Romans 8:1-10 In Christ Jesus We Live
So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Turn on the news these days, and you’ll hear more than you want to about the coronavirus. They give us a daily update on the number of deaths, worldwide or in our country, as if this was a war, a world war with the entire world fighting against a common enemy, an invisible enemy that could be anywhere. The number of casualties in this war keep going up, but they’re going to be just a number until someone you know is on the casualty list.
But what if there was a world war, every soul on earth against a common enemy, and the number of casualties was one, just one death. It wouldn’t seem like much of a war, except this one casualty is someone we know, someone we love, who died for all the world. In our Lenten worship services this year we have been using the theme, “The Son of God goes forth to war.” But this was a war he fought all alone, and a war in which he was the one and only casualty.
Midweek services during Lent focus on Christ’s suffering, his death. They focus on the battle he fought for us. But Sunday mornings during this same season take the lessons of the cross and help us apply them to ourselves. We learn how Christ fought temptation in the wilderness so that we might use the same Word of God to say No to temptation. We learn how Christ endured trials and suffering and remained committed and devoted to the will of his heavenly Father so that we might do the same. Our trials are very different. We haven’t been dragged before the Sanhedrin and charged with capital offenses like he was–and we’re not likely to be–and to compare the minor ways we suffer to the agony of torture and crucifixion he endured–they’re worlds apart. But we do suffer, and we each have trials in which we are challenged to stand up for and speak up for the God we serve, and Christ’s example encourages us to stand firm. And when he arrived at the moment of his death and prayed, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” what better peace and hope could we find to face our own mortality and the time when we must all leave this veil of tears.
The Son of God went forth to war alone, a single warrior to fight and win the battle against sin, death, Satan, and hell. He died alone, as only he could die for us and appease God’s anger at the sins of the world. But his death has made us soldiers of the cross. His sacrifice and victory have brought into existence the Church, the kingdom of God on earth, against which Satan continues to rage and battle. God’s divine election, his eternal choice, has drafted us into the army of the elect, and Christ himself has given us our marching orders.
The war is over. “It is finished,” he said. A peace treaty has been signed and we now have peace with God. We didn’t help Christ fight that battle, and nothing we do adds to the victory that has already been won or contributes anything to our own salvation. But we are soldiers of the cross. And we will live and fight for him who lived, fought, died for us, and rose again to lead us to eternal victory. We fight, not to win heaven, like a hill that must be taken from the enemy in fierce battle, but to win earth, to liberate those on earth who are still enslaved in the kingdom of Satan, and to free ourselves from the lingering spirit of the sinful flesh so that all we do might glorify the one who saved us.
So the very first verse of our lesson today gives us the big picture. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It says the war is over. Death has lost. The peace treaty has been signed. Everything that follows needs to keep that one incredible truth in focus. As soldiers of the cross, what better time is there to enlist in the army than after the war is over? Except, we didn’t enlist; we were drafted. God chose us and saved us and named us soldiers of the cross and equipped us with the full armor of God and the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
This first verse of our text does more than just tell us the war is over. It reminds us that, when the war itself was being fought, you and I were on the wrong side. There is now no condemnation, but there was then. It was our own sins that were condemned on the cross. We were God’s enemies. “For the mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot.” While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We’re still sinners; we still sin and commit acts that arise from our sinful flesh, but we are no longer controlled by that flesh. We fight it. We repent of our sins, ask for forgiveness, and then we do all we can to take that sinful flesh prisoner, so that we can live by the spirit.
And one more thing that the first verse of Romans chapter 8 does continues the thought we focused on last week. Remember the man born blind? The disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that resulted in him being punished with blindness?”
“No,” Jesus responded. “This affliction isn’t punishment for any sin, his or his parents or anybody else. But this happened that God might be glorified.” What happens now, in all the afflictions and battles of the flesh and suffering and trials we face, is not punishment–it’s never punishment or a display of God’s anger at our sins, for there is now no condemnation, none. There’s no anger. There’s no judgment. There is not a trace of payback for the wrongs we have done.
With the coronavirus, with natural disasters and man-made suffering, with all the aches and pains of daily life and all the terrible suffering and tragedy that strike some people and not others, there is nothing of God’s punishment or condemnation involved. Nor is God indifferent or uncaring. God is involved, deeply involved, but his involvement is finding ways to make all the bad things in the world work good things for his children, his people, his soldiers of the cross.
But we still have to live as soldiers of the cross. We have to keep fighting. We have to make use of every bit of armor God gives us to resist the fiery arrows of the evil one. He’d use the virus and all the other weapons of terror, fear, or simple doubt to make us waver in the fight. He loves to see us fight against each other. He loves to make us forget we are fellow soldiers fighting for each other, side by side, make us act more like the disciples did in our gospel lesson, competing with each other for the highest glory, for pride, for selfish and self-centered gain.
Let us walk in step with the Spirit, as Paul says, in harmony with the Spirit, marching side by side into war. The main picture that Paul is using in Romans chapter 8 is not the imagery of soldiers of the cross marching into war, but of a courtroom, where we, the accused, have been declared not guilty and set free, and now in joy and relief we go out to live free, as good, worthy citizens of the kingdom of God’s Son. But elsewhere, Paul says many of the same things with the picture of soldiers of the cross firmly in mind, like in the previous chapter where he says that the sinful flesh is waging war against those gospel principles that rule your mind, seeking to take captive and enslave the members of your body, so that you do the things you don’t want to do, the things you hate, and don’t do the things you want to do. A wretched war we would surely lose, but God has rescued me from this body of death by his Son, Jesus Christ.
Or Ephesians 6, where he urges us: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the Devil. . . Stand, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness fastened in place, and with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace tied to your feet like sandals. At all times hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. Also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Christ won the victory by his death on the cross. He set us free from sin and death, so we can say with absolute confidence, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and we can live as soldiers of the cross by the law–the governing principle–of the Spirit and life. He died that we might live, no longer according to the sinful flesh but the spirit of life, love, and holiness, to glorify our victorious Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Turn on the news these days, and you’ll hear more than you want to about the coronavirus. They give us a daily update on the number of deaths, worldwide or in our country, as if this was a war, a world war with the entire world fighting against a common enemy, an invisible enemy that could be anywhere. The number of casualties in this war keep going up, but they’re going to be just a number until someone you know is on the casualty list.
But what if there was a world war, every soul on earth against a common enemy, and the number of casualties was one, just one death. It wouldn’t seem like much of a war, except this one casualty is someone we know, someone we love, who died for all the world. In our Lenten worship services this year we have been using the theme, “The Son of God goes forth to war.” But this was a war he fought all alone, and a war in which he was the one and only casualty.
Midweek services during Lent focus on Christ’s suffering, his death. They focus on the battle he fought for us. But Sunday mornings during this same season take the lessons of the cross and help us apply them to ourselves. We learn how Christ fought temptation in the wilderness so that we might use the same Word of God to say No to temptation. We learn how Christ endured trials and suffering and remained committed and devoted to the will of his heavenly Father so that we might do the same. Our trials are very different. We haven’t been dragged before the Sanhedrin and charged with capital offenses like he was–and we’re not likely to be–and to compare the minor ways we suffer to the agony of torture and crucifixion he endured–they’re worlds apart. But we do suffer, and we each have trials in which we are challenged to stand up for and speak up for the God we serve, and Christ’s example encourages us to stand firm. And when he arrived at the moment of his death and prayed, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” what better peace and hope could we find to face our own mortality and the time when we must all leave this veil of tears.
The Son of God went forth to war alone, a single warrior to fight and win the battle against sin, death, Satan, and hell. He died alone, as only he could die for us and appease God’s anger at the sins of the world. But his death has made us soldiers of the cross. His sacrifice and victory have brought into existence the Church, the kingdom of God on earth, against which Satan continues to rage and battle. God’s divine election, his eternal choice, has drafted us into the army of the elect, and Christ himself has given us our marching orders.
The war is over. “It is finished,” he said. A peace treaty has been signed and we now have peace with God. We didn’t help Christ fight that battle, and nothing we do adds to the victory that has already been won or contributes anything to our own salvation. But we are soldiers of the cross. And we will live and fight for him who lived, fought, died for us, and rose again to lead us to eternal victory. We fight, not to win heaven, like a hill that must be taken from the enemy in fierce battle, but to win earth, to liberate those on earth who are still enslaved in the kingdom of Satan, and to free ourselves from the lingering spirit of the sinful flesh so that all we do might glorify the one who saved us.
So the very first verse of our lesson today gives us the big picture. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It says the war is over. Death has lost. The peace treaty has been signed. Everything that follows needs to keep that one incredible truth in focus. As soldiers of the cross, what better time is there to enlist in the army than after the war is over? Except, we didn’t enlist; we were drafted. God chose us and saved us and named us soldiers of the cross and equipped us with the full armor of God and the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
This first verse of our text does more than just tell us the war is over. It reminds us that, when the war itself was being fought, you and I were on the wrong side. There is now no condemnation, but there was then. It was our own sins that were condemned on the cross. We were God’s enemies. “For the mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot.” While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We’re still sinners; we still sin and commit acts that arise from our sinful flesh, but we are no longer controlled by that flesh. We fight it. We repent of our sins, ask for forgiveness, and then we do all we can to take that sinful flesh prisoner, so that we can live by the spirit.
And one more thing that the first verse of Romans chapter 8 does continues the thought we focused on last week. Remember the man born blind? The disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that resulted in him being punished with blindness?”
“No,” Jesus responded. “This affliction isn’t punishment for any sin, his or his parents or anybody else. But this happened that God might be glorified.” What happens now, in all the afflictions and battles of the flesh and suffering and trials we face, is not punishment–it’s never punishment or a display of God’s anger at our sins, for there is now no condemnation, none. There’s no anger. There’s no judgment. There is not a trace of payback for the wrongs we have done.
With the coronavirus, with natural disasters and man-made suffering, with all the aches and pains of daily life and all the terrible suffering and tragedy that strike some people and not others, there is nothing of God’s punishment or condemnation involved. Nor is God indifferent or uncaring. God is involved, deeply involved, but his involvement is finding ways to make all the bad things in the world work good things for his children, his people, his soldiers of the cross.
But we still have to live as soldiers of the cross. We have to keep fighting. We have to make use of every bit of armor God gives us to resist the fiery arrows of the evil one. He’d use the virus and all the other weapons of terror, fear, or simple doubt to make us waver in the fight. He loves to see us fight against each other. He loves to make us forget we are fellow soldiers fighting for each other, side by side, make us act more like the disciples did in our gospel lesson, competing with each other for the highest glory, for pride, for selfish and self-centered gain.
Let us walk in step with the Spirit, as Paul says, in harmony with the Spirit, marching side by side into war. The main picture that Paul is using in Romans chapter 8 is not the imagery of soldiers of the cross marching into war, but of a courtroom, where we, the accused, have been declared not guilty and set free, and now in joy and relief we go out to live free, as good, worthy citizens of the kingdom of God’s Son. But elsewhere, Paul says many of the same things with the picture of soldiers of the cross firmly in mind, like in the previous chapter where he says that the sinful flesh is waging war against those gospel principles that rule your mind, seeking to take captive and enslave the members of your body, so that you do the things you don’t want to do, the things you hate, and don’t do the things you want to do. A wretched war we would surely lose, but God has rescued me from this body of death by his Son, Jesus Christ.
Or Ephesians 6, where he urges us: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the schemes of the Devil. . . Stand, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness fastened in place, and with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace tied to your feet like sandals. At all times hold up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One. Also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Christ won the victory by his death on the cross. He set us free from sin and death, so we can say with absolute confidence, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and we can live as soldiers of the cross by the law–the governing principle–of the Spirit and life. He died that we might live, no longer according to the sinful flesh but the spirit of life, love, and holiness, to glorify our victorious Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
