"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:2



Romans 8

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 
For thy sake we are killed all the day long; 
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Romans 8:2-4: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

“The law” in both occurrences here indicates “a given principle acting uniformly.” Now as to “the law of sin and of death,” the latter part of Chapter Seven made abundantly clear what that was—the power of sin working in our unredeemed bodies against which even man’s renewed will was powerless.

But now, another “law” has come in: not only has the believer life in the Risen Christ, but to him has been given the Holy Spirit as the power of that life: so that the Spirit becomes the Almighty Agent within the believer, securing him wholly, making effectual in experience that “deliverance which Paul saw when he cried in Chapter 7:24, 25: “Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God [for deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Of course, the deliverance is through Christ, for it is Christ’s own risen life the believer now shares. But it is the blessed Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” who makes the deliverance an experience. That is, the constant operation of the Spirit makes effectual in those who have life in Christ Jesus, that deliverance which belongs to those in Christ.

How wonderful, how limitless, the patience of the blessed Spirit of God! Moment by moment, day by day, month by month, year by year, through all the conscious and unconscious processes of tens of thousands of believers, the Spirit acts with a uniformity that is called “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” In the newest convert, in the oldest saint, He gives freedom from the law of sin and of death! “Sin in the flesh, which was my torment, is already judged, but in Another; so that there is for me no condemnation on account of the flesh. . . . We lose communion with God, and dishonor the Lord by our behavior, in not walking, according to the Spirit of life, worthy of the Lord. But we are no longer under the law of sin, but, having died with Christ, and become partakers of a new life in Him and of the Holy Spirit, we are delivered from this law . . .

Verse 18: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.

The word I reckon (logidzomai), is a favorite with Paul. It expresses faith in action. Paul had known abundant sufferings: read II Corinthians Eleven, and all his epistles. But like our Lord, “the File-Leader” (archegos—Heb. 12:2) of the column of believers, who endured the cross in view of the joy set before Him, despising the shame, Paul “reckoned” in view of the coming glory: which should be the constant attitude of all of us.

The sufferings of this present time—“This present time”; it is necessary to have God’s estimate of these days in which we live or we will be deluded into man’s false thoughts. Note: “this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4); “the days are evil”; “this darkness” (Eph. 5:16; 6:12); “the distress that is upon us”; “the fashion of this world is passing away” (I Cor. 7:26, 31).

Are not to be compared with the glory—These Words need to be pondered in view of passages like Heb. 11:35-38; “tortured . . . mockings and scourgings . . . bonds and imprisonment, stoned . . . sawn asunder . . . tempted . . . slain with the sword . . . went about in sheepskins, in goatskins . . . destitute, afflicted, evil-treated . . . wandering [through] the earth.” In spite of the horrors of the days of Nero, Diocletian and the rest; and the nameless terrors of the Spanish Inquisition: the “glory which shall be revealed” so swallows up these brief earthly troubles, that they shall not be named nor remembered in that day when Christ shall come.

It is difficult, impossible, to depict in language all of, or any real measure of, what is meant by the glory which shall be revealed toward us. In fact, as we know, we are to be glorified with Christ, to share His glory, and appear with Him in glory. 

The expression “the glory which shall be revealed toward us,” is translated “in us” in the King James. This preposition (eis) is used twice, for example, in II Thess. 2:14: “Unto which also He called you through our gospel unto the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,” This “glory” is to be revealed “to usward”: not only to us, but in us, and therefore through us, to an astonished universe; and that forever!

In Colossians 3:4 we read, “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory”; and in II Thessalonians 1:10: “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believed.” Such passages show that not only will the saints behold Christ’s glory, but, beholding, they will share that glory, and be glorified with Him. This is the great object before God’s mind now, to “bring many sons unto glory” (Heb. 2:10), that they may be conformed to Christ’s image (Rom. 8:29).

In constant view of that glory to be revealed in and through the Church, the sufferings which God called the saints to go through, no matter what they were, seemed as nothing.

Verse 19: For the earnest expectation of the creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.

The world knows nothing of this astonishing verse. All the saints should always have it in remembrance! Man’s philosophy and science, taught in their schools, continually prate of “evolution” and “progress” in the present creation. And they go back in pure imagination millions of years and forward millions of years, telling you confidently how things came to be, and when, and what they will come to be; but they know nothing. Here God tells us unto what creation is coming—for what it is waiting: “earnestly.” Whether inanimate things on earth (for even the rocks and hills shall sing for joy shortly!) or whether the moving creatures on earth or sea; or whether, may we say, the hosts on high—all are waiting in expectation for that “unveiling of the sons of God.” For the word here translated “revealing” is apokalupsis, a removal of a covering,—as when some wonderful statue has been completed and a veil thrown over it, people assemble for the “unveiling” of this work of art. It will be as when sky rockets are sent up on a festival night: rockets which, covered with brown paper, seem quite common and unattractive, but up they are sent into the air and then they are revealed in all colors of beauty, and the multitude waiting below shout in admiration. Now the saints are wrapped up in the common brown paper of flesh, looking outwardly like other folks. But the whole creation is waiting for their unveiling at Christ’s coming, for they are connected with Christ, one with Him, and are to be glorified with Him at His coming.

Verse 20: For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope:

Now God, in His infinite wisdom, thus subjected the creation,—that is, the earth. “The whole creation” must refer to the earth, for the Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the holy angels were not “subjected to vanity”!

Vanity—Here look back to the garden of Eden, and to Adam’s first sin, the judgment of which fell not upon the man, but we read: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” Here we find God subjecting the whole creation to “vanity,”—that is, to unattainment. The book of Ecclesiastes dwells long, with a mournful tone upon this vanity, this unattainment; things “putting forth the tender leaves of hope” only to have the “sudden frost” of disease and death end earthly hopes. “Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding,” as David said in his great prayer (I Chron. 29:15).

Not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope—God had a vast plan, reaching on into eternity, and “hope” lies ahead for creation: for the Millennium is coming, and after that, a new heaven and earth.

Verse 21: Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption—

Now although we who are in Christ are new creatures, yet God has left our bodies as the link with the present “groaning” creation. Meanwhile, how “the bondage of corruption” appears on every side! Death—are not all creatures in terror of it, seeking to escape it? Every decaying carcass of poor earth-creatures speaks of the ‘bondage of corruption.” What ruin man’s sin has effected throughout the creation, as well as upon himself! It was God’s good pleasure, that when man sinned and became estranged from his God, all creation, which was under him, should be subjected to the “bondage of corruption” along with him, in decay and disease and suffering, death, and destruction, everywhere,—of bondage, with no deliverer.

Into the liberty of the glory of the children of God—As Paul shows) we already have liberty in Christ,—the liberty of grace. The “liberty of the glory of the children of God” awaits Christ’s second coming. How blessed it is to know that into that glorious liberty, creation, which has shared “the bondage of corruption,” will be brought along with us!

Contrast the state of creation now with the Millennial order described in Isaiah 11:6-9: The wolf dwelling with the lamb the leopard with the kid; the calf, the young lion, and the fatling together, and the little child leading them. The cow and the bear feeding, their young ones lying down together; the lion eating straw like the ox; children playing over the serpent’s hole: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”

William R. Newell

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I'm a Christian saved by God, by His Sovereign grace. I want to encourage all to read, to hear, to believe, and to feed upon the only Words in all the world that are truly spirit and life, living and active; to know the One True God: God the Father, His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; Who has graciously given us the Holy Scriptures
“All Scripture is God-breathed..."
2 Timothy 3:16–17; cf., John 3:31-36; John 6:63; John 14:26; John 17:3, 17; Romans 1:1-6, 16-17; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Peter 1:20–21; Hebrews 4:12-13. As for the commentaries I post and refer to; with much gratitude, as they have done for me, it is my hope and prayer that they serve to edify all who read them.

Shalom, beccaj
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