Romans 8:1-4

Life Through the Spirit
1 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 [a] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, [b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. [c] And so he condemned sin in human flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.


Dig Deeper
When I was a young man one of the great symbols of human oppression and evil came falling down with an emphatic thud. Following World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, the nation of Germany was occupied by it’s victors so that it could be rebuilt. Occupied Germany had been divided between former allies, the foremost of whom was the Soviet Union and The United States of America. The section of Germany occupied by the Soviet Union became a communist state while that occupied the US and her allies was rebuilt as a democratic state. The split wasn’t just isolated to the country, the city of Berlin itself was split into two and became parts of East and West Germany respectively. There was such a problem for the Communist East Germany of people escaping into West Berlin and West Germany that, in 1961, they built a wall through the streets of Berlin to keep people from leaving. It wasn’t until 1989 that the wall and communism in East Germany finally fell, brining freedom to those who had been forced to live under the Communist regime. When I saw the news coverage of the wall falling, I was a high school senior and I was, to be honest, mostly unimpressed. I saw the people knocking down the wall and celebrating wildly but it just didn’t mean that much to me. When our yearbook came out at the end of the year I couldn’t figure out why a big part of the “year in review” section had to do with the fall of the Berlin wall. It seemed to be such a big deal to everyone around me but for me it was just another barely interesting news story.

The reason that the fall of the Berlin wall didn’t seem that important to me was because I didn’t really grasp the significance of what it symbolized and what had gone on before. I was, at that time, grossly unaware of the true horrors and oppression that had gone on under the East German regime. I did not know about how the people of that country had been kept in poverty and denied their freedom at the expense of political ideology and power for a select few. Had I understood the worldwide significance of all of that and the massive symbolic importance that the fall of that wall carried then I would surely have understood the jubilant celebrations and would have probably joined in.

In this passage, Paul jumps to an incredible declaration of the victory of God in his son and you can almost feel his jubilation and excitement as he writes. “There is now no condemnation.” The depth of those words are truly the cause of joy and praise to a God who has accomplished exactly what he promised he would do. But those words only carry their full significance if someone truly understands the power of sin and their plight as one enslaved to it and under the impending wrath of God. It is only when we truly understand all that Paul has said about the powerlessness of anything else to free us from sin and death that we can rightly celebrate with him in his incredible declaration of freedom.

The fact that Paul begins verse 1 with “therefore,” indicating that his declaration of victory is directly related to what he says previously may seem a little strange considering that he left off with Israel, and all humanity as well, being a slave to sin despite a desire to be free. But this is exactly Paul’s point. I serve the law of God with my mind but the law of sin with my flesh, therefore there is now no condemnation because Jesus Christ has set me free from a previously inescapable situation. What could not be true before is “now” true. Those who are in Christ (think back to chapter 6) are no longer subject to condemnation, the penalty that sin exacts at the final judgment. In a tightly packed sentence, Paul has declared not only the new state of Christians, being in Christ and free from condemnation, but the very reason for that state, namely that they have died to their own wills and their fleshly identity and entered into Christ.

Condemnation is final state of lostness and estrangement from God’s family. When we truly understand how terrible that is, only then can we understand the true celebration of declaring that those in Christ have been permanently removed from that state. What the law could not do, which is to give life, because it could only tighten the grip of sin and death, the Spirit could do. Why is there no condemnation? Because the Spirit who gives life has set everyone free from the law of sin and death. The evil twin of the law that had been taken over by sin and used to increase the effect of sin has been dealt a death blow by the Spirit working through Christ to fulfill the promises of the law to bring life. In a strange way, only through Christ and participating in his self-giving love can the law be fulfilled. The Spirit, through the life of Christ, has enacted the new exodus, the escape from slavery. This is the Spirit who gives life both in the present and in the restored age to come. The depth of the nature of this dual aspect of life is something that will take Paul the rest of the chapter to work through more thoroughly.

The freedom that comes in Christ, the celebration of being free from condemnation for eternity is especially worthy of celebration and exultation because Christ has done what the law of Moses could only point to but never accomplish. Moses had led the people of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt and into the freedom of the promised land but that only pointed to the true freedom of life from the true enemy and enslavement of sin and death. The law, which was spiritual, demanded of man in the flesh something that only man animated by the Spirit could accomplish. This means, as Paul has clearly pointed out already, that the law could not affect the condemnation of anyone or free them from sin and death because the law was weakened by the flesh. We should restate that for Paul, the flesh (rendered “sinful nature” by the TNIV), referred to the fallen, this-worldly orientation of human beings. Thus, the law could point to freedom but could not overcome the weakness of the flesh which is, of course, sin. The law continued to stand with sin and death on the wrong side of the Adam/ Christ canyon.

God stepped in, however, and did himself what the law could not through the sending of his Son. He came, says Paul walking a very fine line, in the likeness of sinful humanity. Paul wants to show that Jesus came and fully participated in the normal human condition, showing that he could rightly act as a substitute or representative for mankind. He uses the word “likeness” here (homoioma) to denote the form or real participation and expression so as to show a distinction between Christ and sinful humanity. He does this because he cannot go too far in arguing that Christ fully entered into the human condition and became flesh. He does not want to give the impression that Christ participated to the degree that he was imprisoned in the sinful aspect of the flesh like other humans. The addition of “likeness,” then balances the scales lest “sinful flesh” went to far in the other direction. Jesus came in the form or expression of sinful flesh but not in every way. Although flesh usually speaks of the corruptible state of humankind, it is still important to distinguish that sin was an invader into the flesh. This means that sin is not necessary to genuine humanity. Jesus was in the likeness of sinful man, surely he was the real deal when it came to being human, but only the likeness because he had no sin himself (cf. Jn. 7:18; 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Pet. 2:22).

Jesus was presented as a sin offering to condemn “sin in human flesh.” What does Paul mean by this? He is still thinking in terms of the Messiah as the representative for his people. What is true of the king is true of his people. His death could serve as a representative death for all of his people. Going back to 5:20-21 where Paul stated that the law came so that sin could be collected in one place, Israel, but not just in Israel. Even more specifically, it would be piled up and dealt with in Israel’s representative, the Messiah. As Tom Wright has stated, “the weight of the world’s sin was focused on Israel; the weight of Israel’s sin was focused on the Messiah.” God holed sin up in the flesh of the Christ and condemned it right then and there. As Isaiah declared, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). In defeating sin where it had the most power, God defeated sin’s ability to dictate the life and fate of those in Christ. The condemnation that our sins deserved has been poured onto Christ, the sin-bearer, so that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We must be careful to avoid the heretical view that Jesus actually changed natures upon the cross and became sinful. Paul does not say that God condemned Jesus but that he condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus. He brought it onto one man to deal it with once-and for-all.

God did this for the clearly stated purpose that the “righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us.” The law was powerless to do what it wanted to do, to bring life to those trapped in sin and death but the requirements of the law have now been fully met by Christ. The requirement of the law was to do God’s will which is the consistent lifestyle of love (cf. Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14) and now God has broken the power of sin and made that a possibility for those who enter into the life of Christ and live according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature, the flesh, could never break the power of sin and fulfill the law but those who are animated by the Spirit can. The victory has been won. There is no condemnation for those in the because because the condemnation of sin has already taken place in him. But how will that victory play out and what does it mean in a world where the power of sin has been broken but sin has not been utterly destroyed? We will have to wait for Paul to unpack all of that throughout the rest of chapter 8, but take some time to really let the full meaning of his victorious declaration sink in here before moving on. There is enough here to celebrate for a long time if you fully understand the depth of what happened on the Cross and in the resurrection.

Devotional Thought
Do you live as one for whom there is now no condemnation? Or do you tend to be racked with guilt and fear of your judgment before God. For those in Christ, there in no condemnation. Take some time reflecting on this truth and what it means in your everyday life.