Scripture Daily

Context No. 1241 of 4322 · Romans

Context · Reflection

Romans 8:1-8: in context

1There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God, for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.

Paul opens one of the great chapters of the Bible with a thunderclap: there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What the law could not do, being weakened by our flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemning sin in the flesh, so that the law's righteous requirement might be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit. Then he contrasts two ways of living: those who set their minds on the flesh, which is death, and those who set their minds on the Spirit, which is life and peace; the mind of the flesh is hostile to God and cannot please him.

The chapter begins with the sweet words in the Bible for a guilty conscience: no condemnation. For those in Christ, the verdict is already settled, and it is not guilty, because Christ took the condemnation in their place, God condemning sin in the flesh of his Son so it would never be condemned in them. That is the foundation everything else rests on. But Paul does not stop at the verdict; he moves to the life that flows from it, the difference between a mind set on the flesh and a mind set on the Spirit. The mind of the flesh, absorbed in self and its cravings, is death and hostility to God; the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. And this is not first a rule to obey but a direction to face, what you set your mind on. Freedom from condemnation is meant to reorient the whole bent of a life away from the flesh and toward the Spirit, so that the one who is no longer condemned no longer walks in the old way. The gospel gives both: a verdict of no condemnation that frees the conscience, and the Spirit who turns the mind toward life and peace. What we set our minds on reveals which life we are living.

Do I rest in the verdict of no condemnation for those in Christ, and is my mind set on the Spirit, which is life and peace, or still on the flesh, which is death?

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