WARNING PREACHY…
Last
week[1] I
began looking at Roman 8:1-11, and in those 11 versus I found nine obvious
topics that I wanted to explore. This
week I am looking at topic number two – the
Law.
Romans 8:1-11
There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of
the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and
death. 3 For
God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the
flesh, 4 in
order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but
according to the Spirit. 5 For
those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the
flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things
of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on
the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is
hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but
in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not
have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ
is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of
him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus
from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who
dwells in you.
THE LAW…
The Jewish Law was burdensome for the
most desperate, and stifling against the genuine worship of God by the people. The religion of the Law knew nothing of individual
worship and relationship with God, but rather was more about a corporate fellowship
through a regulated priesthood. By the
time Jesus began his public ministry the teachers and leaders of the Law had created
a religion that was dominated by and for the elite; not necessarily about God
or the people.
The Law is basically the 10
Commandments. You know, the thou shall
nots? Thou shall have no other Gods, take
the Lord’s name in vain, commit murder, adultery, thievery, lie, or covet. All in all, someone counted and there were
613 total commands that people under the Law had to live by. No, those were not all God’s doing, many of
them were created and put into practice by the leaders of the Jewish religion,
but that’s what they had to live by as Jews.
The idea of the Law was that if they obeyed the regulations then God was
honored and they would be accepted by Him.
The problem was that nobody could obey the rules because the flesh was
not able. Paul speaks of this impossibility
in Romans 7.
It worked sort of like this. When I was about seven or eight, I was at my grandmother’s house. I decided to go out to swing at the pear tree and maybe eat a ripe pear. I asked my grandmother if I could go outside and she said “yes” but added that I was not to go by the road. Seriously? I wasn’t even thinking about the road but once she said not to I had a strange attraction to go out and see what the fuss was about. This is how it was for people who lived under the Law, for the Law told people not to covet their neighbor’s wife and guess what? They couldn’t help themselves and coveted their neighbor’s wife anyway.
Romans 7:7
“…I
would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not
have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not
covet.”
And so, since the people were not able
to actually obey the Law that was to make them righteous in the sight of God,
God sent Jesus, in the flesh, to show them the way to true relationship with
God. By living a sinless life and dying
the death required by the Law Jesus secured a righteousness that He now offers
to men that we might be found righteous in the sight of God.
Just as we saw last week that there was
a caveat in the decree that there is now therefore
no condemnation, there also is a caveat in the decree that the righteous requirement of the Law might
be fulfilled in us. That caveat is
that we must be walking according to the law of the Spirit of Christ and not
the Law of the flesh.
To repent is to be traveling in one
direction and then to turn immediately around and travel in the other. When the Israelites who followed the Law of
Moses were called to repent, they were being called to stop walking in the Law
of the flesh but to turn around and begin walking in the law of the Spirit.
For us gentiles who never walked in the
Law of Moses, we do walk according to something of our flesh. Generally it’s some form of self-focused
misguided philosophy or religiosity but whatever it is, we need to repent from that
Law of flesh and begin walking in the Law of the Spirit of Jesus.
And for those of us who do, Paul assures
that there
is now therefore no condemnation.
I pray that you will go this week and
confidently walk in by the Spirit of the Christ who secured such a great salvation
for us. Be blessed my friends.
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