Freedom Romans 8:1-17
We’re continuing our look at Paul’s letter to the Roman church and today I wanted to look at Romans chapter 8. Chapter 8 has been called the greatest chapter in the entire Bible and it starts with what might be one of the most important verses in the whole Bible. To see this we need to go back one verse to Romans 7:25, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Here Paul is talking about himself but he is describing the condition and reality of every person born on earth.
Men don’t like the word sin. I’ve had people I talked to tell me that the word is insulting to them; they say it make them out to be horrid people and that’s just not true. They believe they try hard enough, do enough, to be right with God. “God knows I’m trying.” I can understand this, sin is a hard word. But the reality of our life is we think we are doing ok by God but our nature of doing things against God keeps us in servitude to sin. But now Paul addresses sin with one of the most important verses in the Bible; verse 1, “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Before I go through this I just want to give you a little tip on how to read the Bible. When you see the word “therefore,” look back to see why it’s there for. This verse about no condemnation is there because of the verse that came before it at the end of chapter 7, Paul writing about being a slave to sin.
“Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We need this to sink to the depth of our being. There is no condemnation; condemnation is the guilt and punishment associated with our actions.
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Here is the glory, the hope, the future of our faith. We who believe in Christ never again need to feel guilty nor will we be punished by God for our transgressions. Bible scholar F. F. Bruce put it this way, “There is no reason why those who are in Christ Jesus should go on doing penal servitude as though they had never been pardoned and liberated from…sin.”
According to the Bible, no matter how good we are or how good we think we are, the truth is we all have sinned and been found guilty. But this verse tells us that those who believe and trust in Jesus are declared not guilty. And as not guilty we no longer have to live our life wondering if we’ve messed up. We no longer have to live our life wondering if God is going to punish us.
Why can we have confidence in this? Verse 2, “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Through faith and trust in Jesus the law of God’s grace replaces the law that Moses presented, the Ten Commandments.
If the law given at Sinai needed to be replaced then it must have been faulty. If it’s faulty then we can ignore it. If we can ignore it then we don’t need this new covenant of grace.
Paul understood the workings of men’s minds and he addresses this very attitude in his next sentence; Verse 3, “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh…” The law wasn’t weak or faulty; it came from God and therefore was perfect. “Therefore”, and what is it there for? It bridges the thought of the law being imperfect and the truth that the law is perfect in God. The weakness of the law is not God, not even the law itself; the weakness of the law is men and our pretention to do what we want and not what God wants.
Next Paul explains implicitly what God did to span the distance between the perfect law and man’s imperfect actions. “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.”
Glory to God, he did what we could not do. We could not escape the penalty for sin, but God planned a way to rescue us from the punishment. He sent his Son to be condemned in our place. This is why Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time. God had to punish human flesh for its sin and unlike the imperfect animal sacrifices it had to be done while wrapped in God’s perfect holiness in order to free us for all eternity.
Praise God for if you are in Christ you are free, no longer under condemnation, all our sins; past, present and future have been dealt with and punished at the cross. As a holy God he cannot punish us again for what he already punished Jesus for. This is the truth of scripture. It is also truth that it can be hard for us to accept this and not feel as if God is just sitting there waiting to punish us. Sometimes I feel guilt and shame over something I did years ago, but there really is no need. Along with Romans 8:1 I believe Hebrews 8:12 is a scripture of glorious meaning, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Some are taught that you have to keep asking for forgiveness, over and over. But scripture tells us that once you believe in Christ God forgives our wickedness; not only forgives, he doesn’t even remember it. Think how glorious this is, God didn’t just forgive you, which opens the idea that you can do too much to be forgiven for, God doesn’t even remember you did it. And if God, our heavenly Father and creator doesn’t remember it, why keep reminding him?
This takes practice. When you start to feel those feelings of shame, guilt and fear over those things in your past, start asking God to take those feelings away because you know you are not being condemned for those mistakes. Start telling yourself, “No, I will not feel poorly about myself over something God isn’t holding over me.”
As we see God frees us from condemnation, but in the rest of our reading we can see that God doesn’t just change us from guilty to not guilty, doesn’t just deliver us from sin’s punishment; he delivers us from sin’s power, and this is what the rest of reading is about.
Verse 5, “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” God gives us a new mindset. When we completely give in to Christ and keep him at the center of our lives we will find we subtlety but consistently change our minds over things in life. We start to see and do things more in line with the teachings of Jesus. We may start to do things or stop doing things. This may not happen all at once but if we keep the focus on God we will see changes in our lives and the way we think.
Verse 6, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Giving your life to God brings you a deep sense of peace and security. Will you feel this peace and security every second of the day? The truth of our condition is unfortunately a “no.” It is a fact of our lives that we will struggle at times, that’s why some who give their life to Christ think God is still mad at them or punishing them for something.
Paul knows this. He knows the people he talks with and the churches he writes to, how their life is hard and how they question if they are still under the punishment for their sin; and so Paul writes something wonderful, verse 9, “You however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.”
In Galatians 2 Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives within me.” These two verses again show us that God cannot punish us for sin for his Spirit lives within us and his Spirit is Jesus and sin has already been punished on the body of Jesus.
Paul continues by telling us that we are not just forgiven of our sin, we are now family with God; Verse 15, “…the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.”
As I studied this I went back to F. F. Bruce’s writings. He wrote “The term adoption may seem somewhat of artificiality to our ears but in the first century an adopted son was a son deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to perpetuate his name and to inherit his estate; he was no less than a son born naturally.”
This perspective is what makes our readings verse 17 my favorite verse and one of deep meaning to our lives with Christ, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”
We have been deliberately chosen by the Father to continue his legacy and to carry on his name. As his children we are his heirs, on equal footing with Jesus. Everything God gives Jesus he gives us.
And this verse again shows me the glory of God. I want you to understand the fundamental nature of this verse; we don’t just get to go to heaven, we take possession of heaven. We own heaven.
This must have been monumental to the early believers and it should be epic to us too. No matter our past, God offers us freedom from condemnation, guilt and the punishment for our sin through the sacrifice of his Son. Through our belief and trust in Jesus we are given a new life, a new mindset, and a secure future. Through our faith and trust in Jesus we are adopted into God’s family and we are inheritors of his estate. We are owners with Christ of heaven itself. We serve a glorious and holy God. Amen.