Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
What is this "Law of the Spirit of Life"?
Here's what my friend Andrew has to say about life:
Life is a real, solid thing, even though it is a spiritual thing. It is the power that makes us perform the action of living. Life is not just something that we experience: it's not only a series of events, or actions of breathing or eating. Those are merely signs of the life within us. ...So when Rom 8 talks about life, it's talking about that spiritual, animating, kind of life. "The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being."
In Rom 8, Paul explains that there are two of these "life"s; there is 1) our own life, which is in our bodies naturally and is vulnerable to judgment by the Law of Death, and 2) there is the life of Jesus Christ.
Now, we know that the Law of Death condemns all life which is not the very life of Jesus Christ:
(2:12) [...] as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.
(3:23) [...] all have sinned [...]
(7:9) [...] when the Law came, sin revived and I died.
(v3) 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.
Fortunately, we are offered the very life of Christ, and this life will free us from the Law of Death. This life is so real that Paul says it is for our physical bodies.
(v11 para) The Holy Spirit will give the life of Jesus to your mortal bodies through his Holy Sprit within you.
(v10 para) If Christ is in you, although the spiritual "life" of the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit becomes your real life, because of Jesus' righteousness.
(v2) For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death.
So now Paul argues in (8:9, 12, and 13) that we must choose. We can either cling to the life which we have naturally-- the life which is condemned to death. Or we can cling to the life that is ours in Jesus. We cling to it by the Holy Spirit. Here's my amplification of v13:
(v13) For if you live according to the flesh you will die. But if you stop claiming the life of the flesh, and choose instead the Life of the Sprit, you will live.
Much more can be said, especially on how to do that practically.
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1 comment:
Right with you until you suggest that Paul argues we must choose. Look carefully--he never quite suggests that. I'd suggest checking a different translation on v.13--"stop claiming" and "choose" seem to me unsupported in the Greek. What he says is that "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." One might want to interpret that as meaning "choose", but I'd be a little careful leaping prematurely to that reading.
Paul does say (v9) we are in the Spirit because we have the Spirit within us. Now, the question is, "How did we get the Spirit, and how does the Spirit remain within us?" Maybe by choice, but he never says that. And here Galatians 3 is very helpful: "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?...The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by doing the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" And then we may look ahead to Romans 10:17-- "So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ."
A shocking thing, really. The Spirit is given through the Word. So the question is redirected from, "What do I do?" to "Whom should I hear?" Of course, then you might conclude (rightly) that by yourself you cannot do this. You need Christ to be preached to you (just as Paul preaches to the Romans).
-Adam Morton
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