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.”
I finally finished up Romans 8 this morning and decided to go back to the beginning of the chapter for today’s verse picture.
These introductory words to Romans 8 are–rightly so–among some of the most cherished in scripture. What a glorious reality, “there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”…..let the hope of that sink in….there is no such thing as God saying to the Christian, “you are damned….” we will not see final hopelessness, we will not see final terror, we will not be put to shame, we will not end in darkness–God is FOR us, Christian, He no longer raises His hand in wrath against us, He is for us…..
And He is for us BECAUSE “He condemned sin in the flesh,” that is to say, “in the flesh of His beloved Son”. The arrows of God’s wrath against our sin were spent in love in the flesh of the Son who willingly gave Himself up on the cross. And now, we–as Spirit-filled lovers of God in Christ who have been buried and raised with our Lord–now we are free to walk in the Spirit and fulfill the heart of the law, which is Christ-like love (Romans 13:8).
God, in the Son, because of love, dwelling among us; our sin borne by and crushed in the Son; our souls knit by faith to Him so that we might join Him in His death, resurrection, and glory; and the Spirit of God dwelling in us, leading us to kill crucified sin and to bear the fruit of Christ-imaging, God-exalting, law-fulfilling love….this is our great salvation. And the most beautiful reality about it is that, by it, we know who God is. The beauty of our redemption is that it is the definitive declaration of God’s Name.
