GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR MAN FROM START TO FINISH

Part IV: God's Righteousness Granted In Sanctification, Romans 6:1-8:39

E. The Believer's Equipping To Produce Righteous Living

(Romans 8:1-11)

I. Introduction

A. Where Romans 7:14-25 exposed the utter helplessness of even a believer in himself to achieve righteous living due to his sin nature, Romans 8:1-11 provides news of victoriously righteous living by God's grace.

B. We then view Romans 8:1-11 to identify the believer's spiritual equipping by God to produce righteous living:

II. The Believer's Equipping To Produce Righteous Living, Romans 8:1-11.

A. [Before expounding Romans 8:1-11, we need to handle a serious textual and theological problem in verse 1:

1. At Romans 8:1, the KJV claims that there is no condemnation to those who are not only in Christ, but who also do not walk after the sin nature, but after the Holy Spirit.

2. However, such a claim implies that when a believer sins, what 1 John 1:10 claims all believers have done, he loses his salvation, coming under condemnation, what is clearly countered by passages like John 5:24.

3. The solution is noting that the early Alexandrian and Western manuscript text types have the verse end with "Jesus," and according to more manuscript evidence, the phrases, "who walk not after the flesh" and "but after the Spirit" (KJV) were borrowed in two stages, each phrase per stage, from Romans 8:4 by later copyists, Bruce M. Metzger, A Tex. Com. on the Grk. N. T., 1971, p. 515; B. K. C., N. T., p. 469.

4. Thus, Paul established that there is simply no eternal condemnation to those who are saved in Christ!]

B. Romans 8:1-2 accordingly teaches that there is no eternal condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who have been saved by faith in Him and His atonement for sin in their behalf (Romans 3:25), for the law of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus has made the believer positionally free from the law of sin and death.

C. Paul explained that where the Law of condemnation could not justify anyone, but only condemn him (Romans 8:3a with 3:30) because it was weak through the sin nature in man that could not keep that law, God in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, Romans 3:3b.

D. That condemnation by Christ's atonement equips the believer to fulfill the righteousness of God's law in his life as he orders his life in reliance on God the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 5:3-4), not on his sin nature, Romans 8:4.

E. There is a great contrast between living by the sin nature and living by God the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:5-8:

1. Those who live according to the sin nature set their minds on the things of the sin nature where those who live according to the Holy Spirit set their minds on the things of the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:5.

2. Then, those who set their minds on the things of the sin nature live in spiritual death in their walk where those who set their minds on the things of the Holy Spirit live in spiritual life in their walk, Romans 8:6.

3. The mind of the sinful nature is at enmity against God, for it is neither subject to the law of God, neither is it able to be subject to that law, Romans 8:7. To the contrary, the mind of the Spirit is in close fellowship with God and is fully able to be subject to His law.

4. The mind of the sin nature keeps those who live by the sin nature from being able to please God, Romans 8:8. However, the mind of the Holy Spirit keeps those who live by the Spirit always pleasing to the Lord.

F. Paul noted that the believer is positionally not in the sin nature, but in the Holy Spirit, if it be that the Holy Spirit indwells him, for if he does not have the Spirit, he does not belong to God as a real Christian, Rom. 8:9.

G. If Christ is in the believer, though his earthly body is dead due to sin in that the atonement of Christ has not yet been applied to his body (Rom. 8:10a with 23), his spirit is nevertheless alive due to righteousness, v. 10b.

H. For this reason, the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead and who also dwells in the true believer will also make our mortal bodies as believers alive at the rapture of the Church, Romans 8:11!

Lesson: Where the sin nature sets its mind on its own things, living in spiritual death at enmity with God and unable to please God, the believer is not only not under any positional eternal condemnation, but he is also indwelt by the Holy Spirit so that by reliance on that Spirit, he can set his mind on the things of God, live in spiritual life in fellowship with God and actually please the Lord. True believers thus have the Blessed Hope of facing the redemption of the body at the rapture by the Spirit who indwells them and Who raised Jesus from the dead.

Application: (1) May we believers know that (a) we are not under condemnation, but indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that we might live righteously in blessing by relying on that Spirit, (b) but that if we live by the sin nature, we will be carnally minded, live in death, be at enmity with God and not please Him! (2) May we thus rely on the Spirit.