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Romans 7:22—8:4 reveals Christ as the Emancipator who by the law of the Spirit of life delivers the wretched man from the law of sin and of death. In 7:24, Paul cries pitifully, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” The answer to Paul’s question is presented in 7:25 and chapter 8. In particular, Paul says in 8:1-2, “There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” Paul had no condemnation because he experienced freedom from the law of sin and of death by the law of the Spirit of life.
In 7:7-25 we see three laws. The first law is the law of God, which refers to the written law of God, the Ten Commandments (v. 22). The second law is the law of good in the believer’s mind, that is, in his soul, which derives from the natural human life, that is, from man himself (v. 23). The law of good is in our good human nature created by God; it always desires to do good according to our conscience, which corresponds with the God-created human nature, enabling us to know what God justifies and what He condemns (2:14-15). The third law is the law of sin in the believer’s members (7:23), that is, in his body, which derives from Satan, who as sin dwells in the believer’s flesh. This law is actually sin as a natural principle. Today modern scientists try to discover the natural laws or principles related to certain things. In the same way, nearly two thousand years ago, Paul used the word law in the way of a scientific principle to denote an innate principle of the natural realm. Therefore, chapter 7 reveals three laws: the law of God, which refers to the Ten Commandments; the law of good, which refers to the natural man trying to do good according to his conscience; and the law of sin which makes every law-keeper a wretched man in the body of death and a captive to the law of sin.
Romans 8 then unveils the fourth law, the law of the Spirit of life. With the Spirit of life, there is a living law. This living law is a living person, the Triune God processed in Christ and dwelling within us. The law of the Spirit of life is the Triune God in Christ who has passed through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and who has entered into us and become not only our life but also our law (vv. 2-3, 10-11, 34). This living person as the law of the Spirit of life frees us from the law of sin and of death in Christ Jesus.
Christ delivers the captive from the law of sin which is in his members. In 7:23 Paul says, “I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” Here the law of sin refers to the power to commit sin that arises spontaneously in man, causing man to become a slave of sin (John 8:34). Thus, man has become helpless and is controlled and manipulated by sin, doing many things against his own will. Romans 7:23 shows the warfare that occurs between the law of sin in the members of our body and the law of good in the mind of our soul. The warfare is absolutely a matter of sin in our flesh fighting against the good in our natural being; it is not at all related to our spirit or the Spirit of God.
Moreover, the law of sin, which is in the members of man’s fallen body, the flesh, constantly wars against and defeats the law of good in man’s soul, thereby making man a captive. The law of God always demands that we do good. Whenever the law of God demands us to do good, the law of good in our soul responds, trying to comply with the law of God. Whenever the law of good responds to the law of God and attempts to fulfill the requirements of the law of God, the law of sin in our flesh is aroused. When the law of sin learns that the law of good is responding to the law of God, the law of sin immediately rises up to war against and defeat the law of good and invariably captures us. Thus, we become a captive to the law of sin which is in our members. This is not a doctrine; this is our life-history.
Romans 7:24 says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Here Paul terms our fallen body the body of this death. The body of sin is strong in sinning against God, but the body of this death is weak in acting to please God. Sin energizes the fallen body to sin, whereas death utterly weakens and disables the corrupted body so that it cannot keep God’s commandments. The death in the phrase the body of this death is the death caused by sin through the weapon of the law, the death of being defeated, the death of trying to keep the law to please God but instead being made a captive by the law of sin in our members. This is the death that is working in our flesh.
In verse 25 Paul goes on to say, “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” This verse gives the answer to the question raised in the preceding verse: Who will deliver us from the body of this death? According to verse 25, deliverance from the body of this death is through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the Emancipator.
We should praise the Lord that we have One who can deliver us from the law of sin. We have God Himself who is life to us in Christ and as the Spirit, and with this life comes the most powerful law. This most powerful law, which is the law of the Spirit of life, is now operating in us.
In Romans 8:1 , after his cry of wretchedness at the end of chapter 7, Paul declares in a victorious way, “There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” This means that what he experienced in Romans 7 was not an experience in Christ. Without Christ, or outside of Christ, he struggled according to the law in his mind to keep the law of God in order that he might please God, but he was totally defeated by the law of sin. This occurred when he was without Christ. Thus, Paul condemned himself. He had a deep conviction of this inward, subjective condemnation, but now “in Christ Jesus” there is no longer this kind of condemnation. Paul had “no condemnation” because in Christ he did not need to keep the law of God by himself, an effort which produced self-condemnation; “no condemnation,” because in Christ he had the law of the Spirit of life, which is more powerful than the law of sin and which set him free from the law of sin; “no condemnation” now, not because of the redeeming blood of Christ which removed the objective condemnation of God but because of the law of the Spirit of life which brought in the freedom of the Spirit in his spirit and which broke through all his subjective condemnation; and “no condemnation,” because he was freed from both the law of God and the law of sin.
The condemnation implied in 1:18 through 3:20 and mentioned in 5:16 and 18 is objective, under God’s righteous law, and is the result of our outward sins. The condemnation mentioned in 8:1 is subjective, in our conscience, and is the result of our being inwardly defeated by the evil law of the indwelling sin, as described in 7:17-18 and 20-24. The blood of the crucified Christ is the remedy for objective condemnation (3:25). The Spirit of life mentioned in 8:2, who is Christ processed to be the life-giving Spirit and who is in our spirit, is the remedy for subjective condemnation.
In chapter 8 the phrase in Christ refers not only to our standing, our position, in Christ, as mentioned in chapter 6, but also to the reality of our daily walk in our regenerated spirit. In Christ, not in Adam or in ourselves, we have the Spirit of life — who is Christ Himself as the life-giving Spirit — in our spirit. In Christ our spirit has been made alive with Christ as life. Because we are in Christ, the Spirit of life who is Christ Himself dwells in our spirit and mingles Himself with our spirit as one spirit. In Christ we have our quickened spirit, the divine life, and the Spirit of life. In Christ these three — our spirit, the divine life, and the Spirit of life — are all mingled as one unit. In Christ, with this unit, there is the spontaneous power, which is the law of the Spirit of life, that continually sets us free from the law of sin and of death as we walk according to the mingled spirit.
Romans 8:2 tells us that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed us from the law of sin and of death. The Spirit and life are mentioned in this verse but only in connection with the working of this law. Life is the content and issue of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the ultimate and consummate manifestation of the Triune God after His being processed through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection and becoming the indwelling, life-giving Spirit, who is life to all the believers in Christ. The law that has freed us from the law of sin, which is of Satan, who dwells in the members of our fallen body (7:23, 17), is of this Spirit of life. It is this law, not God or the Spirit, that works in us to deliver us from the working of the law of sin in our flesh and to enable us to know God and gain God and thereby live Him out. This law of the Spirit of life is the spontaneous power of the Spirit of life. Such a spontaneous law works automatically under the condition that fulfills its requirements.
Both Satan and God, after entering into our being and dwelling in us, work within us not by outward, objective activities but by an inward, subjective law. The working of the law of the Spirit of life is the working of the processed Triune God in our spirit; this is also the working of the Triune God in us in His life.
The major function of the processed Triune God in indwelling our spirit as the law of the Spirit of life is to free us completely from Satan, who dwells in our fallen nature as the law of sin and of death (vv. 23-25). This freeing is not only for our subjective justification but even more for our dispositional sanctification.
We need to see that the law of the Spirit of life freeing us from the law of sin and of death is not an experience outside of Christ but an experience absolutely in Christ. We must all remember that when we believed into Christ, we entered into Christ. Today Christ Himself is the law of the Spirit of life within us. We have been delivered from the sphere of Adam and have been transferred into the realm of Christ. In Christ there is not the law of sin and of death. In Christ there is the law of the Spirit of life, which has the capacity to operate in us daily in order to revive us and to allow us to overcome the law of sin and of death. We do not need to struggle or to strive. All we need to do is to present ourselves to the Lord and cooperate with Him, allowing the law of the Spirit of life to have an opportunity to operate within us (6:13). The way to overcome the law of sin and of death is not to make resolutions or to struggle but to call on the Lord continually and to tell Him every day, “Lord, I love You. I want to present myself to You.” We only need to remain in Christ, to present ourselves to Him, to give Him the freedom, and to enjoy Him. In this way, He will gain our cooperation and will operate in us spontaneously and gently as the law of the Spirit of life so that we will have peace, joy, and victory.
Romans 8:3 says, “For that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” This verse reveals that God has condemned sin on the cross in the flesh of Christ. When Christ died on the cross, He also died as a man in the flesh. As the Word, which was with God and was God, He became flesh (John 1:1, 14). First Peter 3:18 says that Christ was “put to death in the flesh.” As a man in the flesh, Christ had only the likeness, the form, of a fallen man; He did not have the sinful nature of a fallen man. This means that He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but He did not have the actual nature of sin. Because the Lord Jesus died as a man in the flesh, His death dealt with the fallen flesh. Sin and the fallen flesh were all dealt with by the death of Christ.
Christ was sent only in the likeness of the flesh of sin. He did not actually have the flesh of sin but only the form, the likeness, of the flesh of sin. This is portrayed by the type of the bronze serpent; the bronze serpent had the form of a serpent, but it did not have the poisonous nature of a serpent. Likewise, when Christ died on the cross, He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but He did not have the nature of the flesh of sin. Nevertheless, because He died as a man in the flesh, God could condemn sin in the flesh. As a man in the flesh, He died so that sin in the flesh might be condemned by God.
Romans 8:3 reveals that when the flesh of Christ, that is, His body, was crucified, God condemned sin which is in human flesh. That is, when Christ died as a man in the flesh, God condemned sin in the flesh. The phrase sin in the flesh refers to the source of sin, the devil. For this reason, in Romans 6, 7, and 8 sin is personified as living. In particular, chapter 7 reveals that sin is a person, the embodiment of Satan, and is living and acting within us. For instance, sin can work out in us coveting of every kind, deceive us, and kill us (vv. 8, 11, 17, 20). Thus, sin is an active, aggressive, living person. This living sin was condemned by God when Christ died on the cross as a man in the likeness of the flesh of sin. When the flesh that Christ put on through incarnation was crucified, God condemned the sin in the flesh of fallen mankind.
Although Christ did not have the sin of the flesh, He was crucified in the flesh (Col. 1:22; 1 Pet. 3:18). Thus, on the cross He judged Satan, who is related to the flesh, and the world, which hangs on him (John 12:31; 16:11), thereby destroying Satan (Heb. 2:14). At the same time, through Christ’s crucifixion in the flesh, God condemned sin, which was brought by Satan into man’s flesh. As a result, it is possible for us to walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:4).
Romans 8:4 says, “That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” God condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk according to the spirit. Because the Lord Jesus died as a man in the flesh, His death dealt with the fallen flesh. Because we have been crucified with Christ who died as a man in the flesh, we, as saved persons, are not obligated to the flesh but to God in order to live and walk according to the spirit. As long as we live, walk, and behave ourselves according to the spirit in everything, including our thinking, speaking, and actions, we are living and free.
When we walk according to the spirit, the righteous requirements of the law are not consciously kept by us through our outward endeavoring; rather, they are spontaneously and unconsciously fulfilled in us by the inward working of the Spirit of life. The Spirit of life is the Spirit of Christ, and Christ corresponds with the law of God. This Spirit within us spontaneously fulfills all the righteous requirements of the law through us when we walk according to Him.
According to Romans 8, the requirements that we must fulfill in order that the law of the Spirit of life (which has already been installed in us) may work are: (1) to walk according to the spirit (v. 4); (2) to mind the things of the Spirit — to set the mind on the spirit (vv. 5-6); (3) to put to death by the Spirit the practices of the body (v. 13); (4) to be led by the Spirit as sons of God (v. 14); (5) to cry to the Father in the spirit of sonship (v. 15); (6) to witness that we are the children of God (v. 16); and (7) to groan for the full sonship, the redemption of our body (v. 23).
Experiencing Christ as the law of the Spirit of life, which sets us free from the law of sin and of death, is not once for all; it must be a continuous daily experience. Day after day, moment by moment, we need to live in the mingled spirit, walk according to this spirit, and have our mind set on this wonderful spirit, forgetting our attempts of keeping the law of God and of doing good in order to please God. For once we drift back to our old, habitual way of trying to do good, we are insulated immediately from the powerful law of the Spirit of life. We should look to the Lord that we may always abide in our spirit so that we may enjoy the freedom of the law of the Spirit of life.
