121 in the conflict independently but only as those who belong to a lord and

his rule.”³ We are either ruled by God’s law or the law of sin.

Paul has made clear the fact of rule or power over man. No man can escape the witness of God in all his being. His every atom cries out against him in witness to God. At the same time, to the degree that he is still a son of Adam, either wholly as unregenerate, or partially as regenerate but not perfectly sanctified, he is under the power of sin; he is not fully free in Christ.

But is life a perpetual St. Vitus dance? Is there no deliverance from this conflict? Paul asks this question in v. 24: “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” To the extent that we are not perfectly sanctified, we are in a sense still occupied territory. To be the arena of warfare is a form of death. The Christian life, however, is not frustration but victory, and Paul turns to this fact at once. We dare not see frustration as life.

In v. 25, Paul says, our flesh, our physical existence in time, still serves

“the law of sin,” or disordered human nature. The disorder of the fall is not cancelled overnight; it is a fact of history, but not the governing or permanent fact. Now that we are in Christ, we “serve the law of God” with our mind; our judgment is governed by Christ to bring all things into captivity to Him. The extent of that captivity of all things to Christ is set forth in Romans 8. Now Paul thanks God “through Jesus Christ our Lord”

(v. 25), or because of Jesus Christ. He is the Lord. Our captivity is to Him, and our freedom is in Him, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (I John 5:4). Paul prepares us to hear the glorious fact that, whatever the problems and frustrations, when we are in Christ we do serve God. The God we serve makes all things to work together for His glory and our good when we are in Christ (Rom. 8:28).

3. Ernst Kasemann: Commentary on Romans, p. 208. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Ee-rdmans (1980) 1982

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28. “No Condemnation”

(Romans 8:1-2)

One of the problems of modern scholarship is its over-specialization.

Much can be said to commend the very extensive and more intensive research that goes into many studies. The problem, however, is that a unified whole is arbitrarily divided into a variety of parts. A man cannot live if he is arbitrarily reduced to a heart, muscles, digestive system, or bones. All of these belong to an essential unity. Similarly, to divide theology into systematic theology, Biblical theology, and so on is to create arbitrary and false divisions; any theology which is not all of these things and more is false. Biblical studies are divided into Old and New Testament departments, and, if more funds and more students were forthcoming, more divisions would be made. Too often, professors in the New Testament department refuse to discuss matters relating the Testaments one to another because it would take them out of their “field.” Not surprisingly, the unity of Scripture is broken.

With this in mind, let us look at Romans 8:1-2:

1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

For a man who supposedly was determined to free us from the law of God, Paul certainly talks much about the law, nomos. Moreover, Paul very plainly uses the language of the courtroom. Those who look down on God’s law should remember this. Condemnation is in the Greek katakrima;

it refers to a sentence passed, a sentence with an implied judgment. It is a legal term, and it implies a court of law. Thus, Paul says in v. 1 that, because we are in Christ Jesus we have an altered relationship to the court and its Judge. No sentence is passed against us; we are acquitted because the sentence has been passed and executed on our representative, Jesus Christ.

We are in Christ and free from condemnation when we manifest the life of Christ: we live, not in terms of our old fallen nature derived from Adam but “after the Spirit.”

“No condemnation” means that we are declared justified by the Court.

Calvin described man’s new situation in Christ in these words:

There is then, &c. After having described the contest which the godly have perpetually with their own flesh, he returns to the consolation, which was very needful for them, and which he had before mentioned; and it was this, --- That though they were still beset by sin, they were yet exempt from the power of death, and from every curse, provided they lived not in the flesh but in the Spirit: for he joins together these three things, --- the imperfection under which the

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faithful always labour, --- the mercy of God in pardoning and forgiving it, --- and the regeneration of the Spirit; and this indeed in the last place, that no one should flatter himself with a vain notion, as though he were freed from the curse, while securely indulging in the meantime in his own flesh. As then the carnal man flatters himself in vain, when in no way solicitous to reform his life, he promises to himself impunity under the pretence of having this grace; so the trembling consciences of the godly have an invincible fortress, for they know that while they abide in Christ they are beyond every danger of condemnation. We shall now examine the words.

After the Spirit. Those who walk after the Spirit are not such as have wholly put off all the emotions of the flesh, so that their whole life is redolent with nothing but celestial perfection; but they are those who sedulously labour to subdue and mortify the flesh, so that the love of true religion seems to reign in them. He declares that such walk not after the flesh; for wherever the real fear of God is vigorous, it takes away from the flesh its sovereignty, though it does not abolish all its corruptions.¹

Calvin’s point is a valid one. Justification leaves us without condemnation before the court of God, but it does not leave us perfected nor entirely out from under the Fall and its curse. It is at this point that a critical problem is in view. Those who are acquitted can take one of two courses. First, over the centuries a great many have sought to bring their sanctification or personal holiness in line with their justification by pursuing sanctification directly.

The result has been a variety of ascetic practices, pietism, retreats, endless soul searching and self-flagellation, and the like. This method is common to all churches. Holiness is made the direct goal, as though holiness were a fixed point on the map of life. But holiness is less a goal and more a by-product, and the direct quest for holiness can border on blasphemy. We would be justly suspicious of a person who declared that it was their intention to be a saint. For example, some of those who in our lifetime have been described as saintly include Mother Theresa of India and the late Toyokika Kagawa of Japan. With both, a zeal to serve God has been paramount.

This means, second, that holiness is a by-product of a life of faithfulness and obedience to the Lord, to His law, and to His calling. We become holy by saying, Not my will, but Thine be done (Matt. 26:42). Our Lord says,

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). Again, “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt.

12:50).

The Lord’s Prayer is both a petition for and a program in outline of the way of sanctification. To hallow God’s name, to pray and work for His

1. John Calvin: Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, p.

275f. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1948.

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