Romans 8:1-34

The words we are about to read follow a passage in which the Apostle describes the conflict of his soul. It is rather singular that it should be so.

To catch the contrast, let us just begin at the end of the 7 th chapter, 22 nd verse.

Romans 8:22 and Romans 8:1. For I delight in the law off God alter the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Some simpletons have said that Paul was not a converted man when he wrote the closing verses of that 7 th chapter. I venture to assert that nobody but an advanced Christian, enjoying the highest degree of sanctification could ever have written it. It is not a man that is dead in sin that calls himself «wretched,» because he finds sin within him; it is a man made pure by the grace of God, who, because of that very purity, tools more the comparatively lesser force of sin than he would have done when he had less grace and more sin. I believe that the nearer we get to absolute perfection, the more fit to enter the gates of heaven, the more detestable will sin become to us, and the more conflict will there be in our souls to tread out the last spark of sin. Bless God, beloved! if you feel a conflict, bless him and ask him that it may rage more terrible still, for that shall be one evidence to you that you are indeed out of all condemnation because you are struggling against the evil.

Romans 8:2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

I am not the bond-slave of it; I am the enemy of it; I am free from it, fighting against it, struggling like a free man against one who would bring him into captivity; but even though I sometime feel as if I were a captive, I know I am not, I am free.

Romans 8:3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not niter the flesh, but after the Spirit.

This is our victory, that let the flesh lust as it may, we do not walk after it; we are kept by God's grace; we are preserved, so that the bent and tenor of our life is after the rule of the Spirit of God.

Romans 8:5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Oh! what a death it is to us if ever the flesh gets the mastery; and if it had the mastery in us, we should know that we were in death still; but oh! what a joy, what life, what peace it is to have the Spirit ruling in us, so that we are spiritually minded. God give us this to the full!

Romans 8:7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

We must be born again then. It is no use improving the flesh. The taking away of the filth of the flesh was the old law, but the burying of the flesh, that is the new. The plunging of it into the death of Christ is the very sign of the new covenant. Oh! to know to the full, the power of the life of God for the death of the flesh!

Romans 8:9. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because off sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

That is why we have aches and pains, and infirmities, because the body is dead; that is, doomed to die, must die; it must see corruption unless the Lord come, and even in that case it must undergo a wondrous change; so we regard our body as dead. No wonder, then, that all those aches and pains and troubles of body do come upon us. The day shall come when, however, even it shall be delivered from the power of death; meanwhile, blessed be God, «the Spirit is life because of righteousness.»

Romans 8:11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The blessing of life is to come to the body too; it shall be immortal by-and-bye, delivered from all the infirmities and sorrows which sin and death have brought upon it.

Romans 8:12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

It is a live thing, and a quickening thing, for ye shall live.

Romans 8:14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

God has not got a dead child; never had one. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Romans 8:15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

First, love, and then sonship; he rises in his strain.

Romans 8:16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

It is first a quickening spirit, and then a witnessing spirit, witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now up again.

Romans 8:17. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him,

Up again:

Romans 8:17. That we may be also glorified together.

Oh! what a rise is this from groaning under, «O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?» up to this point, «That we may be also glorified together.»

Romans 8:18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

It is not merely that the Spirit will bless the body, but that spiritual men will bless the whole creation. Materialism, which is like the body inhabited by the spirits of saints, is to share in the bliss which Christ has come to bring.

Romans 8:20. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

Just as our body is, so to speak, the world, the earth in which our spirit dwells: so this big earth is the body in which the Church dwells; and this body has its pains, so this creation has its pains; but as this body is to rise again, so this creation also, though it «groaneth and travaileth,» is to be brought into the «glorious liberty of the children of God.» And What a world it will be when the curse that fell on it through the sin of Eden shall be removed by the glorious Atonement of Calvary; and when the blood of Christ which fell to the ground, which you will remember has never gone away from the earth, but is somewhere still, shall have fully redeemed the world, the whole world shall be a trophy of the Redeemer's power.

Romans 8:23. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Of course, we do groan within ourselves. Who said. we did not? And those brethren who say they never groan, I wish they would learn better. It is one of the signs of grace and marks of a child of God that he is not perfect, and does not think he is, but groans after it, cries after it. «We groan without ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.» For this poor body still lies in measure under a curse, still with its pains, still with its carnal appetites and fleshly tendencies to hamper and to trouble it, but this we groan after that this flesh of ours, and the whole creation in which we dwell, shall yet have a joyous deliverance.

Romans 8:24. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

He speaks as if it were all done, because the major part of it is done in the saints, and it will only be a wink of the eye and it will all be done in every one of us who are believers. Let us look at it as done quite fully, even now, by hope that we are already glorified together.

Romans 8:31. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things!

What, indeed, what can we say? We are lost in wonder, love, and praise. Thus much, however, we can say, for it concerns our struggles while we are here below. Paul has got that shadow still ever him of struggling against the flesh. What shall we say in the view of these blessed things concerning that struggle? Why, this: «If God be for us, Who can be against us?»

Romans 8:33. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Equally impossible; and if neither God nor Christ will condemn, what judge have we to fear? The Judge of all the earth, and the Judge of the quick and the dead if neither of these condemn, condemn away who likes.