Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Romans chapter 8, and we'll read for our text the first four verses. A bit unusual for me, a long text, but it all fits together.

In verse 1, There is therefore now no condemnation, to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 8, verses 1 true to form. A knowledge of law and gospel, the difference between them, is vital for salvation. It is the key to salvation. We'll cover this later this evening, I want to mention this right at the start so we don't lose it in the middle.

In verse 1, we have the word, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Then we have in verse 4, the very same words at the end, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. is repeated twice.

The law of God demands a perfect obedience, a fulfilling of that law in every jot and tittle, whoso offendeth in one point guilty of all. That is the demand of the law. The gospel does not say You must fulfil the law. You must walk perfectly. You must not transgress at all. All it says is a change of what you walk after. Instead of walking after the flesh, you walk after the spirit.

And how that walking is, is a serving in newness of the Spirit, verse 6, chapter 7, that we should serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. The newness of the Spirit is serving God because we love Him, because we want to do that which is right, But we're not thinking if we transgress in one point, if we fail, if we slip, if we sin, we are condemned, we are damned, which is the spirit of the oldness of the letter.

The law gives liberty. In the beginning of chapter seven, we have an illustration, an illustration that should be familiar with every one of us that have been to a wedding. Because we hear those words pronounced, till death us do part. And we all understand what that means. That that marriage is a marriage bond, a covenant, but when one party of that dies, that marriage covenant is then dissolved. The other party then is free to marry again.

This is the illustration that Paul sets before us here. So even before we really understand how it comes to pass, yet may we understand that as clearly as One party in that marriage is loose from the bond because of death. So clearly are those under the gospel released from the law of sin and death. This is what William Gadsby was so emphatic upon. It's one of those things that are stated in our articles of faith, that a believer is not in any sense under the law, that they are completely freed from the law.

That does not make us to sin that grace might abound. It doesn't mean that we don't have regard to the law, but we are brought out from underneath it the same, with the same completeness. as a husband or a wife is when the other party died.

Now I want to look this evening at these four verses, and I'm going to use four main points. In my thought, the aim as it were, is what the Law could not do, God did, through Jesus Christ. So firstly, what the Law could not do, and why. Secondly, what God did through sending His Son, Jesus Christ. Thirdly, the effect of God's calling. It changes what men walk after. And fourthly, the blessings on those that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And there are four distinct blessings that are in these verses.

Firstly, what the law could not do, and why. We read in verse three, for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. There's many things that the law can do. Paul relates it here. By the law is the knowledge of sin. It is through the law of God as a schoolmaster that we are brought unto Christ. The whole aim of the law is to bring all the world in guilty before God. But what it cannot do is bring out from that guilt and from that condemnation. It cannot pronounce what is in verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation. It cannot do that, because the law of God will always condemn, and it must do so.

The reason is given in our text, but we could add another reason. One reason is because the law was broken in our first parents, in Adam. Whatever we may do from this point on or from the time we are born into this world, we cannot redress that which is already broken. If someone was up before the courts of this land for something that they had done wrong, if they said to the judge, Look, from this very point, I'm going to obey the law perfectly. Please let me free. I don't want to go to prison. I don't want to pay a fine, because from this point, I'm going to perfectly obey the law. The judge would say, but you've already broken the law, and you must pay for that breaking of the law. This is not what is going forward. This is what you've already done. And every one of us in Adam, we've already broken the law. We've already sinned. David says, in sin did my mother conceive me. He didn't mean that his mother committed adultery. What he meant was that he was born in sin and shaped in iniquity. He was part of the fall. that we go forth from the womb speaking lies. So the law of God, it cannot make past amends. It cannot change what already is the sentence of the court. In the day that thou eatest thereof, in that day thou shalt surely die.

but then in the experience of God's people as well, in the experience, we might say, of all people, but it is God's people that feel it to be so, that are brought to feel it to be so.

The reason why the law cannot bring from condemnation, cannot set free from the wrath of God, is because of the weakness of the flesh. It was weak through the flesh. If we were to rely, as the Pharisees did, upon the deeds of the law, or those in Romans 10, they were going about to establish their own righteousness, if that was the case, then the word here says that the law cannot bring freedom from condemnation, because the flesh itself is weak.

We are not able to keep the law. The Apostle Paul was very clear early on in chapter 7, how that he wanted to keep the law. He wanted to do that which was good. But he could not. He had the will but the flesh would not allow him to do it.

We could have someone with a broken leg, and they were a runner, and they had a racetrack, and there was a race, and they very much wanted to run that race and to win that race. But as they tried to go on it, their broken leg refused to let them do it. Even if they had crutches, they'd hobble around, they couldn't do it.

Now if someone said, well, we'll make the track a little bit shorter, and we'll make it a little bit smoother, and still set the same person in it, they still wouldn't do any better. If they said, well, what we would do instead, you can have a substitute. You can have someone run for you. You can watch them in your place. run that race, and if they win, you win, and all you've got to do is to look at them.

That would be different, wouldn't it? Because that would not be counting at all on that person's disability, their broken leg, and the person running it was able to run it, and able to do it.

And so, with the law of God, We are not able because we are sinners, because we have fallen. Everything we say and everything we do is marred with sin. It is not perfect before God. And how much we might want to do what is right, we cannot perform that which is right. And the illustration that I've used, we could put this, of course, with the gospel. There are some people that would say, well, The gospel, Christ has died, you must accept, you must believe, you must exercise your own faith and virtually must save yourselves. It's like setting a different running track, a bit smoother perhaps and a bit shorter, but expecting the same weakness to run it. That is not the gospel. That is not, if it's still because the word here it was weak through the flesh, we cannot in any way think then that the Gospel and the blessings of the Gospel are going to be relying on the flesh, are going to be relying on the same thing as what the Lord was relying on.

If a poor sinner feels their inability, feels their hardness of heart, feel their proneness to sin, their inability to keep the law, their inability to do anything right. Whatever they're told to do under the gospel, they say, I'm going to fail just as much under that as under the law. And it won't ever be the gospel either. May we remember this. This is why the law cannot save and cannot deliver, because it is weak through the flesh.

If Satan says the reason why you are not saved and the reason why you cannot believe the gospel is because of you, because of the weakness of the flesh, you say, well, you're making the gospel just as weak as the law. The very implication is that if there's something, if there's some way that shall do what the law could not do, It will not rely on flesh. It will not rely on some inner strength or supposed ability as ourselves. It is not a matter of willpower. It is not a matter of strength from within. It must come from without. It must come from someone else. And this is set forth in these verses.

Though the law could not bring about freedom from condemnation, it could not bring about salvation, it could not bring a people to be acceptable to God because of the weakness of the flesh, because of our sinful condition. Trying to look secondly, at what God did through sending his Son, Jesus Christ. Further on in verse 3 then, we read, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. In the margin it says, instead of for sin, by sacrifice for sin. So God, the first thing that he did to do what the law could not do is to send forth his son.

What an amazing thing. driving back from Oakington the other night and I was driving along the M11 and I could see the stars shining and I thought of that word, he made the stars also and I thought how many of them there were and the greatness of creation and the greatness of our God? And how that there's no beginning or an end? And how could we ever comprehend such a great God? And then I thought this, that this God sent forth his Son. He himself became flesh and dwelt among us. that in the person of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, we behold the God who is incomprehensible, who is so great and so eternal. Emmanuel, God with us.

For a few moments, I just felt something of awe and wonder and greatness. I thought how much we read of our Lord, how little Do we really enter into the wonder of God manifest in the flesh? Our Lord said, if ye have seen me, ye have seen my Father also. God and man in one person, incomprehensibly made man. Great is the mystery of godliness. God manifest in the flesh.

Paul introduces this way of escape and deliverance and being brought to no condemnation with this great fact, this wonderful revelation of God sending his own son. Remember with Abraham, God said to him, because thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. In blessing I will bless thee, and in thee and in thy seed, that is Christ, shall all nations be blessed. God sent his Son. He sent him to be the Saviour of the world, that is the only Saviour that this world will ever know. Our Lord said, if you believe not that I am He, you shall perish in your sins.

How God sent forth His Son is absolutely vital. We are told here that it was in the likeness of sinful flesh. Our Lord was not a sinner. He was born without sin. It is something that Job puzzled that many of the saints struggled with because they knew the promise was the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's head. But Job says, how can a clean thing come out of an unclean? All that were ever born from Adam's day are all tainted with sin. How could it be one that is born that is not tainted with sin? How could there be a sinless one?

And we know that in the virgin birth, in the overshadowing of the Virgin Mary, that God, the Father of our Lord, That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Spotless. Not through generation of man, through Adam, but yet the very seed of the woman. God allowed this. God ordained this. God brought this to pass. A miracle. A miracle revealed. in the birth of our Lord, so that those of his kindred, those of the Jews, they stumbled at his outward appearance because it was so much in the likeness of sinful flesh that they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter's son? They found fault with him, that he, being a man, made himself equal with God, saying God was his father.

Really, all of those sayings, all of those objections, they were showing how wonderfully God made himself in the likeness of men, that even men could not discern that difference. He is a root out of dry ground, there's no form nor comeliness that we should desire him. Sometimes we have people and they will imitate someone else, dress up as them or make out they're someone else. Sometimes they get away with it. But other times a small thing will show that they're not really whom they said they were. But with our law, Even His enemies testified that He was a real man. Whom say ye that I the Son of Man am? But He was also God, because God sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. So there is His divine nature There is really who he is, but he's in the likeness of sinful flesh. He's made like unto his brethren, sin accepted. He is born of a woman, as was prophesied, and he was made under the law. This is emphasised and it is vital that we understand that. that he was put in the law place that we are. His parents did for him after the law when he was born. He fulfilled the law of God perfectly in his whole life. He had never sinned. He did not have to atone for past sins of his own. And that which he did in his perfect life was to validate that he was able to make the sacrifice that he came to do, and that also he had a righteousness to give to another.

He had a righteousness that was his own as God, and he also had a righteousness pictured as coats. He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none. We have no righteousness, Christ has too. His robe, His coat, without a seam, they cast lots for Him. That sets forth the righteousness of our Lord as a covering for His people. Not to cover their sin, but so that they can appear before God faultless. It is His precious blood that puts away their sin.

Our Lord came in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, or to be a sacrifice for sin. That is why He came. He came to do what His people could not do. He came to pay a debt they could not pay, to live a life that they could not live, and he came to do it as a substitute. To run a race they could not run, to achieve a prize they could not obtain themselves. This is what God did through sending his Son.

Shall God do something and it not be effectual? Shall God have a plan and give notice of that 4,000 years before he brings it to pass and gives many prophecies to back it up, and yet it is not effectual? It doesn't work. And that it still does not do what the law could not do. God forbid that that should be so. God's remedy is an effectual one. Our Lord declared upon the cross, it is finished. The sacrifice that he offered was a wrath-ending sacrifice. He endured the wrath of God for his people. He says, I lay down my life for the sheep. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father.

So the debt that he was to pay was the debt his people owed. The weight of those sins we can see is described of the Lord's agonies in the Garden of Gethsemane. The cup that the father had given him to drink. The wounds he endured, the suffering, not just in his body, but in his soul. Thou shalt see the travail of his soul and shalt be satisfied. What God did in his beloved son, we're told he had condemned sin in the flesh, or put to death sin. atoned for the sins of his people, paid the debt that they owed, redeemed them from that curse of the law.

Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. But it is also written, cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. Our Lord was made a curse for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. What God devised and did through His Son is perfect, and all of those Old Testament saints As they looked to that sacrifice to be offered and believed it and trusted in it, they were saved, they are now in heaven. And right to the end of the world, every one of God's people are saved through this one sin-atoning sacrifice.

But how is it then made personal to us? How is what the Lord did at Calvary then put to our account? How do we know that it was our sins that were laid upon Him? So I want to look thirdly at the effect of God's calling. It changes what men walk after. The first part of God's calling, is to make a person need salvation, feel their need of it. The Apostle Paul here is a real example as a Pharisee of one that did not feel his need. In his own eyes, he was good. It's like their Lord telling of the Pharisee praying in the temple and of the publican. The Pharisee owning was able to tell God how good he was and he despised the publican. The publican felt his sin and he pleaded for mercy. God said he went down to his house justified rather than the other.

No one will seek salvation. No one will look for righteousness other than their own. or a way of deliverance from the curse of the law unless they feel the curse of the law, unless they are brought under condemnation. Before they can know the first words of this text, there is therefore now no condemnation. They first must know that there is condemnation and to feel it. and to know it, and to walk under it, and to feel the need of being delivered from it.

In a natural sense, no one will seek healing for an illness or something wrong with them until they know there is something wrong. When we have symptoms of something, We'll go to the doctor and we'll ask why we have those symptoms. And after tests, it may be told what is wrong. It might be serious, it might not be. But until we've got some symptom, we won't even ask. There are some cancers, especially, that are said to be silent killers because there is no symptom. And those that have that going on within, They go blissfully on without realizing that they're dying because there's no symptoms. They don't seek help.

And in the way of sin, by nature we are like that. We go through this world and death is before every one of us, but we're not concerned. Because we do not feel our guilt, we do not feel in danger, We do not feel to need another righteousness other than our own. We think that we are good people. The world is full of those like that. The false church encourages people to trust in their own works, their charities, their goodness. And it's impossible to really show anyone, except God is able to do it, but not us.

I remember years ago, one of the ladies up in the lane between our house and Cranbrook High Street often used to talk to her over the fence. And sometimes we'd be there for three quarters of an hour, one time especially. And I tried to set before her her need to the Saviour, her need to the Gospel, and how not to trust in our own works. And after I'd finished, she said, well, she said, I just do the best I can. I do a nice garden, and that's really my religion. And it's just as if everything I'd said just went straight over her head, which it had. She couldn't apprehend it at all.

And we need God to convince us of our sins. We need God to use the law as a schoolmaster. We need Paul's experience in this way to kill us to a hope in saving ourselves or saving ourselves because of our good works or deeds. And it clings to us, even those that are saved. Galatians is a real warning to us. because in Galatians we have those that had embraced the gospel, but then they're going back to the law thinking that they should be circumcised and keep the law to be saved. And we can easily slip back and start looking at ourselves and devil accuses us and brings us again as if we're looking for salvation of our own works, but we are told that we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Grace and works are opposite. Growing in grace means we feel more and more unworthy, more dependent upon the mercy of God and the grace of God. We're feeling more and more our own works are nothing. at filthy rags and more and more trusting to this God's work alone.

Well, the effect of God's calling in the lives of God's people is not then to give them the ability to fulfil the law, the same what they were trying to do before, but it gives them a change of what they walk after. This is the word that I spoke to you when we first started this evening. The word that is in verse 1 and the verse 4 as well. Who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Repeated twice and then later on it's enlarged through this chapter. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

By nature, certainly, when I was dead in trespasses and sins, I didn't mind the things of God. I didn't think about the things of God. I didn't follow after the things of God. I didn't pray. I didn't read the Word. I wasn't concerned about my soul, but I was carnally minded. I did go after the flesh. I relished the flesh. The things of this life was all my effort and all my way.

But here speaks of something different. I trust that God made that difference with me, so that what I went after after being called was not the same as what I was after before. It's a double way. You walk not after the flesh, not after the lust, not after the desires of our natural mind and natural man, but after the spirit, a change of direction. a change of desire, a change of want.

The apostle would say, before I was called, then I was going after fleshly things and after fulfilling spiritual things with fleshly things. But after God called me, then all my own works, my own efforts, my upbringing, my position in the Jewish church, everything I counted but nothing as loss for the knowledge of Christ. A different aim.

And this is what I want to really impress. Because those that have this different aim will still sin. They will still fall. They will still do things wrong. But their aim is that they don't. And it grieves them that they do. But God has given them, and this is repentance really. It is the spirit of repentance. Don't ever think that repentance means that we turn to be perfect in all that we do. Repentance itself is not perfect. That soul that is repenting there'll be many aspects of their lives that they still have got wrong. But the spirit of repentance is there. And where God shows them what is wrong, they'll acknowledge it, and they will seek God's grace to turn away from it. And their aim, their desire, is for spiritual things.

The natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The Lord gives spiritual life, and that life will go after spiritual things. It will go after Christ. It will go after the blessings of the gospel. It will count all things but loss for the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That soul will desire to know. God has promised that they shall all be taught of the Lord, but that soul will want to be taught of the Lord. And on the world's side, they'll have an aching void, that the world cannot fill. The things of the flesh that once satisfied them don't satisfy them. And now they want something different. They want that which is found in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Later on, the apostle is even more emphatic. To be calmly minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. Calm the mind is enmity against God. not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And so all the time he's comparing flesh and spirit, flesh and spirit, and the change that is wrought. This soul feels the difference, they feel what they are in the flesh, they feel their fallen nature, but they have that desire, when I would do good, but evil is present with me. There is that desire to do good, they walk a walk. It will change our walk. It will change, yes, how we think, change our affections, but we'll often find them still by sin defiled. But the aim will make a real difference in our walk. It will change us outwardly and we'll walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

They took knowledge of them that they had been with, Jesus. So the effect of God's calling, it changes what men walk after, in our text reinforced twice. I want to look then, fourthly, at the blessings on those that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. the four blessings. The first one is this, that they are in Christ Jesus. In verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. So I'm putting it the other way around. You see, we see, God's people see a change in a person that they are now walking, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and we see that person, we say, that person is in Christ Jesus. That's why the change has been wrought. They have a relationship with Christ. They're found in Him, not having their own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.

The next thing is that there is no condemnation. The verse begins, there is therefore now no condemnation. This is joined with those that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. They are told where this is so, there is no condemnation. The outward evidence is there and what it is joined to We cannot go up into heaven, we cannot see the great throne, we cannot see whether there's condemnation or not, but through the Word of God, the inspired Word of God, God says you see one that his life has changed to walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, there's no condemnation to that one. They are free from condemnation.

And thirdly, they are free from the law of sin and death. For what the law. Now verse two, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Remember what we said at the beginning with the marriage situation. This is the apostle putting it in this way. Those that are walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, that Spirit of life in Christ, that life that has been given, that didn't come for ourselves, that God gave us, to walk after spiritual things, a hearing ear, a seeing eyes, a feeling heart, that life has made me free from the law of sin and death, the same as if a husband or a wife had died.

And then lastly, fourthly, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them. Verse four, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. We could not fulfill the righteousness of the law by obeying it. The Lord Jesus Christ did obey the law and brought in a righteousness that is to be given to his people. That is their meekness for heaven. But the effect upon those that are given that righteousness is that they walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So in that way, it is as if they were fulfilling the law, as if they were obeying it in every job and title, not in themselves, but in Christ. And because Christ has done that, he's given them a new direction. and given them a new way.

He doesn't say to them, look, I've fulfilled the law. You follow my example, and you fulfill the law, and you obey it, and you get to heaven in that way. No, he says, I've fulfilled the law for you. I've put away your sin by the sacrifice of myself. I have wrought out a righteousness. I have given it to you. And because I've given it to you, I've changed your course and your direction so you do not walk after the flesh. but after the Spirit.

May we see these blessings that are joined here, and notice again what I said at the beginning. This phrase, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, is repeated twice, at the beginning and at the end of our text. And it really sums it up, what the difference is.

And again, to go back into chapter 7, which highlights it again in verse 6, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. The spirit now is wanting to please the Lord, not to obtain salvation by our works as we did in the oldness of the letter. But now we're serving without this great big weight upon us, thinking one mistake and we're damned eternally. Now we're serving in newness of spirit, knowing that all our debts are put away. Christ has died. Christ has risen again. We are forgiven. We are pardoned. And the Lord has brought about this change in our hearts and in our lives to witness this.

May the Lord bless this word and make it very clear, clear to you, clear to me, whose we are, whom we serve, and that what the Lord could not do, the Lord did, God did, through sending His beloved Son. May He be precious to us, the Lord Jesus Christ, our righteousness. Amen.