Romans 8:1-10
Dearly loved by God in Christ Jesus,
When I begin to read this book on Shakespeare this afternoon, I won’t start in the middle. None of us begins reading a book in the middle. Or do we? We do that nearly every Sunday. The lessons for the week including the sermon text seldom are chapter 1, verse 1.
Not knowing what came before our lessons isn’t always a big deal; especially in the Gospels. We just pick up with an account about Jesus and something he did to redeem us. The inspired record stands on its own with some background context. This is not so true with the Epistles like Romans 8:1-10.
What makes this doubly obvious here is the beginning word, “Therefore.”Therefore means that what follows builds on what went before. Paul wrote just before our text about the inward struggle the Christian has with sinful desires. “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” We get what Paul is saying, don’t we? That reality can be troubling.
Now Paul comforts us and assures us. We are Of Two Minds Yet Acquitted in Christ.Christ means death to the law of sin. The Spirit means life to those who walk in him.
Before we look at the two minds we have as Christians, be assured of this, “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”Even though we continue to sin and recognize that our transgressions deserve only eternal suffering and separation from God’s presence in hell, this is God’s acquittal of us in Christ. This acquittal dispels those troubling thoughts Satan uses against us.
Christians are of two minds; a mind set on the flesh, and a mind set on what the Holy Spirit desires. The mind set on what the Spirit desires rules our hearts.
When we talk about the flesh, we are talking about sin and about death because the fleshly mind is “hostile to God.” It is interested in self only. Paul describes the flesh as being under “the law of sin and death.” Here law means the way it has to be. For the mind of the flesh there has to be sin and death because no flesh desires or can obey the will of God perfectly. The law of God could not save me.
How then was my carnal mind, my flesh destroyed of its power? Why does the law of sin and death no longer condemn me? “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.”
“The law of the Spirit of life”means again the way it has to be. The law of the Holy Spirit is new life. That new life puts our minds on the Spirit, on the way he operates and the things he desires from us as those who walk in him.He gives us in the gospel the sin offering Jesus made in his flesh as our Substitute. Jesus fully met the “righteous requirements of the law” and the Spirit has given those to us. They are fully met in us through Christ. We still have the old mind of the flesh, now dead, along with the mind of the Spirit. We are of two minds yet acquitted in Christ.
We have seen that Christ means death to the law of sin. Sin and death no longer are the characteristic and outcome of our lives for we are in Christ Jesus through faith. The Spirit means life to those who walk in him.
Luther compared a sick man drinking wine in the false belief it would heal him to someone still with his mind on the flesh as a way of salvation. He thinks the wine will do the trick. But the wine can’t heal him just as the law can’t save me. The cure for his illness must come from somewhere else just as salvation must come from someone else, Christ alone. Then, when the man is healed he can drink the wine and enjoy it. Now in Christ we walk in the mind of the Spirit and enjoy keeping the commandments from the love of Christ in our hearts.
It is characteristic of the Christian heart not to have your mind on satisfying the lusts of the flesh, or accumulating the riches of this world, or seeking our own interest above the interests of our neighbors. Those things belong to the carnal mind, the mind on the flesh which Christ has killed in us by his cross. Rather the mind that seeks what the Spirit desires seeks the common good and avoids the common sins. It seeks not its own needs but the needs of others.
They who have the Spirit belong to God. They who do not have the Spirit and still are controlled by their sinful nature do not belong to God. They who have their mind on what the Spirit desires no longer fear death on account of Christ. At the same time because of God’s love in Christ, the Christian does not love this life more than God either.
They who have their mind set on the flesh are dead. They who have their mind set on what the Spirit desires have life. We Christians still have two minds in our Old Adam and our New Man. But we are acquitted in Christ and have died to the Old Adam. We hate our sinful nature. We condemn its urgings to fleshly endeavors. We live in Christ and have peace in him.“But if (since) Christ lives in you, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
We may be of two minds but we are like minded only with the Holy Spirit who gives us life and peace by Christ Jesus our sin offering.“Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”Amen. <SDG>