The Spirit Takes Us from Sin to Righteousness

Romans 8:1-11

Tonight we return to our study of Romans chapter 8 and I would just invite you now to take your Bible. If you happen to come along without one, there ought to be one in back of the pew there, you can look around and see if you can't find one and we're looking at Romans chapter 8 and the first part of that chapter, one of the great chapters in all of the Bible. And as we progress through the epistle to the Romans, we are being ever increasingly enriched by the glories of these tremendous truths.

Now as we enter into this part of the eighth chapter of Romans, the Holy Spirit's ministry comes into clear focus. Up to this time the Holy Spirit has only been mentioned once in the entire epistle to the Romans and that in chapter 5 verse 5. But now in this chapter alone, the Holy Spirit is mentioned nearly 20 times. So this is really His chapter. And we've entitled it, "Life in the Spirit.' The richness of the chapter, by the way, is beyond calculating, it's beyond therefore expression and I cannot find the words to give you all of the things that are here, or even all of the things I feel. But as I read it over and over again, and as I meditate on it and think about it, I find myself moving along in ever ascending kind of track that culminates ultimately in the peon of praise that concludes this incredible chapter. It sweeps you off your feet eventually and carries you away to glories in the very presence of Gold Himself. It is a monumental chapter and when read with an open heart and understood with an open mind can be incredibly enriching. And I really don't think that if you internalize the things that are here and if you meditate on them, you can ever be the same. I think it's a life‑changing chapter as so many are in this tremendous epistle to the Romans.

Now it might be well to begin with something of an introduction about the Holy Spirit. If this is His chapter and if He is mentioned nearly 20 times and if He is to be the theme of it, we ought to understand a little bit about the Holy Spirit. And so that none of us in the dark about it,, let me run by a little bit of what theologians call "pneumatology," or the study of the Spirit. Just some general things to keep in mind.

First of all, a way to perceive the Holy Spirit that might help you is this. The Holy Spirit is to our spiritual lives what the creator is to the physical world. Without God, the creator, the physical world would not exist. And without His continuing sustaining upholding and preserving power, the world would crash out of existence. And similarly in terms of the spiritual dimension, without the Holy Spirit we would never have been recreated. And without the sustaining preserving upholding power of the Holy Spirit, we too would crash back into the spiritual deadness from which we came. So the Spirit of God is the very agent by which we were given life and the very agent through whom that life is sustained. And also, the very agent who will in the end bring that life to full consummation in eternal glory.

Now mark it that the Holy Spirit is not an influence. The Holy Spirit is a person. We never refer to the Holy Spirit as "it," we always refer to the Holy Spirit as "He." And He is the third member of the Godhead, equal to the Father, equal to the Son in deity and in personhood, personality.

If you study the Bible, for example, you would ... for example, you will find that: The Holy Spirit possesses mind, emotion, will. He knows the deep things of God. He loves the saints. He makes decisions. He speaks. He prays. He teaches. He guides. He commands. He fellowships. He comforts. He may be grieved. He may be quenched. He may be lied to. He may be tested. He may be resisted. He may be blasphemed. And all of these things indicate that He is indeed a person.

And when you look at the Bible,, you find that He has all of the attributes that all the rest of the trinity have. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is eternal, that He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, holy, and glorious. The Bible calls Him God, Lord, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Yahweh,, the Spirit of the Lord God, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of the living God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of His Son. And He is called the Comforter.

The Bible tells us that He was active in creation. That He indwelt certain people living in the Old Testament period for special empowering. That He convicts men, that He enables men to serve God, that He is the agent by which the Scriptures were written, that in the life of Christ, for example, He was involved in His birth, in His baptism, His temptation, His anointing, His teaching, His miracles, His death and His resurrection. That in the world, the Holy Spirit is involved in convicting men of sin, in calling men to Himself,, and as well, calling men into service. He is involved in witnessing to the testimony of Christ. He is involved in regenerating or bringing about the new birth.

And the Bible tells us that in the case of the believer, the Holy Spirit is engaged in glorifying Christ in the life of a believer. He indwells the believer. He fills the believer. He imparts to the believer the fruit of the Spirit. He imparts to the believer the gifts of the Spirit. He seals, communes, fellowships with, teaches, prays, wars with the flesh, comforts, prays for, sanctifies, empowers for service. It goes on and on. In every sense, fulfilling the role of God in a very special way is the third person of the trinity.

Now all of that just went by in about thirty seconds or so to give you a little bit of a feeling for who the Holy Spirit is as we enter this chapter. Now let me give you a little bit of the f low of where we are in Romans 8 so you can understand why Paul is writing what he's writing.

In the epistle to the Romans, Paul has one major theme and that major theme is justification by grace through faith based on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is saying in effect, the only way for men to be right with God is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is God's plan of salvation. And he outlines that plan all the way through the epistle to the Romans. It is basically his great theme.

And so, as we come to chapter 8, we would note again that he is still talking on this same theme. And you remember that when he began to introduce to us salvation by grace through faith in chapter 3, he followed that introduction in 3 and 4 with a series of results of justification by faith. And we saw those in chapters 5, 6 and 7, various things that resulted from our being made righteous in Christ. And those are carefully laid out for us. Things like peace with God. Things like freedom from the law. Things like a new life, the death of the old, the resurrection of the new. All of those elements that are results of justification have been outlined for us.

Now as you come to chapter 8, you really come to a climactic point as he talks about the results of justification. And he begins the chapter in verse 1 by saying, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." And that is the ... that's the high point. That's the great epitome of his expressions of the results of justification. Finally and most magnanimously and most gloriously and most wonderfully we will never be condemned. We will never experience condemnation for our sin because we are made righteous in Jesus Christ. And this is a marvelous, marvelous reality. The only way you can understand how marvelous it is to have no condemnation is to understand what it means to be condemned. And if you reach back in your memory and go back to our study of Romans 1:18 to 3:20, you might remember some glimpses of condemnation that are given there‑‑to think of all that God had planned for those who rejected Him,, to think of the horrors of God's condemning judgment and then to understand that we have been delivered from that. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, "The wrath of God upon the wicked is just as intense as His love is to the saints." And when you understand that, then you can relish the reality of no condemnation.

So, the truth that opens this chapter, the great declaration that we are not condemned, is so incomprehensible that it's almost as if Paul can't just say it, he's got to spend a whole chapter laying out why this can be true. And the theme of chapter 8 really is that we are not condemned. You remember verse 1, it begins "no condemnation," And it ends that way as well. If you go over to verse 34, "Who is he that condemns?" And the answer is "no one," of course, because the highest court, God in Christ, does not condemn. Who is a higher court who would condemn us? So the chapter flows from the thought of no condemnation in the beginning, to the thought of no condemnation at the end. And in between, the Apostle Paul wants to convince us that this can really be true. It would be hard for one who had understood that God was a God of wrath against sin, such as the Jews, to hear the Apostle Paul say there's no condemnation and it's all by grace through faith, not of anything you've ever done or could do. That would be a monumental new truth to them. And so, Paul lays down some very strong statements about why it's true. And what he's saying is it's true because of the marvelous work of the Holy Spirit. The reason there's no condemnation is because of what the Holy Spirit of God has done and is doing in our behalf.

So, when you come to Romans 8, it isn't just an isolated chapter that you can pull out and talk about the Holy Spirit. It's in the flow of the whole book. And it's teaching us that one of the results is no condemnation and it's so incomprehensible that it is affirmed to us by the marvelous ministry of the Spirit of God. It's almost as if in chapters 3 to 7, Christ provides no condemnation and in chapter 8, the Holy Spirit confirms no condemnation. Great, great chapter.

Now, I want you to just think with me through this chapter in the next few weeks and I really believe that this is going to be one of the great experiences of our church family. I'm trying to capture in words, all the things that flood my mind when I come to this chapter. And I know it's going to take me a while to get it all out. But when we're done I think we're going to have a tremendously enriching time. What is it that the Spirit of God does to confirm to us the reality of no condemnation? I'm just going to give you the little list, and you have an outline there, you can kind of look along and we'll be looking through that in the weeks ahead.

First, He frees us from sin and death. He enables us to fulfill the law. He changes our nature. He empowers us for victory. He confirms our adoption. He guarantees our glory. And He aids our prayers. And because He does all of that, the results are given in verses 28 to 39. The reason we can praise God, the reason we can glory in that tremendous crescendo and benediction at the end of the chapter is because of all these things that the Spirit does to confirm our no condemnation status before God.

Let's remind ourselves of the first thing that He does. First of all, the reason we experience no condemnation is because the Holy Spirit has freed us from sin and death. Look at verse 2. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 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." Now last week we went into that in detail as we looked at the first four verses. I only want to pick out this thought. The Spirit, verse 2, has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Now what does it mean when it says in verse 2, "the law of the Spirit of life"? That's the gospel, isn't it? The gospel is a law because it commands us to respond. It lays down a requisite for us and demands our adherence and obedience. And the law of the gospel of life in Christ Jesus that came to us through the Spirit has made us free from the law of sin and death. The reason we can never be condemned is because we've been set free from the law and its just punishment which is death. We're free from that. Because of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the regenerating work of the Spirit of God has set us free from sin's power, sin's authority, sin's dominion, sin's sovereignty, sin's mastery and ultimately even sin's penalty. So we'll never know the punishment of sin because we have been set from that because of Jesus Christ. Great and marvelous truth.

The Holy Spirit is the agent of our salvation. He is the deliverer who takes us out of the dimension of sin, out of the dominion of sin which leads to death, He breaks‑‑as it were‑‑open the gates of sin, He snaps the bars of iniquity, He unlocks the chains of transgression and He opens to us the way of freedom and liberty and sets us free. And so, when you think of the Holy Spirit, beloved, bless His holy name because He set you free. He made you free from the consequence of your own sin. He made you free from the power and the mastery of sin so that you need not succumb to its power.

Now there's a second thing the Holy Spirit,, and we're going to hit the first two rather rapidly because we've already discussed verses 1 to 4. And that is He enables us to fulfill God's law. He enables us to fulfill God's law. Notice verse 4, "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." Now when you were saved, you were freed from sin and death in the sense of sin's mastery and sin's dominion, not yet from sin's presence. There's still a battle there. But no longer does it dominate us and no longer will we pay the ultimate penalty for it because that was paid in Jesus Christ and appropriated to us by our faith and the regenerating work of the Spirit of God.

Now when that happened, we then became those who walk in the Spirit, in the terms of verse 4 as you remember. And because we now walk in the Spirit, we are able to fulfill the righteousness of the law. St. Augustine said that "Saving grace was given that the law might be fulfilled.' You remember we talked about righteousness, that God ultimately is calling out a righteous people, and the reason God saved you was to make you righteous, to give you the ability to do what is right, to please Him, to do His will? And when a soul is regenerated, there is produced in that soul the ability to fulfill God's holy law.

You see, fulfilling the law for a Christian is not some kind of painstaking conformity, it's not some kind of external behavior based on some code of ethics. It's not something that's out on the edge and the fringe of who we are. Christian holiness,, righteousness, obedience for the believer is not external at all but it's internal. It is the product of the Holy Spirit on the inside. And when we become a believer and the Spirit takes up residence, He begins to produce in us the life of holiness so that a disobedient Christian has to fight against himself. He literally has to take effort to thwart the Spirit of God. It's like holding your breath, you find it a lot easier to breathe,, frankly. And so it is in the life of the Christian that normalcy is to do that which the Spirit of God generates and you actually fight against the new creation when you are disobedient.

And so, the Spirit of God produces in us the capability and the capacity to fulfill God's holy law. What a marvelous work! God not only redeemed us transactionally and forensically, God not only declared us righteous, but then He planted His Spirit within us so the Spirit could produce the fruit of the Spirit which, first of all, is attitude: love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self‑control. And then His action resulting from attitude, the action of doing that which is well pleasing to God. And so, because Christ has given us His Spirit, we can fulfill God's law.

Listen to way Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 2:10. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto...what? Good works." You see, that is the purpose for redemption. We were created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. We were redeemed to live a holy life. We were redeemed to do that which was right.

Look at Titus 2:14 for another illustration. It says there that Jesus Christ gave Himself for us. Then this, "In order that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people of His own, zealous of good works." You see, again it says we were redeemed to produce good works; we were redeemed to do that which was right in the sight of God.

There's a very interesting passage and I would call it to your attention, turn there in your Bible to Luke chapter 1 verse 72. Luke 1:72. And in verse 72 we had the mention of the Abrahamic covenant and then verse 73 says, "The oath which He swore to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life."

You know, when God even called out His people Israel, He had in mind to produce a righteous nation, a holy people. And then it says in 76, "And thou,, child," and here, of course, is the statement regarding John the Baptist, "shall be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace," redeemed for righteousness, redeemed for peace, redeemed for a right relationship to God, redeemed for the outworking of God's law from the heart.

In Hebrews chapter 5, another illustration of the same principle in verse 8. It says: "Though He were a Son," that is Christ, 'yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that ... what? ... obey Him." In other words, true believers are therefore characterized by what? Obedience‑‑obedience, it is the mark. A true Christian manifests righteousness. A true Christian manifests obedience. A true Christian manifests good works because he is saved unto that end.

And so, we say what the reformers said and what needs to be said again and again in our day, justification and sanctification are inseparable, truths. Justification and sanctification are inseparable. If you were redeemed, there is a manifest redemption in your living. Now it isn't all it ought to be. For that we wait to our glorification. But the resident Spirit is going to produce some evidence of the fulfilling of the law.

Listen to Ezekiel, chapter 11 verses 19 and 20, for an Old Testament perspective on this same truth. And here is a promise for the future, really. "I will give them one heart and I will put a new Spirit within you," the promise of the Holy Spirit, "and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh." In other words, God's going to say the day is coming when on behalf of My people, I'll give them a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And here's the result. "That they may walk in My statutes and keep Mine ordinances and do them." That's the essence of why the Spirit of God comes to dwell in us, to produce in us the righteous behavior that God seeks from His creatures.

And by the way, the same statement is made again in Ezekiel 36, "A new heart also will I give Your" verse 26, "a new Spirit will I put within you, take away the stony heart out of your flesh, give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes to keep My ordinances and to do them."

So, redemption is unto obedience. Redemption is unto righteousness and the fulfilling of God's law. So when you think about the work of the Holy Spirit, you have to begin in chapter 8 by realizing this, that the Holy Spirit has by His work freed us from the law of sin and death so that we no longer are under the penalty of that law. Secondly, the Holy Spirit by His indwelling presence enables us to keep the law of God. And what a glorious reality that is.

And so we see two things there, don't we? That we are secure by the work of the Spirit of God against any future judgment. And we are even able now in the present to fulfill the law of God as we yield to the power of the Spirit of God within us.

Let's go to a third thing that the Spirit of God does to confirm to us our no condemnation status and this is in verse 5 through 11 ... 5 through 11. The Holy Spirit changes our nature; the Holy Spirit changes our nature. This is just a tremendous truth. Now we'll make it very simple. Listen carefully. There are only two kinds of people in the world,, just two, no more ‑ no less,, two kinds of people in the world. Let's meet them in verse 5. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit." That's far enough.

Only two kinds of people in the world: the ones that are after the flesh and the ones that are after the Spirit. God never divides people by sex, neither male nor female, never divides them by culture or education, never divides them by class or race. The only way God divides people is by their relationship to Him. And here, in the terms of this passage, there are only two kinds of people, those that are minding the things of the flesh and those that are minding the things of the Spirit.

Now granted, there are degrees within each category. There are some people who are minding the things of the Spirit and aren't minding them as well as they ought to. And there are some things...some people who are minding the things of the flesh and on the outside at least doing a better job than others of behaving themselves. But while there are degrees within each category, the categories themselves are absolute...absolute.

David Brown said, "Men must be under the predominating influence of one or other of these two principles and according as one or other has the mastery will be the complexion of their life and the character of their actions. The bent of the thoughts, affections and pursuits is the only decisive test of character," end quote. Very important statement.

Now I want you to look at this a little more closely in verse 5. The first word is the word "form and it links this verse to verse 4. In verse 4 at the end it said: "There are those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." So, you have the walkers after the flesh and the walkers after the Spirit. And now when you come into verse 5, you have the minders of the things of the flesh and the minders of the things of the Spirit.

Now in verse 4, mark this, behavior is stressed. The word "walk" has primarily to do with behavior, the outworking. But in verse 5, it isn't behavior that is stressed, what is stressed? Thinking, it's thinking that is stressed. And if you'll notic