[There is] then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.
These words come right after the long struggle of the previous chapter, where a person cries out to be rescued from himself. Two things decide their force: what "in Christ Jesus" means, and how much of the verse Paul wrote.
By this point Paul has moved past the question of guilt. One writer shows the difference between being forgiven and being set free:
He finds his sins wiped out. He was unclean, and God washes him. He offended, and God forgives him. He was guilty, and God justifies him. God has made that clear for ever. But the old self is dead before God, and the new self is in Christ. Christ is my righteousness. I was lost, without hope in myself, but now I am in Christ before God. That is deliverance. In Romans 5 you are justified. But in Romans 8, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
Older printed Bibles add a clause to this verse: "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Commentators agree that a copyist carried these words here from verse 4:
All critics now agree, whatever they themselves believe, that "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" was wrongly inserted here from the fourth verse. In verse 4 the words fit perfectly. Where they stand, they make "no condemnation" depend on a certain way of living. But that would cancel the apostle's argument... Think of someone groaning because he cannot do the good he wants to do. What comfort is it to tell him that his freedom from condemnation still depends on doing it!
You can reach the same conclusion without studying any manuscripts. Just ask whether any Christian's conduct could carry that weight:
Take the best Christian life anyone ever lived, and the best Christian state anyone ever reached. Even that would give some ground for judgment and condemnation. There is not a Christian on earth who does not have to judge his own state and conduct every day... To be free from all condemnation, we need something that is perfect as God is perfect, and no Christian life is that, or ever was.
The verse does not describe a feeling or an achievement. It describes a location. One writer makes the contrast sharp by naming the alternative:
Rom. 8:1 reads "There is therefore, now, no condemnation to them which are" (not in their sins, but), "in Christ Jesus."
The verses that follow give the reason. They cover both halves of the problem: the new life God gives, and the old nature He has judged:
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And he explains this in two ways. How could you condemn them? "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." How could you condemn a life that is perfectly good? ... But there is another reason. God has condemned sin already... He has already judged my nature. It is not a question of forgiveness. I do not want my nature to be forgiven; I do not forgive it myself.
Sin still in the believer deserves everything the word "condemnation" means. The question is where that sentence of condemnation has already fallen:
Believers still live in mortal bodies, and the flesh and sin are still in them. That flesh and sin are evil beyond cure, and they deserve nothing but the fullest condemnation. But God's condemnation has already fallen in the sacrifice of Christ, and the believer in Christ Jesus is beyond it for ever. For us there is no condemnation. It has exhausted itself in the cross!
The phrase is "in Christ Jesus." So the risen Christ Himself sets the measure:
The Lord Jesus Christ bore all our condemnation on the cross. God has raised Him from the dead, and no condemnation of any sort can apply to Him now. How could there? Then there can be none for those who are in Him.
The verse does not promise a favourable outcome at some future hearing. It settles the present:
If it said that we believers will escape condemnation on the day of judgment, that would be wonderful. What it does state, however, is that there is NOW no condemnation. Christ has borne the condemnation and used it up for us. We now share the life of the risen Christ, so we are as clear of condemnation as He is.
- Therefore — the verse answers a cry for rescue, not just a plea for pardon. Forgiveness clears what I did; this clears where I am.
- No — a copyist carried the clause about walking by the Spirit in from verse 4. What Paul wrote carries no conditions.
- Condemnation — God did not waive it. It fell on Christ at the cross and burned itself out there, and it judged sin in the flesh with it.
- Now — not a verdict awaited at a future court, but a present standing already settled.
- In Christ Jesus — the risen Christ Himself is the measure. Nothing can be charged against Him, so nothing can be charged against those in Him.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death.
This verse sets one controlling power against another. It answers how a believer who still carries a sinful nature can live free.
The word "law" here does not mean the law of God. Commentators compare it to the laws we speak of in nature.
Here it carries the same sense it does when we speak of the laws of the universe, or more exactly of the law of gravitation. It points to a controlling force that works the same way on everyone under its power.
If "law" means a steady controlling force, then "the law of sin and death" describes what the flesh always does, and what it always ends in.
"The law of sin and death" does not mean the law of God. Some teachers strangely said it did, by taking "the law of the Spirit" to be the gospel. It means the flesh working by one fixed principle, in what it is morally and in what it leads to. Power is in the Spirit, who has shown us our place in Christ and set us free as alive to God in Him. So no condemnation for those in Christ goes hand in hand with a new life in the power of the Spirit in Christ risen.
A believer can delight in God's law and still not be free. So the new nature is not the power that frees.
But what new law, or power, or principle, is this? Is it the power of my new nature as born of God? No. Though as such I did delight in the law of God, that did not make me free from the law of sin, as we have seen. But this does — the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is God the Holy Spirit dwelling in us; it is not now death, but the Spirit of life. … Elsewhere we learn that the life we now have is eternal, and the Spirit is eternal. So the power we have is eternal.
The cross met our guilt. This verse says more is needed.
It is not only the death of Christ Jesus. His death in itself never gives full Christian liberty. It met my guilt, but I want more than this; I want a power of life that has won the victory. And this is what I have through grace. … No wonder, then, that people who are unaware of this are always taken up with a miserable toil under the law. They hope their sins are forgiven rather than know it.
The verse is careful about what it frees us from.
It is worth noting that this freedom is not said to be from the presence of sin and death. It is freedom from "the law of sin and death." While we are down here we shall not be free from the presence of sin. But "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" sets us free from the power of sin and death.
These writers quote an older translation reading "has made me free"; the ESV has "has set you free." Either way, the verse states the freedom as already done.
No level of experience or spirituality made Paul feel free from the law of sin and death. Nor did he just feel free. That was not the question. We must not trust feelings here. We must have established facts, not feelings. … "Has made me free": this is rest indeed. It is not something to grab at or to work up by human effort, experience, or feelings.
The stronger law does not work by struggle. It works by attraction.
Suppose I had a piece of steel on this table. There it lies, held by the law of gravitation. It has no power in itself to rise or to free itself from the law that holds it. But suppose I hold a powerful magnet over it. Another force comes into play: the law of magnetic attraction. At once the steel responds to the pull and springs to the magnet. This is how the law of the Spirit of life acts. Christ is the magnet, the great attraction of our souls. We now have an object outside ourselves, and Christ is that object. Just as the steel has a nature that responds to the magnet, so we have a nature that responds to Christ.
- Two laws. "Law" here means a steady controlling force, like gravity, not the law of God.
- The lesser law. The law of sin and death is the flesh acting as it always acts, and ending where it always ends.
- The greater law. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the stronger force, and the greater law overrides the lesser.
- Freed, not sinless. The release is from sin's power, not from its presence; the flesh stays, but it no longer rules.
- A fact to rest on. "Has set you free" is finished work — believe it, do not wait to feel it, and Christ Himself draws the heart.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh,
The law could not deal with the human problem. This verse says why, and it says what God did instead: He sent His own Son. Why did the law fail? What does "likeness of sinful flesh" guard? And what does it mean that God condemned sin instead of forgiving it?
The failure lay in the material the law had to work on, not in the law itself.
The law was not at fault. It failed through the weakness of the flesh. You cannot make anything perfect out of bad materials. A man may be a very skilful workman, but set him to work on bad materials and all his skill is useless. Carving wood, he may show the finest taste and craft, and produce something all must admire. Try the same on clay, or on rotten wood, and it would crumble to pieces under his hand. All his skill would go for nothing. So the law, attempting to work on the flesh, only crumbles it to pieces.
The verse says "likeness" of sinful flesh, not the thing itself.
It could not have been in the reality of sinful flesh. In that case He could not have been a sacrifice for sin at all. If there had been an atom of the reality of sinful flesh, if there had been a single taint, it would have destroyed the sin offering. The "grain offering" represents the life of Christ. The "sin" (and "trespass") offering brings before us His death. Of both offerings we are told the same thing: "it is most holy." The Lord Jesus looked like any other man, and that is why it says "in the likeness."
An Old Testament picture follows the same pattern.
Moses made the bronze serpent in the likeness of the fiery serpents that were the source of the trouble. In the same way, God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, so that sin in the flesh might be condemned in His sacrifice for sin. Sin lived in our flesh, dominating and corrupting our old life.
The two small words "for sin" carry a technical meaning drawn from the offerings.
This aspect of the death of Jesus is so closely tied to the sin of man that in the original language the word for "sin" and "sin offering" is the same.
God treats sins and sin in two different ways.
Remember also that sin in the flesh is condemned and not forgiven. In human justice, forgiveness may take the form of cancelling a sentence. Even then the law still condemns the lawless and criminal instincts the crime came from. Divine justice works the same way. Human justice, where it is good and right, is only a faint reflection of God's. The sacrifice of Christ does provide the basis on which God can forgive the believer's offences and still be righteous. It just as clearly shows God's hatred and condemnation of the corrupt nature those offences sprang from.
The verb is stronger than it first sounds.
God condemned — or, you might say, executed — sin in the flesh for us by the death of Christ. He did not die only for my sins (though that is true), but for my sin.
Sins and the sinful nature are two different problems. The cross dealt with both.
God has already condemned sin in the flesh at Christ's cross — not merely sins, but sin. So He is not only satisfied (as older writers used to put it) but glorified in it. So on neither count can condemnation fall. God forgives the believer's sins because Christ bore them on the tree. He has also condemned the sin in the nature there, to His own glory. The believer stands clear on both counts.
God's judgment on the flesh is meant to become ours.
God tested man again and again through Old Testament history. Then men — religious, cultured and political — crucified the Lord Jesus, God's well beloved Son. There God condemned sinful flesh once and for all. God would teach us to bring our view of the flesh into line with His. He would have us agree with Him, passing the same sentence of condemnation on it.
- Weak — the law had no fault, but no power either. It worked on material that crumbled under it.
- Sent — God did what the law could not do. He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, never in its reality: one taint would have ruined the offering.
- Sacrifice — in the original language the word for "sin" and for "sin offering" is one and the same; His death is bound up with man's sin.
- Condemned — God forgives sins, but He does not pardon sin in the flesh. He executes it. The cross shows His hatred of the nature the sins came from.
- Clear — Christ bore the sins and God condemned the sin, so no condemnation can reach the believer. Our part is to pass the same sentence on the flesh that God has.
in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit.
Romans 8:4 gives the purpose of what God did in sending His own Son to deal with sin in the flesh. But if the believer is not under law, why does the law's demand appear here, and how is it met?
Many read the verse as if the Spirit helped a believer keep the law and so be justified. One writer rules that out.
God worked in Christ so that the requirement of the law — its righteous claim — might be fulfilled in us ... This, I gladly grant, applies not to justification, as so many teachers wrongly teach. It is the practical consequence of justification, or rather of the infinite work of the Saviour, in those who receive Him.
So why does the law's claim appear at all, for people set free from law? One writer traces the answer back to Romans 7.
The connection shows that this is worked out in the delivered soul — in those who have passed through the experience of Romans 7. ... But if we have been delivered from the law, and from efforts to fulfil it, why are we told that the righteous requirement of the law is still fulfilled in us? ... We can gather the reason from the previous chapter. There the standard before the soul was obedience to the law. The apostle points out that "the good," which could never be attained while under law, is now reached in a new and better way. What the law required, but never obtained, is now produced in those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
One writer shows the difference with a school bell that rings twice in one day.
They hate the sound of that bell at that hour, and obey its command with great reluctance and only because they must. The law of the school is fulfilled by them, not because they love it, but from fear of the consequences of disobedience.
The same bell rings again at dinner time.
It is now as pleasant to them as before it was hateful ... they drop whatever they are doing and rush to the dining room. The command of the dinner bell is fulfilled IN them, for there is that in them that gives an instant response to it.
The verse describes how a believer walks, and it names two possible sources of that walk.
He is not taking up the old nature here, but the walk. Note that there are two principles of walk — after the flesh, and after the Spirit. Flesh is not changed; if it were, why warn us not to walk after it? The flesh is the same as ever, but the believer now has power over it. He does not walk after it, although it is there. The flesh is in him, but he is not in the flesh. There is no excuse for a Christian walking in flesh, because the Spirit of Christ is in him.
One writer adds a sober admission.
This verse states normal Christianity. We must also admit that none of us, not even the most spiritual, walk fully according to the Spirit. So none of us fully meet what the law righteously demands.
The law never supplies the power for such a walk.
Too many believers live under law in practice, working to correct and improve the flesh — the case described in the second half of Romans 7. There is no power in that. ... Christ is the only power of holiness, not the law — Christ in grace and truth, Christ dead and risen. That power works through the Holy Spirit in us, and the heart answers in love to God and man.
The believer who is free from law does not end up below its demands, but above them.
Find us a Christian who recognises how God has condemned sin in the flesh at the cross, and who therefore disowns the flesh and does not walk by it. Find us one who also rejoices in the new life in Christ Jesus, and in the Spirit of that new life who is its power and energy. We will at once show you a Christian who is fulfilling what He had so righteously required of men. Indeed we will show you one who goes beyond those requirements. He is learning to walk as Christ walked, and that is a far higher standard than the law of Moses.
- Cause. The verse opens with "in order that" — it is the goal of what God did in sending His Son, not a condition we meet to be accepted.
- Gift. The demand is fulfilled in us, not by us. New life and the Spirit answer God's will the way hungry boys answer a dinner bell.
- Power. Working to improve the flesh gives no power. Christ, dead and risen, is the only strength for holiness, and He works by the Spirit.
- Walk. Two principles are open to a believer: flesh and Spirit. The flesh remains, but it no longer has to rule — and no one walks wholly by the Spirit.
- Result. What the law asked for and never got is now produced. And more: the standard is now Christ Himself, not Moses.