ROMANS Study Guide

Chapter Eight :

The Law of the Spirit

Chapter six through eight are tightly connected. You cannot understand any one of them fully without the others. In the last chapter we were left in a negative place of wanting to please God but frustrated in not finding the strength or ability to consistently do it. Paul begins chapter eight with a bold pronouncement that through Christ we are freed from the condemnation of the law through the weakness of our uncrucified carnal nature. In this chapter Paul gives us the key to being able to live the life of Christ here and now.

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

1. No condemnation:

a. Paul begins this chapter with the victory cry that we, in Christ,

are no longer under the condemnation of the law… not that we

have done away with the law but that we have perfectly fulfilled it

in Christ. (vs.1)

b. The oldest texts of scripture omit “who walk not after the flesh

b ut after the Spirit” in verse one - but the passage is repeated again in

verse 4 and this thought is consistent with the discussion in this

chapter.

1) The idea to keep in mind is that even if we sin… we are still not condemned because our justification is not based on our performance but on what Jesus did for us. So there is no

condemnation for a true believer even if he walks in the flesh. The key is that now we have a choice. Before salvation we had no choice - we were sold under sin (we could not win over our sin nature). But now we are neither condemned nor do we have to allow sin to control us. We can choose not to sin more and more consistently by the power and help of the Holy Spirit.

Rom 8:2 But the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Rom 8:3 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;