Romans 8
The right medicine
A couple of years ago I became very briefly ill with a really painful, debilitating complaint. I won’t go into the medical details except to say that it crept up on me over a period of 2 or 3 days, and it reached the point where I was almost crippled with pain. I speculated as to what the cause was, I tried waiting to see if it would go away, I tried out a few home remedies that I thought might be worth a try, but nothing made it better; it just steadily got worse, until I was completely preoccupied with the pain and unable to do anything to make it go away. Finally, on about the third day, Nicole persuaded me that it might be worth going to the doctor, which I did, and they sent me off straight away to the hospital. They did the various scans and so on, worked out that I didn’t need surgery and it was just an infection, and within less than a day on the antibiotics I was well again. It was good that I went to the doctor, because it turned out that the condition I had was something that I was helpless to make myself better from; it wasn’t something that was just going to go away if I ignored it for long enough, and the right medicine was absolutely transformative.

The Bible says it’s a bit like that with us and our spiritual condition. The first few chapters of Romans make it absolutely clear that in our fallen nature there is something desperately wrong with us in the way we live and the way we relate to God. We’re critically ill - in fact the Bible says that spiritually we are dead. And Paul also makes it clear in the first few chapters of Romans that this is not a problem that we can fix on our own, or something that will go away if we ignore it for long enough. We can obviously do various things to distract ourselves from the pain of the symptoms, but the the root cause of our broken relationship with God still remains unhealed. We desperately need the kind of medicine that will make us spiritually alive and well again - right with God and able to live a life that pleases him.

And in chapter 7 of Romans, Paul argues that that medicine is not the law of the Old Testament. A string of commandments from God, in and of itself, is not what is going to make us alive and well and right with God. In fact, when we are living in the broken relationship with God that the Bible calls sin, God’s law just makes the situation worse - it increases the trespass, chapter 5 verse 20. Sin flares up - chapter 7 verse 9 - and causes death in us. And so the last half of Romans 7 narrates this tragic story about a sinful man encountering the law of God, and finding that even when he can see that it is holy and right and good he just keeps breaking it. And so he cries out in pain in Romans 7 verse 24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Romans 8 is the way the Bible answers that agonising question. It takes Romans 7 verse 25 (Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!) - it takes verse 25 and it explains it and fills it out and celebrates it across the space of a whole chapter. It’s about the medicine for our souls that God gives to us in Jesus, and what it does for us and the difference that it makes.

What the law was powerless to do...
So Paul opens the chapter in verse 1 by writing: ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit’.

Verse 3: “what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son...”

Martin Luther back in the 1500s wrote in his commentary on these verses - “It is as with a sick man who wants to drink some wine because he foolishly thinks that his health will return if he does so. Now if the doctor, without any criticism of the wine, should say to him: ‘It is impossible for the wine to cure you, it will only make you sicker,’ the doctor is not condemning the wine, but only the foolish trust of the sick man in it. For he needs other medicine to get well, so that he then can drink his wine. Thus also our corrupt nature needs another kind of medicine than the Law, by which it can arrive at good health so that it can fulfil the law.”

What is the medicine?

* What God has done for us in Christ (v.1-3)
Paul tells us in verse 3, it’s what God has done for us by sending his Son. So in the first place, it’s what God has done for us in Christ. It’s what God has done in sending Jesus in human flesh to be a sin offering for us, to die as our substitute, to bear our punishment for us. Which means, verse 1, that if we are in Christ, if we belong to him and our faith is in him, there is no condemnation for for us.

* What God does in us by the Spirit (v.4-17)
It’s about what God has done for us in Christ, and it’s also, verses 4-17, about what God does in us by the Spirit. This is not a second kind of medicine, as if we needed both the Jesus medicine and the Holy Spirit medicine, and they came in different bottles. This is the application within us of exactly the same medicine - what God did by sending his Son. So Paul is at pains throughout these verses to make it clear that the gift of the Spirit is the same gift as the gift of Christ. So he tells us, verse 9, that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and if we don’t have the Spirit we don’t have Christ. In fact, verse 10, the presence of the Spirit is the presence of Christ living in us, and the power of the Spirit is the power of the one who raised Christ from the dead. A great deal of our confusion about the Holy Spirit would be cleared up if we just remembered that - the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and the things that God does for us by his Spirit is just to apply within us the things that God has already done for us in Christ.

What does God do in us by his Spirit?

- a new mind (v.4-8)
In the first place, verses 4-8, it’s about a new mind. Verse 4: “And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. 5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

The way God changes us in this life by the Spirit, the way God empowers us to live a life that pleases him, is not by zapping us with some sort of emotional electricity that changes our brain chemicals and makes us spontaneously holy. No, he changes us from the inside, by renewing our minds, by teaching us to think with the mind of Christ, by continually teaching us through the Scriptures so that we learn to see everything in life in the light of Jesus, so that we learn to think as people who are no longer hostile to but now reconciled to God through Jesus. It’s about a new mind.

- a new life (v.9-11)
It’s also, verses 9-11, about a new life. When we were enemies of God, Paul says in chapter 6, we lived in death, because separation from God is separation from life. And when we came to Christ we were brought from death to life. And so the gift of Jesus and of his Spirit is the gift of a new life. Verse 10 in the NIV is an unfortunate translation, I think. Verse 10 in the NIV says, “if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness,” as if we have a bad body and a good spirit. But the word your isn’t in the original at all, and the word ‘alive’ should actually read ‘life’. So the verse should really read: “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” The point is not that we have a bad body and a good spirit - the point is that we in ourselves are dead because of sin, crying out to God. “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” We in ourselves are dead because of sin, but we now have living within us the Spirit of Christ who is life; so we continually depend on him and cry out to him, and he continually gives life to us - gives life, verse 11, to our mortal bodies.

In that sense, you see, the struggle of Romans 7 is still something that is relevant to our experience as Christians. We still keep crying out to God, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” We don’t graduate from the tax-collector’s prayer to the Pharisee’s prayer. We still keep crying out to God for grace, but we cry out as people who know where the answer is, as people who now know where life is to be found.

- a new obligation (v.12-13)
Which means, verses 12-13, that we now have a new obligation. We have an obligation not to the sinful nature but to the Spirit. We have an obligation to keep putting to death the misdeeds of the body. The picture of the Christian life in Romans 8 is not of some sort of perfect, spontaneous, effortless holiness where we just let go and let God, where we stop trying adn start trusting. No - it’s a picture of an earnest daily struggle where we keep on putting to death sinful patterns and habits and attitudes. The old theologians used to call it mortifying sin - gouging it out, cutting it off, putting it to death. To not do that is to show that we still live in death; but to do that, to keep continuing in that painful, disciplined, daily struggle with sin is to live the way that leads to life. And the way we do that is not by the law but by the Spirit - by trusting in Jesus, and because of love for Jesus, and by imitating Jesus and following him.

- a new status (v.14-17)
We have a new obligation, to put to death all the old sinful habits and practices, and finally by the Spirit we have a new status, as sons and daughters of God. Verse 14: “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

Present sufferings, future glory...
* Christ’s suffering, Christ’s glory (v.17)
If we are children of God, if we share in the sonship of Christ, then that has two huge implications for our lives. It means, verse 17, that we look forward to one day sharing in his glory - we are co-heirs with him. And it also means, verse 17, that in the present we will share with him in his sufferings. Christ’s glory and his sufferings are both expressions of his sonship. He suffers as a Son - he goes to the cross in obedience to his Father’s will, and he is attacked and persecuted and crucified because of his loyalty to his Father. He suffers as a son, and he is also glorified as a Son, when God raises him from the dead and declares him with power to be the Son of God. And if we are sons and daughters of God, if we share in his sonship, then that will also mean present suffering and future glory for us.

Just in passing, this is one of the great problems with the prosperity gospel, I think - it completely misconceives what it means for us to participate in the Sonship of Christ. So it says: "You are a child of the King; you are a prince or a princess; so live and dress and drive a car and spend your money like a princess or a prince..." And Paul says here: "we are co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory".

* A magnificent disproportion (v.18)
If that is the case - if the destination ahead is that glorious, and if the road toward it is one that will involve sacrifice and suffering - and if we are serious about following Jesus then it will - if that is the case, then Paul goes on to say in verse 18, there will be a magnificent disproportion between the glory of the destination and the suffering of the journey. Verse 18: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Notice, at the end of the verse, that the glory Paul is speaking about is not only the glory that will be revealed to us but also the glory that will be revealed in us - not only will we see him face to face; we will also be like him and reflect his glory. That is what we look forward to.

* Not just us but the whole creation (v.19-22)
And not only that, verses 19-22. Not only will we ourselves be gloriously transformed, but also the whole creation around us. So Paul writes - verse 19: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

* Groaning in hope (v.22-27)
And so, while we wait, we groan. We groan in hope. We don’t become immune to all the grief and sadness and sin and suffering of the world, and sail through it serenely as if we were on some kind of spiritual drug that made us immune to it all. Quite the opposite - we feel it all the more painfully, because we know that it’s meant to be so different from this, and we’ve had a foretaste of what is to come, so we don’t just resign ourselves to things the way they are, but we strain forward to the way things are one day going to be. There is something quite painful about hope.

And so we groan, verse 22, with groans that are something like the pains of childbirth. Nicole was talking to a friend of ours on Friday about another mutual friend who some seems to have been blessed with the gift of pain free childbirth. She was there at home, she’d been having a few contractions, she noticed the baby’s head was crowning, so she phoned the ambulance, phoned her husband, did a few breathing exercises and slowed the whole thing down till they arrived, then wandered off into the kitchen and had the baby. She’s an honest person and she wouldn’t be making it up, but it’s not really the normal way that a baby arrives. Normally a baby comes with groaning.

- the creation
Paul says, verse 22, the whole creation groans like that as it waits for the glory that is to come.

- we ourselves
Not only that, verse 23, but we groan too. We know what is to come, verse 24, but we don’t see it yet. We don’t live sinless, pain-less, grief-less lives. We live surrounded by the mess and sadness of a fallen, broken world, and we long for the things that God has promised. If we don’t see things that make us want to cry then we’re just not looking.

- the Spirit
Sometimes, verse 26, we feel it so keenly that we get into situations where we don’t even know how to pray. We’re too weak to pray, we don’t have words to pray with, we feel the sadness and the heaviness of life so intensely that we just can’t put two words together in prayer. If you’ve ever been through real grief then the chances are you will know what this verse is talking about, and if you haven’t then one day the time will come when you do. And when that happens, verse 26, the promise is that the Spirit of Christ himself is praying for us, and he groans too; the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express and he brings our needs before God.

And we know...
That’s the picture Paul paints of what life is like as we wait this side of heaven. And in the mean time, verses 28-39, there are three certainties that Paul reminds us of.

* In all things God works... (v.28)
In the first place, verse 28, he reminds us that in all things God is at work for the good of those who love him. Verse 28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” We know that we live in a world that is out of joint, a world that sometimes seems to stretch us out on the rack and test us to our limit; but we also know that God is at work in all of our circumstances for our good, and that he has a purpose and a plan that he is achieving in our lives.

This is a wonderful verse, isn’t it. It tells us that God is at work in all things; not just the good things; not just the easy things; not just the things we can understand; God is at work in all of the circumstances of our lives. You may not often think of God being at work in a toothache, or in a demotion at work, or in an injury you suffer or a chronic illness; but Paul says here that in all things God is at work. Thomas Watson, the Puritan writer, used the example of the workings of a clock. You take off the back and look at all the little cogs and wheels and so on that make the hands of the clock go round, and some of them go round clockwise, and some go anti-clockwise - some of them are turning in exactly the opposite direction from the way you want the hands of the clock to turn. But in the design of the watchmaker, all of those wheels, no matter which way they are turning, are working together to turn the hands of the clock. In all things, Paul tells us, God is at work.

And God is at work for our good. We don’t ever know what tomorrow, or next week, or next year holds for us, and it’s easy to get anxious and worried about that - but Paul reminds us that whatever God has in store for us, it will be for our good.

This is not a promise that is for everyone. Paul says this is something that is true “for those who love God”, that is for those who have come across from the enemy side, from loving the world and loving ourselves, to being lovers of God, through Jesus. And Paul reminds us that if this is true of us then it is not because we found God, but because he called us and drew us to himself.

* Those God foreknew... (v.29-30)
And in calling us, God has caught us up into the great plans and purposes that he has had for us from the beginning of time. Paul spells that out for us in verse 29 and 30.

Before the foundation of the world he chose us;
* he foreknew us - that doesn’t just mean he knew a few facts about us; it means that he chose, before we were even born, to enter into a relationship with us.
* And having chosen us as his people, he predestined us - he mapped out a destiny for us; to make us like Jesus, so that Jesus might be the firstborn among many brothers - that is the destiny that God has planned out for us.
* And having charted out his plan for us, he called us, through the gospel, and drew us to himself;
* he justified us, and wiped away all the guilt and condemnation that we deserved;
* and the end of the process - and Paul actually describes it in the same tense as all the other verbs, because God has already decreed it - the end of the process is that he glorifies us, and takes us to heaven, and makes us perfect in Christ.

Do you see the certainty of the whole process? Paul doesn’t say: “Some of those whom he foreknew he predestined; most of those whom he predestined he also called, and justified and glorified.” There is no leakage along the way. God doesn’t lose a few passengers off the train on the journey. From eternity past to eternity future, God carries out the purposes that he has for those whom he calls to be his own.

* Nothing can separate... (v.31-39)
Which is why Paul can say in verses 31-39 that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Jesus. Listen again to those final verses of the chapter as we finish, and let them wash over you like great waves of certainty and promise.

Verse 31: “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”