In this lesson, we are going to
begin in the Old Testament with the story of Israel’s exile and return from
exile. This will launch us on a journey
of our own to the fulfillment of the New Covenant in the New Testament. We will focus our attention on Romans 8. What we will learn from this is the wonderful
work of our salvation and sanctification from God the Father through the Lord
Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.
God says several times in Ezekiel
that He poured out His wrath on Israel in the wilderness and would again pour
it out on Israel in the time of the prophet, leading to their exile (7.8;
14.19; 20.8, 13, 21; 21.31; cf. Hosea 5.10).
The opposite of this is when God promises to pour out His Spirit on
people. He pours out His wrath on Israel
for not walking in His statutes, but when He pours out His Spirit, He cleanses
them from their sins. This is the good
news of the New Covenant. Ezekiel 39.29
says,
And I will not
hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of
Israel, declares the Lord GOD.”
The New Covenant begins as a hope
for Israel, but it is fulfilled for all nations through Jesus Christ. Israel had been sent into exile for her sins,
but God had promised beforehand that He would restore them. Yet they will not simply return from exile,
as though they had served their time in jail.
God would deal with their sin that took them into exile. They must return from exile clean. To do this, God would pour out His cleansing,
transforming, life-renewing Holy Spirit on them. Ezekiel says this in ch. 36:
And I will give
you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the
heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And
I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be
careful to obey my rules.
Israel was, of course, restored in
small numbers from captivity in the 70-year period prophesied by Jeremiah
(25.11-12; 29.10; cf. Daniel 9.2). The
partial return left open some later fulfillment of the prophecy. In fact, those in Israel did not walk in
God’s statutes and obey His rules. The
initial groups returning to Israel under Ezra and Nehemiah did pledge to follow
God, but the subsequent history was much the same story of disobedience to
God. This takes us to the beginning of
the 1st c. AD. John the
Baptist’s and Jesus’ ministry challenged Israel to repent: they were still
unclean, still in exile for their sins, and still in need of a forgiveness and
cleansing from God.
Similar to Ezekiel, the prophet
Joel prophesies that God would restore Israel from captivity. He, too, speaks in this context of God
pouring out His Spirit on His people. He
says,
“And
it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on
all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see
visions.
29 Even on the male and
female servants
in those days I will pour out my
Spirit (2.28-29).
This prophecy, Peter explains on
the Day of Pentecost, was now fulfilled (Acts 2.17-18). The focus of the passage falls on God’s
pouring out His Spirit on all flesh. The many Jews present from many regions of
the world for the festival on that day were representatives of all flesh. The prophecies of a baptism of the Spirit, a
cleansing from sin and changing of the heart to desire and do God’s Law, were now
being fulfilled. The return from exile
for those on whom God’s Spirit was outpoured had begun. This day launched the mission of the Church
to all flesh. The evidence of the
outpouring of the Spirit that day was speaking in tongues that these people
from many parts of the world understood.
However, what did it mean for God to pour out His Spirit that day? Later in Peter’s speech, Peter says,
“Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.38).
What is this gift? Speaking in tongues? The evidence we have noted points elsewhere:
the gift of the Spirit was both the Spirit of God Himself (an epexegetical
Genitive: the gift is the Spirit) and His cleansing people from sin. The people are called upon to repent in the
name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Through Jesus, people are forgiven their
sins. The work of the Holy Spirit is to
bring cleansing and sanctification. The
Day of Pentecost is the day of giving the Spirit to the people of God
throughout the world.
Another passage in Scripture
presents this work of Jesus and the Spirit: Romans 8.1-17. This passage is the positive response to the
negative problem presented in Romans 7.7-25.
Negatively, Paul presents the problem people face when they, as still
sinful people, try to live according to the Law. As sinful people, they cannot. All that the Law does is shine a light on
their sin; it does not have any power to make sinners righteous. They are stuck in exile where they serve as
slaves to sin, under the Law, and face death.
This is not, however, the lot of
the Christian. Thus, in Romans 8, Paul
says,
There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For
the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the
law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law,
weakened by the flesh, could not do (8.1-3a).
Paul goes on to say that God sent
Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh.
The language of ‘likeness’ means that He was not sinful, but He was made
man, and mankind is sinful. In Paul, the
word ‘flesh’ is often used in a moral sense to denote our sinful
existence. Yet Jesus, Himself not
sinful, ‘condemned sin in the flesh’.
This is a unique way of speaking about Jesus’ death on the cross for our
sins, but Paul wants to say that we were not condemned (v. 1), sin was (v. 3). The language is stronger than saying that
Jesus forgave us of our sins or took them away.
That is true, but something more was needed. Sin is not just a stain. It is presented as a power at work in our
flesh in ch. 7. Thus, personified sin
needs to be taken before God’s court like a criminal, and a verdict needs be
given to deal with it once and for all. Our
slave master is condemned. His power is
taken away. In fact, sin is condemned to
death instead of us.
Having accomplished this—having
removed the power of sin over our lives—Paul goes on to say that now ‘the
righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us’. The Law no longer functions as an accuser in
God’s court against us. Some of us are
used to taking the view of Martin Luther from his interpretation of Romans 5
that we remain sinful but have the righteousness of Christ. We are sinners saved by grace, he famously
said, and our new-found righteousness is not from us but is Christ’s
righteousness. That is something Paul
does say elsewhere, but here, in Romans 8, he says more. He says,
By sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in
the flesh, 4 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 (Romans 8.2-3).
With sin sent away condemned, it
has no more power over us. Therefore, we
can now fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law because ‘we no longer walk
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit’. The work of Christ was not only to deal with
sin but, having done so, to bring about a righteous people. Instead of a ‘flesh people’, they are now a
‘Spirit people’. Instead of being
empowered by sin in the flesh, they are empowered by God’s Holy Spirit given to
them. Their—our—works of righteousness
are not possible without the Spirit working within us.
This is not presented as a
transfer from sin to righteousness, from flesh to Spirit. The people of God who are now ‘Spirit people’
are so when they set their minds not on the flesh but on the things of the
Spirit (v. 5). The Christian is able not
to sin but is not turned into someone who cannot sin. Thus, Paul continues,
You, however,
are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in
you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead
because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If
the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit who dwells in you (8.9-11).
This is, after all, what we had
read about God pouring out His Spirit rather than His wrath in the Old
Testament. Christians are not
condemned—they do not receive God’s wrath—but are made righteous.
We sometimes capture the work of
the Trinity by saying that salvation is from
the Father, through or in the Son, and by means of the Spirit. The
work of making us righteous is from God, through what Jesus Christ has done for
us on the cross and resurrection, and by means of the indwelling Holy
Spirit. The Spirit’s work is a work in
us, empowering us to the righteous life.
Verse 11 speaks of this empowering presence of the Holy Spirit: ‘If the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit who dwells in you.’
What an amazing power! The power
of the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us!
One might think that this would
mean that we simply cannot be sinful any more, and some have mistaken Paul to
say this. Yet Paul goes on to speak
directly to the Roman Christians on this very point. He says,
So then,
brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will
die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live
(8.12-13).
We are empowered by the Spirit to
put sin to death—to put the ‘deeds of the body’ to death by the power of the
Spirit. There is some irony here: the
power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that we now have to put sin
to death. If we do so, the deeds of the
body will die, but we will live.
Christians have spoken of the
state of the sinner before turning to Christ and before having the Spirit as a
state of being unable not to sin (non posse non peccare). Once turning to Christ and receiving the Holy
Spirit, the believer is now able not to
sin (posse non peccare). He or she is not not able to sin (non posse
peccare). Sin must be put to death
in us, and for that work we have the power of the Spirit of God who raised
Jesus from the dead.
You may recall 1 Corinthians
6.9-10, where Paul lists various sins committed in the past by members of the
Corinthian church. They no longer continued
in these sins, though, for he says in verse 11:
And such were
some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
That word ‘justified’ in this ESV
translation and many other translations should, I believe, be ‘made righteous’. The Greek word can mean either ‘justified’ or
‘made righteous’, and even both notions can be present in the word. So, what is the context of verse 11? Paul is not talking here about justification
but about the contrast of sin and righteousness. How did those sinful Corinthians—much the
same as ourselves—come to be washed, sanctified, and made righteous? All three words have to do with the moral
state of the believer. Here is my main
point: this work is, as Paul puts it, ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
by the Spirit of our God’. And there,
too, is that language of in Christ
and by the Spirit. The washing and sanctifying and making
righteous work of God is in Christ and by the Spirit. We cannot separate saving work from God the
Father in Christ from the sanctifying work by the Spirit because it is one work
of the One God. This is why the
historical background of the prophecies fulfilled in Christ and through the
Spirit are helpful: they provide vivid imagery for what our salvation
entails. To leave exile is, at the same
time, to be cleansed from the sin that put one in exile. Leaving exile is not separate from returning
to Israel. One is forgiven and transformed. One begins life anew in the New Covenant of
the Spirit.
This leaves us with a
challenge. Will we who celebrate the
salvation of Jesus Christ for us also walk in the power of the Spirit, as Paul
describes the Christian life in Romans 8.1-17?
Or will we claim salvation despite a life of ongoing sin, of defeat by
the flesh, as Paul describes such a life in Romans 7.7-25? Will we by Him, by His amazing power, put the
deeds of death, our sins, to death? Will
we live in the power of the Spirit? This
is our challenge as Christians. When we
fail, thanks be to God, there is forgiveness and restoration. Yes, we are not perfect. However, we are no longer sold as slaves into
an exile to serve the master of sin any more either. Paul asks at the end of Romans 7, ‘Wretched
man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (v. 24). He
quickly answers, ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (v. 25). God delivers His people from exile by His
mighty hand, through the work of Jesus Christ our Lord.
In ch. 8, when he expands on this
with the additional reference to the indwelling Spirit of God, Paul says,
The Spirit
himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and
if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we
suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (8.16-17).
The rest of Romans 8 will unpack
Christians’ suffering and being glorified with Christ. From Romans 6 to this point, we see that we
live through Jesus’ salvation story, which is the Gospel itself. In chapter 6, baptism is said to express our
dying and rising with Christ. Here, now,
we are to suffer with Him and be glorified with Him. Through all this, the Spirit is at work. By Him, we put to death our sin. By Him, we rise with Christ to
righteousness. By Him, we endure
suffering—Paul explains
this later in Romans 8. He says, ‘we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies’
(8.23). Later he says, ‘Likewise the
Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for
words’ (8.26). Again, he says, ‘And he
who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the
Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God’ (8.27). In all this, the Spirit is present in our
suffering with Christ: in our suffering, in our praying, and in the Spirit’s
intercession for us.
And what of being glorified, the
last point in Romans 8.17? Paul had said
that we are ‘heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with
him in order that we may also be glorified with him’ (v. 17). Paul does not forget this. He picks it up in vv. 28-30:
And we know that
for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who
are called according to his purpose. 29 For those
whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,
in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And
those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also
justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
We are so used to hearing Romans 8.28 as
though it is saying that God works our challenging situations and even
suffering for good that we don’t hear what I believe he is really saying
here. The ‘all things’ of v. 28 is
explained in the following verses: God works through His foreknowledge, His
predestination that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, His calling
us, His justifying or making us righteous, and in all these things we are
brought to glorification with Christ.
All this is according to His purpose, as He says in 8.28. And, we might say from this lesson, that all
things are from God, through Jesus Christ, and by His Holy Spirit.
‘These [things]’ is repeated in
Romans 8.31: ‘What then shall we say of these things?’ Clearly, he means the things of vv. 29-30:
foreknowledge, predestination to conform to Christ’s image, justifying/making
righteous, and glorification. They are
the things God works for those who love Him.
Verse 32 affirms God will give us ‘all things’ [ta panta] with Christ.
Over against ‘all things’ that
God works are other things, but nothing can stand against God working His work
for us in Christ. No one can condemn us
(v. 34). No one can separate us from the
love of Christ (v. 35). The various
sorts of suffering—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness,
danger, or sword—cannot separate us (v. 35).
Neither can death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to
come, powers, height or depth, or anything else in creation separate us from
‘the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (v. 39).
The fact that suffering and the
like continues for Christians does not mean that they should defeat us. We suffer as does the rest of the world
(Romans 8.18-27). God is working out all
things to do with His salvation for our salvation. We have left the life of the flesh, sin, and
death and begun to live the life in Christ and through the Holy Spirit. We have left exile and entered in on the
inheritance of the saints, the children of God (Romans 8.17). Nothing, then, can separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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