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I grew up on Rocky movies. Rocky I, II, and III came out when I was in elementary school. Yes, I’m that old. Rocky IV when I was in high school. For a young boy, they were amazing.
I wasn’t alone. Rocky Balboa is one of the few fictional characters who has a bronze statue. His is at the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, because of the iconic scene where he runs up those steps in his training.
As a boy it was the boxing. The training. The songs. But, of course, the triumph. The underdog did it! He won! Well, except in Rocky I. Rocky I was brilliant. They set up the movie so that fighting to a draw at the end was portrayed as a win.
This morning we’ll think about another boxing match. The daily boxing match of me against my sin. Everyday is a 15-round bout.
The question is, who will win? I need to win, but how can I?
Romans 6–8 reflects on this battle against sin. Romans 6 told us we can win this boxing match—because we died to sin, since we’re united with Christ.
Romans 7 told us we can win, because we died to the law—because we died in the body of Christ.
Romans 7 went to describe the battle with the law further. If you take the Holy Spirit out of the picture, Romans 7 tells us this boxing match will end in disaster. We’ll have desire but no ability.
Is the problem with God’s Law or the Law of Moses? No. The law is “holy and righteous and good” (7:12). The problem is the sin that lives in me.
That boxing match without the help of the Holy Spirit? It ends with the cry of Rom. 7:24 and the answer in Rom. 7:25.
Because of Christ the Deliverer, we read the proclamation of Rom. 8:1!
There is NOW NO condemnation:
There’s still more. Now in this part of Romans 8, the issue is obeying the law and walking by the Spirit. Are we destined to live forever disobedient to the law?
If my sins are forgiven, but there’s no victory in my life, it sounds hollow to say “there is therefore now no condemnation.”
But if there is a growing life of obedience and sanctification in me, that adds to my assurance that “there is therefore now no condemnation.”[1]
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the answer to the Penalty of sin. The Holy Spirit inside of me is the answer to the Power of sin. God the Father is behind it all!
The chapter begins with “no condemnation,” and ends with “no separation,” while in between there is “no defeat.”
Leon Morris, Romans[2]
Our sermon: (1) What has happened? (8:2); (2) How did it happen? (8:3); (Why did it happen? (8:4).
Prayer
Read Rom. 8:1–2.
Paul in Rom. 8:1 made a powerful declaration: “There is therefore NOW NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And now he adds another dimension to this glorious news.
In Rom. 8:2 he answers the problem of Rom. 7:13–23. In that passage, he painted a bleak picture. A picture of being imprisoned with a desire to obey but no ability. It was a picture that provoked the cry in Rom. 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Now the answer is Christ: “Jesus Christ our Lord!” Christ is the Deliverer. The one and only Deliverer.
But still is that problem of feeling like that “wretched man” but having no ability to change it.
That’s what our passage is talking about.
Rom. 8:2 gives us the new angle, the way out of this mess. Read Rom. 8:2.
He talks about two laws here. One law is called “the law of the Spirit of life.” The second law is called “the law of sin and death.”
That first law is not a literal law. He’s talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a principle, a power. That’s what he means by “law.” It’s a figurative way of talking about the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit in the Christian is what sets the Christian free in Christ Jesus from the second law, “the law of sin and death.”
The Holy Spirit in Romans will take on a new emphasis. Paul has mentioned the Holy Spirit 4 times in Romans 1–7. In Romans 8 he will mention the Holy Spirit 21 times!
The Holy Spirit’s presence in us is part of the glory of Romans 8.
Here in Rom. 8:2 the Spirit is presented as God’s power in us to free us “from the law of sin and death.”
This second law is God’s written law. It’s the Law of Moses. But it’s also God’s law written on our hearts. His moral commandments.
It’s the two great commandments: Love God (Deut 6:5) and love your neighbor (Lev 19:18).
It’s the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1–17).
All those laws are “holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12). But they’re also “the law of sin and death” when we have no power to obey them.
They don’t help us to sin less. In my boxing match against sin, if it’s just me and my sin, I can’t win.
The Law at that point doesn’t help. It points out my sin but offers me no help. It’s a mirror that shows me where I’m falling short, but it does nothing to bring change in me.
The law might be “holy and righteous and good,” but without the Holy Spirit, the law also becomes for me “the law of sin and death.”
It provokes my sin and it leads to death.
God’s Holy Spirit in me, though, sets me free from this law. With the Holy Spirit God’s holy law is no longer “the law of sin and death.”
Now it can have its proper place in my life and help me know and do God’s will. But only with the Holy Spirit in me.
The Holy Spirit—what Paul calls “the law of the Spirit of life”—gives me the power I need to obey and the desire in the first place. Obedience becomes natural in a way that it wasn’t before.
That doesn’t mean the boxing match against sin ends, and there’s no resistance. It just means that in the boxing match, I can prevail as much as I walk by the Spirit.
Read Rom. 8:2–3.
How did it happen that we were freed from “the law of sin and death”? How did it happen that I was delivered from the paralyzing power of my sin?
Verse 3 tells me the answer. God did it! God the Father did it by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.”
Christ didn’t come just as a Prophet to speak God’s Word to us. An angel could have done that! A message from God wasn’t enough.
Christ had to come “in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin” in order for us to be delivered.
He wasn’t sinful but came “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” He came “in the flesh” but was sin-less. In that way he came “in the likeness of sinful flesh.”
John Murray:
When the Father sent the Son into this world of sin, of misery, and of death, he sent him in a manner that brought him into the closest relation to sinful humanity that it was possible for him to come without becoming himself sinful.
John Murray, Romans[3]
The ancients didn’t have a hard time with a God coming among us. What they really struggled with was God coming in the form of flesh coming among us. To them that was the scandalous idea.
To them this body of flesh and bone was something corrrupt. Something to escape from. The soul was somehow pure, the body corrupt.
God coming in the flesh as Jesus was a scandal. But this is the Christian message, God coming among us “in the likeness of sinful flesh.”
1 John 4:2–3:
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4:2–3)
He did that “for sin,” to do all that was required so that we could be free both of the PENALTY for sin and the POWER of sin.
Soon we’ll celebrate Good Friday. A week from Friday. We’ll take a close look at the crucifixion and consider that Friday in April of AD 33 when Jesus gave his life for us.
That’s where and when he “condemned sin in the flesh.” His own “flesh” was offered for us.
That’s how is happened that you and I could be freed from the law of sin and death.
Again John Murray:
Jesus not only blotted out sin’s guilt and brought us nigh to God. He also vanquished sin as power and set us free from its enslaving dominion. And this could not have been done except in the “flesh.” The battle was joined and triumph secured in that same flesh which in us is the seat and agent of sin.
John Murray, Romans[4]
Behind it all is the great and gracious love of God!
John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Read Rom. 8:2–4.
Why did Jesus die? There are a lot of ways to answer that question. When I was a college student our campus fellowship went to Daytona Beach for spring break. Josh McDowell was the speaker. I was a brand-new Christian, just a few months after my conversion.
Josh McDowell asked us, “Why did Jesus died?” I think he had us raise our hands. “How many think it was because of God’s love?” We raised our hands.
“That’s blasphemy!” he cried out. Well, that got our attention. I think he went on to argue that Jesus died to please the Father.
And he was right.
The truth is, the Bible has a lot of answers to that question, “Why did Jesus die.” John Piper when the movie The Passion of the Christ came out published a book called The Passion of the Christ. The sub-title was “50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die.”
Well, here in verse 4, we tap into one of the many reasons Jesus came to die.
When we get to verse 4, there’s a purpose statement: “...in order that...” The purpose of this liberating work of the Spirit is given here. It’s not so we would become “law-less,” but so that we would become “law-ful.” Walking in “the righteous requirement of the law.”
Doing this we “fulfill” the law—similar language as is used in Rom 13:8–10.
“The goal contemplated in the sanctifying process is nothing short of the perfection which the law of God requires” (Murray, 283).
You can see this emphasis in chapters 6–8 in 6:4 and 7:6:
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:4)
But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Rom 7:6)
Rom. 6:4 is especially helpful, because it uses the same language of “walking.” Our union with Christ enables us to “walk in newness of life.”
WALK is a word Paul uses to describe our ongoing Christian living (Rom 6:4; 13:13; Eph 4:1).
But then Rom. 7:6 is important, because it shows that the goal of Christ’s redemption is that we might “serve in the new way of the Spirit.”
This ongoing life, this “new way” of serving, is by “the Spirit.”
“Walking” in new life, “serving” by the Spirit, these are equivalent ideas. But they are part of the purpose of Christ’s work of redemption. Christ’s work doesn’t stop with us being forgiven, it results in us being holy. We’re not just freed from the PENALTY of sin, we’re also freed from the POWER of sin.
But we will only fulfill what God requires when we “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
What does that mean?
Walking by the Spirit – Rom 8:4
1. We must be born-again:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek 36:25–27)
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16–17)
The three uses of the Law:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Rom 7:18)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Gal 5:22–23)
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Rom 8:14)
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal 5:25)
The result? “The righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.”
Remember where your real power lies. It’s not in you at all. It’s in God. God the Father who sent his Son for you. God the Son who gave his life for you. God the Holy Spirit who is in you and empowers you.
You can see everything building till we get to Romans 8:31:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31)
“God is for us!” In our passage we saw God the Father FOR US! God the Son FOR US! God the Spirit FOR US!
The power of the Rocky movies is that you could identify with Rocky. He was Everyman. And yet he was able to accomplish this epic feat. How? Well, he had the eye of the tiger. As long as he had that, he could accomplish anything.
The Christian life is not about tapping into some inner strength. Doing some crazy workout regimen to fight off the bad guys.
It’s recognizing that as a child of God, I’m redeemed by Christ and filled with God’s Spirit. And I can walk by the Spirit throughout all the moments of life.
As I walk by the Spirit, I’ll obey God’s law and love what I’m supposed to love and hate what I’m supposed to hate.
Prayer and Closing Song (“Spirit of God”).
[1] Thomas Schreiner: “The logic seems to be that a transformed life is evidence that believers are not guilty in God’s lawcourt” (Romans, BECNT 2nd ed., 400).
[2] Morris, Romans, PNTC, 299.
[3] Murray, Romans, 1:280.
[4] Murray, Romans, 1:282.
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