Question: Could you, through “THE BIBLE TREASURY,” please give an explanation of Rom. 8:1-131There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3For 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: 4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5For 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. 6For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But 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. 10And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11But 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. 12Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13For 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. (Romans 8:1‑13)?
Some believe that we have here contrasted the sinner dead in sins, and the believer looked at positionally; while others submit that we have the working of the two natures in the believer, the latter view being that vers. 4-13 are chiefly practical.
Please explain the “death” in ver. 6, and the “die” in ver. 13.
T. H.
Answer: The opening verses of Rom. 8 apply the reasoning of the Chapters preceding (5-7), with its result that there is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. We are no longer in Adam who fell, but in Christ risen, so that condemnation is ruled out of place.
For my sins Christ died, and believing on God who raised Him from the dead, I am justified. I have been born again, have received a new life, new desires which I never had before, and these desires I seek to carry out. But I find I have still an evil nature within me and this “sin” that dwelleth in me being more powerful than my resolves to do “good” makes me cry, “O wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
Chap. 6 teaches that as many of us as were baptized unto Christ Jesus were baptized unto His death. He died to sin once, and I, having been buried with Him by baptism unto death, am called to reckon myself to be dead unto sin, that I should walk in newness of life. “Sin,” my old master, had its erst dominion over me, but faith accepts the truth of the chapter, that my death with Christ has released me from sin’s jurisdiction, and the Lord Jesus is now my Master. “If we say that we have no ‘sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:88If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)). The “sin” that dwelleth in me is not gone, but it has been condemned in the cross of Christ (8:3), and it shall not have dominion over me. The Christian’s responsibility is “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey its lusts,” nor yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Being freed from this tyrant, we own our allegiance to righteousness, and have become servants to God.
As I have died to “sin,” so also have I become dead to the law by the body of Christ, having died to that in which we were held (7:4, 6). The law being “holy and just and good” demanded a righteousness from man which it was unable to obtain in that it was weak through the flesh (for I am carnal, sold under sin). I own its force, and power to condemn, and my powerlessness to meet its requirements. The law is in no way abrogated. It still has its place. “We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for (or has its application to) a righteous man, but for lawless and disobedient,” etc. (1 Tim. 1.). I own its authority, and pass away from under it by the body of Christ (having died to it) that I should belong to another, even to Christ, risen from the dead, in order that I might bring forth fruit to God.
There is the conflict of the two natures just because they are existent in the believer, and one has to learn experimentally that the possession of divine life—my being born again—does not annihilate or cast out the old sinful nature within me. We cannot say, “We have no sin.” In the Lord Jesus only was there “no sin.” For if, as only the renewed man can say, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, I, nevertheless, see another law, or evil principle, in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity. I want then a deliverer, and this I have through Christ our Lord. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Chap. 8 brings in the possession of a new power, the indwelling Spirit. The carnal mind (the mind of the flesh) is always enmity and can never be subject to the law of God. “So then they that are in the flesh, cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” The law’s demands are more than fulfilled in us who walk not after flesh but after Spirit.
In contrast with the powerlessness of the man in Rom. 7, we have in Gal. 5 the competency of the Christian as led of the Spirit which now indwells. Hence the exhortation, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh does lust against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye may not [not, ‘cannot’] do the thing that ye would” (vers. 16-18).
The “mind of the flesh” is death (ver. 6), whether of the believer or the unbeliever, and so is “living according to flesh” (ver. 13). We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. Gal. 6:7, 87Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:7‑8) warns us not to be deceived. “God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” This applies to the believer’s walk as to the unbeliever’s. And we must beware of seeking to dull the force of these warnings. We are to follow “holiness without which no one shall see the Lord.” This is practical holiness, which I am to pursue (Heb. 12:1414Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14)).