Romans 8:1-4
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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 for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The justification that we’ve been discussing removes our sin and grants us Christ’s righteousness in the atonement. We are free from the cycle of sin and death that we would otherwise still be living under. The corruption of original sin made obedience to the law impossible for us. Now, as a result of the work of Christ, we have imputed righteousness and as we walk according to the Spirit our works are acceptable to God. You have forgiveness for your sins and the leading of the Holy Spirit for works day by day. It begins and ends in Grace.
Chapter 8 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. Meditating on the joy that is ours in the freedom from condemnation accomplished by God and not by me and the security I have in that freedom is a constant source of joy.
Chapter 7 and 8 are strong contrasts. But Luther summarizes the contrasts with his famous statement in Latin that we are, “simul iustus et peccator” which means that we are at the same time justified and sinner. We don’t believe that contradictions are true but here I’m not saying that a Christian is justified and sinner at the same time in the same relationship. We are justified and sinner at the same time but not in the same relationship. Considered in myself and based on my own performance I’m still a sinner and fail to fully obey God. However, by virtue of Christ’s righteousness imputed to me, I’m just in the sight of God.
Historically, the Roman Catholic teaching has objected to this teaching. They have argued that this would involve God in a form of fraud. They have argued that God can only pronounce someone as righteous if they actually are righteous. Well we would agree that you must actually possess righteousness but the heart of the question, and the root of our freedom from the Law, is how you possess righteousness. We believe that righteousness is possessed by faith. The Roman Catholic teaching views baptism as the start of justification with grace infused as a result of baptism. Then they teach that you must participate with the infused grace to become righteous. The problem is that it isn’t necessarily a permanent state. Any mortal sin will kill the grace while any venial sins are less serious in this teaching. So if you commit a mortal sin you kill the grace but not the faith so you can have faith but not be justified. Then you need a form of penance to form “the second plank of justification for those who have made shipwreck of their souls” in which “works of satisfaction” generate either congruous merit or condign merit making it either fitting or necessary for God to reward the penance. They teach that grace, faith, and Christ are involved in your justification but they also teach that these are not sufficient and you need earn additional merit.
It is remarkable that such a departure from Scripture was constructed when the Gospel message is so clear. I think the motivating factor in this construction is a desire to feel justified by our own works. It is a sad thing that God purchased our salvation at a price we could never pay and yet we want to bring something to the table to feel that we are somehow owed salvation. Condign merit or a merit that God is forced to reward was the teaching that finally stuck in Luther’s craw and precipitated the movement that eventually produced the denomination we find ourselves a part of. We are justified by faith alone. Christ’s righteousness is the only merit we have before the face of God and anything else we bring is a sinful offense. It makes a vital difference whether you believe that your righteousness rests within your behavior or is something provided for you.
Romans 8:5-8Notice that Paul does not leave room for what some these days call “Carnal Christians”. We are saved by faith alone but we are not saved by a faith that is alone. Saving faith has inevitable consequences in a man’s life. The Holy Spirit will continue His work and call us to a life that is sanctified. Your natural mind is hostile to God. While an unsaved man may desire the benefits of God and not be as evil as he could be it is still true that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. In the flesh, mankind is wholly unable to please God. No “good” work is produced by our old natures. God has good works prepared for us after salvation. We do them with Him. This is only something that is perceived after salvation. Before we are saved, the idea that our donations to the needy or kindness to strangers is not pleasing to God would be rejected as absurd. An unsaved person would assume that God is probably happy with whatever “good” thing they do. But to stand before God thinking you have earned His favor is sinful. We compound our sin. Stewart was teaching on Hannah last Wednesday and asked the question (in the context of Hannah’s prayer for a child), “Does God make deals with us?” We had a nice discussion and generally came around to an answer of “no” but the problem with the question is that it implies we have something to make a deal with. Of course we don’t have anything that is ultimately ours and not God’s. If I wanted to make a deal with the God of the Universe I think I’d at least need to have something that didn’t already belong to Him to bring to the table and I don’t. You may be thinking of our wills submitted to His. You could think of offering that in a deal with God but that brings us all the way around and back to original sin. We owe God perfect obedience with our wills submitted to Him in heart and action. He doesn’t profit from that. He gets what He is owed from that. You don’t have anything to bargain with and I don’t mean you don’t have enough to bargain with. I mean that you have nothing (i.e., no thing) to bargain with.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
