A Study of Romans 8:1-2
Hello everyone! The other day I took my truck through the car wash. It’s interesting how the conveyor belt pulls the vehicle through one process after another. It begins with some hand preparation when the attendants do a bit of prewashing around the wheels and grills of the car. Then the conveyor jerks you into the tunnel for a pre-soak and for the undercarriage rinse. You can feel the water vibrating against your feet. After that, various soapy chemicals drop down like toxic rainfall. Then all kinds of rotating mops and brushes descend like monsters attacking from all directions. They scrub the car and slap against the windows. They jostle you from side to side. Then there are more brushes with high-powered jets that try to clean the wheels. The rinse cycle comes next. Then there is the waxing and the blow drying. When we emerge out of the tunnel we can park and vacuum out the interior of the vehicle if we want to. It is one process with one great cleansing result, but it is made-up of a number of sequential steps.
When we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior we go through God’s special cleansing tunnel. A number of things happen to us at salvation. They can be logically distinguished, yet they occur instantaneously. When I asked the Lord to be my Savior when I was a child, I didn’t realize how many things had to happen at once to provide for my forgiveness and eternal life. I still don’t think I know all that is involved from the perspective of almighty God, but what I can see in the Scripture is astounding to me. We’ll delve into that today as we begin a study of Romans chapter 8.
Some people consider this to be the greatest passage in the greatest book of the Bible—Romans, chapter 8. The key subject in this chapter is the Holy Spirit. The word spirit occurs 21 times, and all but two of those refer to the Holy Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit is mentioned almost once in every two verses of the chapter. And yet, as one commentator points out, “Paul’s focus is not so much on the Spirit as such, but on what the Spirit does… His ministry on behalf of Christians.”
1. There is Therefore Now
Paul begins chapter 8 by saying there is therefore now…. The word therefore points back to everything he has covered so far in the letter to the Romans. Let’s take a moment to review what we have learned so far. Paul began the body of the letter with the reality of the wrath of God that condemns all of humanity because of our vast, deep, obstinate, rebellious, evil natures.
Then he explained how God provided a way for us to avoid the judgment of God’s wrath through faith in Jesus Christ, who bore the punishment of our sins for us. We receive that blessing through faith. When we trust Christ as Savior we are transferred from the family of Adam to the family of Jesus. We have died to sin. But Paul admitted that we still struggle with sin. He said, “I don’t always do what I want to do; and often I do what I don’t want to do.”
Paul said that in the last part of chapter 7 of Romans. If you’re like me, you can identify with that. We often feel defeated. We long to be doing better than we are in various areas of holiness and maturity. But we have a secret weapon, and that secret weapon is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us and He brings certain powers and advantages into our experience as followers of Jesus. And that is the spellbinding theme of Romans chapter 8.
Because of the Holy Spirit we can go through life with exuberant assurance. Notice how this incredible chapter begins by telling us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ (verse 1), and it ends by telling us that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (verse 39). What other chapter in the Bible opens and closes with such a glorious word!
I want to lead with this idea because the message of the whole chapter comes full circle. That’s the way the Bible itself is, isn’t it? It begins with paradise, and it ends with paradise. It begins with the garden of Eden, and it ends with New Jerusalem. In between there is a lot of drama, and there are incredible problems. But the Bible begins and ends with logical cohesion and with glorious celebration.
And that’s the way Romans 8 is. The first sentence says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And the final sentence says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
2. No Condemnation
From no condemnation at the start of the chapter to no separation at its conclusion, from beginning to end, from first to last, we have the Holy Spirit working on our behalf giving us all we need as we make our way toward Heaven.
This is the Bible’s ultimate chapter on assurance. I’ve gone through this chapter over and over, and it is like John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus. These are the two chapters that should intimidate any expositor because they are filled with a richness that is beyond human ability to grasp or convey.
To me, the simplest way of studying Romans 8 is to go down the list it provides of the functions or ministries or activities of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This subject dominates the first two-thirds of the chapter; and the remaining paragraph is Paul’s extended glorious climactic song of praise, which brings to a conclusion the first great section of Romans—Romans 1 through 8, the core doctrine of the meaning of the Gospel.
Let’s begin with reading Romans 8 one through four.
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 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. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The Greek word translated condemnation is a very strong legal and judicial term. It does not merely mean a feeling of guilt or shame. It refers to an actual judicial sentence of condemnation. This is a word that means you have been accused of something; you have been examined and evaluated and found guilty; you have been sentenced; your punishment has been announced; and there is no escape. This concept has occurred repeatedly throughout Romans to tell us about the condition we find ourselves in apart from the pardon and justification of Jesus Christ.
- Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
- Romans 2:1 says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself.”
- Romans 3:7 says that we are condemned as sinners, and verse 8 says our condemnation is just.
- Romans 5 tells us that because of the sin of Adam, judgment came upon the entire human race and brought condemnation to all people.
But the entirety of the message of book of Romans, from first to last, is that Jesus Christ is the everlasting God who descended to this earth as a human being to offer Himself and to take our condemnation upon Himself, and to take our judgment upon Himself, and to take our punishment upon Himself. All of this now reaches its summation in Romans 8:1: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
This means that for the Christian there has never been, there is not now, and there will never be a sin capable of sending us to hell or forcing us into a position where we face the wrath of God. All of our sins have been dealt with—past, present and future. We do not have to worry about being condemned for any sins that we commit.
That of course does not mean that we are free to sin. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has a very good illustration of how this works. He says that the difference between an unbeliever sinning and a Christian sinning is the difference between a man who is breaking one of the laws of the nation in which he lives, and a member of the family doing something that is displeasing to another member of the family. If I break a law that is enforced by the federal government, I might well be subject to being tried, convicted, and imprisoned. But if I say something rude to my wife, I have not broken the law of the land. I have broken the law of love. I’m not in danger of being condemned and imprisoned. But I have damaged a precious relationship, which I now need to repair. I have not broken a law but I have broken a heart.
When we commit a sin as a Christian, It does not bring us again into a place of legal jeopardy or eternal damnation. But it does grieve the relationship, which we need to repair through repentance. It is not the law we are seeking to satisfy; it is love we are seeking to exhibit. So when we sin, we should feel an appropriate guilt that leads us to repentance and rededication. But we should not think we are under condemnation like someone who does not have a relationship with Jesus. We have glorious freedom from that. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
3. The Law of the Spirit
The verse goes on to say that we have come into this state of no condemnation because the law of the Spirit who gives us life has set us free from the law of sin and death. I want to focus on this concept: The law of the Spirit has given us life. What does that mean?
Throughout my lifetime, I’ve noticed two extremes as it relates to Christians talking about the Holy Spirit. I grew up in an area of Elizabethton, Tennessee, known as Lilly Addition. Our house was on Riverview Drive. We would drive down that street a little over a mile to get to our church. Riverview Drive turned into Main Street, and we drove by the courthouse and turned left on First Street where our church was located.
On the way we passed a smaller church. I once asked my parents why we didn’t go to the closer church. They explained that the closer church was full of people who got too excited and who focused more on the subject of the Holy Spirit than on the subject of Jesus Christ. My father added that one day when he was driving by that church, he saw everybody run out the front door, fly around the building, and race back into the front door as if they were in a frenzy. He may have been exaggerating but I still remember that description.
Now that I look back with the benefit of age and experience, I realized the church we attended did not fully emphasize the role and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But the church we passed on the way apparently overemphasized the role and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It was only when I got to Bible College that I began to be taught a balanced view of this incredible subject. In the years since, the more I studied the Holy Spirit in the writings of the apostle Paul, the more thrilled I am and the stronger I feel.
That is why I am relishing Romans 8. I’m actually trying to memorize the chapter. The Holy Spirit initiates His ministry in our lives by bringing the salvation which has been provided by Jesus Christ and unleashing it in our lives through the process of the new birth. This brings to us the very subject of the Holy Trinity and the various roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Repeatedly we discover that God the Father planned for our salvation, God the Son accomplished it on the cross, and God the Holy Spirit is the one who brings it to us personally and experientially. He is the one who gives us life, and that brings us back to my opening illustration of the car wash. I’m simply astonished when I think of how many things happen to us simultaneously at the moment that we received the Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit at the very heart of what is happening to us. The Bible uses various words for what occurs in our lives at the moment of our conversion to Christ, and many of them refer to various aspects of the same event. It’s quite incredible to think about! When we come to Christ, salvation is not a single-threaded event. It is a cascade of divine actions. God does a number of things for us, in us, around us, and to us instantaneously.
(1) We Are Born Again
First, the Holy Spirit who has convicted us of sin and brought us to a point of receiving Jesus Christ as our Savior now gives us new life. Somehow like a lightning bolt from heaven, our dead spirits are struck with supernatural energy and we come to life. We were dead in our sins but now we begin to live. Jesus called this being born again.
Titus 3:5 says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
Imagine that you’ve gone to the Funeral Home to pay your respects to a friend who has passed away. As you are standing there, something like a flash of light shimmers through the man and he suddenly begins breathing, opens his eyes, and sits up. Something akin to that happens to us the moment we are saved, and it is the burst of Holy Spirit electricity. He is the Spirit who gives life. We are brought into union with Christ and we are now in Christ. We are united to Jesus Christ Himself. We are placed ‘in Christ.’ We share in His life through an invisible divine transaction wrought by the Holy Spirit.
(2) We Are Justified
Second, as we have seen throughout the letter to the Romans, at that very moment we are also justified. We are declared not guilty in God’s sight. All of our sins are suddenly transferred to Jesus, and all of his righteousness is suddenly transferred to us. So not only do we come alive spiritually, but at that very moment we are rendered perfect in God’s eyes, being wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is exactly the emphasis of Romans 8, verse one: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
(3) We Are Redeemed
And that’s not all! At that same very moment, we are redeemed. We are set free from slavery. Remember what Paul said in Romans 3:24: “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
(4) We Are Reconciled
Fourth, we are reconciled to God. At that moment we enter into a state of friendship with God. We’re given a relationship with Him. It would have been wonderful if we had been made alive, justified, and redeemed. But our salvation does not stop at that. It also brings us to a state of loving fellowship with the God who made us.
This is a rather far-fetched example, but just imagine a slave who died in the 1850s. Imagine that somehow he was resurrected from the dead, forgiven of any crimes he had ever committed against any authority, and redeemed and set free from slavery. All of that would have been extraordinarily wonderful. But then imagine that he also instantly became best friends with President Abraham Lincoln. Imagine he had a relationship with the man who had signed the Proclamation of Emancipation. Imagine that he had the freedom to go anywhere he wanted to in the White House and could talk to the president anytime that he wanted. That is akin to what has happened to us the moment of our salvation. But there’s more!
(5) We Are Adopted
Fifth, we are adopted as children into God’s family and we become heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ! Paul is going to talk about this later in the chapter, so I want to wait until we get down to verse 15 to discuss this in detail. But when you think of it in basic human terms, it is incredible. Our resurrected, redeemed, forgiven former slave is not only now in a close friendship with the most powerful person in the universe, but he has been adopted into that person’s family and has access to endless riches!
(6) We Are Indwelt
Sixth, we are instantly indwelt by the Holy Spirit! He moves right into our lives, and our bodies become the temple of the Holy Spirit. He lives around us and within us, in a way that is constant and continual, without any interruption, never ceasing, always abiding.
I remember hearing Major Ian Thomas say that the Holy Spirit invades our souls and captures our personalities. Think of what that means to you!
(7) We Are Transferred to a New Realm
Seventh, at that very same moment we experience a Kingdom transferral. We are given citizenship into an eternal Kingdom. We are transferred out of the Kingdom of darkness and enter the Kingdom of the eternal Son of God. Earlier in this book, Paul talked about the fact that we are no longer in the family of Adam but we are now in the family of Christ. Later in this chapter Paul is going to talk about the fact that we are no longer living in the realm of the flesh but in the realm of the Spirit. Colossians 1:13 says, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the sun he loves.”
This is not an exhaustive list, but think of it! At the moment we ask Jesus to be our Savior, the series of great, life-changing, never-ending events occur in sequence and yet simultaneously. I believe all of this is bound up in the little sentence that talks about the Law of the Spirit who gives life.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
This week I was speaking at an event for senior adults and a lady came up to me. She was beaming. She said, “I’m 95, and I didn’t discover the reality of Jesus until I was in my 90s. The last two years have been the most exciting I’ve ever had as I have learned about the Bible and all that it says about my relationship with Jesus.”
Well, Romans chapter 8 gives us a long list of the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives but it begins with this one. That the Holy Spirit gives us life. And what a wonderful starting point that is for discovering all the Bible says about our relationship with Jesus.
Thank you for diving into the riches of Romans chapter 8 with me.