Sermon Tone Analysis

Life in the Spirit

ROMANS 8:1–17

Scotland’s greatest preacher, Dr. Alexander Whyte, was once speaking on Romans 7, and said this:

As often as my attentive bookseller sends me on approval another new commentary on Romans, I immediately turn to the seventh chapter.

And if the commentator sets up a man of straw in the seventh chapter, I immediately shut the book.

I at once send the book back and say, “No, thank you.

That is not the man for my hard-earned money.”

I think perhaps Dr. Whyte was a bit severe because it is possible for a writer to take a different position on Romans 7 than the one Dr.

Whyte and I have taken and still write an excellent commentary on Romans.

Some of the best Bible teachers see the matter differently.

Nevertheless, I have some sympathy for what Alexander Whyte was saying because I think it is misleading, and thus not spiritually healthy, to imagine that Romans 7:14–25 is anything other than the Apostle Paul describing his own struggle as a Christian trying to please God in his own strength (to measure up to God’s standards as revealed in the Law).

But of course Paul is also talking about the experience of everyone who has come to Christ.

To argue that Romans 7 cannot be the experience of a great Christian is to espouse an unrealistic and unhealthy approach to the Christian life.

Now, there is nothing wrong with God’s Law.

It is good and perfect.

The problem lies with us.

Paul’s passionate conclusion is the cry of every Christian who has ever tried to please God on his own:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

(7:21–24)

This has been and is my cry.

It has been yours too.

We want to do good, but we end up doing the very thing we did not want to do.

Our inner being wants to please God, but the power to do so is out of our grasp.

We are in bondage.

But there is another experience which also belongs to Everyman, and it is described fully in Romans 8.

If we have been Christians for any length of time, we have known something of the life of Romans 8, but all of us would like to spend more time in its liberating heights.

Paul memorably introduces this great treatise by saying: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v.1a).

This is an arresting statement.

But it is even more gripping when we understand that the term “condemnation” carries the idea of penal servitude.

F. F. Bruce paraphrases 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 the prison house of sin.

In this way Paul introduces the grand theme of Romans 8: the work of the Holy Spirit in effecting our liberation.

The theme of chapter 8 is the Holy Spirit.

Until this point, there have only been two mentions of the Spirit in Romans.

The first was a passing reference to “the Spirit of holiness” (1:4), and the other described the Holy Spirit as pouring out the love of God within our hearts (5:5).

Now chapter 8 mentions the Holy Spirit twenty times!

Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Romans 8 is the chapter of liberation through God’s Spirit.

My hope is that our study of it will enable us to live more and more in “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (v.

21) so that chapter 7 will become less and less our experience.

The structure of the argument of verses 2–17 is as follows:

I.

The Holy Spirit’s Liberating Work (vv.

2–4)

II.The Holy Spirit’s Liberating Gifts (vv.

5–17)

A. A new mind-set (vv.

5–8)

B. A new sense of life (vv.

9–11)

C. A new obligation (vv.

12, 13)

D. A new identity (vv.

14–17)

THE HOLY SPIRIT’S LIBERATING WORK (vv.

2–4)

Verse 2 introduces the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing liberation: “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

Here “law” carries the idea of principle: “You were under the old principle of sin and death, but that has been transcended by the new principle of life in Christ—and so you are free.”

The old principle showed us our sin, stirred up our sin so that we sinned even more, and then brought us to condemnation.

But the new principle liberates us.

Death has been replaced with life.

Here Paul gives the Holy Spirit one of his more magnificent titles: “the Spirit of life.”

It reminds us of the first mention of the Spirit in the Bible (Genesis 1:2), when the Spirit brought forth creation ex nihilo.

That same creative power is characteristic of this new principle.

The Spirit of God “gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (4:17b).

This “Spirit of life” administers the work of God the Father, thus securing our liberation.

God’s work is described in verses 3, 4:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

The Law held up its perfect standard, but was unable to empower us to live up to that standard because of the weakness of our flesh.

There was nothing wrong with the Law.

The problem lay with the weakness of our flesh.

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man.…

(v. 3)

[Since our flesh was inadequate, God sent Christ in “the likeness of sinful man.”

Paul was very careful about his words here.

He did not say Christ came “in sinful flesh” because that would imply sin was in him.

Nor did he say, “likeness of flesh” because that might imply Christ only seemed to be in the flesh.

He said, “the likeness of sinful man” because Christ took on man’s flesh (human nature) without becoming a sinner.

Cranfield writes, “… the Son of God assumed the selfsame fallen human nature that is ours, but … in His case that fallen human nature was never the whole of Him.” Christ became “a sin offering” as he took our sin without sinning.

Thus his flesh (his human nature) remained strong and unfallen.

As a result “he condemned sin in sinful man.”

That is, he conquered sin.]

What this means for us is given in verse 4.

He condemned sin in his flesh “in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit creates a new humanity which is characterized by walking “according to the Spirit.”

This new humanity, through its union with Christ, whose flesh never sinned, is infused with the power to live in a way that is pleasing to God.

Everything the Law required is now realized in the lives of those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit.

To run and work the law commands,

Yet gives me neither feet or hands;

But better news the gospel brings:

It bids me fly, and gives me wings.

The principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the principle of sin and death.

Thus when we yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, we are liberated.

We no longer have to sin.

Through the Holy Spirit the virtue and perfection and power of Christ’s life is communicated to us.

We actually do the Law of God from the heart.

We love him with all our hearts, and we love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is as great a miracle as when the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep and with power materialized a new creation at the spoken word of the Father.

The Holy Spirit liberates us through Christ!

THE HOLY SPIRIT’S LIBERATING GIFTS (vv.

5–17)

Now we will consider what the Holy Spirit gives us in our liberation.

Four things are mentioned in verses 5–17.

First, he gives us a new mind-set.

Verses 5–8 describe two mind-sets—one without Christ and the other with Christ.