In this chapter we have a “high mountain” to climb. In expression or in terminology, it may not sound that high. But in actuality, in biblical doctrine, very few points are so high, so deep, so difficult to explain, so difficult to get. The “high mountain” is this: What is the main function of the law of the Spirit of life? What is the main work, the major work, that the law of the Spirit of life does within us? The terminology is very simple, but it is very hard to tell and to explain. Let us read Romans 8:2: “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” If you come to this verse without so much knowledge, you can see the major function easily. The major function of the law of the Spirit of life is to free us from the law of sin and of death. Its major function is to free us from another law.
You have to remember that Romans 8 is on the law of the Spirit of life, and its major work is to free us from another law. That law is the law of sin and of death. If we could be freed from that law, we would have no problems. We would be regulated; we would be conformed; we would be spiritual; we would be victorious; we would be holy. The main thing is that we need to be freed from another law, the law of sin and of death. Here we have two laws. One is the law of the Spirit of life. The law of the Spirit of life is nothing less than the Triune God processed to be the indwelling Spirit within us. This title means a lot. Do not think that this is merely my teaching. This is exactly what Paul is teaching in Romans 8. Paul does not say that just God dwells in us. He did not write in such a simple way. This is why very few Christians can understand Romans 8. Paul uses many terms: God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Jesus, and the One who raised Christ from the dead. Furthermore, you have God sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin. Paul used so many complicating, or implicating, expressions. Why was Paul so troublesome, so complicating, in his writing? He had a strong purpose. Moreover, Paul said that God sent His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin. Three things are here: likeness, flesh, and sin. This was Paul’s way of expression. Consummately speaking, He is the indwelling Spirit. And the indwelling Spirit is not merely the Spirit of God as mentioned in Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters. Romans 8 is not that simple. We have to realize that all the complicating, implicating expressions indicate that God is triune and that this Triune God has been processed. This Triune God after being processed is now ultimately the indwelling Spirit. This very God is the law. He is the law of the Spirit of life. We have to see this. What is the law of the Spirit of life? The law of the Spirit of life is such a triune, processed, indwelling God as the Spirit within us. Within us, He is the law. I do not believe that many Christians have ever considered God in this way. Mostly we were taught that God is powerful, merciful, and faithful. Whatever God says, He will do. He will help us. But we all can testify that He did not help us so much. We wanted to get rid of our temper, but God did not help us. It seems that the more I pray asking God to kill my temper, the more temper I have. As a husband, the more you endeavor to love your wife, praying that the Lord would help you to love her, the more you may be disgusted with her.
In school you have been educated, and in the church you have been edified. Many wives like to see their husbands coming to the so-called church to be edified, hoping that their husbands would love them more. Likewise, the husbands like to see their wives going to the so-called church so that they will be edified and not trouble them so much. This is the situation among so many Christians today. But who knows the law of the Spirit of life? Very few. Hardly any Christians know that this law is the very God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is the Creator, the One who was incarnated, the Redeemer, the Savior, the processed One, and consummately He is the Spirit indwelling us. Some would even oppose our saying that the Triune God is such a Spirit. They have forgotten that even the Lord Himself said that God is Spirit (John 4:24). Does this mean that only the Creator God is Spirit, that the Father is not the Spirit, and that the Son is not the Spirit? Does this indicate that only the Spirit is the Spirit? This is the traditional teaching of the Trinity. Is God in John 4:24 only God the Spirit? Is He not God the Son? Is He not God the Father? Of course, the Triune God is there—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. If the Spirit is the Spirit, is not the Son the Spirit? Is not the Father the Spirit? The Lord Jesus said that God, meaning the Triune God, is the Spirit. Most Christians today know only the so-called traditional, theological terminology concerning the Triune God. They say that God the Father is one, God the Son is one, and God the Spirit is one. They say that these are three separate and distinct persons, that you cannot say that the Father is the Spirit, and the Son is the Spirit. You can only say that the Spirit is the Spirit. We have to ask them about John 4:24, which says that God is Spirit. Christians today have never been told and never been taught properly what the law of the Spirit of life is.
Now we come to the law of sin and of death. What is this law of sin and of death? I know what my commission is, and I fully admit that my teachings are different from traditional Christian teachings. I do not like to teach anything that is merely traditional. What is the law of sin and of death? The Bible is very logical. The law of sin and of death is the law that the law of the Spirit of life frees us from. We have seen that the first law, the law of the Spirit of life, is the processed Triune God becoming the indwelling Spirit. Surely the other law must be the enemy of God. It must be an opposite law but not opposite in a simple way. It is opposite in a very complicated way. How did Satan get into your flesh? Did he simply come in last night while you were dreaming? You have to realize that he came in not in such a simple way. How did Satan get into our flesh? The Bible does not tell us so clearly how Satan could become such an evil law. Concerning how the Triune God could become the law of the Spirit of life, the Bible is more than clear, especially in Romans 8. There we have a full definition of how the Triune God has become such a law, the law of the Spirit of life. But the Bible does not tell us much about how Satan has become such an evil law, the law of sin and of death. However, in the Bible there is a principle that with nearly everything God wanted to do, Satan did ahead of God. For example, in creating man, God had an intention to build a city. We know this because the ultimate consummation of the entire Bible is a city, New Jerusalem. But God did not build His city right away. Even in the Old Testament God desired a city, Jerusalem, among His people. That city was not built so quickly either. Hundreds of years before the people of Israel built Jerusalem in the good land, Babel was built as an expression of Satan. Eventually, Babylon was built, and later in the New Testament the great Babylon was built. This means that many times Satan’s way is to do things ahead of God. God’s intention is to enter into man and become man’s life and nature. But before God could enter into man, Satan entered into man in Genesis 3. Before God could become man’s nature, Satan became man’s nature. He did something ahead of God.
How pitiful that many Christians today make God absolutely objective, and in the same way they also make Satan objective. For many years people have tried to argue with me and condemn me because I have taught that Satan is in our nature, that we fallen people are one with Satan, and that we are children of the devil. These opposing ones consider this to be a heresy. Even today the objective theologians do not believe that Satan is within them. They only believe that Satan is the evil spirit who sometimes comes to you to cause you to do something. Occasionally, this spirit may take over someone in a way of demon possession. They do not believe that Satan is in human nature. Why then does the Bible say that the Lord Jesus called Peter Satan (Matt. 16:23)? Furthermore, how could John in his first Epistle indicate that sinners are children of the devil (3:10)? If children do not have the nature of their father, what kind of children are they? They must be children picked up off the street. They must not be born of their father. If any children are born of you, they will surely have your nature. Fallen people were born of Satan; they are Satan’s children. So they are one with Satan, with Satan’s nature in them.
Some Christians today do not even believe that we have God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4). They do not believe that God is one with us and that we are one with God, that we are God’s children. They say that this is to deify man, to make man God. They have made everything objective.
They do not realize that Satan also had his incarnation. In Genesis 3 he entered into humanity, into mankind. From that day he became a law in man to work out many evil things. When you lie, do you need Satan’s inspiration? Or when you lie, do you need a demon to possess you? You do not need to go to school to learn to lie or to steal. As long as you live, you simply lie. In a sense you are just an embodiment of a lie. In other words, you are just Satan. Because Satan has incarnated himself into mankind, making himself one with mankind, he became this law. Once he became this law within man, he could rest. He did not need to come to inspire someone to lie or to kill or to steal something. He has simply become such a law within man to do these things. Even as gravity is a powerful law outside of you, so there is a powerful law within you, the law of sin and of death. You have to realize that this is just Satan, the incarnated Satan. In Romans 7 and 8 there is the hint that sin and the law of sin and of death are interchangeable terms, or synonyms. Sometimes, especially in chapter 7, it seems that it should say “the law of sin and of death,” but it only says “sin.” Romans 7:20 says, “If what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me.” Actually, it should say “the law of sin” because verse 23 speaks of “the law of sin which is in my members.” This indicates that these terms, sin and the law of sin, are synonyms.
Now we come to the top of the high mountain—what is sin? What is the definition of sin? Before we answer this, I must point out in a simple way that the major function of the law of the Spirit of life is to free us from sin. Romans 1:1 to 5:11 deals with sins such as stealing, hatred, fornication, and other sinful things. These are not sin; these are sins. Then from 5:12, Romans begins to deal with sin. Verse 12 says that “sin entered into the world.” Sin came into the world in somewhat the same way that grace and truth came. According to John 1, the law was given, but grace came. Grace came through Jesus Christ. Then we may say that sin came through Satan. Of course, Romans does not say this in a direct way, but according to the entire teaching of the Bible, we may infer this. Sin came. Grace is just God for our enjoyment. In the same principle, sin is just Satan for our destruction. When grace came through the Lord Jesus, that was God coming to be our enjoyment, and the result was life. Satan came into us as sin for our destruction, that we might have death. Death means destruction. Satan became sin in us, not outside of us, for our destruction, that we may have death. Whatever fallen man does in the eyes of God is sin. Whether he gives a gift to someone, or whether he steals from someone, it is sin. Whatever the fallen human beings do is for sin and destruction. There is no life, just destruction. This is because Satan is in the fallen human nature. Satan in you is not merely a spirit. Satan in you is a law of sin and of death.
Even as death is versus life, so sin is versus the Spirit. God within us is the law of the Spirit of life, and Satan within us is the law of sin and of death. Sin is versus the Spirit, and death is versus life. Whatever you do as a fallen man, the result, the issue, is destruction and death.
Most Christians today have never received this kind of revelation. They think that sin is simply to lose their temper or to hate people or to be jealous. They would never consider that their loving people by themselves might be sin. To be freed from the law of sin and of death is not merely to be freed from the so-called sinful things. It is to free you from the law and from a kind of life that works from within you not by activity but by law. There is also a positive life within us that works not by activity but by the natural spiritual principles. This law frees us from that other law that also works according to set-up principles. We need to see such a vision.
Because there is such a law, which is called the law of sin and of death, which is Satan himself incarnated to be the evil spirit dwelling within us, there is no possibility for the law of letters to be effectual. Let us read Romans 8:3: “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.” Verse 1 says that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Verse 2 begins with the word for to tell us why there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. It is because the law of the Spirit of life has freed us from the law of sin and of death. Verse 3 then begins with another for. Verse 3 tells us why such a law came into us in verse 2. It is because something negative was there already. The law of the Spirit of life comes to us to free us because there is impossibility with the law. Verse 2 gives us the fact that there is a positive law working within us, and verse 3 explains to us why such a positive law has been given to us. It is because there is impossibility with the law. Does this mean that the law is bad? The law is not bad. According to chapter 7, the law is holy, and the law is spiritual. Even the law is given by God. But there is the impossibility with the law because it was weak through the flesh.
The grammatical construction of 8:3 is very important. For example, we have to find out what the phrase in that modifies. Otherwise, we could not understand this verse adequately. The main clause in this sentence is God...condemned sin in the flesh. The subordinate clause is that which the law could not do. We may consider the rest of the words and phrases as modifiers of these two clauses. These two clauses are then connected by the conjunction for. We need to spend more time to get into the proper grammatical understanding of this verse; otherwise, we cannot understand what this verse is talking about. Do not think this is a small thing. Through the centuries this verse has puzzled people. Even Martin Luther made a mistake to say that the phrase concerning sin modifies God...condemned sin. This means that God condemned sin concerning sin. But some of the later writers, such as Henry Alford, corrected this mistake. They pointed out that this phrase concerning sin does not go with the last clause but with the first clause, God...condemned. In the next chapter we need to spend more time to get into this verse.
