Free at Last! Rom. 8:1-17

Later this week many will gather with family and friends and reflect on what it is that they are thankful for. As I’ve reflected on what I’m most grateful for this year, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you all know how appreciative my family and I are for your incredible support—both practical and prayerful, financial and spiritual—you all have provided us with in what was our darkest hour. Words cannot express what your written words, texts, gifts, and simple acts of kindness have meant to us. It has been truly overwhelming to say the least and we thank God for you regularly. It has always been an honor to serve as your pastor and be your friend and these recent weeks have only made this privilege all the more meaningful.

That said, I thought I’d kick off this special week of thankfulness by leading us into Romans 8. In the first 17 verses of this amazing chapter, Paul highlights one of the things that we should thank God for every day of our redeemed lives. I’m talking about our freedom in Christ. In Romans 8:1-17, we are going to listen to three statements concerning the freedom believers have in Christ and examine three corresponding blessings that go along with this freedom that we all need to pause and thank God for today.

a. STATEMENT #1: A Declaration of the Freedom Provided-8:1-“…Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,…”

As Paul opens his exposition on what life is like “in the Spirit” he says “Therefore…” (8:1). However, before we can enjoy what comes after this conjunction, we must ask what is this “Therefore” there for? In the immediate context, “therefore” refers back to the rescue of believers from their bondage to sinful flesh under the law. In Romans 7, the law, sin, and the flesh were identified as potential barriers to a believer’s growth in Christ. However, to circumvent the law and its condemnation, God provided Jesus and the means by which one can enjoy a relationship with Him. Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross not only renders one able to trade the Law for Christ, it also saves believers from the power of sin. Also, this same Jesus and His Spirit is able to overwhelm sin’s effect on the flesh that so easily and regularly trips people up. Because these obstacles (the law, sin, and the flesh) been circumvented, believers know a new existence in the Spirit. This is what Paul turns to in chapter 8—life in the Spirit. That said, any and all blessings believers enjoy in the Spirit are predicated on the salvation people enjoy from the law, sin, and flesh that comes only through Jesus.

The statement of freedom from these things reads as follows: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). This means that those who died with Christ on the cross and were raised to newness of life three days later are no longer condemned by the usual suspects identified earlier—the law, sin, and the flesh.

Romans 6:3-7-“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”

Those in Christ no longer have to fear the punishment they deserve by failing to uphold the law. Those in Christ are no longer required to give into condemning sins that transgress those laws in the first place. Not even sinful flesh is capable of implicating those who are in Christ. In this we learn that salvation is just as much about where someone is as it is what someone has confessed is true of his/her heart. Those who are saved are IN CHRIST and these are no longer condemned.

b. STATEMENT #2: Explanation of Freedom-8:2-8

Next, Paul provides a lengthy description of how this freedom has come about. In verses 2-8, Paul reiterates many of the very things that he explained in the previous chapter, why? Because, as we’ve stressed several times in this series, repetition leads to retention, repetition leads to retention, repetition leads to retention.

Romans 8:2-8-“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God,…”

Simply put, the law has failed to keep people right with God (as no one can fulfill this standard) and the flesh has rendered being right with God nearly impossible (Paul even called it wretched!) (see Romans 7:14-25). As a result, the only way to enjoy the freedoms that come in Christ is to live life “according to the Spirit.” Endorsing this mindset brings about “life and peace” according to verse 6 while thinking on and handing one’s members over to fleshly things only brings about death.

What are these “spiritual” things worth considering? Again, almost every time Paul has spiritual things in mind he is referring to that which is from God and inspired. Therefore, to enjoy the life made available in Christ, one must live a life that is preoccupied with those things from the Spirit that are from God and inspired by God.

c. STATEMENT #3: A Presentation of the Results of Freedom-8:9-17

The first result of freedom in Christ is life in the Spirit. Paul says “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you,…” (8:9). In other words, to be in Christ means to be in the Spirit also and those who are in the Spirit are those who have the Spirit dwelling within them. “Dwell” here means to take up residence in. The active, progressive, and present nuances of the verb describe an ongoing and consistent reality of God’s Spirit abiding in a person. Those who are in Christ have this abiding presence of God within them. However, as Paul continues, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him,…” (8:9).

Life in the Spirit affords some amazing things according to Paul—“If Christ is in you, through the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness,” (8:10). What the apostle means is this: one’s life in the Spirit allows the individual to live in a way that is better than their flesh would otherwise allow (remember the struggle of the flesh in Romans 7:14-25). While the flesh is only capable of sin and death (as it is fallen and longing to be made new), the Spirit in which one dwells and who dwells in them, allows believers to overwhelm the sinful flesh and actually live a life of righteousness.

How is this possible? Paul says “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you,…” (8:11). Believers can trust that the Spirit who dwells in them is able to give them life because He is the same Spirit that brought Jesus back to life from the dead. It is this kind of power—radically transforming power---that is required to animate an otherwise dead and sinful body for God’s glorious purposes and it is this kind of power that is offered by the Holy Spirit to all who are in Christ.  

Recognizing the transforming power of the Spirit in the life of every believer helps inform Paul’s presentation of the second result/benefit of the freedom one finds in Christ—freedom from the obligation to the flesh—“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh” (8:12). Before believers were in Christ, they could not help but say yes to the inclinations of their flesh and give into sin. Now that believers are in Christ and, by proxy, in the Spirit (with the Spirit dwelling in them), they are able to say ‘no’ to the flesh. What a blessing!

To fail to live in this reality and choose the other option that is available (a life committed to sin and the flesh) is to live the kind of life that leads only to death. Paul indicates this when he says “for if you are living according to the flesh you must die” (8:13a). Why is this? Because that which is of the flesh is contaminated with sin and sin leads to death. Death is always the natural outcome of sin.

Whenever and wherever sin is endorsed, something dies—innocence, opportunities, confidence, trust, relationships, etc. Those who choose to live in the flesh will experience death in any number of these ways and more.

 “But” Paul says, “if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live” (8:13b). “Putting to death” describes a continuous activity in which extreme measures are taken so that something ceases from happening. This is the other option that believers have as it concerns their sin and flesh. There are two kinds of people in the world—those who endorse sin and embrace their flesh to that end and those who hate sin and wage war against any and everything that encourages it. Believers are free from the obligation of sin and as such are able to wage this war that Paul describes here. Because believers are “in the Spirit” they have the assurance that they will win this battle and “live” in the end.

In addition to life in the Spirit and freedom from the obligation to sin, the final result/benefit of one’s freedom in Christ is life as a son/daughter of God. Paul says, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (8:14).

Because believers are sons and daughters of God, they are able to endorse a new attitude toward God—“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out “Abba Father!’…”(8:15). When once sin held the believer in oppressive slavery, salvation has broken the chains and pulled up a chair at God’s table. Though sin made everyone enemies of God, believers are sons and daughters of God. So intimate is this connection that believers and God share that they are able to call God ‘Abba Father.’

Notice also that this new relationship is akin to adoption. We are not naturally born of God (and technically not God’s children) until we are reborn in Christ. Then and only then does God adopt us who were once far off into His family. This does not suggest that the new relationship is somehow less reputable or compelling. After all, in the first century, adoption in Rome granted the adopted equal status with naturally born sons and daughters of a family and all of the implications thereof. The same is true of believers and God—they are now GOD’S KIDS through and through.

How does one know that they belong to God in this way? Paul answers this in verse 16—“the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” The presence of God’s Spirit in the life of a believer provides them the assurance that God is their Father. This He does while also helping the believer put to death the sinful flesh and execute righteousness in its place.  

Son-ship and adoption doesn’t just come with the assurance of the Spirit of God, it also comes complete with the greatest inheritance available—“And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (8:17). Legitimate adopted children in Rome were not second-class kids. These inherited property and possessions just as natural born children did. So too do God’s adoptive children inherit the things that Christ Himself inherits—life eternal and a place of authority in the new heaven and the new earth. The Bible says that we will, as the church, rule with Christ during a future millennial kingdom and then be ushered into a perfect and complete world thereafter to enjoy forever.

Those who know this inheritance, Paul says, are those who “suffer with Him” (8:17). When does a son of God suffer with Christ? We suffered essentially in his death as we were “buried in the likeness of his death” in a spiritual sense. We also continue to suffer existentially (in our current experience) in persecution and in the ongoing struggle that we encounter in this world as God’s people. This suffering, in a painful way, reminds the believer that they are God’s. After all, Jesus told his disciples “if the world hated Me, they will surely hate you” (Jn. 15:18). However, this suffering is not the end. It is a preview of the glory that will one day be realized.

Philippians 2:5-11-“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

So What?

As you count your blessings this week, can you say with absolute certainty that you can include freedom in Christ in that compendium? Or, if you were honest with yourself, would you have to say that you are still enslaved in sin, controlled by the flesh, and condemned under the law? There is a better way to live (there is the only way to live) and it is found IN CHRIST, is confirmed BY THE SPIRIT, and result in being an adopted son/daughter of the PERFECT FATHER. Freedom! Praise the Lord we can be free in Christ!