God Has Done What the Law Could Not Do

Romans chapter 8, page 800, and verse 1. And Paul writes,

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

Amen.

Father, with our Bibles open before us, we pray that we might be students of your Word, that the Spirit of God might be our teacher, and that you will help us in this endeavor, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, we are continuing from where we left off last time, which was at the end of verse 1, having determined that we’re going to spend a few weeks, at least, working our way systematically and carefully through this eighth chapter of Romans. We have paused for a moment in our studies in the Gospel of Mark in order to engage in this pursuit. And what we are looking at in Romans chapter 8 is what it means to be a Christian. We perhaps will take as the overall title for the series “Life in the Spirit.” We’re not looking here so much at what it means to become a Christian as to consider the very experience of being a Christian. It is, of course, our hope that some who as yet have never understood who Jesus is or what he’s done will, in the course of these studies, actually come to trust in him and to become Christians. But our focus is on thinking from a Christian perspective concerning what it means to be a Christian. Incidentally, we have a little book that outlines that story, which is available through the doors to your left and my right. You can pick one up at the end of the service and even talk with someone about these things, should you care to.

Last week, in verse 1, we considered what is true of the Christian: that there is no condemnation. We then asked the question, When is that true? And we discovered that it is true now―that he is not referencing some future possibility, but he is describing a present reality. And we also made sure that we understood that what Paul was saying here in Romans 8:1 was not a generic statement about everyone who ever lived but was actually a very specific statement concerning those who are “in Christ Jesus.” And we noted that that is one of Paul’s favorite ways of describing a Christian. He uses it probably, in that phrase or in a similar phrase, about 160 times in his letters.

Well, inevitably, someone thinking will say, “Well, if there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, why is that the case?” And Paul anticipates the why question, and he answers it in verse 2, beginning with a “because”: “because,” he says, “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”—or, quoting from the English Standard Version, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Having suggested that we might memorize Romans 8 together, I’m wondering whether we ought to do so, for a number of reasons, in the English Standard Version. And tonight we will begin to add that to our evening service, and we will do so from the ESV. There are reasons for doing this that will become apparent as we go along. But essentially what Paul is saying in verse 2 is that the gospel has set us free from the law and from its curse. He has “set [us] free from the law of sin and death.”

Now, for me to say that—that the gospel has set us free from the law and of its curse—will ring some bells for those who know their Bibles. For others who are not particularly familiar with it, they may think that is a rather strange thing to say. So, let me cross-reference this for you. In Galatians chapter 3―you need turn only a few pages forward; Romans is followed by 1 Corinthians and then 2 Corinthians and then Galatians. And in Galatians 3:10, Paul is addressing this very subject. And in 3:10, he says, “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’” So, it is our failure to obey the law of God which brings us under the curse of God― that God had said to his people, “Here, you shall do this, and you will live. If you fail to do it, then you will die.” That’s the predicament.

In Galatians 3:11, he goes on to point out that there is no possibility of any of us being put in a right standing with God as a result of the law. “Clearly,” he says, “no one is justified,” or declared righteous, “before God by the law, because,” he says, “‘The righteous will live by faith.’” And he’s quoting there from elsewhere.

Then he tells us in verse 13 the wonderful news concerning what Jesus has done: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who [hangs] on [the] tree.’” In other words, he is making clear what he makes clear earlier in Romans: that all of us by nature have failed; that none of us may, by means of obedience to God’s law, rectify our failure and put ourselves in a right position with God; hence the wonderful news of what the Lord Jesus has accomplished in himself by bearing sin’s curse for us.

And it is that which is here in Romans 8:2: “Through Christ Jesus,” or “in Christ Jesus,” “the law of the Spirit of life has set me free.” It no longer has power over us. It no longer means that we live under a curse. In Jesus, the believer has been set free both from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin. And the thought that is here in Romans chapter 8 is not so much freedom from sin’s guilt as it is freedom from sin’s power. The internal working of the Spirit of God is to set us free from the downward drag of the flesh―from that which seeks to corrupt us, and to hold us back, and to tie us up, and to dispirit us, to confuse us, and to make us just absolutely hopeless.

It is imperative that Paul makes clear―and that’s why he labors this so clearly―that believers not only have forgiveness before God, but they have the life of God within them. The Christian is someone who is both in Christ and in whose life Christ dwells by his Spirit. Sometimes, when we see somebody that we haven’t seen for a while, and they’re displaying certain characteristics, either positive or negative, we might ask them the question, “What’s gotten into you? Why are you this way? Something’s got into you!” And the question that ought to be asked of a Christian by those who are wondering about the nature of Christianity is not so much “What are the rules that you live by?” or “What are the notions that constrain you?” but “What’s got into you?” Because the life of God’s Spirit has set us free from the curse and from death.

In Jesus, the believer has been set free both from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin.

Now, in verse 3, he tells us how this has happened. If this is true, then how is it true? And there you will see: “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,” or by the flesh, “God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.”

Now, you can see here very quickly that Paul had a good legal mind, and his argument is fairly tight. And if we’re not careful, we can even trip ourselves up. I constantly assign homework; I don’t know if any of us ever do it. But chapter 7 needs to be read and reread. And when you read chapter 7, you will be absolutely clear that Paul understood that the law in and of itself was unable to change him. He’d been a very upright, law-abiding, religious Jew for a long time before ever he met Jesus. And yet he realized that the law exposed his heart and made it clear to him that he wasn’t what God designed for him to be or even what he himself desired to be. And he says in specific terms, “It was by the law that I realized what a covetous heart I had.”[1] The law had exposed his heart, and yet it couldn’t lift a finger to help him. That’s the problem, you see, with the law in and of itself.

And when you do your homework, you will discover that what Paul is making clear is a number of things. First of all, that the law actually defines sin. It is the law which tells us what’s in and what’s out. We are tempted to live life as if we can determine what’s in and what’s out. But it is when we come up against the law of God, summarized for us classically in the Ten Commandments, that we realize, “Oh dear! I’m not what God intends me to be. In fact, I am less than what he wants me to be.”

In the same way, if you and I go out to play golf together, you can hit it off the tee as wildly as you choose, provided you and I are both prepared to allow the white stakes to determine what’s going on. Because the white stakes are going to determine whether we, from the tee, are in bounds or out of bounds. Without them, we’ll assume constantly that we’re still in the game and still on the fairway. With them, we discover where we are. The law acts in that way. It defines sin.

Strangely, the law also provokes sin—or, if you like, produces sin. You have to think about that for a moment, don’t you? How can something that is intrinsically good, that God has given for our well-being, become the mechanism whereby we sin? Well, think about it! We have by nature a fascination with the forbidden. We have a fascination with what’s forbidden! That’s why when you see a sign that says “Don’t stand on the grass” or “Don’t walk on the grass,” there’s something inside you that says, “I think I’d like to walk on the grass”; that when you’re at somebody’s neighborhood swimming pool, and it has a sign that says, “No diving,” you just want to dive. There is an intrinsic element in us that seeks to overcome that which calls us into line.

Augustine, in the Confessions, has a wonderful illustration of this where he recounts how “there was a pear tree”—and I’m quoting now—

near our vineyard, laden with fruit. [And] one stormy night we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears—not to feast upon ourselves, but to throw them to the pigs, though we ate just enough to have the pleasure[s] of forbidden fruit. They were nice pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for I had plenty better at home. I picked them simply in order to become a thief. The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity, and that I enjoyed to the full. … The desire to steal was awakened simply by the prohibition of stealing.[2]

You see why they’re called his Confessions? That’s pretty honest, isn’t it? “We went and loaded up on pears. We flung ’em to the pigs. We had no interest in pears. We just liked the idea of being thieves!” What was happening? The law was seducing and producing sin.

The law is holy, but it can’t make us holy. It is righteous in its precepts, but it can’t justify the ungodly.

And that’s what Paul is saying here. You see that? That “what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful [flesh]…” “Weakened by the flesh.” It is sin which takes the law, which is good, and twists it into something which serves the purposes of evil. It is sin which says to us, “Well, I think if I get at least seven out of ten of the Commandments, presumably God will accept me on the basis of that.” Sin says, “Go ahead! And do it on your own! Go ahead and just try your best. You don’t need all this Jesus stuff, about him becoming a curse for you and all that.” No, the problem doesn’t fall in the law; the problem falls in our flesh. The law cannot justify us―put us right with God―and the law cannot sanctify us. It has, as we’re going to see, a place in the process of sanctification, but we’re neither justified by the law nor sanctified by the law. In other words, we’re not put in a right standing with God by the law, and we’re not kept in a right standing, ultimately, by God’s law.

No, Paul is very consistent with what he’s already said back in 7:12. Notice what he said: “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.” So we’re not in any doubt that there’s a problem here with the law. The problem is that the law was powerless, weakened by the flesh.

You see, it cannot put us right with God because we cannot obey it. The Mosaic law could not solve the problem of humanity, because sin employs the law for its own purposes. The law is holy, but it can’t make us holy. It is righteous in its precepts, but it can’t justify the ungodly. And all of this is traced―all of this inability―is traced to the sinfulness of man.

I hope you’re following this argument: “For what the law was powerless to do,” not because it was unholy or unrighteous or wasn’t good but because “it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did.” “God did.” Verse 3 turns―in the ESV―actually turns this verse around from the NIV: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could[n’t] do.” God has done it! And how has he done it? Well, he tells us: he has “condemned sin in the flesh” by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.”

Now, this is what we mean when we sing, for example, the hymn,

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That he should give his only Son
To make a wretch his treasure.[3]

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some people, upon singing that song for the first time, stumble over much of its phraseology, not really being able to make sense of it. And I would understand why, because unless we understand that the Bible gives the underpinning to the poetry, then we may think that the poetry is trying to convey something which is either unrealistic or untrue.

We’ve even sung this morning certain phrases that are foundational and are grounded in our text. So, for example, we sang, in the song “God of Grace and God of Glory,” we sang the line “Perfect God [in] perfect man.”[4] And notice your text: “God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful [flesh].” His only begotten Son came in the likeness of sinful flesh. This is a masterful use of language by Paul the lawyer. Because by means of this phrase, Paul is safeguarding two things that are true concerning Jesus: he is safeguarding, number one, the reality of Christ’s humanity; and number two, the fact of Christ’s sinlessness. The fact of Christ’s sinlessness. When the Father sent the Son, he sent the Son in a manner that brought him into the closest relationship to sinful humanity that it was possible to do without the Son becoming sinful himself.

Now, you say, “Well, that just seems to me to be a lot of theological twaddle.” But no, my dear friends, it is not. It is of absolute, vital importance. Christ is true God, very God and very man. But he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Paul is not saying that he was like a man, but he wasn’t really a man. He’s saying he was truly a man, and he looked like every man actually looks, but every man other than this man is tainted by sin. He is made in the likeness of sinful flesh, he himself having no part in sin, with sin, or of sin.

Were that not the case, Christ could never die to be a Savior. For he could not save sinful men and women from a predicament in which he himself shared. Hence, again, our hymn: “Because the sinless Savior died, my [guilty] soul is counted free; for God the just”―who must execute his justice―“for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.”[5] That’s why the Jewish people looked at this man hanging up on the cross, and they quoted Deuteronomy,[6] and they said, “How could this possibly be a Savior? Because we know that the Scriptures say, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree.’ Therefore, if he hangs upon the tree, then he must be under the curse of God.” Yes, he was under the curse of God, but not on account of anything he had done. He was bearing our curse in order that we might be granted forgiveness, full and free, and in order that the power of the Holy Spirit might come to live within our lives so that we might be set free not only from the ongoing accusations of sin but from the indwelling power of sin. Hence the phraseology: “And so,” the end of verse 3, “he condemned sin in sinful man.” He condemned sin in the flesh.

Now, my friends, this is at the very heart of the gospel. We don’t pause here except for me to give you one other cross-reference. You need turn back only one page in your Bible to Romans 4:25. Here is a perfect memorization verse: “He”―that is, Jesus―“was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” “He was delivered over to death,” and he “was raised”―the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. You see the importance of the very historicity of the Bible―the very importance of the historicity of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity stands apart from other religions in the world in this, as in many other regards.

I was speaking with a lady just not so long ago, in the last couple of weeks, and she told me she was a Buddhist. And as we talked, it was perfectly clear to me that she had found in Buddhism and in the dharma, the instruction of the Buddha, a measure of peace and a measure of tranquility sufficient for her to be able to become a proponent of it to me in conversation. Now, what she had no notion of was that the Buddha would ever have been a sin-bearer for her, because the problem for Buddhism is not sin; the problem is suffering―the duhkha, the unsatisfactory nature of life. And so she was seeking to overcome the unsatisfactory nature of life, overwhelm it by the tranquility and so on.

Well, Christianity does not stand on the same stage as that. We neither have the legitimacy of suggesting that Jesus would be part of such a dialogue, nor do we have the unfortunate, disappointing reality of thinking that it might be so. No! No, this is something radically different. The reason that Jesus came into the world was to deal with sin. To deal with sin. He didn’t come to give an instruction manual. He didn’t come to be your life coach. He didn’t come to be an inspiration. He didn’t come to be a martyr. He didn’t come to be a glowing example. He came to do what Paul is describing for us here: to do for us, in himself and by himself, what we can never do for ourselves or by ourselves. That’s why it’s good news!

Now, some of us have been privileged to be brought up with this. I learned this as a boy, singing it at the Bible class on Sunday afternoons in Clarkston, in suburban Glasgow:

He did not come to judge the world,
He did not come to blame;
He did not only come to seek;
It was to save he came.

And when I call him Savior,
And when I call him Savior,
And when I call him Savior,
Then I call him by his name.[7]

You see, if you’re just simply looking for a life coach, somebody to add to the sum of your total happiness, a few principles to get through your day, I suggest to you that there is plenty on offer in the high streets of the country―and many books, self-help books, many ideas, and so on. And they will satisfy you, but they will not save you. They will give you direction. They will give you purpose. They will help you with decisions, deal with your fear, your misunderstandings, your doubts, and so on―many, many things on offer. But they will not save you.

No, you see, this is what Paul is telling us: Jesus has provided a “double cure,” as Augustus Toplady puts it in the hymn “Rock of Ages.”[8] He says, “He cleanses me from the guilt and the power of sin.” And why does he do this? Well, you will notice, in verse 4, he continues: “He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that”―purpose clause―“in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.” Wow!

So Christ has fulfilled all that God has demanded―in the perfection of his life, in the offering up of himself―not in order that we might just go out and do whatever we fancy, but in order that we might become like Christ, as a result of the indwelling power of the Spirit turning us again and again to God’s law, so that God’s law might show us how our lives are to be lived. We begin to fulfill the law of God… Isn’t that what it says? “In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us” or “might be fulfilled in us”—ESV—and we do this by walking “according to the Spirit.”

Now, this unsettles some people. I run into this conversation all the time, and I’m sure it will happen again this week—as if, somehow or another, Paul has reached Romans 8:3–4, and he now begins to contradict everything that he said in chapters 6 and 7. It cannot be!

In 6:14, he’s made it perfectly clear that in Christ, we’re “not under [the] law, but under grace.” He’s not contradicting that here. In 7:4, he says, “You … died to the law.” In verse 6: “[You’ve] been released from the law.” In 8:3, he’s telling us of “what the law was powerless to do,” so that the dynamic is not found in law keeping. But now, having said all of that, and meant it, he says that Jesus has accomplished this “in order that”―purpose―“the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.”

Question for any thoughtful person: How can I then simultaneously be free and obligated? If I am set free, how am I obligated? The answer is actually straightforward. What Paul is telling us is this: that we are set free from the law as a way of acceptance with God; we are obliged to keep the law as a way of holiness.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we are set free from the law as a result of the work of Christ, and then we stay in Christ as a result of our own endeavors. That would be a caricature of what I’ve just said. No. He’s perfectly clear in his argument. It is the “law of the Spirit of life” that has set us free from this, and has set us free not in order that we might just live according to the conjectures of our minds but in order that we might live in accordance with the instructions of God’s Word. So, if you like, the law sends me to Christ in order that I might saved, and Christ returns me to the law in order that I might understand what it means to be saved.

This is how the Westminster Confession puts it: “The Spirit of Christ subdue[es] and enable[es] the will of man”―subdues and enables; those are the verbs―“the Spirit of Christ subdue[es] and enable[es] the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, require[s] to be done.”[9] So the Spirit of God is the Spirit who lives within the believer, enabling us to do―cheerfully, obediently, happily―what God’s will is, made clear for us in our Bibles.

The law sends me to Christ in order that I might saved, and Christ returns me to the law in order that I might understand what it means to be saved.

So we don’t have to get into big debates about “Is it okay for me to leave my wife and live with the lady up the street?” The answer is no, it isn’t! “Is it okay for me to cheat on my income taxes?” The answer is no, it isn’t! “Is it okay for me to think lustful thoughts?” The answer is no, it isn’t! And we can go through the whole thing. The answer is no, no, no. And every day I live my life, the law condemns me. Hence Romans 7: “What a wretched man I am, because I did this that I shouldn’t do, and I didn’t do that that I should do. Oh, what am I going to do now?”[10] “Well, hang on,” says Paul. “There is no condemnation. You can’t take yourself out of a right standing with God because you fell down the mountainside. Because your standing with God all day and every day is not on the basis of anything you have done or are about to do; your standing with God is on the basis of what Christ has done. And he has forgiven you of your sins, he’s come to live in you by the Holy Spirit, in order that that law which now invades your life may actually free you from the burden and the pull and the downward drag.” In other words, he says, “Become what you are! You don’t have to be pulled down by this. It happens, but it doesn’t have to happen. It’s not impossible to mess up like this. It’s just incongruous.”

And he’s writing here to encourage all who are in Christ Jesus to say, “Okay, tomorrow’s a new day. It’s a fresh start.” For most of us, our Christian lives are a series of new beginnings. If you doubt this, just go home and read your Bible, and you will find that this is the way God has operated from the very beginning. When his people were in bondage in Egypt, he delivered them, and then he placed his demands upon them. When they were in bondage in Egypt, he redeemed them, and then he said, “And here are the requirements.” He set them free, and then he explained to them how that freedom should be enjoyed and maintained.

And that is what Paul is doing here. He’s saying, “This is what Christ has done for you. This is what he is doing in you by his Spirit. He has set you free. You’re free from condemnation. Now let me tell you why he’s done this and how he’s done it, in order that you might enjoy that freedom.”

The psalmist gets it perfectly in Psalm 119. Listen to this:

I will always obey your law,
 for ever and ever.
I will walk about in freedom,
 for I have sought out your precepts.[11]

“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” You say, “Well, I thought freedom was no precepts.” Any of you having surgery tomorrow? Well, what kind of anesthetist do you want? Anesthesiologist… What kind of what kind of anesthetist do you want? You want somebody who’s going, “Hey, you know, we get it right within five or ten milligrams; it’s not going to matter. Let’s try something. You know, let’s just… Here, try this. See how that works.” That’s not called freedom. That’s called death. Or the cardiothoracic surgeon who comes to draw on you pre-op, and he starts drawing on the wrong side of your chest. He says, “Well, I… Sometimes I like to do it over here. I know the heart’s over there, but…” That’s not freedom. That’s dangerous!

No, this freedom is the glorious freedom of walking not according to the flesh. When we come back tonight, we’ll try and figure out what that means: “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”[12] So that, in the words of the old song, “I can tell by the way you walk that you got soul, baby.”[13] Right? It’s by your walk! That’s what the person says: “I can tell by the way you walk, you got soul.” And that’s what he’s saying here. That’s why the verb is peripateō, in the Greek—which is another reason why the ESV is better than the NIV here, because it uses the very verb: “Who [do not] walk according to the flesh but [walk] according to the Spirit.” And so he says, “People will be able to tell—you’ll be able to tell!―how you walk and where you walk, where you are in relationship to these things.”

Blessed is the man
 who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly
or stand in the way of sinners
 or sit in the seat of scoffers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
 and on his law he meditates day and night.
That guy will be like a tree planted by rivers of water,
 that brings forth its fruit in season.
Everything he does prospers.

The wicked aren’t so!
 They’re like the chaff
 which the winds blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
 nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.[14]

Paul understood that! He had lived that. He was an upstanding, outstanding, religious Pharisee. And when he was lost on the Damascus Road, Jesus came, and it changed everything! That’s why he’s so interested in telling people about what it means to be “in Christ Jesus.”

Let us pray:

Father, we thank you for the Bible. We thank you that it will reward our diligent study. We thank you that the Spirit of God is given to us in part in order that we might learn and believe and obey the truth. We thank you for the wonderful good news of the gospel.

So, Lord, write these things on our hearts, and give us a spring in our step and a joy as we reflect upon what is true of us. And then, help us to live in the light of what is true of us, by grace, through faith, in dependence upon your Spirit, and resting solely and entirely in the work of Christ. For it’s in his name we pray. Amen.

---

[1] Romans 7:7 (paraphrased).

[2] Augustine, Confessions 2.6.12, quoted in William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, rev. ed., The Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 96.

[3] Stuart Townend, “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” (1995).

[4] Keith Getty and Jonathan Rea, “God of Grace” (2003).

[5] Charitie L. Bancroft, “Before the Throne of God Above” (1863).

[6] See Deuteronomy 21:22–23.

[7] Dora Greenwell, “A Good Confession,” in Songs of Salvation (London, 1874), 27. Paraphrased.

[8] Augustus Toplady, “Rock of Ages” (1776).

[9] The Westminster Confession of Faith 19.7.

[10] Roman 7:18‒24 (paraphrased).

[11] Psalm 119:44–45 (NIV 1984).

[12] Romans 8:4 (ESV).

[13] Johnny Nash, “You Got Soul” (1968). Lyrics lightly altered.

[14] Psalm 1:1‒6 (paraphrased).