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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 8 ch. 8:1-17 ch. 8:18-27 ch. 8: 28-39
Life
Through The Spirit (ch.
8:1-17) Chapter
8 opens a whole new topic, even though it is closely related to what Paul
has been talking about. Paul
has mentioned the Holy Spirit three times to date in his letter.
Now he will elaborate more on this important subject. Paul
connects chapter 7 and 8 by the word “therefore”.
He goes on to say that “there is no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus”. After
all the frustration with sin in chapter 7, you might think that Paul would
need to deal with the idea of one feeling condemned.
A sense of condemnation would easily come over a person described
in chapter 7. You want to do
what is right. You try hard,
but you can’t. The feeling
of condemnation is a natural result. One
might just give up the fight. Paul
makes it clear that there is no condemnation for those who are “in
Christ Jesus”. One point to
be made here is that condemnation really is not a feeling.
It is a place in which we stand before God.
We are either condemned or not condemned.
We are either guilty, or not guilty.
Both condemnation and guilt are not feelings.
They are judgments placed on us by God.
What
does the term “in Christ” mean. Simply
put, if we are justified, (pronounced by God as righteous) then we are in
Christ. We should not make
anything more of this term than that.
Being justified, being saved, being a real Christian means that we
are in Christ, and stand before God without guilt and condemnation.
There
is a lot in these next few verses. Why
are we not condemned because we are in Christ?
Paul says that “the law of the Spirit of life has set us free
from the law of sin and death”. The
Law was powerless to help us since it was weakened by our flesh.
This means that sin in us saw the Law, and then mounted its attack
on us. The Law could not stop
that, so in this way the Law was weakened by our sinful nature.
Jesus, who came to earth in the likeness of sinful man, died and
was punished for our sins. He
became a sin offering, just like all those lambs in Old Testament days.
Verse
3 says that Jesus condemned sin in sinful man.
Jesus condemned sin so the righteous requirements of the Law might
be fully met in us. What does
Paul mean when he says that “Jesus condemned sin”?
I believe it means this. Ever
since Adam, sin had rule over man. All
mankind was under the control of sin.
Jesus overcame sin in His life.
He lived His life free from the power of sin.
For the first time in human history sin lost a battle. Jesus lived
the perfect life, yet died as one who carried all the sin of mankind.
By His resurrection He condemned sin.
He pronounced to the whole universe that sin had finally been
defeated. Because He was
punished for our sin, God’s judgment was satisfied and therefore His
wrath and anger were turned from us. This
resulted in the fact that His Holy Spirit could come to live within us.
Now we had a way to overcome sin in our life.
Following the Law could not help us, but God Himself who lives
within us; He can and will help us overcome sin.
This is what Paul is getting at in verses 1 to 4 of chapter 8. In
verse 5 he says that “those who live according to their sinful nature
have their minds always on their sinful nature, yet for those who live
according to the Spirit are always mindful of the Spirit”.
Paul goes on to say that those who have their minds set on their
sinful nature are opposed to God and die as a result.
We have seen Paul spend many words on this thought before. This is
one of the main problems we have as Christians today.
We're too involved with our sinful nature and not the Holy Spirit.
For this reason we do not see the miracles and the supernatural
life as we see in the book of Acts.
Romans
8:9 is extremely important. He
says, “you however are not controlled by your sinful nature, but by the
Spirit, if the Spirit lives within you”.
I am sure that James would love these words of Paul.
James says that he will show the world his faith by what he does.
Here Paul says that if you truly have faith and the Spirit of God
within, you will not live according to your flesh but according to the
Spirit. Paul
goes on in verse 9 to make a very dramatic point.
He says, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does
not belong to Christ”. We
note a couple of things here. First,
note that the Spirit is called “the Spirit of Christ”. The Spirit is
often referred to as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, but here He is
the Spirit of Christ. This
means, “the Spirit that belongs to Christ Jesus”.
This denotes the unity between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Secondly,
Paul says very clearly that “if you do not have the Spirit of Christ,
you do not belong to Christ”. Simply
put, if you do not have the Holy Spirit within you, you are not a
Christian. These are vital
words. Peter, in Acts 2:38
says, “repent and be baptized … and you will receive … the gift of
the Holy Spirit”. Receiving
the Holy Spirit “must” be a part of our conversion experience.
If this is not the case, then you are not “fully converted”.
Your salvation has not been sealed.
You do not belong to Christ, according to what Paul says here.
If
Christ is in you, even though your body is dead because of sin, (meaning a
deadly depraved state, with all of its problems), the Holy Spirit will
give life to your spirit. Paul
takes this thought one step further by saying the Holy Spirit will give
life to your mortal body. I
assume this life is in the present as well as in the future. when Christ
returns. We
have mentioned verse 12 earlier. Paul
exhorts us not to live according to our sinful nature.
That means, even though we have God’s Spirit within, we do still
have our sinful nature, even though it does not rule us as it once did.
Yet, if we decide to give in and start living according to our
sinful nature, then we will die. Sin
will kill us, because that is what sin does. By the same token, if we let
the Spirit help us put the deeds of the sinful nature to death, we will
live. Paul
goes on to say that for those of us who have God’s Spirit and are led by
Him, we are God’s children. God
is our Father, and as many have said affectionately before, “God is our
Daddy”. If this is the case,
we are heirs, along with Jesus Himself.
We inherit all of what God has for us.
That means we do have the ability to live as we should.
Paul
closes this section with a word we probably don’t like.
The word is “suffering”. He
says, “if we share in Jesus’ suffering, we will also share in His
glory”. Paul certainly
shared in the suffering of Jesus. Suffering
is yet another one of those words that the modern church does not like to
talk about. In this respect,
we have been too influenced by western modern culture.
Paul,
in verse 18 continues with his thinking on suffering.
He says that compared to the glorious future for Christians, all
that he is suffering now means very little.
This statement means a lot coming from Paul, since his sufferings
were very great. Paul
makes a point concerning creation here.
He says that creation has been subject to bondage and decay. It too
is waiting eagerly for the day in which it will be liberated along with
the children of God. God
told Adam to have dominion over the earth. (Gen. 1:28)
When Adam sinned, he died. He
apparently lost the ability to rule the earth as God wanted him to rule.
God also cursed the ground that man walked on. (Gen. 3:17 and 5:29)
God originally put creation under man’s care and authority.
Since man sinned, it appears God put creation under the same
sentence of death and decay that he put man under.
So all of creation is waiting to be liberated along with all
Christians who will be liberated
at the end of the age. Paul
continues to tell us that all of creation is groaning, as if in labour
pains. This most likely accounts for the turmoil found in nature.
Earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters are
probably examples of creation groaning in pain. In
verse 23 Paul says that we as Christians groan inwardly, waiting for the
redemption of our bodies that will take place when Jesus returns to
restore all things. Paul is
hoping for that day to come. Here
again, we see the word hope as we did in chapter 5.
In verse 24 he says that we were saved for this hope.
So hope is important for a Christian.
We do hope for the future glory to come, and there is nothing wrong
with that hope. I
wonder at times how many of us Christians actually groan within, waiting
for the return of Jesus. Unless
we are very sick, most of us are too much in love with this world to be
groaning for its demise. Paul
has told us that creation is groaning and that we as Christians groan as
well, waiting for our redemption. In
verse 26 and 27 he tells us that the Holy Spirit groans too.
His groans cannot be expressed in words.
The important point to be made here is that the Holy Spirit helps
us by interceding for us when we don’t know how to pray properly.
This is another important reason why we
need to live by the Spirit. More
Than Conquerors (ch. 8:28-39) “And
we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
Him”. (ch. 8:28) Some other
translations, including the KJV read, “and we know that all things work
together for good…” Do you
see the difference between the two translations.
The former says that “God works for our good in all things”.
The latter says that “all things work for our
good”. It is hard for
me to imagine that all things that happen to me is for my
good. There are many
tragedies in life. What about
a family break up? Is that
good for me? I am not a
language scholar, and I know that some manuscripts translate this verse
differently, but the NIV version
makes more sense to me. God
can work for our good in whatever comes our way.
Paul
goes on to qualify the idea that God works for our good.
He says that God will work for the good
of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
I often wonder if I really love God. I
am not sure that I do love Him, using God’s definition of love. I do
believe that I am called to be part of God’s purpose.
I believe that all Christians are first called to God Himself, and
then to participate in His plans. Concerning
love, we could say that we love God as best we can at the moment.
For those of us who try to love God and are called by Him, He will
work with us in whatever comes our way, whether it is good or bad
Verse
28 and 29 are hard verses to understand.
They have been debated and argued over for centuries.
We have two new words here. The
word “foreknew” and the word “predestined”.
The word foreknew is from the Greek word “proginosho”, which
simply means “to know beforehand”.
This is an easy concept for us to understand.
We have no problem with the idea that God knows all things, even
before they happen. The
word “predestined” is a much harder concept to deal with.
This is where the debate over the centuries has taken place. The
Greek word translated here as “predestined” is “proorizo”.
This word means, “to determine beforehand” .
Some say that God predetermines who would be saved.
Those He predetermined have no choice in the matter.
This
viewpoint is not my personal opinion. There are too many “believe and
you shall be saved” verses to contend with when you think this way.
If God makes the choice who will be saved and we can do nothing
about it, why then does He ask us to come to faith?
Why does He ask everyone to believe when He only chooses some to be
saved? Here
in verse 29 Paul says that those God foreknew, He predetermined that they
would be conformed into the likeness of His Son. The reason why we are
being made into the likeness of His Son is so that Jesus can have brothers
like Himself. Verse
30 says that for those God predetermined, He called, then justified, and
lastly glorified. This is the
hard verse due to the chain of sequence.
If Paul would have said, “those He called, he predestined”,
that would be easier to understand, but
he said that those who were predetermined were then called.
Is Paul saying that God chooses ahead of time those who will be
saved? Is he saying that God
chooses people out of the world and then calls them to salvation after He
chooses them? Once again this
thinking neglects all of the ”whosoever will”
verses. It takes away
man’s free will to deny God’s calling for salvation.
I
do not presume to end all the debate that has taken place over the years,
so I will not dwell on the subject. I
will say one more thing. Is it
possible that God has predetermined all mankind to be saved?
By sending Jesus to the cross for the sins of the whole world,
hasn’t He predetermined that all mankind should be saved?
Once predetermining this,
which He did at the cross, He then proceeds to call men and women to
salvation. At this point they
have the choice to respond to the call as free agents. To me this makes
sense. It also fits into the
sequence of foreknowing, predetermining, calling, justifying and then
glorifying. Verse
31 is a great verse. “What,
then, shall we say in response
to this? If God be for us, who
can be against us”. Paul is
saying that if we respond in faith to God’s salvation, He has
predetermined to call, to justify and glorify us.
It is a done deal. Nothing
will get in God’s way. It is
all wrapped up and finished. There
is nothing to worry about when it comes to our eternal destiny. When
Paul says, "what then shall we say …"
The idea here is that God has predetermined that all can be saved.
This predetermination shows that God is for us, and if He is for
us, we will in fact be saved if we accept His call.
Paul
goes on to say that if God gave His only Son to bring salvation to us,
which is the greatest thing He could give, will He not give us all other
things to help us in this great salvation?
If someone gives you a million dollars, he wouldn’t have any
problem giving you ten dollars, would he?
The same with God. He
already gave the greatest gift, so any lesser gift should not be a problem
for Him. Verse
34 says that Jesus now sits at the right hand of God interceding on our
behalf. If this is the case
who can possibly bring any false charge against us?
Who could possibly condemn us when Christ Himself doesn’t bring
condemnation our way. In
verse 35 Paul asks the question, “who or what could possibly separate us
from the love of God”? He
lists a few things that he has experienced like, hardship, persecution and
famine. He goes on to say that
he and his fellow workers are like sheep ready to be killed, yet not even
death itself can separate us from God’s love.
In reality death brings us closer to God’s love. God has
predestined us to a glorious future with Him, and if God has decided on
that, then nothing can change His plans.
Paul closes the chapter by saying that he is “convinced” that
there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from God’s love that
has been demonstrated in Christ Jesus. May we have this same conviction.
We often think, and actually allow such bad things that come our
way to separate us from God, but it's not really the bad things that does
the separating. It is us.
We choose to separate
from God because of the way we view bad things in our lives.
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