CF Bible Study, Romans 8:1-4: Fulfilling the Law by Being in Christ

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4

A Contrast Between the Flesh and the Spirit

About a year ago, I began a relationship with an elderly lady in my neighborhood. Over the course of several weeks, I was able to talk to her several times about the gospel. During these conversations, the question I continually asked was this: What do you put your hope for eternal life on top of? And every time, her answer was essentially that she had lived a good enough church-going life that God would give her eternal life. She had no need for (and really no idea of) Jesus and His cross.

This is perhaps the biggest challenge we face in evangelism and in ourselves—salvation by being good enough and not being in Christ. It is maybe Paul’s most often and most passionately addresses issue because it was a huge problem in the Jewish-saturated First-century Christian Church. And wherever you go today—in South American Jungles or in South Dakota—it is still the conflict you will wage.

The book of Romans in chapter 8 is largely about that conflict. It is about a contrast between salvation by the flesh and by the Spirit. First of all then, we need to grab hold of Paul’s meaning when he refers to that contrast.

When I first began studying chapter 8 earnestly, that was my goal; to discover what it means to “walk according to the flesh” and to “walk according to the Spirit.” The first thing I noted was that Paul’s use of “flesh” or “body” (which I think are often synonymous) in his other writings mean something broader than the typical Twenty-first-century usage. In Colossians 3 he tells us to “consider the members of our earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed.” Notice that half of those sins have to do with the outward body, and half of them have to do with the mind (passion, evil desire, and greed). Also in Galatians a similar statement is made about the flesh. “Now the deed of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outburst of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying . . .” Obviously, by flesh and body, Paul means the whole natural man including the mind. So what is his point then in Romans 8 with this flesh/Spirit contrast?

I think Paul is distinguishing between salvation by what is natural and salvation by what is supernatural. This is what most of Romans is about; law-keeping is not the way of salvation, radical grace in Christ taken by faith is. To gain eternal life, a person must set their confidence in the crucified, risen, and indwelling Jesus and not on natural human flesh.

But here you say, “I thought Romans 8 is about sanctification, not justification.” You are right and you are wrong. Romans 8 is about sanctification, but only as it relates to justification. Chapters 6-8 are written against legalists who press down on justification by saying, “I know what grace and faith salvation (the Spirit as opposed to the flesh) produce—lawless people. Your justification, Paul, that is in Christ, will create people who don’t care about righteousness.” And Paul is responding by showing how justification in reality produces people who begin to fulfill the law of love. So ultimately this is still about whether a person stands in front of God based on his own flesh or based on Jesus.

Keep Listening Because the Problem Still Exists

Despite the fact that we have discussed this topic before, I do not think it should be boring for you tonight. Here is why: I know people who think just like what is being refuted. On Sunday mornings I go to a Bible class outside of our Church in order to evangelize, and at times I have heard things shockingly like what Paul is working against. “Salvation could not be all of grace (and certainly is not unloseable),” they say, “because that would generate people who think they can sin since they are forgiven. Therefore salvation must be by a lot of grace plus being good enough.” Because of this kind of rhetoric, many of them throw out true salvation and replace it with a damnable mingling of Christ’s work and their own.

Justification Turns Murderers in to Law-Fulfillers

To latch on to Paul’s argument, let’s begin with verse 4 and then build up underneath it with verses 1-3. “. . . so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v. 4). This is Paul’s point. Something changes lawless law-keepers into people who begin to fulfill the law of love (13:9-10). Something changed him from a murderer who boasted that he was perfect to a person who began to lay down his own life out of love for God and the Church and the lost. What is it?

Justification! Verses 1-3! Those verses come before and are the support of verse 4. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” Why? “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” In other words, the principle or rule or authority of a God who gives life, which completely revolves around Jesus Christ, has freed you from sin and death. And flowing out of being in Christ Jesus is this: the requirement of the Law begins to be fulfilled in us.

In the Perfect Flesh of Christ Jesus

“In Christ Jesus (8:1)” is familiar phrase to us by now, but this text opens up an angle of view which to me is fresh and exiting. To be in Christ Jesus means that you do not stand before God wrapped in your own flesh but wrapped in His flesh. Look at verse 3: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh . . .” First of all, do not miss that. It is half the object of chapter 7. The Law is not sin but it utterly weak for salvation because, as Paul said, “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” And what Paul comes to realize in that section is that “nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” Now back to verse 3: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh . . .”

Human flesh is corrupted. It can never do good enough to have eternal life. But what our flesh could not do, God did by coming in the likeness of sinful flesh (not sinful flesh, perfect flesh!) and living and dying as our representative. As none of us can do, Christ looked to His own flesh in His perfect life and death so that we, by also looking to His flesh, may be justified. If we are in His perfect flesh, we will have eternal life.

Christ Condemned Sin so that We Might Fulfill the Law

But the question still remains, why does this justification by grace turn lawless people into those who begin to fulfill the law of love? The answer is in verse 3. In His incarnation and death, Christ “condemned sin in the flesh.” The irony here is beautiful. In the very moment sin (our sin) was condemning Jesus on the cross, Jesus was condemning that sin by removing death and thereby draining its authority to control or kill.

Not only does justification by being in Christ produce law-fulfilling Christians, it is the only way to produce that kind of person. Walking according to the flesh results in nothing but sin and death. Solely by putting your trust in the flesh of Christ can you have life.

My prayer is that 50 years from now (whether it’s in Kazakhstan or Michigan), all of us will be dying for this gospel—salvation by amazing grace that is centered not in human corrupt flesh but in the perfect, crucified, and risen flesh of Jesus Christ.

Bryan Elliff © 2008