executioner. Nothing is more absurd than to talk of the deliverance of devils and lost spirits, for it impeaches the law of God. Consider what the nature of sin is. It must live, not only as feelings in the bosom, but as principles. “The Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.”
IV. The law of the Spirit of life.—The gospel is called the law of the Spirit for two reasons:
1. Because God is a legislator as well as a sovereign in His mercy. The gospel, both in the Old and New Testaments, is called a law. “His delight is in the law of the Lord,” in the whole truth of God. “A law shall go forth out of Zion.” The Saviour is a king; and where is there a king without a law? To dream of sovereign blessings and to forget the legislative glories of the King of kings is a dangerous and delusive dream. It is impossible to save a ruined soul without meeting God as a legislator as well as a sovereign. He is both; and we are only to live as that we may die under the influence of this truth.
2. The Holy Spirit accompanies His own truth into the human heart. The gospel is the medium which is made use of by the Holy Spirit to make us “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Some preach parts and portions of the gospel, as if God were exclusively a sovereign; though it may be blessed to the salvation of some, yet it is pregnant with destruction to others. “The law of the Spirit of life.” Here is the triumphant consolation of the believer; he sometimes goes through painful discipline. It is a useful discipline to the believer to humble him, to drive him downward, as the cold winter does the sap. To destroy the tree? No; but to strengthen its roots and promote its growth under ground, where no human eye can witness it, that the sap may afterwards ascend to the branches, that they may bear not only leaves but rich fruit.
V. The blessing.—“Free from the law of sin and death”; free from the condemnation and dominion of sin; free from every curse; free from every charge; free from the holy law of God as a covenant; free as Messiah Himself. If this be not true, what the apostle says in the first verse could not be true. Was there any condemnation for the Saviour after He rose? No. Is there any for him who believes in the Saviour? No. In what consists the freedom of his humanity now? In his intense and delightful obedience to the will of God. There is no true freedom to be found but in the freedom of God, in obedience to His holy will True liberty is the freedom from the condemnation of sin, from its dominion, and from its tyranny. This freedom involves in it a state of warfare. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” It opposes itself to everything opposed to God, internally and externally. Are we thus free? Some are shocked when they hear any one say they are certain of being in heaven. I dare not dispute their testimony; but I would inquire, on what ground does it rest? If their religion correspond with St. Paul’s, I would say, “Triumph on, begin the song of heaven on earth.” True religion is freedom, and if so, a consciousness of safety must be so likewise. The liberty of true religion is the parent of every other liberty. Contrast this with the voluntary slavery of men. Man is the slave of a slave; because the slave of Satan by nature, led captive by him at his will.—Homilist.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_8:2
Contrast between Paul’s past and present.—The contrast of Paul’s past bondage and present liberty proves that he is not now condemned. He remembers the time when, in spite of his better judgment, he did the bidding of sin. He now does the bidding of the Spirit of God. He finds that he is free from the bondage of sin only as he follows the guidance of the Spirit, and therefore infers that the guidance of the Spirit has made him free. He knows that his liberation came through Christ’s death, and he enjoys it to-day by resting upon Christ. His freedom is therefore God’s gift, and a proof of God’s forgiveness. Just so a prisoner, whose prison doors have been opened by the king’s command, has in his past imprisonment and present freedom a proof of pardon. Whereas the freedom of a law-breaker who has never been apprehended is no such proof. There are thousands to-day to whom every doubt about their present salvation is banished by a remembrance of their former bondage to sin and fruitless efforts to do right. Since Paul’s liberation took place in Christ, he has a right to infer that all who are in Christ have been set free, and are therefore no longer condemned. Thus the law, by making us conscious of our bondage, not only drives us to Christ, but furnishes to those who believe an abiding proof of God’s favour.—Beet.
The gospel frees men from sin and death.—The world in general account it liberty to give loose to their passions; but such freedom is indeed the sorest bondage to sin and Satan. None possess true liberty but those who are freed by Christ. The state of the demoniacs when healed by Christ resembled theirs. Paul was made a glorious example of it to all ages. He was once under condemnation, both because he adhered to the covenant of works and was governed by his own impetuous will; he now rejoiced in a freedom from the sin that he had indulged, and from the curse to which he had subjected himself. “The law of,” etc. We shall first explain and then improve the text.
I. Explain it.—It is not needful to state the various interpretations given of the text. We shall adopt that which seems most easy and agreeable to the context. We will begin with explaining the terms. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is the gospel covenant as confirmed to us in Christ and revealed to us by the Spirit. “The law of sin and death” may be understood either of the covenant of works or of our indwelling corruption. We shall next explain the proposition contained in the terms. The proposition is, that “the gospel frees us from the curse of the law and from the dominion of sin.” This proposition is to be understood as extending to all believers. The text thus explained is capable of most useful improvement.
II. Improve it.—It is replete with very important instruction. It shows us the wretched state of every unregenerate man. It declares to us the only method of deliverance from that state. It affords also abundant matter of reproof. It reproves those who despond as though there were no hope for them. It reproves also those who speak against an assurance of faith. It may administer comfort also to many sincere Christians.—Simeon.
Difference between legal and evangelical.—It has been said that the difference between legal and evangelical doctrine appears from the relative position of two words. The doctrine of the legalist is, “Do, and live”; the doctrine of the evangelist is, “Live, and do.” It is surely as absurd to expect spiritual action without spiritual life as natural action without natural life. All Christians, therefore, are raised into life from death, into which they had fallen by sin, before they love and serve God. The apostle in this verse states the causes of life and death as consisting of two laws, and his emancipation from the one as being effected by the superior energy of the other.—Parlane.
Gospel sets believers free.—Albeit, the apostle himself (brought in here for example’s cause) and all true believers in Christ be by nature under “the law of sin and death,” or under the covenant of works (called “the law of sin and death” because it bindeth sin and death upon us till Christ set us free), yet the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” or the covenant of grace (so called because it doth enable and quicken a man to a spiritual life through Christ), doth set the apostle and all true believers free from the covenant of works, or “the law of sin and death,” so that every man may say with him, “the law of the Spirit of life,” or the covenant of grace, hath made me free from “the law of sin and death,” or covenant of works.—Westminster Divines.
The outward does not make a Christian.—There are two senses in which men are said to be Christians. In common speech they obtain this name when they merely belong to the outward fellowship of the Church of Christ; but in the more exact and appropriate use of the term, it denotes those who both belong to the communion of the Church and also manifest the dispositions and conduct which our Saviour requires in His followers. To the last of these is freedom from condemnation here restricted, as is expressly signified by the apostle’s words. For lest it should be supposed that all members of the visible Church are exempt from condemnation, he immediately adds this further limitation, “Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Thus there is a twofold qualification necessary in order to exempt men from condemnation. They must be “in Christ,” and they must “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” [Ritchie’s remarks are just, though the weight of manuscripts is against this second part of the passage. It is found in Rom_8:4.] Strictly speaking, indeed, this last qualification did not require to be stated in order to make up the meaning; for if we understand those who are “in Christ” to mean those who are His genuine disciples, their walking “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” is implied. Without this qualification no man can be a sincere disciple of Christ. But the repetition shows the apostle’s sense of the importance of this qualification; and was probably intended to impress us with a conviction that, in order to be sincere Christians, we must not only avoid walking after the flesh, but actually walk after the Spirit—not only “cease to do evil,” but also “learn to do well.”—Ritchie.
Rom_8:2. Freedom in this life.—In the words, and those that go a little before, there are these three main fundamental points of religion: The misery and bondage of man; the deliverance of man; and his duty. Here you have his misery, he is under “sin and death.” Here is his deliverance: he is “free from this by Christ.” And for his duty, you have it in the last verse of the former chapter, speaking of his deliverance: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Then it follows, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thankfulness is due,—not verbal thankfulness only; indeed, the whole life of a Christian, after his deliverance, is a real thanksgiving. The fearfulness and odiousness of this condition, to be in prison and thraldom and bondage to all kind of sin, natural and actual, will appear further by this, that being in subjection to our base lusts, by consequence we are under the bondage of Satan; for he hath power over death by sin, because he draws us to sin, and then accuseth us and torments us for sin. By sin we come to be under his bondage. So that we are under the captivity of sin; for all the power that he hath over us it is by sin. He is but God’s executioner for sin. This is good news indeed to hear of freedom—good news to the Israelites to hear of freedom out of Egypt, and for the Jews to hear of Cyrus’s proclamation for their freedom out of Babylon. Freedom out of bondage is a sweet message. Here we have such a message of spiritual freedom from other manner of enemies than those were. The year of jubilee was a comfortable year to servants that were kept in and were much vexed with their bondage. When the year of jubilee came, they were all freed. Therefore there was great expectation of the year of jubilee. Here we have a spiritual jubilee, a manumission and freedom from the bondage we are in by nature. “The Spirit of life in Christ makes us free from the law of sin and death.” There can be no freedom without satisfaction to divine justice. Satisfaction must be with the glory of His justice, as well as of His mercy. His attributes must have full content. One must not be destroyed to satisfy another. He must so be merciful in freeing us as that content must be given to His justice, that it complain not of any loss. Now reconciliation alway supposeth satisfaction. It is founded upon it. Here it is said there is life in Christ. There is life in Christ as God-man, as mediator. Now this life is that life which is originally from the Godhead. Indeed, it is but the Godhead’s quickening and giving life to the manhood in Christ, the Spirit quickening and sanctifying the manhood. And we have no comfort by the life of God, as it is in God’s life alone severed; for, alas! what communion have we with God without a mediator? But our comfort is this, that God, who is the fountain of life, He became man, and having satisfied God’s justice, He conveys life to us. The Spirit of life in Christ, first of all, it did quicken and sanctify His human nature. And the Spirit of life that quickeneth and sanctifieth our nature in Christ did likewise ennoble our nature: also enriched it with all grace that our nature is capable of; for the nature of Christ had this double prerogative above ours: first of all, that blessed mass of flesh, it was knit to be one person with God; and then, that nature was enriched and ennobled with all graces above ours. And this the Spirit of life did to Christ Himself, to human nature that He took upon Him, that He might be a public person. A freedom in this life, in calling, in justification, in sanctification; and in the life to come a freedom of glory.—Sibbs.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Rom_8:1. Saved by the union-jack.—When I was in Havana there was one evening a great row in the streets, and a man was killed. Every one ran away except an Englishman, who did not see why he should run off, but stopped to do what he could for the wounded man. The city was then, as it often is, under martial law, and in a few minutes a party of soldiers came up and walked the Englishman off. He was tried then and there by a sort of drum-head court-martial, and condemned to be shot the next morning at eight o’clock. He managed to get the news conveyed to the English consul, and at a quarter to eight o’clock next morning the consul appeared in his coach-and-four, uniform, cocked hat and sword, all his orders on, etc. The shooting party was drawn out, and the prisoner was there too. The consul walked up to the officer commanding the party, and demanded the life of his countryman. “Very sorry,” said the officer, “but I must carry out my orders”; and he showed the warrant signed by the governor. “Well,” said the consul, “at least you’ll allow me to shake hands with him before he dies.” “I can’t refuse that,” was the reply. On which the consul stepped up to the Englishman, put his hand into his breast-coat pocket, drew out a union-jack, unfolded it, threw it over the man, and then said, “There, now; fire if you dare!” The lieutenant was staggered, the matter was referred to the governor, and the Englishman was saved. The man covered with the union-jack was saved. In Christ Jesus we are free from condemnation. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 1. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them…
THE SANCTIFIED EXPERIENCE
1. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” N. B. — This is all we have in the verse, the other clause appearing in E. V. having been by some transcriber taken up from Rom 8:4 and inserted here without authority. The illative conjunction, “therefore,” connecting this bold affirmation of “no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” is a logical deduction from the elaborate discussion of the preceding chapter and the brilliant victory ringing out in the triumphant shout of Rom 8:25. But this is justification? Very well; but is the justification following entire sanctification in contradistinction to the primary justification identical with the remission of actual transgression, which precedes it? We can not be justified in a full and final sense till after complete expurgation from the very sin-principle in entire sanctification. Hence we see that final justification follows sanctification (1Co 6:11). Here the bold affirmation involves the sweeping conclusion that the parties who have been delivered by the Omnipotent Sanctifier in Rom 8:25 are actually exonerated from all the penal consequences of sin resultant from the Fall, both personal and original.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Rom 8:1-11
Rom 8:1-11
In the verses before us three points are touched on regarding the gospel as God’s power to sanctify. These are: (1) The preliminary work which had to be done by the coming of Christ, or the basis laid in the life and death of our Lord with a view to our being sanctified. Next, (2) wherein sanctification really consists; it is the substitution of God’s Spirit as a source of moral influence in lieu of the congenital tendency or drift towards sin of our own nature. And (3) how this working of the Divine Spirit in a believer must issue in his complete revivification, or the victory of life over death both in soul and body. In other words, we have here the origin, the process, and the issue of a believer’s sanctification in Christ.
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J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 225.
References: Rom 8:1-17.—Homilist, vol. i., p. 81. Rom 8:2.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 362; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 47. Rom 8:3.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 18; S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 22. Rom 8:3, Rom 8:4.—Homilist, vol. vii., p. 124; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 266. Rom 8:5.—W. Gladden, Ibid., vol. xxv., p. 280. Rom 8:5, Rom 8:6.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 187; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation—No Separation, p. 28. Rom 8:5-8.—H. D. Rawnsley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 100. Rom 8:5-11.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 306. Rom 8:6.—Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 315; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 191. Rom 8:6-8.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 148. Rom 8:7.—Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 90. Rom 8:7, Rom 8:8.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 172; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 362.
Rom 8:8
Man’s Inability to Please God.
I. How comes it to pass that man in his natural state cannot please God? We reply that the very fact of our being creatures of God, as we undoubtedly are, places us under an irreversible obligation to consecrate our every power and talent to God, whether or not He may have issued any direct law to which He demanded obedience. Ours is not a case in which there could be debate as to the authority of the lawgiver, neither is it one in which submission may be refused without actual hostility. But who can think it a disputable point, whether a man whilst in the flesh, whilst in his natural state before conversion, submits himself to God’s law? Who can be so ignorant of his own native tendencies as not to know that they impel him directly to what the law forbids and away from what the law requires?
II. An unconverted man may endeavour to conform himself to the precepts of his Maker, but there is something so distinct and contrary between that which is to obey and that which is to be obeyed, that the attempt will only issue in fresh proof of the alleged impossibility. It is not a slight change which passes over men when they are converted. Before conversion they are at enmity with God, in a state which makes the pleasing of God impossible, and it is come to pass, as the result of conversion, that they have a mind which is love toward God and which finds its great delight in keeping His commandments; and therefore we may well say that the change is not slight, not such as could take place without being felt or observed. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature. We are born heirs of wrath, and we must undergo a great internal radical change before we can become heirs of glory.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2225.
References: Rom 8:8.—M. Rainsford, No Condemnation—No Separation, p. 38. Rom 8:9.—Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 348; D. Ewing, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 299; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 281; vol. v., p. 274. Rom 8:9-11.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 471. Rom 8:10.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. v., p. 131; J. Jackson, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 185; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 31.
Rom 8:11
The Beginning of the Redemption of the Body Here.
I. The first point which it is needful to consider is the actual degeneracy of the body of man through his yielding it to the uses of sin. What might have been the condition of man’s physical frame had Adam remained in a state of purity we have no means of knowing. The human body under its present conditions of sleep, nourishment, and reproduction is manifestly but the temporary tent and workshop of the soul. The shadow which fell on the soul of Adam fell through his senses over all the world. There was a manifest degeneracy of the bodily life; and that was equivalent to the degeneracy of the world, and of all things with which he had to do.
II. Consider next the office of Christianity with regard to the human body, the beginning of the work of its redemption in this present world. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is set forth as the type and the pledge of the present quickening of the body of the believer. I say, a present quickening: it is not a future resurrection only, though that is plainly involved, but it is a present quickening of the body which is dead by sin to be alive by the Spirit unto God. Because of the Spirit and the life He brings, "He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit which dwelleth in you." Let us trace the outline of the process. (1) The gospel establishes the true and sovereign principle of rule over the bodily passions and powers. (2) The indwelling Spirit gives new possession of the body and its powers. (3) The indwelling Spirit alone explains the organisation of man’s body, and justifies its erectness. (4) The gospel completes its ministry by assuring to the body a share in the life and development of eternity. We are called here to reverence the body, and to work at its redemption, because this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and because this body shall stand crowned and robed in splendour before the eternal throne.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 214.
References: Rom 8:11.—G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections, p. 147; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation—No Separation, p. 56. Rom 8:12.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 35. Rom 8:12-14.—Ibid., p. 64; G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 201.
Rom 8:12-16
St. Paul is telling us here that there are two masters, either of whom we may serve, but one or other of whom we must serve. Christ is one, sin is the other. Christ is the Lord of our spirits. If we claim Him for our Lord and serve Him, then we must live as if we were spiritual beings, trusting, hoping, loving, holding our bodies in subjection; if we serve sin, then the body becomes the master, and the spirit dies; we eat and drink and sleep; faith, hope, and love perish. "But," says St. Paul, "it need not be so with any of us. Christ, the Lord of our spirits, saw that the spirits of men were dead within them, that they were living as mere fleshly creatures, and He came down and lived on this earth and died on it, that He might deliver these spirits out of death, and bind them to Him."
I. You see, St. Paul declares that there is a spirit in every one of you. Every poor savage on the earth, who has never heard of a soul or of Christ, has strange thoughts within him; he cannot tell whence they have come or whither they are going. These thoughts that stir within us, these feelings and cravings and wants, which all the things that we see and hear do not satisfy, these are worth all the world to us if only we know to whom to carry them.
II. He, into whose name we are baptized, of whose death we are made partakers, He who died that our sin might die, who rose that our spirits might rise and live, He is still with us, the Lord of our spirits, still unchanged and unchangeable. Believing in Him, claiming that right in Him which He gave us in baptism, and which He has never withdrawn from us since claiming our union with Him who has died unto sin once, but who now dieth no more, for death hath no more dominion over Him, our spirits may shake themselves free from this oppressor who is holding them down. With our spirits we can trust in Him, with our spirits we can hope in Him, with our spirits we can rise up with Him, and ascend with Him, and reign with Him. And then if they have tasted this liberty, they would wish to enjoy it continually, and that they may do so they will desire to mortify the deeds of that body which has kept them from enjoying it and would keep them from enjoying it still. They will desire to give up their spirits, to be ruled by His spirit, to be filled by Him with all holy desires and good thoughts, and prompted to all just works.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 50.
Rom 8:12-17
From Present Life to Future Glory.
I. The leading of the Holy Spirit is no leading at all unless it be efficacious. If we are led by the Spirit, that means that to some extent we are day by day amending our ways, exerting ourselves successfully to do right, and making substantial progress in virtue.
II. Wherever you find submission to Divine guidance, you have evidence of a Divine truth. We have no other mark of that sacred and lofty relationship, the noblest belonging to our nature, save character.
III. If on solid grounds a believer has made sure Paul’s second arch in this brief bridge which spiritual logic builds from earth to heaven, then he is prepared to go on to the third and last, "If sons, then heirs."
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 237.
References: Rom 8:13.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 20. Rom 8:13-21.—Ibid., vol. iv., p. 225. Rom 8:14.—G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College, p. 48; W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 65; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 113; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 71; S. Greg, A Layman’s Legacy, p. 123. Rom 8:14, Rom 8:15.—H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 280.
Rom 8:15
The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul.
I. The thought of God is the happiness of man; for though there is much besides to serve as subject of knowledge, or motive for action, or means of excitement, yet the affections require a something more vast and more enduring than anything created. He alone is sufficient for the heart who made it. We do not give our hearts to things irrational, because these have no permanence in them. We do not place our affections in sun, moon, and stars, or this rich and fair earth, because all things material come to nought and vanish like day and night. Man too, though he has an intelligence within him, yet in his best estate he is altogether vanity. If our happiness consists in our affections being employed and recompensed, "man that is born of a woman" cannot be our happiness, for how can he stay another who continueth not in one stay himself?
II. But there is another reason why God alone is the happiness of our souls; the contemplation of Him, and nothing but it, is able fully to open and relieve the mind, to unlock, occupy, and fix our affections. Created things cannot open us, or elicit the ten thousand mental senses which belong to us and through which we really live. None but the presence of our Maker can enter us, for to none besides can the heart in all its thoughts and feelings be unlocked and subjected. It is the feeling of simple and absolute confidence and communion which soothes and satisfies those to whom it is vouchsafed.
III. This sense of God’s presence is the ground of the peace of a good conscience, and of the peace of repentance also. True repentance cannot be without the thought of God; it has the thought of God, for it seeks Him; and it seeks Him, because it is quickened with love, and even sorrow must have a sweetness if love be in it.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 313.
I. Adoption is that act whereby we are received into the family of God. We are none of us in God’s family by nature. It is not a matter, properly speaking, of birth; but we are brought into it from without; literally we are adopted. Christ is the one Son of God. Into the Son God elects and engrafts members. He elects them everywhere, and He engrafts them just as He pleases; but they are all chosen from without and brought in. As soon as the union takes places between a soul and Christ God sees that soul in the relationship in which He sees Christ. He gives it a partnership in the same privileges—He treats it as if it were His own child—He gives it a place and name better than of sons and daughters. In fact, He has adopted it.
II. But this adoption, if it stood alone, would be no blessing. We cannot sufficiently admire the wisdom of the provision, and thank God for the manifestation of His grace, that wherever He gives adoption He follows it by the "Spirit of Adoption." The Spirit seals the union by making the affinity between the Creator and the creature close, happy, and eternal. The Spirit of Adoption cries "Father." A child does not ask a father as a stranger asks him. He does not want wages for his work, but he receives rewards. He does not want them; he works for another motive, and yet he does not know that he has another motive, for he never stops even to ask what his motive is. That "Spirit" has a present possession in the whole universe. All creation is his Father’s house, and he can say, "Everything in it—everything that is great and everything that is little, everything that is happy and everything that is unhappy, every cloud and every sun-ray—all is Mine, even to death itself.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 130.
References: Rom 8:15.—C. Kingsley, National Sermons, p. 216; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 276; D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3217; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 80.
Rom 8:16
The Evidence of Christian Sonship.
I. The evidence of sonship—its nature. In illustrating this there are two points to be considered—the ground on which that evidence is founded; the manner in which it rises in the soul. In inquiring into the first of these let us carefully mark two things in Paul’s words: (1) He draws a distinction between God’s Spirit and our spirit: it is not our spiritual life that bears this testimony, it is the Spirit of God bearing witness to the soul; and (2) he implies by the whole contents of the chapter that the evidence is not fitful, but continued and progressive. Consider the manner in which the evidence of sonship rises in the soul. Paul speaks of the action of God’s Spirit in three of its aspects, in each and all of which we see the way in which this evidence enters the soul. (1) Deliverance from the carnal. Freedom from this is the first sign of sonship. Here then is the witness when the old affections are being uprooted—a deep desire created after personal purity—when the chains of sin are snapped. (2) The spirit of prayer. Sometimes the Christian prayer transcends all words. The heart’s wounded affections, blighted hopes, unexpressed longings—all burn in one deep, impassioned cry: this spirit of prayer possessing you is a sign of adoption. (3) The spirit of aspiration. This is a sign of sonship—life’s imperfectness the ground of hope.
II. The necessity for this witness. Take Paul’s words, and we shall find he brings out three great results of the witness of the Holy Ghost which show three reasons why every man should possess it. (1) We need it to enable us to enter into perfect communion with God; (2) we need it in order to realise our spiritual inheritance; (3) in order to comprehend the glory of suffering.
III. Its attainment. In order to acquire this witness, carry into action every spiritual power you possess—translate every emotion into life. Remember you have to work together with God. Take care that you grieve not the Holy Spirit. Feel that every point gained in spiritual life is a point to be maintained. Take care that when you are brought nearer to God by suffering, you do not allow yourself to fall back; if you do, the light of the Spirit will fade. "If then ye live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit."
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 294.
The Witness of the Spirit.
I. Our cry "Father" is the witness that we are sons. Mark the terms of the passage: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit." It is not so much a revelation made to my spirit, considered as the recipient of the testimony, as a revelation made in or with my spirit considered as co-operating in the testimony. The substance of the Spirit’s evidence is the direct conviction based on the revelation of God’s infinite love and fatherhood in Christ the Son, that God is my Father, from which direct conviction I come to the conclusion, the inference, the second thought, "Then I may trust that I am His son." The Spirit’s testimony has for form my own conviction, and for substance my humble cry, "Oh thou my Father in Heaven."
II. That cry is not simply ours, but it is the voice of God’s Spirit. Our own convictions are ours because they are God’s. Our own souls possess these emotions of love and tender desire going out to God—our own spirits possess them, but our own spirits do not originate them. They are ours by property; they are His by source. Every Christian may be sure of this, that, howsoever feeble may be the thought and conviction in his heart of God’s Fatherhood, he did not work it, he received it only, cherished it, thought of it, watched over it, was careful not to quench it; but in origin it was God’s, and it is now and ever the voice of the Divine Spirit in the child’s heart.
III. This Divine witness in our spirits is subject to ordinary influences which affect our spirits. The Divine Spirit, when it enters into the narrow room of the human spirit, condescends to submit itself, not wholly, but to such an extent as practically for our present purpose is wholly, to submit itself to the ordinary laws and conditions and contingencies which befall and regulate our own human nature. Do not think that the witness cannot be genuine because it is changeful. Watch it and guard it lest it change. Live in the contemplation of the Person and the fact that calls it forth, that it may not. To have the heart filled with the light of Christ’s love to us is the only way to have the whole being full of light.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, 1st series, p. 54.
References: Rom 8:16.—G. Huntingdon, Sermons for Holy Seasons, p. 211; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vii., p. 23; J. Brierley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 181; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 278; vol. viii., p. 91; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 133; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 142; D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, Nos. 3184, 3187.
Rom 8:17
I. First, the text tells us, No inheritance without sonship. In general terms, spiritual blessings can only be given to those who are in a certain spiritual condition. Always and necessarily the capacity or organ of reception precedes and determines the bestowment of blessings. The light falls everywhere, but only the eye drinks it in. There is no inheritance of heaven without sonship; because all the blessings of that future life are of a spiritual character.
II. No sonship without a spiritual birth. The Apostle John in that most wonderful preface to his Gospel, where all deepest truths concerning the eternal Being in Himself and in the solemn march of His progressive revelations to the world are set forth in language simple like the words of a child, inexhaustible like the voice of a god, draws a broad distinction between the relation to the manifestations of God, which every human soul by virtue of his humanity sustains, and that which some, by virtue of their faith, enter into. Every man is lighted by the true Light because he is a man. They who believe in His name receive from Him the prerogative to become the sons of God. Those who become sons are not co-extensive with those who are lighted by the Light, but consist of so many of that greater number as receive Him, and that such become sons by a Divine act, the communication of a spiritual life, whereby we are born of God.
III. No spiritual birth without Christ. Christ comes to make you and me live again as we never lived before; live possessors of God’s love; live tenanted and ruled by a Divine Spirit; live with affections in our hearts which we never could kindle there; live with purposes in our souls which we never could put there. There is but one Being that can make a change in our position in regard to God, and there is but one Being that can make the change by which man shall become a new creature.
IV. No Christ without faith. Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us. Christ is everything to him that trusts Him. Christ is nothing but a judge and a condemnation to him that trusts Him not.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, 1st series, p. 68.
Rom 8:17
I. Sonship with Christ necessarily involves suffering with Him. This is not merely a text for people that are in affliction, but for all of us. It does not merely contain a law for a certain part of life, but it contains a law for the whole of life. It is the inward strife and conflict in getting rid of evil, which the Apostle designates here with the name of suffering with Christ, that we may be also glorified together. On this high level and not on the lower one of the consideration that Christ will help us to bear outward infirmities and afflictions, do we find the true meaning of all that Scripture teaching that says indeed, "Yes, our sufferings are His," but lays the foundation of it in this, "His sufferings are ours."
II. This community of suffering is a necessary preparation for the community of glory. God puts us to the school of sorrow, under that stern tutor and governor here, and gives us the opportunity of suffering with Christ, that by the daily crucifixion of our own nature, by the lessons and blessings of outward calamities and changes, there may grow up in us a still nobler and purer and perfecter Divine life; and that we may so be made capable—more capable, and capable of more—of that inheritance for which the only necessary thing is the death of Christ, and the only fitness is faith in His name.
III. That inheritance is the necessary result of the suffering that has gone before. The suffering results from our union with Christ. That union must needs culminate in glory. The inheritance is sure because Christ possesses it now. Trials have no meaning unless they are means to an end. The end is the inheritance; and sorrows here, as well as the Spirit’s work here, are the earnest of the inheritance. The measure of the distance from the farthest point of our darkest earthly sorrow to the throne may help us to the measure of the closeness of the bright, perfect, perpetual glory above, when we are on the throne; for if so be that we are sons, we must suffer with Him; if so be that we suffer, we must be glorified together.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, 1st series, p. 82.
References: Rom 8:17.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 48; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, pp. 95, 103; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 135. Rom 8:18.—H. Wace, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 49; Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 221. Rom 8:18-21.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 27.
Rom 8:18-22
The Groans of Creation.
I. In trying to understand the several voices which make up this chorus of expectation, we must commence with the dumb companion of our hope, the physical creation.
II. Deep in the constitution of our present earth, and continuous along its whole past history, I think we may trace the subjection of all its animated beings to a law of vanity. We are in a world which has not yet attained, neither is already perfect, but which yearns and labours in the hope to produce what shall be better than itself.
III. Christ has been delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the Son of God. In His deliverance is contained a pledge of that for which nature groaning waits. The original conditions under which our world was placed and has been kept so long become intelligible when we see that the world, like man, is a redeemed world, on its way to share in the splendid destiny to which Christ conducts redeemed humanity.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 246.
References: Rom 8:18-23.—Homilist, new series, vol. iv., p. 154. Rom 8:18-27.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 395. Rom 8:19, Rom 8:20.—W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 134.
Rom 8:19-21
The Freedom of the Regenerate Will.
The plain meaning of this text is, that the whole world, conscious of its disinheritance, is crying aloud for the Spirit of adoption, which is even now about to be shed abroad. The nations are teeming with gifts of secret grace which shall be gathered and compacted, by the power of a new birth, into the mystical body of Christ; they are waiting and breaking forth in impatient desire for the message of life which the Father gave to His Son, and His Son has given unto us, that out of that dark waste shall spring up sons and saints of God. "He will destroy the face of the covering and the vail that is spread over all nations," and the powers of the regeneration and of the resurrection shall work throughout mankind, casting forth the first and the second death and healing the wounds of all creatures. The great gift of the gospel in our regeneration is spiritual liberty, that is, the true freedom of the will.
I. Consider how deep a degradation sin is—above all, in the regenerate. The hatefulness of sin is hardly more appalling than its shame. There is no slavery so great as that of a will which has broken the yoke of Christ, and become, by its own free choice, the servant of its own sinful inclinations; for the will itself is in bondage to its own lusts. Sometimes they appear under forms that the world admires, and become, every one, masters to whom we abandon the glorious liberty of the children of God. There is something very melancholy in the abject and eager servility with which men obey their hard commands; sacrificing health, peace, freshness of heart, conscience, the light of God’s presence, the very soul of their spiritual life. They enter again insensibly into the bondage of corruption, and groan under the burden which weighs on them more heavily day by day.
II. We may learn, next, how great is the misery of an inconsistent life. It forfeits the true grace of Christian obedience. To be religious from mere sense of necessity, that is, against our will, is a contradiction and a yoke. It is much to be feared that many whose lives are pure, who appear devout in all the outward usages of the Church, serve God with a heart that has no pleasure in obedience. Their free will is given to another, and it is but a constrained homage they render to Christ. The glorious liberty of the children of God turns to a forced, necessary observance of commandments. They are under a law, and have retrograded in the scale of spiritual perfection; from sons, they have turned back again to be servants; and their whole temper of heart towards God is infected by a consciousness of indevotion and of a lingering, undutiful will. It is because we do not realise the blessedness and the power of a free will; because we will not do God’s will as sons, out of a loving and glad obedience, therefore we cannot stand against the world. It takes us captive and puts out our eyes, and sets us blinded to the mill to labour in darkness, in an involuntary and shameful servitude.
H. G. Manning, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 114.
References: Rom 8:19-22.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 186; J. Owen, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 376.
Rom 8:19-23
I. The groaning creation. We are surrounded by the evidences of a conflicting existence, a state of being—not all evil, certainly; certainly not all of God. All things about us show the wrestlings of two orders of things—two orders of spirits, who find on our earth their battle-ground and arena of conflict. "The whole creation groaneth." Time is the great school of suffering, and life is the great teacher. My text points me to a suffering world, but this is God’s pathway to restitution. Christianity associates Divine ends and aims with suffering and my text points to them.
II. The earnest expectation. All the agitations of the world are the earnest of its need of rest. All things are in their prison or their grave, and beauty blooms only as the plant of a southern clime might bloom in Iceland. And what foundation has the groaning world for its expectant waiting for a time of restitution? The foundation is in the fact that the ransom has been paid and peace has been proclaimed to a revolted universe. We have heard in the groans of creation the tones of wailing over the fall of man, and in this restitution there is a threefold blessing: (1) There is reconciliation; (2) by that reconciliation Scripture assures us that the salvation of all mankind is made possible and the salvation of an immense multitude is certain; (3) this reconciliation was effected by one Mediator, and by one only, even our Redeemer Jesus Christ.
III. To that hour of restitution all things are pointing. What is our Lord doing now in His high and holy place? He is expecting till His enemies become His footstool; looking out, looking forward. There is no ignorance implied in this, but a pausing until the fulness of the time shall come. No, from His intercessory throne, while He takes an interest in His friends, He is expecting. The turpitude and the crime of His enemies will only be His threshold to more illustrious and exalted power. He beholds all the hosts of evil tramping on their mad and foredoomed way. He is expecting till—they become His footstool.
E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 249.
References: Rom 8:19-23.—M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 171. Rom 8:19-25.—E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 177. Rom 8:20.—C. J. Vaughan, Words of Hope, p. 221; Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 350. Rom 8:20-22.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 122. Rom 8:21.—Homilist, vol. vii., p. 123; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 345; Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 62; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 334.
Rom 8:22-23
Groans of Unrenewed and Renewed Nature.
I. All things bear about them strange tokens of good and evil. Each pictures to us some part of the glory of their Maker, each of our vanity. They minister to us, only by their corruption; they live, only to die. Seeds grow not, but by perishing; when grown they are our food through their destruction. Flowers turn not to fruit but by the fading of their glory. All seems to toil, all changes, all decays, all, in one weary and restless round, seem to say, "We abide not for ever, here is not thy rest." The creature, then, is subject to vanity, through outward decay; itself perishable, and serving to perishable ends.
II. But more! It was all formed "very good" to its Maker’s praise; and now, through which hath He not been dishonoured? If beautiful, man loves and admires it without or more than God, or worships it instead of Him. If any bring outward evil, man on occasion of it murmurs against its Maker. All around us and in us bears sad tokens of the Fall. As then to us death is to be the gate of immortality and glory, so in some way to them. Whence Holy Scripture says elsewhere, "The earth shall wax old like a garment"; and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner. As then we, so many as are in Christ, perish not utterly, but put off only corruption, to be, by a new and immortal birth, clothed with incorruption, so also they.
III. The taste of heavenly things kindles but the more burning thirst to have them. How is it that we have so few of these heavenly longings? In two ways is the longing for God attained, and neither will avail without the other. First, unlearn the love of self and of the world and of its distractions; secondly, contemplate God, His lovingkindness and His promised rewards. Dedicate, morning by morning, the actions of the day to God; live in His presence, do things or leave them undone, not simply because it is right or kind, much less according to mere natural temper, but to God. If we make God our end, He who gave us the grace thus to seek Him will give us His love; He will increase our longing desire for Him; and whom in all we seek, whom in all we would please, whom in all we would love, Him shall we find, Him possess, here in grace and veiled, hereafter in glory.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 304.
References: Rom 8:22, Rom 8:23.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 193; T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i., p. 94; W. J. Keay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 340; A. C. Tait, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 305.
Rom 8:23
The Aspirations of a Christian Soul.
Consider:—
I. The nature of Christian aspirations. There are two points to be illustrated here. (1) The fact that the firstfruits of the Spirit are groaning for our full adoption. The Spirit reveals to us our adoption (a) by revealing the love of God, (b) by the gift of spiritual power, (c) by the gift of Divine peace. (2) The groaning reaches to a prayer for the redemption of the body. The power of the body to perpetuate the influences of past sin renders it an awful hindrance to the man who feels the firstfruits of the Spirit of God. And thus it is that we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit must incessantly cry for the redemption of the body from its weakness and pain and evil, because we know that until then we can never reach the heavenly love and power and blessedness which belong to us as sons of God.
II. Their prophetic hopes. I say "prophetic" advisedly; for in the term "firstfruits" Paul has distinctly implied that these aspirations are not mere dreams, but real prophecies—not fanciful expectations, but actual foreshadowings of the beauty and blessedness that shall be when God makes perfect the redeemed. (1) We hope for the redeemed body; for as we said just now, the body is the grand hindrance to the aspirations of the soul. And now mark the prophetic cries which lie hid in that hope. Because it is a firstfruit of the Spirit, it foretells that every bodily power shall come forth, not crushed, but made stronger and brighter from the touch of death. (2) We hope for the redeemed world. Paul in the context has dared to affirm that the pain and death of the creature form one loud prophetic wail for the redemption of the earth. Take then your hopes, and believe that in their highest intensity they are literally prophetic of the age when the new Jerusalem shall come down from God like a bride adorned for her husband.
III. Their present lessons. (1) We need them all. The very loftiest of these aspirations are absolutely needful to guard us against the very lowest and meanest of the temptations of the everyday world. (2) We must live them all. If we simply treasure them in the soul as beautiful feelings, and do not strive to carry their influence into life, they will fade; for every aspiration which has not practical power is absolutely injurious to a man’s spirit, and destined to wither into an idle sentiment.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 234.
References: Rom 8:23.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 92; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 6th series, p. 253; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 176, 231, 341.
Rom 8:23-27
Waiting in Hope.
I. The unintelligent creatures wait, but not in hope. They travail as in pain with the burden of a future birth, of which they themselves are ignorant. We know what we wait for. The sons of God possess already an earnest of their coming inheritance.
II. Sober this hope of Christian men in the final regeneration of all things may always be; confident it should be, for it is built on Divine facts. But how seldom can it reach a buoyant or cheerful tone! But the Christian, oppressed with the world’s load, is not alone at his solitary prayers. A mystic comrade is near, who tempers the natural cry of one in pain into dutiful and gracious submission, and above another Paraclete or Intercessor, who likewise, touched with the feeling of our infirmity, makes prayer for us in His own name on high.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 256.
Rom 8:24
Eternal Life.
I. "We are saved by hope," says St. Paul: "but hope that is seen is not hope." This is the great contrast which runs through the New Testament. Indeed, scientific proof is just what, in the very nature of the case, religion does not admit of. What we mean by scientific proof is the verification, by event or experiment, of some calculation or reasoning or interpretation of facts, which has pointed to some particular conclusion, but not as yet actually reached it. Before this verification there is a direction in which things plainly go, a disposition of facts one way, but there is only probability; after, and by this verificacation, there is certainty. To have scientific proof of a future state is to have found out by having died and actually passed into that state and found yourself in it, that the reasoning on which you had previously in life expected and looked forward to that state was correct reasoning, and that you had made a true prophecy. But this proof, in the nature of the case, we cannot have now.
II. There is one great distinction between the current probabilities of life and the expectation of a future state. The probabilities of life pass in rapid succession into their state of either verification or falsification; they do not, for the most part, keep us long waiting: when it is evening, we say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red; and in the morning we say it will be foul weather, for the sky is red and lowering; the morning soon fulfils or refutes the presage of the evening, and the evening soon refutes or fulfils the prognostic of the morning. It is the same with respect to the transactions of life. But the great prophecy of reason has not yet received its verification. A future life is not proved by experiment. Generation after generation have gone to their graves, looking for the morning of the resurrection; the travellers have all gone with their faces set eastward, and their eyes turned to that eternal shore upon which the voyage of life will land them. But from that shore there is no return; none come back to tell us the result of the journey; there is no report, no communication made from the world they have arrived at. No voice reaches us from all the myriads of the dead to announce that the expectation is fulfilled, and that experiment has ratified the argument for immortality.
III. It is forgotten, in the charge of self-interestedness against the motive of a human life, that this motive is not only a desire for our happiness, but a desire, at the same time, for our own higher goodness. The two wishes are essentially bound up together in the doctrine of a future state, as not only a continuation of existence, not only an improvement in the circumstances of existence, but as an ascent of existence. In the Christian doctrine of a future state we have this remarkable conjunction, that the real belief in the doctrine goes together with, and is fastened to, the moral sublimity of the state. In the pagan doctrine both of these were absent; the life itself was poor, shadowy, and sepulchral on the one hand, and the belief in it was feeble and volatile on the other. In the Christian doctrine both are present together, the glorious nature of life itself and the reality of the belief in it. Besides, the desire for immortality is not a lonely one; no human being ever desired a future life for himself alone; he wants it for all for whom he entertains an affection here; all the good whom he has known, or whom he has only heard of. Christianity knows nothing of a hope of immortality for the individual alone, but only of a glorious hope for the individual in the Body in the eternal society of the Church triumphant.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 46.
References: Rom 8:24.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 115; Ibid., vol. iv., p. 121; Ibid., vol. xi., p. 193; Ibid., vol. xii., p. 301; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 93; A. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, p. 323; G. Litting, Thirty Children’s Sermons, p. 213; E. Bickersteth, Church Sermons, vol. ii., p. 129; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 135.
Rom 8:26
The Spirit the Help to Prayer.
The highest gift of God is that which is for all alike. We need the Spirit for all the works we have to do. We can speak no true, honest, sound word unless we ask Him to teach us what we shall say and how we shall say it.
I. What are we to do when we feel as if we could not pray? as if that were the greatest difficulty of all? It is the Spirit who helps us, not only to think and to do, but also to pray—who draws out our desires towards God, who speaks more for us and in us than we know. It is very wonderful, but yet it must be so. We could not pray if God Himself were not stirring up prayer in us. It is not we who first seek for fellowship with Him; He seeks to have fellowship with us. The children begin to ask for their Father because the Father has been first seeking His children.
II. Is it not a blessed thought that the Spirit is uttering His groans for the deliverance of this world of ours from all its sin and slavery and wretchedness? Should we not rejoice that God knows what is the mind of the Spirit, for it is His own mind? Should we not trust, with all our hearts, that His will should at last be done on earth even as it is in heaven? And do not think that those who have prayed that prayer here on earth pray it less fervently when they leave the earth. Then their tongues are loosed; then they can pray for us and all their friends fighting here below, as God’s Spirit would have them pray; then they begin to know that no prayer or groan that has been uttered in the lowliest chamber or in the darkest dungeon shall be in vain. God’s Spirit inspired these prayers and groans, and His new heaven and new earth will be the answer to them.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons in Country Churches, p. 80.
References: Rom 8:26.—Homilist, vol. vi., p. 410; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 12; W. Harris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 320; J. Silcox, Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 104; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 9th series, p. 296; D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3149; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 122; F. Paget, Anglican Pulpit of Today, p. 447; T. Birkett Dover, A Lent Manual, p. 27; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 217.
Rom 8:26-27
The Intercession of the Spirit.
I. We have here the reality of prayer confirmed. Paul was a man of truth and soberness, free from superstition and fanatical weakness. He knew of what he was speaking, and he was sure that the Romans would know it too. It was for no inner circle of enthusiasts he was writing here, but for all that were in Rome, called to be saints. The Church in the metropolis, the busy, active society of Rome, is bidden. Mark the care God takes to help the infirmities and educate the spirit of His children. Those prayers of yours, He is saying, are oftentimes the truest and devoutest in which you can say nothing. Feeling and desire—in these, as well as in thought and purpose, God can recognise the spirit of the worshipper.
II. The Divine origin of these unutterable longings is here confirmed. Consider the solemn blessedness of these words: "The Spirit helpeth our infirmities." In the solemn hour of prayer, on which our life and activity so much depends; when, as we ask we receive, and if we ask not we receive not; in the solemn hour of prayer, that leaves us refreshed and strengthened, or wearied and yet more perplexed; in the solemn hour of prayer, when we are desiring from God what shall be the bane or blessing of many days, we cannot dispense with the Spirit’s intercession.
III. God fully understands the meaning of these longings that are not fully understood by the subject of them. In the unutterable cry for God, He reads a desire for communion with Him fuller than has yet been satisfied. In the struggle of the soul that knows not "what to pray for as we ought," in the shaking sobs of him who is torn by distracting feelings between personal wishes and the feeling that there may be something higher and nobler far than these, He recognises the spirit striving to conquer the weakness of the flesh, the passion for submission, however hard it may be. to submit.
A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, p. 203.
I. What is prayer? (1) Look upon it as grounded upon the office and work of our adorable Saviour. It is not merely feeling, earnestness, fluency of utterance, confession of sin and want. It is the eye fixed upon the blood and the High Priest. We come boldly to the throne of grace, because we have a great High Priest before the mercy seat. (2) But there is another view of prayer, connected with the work of the Spirit. The quickening power of this Divine agent brings life into the soul and life into our prayer. It is not the exercise of any particular grace, but the combined energy of all. Confidence is linked with humility, contrition, love; all the meek and lowly fruits, so adorning, so necessary to the completeness of Christian consistency, find their place here when the heart is poured out before the mercy seat. And yet what a mass of infirmities! Look at—
I.. The matter of our prayers. We know not what to pray for. Left to ourselves we are as likely to be ruined by our prayers as the ungodly by the neglect of prayer. Yet we are not left here in despondency. We are led to mark—
I.I. Our assistance in prayer. Great as our infirmities are, our assistance is fully equal to meet them. We have not only an Almighty Surety, but an Almighty Supporter. The blessed Spirit of God condescends to our need, and brings abundant supply, apart from all other sources of encouragement. (1) He excites in us intense desires, groanings unuttered and unutterable—perhaps too big for utterance—desire venting itself in sighs. Nothing but experience can explain this exercise. It is the warmth, life, and vigour of prayer. It is the breathing of Divine supplication, as if the Spirit of God was joining His own soul with ours. (2) Again we observe this Divine help in moulding these unutterable desires in subjection to the will of God. Never are we likely to receive a blessing unless we are willing to go without it.
IV. The acceptance of prayer. Often we do not thoroughly know it. But not a breath is lost before God. When the fire seems to go out, have we never found the living spark underneath the heap of embers? And so does the great Searcher see under this mass the spark of His own kindling—the mind of His own Spirit. So does He spell out the ill-printed letters, the disordered and confused matter, and brings them out to be the desires framed by His own Spirit making intercession—moulding them to His own will.
C. Bridges, Family Treasury, Dec, 1861.
Rom 8:26-27
The word "likewise" with which my text begins institutes a comparison between what is set forth in the text and what had been said before. To grasp this comparison fully we must go back to the eighteenth verse. The Apostle there sets out with a declaration, the peculiar wording of which is meant to show that he is speaking, not with the exaggeration of eloquent appeal or excited feeling, but with the sobriety of simple and deliberate calculation. "For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us hereafter." Yet few men have had richer experience of the sufferings of the present life than Paul. The thought to which the word "likewise" in my text goes back is this. Creation, so far as we are concerned with it, sympathises with us, but its sympathy is unavailing; it cannot aid us: on the contrary, the aid is to come from us to it; it looks to our deliverance as the beginning of its own. We want, therefore, something else. We want a sympathy not merely of weak creature fellow-feeling, but of powerful creative aid, and this sympathy my text sets forth. "Likewise," in like manner, but with far different result, "the Spirit also" not merely sympathises with us, but "helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." The effectual, omnipresent sympathy of the third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity is the wondrous fact which these words disclose.
I. This is, perhaps, one of the deepest, as it is surely one of the most comforting passages in Holy Writ. It takes us at once into those dark mysteries of self-consciousness, hidden from all others, half hidden even from ourselves, clear to none but our Creator, which go down to the foundations of our being, nay, to the very depths of the Being and operation of God Himself. For we can, indeed, easily conceive the impossibility of clearly knowing at every instant what we ought to pray for other than in the most general terms. We can also, and still more easily, conceive the impossibility of knowing how to pray as we ought; we all experience it. The wandering of the mind, the listlessness, the absolute blank of thought and feeling which sometimes seems to engulf it when we kneel down to pray; the mere unconnected rhapsodical ejaculations in which the most fervent prayer, like the celebrated ecstasy of Pascal, so often loses itself. All these are so many instances of the not knowing how to pray. The mind sinks in the attempt to rise to God. And so, too, with our ignorance of what we ought to ask. Prayer is the desire of man laid before his Maker. But what shall we desire? Knowledge of His truth in this world, in the world to come life everlasting, seem pretty nearly to exhaust all we are sure we ought to ask. Yet, were our prayers always limited to these two simple but sublime petitions, should we not feel as though much was omitted? True, we can have no knowledge of God’s truth unless we have the will to do it: a pure heart is therefore implicitly involved in this petition: and a pure heart, again, involves a right conscience in all the affairs of life; but these things, however sweeping, are things we have or seek to have in common; they are general, not individual needs. Each of us has his own station, his own position, his own character and constitution, mental and bodily; each one of us has, more or less, abused that position, that character, that constitution; each, therefore, has his own burden, known, beyond himself, to God alone. All these differences demand different treatment in each individual case; each has, in consequence, his own individual difficulties. The effort of prayer must be made much in the dark. We know not what to pray for any more than we know how. And here comes in the full comfort of my text. For, strange and paradoxical as it may sound, it is here that the Divine and human seem to touch; on this borderland of ignorance and powerlessness they meet. For though the Spirit Himself helpeth our infirmities by interceding for us when we know neither what to ask nor how, it is only by groans or sighs inarticulate and unutterable, beyond all language to express, beyond all thought distinctly to conceive.
II. Many, perhaps I ought to say most, Christians do not really believe the presence of the Holy Spirit in themselves, because of the imperfections of which they are conscious. They cannot take to themselves the things of God in all their fulness because they intimate things so far transcending their own condition and feeling, that they think it impossible they should really apply to them in their literal sense. The comfort which this deep and wondrous passage is meant to give resides not merely in the statement that the Spirit does actually help our infirmities by pleading for us, but in the assurance that the imperfection of our present state and progress, of our religious experience, in a word, need be no bar to our thankfully believing that we, too, have the Spirit, since the Spirit dwelling in each shares, so to speak, our imperfection; limits Himself by the capacities of each, accommodates Himself to the character of each. Let us not deny the Christ that liveth in us, because that life is hid even from ourselves with Christ in God. Let us not ignore the Spirit that dwelleth in us, because we do not as yet see all things conquered by Him, all our thoughts pervaded by Him; remember that if there is but one good aspiration, one wish to do and be that which is right and pleasing to God; one upward look, one sign of the heart and mind to that infinite and eternal Good which alone can satisfy, we have evidence of the Divine existing in us, since it is of His alone that we can give unto Him; since without His Spirit we could neither desire nor conceive beyond the circle of those earthly things within which our earthly life is banned and confined. Solemnise, then, and purify, as well as cheer, your hearts and minds with these thoughts. It would seem that in all God’s universe there is no being, after God, so august as man, because no other being’s nature did God take in the person of His Son, in no other being does God vouchsafe to dwell by His Spirit. Lift up your hearts, then, to that state, that place, that presence which alone are adequate to the wants and desires we feel within us; and as you lift them up to the Eternal and to that heaven of heavens which yet cannot contain Him, take courage, and learn endurance from the thought that the Spirit Himself helpeth our infirmities, ever making intercession for us out of the depths of His own being with sighs and plaints that cannot indeed be uttered, and must for ever remain unknown to us, but which are perfectly understood by Him to whom they ascend, because it is according to His own will that the Spirit thus maketh intercession for all who are dedicated unto Him.
C. P. Reichel, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, p. 883.
The Intercession of the Spirit in Prayer.
I. The necessity for a Divine inspirer of prayer. (1) To ask rightly we must realise the solemnity of asking. We utter our little thought to the Everlasting thought—our poor cry to the Sustainer of the worlds. To feel this is profoundly difficult. We are such slaves to the visible and the apparent. But when touched by the Divine Spirit, we rouse all the powers of our being to realise the Divine presence as an overwhelming reality—not a cold faith in the mere existence of the Deity, but the conviction that He is the sublime reality before which all visible things are shadows—that He is a presence nearer to us than friend or brother—a presence in actual contact with our spirits. (2) To ask rightly we must ask with persevering earnestness. We ought always to pray and not to faint. Do we verily believe God will hear us, and do we pray as though He were hearing? When we possess the abiding spirit of prayer, when the whole aspect of the spirit’s life is seeking, then will our direct petitions have a power that amid all hindrances shall persevere.
II. The manner of the Spirit’s inspiration. (1) The awakening of inexpressible emotion "with groanings that cannot be uttered." All deep emotions are too large for language—they outsoar the narrow range of human speech. (2) The certainty of Divine response. We dare not ask absolutely for any particular blessing, but the Spirit inspires the cry "Thy will be done," and the right blessings are given. God alters not His order, and because He alters it not we win blessings by spiritual prayer which would not have been bestowed without it.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 1.
References: Rom 8:26, Rom 8:27.—M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 197. Rom 8:27.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 145.
Rom 8:28
I. St. Paul believes that there is a purpose, an end, towards which events are tending. It looks at first sight like a faith rather than the conclusion of an argument. Reason alone, it has been said, might arrive at an opposite conclusion. How can we see a providential guidance, a Divine plan of any kind, in the bloody game which chiefly makes up history? How can we trace it in the conduct of generations, of races, who successively appear upon the surface of this planet to make trials one after another of the same crude experiments, as if the past had furnished no experience with which to guide them? It is true enough that the purpose of God in human history is traversed—that it is obscured—by causes to which the apostles of human despair may point very effectively; and yet here, as ever, we Christians dare to say that we walk by faith where sight fails us, as elsewhere, and we see enough to resist so depressing a conclusion as that before us—to know that the course of events is not thus fatal, thus desperate. "All things work together for good."
II. By "good" the Apostle does not mean material, visible prosperity. Success in life is not linked to the love of God even in the majority of cases. The good of which the Apostle is speaking is real, absolute, eternal good. It is the good of the soul rather than of the body. It is the good of the eternal world rather than of the present world. It may be that a man’s circumstances have no very marked character one way or another. It may be that they are a tissue of crushing misfortunes. It may be that they are a succession of conspicuous successes. The love of God is the magician which extracts the ore alike from each, and which makes each and all promote man’s final, man’s absolute good. No life whatever is made up of such commonplaces that each cannot be made, by this love, to sparkle with the very highest moral interest. No misfortunes are so great that they cannot be built into the very steps of the staircase by which souls mount up to heaven.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 647.
How are we to regard this certitude of the Apostle? Must we not look upon it as a rational conviction, strengthened and confirmed by an experience ample, varied, and wonderful; established by a faith in the Christian verities, and made immovable by the spiritual visions of a heart disciplined by trial and purified by affliction? And this is a certitude open to us all, if we seek it; for though it may seem impossible to our reason, it is easy of attainment to the obedience of faith, and yet faith is not blind. Let us contemplate the source of its light, that our reason be not confounded at the confidence of our heart.
I. All things are at work and subject to constant change. The fact is obvious. Ceaseless change conditions everything on earth. And what an air of sadness this self-evident fact gives to our life! As years wear on confidence becomes broken, expectation lessens, hope declines, a trust in creatures is found to be vain, a feeling of insecurity steals over us, which denies us peace, and so fills the mind with fear of foreboded evil, that even in laughter the heart is sad.
II. All things work together. The addition of this one word alters everything. It introduces design where there appeared to be no aim, order where all seemed chaos, and a matured plan where there seemed no purpose; so that now "nothing walks with aimless feet." Everything has its appointed way, occupies a given place, and exercises a prepared and regulated influence. The Divine purpose embraces all. They are but spheres and co-operative agencies carrying out the one purpose which runs through all ages. "Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things," "Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."
III. But to what purpose, to what end do all things work together? Our text answers, "All things work together for good." This is no mere conjecture, nor simply the assertion of an inspired apostle, but a necessary deduction from the fact we have been considering. If all things work together, then good must be the result. For evil has no power of co-operation. Evil elements cannot be combined, they are antagonistic to each other. The way of goodness carries its security, for the attainment of its end, in its own moral power. The purpose of goodness cannot fail of accomplishment, for the true nature of everything is in accordance with the will, the way, and the work of God. But evil is vanity, and the way of evil a vain show, and the end less than nothing, and vanity.
IV. But if all things work together for good, then also for the best. Divine goodness has but one end for the same creature, and that is the best possible. His mind can only purpose the best in relation to the creature concerned. And to reach this end He has but one way, and that is the best. Science knows that there is but one way of doing anything truly, just as there is but one straight line between two points. How impossible, then, that the only wise God should have for His children any end or any way to that end but the best!
V. But for whom will this co-operation of all things work out its highest good? "For those that love God." The highest good can only be received by rightly directed affections. Only love can take up the issue of this universal co-operation, which is working out what the eternal love has purposed.
W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p. 93.
I. "All things." We may say literally and without exception all things; for there is a sense in which a human being is related to everything. He is related supremely to God, and by that relation he touches the whole universe. There is a strain of truth as well as a lofty tone of poetry in that old war hymn which makes the stars in their courses fight against Sisera. All things, high and low, fight for or against a man continually. But probably the "all things" here meant are those things which more nearly and constantly affect men. There are things which gather round each person; things which are distributed over the field of his life; things which touch him so immediately, that they give him daily help or daily hindrance as the case may be.
II. "All things work together." That explains, in a considerable measure, the great changes that take place, and the great progress that is sometimes made very quickly. Things work together. A man is over-matched sometimes by the weight and pressure of the things he has to do, when a new circumstance occurs, a new thing is born, and as it were instantly yokes itself into harness with the rest, and the object is attained. All things work together, not in an aimless and capricious manner, for this end and that, now in one way and now in another, as though a stream should one day flow seawards and the next back towards its fountain among the hills, but in one volume, along one channel, in one direction, towards one end. Everything is held as in one despotic bond, and gathered up and hurried along the one inevitable channel.
III. The greatest question in life to a man is this, "Of what character is the supreme influence of all the things which work together in my life? I am being educated—in what nurture? I am being moved forward to something—what is that something? I am growing—in whose image, and towards the measure of what stature?" The true test is this, "Is there love to God?" It is not, "Am I strong enough to vanquish or successfully resist the forces of life?" because no man is nor ever will be. To say nothing of the buffetings that must come and the changes to which the most obstinate must yield, there is to each at last, and to one as much as to another, the grand defeat—every man, soon or late, is laid on the bed of death, is buried in the grave. The question is this, and no other, "Do I love God?" What we love, or rather, whom we love, and how much, will tell far more regarding our inward state, our real character, than anything else in the whole circle of our experience, will therefore also tell what moral position we occupy in relation to all outward things. If we love God, this is the position—surely, although we are not accustomed to apply grand epithets to such things, yet surely, in sober earnestness, a splendid position!—that all things work together for our good. We thus stand higher than conqueror or king; the world is our chariot, and we don’t even need to hold the reins; the universe with all its wide-lying and progressive heavens our estate. "We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 213.
Consider the argument sometimes so triumphantly alleged, namely, that since precisely the same troubles fall upon him who believes and him who disbelieves, it becomes absurd to say that these trials work in one direction for a man of prayer and in another for the man that never prays, and that circumstances, good or evil, work together for the advantage of the righteous in any sense which is not equally true of others.
I. I apprehend, however, that the regular and consistent life of a Christian man—the temperance, the integrity, the self-control, the good repute which will result from his convictions—will tend to obtain for him many temporal comforts which they will not absolutely insure, and will at least tend to alleviate for man many evils from which they cannot guarantee an absolute immunity. While it is literally and undeniably true that the same calamities come alike upon the good and the evil, it is a transparent fallacy to infer that the same ulterior results will follow in both cases. It is a fallacy, practically speaking, that the same visitation retains its nature and character under totally different circumstances and applied to different objects. It is on the temper of the recipient that the result depends, and whether or not all things good and evil concur to his advantage.
II. Of the grand maxim that he has bequeathed to us, St. Paul was himself the living illustration. Surely he had enough suffering to teach him that the chariot of God rolls onward along its imperial way, without any stoppage for inquiry about the several circumstances of the poor travellers that it passes on the road! But no: there is not even a momentary symptom of any such misgiving. The Apostle had learned the secret of distilling the sweetest essences from the most repulsive ingredients. From every trial he extracts nutriment for sustaining a more steadfast faith, a more fervid hope, a more expansive charity.
W. H. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 146.
References: Rom 8:28.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 110; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 145; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ix., p. 84; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 289; E. Garbett, Experiences of the Inner Life, p. 279; H. P. Liddon, Christmastide Sermons, p. 306; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 115; W. Hay Aitken, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 26; J. P. Kingsland, Ibid., p. 123; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 423; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 272; C. Garrett, Loving Counsels, p. 63; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 153; J. Wells, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 48; G. Bersier, Sermons, 1st series, p. 269; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 9; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 218.
Rom 8:28-30
I. Five Divine acts, through each of which in regular succession the purpose of salvation advances to its accomplishment, are linked by St. Paul into one golden chain, of which one end is let down out of the unknown past, and the other returns to lose itself in the unknown future.
II. From first to last this magnificent chain of redemptive acts permits neither halt nor rupture. The secret counsel of His will holds in its bosom all those whom the future glory shall receive. This is the thought on which, by the structure of his sentence, St. Paul intended to lay stress, and with reason, since it is the thought which pledges to faith the security of the believer and the concurrence of all things for his final good.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 265.
References: Rom 8:28-39.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 93. Rom 8:29, Rom 8:30.—Homilist, vol. vi., p. 177. Rom 8:29.—H. Drummond, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 263; R. S. Candlish, The Fatherhood of God, p. 162. Rom 8:30.—M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 267; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 149. Rom 8:30.—Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 287. Rom 8:31.—Ibid., pp. 185, 189; Bishop Lightfoot, Church of England Pulpit, vol. v., p. 233; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 95.
Rom 8:31-39
There are Three Stages in this Challenge of Faith.
I. Who shall our accuser be? Nothing will stop the accuser’s mouth, but the one mighty act of God’s sovereign grace by which He acquits and justifies the sinner.
II. The adversary may accuse; condemn, he dare not. For Jesus, the Judge, is in His own person a threefold, fourfold answer to every charge against His people.
III. The Apostle flings down his glove to the forces of the world. What is his challenge but an echo to the calm strong words of the King?—"In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 273.
References: Rom 8:32.—Homilist, vol. vi., p. 341; W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 174; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross, p. 23; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 256; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 3114; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 8. Rom 8:33.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 210.
Rom 8:34
Mysteries in Religion—The Ascension.
I. Christ’s Ascension to the right hand of God is marvellous, because it is a sure token that heaven is a certain fixed place, and not a mere state. That bodily presence of the Saviour which the apostles handled is not here; it is elsewhere—it is in heaven. This contradicts the notion of cultivated and speculative minds and humbles the reason. Philosophy considers it more rational to suppose that Almighty God, as a Spirit, is in every place, and in no one place more than another. What is meant by ascending? Philosophers will say there is no difference between down and up, as regards the sky; yet, whatever difficulties the word may occasion, we can hardly take upon us to decide that it is a mere popular expression, consistently with the reverence due to the Sacred Record. When we have deduced what we deduce by our reason from the study of visible nature, and then read what we read in God’s inspired Word, and find the two apparently discordant, this is the feeling I think we ought to have in our minds: not an impatience to do what is beyond our powers, to weigh evidence, to sum up, balance, decide, and reconcile, to arbitrate between the two voices of God, but a sense of the utter nothingness of worms such as we are, of our plain and absolute incapacity to contemplate things as they really are, and perception of our emptiness before the great Vision of God.
II. Consider the doctrine which accompanies the fact of the Resurrection. Christ, we are told, has gone up on high "to present Himself before the face of God for us." Christ is within the veil. We must not search curiously what is His present office, what is meant by His pleading His sacrifice, and by His perpetual intercession for us. The Intercessor directs or stays the hand of the Unchangeable and Sovereign Governor of the world, being at once the meritorious cause and the earnest of the intercessory power of His brethren.
III. This departure of Christ and coming of the Holy Ghost leads our minds with great comfort to the thought of many lower dispensations of Providence towards us. He who according to His inscrutable will sent first His Co-equal Son, and then His Eternal Spirit, acts with deep counsel, which we may surely trust, when He sends from place to place those earthly instruments which carry on His purposes. This is a thought which is particularly soothing as regards the loss of friends; or of especially gifted men who seem in their day the earthly support of the Church. For what we know, their removal hence is as necessary for the furtherance of the very objects we have at heart as was the departure of our Saviour.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. ii., p. 206.
References: Rom 8:34.—R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 278; E. Johnson, Ibid., vol. xxv., p. 282; A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p. 55; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 112. Rom 8:35-39.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 113; Parker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 344; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, pp. 205-26. Rom 8:36.—Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 44; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 250.
Rom 8:37
The Gain of the Christian Conquerors.
I. Its nature. "We are more than conquerors." As I have said, the phrase implies that in the conquest itself is something greater than mere conquest—it is its own reward. To overcome temptation is better than to have had no temptation to grapple with, for the conquest, however hardly won, leaves the soul greater, stronger, and more blessed. (1) Every conquered temptation deepens our love to Christ, and thus we are more than conquerors. We come here on the track of that great law of the human soul, of the action of which all life is full—the law that the trial of principle is its true strengthening. Passion catches fire by antagonism, difficulties waken it into stormy majesty, and it makes them its servants. Men speak of the power of circumstances to hinder a Christian life; of course they have a power, but it is none the less true that a strong love makes the most adverse circumstances the grandest aid to its own progress. (2) The love of Christ to us is a pledge that our conquests will become our gains. The living Christ is watching the temptation, and He will take care that its issue is a greater glory than that which could have come from a life of perpetual repose. God will open hereafter the marvellous book of the human soul, and show how each struggle left its eternal inscription of glory there.
II. Its attainment. How shall we know that we are becoming more than conquerors? When the love of Christ is the strongest power in life and a progressive power.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 268.
Rom 8:37
The keynote of Easter is victory. The Church still strikes it in the services of the day. It may be very difficult for some of us to reach it. But it is so hard, that all other conquests, whatever they are, are by this victory vanquished. "We are more than conquerors."
I. Every miracle of Christ was done overflowingly. The lame men not only walked, but leapt. The wine which Jesus made for the wedding feast was more than almost any company could have consumed. The very fragments of His feeding are twelve basketsful. He supplies all wants, and then He is at all costs besides—"Whatsoever thou spendest more." Now, apply this to our Easter theme. Christ has placed our life far above the level of the life we had lost. We lost a garden, we have gained a heaven. "More than conquerors." Then, too, His seeming absence is only a more ubiquitous presence. He is richer, and none are poorer; He is exalted, and none are orphaned. The problem is solved—how there can be distance without separation—how the communion can be invisible and yet be more real than when eye meets eye and hand clasps hand, for He is more than conqueror.
II. The very same principle which is thus embodied in the death and sufferings of Christ operates in the experience of every believer. Every man who is in earnest about his salvation has found, and the more earnest he is the more he has found it, that he is placed to contend not only with flesh and blood, but also with Satan. In this great contest, what is God’s undertaking for His people? That they shall overcome? More than that. The power of Christ that is in you shall do what the presence of Christ always did when He walked the earth. Whenever walking this earth, an evil spirit met Christ, the evil spirit was afraid. And they shall be afraid of you. "More than conquerors."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 5th series, p. 99.
References: Rom 8:37.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 107; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, p. 249; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 114; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 112.
Rom 8:38-39
I. To live by the doctrine of Easter is to make that foresight of another world the standard by which we measure this world. Think of all pleasures, of all solicitations, of all pursuits as you will think of them then. A few years more, and how utterly indifferent you will be to the chief enjoyments of this world! You will be standing in the presence of Christ: how little you will care how successful you may have been, how rich you may have been, how admired, how delighted with abundance of applause! How absolutely nothing will seem the most important concerns of this life! But will all that has happened here seem nothing? No, indeed; Christ will remind us of the work which He gave us to do. A new mode of measuring all things shall then be taught us. A new balance shall be put into our hands. Nay, it is put into our hands now if we will but use it; but then we shall have no other. To live by the memory of the Resurrection is to begin at once to use this new estimate; to begin at once to declare ourselves soldiers of Christ, of Christ our conquering Captain, who shall lead us at last into the kingdom of light, and enable us to overcome whatever bars our passage.
II. Once more, to live by the doctrine of Easter is to have done with cowardice and half-heartedness. We make our victory a great deal more difficult than it ought to be by our want of courage. We shall meet with many failures between this and the grave, but we shall meet with fewer failures in proportion to our courage, for this kind of courage is but another form of faith, and faith can work any miracle whatever.
III. Lastly, to live by the doctrine of Easter is to fill your service with happiness. We often make our duties harder by thinking them hard. Cheerfulness in the service of Christ is one of the first requisites to make that service Christian.
Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, p. 14.
References: Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 9; A. Maclaren, The Secret of Power, p. 145; M. Rainsford, No Condemnation, pp. 256-63. Rom 9:3.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 331; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 109.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v5 Subdivision 4. (Rom 8:5-27.)
Subdivision 4. (Rom 8:5-27.)
The walk in the Spirit.
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The principles of a walk in the Spirit are now set before us. As already said, we shall still find the flesh present and in opposition. Conflict there is still, but captivity no more, and even conflict is, if I may say so, no more the normal condition of the Christian in this respect. Enjoying my own things, I find a sphere into which flesh cannot and will not enter. It was not in the third heavens that the apostle needed a thorn for the flesh: it was when he came down out of them. And true it is that we thus find ourselves in conflict, how much I need not say, but the Spirit of God has not set before us, as it were, the duty of conflict with the flesh or with its lusts. We are to "abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul." That is not the same as warring with them. If we are entangled, if our eyes have been allowed to rest upon something not of God, which has attracted them, then indeed there will be of necessity a struggle, but the being entangled was not a necessity, and it is a totally different thing to be reckoning oneself dead to sin and to be fighting it. We fight it when we have allowed it, when we have not been reckoning ourselves dead to it. There is, of course, a conflict with sin in the world around, a conflict which the Lord Himself had of necessity, because of what He was, but of which we are not speaking here. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood," says the apostle to the Hebrews, "fighting against sin;" but that, of course, is not the, sin in us, it is the sin which characterizes the world around us, the corruption which is in it through lust.
1. The first thing, therefore, that is now put before us is the governing power. "They that are according to flesh, mind the things of the flesh, and they that are according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit." The flesh seeks what is according to its mind, and the Spirit seeks what is according to His mind; but notice now, that these two are two companies. "They that are according to flesh" cannot, of course, be confounded with those that are according to the Spirit. The Spirit is for the Christian the One who has come to possess us in Christ’s name and for Him; and in Him we find a power which is not of ourselves, and which leaves us still and all the way through, in conscious weakness. This is a great necessity for us, that the power should be power which is fully available for us and yet which is not our own, for the realization of which we have to lean upon Another. It is when we are weak, then we are strong. The sense of weakness is most helpful to us every way. It not only checks all self-complacent thoughts, but it makes us realize in the strength which is constantly ministered to us, the continual care and love of God. We can promise ourselves nothing even yet as to ourselves, and we need not promise anything. We need only the assurance that the love which holds us fast has all things in its control, and that in Christ there is fulness for us from which we can draw at all times. Thus, as has already been said, the "I myself" has really disappeared. The knowledge of the new man is that Christ is all. Faith does not know itself, and its object is never self.
2. The opposition between the two, the Spirit and the flesh, is now put before us. "The mind of the flesh," not "the carnal mind" as if it were a fleeting condition, but what the flesh is in its character at all times, "is death." "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God"; that is death truly. Death is separation from the source of life, and the flesh is willingly separate. Thus then, it "is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be," and "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." "In the flesh" we find here, therefore, to be a spiritual condition, although it is related to the old creation place out of which we have passed. One who is in Christ cannot be in the flesh. On the other hand, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. How blessed a thing is such peace! At one with God, everything else is at one with us. All things of necessity, therefore, "work together for good to them that love" Him. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"
3. But immediately we are assured, "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." This which has put us in the condition here is not to be looked at as if it were possible to be absent from the child of God. We are immediately warned "if any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." There are no Christians that are not Christ’s, and here, in fact, we are assured that the Spirit of God is found in all who are such. He is the seal upon those who belong to God.
The word is not found here: we must look for it in Ephesians; but the idea is clearly expressed. A seal is the mark put upon what is one’s own, with the idea of inviolability attaching to it. The 144,000 sealed out of all the tribes of Israel in the book of Revelation are a sample of this. They are sealed on their foreheads, and we find afterwards that the Name of the Lamb and of His Father is written there, evidently the effect of the sealing. This Name is their preservative from the power of the locusts in the ninth chapter. "Seals were employed," says Kitto, "not for the purpose of impressing a device on wax, but in place of a sign manual to stamp the name of the owner upon any document to which he determined to fix it." The Lord expressly speaks of the descent of the Spirit upon Himself as His being sealed of God the Father. It was then, we know, that His being the Son was fully declared. The seal was the witness of emphatic approbation. In us it is also the token of sonship. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, but with us there cannot, of course, be the approbation of a condition in us, but rather of Him in whom we are recognized as standing before God. Thus, it is not by sealing that we are made to be in Christ. We must be in Christ in order to be sealed. God could not put His seal upon the least evil, the least taint of sin. We are in Christ, moreover, as the apostle says in the epistle to the Corinthians, by new creation. "If any one be in Christ, it is new creation"; and he adds, as what connects itself with it: "Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." As soon as ever the work begins in us, we belong to that new creation which abides in the value of its blessed Head before God; and thus alone could it be said that "old things are passed away." In Ephesians we find also that we are "created in Christ Jesus." Creation speaks of the divine work in us from the very beginning.
It is, however, said that in this case, the "none of His" should be rather "not of Him," which is confessedly the literal rendering; and that this refers to a condition not attained by all in whom divine work has begun. The way ill which simple belonging to Christ would be expressed, it is said, would be, "He is not to Him" instead of "of Him"; but in the second chapter of the second epistle to Timothy, we find the same expression exactly where most certainly the whole extent of those belonging to Him is intended to be expressed. "The Lord knoweth them that are His," "those that are of Him"; where, amid all the confusion of a day in which profession and reality are inextricably confused for us, the Lord yet unfailingly recognizes His own. Thus, in every way, it is clear that the seal marks out those who are children of God, and that therefore it can be fully said that if any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. There is no middle condition, however confused the experience may be, or dull the faith in a child of God.
Let us notice the way in which the Spirit is set before us here. First, it is the Spirit of God that dwells in us. Divine power thus keeps us for Him; but next, we have the Spirit of Christ, the One who glorifies Christ and who produces in us also a likeness to Him. Following this, we have, "If Christ be in you"; for the Spirit, in fact, as glorifying Christ, does not testify of Himself. It is not, therefore, the Spirit in you, but Christ in you. This, however, is the expression of life itself, as we have already seen abundantly in the Gospel of John. The Lord’s parable of the vine and the branches conveys to us fully the relation between one in Christ and Christ in him The branch is in the vine; as a consequence, the sap is in the branch. The sap is the life derived from the vine stock. So here, "Christ in you" is the expression of life; but then to this the Spirit alone gives its proper energy. We have already seen this fully in the experience of the seventh chapter, where, although life in fact is, yet it is not in its proper power. Thus, it is said here, that the Spirit is life. As we have seen all the way through here, the "I myself," as it were, drops out. It is the Spirit who is the governing power, the Leader; and the attitude of faith is that of entire dependence upon Him.
"If Christ be in you," then, the apostle says, "the body still is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." The body has not yet the effect of redemption manifested in it. It is not yet quickened. Quickening is to come. "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies on account of His Spirit who dwelleth in you." That is the redemption for which we wait. In the meanwhile, the body is to be reckoned simply as an instrument in the hands of the spiritual man. If it manifests its individual life that will be seen, and so the apostle speaks directly of our mortifying the deeds of the body. Not that the body and the flesh are the same thing: the flesh may include, as we have seen, spirit and soul, the whole man; and moreover, necessarily describes an evil condition. The body is not in itself evil, and spite of the condition in which it is yet found, it is in the body that the Spirit of God dwells. (See 1Co 6:19.) Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. We see fully how the work of Christ enables thus the taking up of that in which there is not yet the power of redemption. This will reflect again upon the experience that we have had in the previous chapter. If the Spirit can dwell in a body that is dead and that clearly through the work of Christ alone, in the same way the Spirit can dwell surely in one who is not yet in the mind of the Spirit, who needs to be delivered from the power of evil, the law of sin in his members. But "the body is dead on account of sin, while the Spirit is life on account of righteousness," -evidently the righteousness which the Spirit produces. Nothing but that which is righteous before God could possibly be counted "life." We go on to the coming of Christ for the deliverance: "He who raised up Christ from among the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies on account of His Spirit who dwelleth in you." The pledge has been given us in Christ’s own resurrection. Notice, however," that it is not exactly resurrection as to ourselves that is spoken of. Our "mortal bodies" implies a stage of the living and not of the dead, and quickening is that which delivers them from the state of mortality. The reason of this is plain. We are not taught, as people commonly put it, that we must all die. On the contrary, our proper state is to be waiting for the Lord. Thus here, the quickening of the mortal body refers distinctly to those who shall be living when He comes, and for them the Spirit who already dwells in the body, makes good His title to it in the most absolute way. The Spirit is, as we see all through, the earnest of that which is to come. Here then, is the complete answer to the question: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Complete deliverance is what we wait for and yet that does not in the least imply any necessity of sin in the present time. The presence of the Spirit in us is, of course, fulness of power over it, and the delivered man who is in the power of the Spirit works out the righteousness of the law. Whatever we may have to say with regard to ourselves, in fact, we have ever the responsibility of walking in the power of the Spirit, and therefore, as those free from the power of sin.
4. The practical test is now found here again. As we have seen, it is freedom that tests, not bondage. The slave does his master’s will; the freeman does his own; and yet even in the state of bondage which has been described to us, the will of the converted man is testified to be for God and good. Freedom is the only thing that is needed by him. The heart to serve God and to please Him he already has. Thus, amongst the professing people of God, freedom, as already said, is the test of reality. There is a way of life and a way of death. The gospel does not alter that, but, on the contrary confirms it. "So, then, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if ye live according to the flesh, ye are on the way to die." That is spoken absolutely: we have no need to qualify it in the least. If a man lives "according to the flesh," it does not say, "acts" at a given time, but if he lives, if that is the tenor of his life, "according to the flesh," then he is on the road to death. On the other hand, if a man has the Spirit, by the Spirit he mortifies the deeds of the body. The body is held for dead. It is used and can be fully used for God. There is not the least thought of asceticism in the apostle’s language here. God has no pleasure in a man’s ill-treating his body. On the contrary, it is meant to be maintained in vigor for the Lord who owns it, and yet it is to be the mere dead instrument, so to speak, of Another’s will. "If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." There is no other way. That marks out, as alone this can mark out, the sons of God.
But, notice the beautiful difference between what is said here upon the one side and upon the other. If men live according to the flesh, they are on the way to death. It does not say that they will die. God’s grace is always free to come in, but then if it comes in it takes one off the road to death; it does not speak in such a manner as if sin were of no consequence. On the other hand, if, by the Spirit, you mortify the deeds of the body, not, you are on the way to life, because there is no uncertainty about the result, but "you shall live." Of course, the full and final result is intended there. We live at the present time and we shall go on to live forever. Thus then, the sons of God are marked out. We are called to enforce the condition which the apostle has made so absolute, whatever we may speak of grace or of faith, -and we cannot enforce these too absolutely when we are speaking of them, -yet, on the other hand, we must be just as absolute as to the way of life and the way of death. We have no right, whatever the profession may be, to consider any one as a son of God whose life does not mark him out as devoted to God.
5. But then the spirit of all this has to be carefully kept in mind. What the apostle has said might tend to produce a spirit of bondage -the fear of the result, of the issue, in unestablished souls, -but he says: "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear." Legality is not at all what is implied here, and it does not and cannot produce the holiness which it claims and seeks; nor can it secure for itself the final result. Take our Lord’s words, for instance, in proof of this. "Whosoever will save His life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it." There is the condition, the marking out, as here, of the way of life and the way of death. But it is not simply, whosoever will lose his life shall save it, but "whosoever will lose his life for My sake." Clearly that is not the legal principle. As long as a man doubts his final security, he will, of necessity, be working for himself, but that is not "for My sake." The legal gospel, whatever spice of legality may come into it, is so far unholy, and can be nothing but unholy. We live as Christians, not to ourselves, but to Him who died for us and rope again"; but there is a religious way of living to one’s self which is just as fully that as any course of sin and self-indulgence. Thus here, therefore, we are expressly told that there is no spirit of fear for the Christian, but, on the other hand, we have received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, "Abba, Father." It is the heart renewed and realizing the power of the grace of God which "teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." The witness of the Spirit with our spirit, therefore, is dwelt upon here. A double witness; there is the witness of our own spirit, and that is implied, here in the first place. The spirit of man is that which makes him an intelligent being. "No one knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him." Here, therefore, the testimony of the Word, as understood and received is that which is really implied. The apostle has been in the fullest way unfolding to us this testimony, and we are not left merely, as it were, to reasoning out things; we are not left merely to our own intelligence in the matter; nor even simply to faith. We need that which is more powerful than this, and we have it in that witness of the Spirit with our spirit, which indeed, we may be little able to distinguish from the witness produced by faith in the gospel, but which gives divine power to this witness. The witness of the Spirit in this way produces a full consciousness of what God is to us, while, at the same time it is founded and must be founded upon the word of God itself. We must have the Word in proof, or we are entitled to nothing. The Spirit of God acts from and with the Word, never sets it aside, and therefore whatever "feeling" there may be, as people are accustomed to say, all this can be questioned. If it is not justified by the word of God itself, it will not do to talk of the witness of the Spirit. The two, therefore, come together, the Spirit of God and our spirit. Faith receives God’s testimony in the Word, and the Spirit of God joins to this a divine power which otherwise it would not have. We cry, "Abba, Father"; we serve with the joyful consciousness that we serve as children, -the most absolute service that can possibly be; for the Father has entire claim to His child; but at the same time where there is, as in this case there must of necessity be, the true affection of children, the service is itself liberty.
Thus then, the Spirit bears witness that we are the children of God; but immense consequences follow. If children, we are heirs. As with regard to God, this might be even thought to be out of place. We inherit from our parents that which is left us when they pass away; but God never passes away. How are we to be His heirs? Only He, Himself, could have inspired such a thought as this. If we want to realize what it means, we have a beautiful example of it in the case of Israel, whose land is expressly claimed to be God’s land. They are to be pilgrims and sojourners with Him, thus put into possession on His part, to hold that which is nevertheless His. How perfect the security that is given in this way to their possession of it! When they shall hold it after this manner, how impossible for them to lose it again, and even now the land being God’s renders it absolutely impossible that any failure on their part can disturb His purposes with regard to it. They might forfeit it. If it were left to them, they surely would, altogether; but God cannot forfeit it, and if He puts them in possession of that which is His own, then they have an unfailing right to that possession. So with regard to our higher and more wonderful inheritance. We are heirs of God. The things that He has created, He has not created for Himself. He has no need of them. His whole heart goes with the gift of them to His people, yet so that in the sense in which we have spoken, the things inherited remain always God’s, while we possess and enjoy them fully. There is another thing added here. We are joint heirs with Christ. How wonderfully does this certify to us the extent of the inheritance! Christ is the heir of all things, and to be joint heirs with Christ gives, as one may say, the thought of a limitless inheritance; but not merely so, it assures us of the perfect way in which Christ abides still and ever the Man Christ Jesus. He means to associate us with Himself for ever. The joy of the inheritance will be the joy of being associated with Christ in it.
But then immediately there comes in what may seem to be a condition; "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him." Suffering then is necessary to glory, but surely not in any sense as a legal condition, -the suffering with Him, not mere suffering in itself, but suffering with Him, suffering as He suffered in the world which was contrary to Him entirely, suffering because of the knowledge of God and joy in Him which were His ever, in view of evil and all its consequences: this, on our part, is the necessary training for that association with Him, of which our being joint heirs speaks. We are preparing to have fully His mind, learning in the midst of evil, learning what evil is in its Ml character even in ourselves, as we have already seen. In ourselves we are brought into the closest possible connection with it, surely that we may realize forever its nature, that we may hate it as God hates it, and that we may be fully competent to walk with Him who has solved in His own person the whole question of good and evil, and who is the glorious Conqueror over sin by suffering. Thus then, our present lives have a meaning with reference to the future which we must never lose sight of. The suffering by the way is part of our very need, in order that we may be fit for the coming glory. But, as already said, we must not think of this as mere suffering, but, as with Christ Himself, that which was most truly such to Him sprang out of the very joy that He had in God (we are not speaking of atonement now, or that which was necessary for it), -so for us, suffering must have this character. It must put us ever in fellowship with Him in order to be of any value.
6. Immediately upon this, the apostle goes on to speak more at large of the character of the present time for us. It is a time of travail. Creation itself is groaning in the bondage of corruption. It waits for liberty. It waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Connected with man as its head, the fall of man has brought about this groaning condition. Notice that in himself man is a microcosm. He has the soul of the beast. He has the very dust of the earth in him. He is linked in the fullest possible way with creation throughout, and how blessed it is to realize that in this way Christ, in taking humanity, has linked Himself even, one may say, with the very material universe. How this assures us that it cannot lie under the condition which the fall has produced. There is yet to be a liberty for it. The liberty of grace it could not enjoy, but the liberty of the glory it shall enjoy.
The typical character which we find everywhere in nature connects itself with all this. It is a remarkable thing that even before man was upon the earth, death seems to have reigned in it, and that this for the lower creation is in no wise (chronologically) the effect of the fall. Man was created in a world which, so to Speak, prophesied of that fall itself and was prepared for him by the goodness of God in view of it. Thus, if you look at nature, you will find not a condition such as we would imagine. Strife and evil (not moral evil, surely) are in every part of it; and thus alone could it present to man the lessons which he needs, but of which, alas, he is so little heedful. The witness of Christ in creation comes in in this connection. God has given us, in the most abundant way thus, a testimony of nature itself, which does not leave out His purposes of grace, but, on the contrary, bears fullest. witness to them. Natural theology has been, alas, but too much divorced from this. Nature has been supposed simply to bear witness in the characters of design which are everywhere in it, of a Maker, a Creator. A Saviour has been supposed to be what lies beyond its testimony; but thus it has been made, if one may so say, more pagan than Christian. How could God Himself be rightly expressed in it, if Christ be not expressed? But this, as already said, involves the very evil and strife winch we find in it. God has in all this, wrought for us, and nature is linked with us in its present groanings, as it will by and by be linked with us also in its redemption.
"For we, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption," that is, the full manifestation of what we are as sons of God, now hidden. That involves the body being glorified. We wait, therefore, for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body. The firstfruits of the Spirit would seem to imply that after all what we possess in this way is but a pledge in anticipation of that which is to come, and we who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, on that very account, are made to groan. The hope we have of a condition so different from the present makes us only the more groan over the present. Our salvation is in hope, as to the full character of it. Of course, there is a salvation of which we can say already that God hath saved us. If it be a question simply of guilt and condemnation, then we are already completely saved; but salvation is very commonly looked at in a very different way from this, and it implies deliverance of the body itself and the fulfilment of all God’s purposes as to us. We are saved now in hope, but then that means that we have not got before us that which we hope for. If we behold it, how can we still hope for it? "If we hope for what we behold not, then do we with patience wait for it." How beautiful a thought it is that this hope is so perfect, there is such complete assurance with regard to it, that the not having it only produces patience in us -not doubt, but patience! All human hopes may possibly disappoint, but die hope which God has given us is as sure as if we already possessed it. We wait with patience, and the patience itself is holy discipline for us. We wait upon His will, but all that He can give us in the way of assurance is already ours.
7. We have now finally, in this part, the Spirit Himself entering into this groaning condition. The Spirit joins His help to our infirmity. In such a condition of trial and sorrow, our weakness is made fully evident, but that only opens to us more the heart of God and produces in us a healthful dependence upon Him every step of the way. Notice, therefore, that in connection with the Spirit helping our infirmities, prayer is that upon which the apostle dwells. Prayer is the expression of dependence. It is the expression of the creature-place which we have with God. It is the expression, also, if it be that which can rightly be called prayer, of our confidence in God. Prayer is thus, as one may say, a large part of the Christian life, or rather, it is that which links itself with every part of it. If the Lord, in the sermon on the mount, would give us a special example of righteousness Godward, He illustrates this by prayer; but the very prayer itself manifests our infirmity. We do not know even what to pray for as we ought. How blessed to know that here we have a divine Intercessor; as we have Christ before God for us, so we have the Spirit of God in us, and He makes intercession for us according to God. The prayer that He makes is, of course, absolutely according to God; yet as wrought in our hearts it may be on that very account simply a groaning which cannot be uttered intelligibly, -a wonderful thing to realize that these groanings which are the evidence of our own infirmity may, nevertheless, be the fruit of the Spirit within us; that in the ear of God they may speak intelligently, and in absolute accordance with His mind concerning us. We do not know what to pray for, and yet we pray; and God who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, little as we may know it and blunder as we may. "He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." That does not mean simply that it is God’s will that He should make the intercession, as our common version might lead some to suppose, but that the intercession itself, as being; His, is of necessity in complete accordance with His thought and character. We are not, however, to suppose by all this, that the Spirit’s prayer is simply groaning. The groaning accompanies the prayer and is part of the prayer. "With groanings that cannot be uttered." Nevertheless, these groanings express, as it were, after all, that which is higher in character, it may be, than the very prayers themselves, however intelligent. Our intelligence fails to accompany them. They go beyond it. But if they go beyond it, all the more they express the power of the Spirit in them -of Him who has come to join His help to our infirmities, and to carry us along the lighted road which leads to God.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 16, 17, 19, 23, 26
Romans
‘THY FREE SPIRIT’
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Rom 8:2.
We have to distinguish two meanings of law. In the stricter sense, it signifies the authoritative expressions of the will of a ruler proposed for the obedience of man; in the wider, almost figurative sense, it means nothing more than the generalised expression of constant similar facts. For instance, objects attract one another in certain circumstances with a force which in the same circumstances is always the same. When that fact is stated generally, we get the law of gravitation. Thus the word comes to mean little more than a regular process. In our text the word is used in a sense much nearer the latter than the former of these two. ‘The law of sin and of death’ cannot mean a series of commandments; it certainly does not mean the Mosaic law. It must either be entirely figurative, taking sin and death as two great tyrants who domineer over men; or it must mean the continuous action of these powers, the process by which they work. These two come substantially to the same idea. The law of sin and of death describes a certain constancy of operation, uniform and fixed, under the dominion of which men are struggling. But there is another constancy of operation, uniform and fixed too, a mighty antagonistic power, which frees from the dominion of the former: it is ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.’
I. The bondage.
The Apostle is speaking about himself as he was, and we have our own consciousness to verify his transcript of his own personal experience. Paul had found that, by an inexorable iron sequence, sin worked in himself the true death of the soul, in separation from God, in the extinction of good and noble capacities, in the atrophying of all that was best in himself, in the death of joy and peace. And this iron sequence he, with an eloquent paradox, calls a ‘law,’ though its very characteristic is that it is lawless transgression of the true law of humanity. He so describes it, partly, because he would place emphasis on its dominion over us. Sin rules with iron sway; men madly obey it, and even when they think themselves free, are under a bitter tyranny. Further, he desires to emphasise the fact that sin and death are parts of one process which operates constantly and uniformly. This dark anarchy and wild chaos of disobedience and transgression has its laws. All happens there according to rule. Rigid and inevitable as the courses of the stars, or the fall of the leaf from the tree, is sin hurrying on to its natural goal in death. In this fatal dance, sin leads in death; the one fair spoken and full of dazzling promises, the other in the end throws off the mask, and slays. It is true of all who listen to the tempting voice, and the deluded victim ‘knows not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depth of hell.’
II. The method of deliverance.
The previous chapter sounded the depths of human impotence, and showed the tragic impossibility of human efforts to strip off the poisoned garment. Here the Apostle tells the wonderful story of how he himself was delivered, in the full rejoicing confidence that what availed for his emancipation would equally avail for every captived soul. Because he himself has experienced a divine power which breaks the dreadful sequence of sin and of death, he knows that every soul may share in the experience. No mere outward means will be sufficient to emancipate a spirit; no merely intellectual methods will avail to set free the passions and desires which have been captured by sin. It is vain to seek deliverance from a perverted will by any republication, however emphatic, of a law of duty. Nothing can touch the necessities of the case but a gift of power which becomes an abiding influence in us, and develops a mightier energy to overcome the evil tendencies of a sinful soul.
That communicated power must impart life. Nothing short of a Spirit of life, quick and powerful, with an immortal and intense energy, will avail to meet the need. Such a Spirit must give the life which it possesses, must quicken and bring into action dormant powers in the spirit that it would free. It must implant new energies and directions, new motives, desires, tastes, and tendencies. It must bring into play mightier attractions to neutralise and deaden existing ones; as when to some chemical compound a substance is added which has a stronger affinity for one of the elements, a new thing is made.
Paul’s experience, which he had a right to cast into general terms and potentially to extend to all mankind, had taught him that such a new life for such a spirit had come to him by union with Jesus Christ. Such a union, deep and mystical as it is, is, thank God, an experience universal in all true Christians, and constitutes the very heart of the Gospel which Paul rejoiced to believe was entrusted to his hands for the world. His great message of ‘Christ in us’ has been wofully curtailed and mangled when his other message of ‘Christ for us’ has been taken, as it too often has been, to be the whole of his Gospel. They who take either of these inseparable elements to be the whole, rend into two imperfect halves the perfect oneness of the Gospel of Christ.
We are often told that Paul was the true author of Christian doctrine, and are bidden to go back from him to Jesus. If we do so, we hear His grave sweet voice uttering in the upper-room the deep words, ‘I am the Vine, ye are the branches’; and, surely, Paul is but repeating, without metaphor, what Christ, once for all, set forth in that lovely emblem, when he says that ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.’ The branches in their multitude make the Vine in its unity, and the sap which rises from the deep root through the brown stem, passes to every tremulous leaf, and brings bloom and savour into every cluster. Jesus drew His emblem from the noblest form of vegetative life; Paul, in other places, draws his from the highest form of bodily life, when he points to the many members in one body, and the Head which governs all, and says, ‘So also is Christ.’ In another place he points to the noblest form of earthly love and unity. The blessed fellowship and sacred oneness of husband and wife are an emblem sweet, though inadequate, of the fellowship in love and unity of spirit between Christ and His Church.
And all this mysterious oneness of life has an intensely practical side. In Jesus, and by union with Him, we receive a power that delivers from sin and arrests the stealthy progress of sin’s follower, death. Love to Him, the result of fellowship with Him, and the consequence of life received from Him, becomes the motive which makes the redeemed heart delight to do His will, and takes all the power out of every temptation. We are in Him, and He in us, on condition, and by means, of our humble faith; and because my faith thus knits me to Him it is ‘the victory that overcomes the world’ and breaks the chains of many sins. So this communion with Jesus Christ is the way by which we shall increase that triumphant spiritual life, which is the only victorious antagonist of the else inevitable consequence which declares that the ‘soul that sinneth it shall die,’ and die even in sinning.
III. The process of the deliverance.
Following the R. V. we read ‘made me free,’ not ‘hath made me.’ The reference is obviously, as the Greek more clearly shows, to a single historical event, which some would take to be the Apostle’s baptism, but which is more properly supposed to be his conversion. His strong bold language here does not mean that he claims to be sinless. The emancipation is effected, although it is but begun. He holds that at that moment when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and he yielded to Him as Lord, his deliverance was real, though not complete. He was conscious of a real change of position in reference to that law of sin and of death. Paul distinguishes between the true self and the accumulation of selfish and sensual habits which make up so much of ourselves. The deeper and purer self may be vitalised in will and heart, and set free even while the emancipation is not worked out in the life. The parable of the leaven applies in the individual renewal; and there is no fanaticism, and no harm, in Paul’s point of view, if only it be remembered that sins by which passion and externals overbear my better self are mine in responsibility and in consequences. Thus guarded, we may be wholly right in thinking of all the evils which still cleave to the renewed Christian soul as not being part of it, but destined to drop away.
And this bold declaration is to be vindicated as a prophetic confidence in the supremacy and ultimate dominion of the new power which works even through much antagonism in an imperfect Christian. Paul, too, calls ‘things that are not as though they were.’ If my spirit of life is the ‘Spirit of life in Christ,’ it will go on to perfection. It is Spirit, therefore it is informing and conquering the material; it is a divine Spirit, therefore it is omnipotent; it is the Spirit of life, leading in and imparting life like itself, which is kindred with it and is its source; it is the Spirit of life in Christ, therefore leading to life like His, bringing us to conformity with Him because the same causes produce the same effects; it is a life in Christ having a law and regular orderly course of development. So, just as if we have the germ we may hope for fruit, and can see the infantile oak in the tightly-shut acorn, or in the egg the creature which shall afterwards grow there, we have in this gift of the Spirit, the victory. If we have the cause, we have the effects implicitly folded in it; and we have but to wait further development.
The Christian life is to be one long effort, partial, and gradual, to unfold the freedom possessed. Paul knew full well that his emancipation was not perfect. It was, probably, after this triumphant expression of confidence that he wrote, ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.’ The first stage is the gift of power, the appropriation and development of that power is the work of a life; and it ought to pass through a well-marked series and cycle of growing changes. The way to develop it is by constant application to the source of all freedom, the life-giving Spirit, and by constant effort to conquer sins and temptations. There is no such thing in the Christian conflict as a painless development. We must mortify the deeds of the body if we are to live in the Spirit. The Christian progress has in it the nature of a crucifixion. It is to be effort, steadily directed for the sake of Christ, and in the joy of His Spirit, to destroy sin, and to win practical holiness. Homely moralities are the outcome and the test of all pretensions to spiritual communion.
We are, further, to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, by ‘waiting for the Redemption,’ which is not merely passive waiting, but active expectation, as of one who stretches out a welcoming hand to an approaching friend. Nor must we forget that this accomplished deliverance is but partial whilst upon earth. ‘The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.’ But there may be indefinite approximation to complete deliverance. The metaphors in Scripture under which Christian progress is described, whether drawn from a conflict or a race, or from a building, or from the growth of a tree, all suggest the idea of constant advance against hindrances, which yet, constant though it is, does not reach the goal here. And this is our noblest earthly condition-not to be pure, but to be tending towards it and conscious of impurity. Hence our tempers should be those of humility, strenuous effort, firm hope. We are as slaves who have escaped, but are still in the wilderness, with the enemies’ dogs baying at our feet; but we shall come to the land of freedom, on whose sacred soil sin and death can never tread.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The New Life in Cheist in relation to God…
The New Life in Cheist in relation to God and the Spirit
It was shown in Rom_5:12. that condemnation for the guilt of sin is done away by justification through faith in Christ. The question as to the power of sin then arose, answered by the doctrine of sanctification in Romans 6-8. In Romans 6 it is asserted that the union of the Christian with Christ is a new condition, which involves death with Him to sin and resurrection to newness of life. In Romans 7 it is made clear that there is no force in the Law to break the power of sin. Now, in Romans 8, St. Paul brings forward the truth of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which accompanies union with Christ, conquering sin and death in the Christian (Rom_8:1-11), and bearing witness that he is child and heir of God (Rom_8:12-17). Hence the Christian has such hope of glory that he can bear his sufferings (Rom_8:18-25), in which the Spirit helps him by intercession (Rom_8:26-27), and which are bringing about God's purpose of good (Rom_8:28-30). In the security of that purpose he triumphs (Rom_8:31-39).
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1-11. The Christian is sanctified as well as justified. In Christ he receives the Spirit, who frees him from the power of sin and of death (Rom_8:1-2). The object of the death of Christ was not only to win pardon for man, but also to produce right character and conduct (Rom_8:3-4). This is essential, and is brought about by the indwelling of the Spirit (Rom_8:5-9). The change means life, of spirit now and of body hereafter (Rom_8:10-11).
Paraphrase. '(1) The deliverance spoken of (cp. Rom_7:25) for those who are united to Christ (2) is brought about by the power of the life-giving Spirit, whom they received by union with Christ, which freed them from the power of sin and death. (3) The Law could not overcome sin, because man's fleshly nature could not respond to its demands. But God, by the incarnation and atonement of His Son, sealed the death-warrant of sin in the flesh, (4) with the object of producing in us that character and conduct which the Law requires, by enabling us to live by the rule of the renewed spiritual nature. (5) There are two states of life, the difference between which is wide. According as the fleshly or the spiritual nature is the ruling power, so are men engrossed either with fleshly or with spiritual things; (6) either they are in a state of separation from God, which ends in death both of soul and body, or they have joyful communion with God and a happy sense of reconciliation with Him. (7) Death must be the portion of the mind set on fleshly things, because such a mind is in a state of hostility to God, being rebellious against His Law. (8) They, therefore over whom the fleshly nature rules cannot be acceptable to God. (9) But you, who are in Christ, are not so. Not the fleshly, but the spiritual nature rules over you, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. And unless you have Him you are not Christ's, for it is by the Spirit that Christ comes to you. (10) But if Christ does dwell in you, although your body must die because of the curse of sin, your spirit has already risen into new life because you are accepted in Christ. (11) And the Spirit within you is a pledge that God will cause your bodies also to participate in Christ's Resurrection.'
1. Who walk, etc.] RV omits: probably borrowed from Rom_8:4.
2. Law of sin, etc.] cp. Rom_7:23, Rom_7:24.
3. Likeness of, etc.] Christ took real 'flesh,' i.e. human nature, cp. Joh_1:14, but without its sinfulness, cp. Heb_4:15. For sin] RV 'as an offering for sin.' Condemned sin in the flesh] (1) Christ proved, by a sinless human life, that sin is not necessary to human nature;(2) Christ made expiation for sin on our behalf;(3) Christ made it possible for us to die with Him to sin and rise with Him to newness of life, by union in love with Him, and by the power of the Spirit.
4. Righteousness] RV 'ordinance.'
5. Things of the flesh] i.e. things merely human: cp. Mat_16:23 merely earthly: cp. Mar_4:19; Php_3:19 or absolutely sinful: cp. Gal_5:19.
6. To be carnally minded.. spiritually minded] RV 'the mind of the flesh.. the mind of the spirit.'
7. Carnal mind] RV 'mind of the flesh.'
8. In the flesh] cp. Rom_7:5. Please God] cp. Mal_3:4.
9. Dwell] cp. Joh_14:17. Spirit of Christ] The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, because He comes from the Son as well as from the Father. Also His Presence is in effect the Presence of Christ: cp. Rom_8:10 Joh_14:16.; Gal_4:6.
12-17. Let us live in accordance with the high position which the Spirit testifies is ours, namely, that we are God's sons and heirs with Christ of glory.
Paraphrase. '(12) Such a destiny involves the duty (13) of putting to death the impulses of the fleshly nature, by submitting yourself to your renewed spiritual nature. If you do so, you will live eternally, (14) an amazing destiny, but yours as sons of God. For you are shown to be sons of God by your following the guidance of God's Spirit, (15) and by the testimony of your own spirits, which, when you became Christians, no longer regarded God with the slavish fear the Law produced, but received such a consciousness of sonship that the prayer of our hearts is “our Father.” (16) And this consciousness is caused by the Holy Spirit Himself, who thus unites with our own spirits in bearing witness that we are children of God. (17) Well, then, if we are God's children, we are heirs of His glory, and shall share it with Christ hereafter if we share in Christ's sufferings now.'
13. Shall die] RV 'must die,' i.e. spiritually.
Deeds of the body] i.e. so far as the body is not under the dominion of the spirit.
14. Sons] cp. Rom_8:16, 'children.' 'Children' denotes 'community of nature,' 'sons' denotes 'dignity of heirship' (Westcott): cp. Joh_1:12; Gal_3:24.; Gal_4:1.; The privilege of sonship must be appropriated by faithful obedience to become actual.
15. Adoption] cp. Gal_4:5, Gal_4:6. Abba, Father] cp. Mar_14:36; Gal_4:6. 'Abba' is an Aramaic word, meaning 'Father.' Probably Christ used it in the Lord's Prayer, and perhaps it came to be used as a divine name, 'Father Abba.'
17. Heirs] Under Roman law, 'a will that left the property away from the children was invalid' (Ramsay). If so be, etc.] cp. 2Ti_2:11., and Mar_8:34. Col_1:24; 1Pe_4:13. Christ is 'the Way'; the main features of His life must be reproduced in the lives of His people.
18-25. The glory to come will far outweigh the sufferings we must bear now. All creation is moving on through the mystery of pain to full redemption, our hope of which is so sure that we can wait in patience.
Paraphrase. '(18) I said we must suffer with Christ. Suffering belongs to this passing season, but it is not worth a thought in view of the coming glory (19) in which the sons of God will stand revealed. Even nature, animate and inanimate, eagerly expects that blessed future. (20) Although God subjected her to imperfection and decay, to further His purposes, it was not to be for ever. He gave her a sure hope (21) of future deliverance from the law of decay, and of sharing the freedom from all evil which God's children will have in glory. (22.) She groans, indeed, but in the birth-throes of a better order of things. (23) And even we Christians, though we have the Spirit as a foretaste of blessedness, groan under the weakness and imperfections of our bodies; but we await the full dignity of our sonship, when our bodies shall be delivered from death. (24) When we became Christ's we looked to the future for perfect happiness; we cannot expect to have it now. (25) But we have certain hope of it, and, therefore, wait and endure.'
18. In us] RV 'to usward.' 19, 20, 21. Creature] RV 'creation,' i.e. the irrational creation: cp. Gen_3:17. St. Paul represents nature poetically, as feeling that dissatisfaction with its pain and failure which exists in man's mind. There was a general expectation among the Jews, based on such passages as Isa_65:17. that the Messianic times would usher in a renovation of nature. This expectation is taken up in the NT.: cp. Act_3:19.; Col_1:20; 2Pe_3:13; Rev_21:1. In what way it will be fulfilled is beyond our knowledge.
19. Manifestation] RV 'revealing': cp. 1Co_15:51.; 1Th_4:16.;
20. Vanity] i.e. transitoriness, frustration: cp. Sir_11:2. Him] i.e. God: cp. Gen_3:17;
20, 21. Hath subjected, etc.] RV 'subjected it, in hope that the creation,' etc.
21. Glorious liberty] RV 'liberty of the glory.'
23. Firstfruits] cp. Lev_23:10; 2Co_1:22; Eph_1:13. Groan] cp. 2Co_5:2.;
24. We are saved] RV 'by hope were we saved'; better, 'in hope,' etc.: see on Rom_1:16. Hope that is seen] here 'hope' means that which is hoped for.
For what, etc.] RV 'for who hopeth for that which he seeth?'
25. Patience] i.e. patient endurance.
26-30. While the Christian endures his sufferings in hope, the Spirit within is praying for him, better than he can pray himself (Rom_8:26-27). Meanwhile he knows that his sufferings are helping to bring about that great and good purpose, in fulfilment of which God has brought him into a state of salvation (Rom_8:28-30).
Paraphrase. '(26) Thus we both groan and hope. We cannot pray definitely for the removal of our sufferings, because we do not know what is best. But the Spirit prays within us in inexpressible longings, (27) which God understands, and which are (as our words might not be) in accordance with His will. (28) And this we do know, that all things, even our sufferings, are helping to fulfil a plan by which God is bringing about good to them that love Him. We know this, because it was in pursuance of His purpose that He called them to become Christians; (29) and the whole course of their salvation is due to His purpose; by which in eternity He regarded them with favour, and appointed them to attain to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the eldest in a glorious family, (30) then, called them to be His, accepted them as righteous, and brought them to glory.'
26. Infirmities] RV 'infirmity,' i.e. 'our ignorance in asking.' What.. for] RV 'how we should pray': cp. Php_1:22.; Itself] RV 'himself'; spoken of as a Person and distinct from the Father.
27. Because] RM 'that.' Saints] i.e. God's people: see on Rom_1:7.
28. Called] see on Rom_1:6. According to his purpose] cp. Rom_9:11.
St. Paul does not say that Gods purpose is to save some and reject others, but 'that he might have mercy upon all' (Rom_11:32). In pursuance of this purpose first the Jews, and then Christians, specially Gentile Christians, were called to hold and spread the divine knowledge. Among those who had been called were those to whom the Epistle was addressed. St. Paul encourages them in their trials by the thought that God would not forsake those who had been so called by Him, and that, as to His favour, they were safe. On the other hand, he does not say that they could not rebel against God or forsake Him. On the contrary, he warns them against such presumptuous thoughts (Rom_11:20.).
29. Foreknow] For paraphrase cp. Psa_1:6; Amo_3:2; Mat_7:23. Did predestinate] RV 'foreordained': cp. Act_4:28; 1Co_2:7; Eph_1:5, Eph_1:11.
Conformed] i.e. in essential type: cp. Php_2:6; Image] cp. 1Co_15:49; 2Co_3:18; Php_3:21; 1Jn_3:2. Brethren] cp. Heb_2:10.
30. Did predestinate] RV 'foreordained.'
Glorified] That which to us is future, is already complete in God's mind: cp. Eph_2:4.
31-39. Since the Christian is the object of the divine love and work spoken of in the last section, he need fear no evil.
Paraphrase. '(31) We may, therefore, face the future triumphantly, for God is on our side, (32) and the love which sacrificed His own Son will withhold from us nothing. (33) God's chosen need fear no accuser. Since He has acquitted, (34) none can condemn them. Since Christ, in His death and life and glory, has proved His love for them, (35) neither suffering nor death can part us from that love. (36) Even though we be martyred, like the faithful few of old, (37) His love will make martyrdom a surpassing victory. (38, 39) In short, no power in the universe will be able to part us from the divine love Christ has for us.'
32. Spared] allusion to Gen_22:16, where LXX has the same word.
33. Elect] i.e. chosen, practically = 'called.' It is God] cp. Isa_50:8.
34. Intercession] cp. Heb_7:25; 1Ti_2:1.
36. Quotation from Psa_44:22.
38. Principalities, powers] Jewish titles of angels, here evil angels: cp. Eph_6:12; 1Pe_3:22
39. In Christ] Christ's love is a manifestation of God's love.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–27 [This chapter describes, as Meyer says, "the happy condition…
[This chapter describes, as Meyer says, "the happy condition of a man in Christ," and is, as Tholuck observes, "the climax of this Epistle."] There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus .
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 10, 13, 16, 23 who walk
who walk
The statement ends with "Christ Jesus"; the last ten words are interpolated.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. In Christ; no Condemnation but Deliverance. (Rom 8:1-4.)
CHAPTER 8
1. In Christ; no Condemnation but Deliverance. (Rom 8:1-4.)
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2. Flesh and Spirit. (Rom 8:5-8.)
3. The Body and the Spirit. (Rom 8:9-11.)
4. Sons and Heirs of God. (Rom 8:12-17.)
5. The Time of Travail and Groaning; the Future Redemption. (Rom 8:18-25.)
6. The intercession of the Spirit. (Rom 8:26-27.)
7. The Saints Calling; the Challenge and the Assurance. (Rom 8:28-39.)
Rom 8:1-4.
We have reached the mountain-top of this great Epistle. What man is in the flesh and under the law has been fully demonstrated. “The flesh profiteth nothing” (Joh 6:63). The law cannot give power to deliver, but only produces wretchedness, and, as we saw, deliverance must come from another. “Power belongeth unto God” (Psa 62:11); the power of deliverance must come from God. And this was the triumphant note in the previous chapter. “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And now we see the believer in Christ Jesus, free from all condemnation, free from the law of sin and death, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, a child of God, an heir of God and joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is the contrasted statement of the privileges, the capacities, the security, and the prospects of the Christians as having the Spirit, that is here presented as the divinely wrought counterpart of the preceding description of man “as carnal, sold under sin.” The proof and witness of human wretchedness is the Law. The title and measure of Christian blessedness is Christ. “As alive in Christ the believer is estimated, not according to the variable standard of his own emotions, but according to the eternal fixedness of Divine truth now realized and established in the person of Christ before God” (Pridham on Romans).
The first statement assures the believer in Christ that there is for him no more condemnation. In Christ Jesus, in identification with Him who died for our sins and is risen from the dead, in whom we have died and have life, in such a position condemnation is no longer possible, because nothing is left to be condemned. There can be no condemnation for those who are united to a risen Christ; as He is so are we. And this most blessed assurance is unconditional.
The words “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” as they appear in the Authorized version must be omitted here; they have been proven to be an interpolation. We find them at the close of the fourth verse, which is the proper place for them.
But what makes the believer in Christ Jesus free from the law of sin and death, which is in his members? The second verse answers this question. “For the law of the Spirit, of life in Christ Jesus, hath set me free from the law of sin and death.” The law of sin and death has lost its power by another law; the law of the Spirit is that of life in Christ Jesus. It means that the Spirit’s law is that we are, as believers, for everything, for all things, dependent on Christ. In Him are all our springs and resources. He is our life and His life is in us. We are one with Him. To appropriate this in faith, identifying ourselves with Christ as God has done it, giving Him the preeminence, glorifying Him--this gives power and deliverance. And the Spirit, the Spirit of holiness and power is also given to the believer; He dwells in Him. If the believer then walks according to the law of the Spirit, that is in Christ, we are made free from the law of sin and death. The righteousness of the law can in this way be fulfilled in us. But there is a condition. We must walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. What is the walk according to the Spirit? It is not self-occupation, nor even occupation with the Holy Spirit. Walking according to the Spirit is occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ. If the believer ever looks to Christ, depends on Him, draws all he needs from Him, if Christ is His all--then the believer walks according to the Spirit. Then there is power over the old nature and the righteousness, demanded by the law is being fulfilled. And we must not overlook the fact that God’s love is mentioned in this blessed unfolding of our deliverance in Christ. The law was weak, it could not get its righteous requirements fulfilled, on account of the flesh, the fallen nature of man. Then God came in. “God sending His own Son in likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh.” It points us once more to the cross.
“He has sent His own Son in ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’ as the cross manifests Him, but there for sin, our sin, putting it completely away, while, at the same time condemning it, utterly. Sin in the flesh is condemned,--I myself, with all that is in me, my own thoughts, my will, my wisdom, my ways,--in the cross, I see the end of it all, but the end of it in the love which has come in fully for me and which now fulfills in me the righteous requirement of the law when it is no longer simply requirement, but the Spirit of God has filled my heart with the joy of Christ. ‘The joy of the Lord is your strength.’ I am free to give myself up to drink in this love which God has shown me and which rests upon me in Christ, in all the fulness of God’s delight in Him. I have no cause now to ask: Must not God condemn the evil in me? He has condemned it, and I read the condemnation there where I find also Himself for me in a grace which knows no conditions, and which holds me fast, therefore, forever” (Numerical Bible.)
Notice that the opening verses of the eighth chapter refer us back to the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters. The believer is in Christ the last Adam and therefore beyond condemnation. (Chapter 5:12-21). Sin is not to have dominion over us (Chapter 6). Sin in the flesh has been condemned and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled by a walk according to the Spirit (Chapter 7). (To much included for 7.)
Rom 8:5-8
Next we find a contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. While the believer is no longer in the eyes of God in the flesh, the flesh, however, is still in him as long as he has this mortal body. There is therefore a conflict between the Spirit and the flesh. Humanity falls into two classes, those who are according to the flesh, the unsaved; and those who are according to the Spirit, believers in Christ. A believer is called to walk according to the Spirit, in the sphere into which he is brought through grace. He may walk according to the flesh, but that does not put him back into his former state, when unsaved, he was in the flesh. The mind of the flesh, the condition in which man is by nature, is described in a fourfold way:
1. It is death.
2. It is enmity against God.
3. The flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
4. They that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Such is the state of all who are not born again. But the believer is no longer in the flesh, but is in Christ and the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, which the believer possesses. The believer who walks carnally cannot please God, just as a man who is not born of the Spirit, cannot please God. The carnal walk of the believer results in a broken fellowship with God. But Christ is our Advocate with the Father and He restores while the indwelling Spirit leads to confession and self-judgment. The standing of a believer before God is always in Christ; God beholds us in Him and no longer in the flesh, the sphere of sin and death. The practical state of a believer is often varying. But our failures and shortcomings can never affect our standing before God in Christ. This is an important truth. Many true believers are in a miserable bondage, in doubts and fears, lacking assurance and the joy of salvation, because they do not know the fixed and unalterable standing a believer hath in Christ.
Rom 8:9-11
The believer’s standing is, therefore, emphasized. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so that the Spirit of God dwell in you; but if any one have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” The believer is no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit because the Spirit of God dwells in him. For the first time we have the blessed truth declared that the Spirit of God is in the believer. AS the Spirit of God, He marks the new standing before God; as the Spirit of Christ, He is evidencing the facet that the believer belongs to Christ, and that He produces in him Christ-likeness. Sometimes true believers ask the question, “How can I get the Holy Spirit?” Certain teachers say that a believer, after being saved, should seek the gift and sealing of the Spirit. To teach this is altogether unscriptural. The gift and sealing of the Spirit are at once bestowed upon all who are in Christ, and every true believer is in Christ. “In whom ye also trusted, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also believing, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph 1:13). “He that hath sealed us with the Holy Spirit is God” (2Co 1:22). The sealing with the Spirit does not put a believer in Christ; but because we have trusted on Him we are sealed. This verse here in Romans is conclusive. The Spirit given to us marks off the believer as belonging to Christ. Act 19:2 is frequently quoted to back up the erroneous teaching that the Spirit must be received in a definite experience after conversion. One little word is responsible for the error. The word “since” is mistranslated; it is “when.” “Have ye received the Spirit when ye believed?”
Occupation with the Spirit of God and His indwelling is nowhere demanded of the believer. He has come not to testify of Himself, but to glorify Christ. Therefore He testifies of the blessed fact that “Christ is in you.” The Spirit is life on account of righteousness. It means that the spirit of the believer is energized by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the power of life in the believer. What about the body of the believer? It is dead on account of sin. The body has not yet the effects of redemption in it; it is not yet quickened. But the mortal body of the believer has the promise of redemption. The Holy Spirit dwells in that body and He is the earnest of our inheritance. “If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies on account of His Spirit who dwelleth in you.” This is the redemption for which we wait (see Rom 8:23). It will come when the Lord comes for His Saints. The believer is nowhere taught to look for the death of the mortal body he has, but for the Coming of the Lord, who “shall change our body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself” (Php 3:21). “Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1Co 15:51-52; 1Th 4:17). Here we have a blessed answer to the question asked in the previous chapter. “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The answer is “the Lord Jesus Christ.” And while the believer waits for that promised, coming deliverance, deliverance from the presence of sin, He walks in the Spirit, freed from the power of sin.
Rom 8:12-17
Believers are therefore no longer debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh. We owe the flesh nothing, for it has never done anything for us. If a person lives according to the flesh, if this is the sphere in which he moves, he is “about to die,” on the road to death. But if by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” “Death and life are here set in prospect before the soul as the results, respectively, of the path now chosen. As to the believer, he is characteristically one who is not in the flesh. This he is, not as the result of attainment, but by the grace of God. The appeal which the Apostle here makes is to the Christian conscience. Where there is life, there will be an answer to that appeal. The mortification of the deeds of the body is the result of the Spirit’s energy, the energy of that Spirit, who produces in him the fruits of life, when unhindered in the gracious operations of His love. Mortification of the deeds of the body is looked for only from believers who are indwelt by the Spirit. There is, therefore, nothing in Rom 8:13 that need chill in the least the confidence of the poor weak-spirited self-judging Christian. Those who are most given to self-judgment are they to whom the warning here expressed has the least application.” The mortification of the deeds of the body does not mean asceticism. It is that which is more fully mentioned in Col 3:5-7. (If men live according to the flesh, they are on the way to death. It does not say that they will die. God’s grace is always free to come in, but then if it comes in it takes one off the road to death; it does not speak in such a manner as if sin were of no consequence.--Numerical Bible.)
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. This proves the believer to be in this blessed relationship. The life and walk in the Spirit is the outward evidence of sonship. And the Spirit we have received is not the Spirit of bondage, to fear and to doubt, but it is the gracious Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba is the Aramaic (the language spoken by Jews in Palestine ). Father is the word the Gentile uses. Both Jews and Gentiles believing receive the Spirit of Sonship. They both have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Eph 2:18). “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). The marks and evidences of the sonship of the believer are more fully given in the first Epistle of John (1Jn 1:5-7; 1Jn 2:1-3; 1Jn 2:9-10; 1Jn 2:27-28; 1Jn 3:1-6; 1Jn 3:14; 1Jn 3:19; 1Jn 3:24; 1Jn 4:1-4; 1Jn 4:7-8; 1Jn 4:15; 1Jn 4:20-21; 1Jn 5:1-4; 1Jn 5:10-13).
Furthermore, the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. This witness is not a mere good feeling, which is subject to fluctuations, but the witness of the Spirit is in the Word of God. We know that we are the children of God, because the Word assures us that it is so; this is the witness of the Spirit. And our own spirit bears the same witness, for we know that we have passed from death unto life. “Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us His Spirit” (1Jn 4:13). We have the blessed consciousness of our relationship as children in our own spirit, the highest intelligence we possess in ourselves. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God.... Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be, but we know, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1Jn 3:1-2). We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And we suffer with Him--for the world knoweth us not as it knew Him not--and shall be glorified with Him, in the coming day of His glorious manifestation. Our fellowship with Him as God’s children is now in suffering, and afterward in glory.
Rom 8:18-25
The highest summit of the Epistle has been reached. In Christ; no condemnation; free from the law of sin and death; indwelt by the Spirit of God; led by the Spirit of God; children of God; heirs of God; joint heirs with Christ--this is the blessed and sublime culmination. And as it is when we stand on some mountain-peak, a great vision now bursts upon us. It concerns the future. A wonderful glory is in store for the children of God. The sons of God are going to be manifested (Rom 8:19). That Will be when Christ, the head of the new creation is manifested; then we shall also be manifested with Him in glory (Col 3:4). Then He will occupy the throne of His glory and “we shall reign with Him over the earth.” All creation groaneth and travaileth until now, anxiously looking forward to that coming day when the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For creation was put into the place of corruption and death through the fall of man. But it was subjected to this not without hope. The hope of a ruined creation is the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both the Creator of all things and the Redeemer. Upon His blessed brow He bore the thorns, the emblem of the curse which rests upon creation. And when He comes, groaning creation will be delivered. Then “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isa 11:6-9). It is the glorious vision of the coming age, the dispensation of the fulness of times, when all things will be gathered together in Christ. The Prophets and the Psalms tell out more fully the story of a restored creation, through Him who paid for it by His own precious blood. And we, who have the first fruits of the Spirit also groan within ourselves, awaiting that blessed consummation, when we shall come into our full inheritance, the redemption of our body. Our salvation is in hope of this future redemption and glorification. We wait patiently for it.
Rom 8:26-27
Prayer is now mentioned. We need it in the midst of the groans, the sorrows and sufferings with which we are surrounded and which is our lot as long as we are in this mortal body. And prayer is our refuge, the expression of our dependence upon God and our utmost confidence in Him. But while we know how to pray, we often do not know “what we should pray for as we ought.” Then the Spirit Himself maketh intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered. “Prayer is most commonly the witness of our infirmities. The burdened heart may find itself too full for speech, too much perplexed, for the ordering of its thoughts. But there is an utterance of supplication that makes no sound. It is the Spirit, as the helper of our infirmities, who makes these desires known to the God. Groaning in sympathy with the tried and longing heart, He makes His intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.” Thus the mind of the Spirit in us is known of God-- and heard by Him. And then we must remember that besides this intercession of the Spirit there is the intercession of Christ at the right hand of God (Rom 8:34). The believer is therefore hedged about and made secure and if he walks in the Spirit, constant peace and joy will be His daily portion.
Rom 8:28-39
Therefore we know that to those who love God all things work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose. We can rest in God and commit all to Him. The purpose of God for His own, from eternity to eternity is blessedly revealed. “From God’s foreknowledge of us in the past eternity to the accomplished glory of the future, there is a perfectly linked chain of blessing, no link of which can ever be sundered. God’s purpose is that Christ His Son, should be a First-born among many brethren” (Numerical Bible). And the chain of blessing is--foreknown -- predestinated -- called -- justified and glorified. We do not enter into the controversies of the past concerning predestination, but repudiate that unscriptural conception that God has predestinated a part of the human race to be lost. This is incorrect in view of the statement of Scripture that God “will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1Ti 2:4). But all are not saved because they believe not. (Foreknowledge expresses the original operation of the Divine mind, considered with reference to the pure and unapproachable majesty of the blessed and only Potentate. Predestination respects rather the condition of that which is thus foreknown, objectively regarded as a vessel of His will.”--Pridham.) God knows all who would believe and these are predestinated, called, justified and Will be ultimately glorified. And His eternal purpose will not fail and all who are in Christ will be conformed to the image of His Son. This is the Hope of God’s calling (Eph 1:18).
And what a blessed, most precious and glorious ending of this great chapter and the entire doctrinal section of this great Epistle! What shall we say then to these things? Our answer must be worship and adoration of the God who hath loved us so in giving His only begotten Son, who reached down to our misery and shame and who hath lifted us so high. The great truths of the Gospel are once more reviewed. God is for us. Who can be against us? The proof of it is that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him UP for us all. With Him He has given us freely all things. God is the justifier; therefore “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ is at the right hand of God making intercession for us-- who then is he that shall condemn? And nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. No condemnation and no separation. No more wrath but eternal glory! Such is the salvation of God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 12, 18, 23 The Life in the Spirit.
The Life in the Spirit.
Walking after the Spirit:
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v. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
v. 2. For the law of the spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
v. 3. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,
v. 4. that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
"Therefore," an inference especially from the last verse of the preceding chapter. For since the Christians with their flesh still serve the law of sin and, on account of the weakness of their corrupted flesh, sin daily and much, the conclusion might be drawn, also by themselves, that they are heaping God’s wrath and condemnation upon themselves by their sins of weakness with which they are daily battling, that they, although in a state of justification through the merits of Christ, are in a state of condemnation and can never be certain of God’s fatherly affection. But this feeling, which would tend also to take away the certainty of redemption, is not justified. "Although sin still rages in the flesh, yet it does not condemn, because the spirit is just and battles against it. " (Luther.) This Paul declares with great emphasis: Condemnation is in every sense out of the question; there is none, of any kind or degree; no sentence of condemnation can touch them. It is true, of course, that all sins of the Christians, also sins of weakness, are in themselves under the judgment of condemnation, that the believers must daily seek forgiveness for them in the wounds of Christ. These facts, however, have been fully discussed in connection with the justification of a poor sinner before God. But here St. Paul is treating of the great work of sanctification, which follows upon justification. There are Christians that are deeply concerned about the fact that their life and works, their conversation as believers, is still so far from perfection, that their performance of God’s will remains so far behind their intention and desire. But here we are given the assurance that God, reconciled to all men in Christ Jesus, looks upon the justified sinners, upon the regenerated, believing Christians, as though they were altogether in the Spirit, as though they had no sinful flesh to hinder them anymore. To them that are in Christ Jesus, that are in Him vitally, by that wonderful union of which the Lord speaks Joh 15:1-7, that have their being in Him by justifying faith, to them that walk not, do not regulate their entire life according to the flesh, according to their sinful desires, but follow the commands of the Spirit, to these there is no sentence of condemnation.
For the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death. The present, regenerated state of the Christians, in which we walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, is a proof of the fact that the Spirit has really delivered us from the law of sin and of death. The law of the Spirit of Life is the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He determines our entire conduct and transmits to us the life which is in Christ, causing us to live in Christ and with Christ. And in doing this for us, the Spirit has set us free from the law of sin and of death, of sin, which wanted to control and direct our life and deliver us into the power of death, to which we were subject by nature. Thus it is no longer sin, but the Spirit that is the controlling factor in the lives of the believers. Through the work of the Spirit we have died unto sin and become partakers of the resurrection of Christ. "Where the Spirit is not, there the Law is weakened and transgressed through the flesh, making it impossible for the Law to help a man but only unto sin and death. Therefore God sent His Son and laid upon Him our sin, and thus helped us to fulfill the Law through His Spirit. " (Luther.) So far as the weakness, the faintness of the Law is concerned, a condition of impotency which was due to its being weakened through the flesh, it should always be remembered that God, in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin, condemned the sin in the flesh. The Law of God is not in itself weak and impotent, but it is rendered so, its power and effect is suspended through the influence of the sinful flesh. Our depravity makes it impossible for the Law to save us, because it makes the fulfillment of the Law impossible. But when this was the situation, altogether hopeless, so far as man’s salvation was concerned, the mercy of God stepped in. He sent His own Son, the Son that was equal with Him in essence and power, Possessor of the same deity. He sent Him in the likeness of the flesh of sin, like unto the sinners in humanity, a real man, and man’s Substitute and Representative in bearing the sin of the whole world with all its consequences, for the sake of doing away with sin and its guilt forever. Christ was the expiation, the sacrifice, for sin And thus God condemned, spoke the sentence of condemnation upon, sin in the flesh; the sacrifice, the death, of Christ shows that God’s justice condemned the sin which rules in the corrupt nature of man. Christ was made a curse, because He bore the curse which must strike sin. And thereby God has declared that sin no longer has the right to keep man in subjection and to force him to transgress the Law of God; He has delivered men from the jurisdiction of sin. And thus the precept, the rightful demand, of the Law may be satisfied, may be fulfilled in us, that is, in those persons that do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. By delivering us from the dominion of sin, Christ has made it possible for us to fulfill the Law of God, to deny and crucify the flesh and to live according to the Spirit. And the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the life in Christ, has loosed us from the bonds, from the dominion and jurisdiction of sin and of death, and now teaches us to walk, to lead our entire lives, in conformity with God’s will.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 26 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul gives the answer to the struggle he has with sin and good.
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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Here "condemnation" refers to punishing people. AT: "God will not condemn and punish those who are joined to Christ Jesus" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
therefore
"for that reason" or "because what I have just told you is true"
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
This refers to God's Spirit. AT: "God's Spirit in Christ Jesus" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
has set you free from the law of sin and death
Being free from the law of sin and death is a metaphor for not being controlled by the law of sin and death. AT: "has caused the law of sin and death to no longer control you" (See: Metaphor)
the law of sin and death
Possible meanings are that this refers to 1) the law, which provokes people to sin, and their sin causes them to die. AT: "the law which causes sin and death" or 2) the principle that people sin and die.
translationWords
condemn
Jesus
Holy Spirit
sin
die
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 26 8:1 So now there is no condemnation: Paul concludes…
8:1 So now there is no condemnation: Paul concludes from the argument of chs 5–7 that neither sin (ch 6) nor the law (ch 7) can keep believers from having eternal life (ch 5). Paul can triumphantly proclaim that those who belong to Christ Jesus need not fear that they will be condemned for their sins.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.