This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at Gracetruth.org and AnchoringFaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. And so as we get in Your Word
tonight, Lord, give us an extra measure of grace, an extra measure
of joy, an overwhelming sense of who we are in Your eyes. And always, Lord, remind us of
the gospel of grace. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ. Amen. All right, let's go to the latter
part of Romans chapter 7. And I'm going to finish this
up and move into Romans 8 tonight. Romans 8 is one of these texts
that, you know, if you have to pick a text out of a particular
passage, out of a particular letter, Romans 8 is a grand passage. Romans 8 is where Paul begins
to stop or begins to start giving some promises and revealing some
promises and some things that the Lord is sure to give us and
sure to do in us and with us. And, you know, I've used Romans
8 in my personal life. Romans 8 1 is probably on my
tongue 10 times a day. I've used Romans 8 at the deathbed
of my friends and family. I use Romans 8 when I can't pray.
I use Romans 8 when I'm labored with the world, labored with
sin, labored with stress, labored with just laboring, or whatever
it might be. Romans 8 is a place where we
can find an incredible hope because it ends with something extremely
profitable for our soul. And that is that in all things,
in all things, we are more than conquerors. We are more than
conquerors through Him who loved us. And this is the apex of Paul's
argument of the gospel, because all men are guilty, God is just,
God is going to bring wrath and condemnation on all wickedness.
We are in Christ, even though we still fight the war of sin,
we are more than conquerors, no matter what we deal with.
Someone argued with me last week that my teaching of Romans 7
was not only not orthodox, but it was not historical, and that
it was absolutely not hopeful. I cannot get them to respond,
but as I asked them to continue to give me information and gave
them my phone number and asked them to call me, they assert
the idea that if Paul continued to be in the battle over sin,
what kind of life is that? What kind of life is that? My
answer to them is it's the life of a guaranteed person. It's
the guarantee of a life. We will always be at war. But the thing really, and that's
why Romans 8 is so important, it can very well, if we stay
right there in verse 24 of chapter 7, wretched man that I am, who
will deliver me from this body of death. And then he says in
verse 25, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then,
I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh
I serve the law of sin. Paul does not promise, nor does
any particular area of Scripture promise that we will ever stop
warring against sin. Yes, God does give us freedom
from certain things. God does help us overcome the overbearingness of certain
things in our life, certain sins that beset us. But to say that
there will never be sin struggling in our lives against the Spirit
is just an absurdity. It's not something that would
even make sense in the economy of grace. It would not make sense
in that which is taught to us throughout the totality of the
New Testament narrative of the apostles and the early church.
Those people fought with sin amongst themselves. They fought
with sin in their hearts. They fought with sin in their
practice. They fought with evil around them. They fought the
sin of not loving their enemies. And every page you see a continual
battle against sin. Nowhere in the New Testament
do you see anything taught where there was a group of people or
even an individual who was not continually confronted with their
sins. I also want to confront the idea
that the law is a teacher. for the unregenerate. A lot of
people argue that and it came to my desk this morning as I
was talking with some friends and Well, you know, you've got
to use the law in evangelism because to show the law shocks
the sinner so they can see they're sinners. Where is that? It is not possible. It is ridiculous. You want to
see the gospel? See the gospel. The gospel, the
good news, is that God converts. God regenerates, God gives life
through the hearing of the words of Christ. Which words? There's
no highlight, so teach them all. Which ones? As the Lord wishes
and as the Spirit wishes, He blows where He wishes with whatever
words we teach of Christ. So, in that, the law and the
use of the law. I had lunch with a brother today
and he confessed that before he was born again years ago,
even in his early adulthood, he was an atheist. And just in
general conversation, I shared some of this with him for tonight
and even for Sunday. It's funny how this sort of correlates
so cohesively. I said, so when you were an atheist,
did you have, would somebody come to you and tell you that
the Bible says that you shouldn't covet? The Bible says you shouldn't
commit adultery? I said, what do most atheists,
and we talked a little more and we came to conclude that most
atheists scoff at the commandments of God. It does not convict them. It does not bring them to a place
where they go, oh, woe is me, I'm a sinner. That's conversion.
That's a gift of repentance. That the mind has been transformed
from seeing sin in the light that we see it in the flesh,
or seeing self-righteousness which is also sin, and then seeing
who we really are in the light of God's holiness. seeing that
we are indeed fallen far from the glory of God. So the law
doesn't teach the unbeliever anything. The law is not the
entryway into the good news. It is just another thing that
unbelievers reject and scoff at. Paul says that very same
thing as we remember his teaching here in 6 and 7. He says that
before he came alive, the law was dead. And then when the law
came alive, he died. So as a Pharisee, he looked at
the law and went, got it, got it, got it. But when he was born
again, he went, I've got nothing. Matter of fact, that's what he
calls his obedience. Nothing. Everything that I've had is nothing.
Everything that I've done is nothing. None of it is for anything. It's all for naught. It is worthless
because it is not my righteousness, but the righteousness of someone
else. It is my Christ. It is my God. He is my King. So this dichotomy, this continual
war and battle, I hope I don't lose my voice, that the law of
God written on the heart of the believer is the gospel of grace,
inclusive of the totality of the understanding, the comprehension,
and the apprehension, and all those things together. that Christ
is who He says He is, and that He has done what He has said
He has done, and that God's plan of redemption is settled in our
hearts and minds, and therefore we see what it is that is required
of us. What is the law of God that is
required of us as believers? The law of faith. The law of
faith. It doesn't mean that we're free
to sin against God. That's not what it means to not
be captive to the law. But it does mean that we're free
to never be held condemned to the consequences of the law.
The law brings death. This is a review of probably
four weeks. The law brings death. It always
brings condemnation. So that we will see tonight as
we who are born again, we live by the Spirit, not by the law.
For if we live by the flesh, by the law, we live under the
law and we are guilty of violating the law. Therefore, there is
no hope. But the war is forever until
we are glorified. It doesn't mean that it doesn't
It doesn't mean that we're going to sit here 24 hours a day and
wring our hands and just loathe in our spirit. But I want you
to hear what Paul says about these things. There is now, therefore,
now, verse 1 of chapter 8, no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus. Now, that's a pretty good promise,
isn't it? That's a pretty good thing for us to hear, because
if we look at the war against sin, if we look at this besetting
sin, at this continual and dwelling sin that we're at war with, and
we ask ourselves, when will this war end or how is it that we're
going to escape the wrath of God? The answer of that is the
gospel, the work of Christ that satisfies the wrath of God on
our behalf. We must recognize that the work
of redemption is completed in Christ. We must remember that
it is good news because there is no other news that could set
us free from the condemnation that we deserve. So when we see
Paul say, there is now no condemnation, I want you to remember that.
Paul's already set that argument up very quickly through chapters
3 and beyond, that there is no way possible, listen to this,
no way possible for any sin that a believer commits, 1 John 5,
the sin that does not lead to death, there is no sin that a
believer commits that can cause them to be condemned by God.
Think about it for a second. Does this drive in you, believer,
a thumbs up to a wicked act? Does this drive you to a place
of going, well, I tell you what, I've got a list of things I'm
going to start doing. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Why? Because with the Spirit of God
within us, we are driven to the love of the Law of God, to the
love of the righteousness of God. We love Him for He has loved
us and given His Son and put the guilt of our sin on Jesus
Christ the righteous. So now, we are driven by the
Spirit of God to love the things of God. We don't love them perfectly. But we love the things of God.
So that even a believer who commits a sinful act, or has a sinful
thought, or a believer who has a failing, a time of doubt, a
time of unbelief, the first thing that we need to remember is that
we are not condemned because of that. Christ was condemned
on our behalf because of these sins. And friends, let me tell
you this, and I pray this will be the case for you. When the
believer does sin, though it may seemingly give temporal joy
to the flesh, it does not give peace to the soul. Our mind is
in a whirlwind of guilt and shame and frustration and horror. Self-condemnation,
whereby we must come back and understand the gospel of grace,
recognizing that the work of God is the only hope we have
in Christ Jesus. No believer sits and just is
giddy in their spirit that they've sinned against God. It just doesn't
happen, even though there may be a temptation that we might
absolutely be giddy toward in the flesh. But there's no condemnation. There is nothing to fear. There
is nothing to work for. There is nothing to gain because
we've been given it all in Christ. Every ounce of God's holy wrath
was poured out on Christ on our behalf. There is no elect person
whose sins are not forgiven. There is no one in Christ who
will ever have to fear God the Father. Now, let's just segue
for a second to something that's not necessarily in this text,
but this text imposes it upon us. We've heard it over in the
previous chapters. If we sin in this life, we do
suffer a temporal consequence. We suffer the temporal consequence
of self-guilt. We suffer the temporal consequence
of the lack of ability to worship. We suffer the temporal consequence
of our prayers being hindered. How does that work? I had a young
guy, a teenager actually asked me this question on Sunday night.
Our prayers are hindered when we sin, when we believe that
we can ignore that sin in our lives and pray to God as if nothing's
happening. Because Jesus even teaches us
in the model prayer that we pray that God would what? Remind us,
show us our sin, forgive us our sins. And this is a relational
matter that we have before the Lord. It's not a statement of
the fact that if we aren't forgiven today for what we did yesterday,
oh wow, we're in trouble. We're forgiven at the cross.
We are justified by the work of Jesus Christ. And by faith
we hold and receive these truths. So there is no element whereby
the Christian can ever find themselves in a place of condemnation. And look at verse 2. He says,
"...for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ
Jesus from the law of sin and death." Now see, there's something
that a lot of people do when they read things like this. For
example, over in Romans chapter 12, let me read that for a second
so that I can give you the comparison of how a poor hermeneutic looks
Paul says in Romans 12, 1 and 2, he says, I appeal to you therefore,
brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, set apart and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
worship. Then the command comes, do not
be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal
of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will
of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, a poor hermeneutic,
and I've heard it preached, I've heard it taught, I've heard people
argue with me, till the cows came home, left again, and never
to return, that that proves that God has different wills. He has
three separate wills that we must discern. He's got His good
will, He's got His acceptable will, and His perfect will. And
to that I say, no, those are adjectives describing the will
of God. God's will, what is good and
acceptable and perfect. So in the same way, people do
the same thing with chapter two of verse eight, of chapter blah,
verse two of chapter eight. They come to say, well, for the
law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the
law of sin and death. So there are different laws. So we've
got to discern what are those laws? What's the law of the Spirit
of life? That's obeying God in the Spirit, some people say,
to which I say, no. Some of you say, well, the law
of sin and death, that's a different law. That's the law of judgment. That's different than the Decalogue.
It's different than the 613 laws. No, it's not. Here is the illustration
that we see Paul doing. Think about it. Paul's teaching
about what? The death that comes through
the law of God. If we are holding ourselves to
the standard of God, impeccability is the only thing He will accept.
Well, guess what, brothers and sisters? We are not impeccable
from the time of our conception. But we bear the guilt of our
father, Adam, before we ever do anything wrong. But... What does the law teach us? The
law has never promised life. The law, if we're subject to
it, will always cause us to be what? Guilty. Therefore, if we
are guilty, for the wages of sin is, say it, death. But the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus. So you see the difference of
what we can earn. The only thing we can earn before God is death.
The only thing, no matter how hard we work, no matter how hard
we pray, no matter how much religion we do, no matter how many good
works we do, God looks at all of those things and as the prophet
says in the Old Testament, the righteous works of man are filthy
rags before the eyes of God. Because they don't count. They don't count. So when Paul
then is talking about the law that brings death, and that it
is good, and it is righteous, and it's holy, and we as believers
love the righteousness of God, we love to see, do not covet.
We love to see the face of God in the law that says, honor your
father and your mother. Children, adults. We love the
law of God that says, do not lie. But we cannot do it. We can strive, but we still do
not come close. We can go a millennia if we live
that long of never lying, but we're still a liar. We have a
murder. Well, I've never murdered. Peter
says that the one who hates his brother or hates his enemy is
a murderer. The one that gossips with their
mouth. Hey, did you hear what Pastor Tippin said yesterday?
I'm telling you, we've got to do something about this in this
church now. Murderer, murderer, murderer. And not just the one
that says it, but the one that hears it is also a murderer,
a co-heir to the stab wound of a person's integrity. Let me
put my hand on the left and you put it on the right and let's
just stab him. Now, call somebody else and let's all stab him.
Praise God that doesn't happen amongst our fellowship. Even
though we may have been guilty of thinking these things, we
don't have a gossip problem. It doesn't mean we don't have
a murderous heart. So even though we may not practice it, it is
still there. So what is it that Paul is talking
about? Well, he's using the idea that this law of perfection that
governs the justice of God and the righteousness of God that
is displayed. How is the law displayed? Where
can we see it in real time? How do we know The law, what? What is Paul saying in Romans
3? Manifest the righteousness of God. How are we able to see
it? We're able to see it because
we can read it in the Bible, we can read it through the prophets,
we can see all those things there. But more importantly, and more
emphatically, we must recognize that we can see God perfectly,
and we can see His righteousness, and we can see the fulfillment
of the law in Jesus Christ. Now think about that for a second.
Now I've said this three times already from this pulpit in the
last several weeks. Jesus Christ in His humanity
perfectly displays and reveals the righteousness of God. Jesus Christ in His person, in
His life, in His thoughts, in His actions, in His obedience,
active, passive. Everything. If we want to know
God and see Him face to face, we look at the man Jesus. The human Jesus. So that the
righteousness of God is shown very clearly in the person of
Christ. That's what all of the apostles
teach. That's what Jesus taught that
got Him in trouble. That which the Father was doing,
I now do. that which the Father is saying, now I say. It is not
My words, but it's the words of the One who sent Me." And
so on and so on and so on. If you do not receive My words,
you are not My Father's children. This is the idea. That's what
we'll talk about this coming Sunday in John 8. We know the righteousness of
God is in Christ. So then we have this law of righteousness
that condemns us in our unbelief, that condemns us in our works,
that condemns us in our trying and striving for some self-righteousness
or personal holiness. It doesn't work. It'll never
work. It'll never be fruitful. So when
Paul then says there's a law of the Spirit and the law of
sin and death, he is just using the word law in a metaphorical
way of showing if we want to talk about the law, the law of
the Spirit is the one you want. What is the law of the Spirit?
The law of the Spirit is the law of life, which is what? The
grace of God. the grace of God, whereby God,
in His infinite mercy, Paul says in Ephesians 2, because of the
great love with which He loved us, He caused us to be born again
to a living hope. Peter echoes that in 1 Peter
chapter 1. And all of the New Testament is continually showing
and revealing these things to us, time after time after time. So, the law of the Spirit, so
the grace of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of
Christ, and the life that comes, as we see in John 3, through
the Spirit of God, is what? Freedom. Isn't it amazing how
this just matches perfectly with what we're doing in John? I could
not put this together as that good. It's just a miracle that
it works that way. So here we have the freedom in
Christ Jesus from the law of sin and from the law of death. And this is speaking of just
our state before the Lord. We are what? What is the law
anyway? What is the law? The law is a
principle in some sense, a principle whereby something is stated,
some empirical facts, some absolute dogma, some established set ideal
or philosophy. But when it comes to God's law,
it is a display of His worthiness, a display of His holiness, a
display of His righteousness, whereby that when we transgress,
we deserve death. If there is a law of life, a
law of the spirit of life, not only is there a law that all
men are condemned, but there is also a law in which God has
made a promise that His people will be redeemed. Because there
is no escape. There is no escape from this
body of death. There is no escape from this wretchedness. There's
no escape except Christ. There's no way to be right before
God except what Christ did. There's no way to have hope except
for what Christ did. There is nothing that we can
do, beloved, but believe in what Christ has done. Sometimes it's
very interesting to see how repetitive Paul can be in his writing. How
continually, over and over again, he recapitulates the same gospel,
time after time after time. Sometimes, even within the same
paragraph, he will repeat himself. And when you're expositing this,
it is necessary to just repeat what Paul repeats. Why is that
the case? Because no matter what we talk
about, no matter how amazing the Gospel of Grace is for us
this very moment, we all have the tendency to want to fall
back into the, yeah, but. And those of you who know me,
I like to refer to that. There's always this, yeah, but.
It's always that this truth is bold and declarative, but there's
got to be something more. Yeah, well, what about, you know,
this? Where do I do with this? Or what
happens if this? And people love to give scenario after scenario.
For example, the scenario that Paul answers rhetorically when
people say, well, what are you saying? We can just continue
to sin because we're free? And Paul says that's an absurdity.
It's an actual absolute absurdity to assert something like that
as a Christian. The Christians don't assert that.
Why? Because it's not on our radar. We're not looking for a reason
to sin, we're looking for help not to sin. And even when we
don't sin, we're not trusting in the fact we're not sinning.
We're trusting in the fact that Christ took our guilt and now
we are free. So that when we sin, if we sin,
what does He say? Jesus Christ is our advocate
with the Father. He is our righteous. He is our propitiation. That
the wrath of God is satisfied. His judgments are paid. His debt
is released. All of the law and all of the
requirements of God and all of the guilt and the record of the
debt on His people, we who believe in Christ, have been nailed to
the cross and the body of Christ. So we keep going. Therefore now
there is 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 which is weakened by the flesh, could not do. God
has done what the law could not do. What does that mean? The law cannot give life. Obedience will not give life. It was never a promise. It was
never a plan. It was never a decree that obedience
would give life. Oh, no, no, no, you're ignoring
a thousand pages of Old Testament. No, I'm not. I'm putting them
in their place. The law of death is the promise
of the law. It's death. We are condemned
by it and we will die under it. But the flesh weakens the law. How does that work? Because it
cannot be done. The law cannot be obeyed because
we are fallen in our flesh. But Christ in His flesh, what
did He do? He fulfilled the law. Why? Because
if He didn't, we would still bear our guilt. The terms there,
and you all know this, it's several things at play here. We have
a substitution, which Jesus took our place on the cross. to bear
our sin and the guilt of our sin, a substitution in that Jesus
and His humanity obeyed as we all are commanded to throughout
His 33, 34 years of life. We could not do that. and a substitution in that He
then became the guilty one to bear the wrath of God. And He
atoned for our sins. That means He brought us near
to God. He gave us a right relationship with God in that we are now justified
before God. Jesus Christ then God does in
Jesus Christ what the law cannot do. And it says that, verse 3,
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. And I'm not going
to be able to get through all of that in the detail that I
want tonight, because I want to get through verses 4 and 5. And then we'll come back in and
pick it apart. But let's just take a couple of these things. So God has done
what the law could not do. The law could not save us. The
law could not provide a righteousness for us. Obedience cannot bring
us to a place where God is pleased with us in order for Him to be
what? Not a judge. Not bring death. Not bring the sentence of death.
So God did this through the giving of His Son. He says, by sending
His own Son. Now see, here is where I want
to spend the rest of our time, dealing with some of the arguments
that so many people in our culture have in relation to what Jesus
did when He came, and what God intended in the sending of His
Son. God sent the Son as a decree
before the foundations of the world. We see that in Ephesians
1, we see that in Colossians, we see that in Hebrews, we see
that in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, we see it in Genesis
chapter 3. Everywhere we go, we see that God, before the foundations
of the world, had intended to send Jesus Christ, the eternal
God, the eternal Son, into the world in order He might take
on human flesh. So this is not something that
God did in response to the fall of men. It is something that
God did before the fall ever took place, before He ever said,
let there be light, before there ever was a man. God's intention
was to send His Son as a man. So God sends His Son into the
world, and He does so for the very purpose of what? Dealing
with sin. Look at this. By sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, God has done what the
law could not do. You see that? So some people argue, well, if
I'm good enough, I can stand before God and argue my case.
But you can't be good enough. You can't be good enough. It's
never going to be good enough because impeccability is God's
standard. Absolute being set apart from everything in the
world is God's standard. And friends, if I violate the law
of the state of Georgia, I'm a lawbreaker. If I violate the
law of God, I'm a lawbreaker. If I'm a criminal, I'm a criminal.
If I'm guilty, I'm guilty. I may not be guilty of everything
that's ever been written on the law books, but I've broken the
law. Therefore, I am a criminal. And that's in God's economy.
It doesn't matter, does it? So, the law could not bring us
life. The law could not do this. Christ must come in what? Sending His own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh. Now, let's talk about that for
a second. Some people say, well, see, Jesus wasn't really in the flesh. He
was like the flesh. No, no, no, no. The point there
in that illustration, context, context, context, tells us what
He's talking about. Jesus was in the flesh, but He
was not sinful in His flesh. That's why the virgin birth was
prophesied for thousands of years. And that's why the virgin birth
was necessary. It had to be a divine work of God whereby Jesus did
not come from the Adamic line, did not come from a true human
father. Jesus created Mary and her womb
and then created himself a body to come through that womb and
then grew as a human being. It's crazy. But God sent His
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other words, He was
fully human, but He was not sinful. Because He says He sent it, what
the law could not do, God sent His Son to do. The law could
not come and be our substitute. The law could not be that which
we come to and say, okay, now we've come to the place where
we are indeed the righteousness of God. It's not possible. And
the same thing there, it says, by sin and his own son, the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin. for sin. It was for the sake
of sin that Christ came. Christ came in order to die.
Christ came in order to live and obey perfectly. And Christ
came in order to die. Someone asked the question. It
was actually on Saturday, but I answered it Sunday night in
Theology on Call. Is the peccability of Christ
a heresy? Now, peccability means In some
sense, well, it means literally that someone has the propensity
to sin, has the ability to sin. Christ is impeccable in that
He cannot sin even when tempted to sin. Makes the temptation even more
impossible for us to imagine. Like an itch that you cannot
scratch. And that's a terrible analogy. Because it doesn't even
touch the impeccability of our Lord. Because we can't fathom
that. Listen to this. Philosophically,
we cannot fathom the impeccability of our Lord, who took on human
flesh, yet could not sin. Why could He not sin? Because
not only was He completely and truly man, He was also, with
another nature, divine. His humanity was not divine,
but He was the divine man. the God-man. That's a mystery. So God sent the Son into the
world in the likeness of sinners so that He could substitute for
sinners and for sin. God is going to deal with the
sin of His people before the world ever came into being. We
see this in Genesis 3 where after the fall of Adam and Eve, God
promises, God promises this. He said that from the seed of
the woman, I will crush the work of the serpent. Sin and death
will be crushed through the seed of a woman. Now, what is the
seed of a woman? There's no such thing biologically,
scientifically, no such thing. A virgin birth is required. It
is God the Holy Spirit who put Jesus in Mary. He was born without
the Adamic nature, without sin nature, but yet He was truly
a human being in the flesh, but He was not sinful, so He was
like us who are sinful, and that He had humanity, and God sent
Him to deal with sin because the law does not deal with sin
except in judgment. Are you getting the picture?
Don't you see that so many times and throughout our lives we have
used the law as something other than what it is being taught? And so, and for sin, He condemned
sin in the flesh. How? Whose sin? My sin. Your sin. Do you believe in Christ this
day? Your sin. Are you in Christ? Then God the
Father brought the Son into the world in the likeness of your
flesh and took and put Him on the cross to deal with your sin. Individually, your sin. Every sin. that you know, every
sin that you cannot see, every sin that will still befall you
in the years that you live in this world, every ounce of unbelief,
every roll of those eyes and sarcasm, every ounce of evil
thought, every horrible emotional upheaval, Christ became guilty
of them all before the Father. You see that? But yet He committed
no sin. He took our sin on Himself, the
guilt of the guilty, and then we get His righteousness. We get His obedience. We get
the fulfillment of the wrath of God in the death of Christ
because God sent His Son to deal with sin and condemned Him in
the flesh. Why would He need to do that?
Why? Because sin requires death. That's what God has said. Now,
many people would say, well, I don't believe that that's true.
It's not necessary in our philosophy because we're all equally guilty
before each other. What does one criminal say about
the other? Oh, give him some mercy because
I know I need someone. It's my turn. but God must bring to death all
evil." Paul's already established that. Chapter 1, it's done. God will pour His wrath out all,
all, on all the unrighteousness and wickedness of men who, by
their unrighteousness, suppress the truth of His existence. They know better and they are
guilty of knowing better, and they are guilty even when they
think they don't know. But why would He do that? Verse
4, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might
be fulfilled in us. You see how that turned? Look at those prepositions.
What the law could not do, Jesus Christ did in His flesh. What
was it? Give us life. How is it that Jesus Christ gave
us life? He took on flesh but was innocent
in His flesh. And as a matter of fact, that's
a false statement. Not only was He innocent, He
was righteous in His flesh. because he obeyed perfectly.
Jesus Christ obeyed perfectly and the righteous requirement
of the law might be fulfilled in us. See, Christ in His obedience
and then His death fulfills the righteous requirements in us.
Why? Because we are granted this gift of salvation by God. We
are granted judicially the work of Christ on the cross so that
we are no longer objects of wrath and objects of guilt, but we
are objects of mercy and objects of love. We are beloved children
who are adopted in to the presence of God through the work of Christ.
God sent Jesus in order that He would forgive us our sin. and that the righteousness of
God, the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us."
See, that right there is a substitute. Christ did all the work of obedience
as a human being. Christ, because He was righteous
in His obedience as a human being, then took all the guilt of the
guilty on Himself and then died in our place. Why was He raised
from the dead? Because He was innocent. He was righteous. If Christ had
sinned, He'd have stayed dead. But the vindication of Christ's
own person, of His deity, of His righteousness is the resurrection
of the dead. And because now we are in Christ
and Christ has settled the account for us, we are raised from the
dead. We have that promise physically
one day, whatever that looks like and whenever that is. But
now we're also alive in our spirit. even though our members, our
body, fights with sin. You see? This is how Paul is
giving the summary and closing out this argument. This is good
for us. It is good for us because this
is what freedom really looks like. And we then, let's read
that verse 3, 4 and beyond, so we can see the whole sentence.
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, that's us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according
to the Spirit. How do we walk? What is this
walking? This walking is how we live our
lives. It's how we exist in the world. It's how we exist in the
presence of God. We don't walk in the presence
of God. Listen to this, guys. We don't walk in the presence
of God in the spiritual sense, constantly boasting about who
we are and what we've done. We don't walk before God like
the Pharisees did and do about how good they live and how bad
other people live. We don't boast before God about all the great
work of personal holiness that He does in us, and then we look
with disdain to those who just haven't matured yet. We walk
by faith. We walk in Christ. As Christ
walks, so are we walking. As Christ walked in obedience,
so is the same image before the Father that we have. As Christ
is righteous, we are also seen just as righteous as Christ because
we, by the Spirit, are in Christ. We are united with Christ. We
have intimacy with Christ. We are counted righteous in Christ.
So therefore, there is no condemnation." See, you haven't forgotten what
the point is here. There's no condemnation for those who are
in Christ. We are in Christ. You've heard me say probably
five times in the last two or three weeks that we are law keepers
before God because of what Christ has done. We are obedient children
before the Father because of what Christ has done. What does
that do to the sin in our lives? It makes it all the more evil
to see, but it makes it all the more able for us to overcome
it because it does not consume us, trying in our flesh, because
that's the antithesis of walking in the Spirit, in our flesh,
trying to do that which the flesh cannot do by being obedient to
the law. Do you see that? For those who live according
to the flesh, verse 5, this is the outcome of those who walk
according to the flesh. For those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But
those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the
things of the Spirit. Isn't that what we learn by just
thinking about, you know, just doing a hermeneutical example
of chapter 12? To set our mind on the Spirit
is to focus on that which God the Holy Spirit is doing. To
focus on that which God the Holy Spirit has done. What is the
guarantee given to the believer? What is the deposit that Paul
so passionately exclaims? It's the Spirit of God. And Paul
deals with the Spirit here in a minute. This is going to be
several weeks for us, but he begins to talk about the work
of the Spirit. He says to the Ephesians that
the Spirit is the seal and the guarantee of our inheritance.
So we have the Holy Spirit. We have God living in us. We
have God living in us, speaking to us, talking to us through
the Word as we pray. And when we cannot pray, Paul
will say soon, as we're so angst and so anguished in this life,
Now friends, let's put our perspective on the table for just a second,
and this will be the last thing I'm able to do tonight. I say
this a lot. For years I've been saying, when
we talk about sin, most of us who are believers, we automatically
come to what? We come to this mindset that
we're talking about these heinous, evil, wicked things that people
do. Are those sins? Absolutely. Lying, murdering,
thieving, raping, killing, all sorts of crazy, wicked awfulness
that we look at and go, oh, look at the pagans. I mean, you know,
what's a pagan? I don't think they exist the
way we think they exist. And some Christians do struggle
with some of those things, but for the most part, God delivers
us from all of these things that are so besetting, that are so
vile, that are so obvious. I mean, if the church walked
around with all this continue obvious external evil, we'd all
be excommunicated and there'd be no gathering of Christians. and though they may come to pass
every now and then, we're not walking in that way. We're not
over there in that evil. So when Paul talks about this,
he's talking to the church. He's not talking about those
things. He's talking about this internal
idea of self-righteousness and self-working before God in some
way to please Him. For Paul's own example is about
the spirit of covetousness in his mind and thoughts, you see. I wish I had a better life. I
wish I didn't have to stay in prison. I wish my ministry was
a little bit more open. I wish I wasn't bound in chains.
I wish my body wasn't ripped apart with whips and so forth. And Paul, because
of these things, called himself the chief of sinners. The chief of sinners. And what
does evangelical America say? Oh, Paul, you're just such a
goopy guy. You're not a sinner. Look at you, you preach 12 hours
a day, you rot 11 hours a day, and you vomit and clean your
bloody body up another hour. And every six months you sleep
an hour. I mean, you've written half the Bible for crying out
loud. You're a good old guy. Don't let the old devil tell
you you're a sinner." No, the Spirit of God tells him he's
a sinner. The devil tells him he's condemned in his sin. But the Spirit of God tells him
he's not. See the difference? When we set our mind upon the
flesh, we continue to work in the flesh that which God has
said that cannot be done. Let's not put our hope in the
flesh. Because, beloved, listen to me.
When you are born again, you do have a different relationship
with sin. You see sin in your life that you never thought existed. Bad attitudes are the least of
our problems as Christians. Love is one of the biggest. Loving
each other and loving our family and loving our enemies. We have been given the gift of
sight by the Holy Spirit of God to see our sin. And when one
is put to death, there are thousands of more. right in line, coming
straight out of us. We see clearly that our place,
if it were not for the mercy of God, is condemnation. But
because of the mercy of God, there is no condemnation. There's
no world religion. There's no philosophy. There's
no Eastern mysticism. There is no cult. There is nothing
like this in the world. Nothing compares to it. Nothing
comes close to it. Nothing brags of this, that the
God of heaven becomes a man and suffers for the sins of His people. Sure, anybody can die a martyr,
but dying a martyr won't save a soul. You must be a substitute. Those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. Yes, that
includes sin and temptation, but it's not what's in light
here for Paul. Paul is saying, stop working
as if you were making yourself righteous. Stop working as if
you are proving yourself righteous. Those who live according to the
Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit. So Paul
then uses the parallel that that which is on the Spirit is of
the gospel of grace, that which is of the flesh is of the law
of death. And in the latter part of this,
for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind
on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the
flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's
law." Remember what we've already said. It does not submit to God's
law. So if all I do is work to please
God and obey Him, I'm not submitting to God's law. No, you're not. Indeed, it cannot. Those who
are in the flesh cannot please God. The only way we can please
God is that by the Spirit we trust in the flesh of Jesus. Not our flesh, the flesh of Jesus. Not even in the Spirit to do
something with our flesh. Our flesh is not redeemed, beloved. It is at war with that which
is redeemed. and we grow and we mature and
we mortify this old flesh that is rotting around us, but never
in those things are we rejoicing. We rejoice in the Spirit of life. Rest in that. See it. I pray God would help you see
it. And you are going to ask, now how do I know what happens
when I suffer? Why is the turmoil so bad? Where's the Spirit in all this?
And that's what Paul talks about for the rest of the chapter.
Let's pray. Lord, I thank You. Father, thank You for sustaining
my voice that I might teach. Lord, help me be prepared to continue to teach
this weekend. Lord, I pray that as we hear
these words, we need to realize that many people will come, almost as if they could hear
what we think, start to try to teach us differently. But Lord,
we know Your Word, and we know Your Word is true, and we are
reading it as You wrote it, and we are reading it within the
context of Your Holy Spirit. as it was given to Paul, so we
know what we're talking about because we know what you're saying. Father, the proof texts of Scripture
are exactly what the devil used to tempt Your Son. Spare us,
the theologians, with their proof texts. Save them by Your mighty
mercy through the context. And I pray these things in Jesus.
Amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.