Original Meaning
Romans 8 has been called the “inner sanctuary within the cathedral of Christian faith.” It sets before us some of the most wonderful blessings we enjoy as believers: being free from God’s condemnation, indwelt by God’s own Spirit, adopted into His family, destined for resurrection and glory, and full of hope because of God’s love for us and because of His promise to bring good to us in every circumstance of life.
Romans 8:1–13
How does this rehearsal of the glorious benefits of being “in Christ” fit into Paul’s argument in these chapters? The first part of the chapter (8:1–13) has two purposes.
(1) It elaborates the reference to the “new way of the Spirit” in 7:6 after the “interruption” in which Paul deals with questions about the law (7:7–25). Reference to the Holy Spirit is long overdue in Paul’s discussion of the believer’s existence. Possessing the Spirit is the mark of being a new covenant believer, and his ministry must be basic to any description of what it means to be a Christian. While the Holy Spirit is not really the topic of Romans 8, Paul gives the Spirit the key role in mediating to us the blessings of our new life. Twenty-one times Paul uses the word pneuma (S/spirit) in Romans 8, and all but two (vv. 15a, 16b) refer to the Holy Spirit.
(2) Verses 1–13 have another, more fundamental purpose. Chapters 6 and 7 are slight detours from the main line of Paul’s argument, in which he deals with sin and the law, two key threats to the security of our new life. Now he is in a position to return to the main road by continuing his exposition of the believer’s security in Christ. So in this section he reaffirms our new life in Christ (vv. 1–4) and draws out its consequences for the moral life (vv. 5–8), the future, “resurrection” life (vv. 9–11), and the responsibility of the believer (vv. 12–13).
New Life Through the Spirit’s Liberating Work (8:1–4)
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” takes us back to 5:12–21, where Paul showed how those who belong to Christ escape the “condemnation” (katakrima) that came to all people through Adam’s sin (note that katakrima occurs only in 5:16, 18; 8:1 in the New Testament). Paul continues to use the forensic imagery that is so important to his conception of the gospel. Because we are justified by faith in conjunction with our union with Christ, we escape the sentence of spiritual death that our sins have justly earned. Transferred into the new regime of life, we no longer fear that our sins will ever condemn us.
- In verse 2 Paul explains why we need no longer worry about condemnation: “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
We have encountered two other places in Romans in which Paul opposes one law (nomos) to another law: 3:27 and 7:22–23. In each case scholars are divided over whether Paul intends to oppose one function of the Mosaic law to another function of that same law or whether one or both occurrences of “law” might refer to something besides the Mosaic law (e.g., a principle or authority). In both texts we argued the latter (see comments on 3:27; 7:22–23).
The same is true in this verse. “Law of sin and death” could, considering the argument of Romans 7, refer to the Mosaic law, used by sin to bring death. But Paul has used a similar expression in 7:23 to refer to the authority or power of sin. This is probably what he means here as well. “The law of the Spirit,” then, denotes the authority or power exercised by the Holy Spirit.1
The Spirit exerts a liberating power through the work of Christ that takes us out of the realm of sin and the spiritual death to which sin inevitably leads.
As verse 2 grounds verse 1 (“because”), so verses 3–4 ground verse 2 (“for”). The liberating work of the Spirit takes place “through Christ Jesus.” Paul now elaborates. As he has shown in chapter 7, the Mosaic law was powerless to rescue human beings from the authority of sin and death. It was “weakened by the sinful nature”; that is, its demands could not be met because the people to whom the law was given were in the realm of “flesh” (sarx; NIV “sinful nature”).2 But God in Christ has intervened to do what the law could not.
Paul indulges in a play on the word “flesh” that is obscured in the NIV. The law was weakened “by the flesh”; yet God also “condemned sin in the flesh.” He won the victory over sin in the very realm where it seemed to rule unchallenged: in the “flesh.” In claiming that Christ came “in the likeness of flesh” to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins, Paul carefully balances Jesus’ full humanity with his sinlessness. Christ did indeed become fully human by taking on “flesh.” But calling that flesh “sinful” might suggest that Christ took on fallen human nature. If so, he would not have been qualified to be our sinless Redeemer. So Paul clarifies by adding the important word “likeness.”
In other words, Christ did not, like every other person since Adam, succumb to the tyranny of flesh. He did not himself sin, nor did he inherit the penalty of sin, namely, death. Paul uses the language of “interchange”: Christ became what we are so that we could become what he is. By “condemning” sin in Christ as our sacrifice, he can now justly avoid “condemning” us who are in Christ.
The purpose of this work of God in Christ is spelled out in verse 4. The NIV translation is misleading. Paul does not claim that the “righteous requirements of the law” are fulfilled in us; he says that “the righteous requirement of the law was fulfilled in us” (the Greek word dikaioma is singular). The difference may not be great if Paul is thinking of the way that the Spirit enables Christians to obey the commandments of the law (note v. 7).3 But the singular word, along with the passive form of “fulfill,” suggests a different idea: God in Christ has fulfilled the entirety of the law’s demand on our behalf.4
Note that Paul’s purpose here is to show how we are no longer condemned. The reason is that we have, in Christ, effectively fulfilled God’s demand expressed in the law. This happens as we “walk in the Spirit.” If Paul is referring here to the way Christians do the law in their own lives, then this expression will be instrumental: We fulfill the law by living in the power of the Spirit. But the expression can, on our view, be a simple definition: The people in whom the law is fulfilled are those who live in the realm of the Spirit.
Life in the Spirit Versus Death in the Flesh (8:5 – 8)
At the end of verse 4, Paul introduces a contrast that governs these next four verses: “the sinful nature” versus the Spirit. “Sinful nature” is the NIV rendering of the Greek word sarx (flesh), when this word refers to the sinful tendencies of human beings. But the variety of constructions in which sarx occurs in these verses forces translators to use several different paraphrases. We prefer, for the sake of continuity of argument, to use the more literal “flesh” throughout (see footnote 2; also Bridging Contexts section).
In verses 5–8, then, Paul presents a series of contrasts between flesh and Spirit. His overall intention is clear: to show that sarx brings death while the Spirit brings life (v. 6). Paul leads up to this key claim by tracing people’s manner of life to their underlying way of thinking. In verse 4, he has used the antithesis of “living” (lit., “walking”) by the flesh/Spirit. The beginning of verse 5 picks up this same idea with a slightly different Greek construction (simply “according to the flesh/Spirit”). The lifestyle of the flesh flows from a mind oriented to the flesh, whereas the lifestyle of the Spirit comes from a mind oriented to the Spirit. And “the mind of the flesh is death” whereas the “mind of the Spirit [brings] life and peace.”
“Mind” translates phronema, which can be rendered “mind-set”; it denotes the basic direction of a person’s will (this noun occurs only in Romans 8 in the New Testament [vv. 6, 7, 27], though note the use of the cognate verb in Phil. 1:7; 2:2, 5; 3:15, 19; 4:5). Romans 8:7–8 explains why “the mind of the flesh” brings death. The orientation of the will reflects the values of this world as “hostile to God,” revealed in the fact that people who have that will cannot obey God’s law (v.7). Thus, people who are “in the flesh [NIV controlled by the sinful nature] cannot please God” (v. 8).
Assurance of Future, Resurrection Life (8:9–11)
Paul signals a shift in direction by turning directly to his readers:
You, however, are controlled not by the flesh but by the Spirit.
Paul’s “two-regime” theological framework is evident here. What he says, literally, is that “you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” Flesh and Spirit are two of the main powers belonging, respectively, to the old regime and the new (see 7:5–6). By God’s grace in Christ, Christians have been taken out of the realm dominated by “flesh” — the narrowly human outlook that leads to sin — and placed in the realm dominated by God’s Holy Spirit. It is clear, then, that
the “in flesh”/“in Spirit” language is metaphorical — a way of indicating that people are dominated by one or the other of these forces.
This becomes even clearer at the end of verse 9, where Paul shifts to the opposite metaphorical concept: We are “in the Spirit” if the Spirit “lives in” us. In whom does the Spirit live? In every person who is genuinely a Christian. Not to have the Spirit of Christ is not to belong to Christ at all. The New Testament teaches that the gift of the Holy Spirit is an automatic benefit for anyone who knows Christ (see comments on 6:1–14). We must, then, give full force to the indicative mode of verse 9: Every Christian really is “in the Spirit” — under His domination and control. We may not always reflect that domination (see 8:12–13), but it is a fundamental fact of our Christian existence and the basis for a life of confidence and obedience to the Lord.
In an effort to maintain balance that is typical of Romans, Paul goes on to comment about a situation in which the Spirit’s dominance might not be so obvious: the believer’s continued existence in a physical body that is doomed to die and is still all too susceptible to the influence of sin. Yes, Paul says, even with Christ in us, our bodies are still “dead because of sin.” Physical death is a penalty for sin that must still be carried out. Yet the Christian can take confidence because “your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
According to the NIV translation in verse 10, it is the human “spirit” (small “s”) that has been given new spiritual life. The contrast between pneuma (“spirit”) and soma (“body”) might favor this rendering.5 But pneuma consistently refers to the Holy Spirit in this chapter, and the Greek word behind “alive” is not an adjective, but a noun: zoe, “life.” Furthermore, the word “your” in “your spirit” does not occur in the Greek. Probably, then, Paul refers here to the Holy Spirit, the power of “life” that has come to reside in every believer.6
- It is because of this power of life within us that we can be certain of future resurrection.
Our bodies may be doomed to die, but the Spirit, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of the God who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, dwells within us and guarantees that our bodies will not end in the grave. God, through the Spirit, will give life to those bodies again.7
Our Obligation (8:12–13)
Most commentaries and translations put a major break between verses 11 and 12 and put verses 12–13 in a paragraph with verses 14–17. But verses 12–13 are not the introduction to the “children of God” theme of verses 14–17; they are the conclusion to Paul’s teaching about life in Christ through the Spirit (8:1–11). The “Spirit of life” (v. 2) sets us free from condemnation so that we can now enjoy new life, and because “the Spirit is life” (cf. v. 10) we are also assured of eternal life in a resurrected body. But God’s gift of new life through his Spirit carries with it an obligation. That obligation is not to “the flesh” (sarx; NIV sinful nature), that power of the old regime from which we have been delivered. It is to the Spirit, the power of the new regime.
To be sure, Paul does not state this positive side of our obligation. He breaks off his sentence at the end of verse 12 to emphasize the importance of our obligation in verse 13. We will ultimately inherit the new eternal life God has promised us only if we actively use the Spirit to “put to death the misdeeds of the body.” Continuing to live “according to the flesh” means that we will suffer spiritual death. The tension between the “indicative” of what God gives us and the “imperative” of what we must do comes to a head here.
Three points can be made briefly here. (1) Paul is serious about the need for us to put into effect the new life God gives us. Our response is not optional; it is necessary. (2) However, this response is itself empowered by the Spirit. We cannot stop committing sins in our own power; it can only be done “by the Spirit.” (3) Paul never suggests that the inheritance of future life requires that we stop sinning altogether.
What he demands in this verse is clear, long-term progress in becoming less like the world (i.e., “the flesh”) and more like Christ.
1. This is the interpretation in most of the commentaries (e.g., Godet, Commentary on Romans, 297; Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 375–76; Fitzmyer, Romans, 482–83). And see esp. the article of Leander E. Keck, “The Law and ‘The Law of Sin and Death’ (Rom 8:1–4): Reflections on the Spirit and Ethics in Paul,” in The Divine Helmsman: Studies on God’s Control of Human Events, Presented to Lou H. Silberman, ed. J. L. Crenshaw and S. Sandmel (New York: KTAV, 1980), 41–57. The view that the “law of Spirit” is the Mosaic law operating in the context of the Spirit is not yet well represented in the commentaries. See, however, Dunn, Romans, 416–18; note also Snodgrass, “Spheres of Influence,” 99.
2. Note that throughout this chapter, I will frequently be using “flesh” as a translation for sarx, but will not note it each time. The NIV rarely uses this translation.
3. See, e.g., Schreiner, Romans, 404–8.
4. See, e.g., Nygren, Commentary on Romans, 316–20; Fitzmyer, Romans, 487–88; see esp. the excellent discussion of Paul’s ethics in Deidun, New Covenant Morality in Paul, 72–75.
5. See, e.g., Godet, Commentary on Romans, 305; Fitzmyer, Romans, 491.
6. So most contemporary commentators; see, e.g., Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 390; Dunn, Romans, 431–32. See also the discussion in Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 550–51.
7. “Through his Spirit, who lives in you” rests on a disputed variant reading (dia plus the genitive); the alternative, strongly advocated by, e.g., Fee (God’s Empowering Presence, 543, 553) would be translated “because of his Spirit, who lives in you” (dia plus the accusative).
Excerpted with permission from Romans by Douglas J. Moo, copyright Douglas J. Moo.
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Your Turn
Many would agree that Romans chapter 8 is one of the most power chapters in the Bible about the work of the Spirit in believers. We are free from condemnation! He has given us the power to overcome sin! Incredible! ~ Devotionals Daily