Chapter 7 ends with Paul expressing the dilemma of the human condition. We can’t do right for doing wrong. Wretched people that we are… who can save us from this body of death in which we live and move and have our being? His answer is… Jesus Christ. But how? In Chapter 8 Paul explains how and talks in depth about the work of the Holy Spirit.
Spiritual development, our freedom from living under the downward pull of wrath, our ability to live as God intended, to be the sort of people God desires us to be, is made gloriously possible by the action of the Holy Spirit upon and within our lives.
It is through the Spirit of God we are both convicted of sin and assured of our forgiveness. It is through the Holy Spirit that we find the power to live God’s way. The Holy Spirit is given to all those who believe that Christ died and was raised for them. Such a reception in our life is rightly described as ‘The Gift of the Spirit” (See Acts 10:45)
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit1 of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of 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 to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The law had proved unable to save us and bought out the worst in us. At best it was a Duct tape approach to salvation. We think anything can be fixed with duct tape. But it can’t fix the human condition. ‘Duct-tape- like-law’ held things together for a while but could not deal with the deeper problem of sin.
But in the death of Jesus Christ, the sinless one, God has taken decisive action against sin and broken its hold. So where does that leave us? Paul urges us to embrace a new way of living; to embrace what the Holy Spirit is doing within us and around us.
To stop thinking that we can save ourselves and instead cooperate with God in the work of recreation and reconciliation that is taking place in all creation. Another way of putting it is to say that we need to have our ‘mind set’ in a different place. To be set on what God is doing and can do rather than what we can do for ourselves. That’s what Paul talks about next… a mind set.
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 Spirit1 set their minds on the things of the Spirit.2 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit1 is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law -- indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Now Paul is not here espousing some “power of positive thinking’ doctrine. He’s not saying 'Just think beautiful thoughts and beautiful things will happen in your life'. This is not some mantra or method to a peaceful mind. What he is suggesting is a completely radical turnaround in the way we view our world and our relationship to God.
He is suggesting that we see this world not as a place under the dominion of humankind, but a world where God is completely in control, where God has the final word, the power and glory and authority. That we live out our lives under the direction and action of God’s Sovereign love, not live life as a reaction to whatever or whoever comes our way, not constantly seeking loopholes to get us out from laws that could never set us free in the first place! That ‘who we are’ and ‘how we live’ and ‘what we aim for’ be determined by the values of God’s Kingdom, not the aspirations of our culture and society.
Paul suggests that to embrace life in the Spirit results in our lives being shaped by two wonderful qualities that express the nature of the Holy Spirit (as in verse 6). Firstly ‘life’ and secondly ‘peace’.
Life, the Greek Word zwh, (zoe) means literally to ‘be alive’. In the context of this chapter it could be translated as ‘living to live’ as opposed to ‘living only to die’. Living as though every moment carried an eternal significance.
Peace, the Greek Word eivrh,nh (eirene) can be translated a number of ways. It can mean ‘security, safety, and prosperity’. It is used in Jewish literature to describe the state of being that the Messiah would bring to the world. ‘Peace’ is also used in scripture, to quote Vines Expository Dictionary, to describe the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, a person that fears nothing from God and is content with their earthly lot, whatever that may be.
Again, remember these are gifts bestowed upon us, not qualities that we work up inside or achieve without the help of God… things to be received, as we sometimes say at the communion table, “Gifts of God for the people of God’. In this chapter Paul is underlining that authentic Christian faith can work because it is not a matter of what we can do for ourselves, through our ‘flesh’, but all about what God can do for us through God’s Holy Spirit. So he continues:
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,1 since 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, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit1 is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ1 from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through2 his Spirit that dwells in you.
Romans has rightly been described as the most evangelistic of Paul’s letters. Paul develops a picture of not only how to experience the love of God in our lives, but (as we’ll see later) how we should expect that love to shape our lives. There are so many different aspects to the letter that’s its hard to narrow down particular things to the exclusion of other themes that are equally important.
But here’s three big themes!
Theme One is Paul telling us that in order to experience the salvation of God we need to recognize that there is nothing we can do to obtain it or earn it. That we have to reach a point of surrender, a point where we cry out “Who can save me, wretched person that I am”. That the entrance to experiencing the Kingdom is acknowledgment that we can do nothing to experience the Kingdom.
In this Paul seems to be unpacking and fleshing out words Jesus spoke such as in Matthew 10:39 “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” and John 12:25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Theme Two is about what God has done in Christ, through His death and through His Resurrection. Through these pivotal events God enters into the circle of death and sin and judgment and breaks their hold. All that was lost through Adam, the prototype of all humanity, is made new in Christ, the prototype of God’s new creation.
This theme of redemption is not just about us and our small worlds, but about all creation. God is at work and calling us to cooperate through placing our faith and trust in what God has done and is doing in Christ.
Theme Three, introduced in this chapter, is that as we place our faith and trust in what God is doing and has done in Christ then the Holy Spirit works in and around our lives to change us and renew us,. That the work of the Holy Spirit is to bring a power to work in us that is the same power which enabled Christ to do His work, the same power, in Greek ‘dunamis’ (the word we get the English word ‘dynamite’ from) that birthed the early church on the day of Pentecost.
Kingdom life therefore is not dependent on what we can do, but on what God in God’s grace is already doing and as we get in on what God is doing we are transformed and gifted with such things as ‘really living’ and ‘peace inside no matter what is going on outside’.
But says Paul… there’s more! When you give up on trying to justify or save yourself and get in on what God is working in Christ, you don’t just become part of God’s team, you actually become part of the family. And this he suggests should spur us on to greater things!
12 So then, brothers and sisters,1 we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness1 with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Again Paul is emphasizing teaching that had come from Jesus. One of the most radical teachings that He bought to His disciples was His teaching that when they prayed they should begin with the words; “Our Father”.
In the earliest parts of the Old Testament God is described as the Father of the great ones of faith, the ‘Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’. In the Psalms we have phrases such as Psalm 103:13 ” Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” and Psalm 89:26 “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father my God, and the rock of my salvation.” By the time of the prophets the realization that all Israel were children of God truly emerges Isaiah 64:8 “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
But it is not until the teaching of Jesus that the idea of all believers having an intimacy with God like that of a child to a perfect Father is truly expressed. It also gives a balance to statements that Jesus made about having the faith of a little child in order to enter the Kingdom. The coming of the Holy Spirit brings assurance of the parent child relationship. Look again at verses 15-16 When we cry, "Abba!1 Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God”
As children of God we are not granted immunity from all the trials and problems of life on earth. But we are assured that, just as a parent will sit by a child’s hospital bed as they go through a time of illness or recovery, so our Father God will walk with us and hold us whatever life may bring.
We live within a tension of the ‘world as it is’ and ‘the world as it shall be'. In this we are not alone. In fact says Paul, slipping into a cosmological mode, all creation shares in this hope we have for liberation. It’s not just us who are dieing… our whole universe is in a state of entropy and decay. But God will have the final word!
18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in1 hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes2 for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
I used to have a T-Shirt that bore the message “Be Patient. God hasn’t finished with me yet!” The process of God’s recreating and renewing takes time. It takes patience!
There’s another saying, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” It has to be said that nowhere in any religion I can think of is God pictured as an obese lady diva, but the idea that life on this earth is a drama proceeding towards a dramatic ending full of song and ceremony is a vision captured by John in the book of Revelation.
We’ve seen already how Paul has spoken of gifts of life and peace being released into our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit. To those he now adds ‘hope’, the Greek word evlpi,zw elpizo meaning, in a religious sense, ‘To wait for salvation with joy and full confidence’
Now Paul doesn’t minimize the fact that this may be tough. ‘Groaning’ is the word he has just used. In act even praying for strength is beyond us. Words can’t quite match up. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose prayers can’t always be framed in words. You know what you feel, but you don’t know how to express it. You want to pray in concert with God, but there’s so much whizzing around in your mind that it all gets in a jumble.
Paul was a saint! You’d think he’d be writing the text book on “How to pray in confidence and with power’. Instead in verses 26 to 27 here are his instructions!
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes1 with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God,1 who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit2 intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.3
When we pray God hears our hearts. God sees beyond the stumbling words and clumsy expressions. If ever we feel we don’t know how to pray, it is good to know that all God asks is that we give it a try. He’ll take it the rest of the way.
And God can do it, because there is a plan. Confidence in God as God of authority and power and wisdom holds in it the idea that God knows what God is up to. That God can and will work things out, in God’s way and God’s time.
The big theological word that seeks to express the idea that ‘God has always known what God was doing and always will’ is predestination. Notice the word is in two parts. ‘Pre' indicating that this comes first, and then ‘destination’, indicating this is where it will all end up. It’s a round about way of saying that God always had a plan and is going to see that plan right through to the end.
The mystery of predestination is the way that it touches our lives. That through faith in Jesus Christ we get caught up in the plan. We think we had something to do with it, but actually it’s all God’s doing. God brings the conviction, God grants us the faith, God gives us the prayer, and God holds us through the whole deal.
Here’s Paul’s famous predestination passage verse 28-30
28 We know that all things work together for good1 for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.1 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
At this point some folks get into unanswerable arguments about the place of free-will and at what stage do we have a choice and what about people that don’t get chosen… but I’m not going there, because that’s not where Paul is going with the argument.
What Paul is saying as he concludes these three chapters on how the gospel works is that God is completely, totally on our side. He has sent Jesus Christ to forgive us. He sends His Holy Spirit to guide us. He has a glorious future ahead of us. He has adopted us into His family so we can call Him Abba, Father. No matter what we go through God promises to be there for us.
Paul concludes Chapter 8 with one of the most faith pumping, hope building, comfort creating, peace promoting passages in all the things he ever wrote. Listen to these words and take heart!
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.1 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Words of interpretation seem futile. When you have read all that comes before they are even the more remarkable. How does the gospel work? Through the love of the God who
is totally on our side!