Exposition of Romans 8:1-14
Jan 13, 2017 13:35:28 GMT
Post by Colossians on Jan 13, 2017 13:35:28 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
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EXPOSITION OF ROMANS 8:1-14
[1] “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
The (particular) placement of the first comma in this verse renders the relative pronoun which follows it non-restrictive: this “no condemnation” refers not to certain ones in Christ who in contrast to others in Christ walk after the Spirit rather than the flesh, but to anyone in Christ.
And so the primary focus here is on our sanctification1: we are set apart from judgement irrespective of how often we walk after the flesh, simply because Christ dwells in us.2
However although at the prima facie level such declaration of grace is levelled at the Christian (in whom dwells not only the New Man but the old new man too – hence our need to be told that we are not under condemnation), the ultimate focus is of necessity on the New Man only, for it is only the works of the New Man that follow us into eternity (see 1 Cor 3:11-16, Rev 14:13): it is not the Christian per se who walks after the Spirit, but the New Man within.3
1 The belief held by the church at large that sanctification refers to a (our) progressive conformity to Christ, is false, being in fact a subtle form of justification by the works of the law. Rather and to the contrary, sanctification is in fact only required when we are not conformed to Christ, for it is only at those times that we need to be set apart from judgement: sanctification and justification are in fact reciprocal to each other. And so when at 1 Thes 4:3 Paul says that our abstaining from fornication is our sanctification, he is not saying that the less we fornicate the more we are sanctified, but that such abstinence befits our sanctification – that if God has in faith set us apart from judgement regardless of what we do (see Acts 26:18), then such setting apart should be rewarded by behaviour which speaks to faith and which therefore justifies God in His sanctifying of us. Commensurately, we are told at Heb 10:29 that we are sanctified by the blood of Christ, which should not be the case if sanctification speaks to conformity to Christ, for the blood of Christ was not shed for our righteousness but for our sin. (See also subnotes (1) and (1a) under our work: “The causal sequence of our salvation”.)
2 The elect are even set apart from judgement before Christ dwells in them, by virtue of their betrothal to Him before the world began. However the focus here is on experience rather than covenant.
3 When the Spirit is, according to His sovereign will, not active in the Christian, the Christian will by default walk under the law and therefore walk according to the flesh: he will at such times be said to be operating as “the old man”. However the Christian is never defined by the old man but only ever by the New Man (see Rom 7:20): he is thus never said to be “in the flesh” and thus never said to be under the dominion of the law, for the strength of sin is the law and the New Man is completely free from sin. (See Gal 5:17,18. See also our work “Sin and righteousness structurally explained”.)
[2] “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
This “the law of the Spirit of life” is appositive genitive: it is not a law from the Spirit of life, but a law which consists of none other than (the very person who is) the Spirit of life: Christ does not tell us the truth other than by being the Truth within us; Christ does not give us life other than by being the Life within us.
And this “the law of sin and death” is appositive genitive too: it is a law which consists of sin and (corresponding) death. And so we note that the reference is not to “sins” but “sin”: sins are intermittent acts, but sin a matter of (perpetual) state, hence the need to be set free from such a ‘law’. This then is where the law of commandments and the law of sin and death come together, for “the strength of sin [(and death)] is the law [of commandments]” (1 Cor 15:56).
[3] “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
Although the law is spiritual, it cannot produce a spiritual result (see Gal 3:21), for it is levelled at human beings, who consist of a spirit housed in flesh, which spirit is head of such flesh in the same way that a husband is head of his wife, and which spirit therefore seeks to please such flesh in the same way that a husband seeks to please his wife: the human spirit walks by default after the flesh, for if not joined to the Lord’s Spirit, what else is there to walk after?
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:”
If the law had been able to condemn sin in the flesh, God would not have had to send His Son in order to condemn sin in the flesh: the law would have already done it!
More particularly, although the law could condemn the sinner, it could not condemn the sin itself (i.e. sin as an institution). This of course is to be expected: the law needs sin to justify its existence: in this sense the law and sin are ‘partners in crime’.
In order for sin in the flesh to be condemned, it had to be robbed of any and all institutional merit – it had to be found out to be not the inevitable it ‘claimed’ to be. And so the law had to produce a counter example: it had to produce at least one life lived completely without sin. But it couldn’t, for it was weak through the flesh: the only thing it had to work with was a (human) spirit-flesh ‘marriage’, in which the spirit sought to please the flesh in the same way that a husband seeks to please his wife.
And so we are told that God sent Christ “in the likeness of sinful flesh”: God was sending His counter example who, although in the same form as Adam, would walk after the Spirit and not the flesh.
Sin in the flesh was therefore condemned not at Calvary per se, but by virtue of the Lord’s being sent in the flesh (i.e. by virtue of the incarnation). For Christ being God and therefore constitutionally dead to self, it was guaranteed that He would never walk after the flesh.
And the Cross would follow as (indispensable) ratification, for it is written: “he that hath suffered in the flesh [(is the same also who)] hath ceased from sin” (1 Pe 4:1).
[4] “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
We first of all take from this (resultative) statement the teaching that in order for the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us, sin in the flesh had to be condemned.
But why?
Well first of all we need to understand just what this “the righteousness of the law” that is fulfilled in us is. Is it the righteousness that is “in” the law? God forbid, for Paul has told us that concerning the righteousness that is “in” the law, he was blameless, and yet that he counted such mere refuse! (See Phil 3:6-9.)
And so shall we not rather understand that, given that our righteousness is by none other than faith (Rom 1:17, 4, 9:30, 10:6,10, Gal 3:11), this “the righteousness of the law” is none other than the righteousness which is by faith, and that therefore the righteousness of the law can only be (paradoxically) attained to by that which is not of the law?
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But faith in what? Well ... faith that our Lord’s submission to the Cross was certification that He had indeed taken away the demands of the law from over us! For the law is not of faith!
And so sin in the flesh had first of all to be condemned (by One other than the law) because in being condemned (by One other than the law) any punishing of it by the law were (then) redundant, and if any punishing of it by the law were (then) redundant then such sin were in hindsight seen to have never been invoked by the law in the first place! (For the law which constitutes the strength of sin is of necessity (the same law) responsible for punishing such sin. But if there exists sin which the law is not required to punish then the law is of necessity declared (in hindsight) to have never constituted the strength of that sin in the first place!)
And so given that such sin did in fact occur, and given that such sin was in fact invoked by the law – for “the motions of [(all)] sins are by the law” (Rom 7:5) - we are forced to conclude that it must have been committed by someone other than ourselves. That is, the “I” that now is, is in God’s eyes a completely different creature to the “I” that then was: not only different by virtue of attitude, but (of necessity) by virtue of legal identity, and this in turn by virtue of (a new) metaphysical structure: our spirit was once husband to our flesh, but is now wife to Jesus Christ.
So:
“if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” 2 Cor 5:17,
where the literal Greek for this “new creature” relates a creature that has never existed before.
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And although sin in the flesh existed not only in the past but continues to manifest itself in the life of the Christian, because it is not merely sins (plural) in the flesh that God has condemned but “sin in the flesh” as an institution, then not only is it the case that our past sins in the flesh are attributed to one other than ourselves, but of necessity our future sins in the flesh also!
So:
“Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” Rom 7:20.
And so once again we note – as we did at v1 – that the placement of the first comma here at v4 renders the “who” which follows it non-restrictive: we are at the second half of this verse (4) declared to be they who walk after the Spirit regardless of how often we walk after the flesh: it is our union with Christ, and nothing else besides, which defines us in the Father’s eyes. Such is the grace in which we stand.
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But if we declare that such sin belongs not to us, we necessarily do so from another ‘land’ wherein we necessarily stand under another law – even the law of faith – and therefore no longer under the law which constitutes the strength of sin!
So:
“Knowing this, our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” Rom 6:6.
And so:
“That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” 2 Ti 3:17.
[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.”
In accord with what we have learned thus far, Paul here simply contrasts the unregenerate with the regenerate and is not in any way declaring anyone in Christ to be “after the flesh”.
Accordingly, when the redeemed are figuratively represented by the tribes of Israel at Rev 7:5-8, the tribe of Dan is missing: Dan means “judgement”, and our Lord has told us that the believer “shall not come into condemnation; but is [(already)] passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
[6] “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Notwithstanding the fact that we are defined solely by our walking after the Spirit and that any walking after the flesh is ignored by God with regard to judgement, we nevertheless understand our walking by the Spirit in stark experiential contrast to our walking by the flesh: though the pleasures of the flesh are very real, they are (in hindsight) perceived to be nothing in comparison to the joy we experience in the Spirit.
And if nothing, then death.
However it must be pointed out that because such understanding is of (logical) necessity from the perspective of Life after such death, we are also of (logical) necessity under no compulsion to attempt to resurrect and improve such old man.
So:
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you” Phil 3:13-15.
[7] “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
This “the carnal mind” is, in light of what we have thus far detailed, in reference to the only-mind of the non-Christian, and the sometimes-mind of the Christian.
And of course it is related to us here the Calvinistic principle known as “Total Depravity”: our being told that the carnal mind cannot subject itself to God, is not to suggest an inability of the mind in the face of a will to the contrary, but an inability which consists of the will. For the will is the rudder of the mind.
[8] “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Given that there are only two positions – pleasing God and not pleasing God – and given that faith is the only thing that pleases God (Heb 11:6), we understand that they who are declared to be “in the flesh” are the same also who do not walk by faith and therefore the same also who walk under the law, regardless of whether cognisantly (in attempting to keep the law’s precepts), or reactively (in rebelling against the law’s precepts).
For the law commands us to walk not by the law but by faith (for the first commandment was that we should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and neither walking by the law, nor rebelling against its precepts, constitutes walking by faith.
[9] “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
As per subnote (3) under v1.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
The all-important thing is that we know the Lord.
For:
“He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” Heb 7:25.
[10] “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
The semicolon here renders the clause that follows it more or less a rejoinder, and thus beckons us to consider the words which precede it firstly on their own.
Concerning such preceding words then, those inexperienced with Paul’s style of writing might be tempted to conclude that he is here telling us that the body is dead because of sin only if Christ is in us (and that therefore the bodies of non-believers are in some way or another (still) alive in God’s eyes).
But Paul has earlier informed us that by sending Christ in the likeness of sinful flesh God condemned sin in the flesh, and we have naturally understood such condemnation to be universal – that regardless of whether it be sin in the flesh of the Christian or sin in the flesh of the non-believer, sin in the flesh has been condemned.
And so and in accord with we have said under v4 concerning the experiential side of things, Paul’s words here are rather to be taken as:
“If Christ be in you, you will know that the body is dead because of sin”.
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But if sin in the flesh is condemned regardless of whether it be in the Christian or in the non-believer, why then are non-believers not also free from the law?
Well this is where the positional aspect and the experiential aspect come together: unless we understand at an experiential level that our sin in the flesh is condemned by way of the juxtaposition of it with a sinless One who lives within, we remain by default under the law and thus without confidence on that great last day.
And if without confidence, then condemned.
And if condemned, then in hell.
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And so although Paul is not saying that the body is dead because of sin only if Christ is in us, that is nevertheless the effect after all.
And thus we are brought to the blessed rejoinder – the other side of the very same baptismal coin:
“but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”
: our life consists in our knowing that our death has died, and our knowing that our death has died is by virtue of the Spirit of Truth who dwells within.
[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.”
Firstly we must needs point out here that, contrary to many bible versions, this quickening of our mortal4 bodies here speaks not to any resurrection of our physical bodies after death, but to the Spirit’s bringing our lives into conformity with Christ: it speaks of the fruits of the Spirit. For mortal bodies are by definition still alive: dead bodies are not mortal, but mortified.
4 Paul's focus here is hamartiological: the mortality he speaks of is not physical, but spiritual, to wit, the propensity of our bodies to naturally promote that which is in opposition to God. See then Rom 7:23.
To the matter at hand …
It is all well and good to tell us that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead will produce His fruits in us, but what actually links the two phenomena together? The former seems to be fleshly, the latter spiritual. By what principle does the Holy Spirit base the latter on the former?
Well let us firstly remember that the law is spiritual (Rom 7:14) and that it was therefore authorised to declare Christ (who transgressed the law) spiritually dead: it was authorised to condemn Him.
However the ‘assumption’ of the law was that all transgressions against it were sin, and it was this assumption that was in fact the law’s undoing, for transgression of the law is only sin when one transgresses the law which commands one to not walk by the law.
For:
“for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” Rom 14:23,
and we know that
“[(attempting to keep)] the law is not of faith” Gal 3:12.
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And so in crucifying the Lord for declaring in faith that He was God the law necessarily erred. The law’s verdict therefore had to be overturned, and its penalty reversed. And it was reversed by the Spirit, for we are told here that it was the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.
And yet it was also reversed by Christ Himself, for Christ has told us at John 10:18 that He had the power to take His (physical) life back up again.
And so if it is both the Spirit and Christ Himself who are responsible for Christ’s resurrection, then given that the law cannot give life then life must be wrought by faith, we understand that the faith by which Christ walked and which convinced the Spirit to reverse the law’s penalty was of necessity coextensive with the Spirit’s power to raise Him from the dead.
This is then where the physical resurrection of Christ and our ‘resurrection life’ in the Spirit come together: He who dwells in us and who represents Him who walked by faith, will of necessity produce the same life in us that the faith of Him whom He represents constituted.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ 2 Cor 3:18.
“He that hath the Son hath life” 1 John 5:12.
[12] “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.”
If we were debtors to the flesh, we would indeed be obliged to live after the flesh. But it was the flesh that was the problem in the first place, so we cannot be debtors to the flesh.
But note here that Paul is also not saying that we are debtors to the Spirit, for if we are debtors to the Spirit, then the Spirit were simply an alias for the law and we were necessarily back living after the flesh again!
No rather, we are the woman of Christ: the government shall be upon His shoulders, not ours.
Behold then the government:
“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” Rom 8:26.
[13] “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.”
In light of what we have said thus far, this verse is self-explanatory.
Only we will add that the death spoken of here and which results from living after the flesh, is the same death that God said Adam and Eve should die if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: God was not speaking to them of physical death but the death which results from living under the law and which therefore primarily manifests itself as the awareness that one is unworthy before God; and thus after they had eaten they “knew that they were naked” (Gen 3:7).
[14] “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
Indeed.
Amen.
(See also postscripts below.)
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Postscript: “crucified with Him”
The crucifixion of Christ provided for Him the legal basis to enter us who had been given to Him by the Father, and His (according) entering in to us then provided for us the awareness that our sin in the flesh was condemned: it is in this sense that our old man is crucified with Him.
Postscript: “sin in the flesh”
Paul uses the term “sin in the flesh” as opposed to just “sin” because there is also a sin in the spirit which, because a spirit is eternal, could not be ‘crucified with Christ’ as could sin in the flesh.
Sin in the flesh is marked by the things of the flesh and is referred to by Paul as “the works of the flesh” at Gal 5:19 (where he also lists such works). Such sins can therefore be declaratively dispensed with in the lives of those in whom Christ dwells, for Christ went to the Cross in the flesh.
By contrast, sin in the spirit – as should be expected – consists of the rejection of the very thing that provides for one’s experiential knowledge that sin in the flesh is condemned: it consists of the cognisant rejection of the Holy Spirit and is referred to by the Lord as the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (see Mt 12:31).
Unlike sin in the flesh then, the condemning by God of sin in the spirit has no Cross which might constitute a ‘sunset clause’: it is unforgivable.
Such two sins – “sin in the flesh” and ‘sin in the spirit’ – are (respectively) represented at 1 John 5:16:
“If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it”.
Postscript: the leading of the Spirit
It must be emphasised that we do not reject the law in deference to a spirit (i.e. the Spirit) who (then) (circularly) leads us to follow the law.
No rather, in our being told that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor 3:6), the leading of the Spirit is naturally to completely supplant any attention to the law.
For the end (goal) of the law is (a personal relationship with) Jesus Christ Himself (Rom 10:4), and no-one – not even the Spirit – is permitted to achieve any goal other than the goal of the law.
For “the law is [(indeed)] spiritual” (Rom 7:14).
(See also subnote (1) under our work: “In which Calvinism need not be defended”. See also our works: “The New Covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34” and “Why it is impossible to keep the law”.)
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EXPOSITION OF ROMANS 8:1-14
[1] “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
The (particular) placement of the first comma in this verse renders the relative pronoun which follows it non-restrictive: this “no condemnation” refers not to certain ones in Christ who in contrast to others in Christ walk after the Spirit rather than the flesh, but to anyone in Christ.
And so the primary focus here is on our sanctification1: we are set apart from judgement irrespective of how often we walk after the flesh, simply because Christ dwells in us.2
However although at the prima facie level such declaration of grace is levelled at the Christian (in whom dwells not only the New Man but the old new man too – hence our need to be told that we are not under condemnation), the ultimate focus is of necessity on the New Man only, for it is only the works of the New Man that follow us into eternity (see 1 Cor 3:11-16, Rev 14:13): it is not the Christian per se who walks after the Spirit, but the New Man within.3
1 The belief held by the church at large that sanctification refers to a (our) progressive conformity to Christ, is false, being in fact a subtle form of justification by the works of the law. Rather and to the contrary, sanctification is in fact only required when we are not conformed to Christ, for it is only at those times that we need to be set apart from judgement: sanctification and justification are in fact reciprocal to each other. And so when at 1 Thes 4:3 Paul says that our abstaining from fornication is our sanctification, he is not saying that the less we fornicate the more we are sanctified, but that such abstinence befits our sanctification – that if God has in faith set us apart from judgement regardless of what we do (see Acts 26:18), then such setting apart should be rewarded by behaviour which speaks to faith and which therefore justifies God in His sanctifying of us. Commensurately, we are told at Heb 10:29 that we are sanctified by the blood of Christ, which should not be the case if sanctification speaks to conformity to Christ, for the blood of Christ was not shed for our righteousness but for our sin. (See also subnotes (1) and (1a) under our work: “The causal sequence of our salvation”.)
2 The elect are even set apart from judgement before Christ dwells in them, by virtue of their betrothal to Him before the world began. However the focus here is on experience rather than covenant.
3 When the Spirit is, according to His sovereign will, not active in the Christian, the Christian will by default walk under the law and therefore walk according to the flesh: he will at such times be said to be operating as “the old man”. However the Christian is never defined by the old man but only ever by the New Man (see Rom 7:20): he is thus never said to be “in the flesh” and thus never said to be under the dominion of the law, for the strength of sin is the law and the New Man is completely free from sin. (See Gal 5:17,18. See also our work “Sin and righteousness structurally explained”.)
[2] “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
This “the law of the Spirit of life” is appositive genitive: it is not a law from the Spirit of life, but a law which consists of none other than (the very person who is) the Spirit of life: Christ does not tell us the truth other than by being the Truth within us; Christ does not give us life other than by being the Life within us.
And this “the law of sin and death” is appositive genitive too: it is a law which consists of sin and (corresponding) death. And so we note that the reference is not to “sins” but “sin”: sins are intermittent acts, but sin a matter of (perpetual) state, hence the need to be set free from such a ‘law’. This then is where the law of commandments and the law of sin and death come together, for “the strength of sin [(and death)] is the law [of commandments]” (1 Cor 15:56).
[3] “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
Although the law is spiritual, it cannot produce a spiritual result (see Gal 3:21), for it is levelled at human beings, who consist of a spirit housed in flesh, which spirit is head of such flesh in the same way that a husband is head of his wife, and which spirit therefore seeks to please such flesh in the same way that a husband seeks to please his wife: the human spirit walks by default after the flesh, for if not joined to the Lord’s Spirit, what else is there to walk after?
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:”
If the law had been able to condemn sin in the flesh, God would not have had to send His Son in order to condemn sin in the flesh: the law would have already done it!
More particularly, although the law could condemn the sinner, it could not condemn the sin itself (i.e. sin as an institution). This of course is to be expected: the law needs sin to justify its existence: in this sense the law and sin are ‘partners in crime’.
In order for sin in the flesh to be condemned, it had to be robbed of any and all institutional merit – it had to be found out to be not the inevitable it ‘claimed’ to be. And so the law had to produce a counter example: it had to produce at least one life lived completely without sin. But it couldn’t, for it was weak through the flesh: the only thing it had to work with was a (human) spirit-flesh ‘marriage’, in which the spirit sought to please the flesh in the same way that a husband seeks to please his wife.
And so we are told that God sent Christ “in the likeness of sinful flesh”: God was sending His counter example who, although in the same form as Adam, would walk after the Spirit and not the flesh.
Sin in the flesh was therefore condemned not at Calvary per se, but by virtue of the Lord’s being sent in the flesh (i.e. by virtue of the incarnation). For Christ being God and therefore constitutionally dead to self, it was guaranteed that He would never walk after the flesh.
And the Cross would follow as (indispensable) ratification, for it is written: “he that hath suffered in the flesh [(is the same also who)] hath ceased from sin” (1 Pe 4:1).
[4] “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
We first of all take from this (resultative) statement the teaching that in order for the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us, sin in the flesh had to be condemned.
But why?
Well first of all we need to understand just what this “the righteousness of the law” that is fulfilled in us is. Is it the righteousness that is “in” the law? God forbid, for Paul has told us that concerning the righteousness that is “in” the law, he was blameless, and yet that he counted such mere refuse! (See Phil 3:6-9.)
And so shall we not rather understand that, given that our righteousness is by none other than faith (Rom 1:17, 4, 9:30, 10:6,10, Gal 3:11), this “the righteousness of the law” is none other than the righteousness which is by faith, and that therefore the righteousness of the law can only be (paradoxically) attained to by that which is not of the law?
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But faith in what? Well ... faith that our Lord’s submission to the Cross was certification that He had indeed taken away the demands of the law from over us! For the law is not of faith!
And so sin in the flesh had first of all to be condemned (by One other than the law) because in being condemned (by One other than the law) any punishing of it by the law were (then) redundant, and if any punishing of it by the law were (then) redundant then such sin were in hindsight seen to have never been invoked by the law in the first place! (For the law which constitutes the strength of sin is of necessity (the same law) responsible for punishing such sin. But if there exists sin which the law is not required to punish then the law is of necessity declared (in hindsight) to have never constituted the strength of that sin in the first place!)
And so given that such sin did in fact occur, and given that such sin was in fact invoked by the law – for “the motions of [(all)] sins are by the law” (Rom 7:5) - we are forced to conclude that it must have been committed by someone other than ourselves. That is, the “I” that now is, is in God’s eyes a completely different creature to the “I” that then was: not only different by virtue of attitude, but (of necessity) by virtue of legal identity, and this in turn by virtue of (a new) metaphysical structure: our spirit was once husband to our flesh, but is now wife to Jesus Christ.
So:
“if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” 2 Cor 5:17,
where the literal Greek for this “new creature” relates a creature that has never existed before.
___
And although sin in the flesh existed not only in the past but continues to manifest itself in the life of the Christian, because it is not merely sins (plural) in the flesh that God has condemned but “sin in the flesh” as an institution, then not only is it the case that our past sins in the flesh are attributed to one other than ourselves, but of necessity our future sins in the flesh also!
So:
“Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” Rom 7:20.
And so once again we note – as we did at v1 – that the placement of the first comma here at v4 renders the “who” which follows it non-restrictive: we are at the second half of this verse (4) declared to be they who walk after the Spirit regardless of how often we walk after the flesh: it is our union with Christ, and nothing else besides, which defines us in the Father’s eyes. Such is the grace in which we stand.
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But if we declare that such sin belongs not to us, we necessarily do so from another ‘land’ wherein we necessarily stand under another law – even the law of faith – and therefore no longer under the law which constitutes the strength of sin!
So:
“Knowing this, our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” Rom 6:6.
And so:
“That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” 2 Ti 3:17.
[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.”
In accord with what we have learned thus far, Paul here simply contrasts the unregenerate with the regenerate and is not in any way declaring anyone in Christ to be “after the flesh”.
Accordingly, when the redeemed are figuratively represented by the tribes of Israel at Rev 7:5-8, the tribe of Dan is missing: Dan means “judgement”, and our Lord has told us that the believer “shall not come into condemnation; but is [(already)] passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
[6] “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Notwithstanding the fact that we are defined solely by our walking after the Spirit and that any walking after the flesh is ignored by God with regard to judgement, we nevertheless understand our walking by the Spirit in stark experiential contrast to our walking by the flesh: though the pleasures of the flesh are very real, they are (in hindsight) perceived to be nothing in comparison to the joy we experience in the Spirit.
And if nothing, then death.
However it must be pointed out that because such understanding is of (logical) necessity from the perspective of Life after such death, we are also of (logical) necessity under no compulsion to attempt to resurrect and improve such old man.
So:
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you” Phil 3:13-15.
[7] “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
This “the carnal mind” is, in light of what we have thus far detailed, in reference to the only-mind of the non-Christian, and the sometimes-mind of the Christian.
And of course it is related to us here the Calvinistic principle known as “Total Depravity”: our being told that the carnal mind cannot subject itself to God, is not to suggest an inability of the mind in the face of a will to the contrary, but an inability which consists of the will. For the will is the rudder of the mind.
[8] “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Given that there are only two positions – pleasing God and not pleasing God – and given that faith is the only thing that pleases God (Heb 11:6), we understand that they who are declared to be “in the flesh” are the same also who do not walk by faith and therefore the same also who walk under the law, regardless of whether cognisantly (in attempting to keep the law’s precepts), or reactively (in rebelling against the law’s precepts).
For the law commands us to walk not by the law but by faith (for the first commandment was that we should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and neither walking by the law, nor rebelling against its precepts, constitutes walking by faith.
[9] “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
As per subnote (3) under v1.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
The all-important thing is that we know the Lord.
For:
“He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” Heb 7:25.
[10] “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
The semicolon here renders the clause that follows it more or less a rejoinder, and thus beckons us to consider the words which precede it firstly on their own.
Concerning such preceding words then, those inexperienced with Paul’s style of writing might be tempted to conclude that he is here telling us that the body is dead because of sin only if Christ is in us (and that therefore the bodies of non-believers are in some way or another (still) alive in God’s eyes).
But Paul has earlier informed us that by sending Christ in the likeness of sinful flesh God condemned sin in the flesh, and we have naturally understood such condemnation to be universal – that regardless of whether it be sin in the flesh of the Christian or sin in the flesh of the non-believer, sin in the flesh has been condemned.
And so and in accord with we have said under v4 concerning the experiential side of things, Paul’s words here are rather to be taken as:
“If Christ be in you, you will know that the body is dead because of sin”.
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But if sin in the flesh is condemned regardless of whether it be in the Christian or in the non-believer, why then are non-believers not also free from the law?
Well this is where the positional aspect and the experiential aspect come together: unless we understand at an experiential level that our sin in the flesh is condemned by way of the juxtaposition of it with a sinless One who lives within, we remain by default under the law and thus without confidence on that great last day.
And if without confidence, then condemned.
And if condemned, then in hell.
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And so although Paul is not saying that the body is dead because of sin only if Christ is in us, that is nevertheless the effect after all.
And thus we are brought to the blessed rejoinder – the other side of the very same baptismal coin:
“but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”
: our life consists in our knowing that our death has died, and our knowing that our death has died is by virtue of the Spirit of Truth who dwells within.
[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.”
Firstly we must needs point out here that, contrary to many bible versions, this quickening of our mortal4 bodies here speaks not to any resurrection of our physical bodies after death, but to the Spirit’s bringing our lives into conformity with Christ: it speaks of the fruits of the Spirit. For mortal bodies are by definition still alive: dead bodies are not mortal, but mortified.
4 Paul's focus here is hamartiological: the mortality he speaks of is not physical, but spiritual, to wit, the propensity of our bodies to naturally promote that which is in opposition to God. See then Rom 7:23.
To the matter at hand …
It is all well and good to tell us that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead will produce His fruits in us, but what actually links the two phenomena together? The former seems to be fleshly, the latter spiritual. By what principle does the Holy Spirit base the latter on the former?
Well let us firstly remember that the law is spiritual (Rom 7:14) and that it was therefore authorised to declare Christ (who transgressed the law) spiritually dead: it was authorised to condemn Him.
However the ‘assumption’ of the law was that all transgressions against it were sin, and it was this assumption that was in fact the law’s undoing, for transgression of the law is only sin when one transgresses the law which commands one to not walk by the law.
For:
“for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” Rom 14:23,
and we know that
“[(attempting to keep)] the law is not of faith” Gal 3:12.
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And so in crucifying the Lord for declaring in faith that He was God the law necessarily erred. The law’s verdict therefore had to be overturned, and its penalty reversed. And it was reversed by the Spirit, for we are told here that it was the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.
And yet it was also reversed by Christ Himself, for Christ has told us at John 10:18 that He had the power to take His (physical) life back up again.
And so if it is both the Spirit and Christ Himself who are responsible for Christ’s resurrection, then given that the law cannot give life then life must be wrought by faith, we understand that the faith by which Christ walked and which convinced the Spirit to reverse the law’s penalty was of necessity coextensive with the Spirit’s power to raise Him from the dead.
This is then where the physical resurrection of Christ and our ‘resurrection life’ in the Spirit come together: He who dwells in us and who represents Him who walked by faith, will of necessity produce the same life in us that the faith of Him whom He represents constituted.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ 2 Cor 3:18.
“He that hath the Son hath life” 1 John 5:12.
[12] “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.”
If we were debtors to the flesh, we would indeed be obliged to live after the flesh. But it was the flesh that was the problem in the first place, so we cannot be debtors to the flesh.
But note here that Paul is also not saying that we are debtors to the Spirit, for if we are debtors to the Spirit, then the Spirit were simply an alias for the law and we were necessarily back living after the flesh again!
No rather, we are the woman of Christ: the government shall be upon His shoulders, not ours.
Behold then the government:
“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” Rom 8:26.
[13] “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.”
In light of what we have said thus far, this verse is self-explanatory.
Only we will add that the death spoken of here and which results from living after the flesh, is the same death that God said Adam and Eve should die if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: God was not speaking to them of physical death but the death which results from living under the law and which therefore primarily manifests itself as the awareness that one is unworthy before God; and thus after they had eaten they “knew that they were naked” (Gen 3:7).
[14] “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
Indeed.
Amen.
(See also postscripts below.)
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Postscript: “crucified with Him”
The crucifixion of Christ provided for Him the legal basis to enter us who had been given to Him by the Father, and His (according) entering in to us then provided for us the awareness that our sin in the flesh was condemned: it is in this sense that our old man is crucified with Him.
Postscript: “sin in the flesh”
Paul uses the term “sin in the flesh” as opposed to just “sin” because there is also a sin in the spirit which, because a spirit is eternal, could not be ‘crucified with Christ’ as could sin in the flesh.
Sin in the flesh is marked by the things of the flesh and is referred to by Paul as “the works of the flesh” at Gal 5:19 (where he also lists such works). Such sins can therefore be declaratively dispensed with in the lives of those in whom Christ dwells, for Christ went to the Cross in the flesh.
By contrast, sin in the spirit – as should be expected – consists of the rejection of the very thing that provides for one’s experiential knowledge that sin in the flesh is condemned: it consists of the cognisant rejection of the Holy Spirit and is referred to by the Lord as the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (see Mt 12:31).
Unlike sin in the flesh then, the condemning by God of sin in the spirit has no Cross which might constitute a ‘sunset clause’: it is unforgivable.
Such two sins – “sin in the flesh” and ‘sin in the spirit’ – are (respectively) represented at 1 John 5:16:
“If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it”.
Postscript: the leading of the Spirit
It must be emphasised that we do not reject the law in deference to a spirit (i.e. the Spirit) who (then) (circularly) leads us to follow the law.
No rather, in our being told that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor 3:6), the leading of the Spirit is naturally to completely supplant any attention to the law.
For the end (goal) of the law is (a personal relationship with) Jesus Christ Himself (Rom 10:4), and no-one – not even the Spirit – is permitted to achieve any goal other than the goal of the law.
For “the law is [(indeed)] spiritual” (Rom 7:14).
(See also subnote (1) under our work: “In which Calvinism need not be defended”. See also our works: “The New Covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-34” and “Why it is impossible to keep the law”.)