Romans 8: 1
The First Step in the Normal Christian Life

February 10, 2008


For most of the 40 years teaching college students when I was the Dean of Carver Bible College, and then preaching sermons at TUC for the last 33 years of those 40, I have been thinking about Chapter 8 of Romans and how it fits into the book as a whole.  The commentators differ.  The great Charles Hodge from whose works I learned theology, in his commentary on Romans, says the chapter is a series of reasons why we will persevere in the Faith.  I do not think that is totally wrong.  But it seems to me that the chapter is more than that.  It is a depiction of the elements of the normal Christian life as it is looked upon optimistically, even as chapter 7 is a depiction of the Christian life looked upon negatively.

For a hundred years there have been buzz words about this or that teaching on the Christian life, each with its distinct and somewhat -- or even considerably -- inaccurate view of the Christian life: The "normal Christian life;" "The victorious life;" "The exchanged life;" "The deeper life;" "The surrendered life;" "The fully sanctified life" are just a few of them.  Most of them are impressive in their names but deficient in their details.

Here is Paul's presentation of the "normal Christian life."  But it is only a realizable life when the individual involved understands the doctrine of justification.  You can be saved and go to heaven without understanding justification, simply becasue you trust in the Savior, but it is almost a certainty that you will not live this "normal Christian life" unless you understand justification.  The starting place for the correct view about sanctification is not in standards of behavior or in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit but in the doctrine of justification.

There are a half a dozen or more points here in chapter 8, so I will just talk about one of them this morning.  Then, on future Sundays, I may mention a bunch of them at one time or may work my way through the list, one at a time.

The first characteristic, and the one that concerns us this morning, is the true Christian's freedom from the judgmental sentence of God. "V.1".

I. IT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER THE "THEREFORE."

1. It is one of the most dramatic and meaningful transitions in the New Testament. "V.1:" "There is therefore...."

It refers back, not just to the struggle which we all have with our sins, which is so dramatically portrayed in chapter 7.  But it refers back to chapters 1 and 2 where Paul so doggedly exposes the sins of all mankind and concludes in chapter 3 that "There is none righteous; No, not one!" (3: 10)

And in case we did not hear him the first time, he repeats for the second time the sense in which this unrighteousness is absolutely pervasive among the children of Adam: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God!" in chapter 3, v.23.

And the "therefore" also refers back to the concept in chapter 5, that Jesus is our representative, who, because of his unique "God-manness," was not only able to die for the sins of those who have called upon him, but he lived in their behalf -- he provided a perfect human righteousness that God the Father could impute to our accounts to make us perfectly righteous in his sight as a judge. 

This second half of justification is most important because it is half of the doctrine of justification and because it is the part that is usually left out in the historical understanding of the doctrine.  God did not make us just neutral -- i.e., forgiven of sins -- when he imputed our sins to Jesus; but he imputed -- charged -- all of the goodness, the worthiness and the righteousness of the incarnate Son of God -- from the days of his flesh when the Father spoke out of heaven and said: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  I say, God imputed all that worthiness to our accounts!  The Father didn't make us merely neutral in our justification!  He made us positively righteousness by imputing perfect righteousness to us.  And insofar as he is our Judge, we are blameless before the great Judge of all mankind!
2. This is the evident meaning in "v.2".  We are to understand here that the "law of the spirit of life" is this wonderful gospel message of Christ's fulfilling God's law in our behalf and the "law of sin and death" is the law that all sins are judged by God the Father.

3. Now this Bible view of the justified person allows you to be comfortable with God.  He is your Father now and no longer your Judge.  And though he may treat you pretty roughly if you get out of line, you can always be assured that he has good intentions toward you because he is your Father!  "Like as a Father pittieth his children, so the Lord pittieth those who are his!"

Please learn this lesson!  The gospel is not God arbitrarily "looking the other way" with regard to the believer's sins, but it is God's providing a remedy for that sin so that he may be a Father and not a Judge to those who come to him through faith in Jesus.  Maybe this morning your situation is that you are probably truly justified, but you need to move on from justification itself to the true appreciation of the doctrine of justification!  Might that be so?

II. NOW IN PASSING, DO NOT MISS IN THIS VERSE THE PHRASE "THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS." "THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS."

1. To miss this phrase and to apply this verse to everyone -- or even to a single one to whom it does not belong -- is to misuse the truth and to misuse it in a very serious manner.
Are you "in Christ Jesus?"  It refers to being included in his atonement -- which you can be assured of if you have sincerely come to him in faith.  It refers to that specific company of those who alone are "covered up" by Christ's righteousness and therefore are "in" him as if he were a refuge or a covering garment.  We are sometimes spoken of as wearing a garment of Christ's righteousness, as if to say it were a garment of cloth which completely covers up what we are in experience and allows God the Father to see us as Christ.  In other places Paul speaks about being "accepted in the beloved," by which he means, accepted in God's and our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is our forgiveness of sins and our righteousness.

Are you "in Christ Jesus"?  That is, have your sins been imputed (or "charged," the word means) to him and his righteousness imputed to you?  You say: "How could I possibly know that?"  You can know that on the basis of the Gospel promises -- such as: "him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out!" -- as such explicit promises as Romans 3: 26, "He justifies him who has faith in Jesus."  Not even if 10 minutes ago you did not have this faith in Jesus, it makes no difference; for if you have just now begun to believe -- at this very moment -- you are "in Christ!"  Right now, are you "in Christ Jesus?"

III. THE 6TH WORD IN THIS VERSE AS IT APPEARS IN THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION IS A WORD OFTEN USED IN THE CONTEXT OF ANCIENT LAW.

1. "No condemnation" it says.  "There is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!"

The word is katakrino and it is made up of "krino," the word for 'judgment' and the preposition of kata on the front of it, which means "against."  The word was commonly used to describe the negative sentence of a judge in an ordinary court of law in New Testament times.  It here refers to the righteous judgment of God where each soul will be judged according to its deeds -- and even the temporal judgment that comes upon sinful man in the present age.

2. Your "katakrino" was visited upon Christ!  And if you are truly "in Christ" then you will not ever know the katakrino of God.

But you may know the severe paideia, i.e., the "discipline" of God when you are stiff-necked and wayward.  Sometimes, one is tempted to think, "If God treats his beloved this way, what must he do to his enemies?"  But God's paideia is always corrective and proceeds out of the love of God.  And because of the justification of God in which he has imputed the righteousness of Christ to you, he treats you as profoundly and absolutely beloved.

If you are "justified" you will not experience katakrino but you may experience paideia, and you will, if you don't behave.  But remember that it is always corrective, always beneficial!  It is always the voice, not of the divine Judge but, of the Heavenly Father!  As a pastor I have known numerous persons who have experienced the fruition of the wild oats they have once sown.  In some cases God mitigates the result of our sin; in other cases, he is not pleased to do so and we have to deal with the consequence of our sins.  But in any case the discipline is the discipline of a loving Heavenly Father toward his beloved child.  It is our responsibility to listen and submit and to avoid like the plague the attitude of a spoiled child who is rebellious in the face of parental discipline.  To do so is to compound the rebellion.  On occasion, he takes the person out of the world just like a parent taking his natural child out of public view when he misbehaves so as to not disgrace the family name.

It is our responsibility to listen to the rebuke, discerning there the divine judgment, and to love God even more because of his long-suffering and faithfulness and persistence and to remedy the flaw in every way possible.

Have you ever had God bring his discipline upon your life?  Do not despair!  But accept it graciously, and accept it correctively and constructively; accept it with great rejoicing that God loves you and loves you so much that he keeps after you and will not let you fall by the wayside.

As you may know, I have been a student of the middle ages -- the time before the Reformation opened up this Romans' doctrine of justification.  And in the middle ages many, many people were terrified of God and of his eternal judgment.  And it was often that, even the people who gave the most evidence of being "in Christ" who were terrified.  Often people who had the most evidence of their justification were trying to perform intense ascetic and religious practices to convince themselves and God that they were his. 

But the assurance of being "in Christ" and having been justified is not found in remedial good works or religious devotion but in accepting the provision for their salvation that God has made.  Since the Reformation we clearly understand this Romans' truth and do not have to revert to a time of serious deficiency in theology that many of our compatriots are doing.  But we may echo the glorious truth of "8: 1-2!"  It belongs to you, if you are "in Christ."  It belongs to you!  This is the "normal Christian life!"

When I was young, it was common to read newspaper stories about rich recluses dying of starvation and poverty.  I suppose that the fact that they lived through the Great "depression" is the reason that we do not hear of such people nowadays.  The story was typically about some person who had insufficient nourishment and was living in an unheated, dumpy, one-roomed apartment in New York City and who was very much in need of medical care.  And it would turn out that they would have a couple of million dollars stuffed under their dirty mattress that was thrown on the floor.  Two million dollars and yet dying of exposure and curable sickness!  If you have really accepted Christ as your Savior and do not experience the fruits of knowledge about justification, you are like one of these millionaire paupers; for you are the possessor of a justification that is more precious than gold.  And yet you live like a pauper!  It is your treasure!  It is your precious heritage! ("8: 1-2")

Learn this lesson!  Those of you who are young and are truly Christians, learn it early in your Christian experience. ("8: 1-2")

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