Sunday Sermon – NO CONDEMNATION FOR US – Romans 8:1-4 | SS20260712

A. Life in the Spirit contrasted with life in the flesh.

1. (1) No condemnation.

There is  …

therefore

now

no condemnation t

o those who are in Christ Jesus,

who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

a. There is therefore now no condemnation: The simple declaration of no condemnation comes to those who are in Christ Jesus. Since God the Father does not condemn Jesus, neither can the Father condemn those who are in Jesus. They are not condemned, they will not be condemned, and they cannot be condemned.

i. Paul’s therefore is important. It means that what he says comes from a logical argument. It’s as if Paul begins, “I can prove what I say here.” This is what he proves: if we are one with Jesus and He is our head, we can’t be condemned. You can’t acquit the head and condemn the hand. You can’t drown the foot as long as the head is out of water. Joined to Him, we hear the verdict: “no condemnation.”

ii. In Christ: “This phrase imports, that there is a mystical and spiritual union betwixt Christ and believers. This is sometimes expressed by Christ being in them… and here by their being in Christ. Christ is in believers by His Spirit, and believers are in Christ by faith.” (Poole)

iii. The verdict is not “less condemnation.” That’s where many believe they are – thinking our standing has improved in Jesus. It has not been improved, it’s been completely transformed, changed to a status of no condemnation.

b. No condemnation: This place of confidence and peace comes after the confusion and conflict that marked Romans 7.  Now Paul looks to Jesus and he finds his standing in Him.  But this chapter is more than just the answer to Romans 7; it ties together thoughts from the very beginning of the letter.

i. Romans 8 begins with no condemnation; it ends with no separation, and in between there is no defeat.

c. Who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit: These words are not found in the earliest ancient manuscripts of the Book of Romans and they do not agree with the flow of Paul’s context here.  They were probably added by a copyist who either made a mistake or thought he could “help” Paul by adding these words from Romans 8:4.

i. While it is true that those who are in Christ should not and do not consistently walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, this is not a condition for their status of no condemnation. Our position in Jesus Christ is the reason for our standing of no condemnation.

d. No condemnation: We receive this glorious declaration from God’s court.  We receive it though we certainly deserve condemnation.  We receive this standing because Jesus bore the condemnation we deserved and our identity is now in Him.  As He is condemned no more, neither are we.

2. (2-4) The contrast between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

a. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death: The law of sin and death was a strong and seemingly absolute law. Every sin we commit and every cemetery we see proves it. But the law of the Spirit of life in Christ is stronger still, and the law of the Spirit frees us from the law of sin and death.

i. We are free from the law of sin. Though he inevitably does, the Christian does not have to sin, because he is freed from sin’s dominion. We are free from the law of death; death therefore no longer has any lasting power against the believer.

ii. Romans 8:1 tells us we are free from the guilt of sin. Romans 8:2 tells us we are free from the power of sin.

b. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh: The law can do many things. It can guide us, teach us, and tell us about God’s character. But the law cannot give energy to our flesh; it can give us the standard, but it can’t give us the power to please God.

i. Morris, quoting Manson: “Moses’ law has right but not might; sin’s law has might but not right; the law of the Spirit has both right and might.”

ii. “The law is weak to us, because we are weak to it: the sun cannot give light to a blind eye, not from any impotency in itself, but merely from the incapacity of the subject it shines upon.” (Poole)

c. In that it was weak through the flesh: The law is weak because it speaks to our flesh. It comes to fleshly men and speaks to them as fleshly men. But the work of the Spirit transforms us by the crucifixion of the old man and it imparts the new man – a principle higher than the flesh.

i. “A vine does not produce grapes by Act of Parliament; they are the fruit of the vine’s own life; so the conduct which conforms to the standard of the Kingdom is not produced by any demand, not even God’s, but is the fruit of that divine nature which God gives as the result of what he has done in and by Christ.” (Hooke)

d. What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son: The law could not defeat sin; it could only detect sin.  Only Jesus can defeat sin, and He did just that through His work on the cross.

e. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh: In order to defeat sin, Jesus had to identify with those bound by it, by coming in the likeness of sinful flesh. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul carefully chose his words here, indicating that Jesus was not sinful flesh, but He identified with it entirely.

• We could not say that Jesus came in sinful flesh, because He was sinless.
• We could not say that Jesus came in the likeness of flesh, because He really was human, not just like a human.
• But we can say that Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh because although He was human, He was not sinful in Himself.

ii. He condemned sin in the flesh: Sin was condemned in the flesh of Jesus as He bore the condemnation we deserved.  Since we are in Christ, the condemnation we deserve passes us over.

f. That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us: Because Jesus fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law, and because we are in Christ, we fulfill the law. The law is fulfilled in us in regard to obedience, because Jesus’ righteousness stands for ours. The law is fulfilled in us in regard to punishment, because any punishment demanded by the law was poured out upon Jesus.

i. Paul does not say that we fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. He carefully says that the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us. It isn’t fulfilled by us, but in us.

ii. Simply put, Jesus is our substitute. Jesus was treated as a sinner so we can be treated as righteous.

g. In us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit: The people who enjoy this are those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Their life is marked by obedience to the Holy Spirit, not by obedience to the flesh.

i. God wants the Spirit to rule over our flesh. When we allow the flesh to reign over the Spirit, we find ourselves bound by the sinful patterns and desperation that marked Paul’s life in his “Romans 7” struggle. Our walk – the pattern of our life – must be according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh.

ii. Walking in the Spirit means that the course, the direction, the progress of one’s life is directed by the Holy Spirit. It is continued and progressive motion.

iii. “Observe carefully that the flesh is there: he does not walk after it, but it is there. It is there, striving and warring, vexing and grieving, and it will be there till he is taken up into heaven. It is there as an alien and detested force, and not there so as to have dominion over him. He does not walk after it, nor practically obey it. He does not accept it as his guide, nor allow it to drive him into rebellion.” (Spurgeon)

3. (5-8) The futility of trying to please God in the flesh.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation against those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law which comes from the Spirit and leads to life has in Christ Jesus set me free from the law which begets sin and leads to death. As for the impotency of the law, that weakness of the law which resulted from the effects of our sinful human nature – God sent his own Son as a sin offering with that very same human nature which in us had sinned; and thereby, while he existed in the same human nature as we have, he condemned sin, so that as a result the righteous demand of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live our lives not after the principle of sinful human nature, but after the principle of the Spirit.

This is a very difficult passage because it is so highly compressed, and because, all through it, Paul is making allusions to things which he has already said.

Two words keep occurring again and again in this chapter, flesh (sarx) and spirit (pneuma). We will not understand the passage at all unless we understand the way in which Paul is using these words.

(i) Sarx literally means flesh. The most cursory reading of Paul’s letters will show how often he uses the word, and how he uses it in a sense that is all his own. Broadly speaking, he uses it in three different ways.

(a) He uses it quite literally. He speaks of physical circumcision, literally “in the flesh” (Rom. 2:28). (b) Over and over again he uses the phrase kata sarka, literally according to the flesh, which most often means looking at things from the human point of view. For instance, he says that Abraham is our forefather kata sarka, from the human point of view. He says that Jesus is the son of David kata sarka (Rom. 1:3), that is to say, on the human side of his descent. He speaks of the Jews being his kinsmen kata sarka (Rom. 9:3), that is to say, speaking of human relationships. When Paul uses the phrase kata sarka, it always implies that he is looking at things from the human point of view.

(c) But he has a use of this word sarx which is all his own. When he is talking of the Christians, he talks of the days when we were in the flesh (en sarki) (Rom. 7:5). He speaks of those who walk according to the flesh in contradistinction to those who live the Christian life (Rom. 8:4-5). He says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). He says that the mind of the flesh is death, and that it is hostile to God (Rom. 8:6,8). He talks about living according to the flesh (Rom. 8:12). He says to his Christian friends, “You are not in the flesh” (Rom. 8:9).

It is quite clear, especially from the last instance, that Paul is not using flesh simply in the sense of the body, as we say flesh and blood. How, then, is he using it? He really means human nature in all its weakness and he means human in its vulnerability to sin. He means that part of man which gives sin its bridgehead. He means sinful human nature, apart from Christ, everything that attaches a man to the world instead of to God. To live according to the flesh is to live a life dominated by the dictates and desires of sinful human nature instead of a life dominated by the dictates and the love of God. The flesh is the lower side of man’s nature.

It is to be carefully noted that when Paul thinks of the kind of life that a man dominated by the sarx lives he is not by any means thinking exclusively of sexual and bodily sins. When he gives a list of the works of the flesh in Gal. 5:19-21, he includes the bodily and the sexual sins; but he also includes idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, heresies, envy, murder. The flesh to him was not a physical thing but spiritual. It was human nature in all its sin and weakness; it was all that man is without God and without Christ.

(ii) There is the word Spirit; in Rom. 8 it occurs no fewer than twenty times. This word has a very definite Old Testament background. In Hebrew it is ruach, and it has two basic thoughts. (a) It is not only the word for Spirit; it is also the word for wind. It has always the idea of power about it, power as of a mighty rushing wind. (b) In the Old Testament, it always has the idea of something that is more than human. Spirit, to Paul, represented a power which was divine.

So Paul says in this passage that there was a time when the Christian was at the mercy of his own sinful human nature. In that state the law simply became something that moved him to sin and he went from bad to worse, a defeated and frustrated man. But, when he became a Christian, into his life there came the surging power of the Spirit of God, and, as a result, he entered into victorious living.

In the second part of the passage Paul speaks of the effect of the work of Jesus on us. It is complicated and difficult, but what Paul is getting at is this. Let us remember that he began all this by saying that every man sinned in Adam. We saw how the Jewish conception of solidarity made it possible for him to argue that, quite literally, all men were involved in Adam’s sin and in its consequence – death. But there is another side to this picture. Into this world came Jesus; with a completely human nature; and he brought to God a life of perfect obedience, of perfect fulfilment of God’s law. Now, because Jesus was fully a man, just as we were one with Adam, we are now one with him; and, just as we were involved in Adam’s sin, we are now involved in Jesus’ perfection. In him mankind brought to God the perfect obedience, just as in Adam mankind brought to God the fatal disobedience. Men are saved because they were once involved in Adam’s sin but are now involved in Jesus’ goodness. That is Paul’s argument, and, to him and to those who heard it, it was completely convincing, however hard it is for us to grasp it. Because of what Jesus did, there opens out to the Christian a life no longer dominated by the flesh but by that Spirit of God, which fills a man with a power not his own. The penalty of the past is removed and strength for his future is assured.