Paul describes the perspective of Christian life as the complete overcoming of death. The logic is simple: we Christians are part of the same spiritual process into which Jesus Christ is included. The same breath of God acts in us, the fullness of which Jesus bears within Himself...
Paul describes the perspective of Christian life as the complete overcoming of death. The logic is simple: we Christians are part of the same spiritual process into which Jesus Christ is included. The same breath of God acts in us, the fullness of which Jesus bears within Himself. And if in Him this fullness was ultimately manifested as the triumph of life and the complete defeat of death, then the same thing must happen with us. Indeed, speaking of Christianity, we are not speaking of a series of different events, even if they are connected with one another.
The matter is precisely one single spiritual process. The process of the Kingdom entering the world. And of the path of its King, who is inseparable from His Kingdom. Because He bears within Himself the fullness of this Kingdom. And it is precisely through Him that it enters the world. This is the process in which we Christians participate. Each according to the measure of his understanding and awareness of what is happening.
And at the foundation of this process is the breath of God. The Holy Spirit. For it is precisely God's breath, permeating the world from its very creation, that makes this world the Kingdom. Already on the first day of creation, when God separated light and darkness. And later, when evil entered the world, God's breath opposed this evil, and a person who felt it received a certain experience of the life of the Kingdom, still small and weak, but already genuine. And with Christ's coming into the world, when the Kingdom, according to His own words, "drew near," this breath was revealed as the foundation of the Kingdom, as that which binds all its inhabitants together.
It binds them both to one another and to its King. So that everyone who shares in the Kingdom now also shares the path of the King and the fullness of life that He bears. But, of course, on one condition: the breath of God with which the Kingdom is permeated must become an inseparable part of the Christian's life. It must enter his soul and heart. It must define his life. Not only from outside, but also from within. Otherwise nothing will come of it. Then the action of this breath in each of us Christians will become the same as it became in Christ. And His life will then become our life too. And death will retreat, for there is no place for it in the Kingdom.
8
8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation - Either for things present or past. Now he comes to deliverance and liberty.The apostle here resumes the thread of his discourse, which was interrupted, Rom 7:7.
8:2 The law of the Spirit - That is, the gospel. Hath freed me from the law of sin and death - That is, the Mosaic dispensation.
8:3 For what the law - Of Moses. Could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh - Incapable of conquering our evil nature. If it could, God needed not to have sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh - We with our sinful flesh were devoted to death. But God sending his own Son, in the likeness of that flesh, though pure from sin, condemned that sin which was in our flesh; gave sentence, that sin should be destroyed, and the believer wholly delivered from it.
8:4 That the righteousness of the law - The holiness it required, described, Rom 8:11.Might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit - Who are guided in all our thoughts, words, and actions, not by corrupt nature, but by the Spirit of God. From this place St. Paul describes primarily the state of believers, and that of unbelievers only to illustrate this.
8:5 They that are after the flesh - Who remain under the guidance of corrupt nature. Mind the things of the flesh - Have their thoughts and affections fixed on such things as gratify corrupt nature; namely, on things visible and temporal; on things of the earth, on pleasure, (of sense or imagination,) praise, or riches. But they who are after the Spirit - Who are under his guidance. Mind the things of the Spirit - Think of, relish, love things invisible, eternal; the things which the Spirit hath revealed, which he works in us, moves us to, and promises to give us.
8:6 For to be carnally minded - That is, to mind the things of the flesh. Is death - The sure mark of spiritual death, and the way to death everlasting. But to be spiritually minded - That is, to mind the things of the Spirit. Is life - A sure mark of spiritual life, and the way to life everlasting. And attended with peace - The peace of God, which is the foretaste of life everlasting; andpeace with God, opposite to the enmity mentioned in the next verse.
8:7 Enmity against God - His existence, power, and providence.
8:8 They who are in the flesh - Under the government of it.
8:9 In the Spirit - Under his government. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ - Dwelling and governing in him. He is none of his - He is not a member of Christ; not a Christian; not in a state of salvation. A plain, express declaration, which admits of no exception. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
8:10 Now if Christ be in you - Where the Spirit of Christ is, there is Christ. The body indeed is dead - Devoted to death.Because of sin - Heretofore committed. But the Spirit is life - Already truly alive. Because of righteousness - Now attained.From Rom 8:13, St. Paul, having finished what he had begun, Rom 6:1, describes purely the state of believers.
8:12 We are not debtors to the flesh - We ought not to follow it.
8:13 The deeds of the flesh - Not only evil actions, but evil desires, tempers, thoughts. If ye mortify - Kill, destroy these.Ye shall live - The life of faith more abundantly here, and hereafter the life of glory.
8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God - In all the ways of righteousness. They are the sons of God - Here St. Paul enters upon the description of those blessings which he comprises, Rom 8:30, in the word glorified; though, indeed, he does not describe mere glory, but that which is still mingled with the cross. The sum is, through sufferings to glory.
8:15 For ye - Who are real Christians. Have not received the spirit of bondage - The Holy Ghost was not properly a spirit of bondage, even in the time of the Old Testament. Yet there was something of bondage remaining even in those who then had received the Spirit. Again - As the Jews did before. We - All and every believer. Cry - The word denotes a vehement speaking, with desire, confidence, constancy. Abba, Father - The latter word explains the former. By using both the Syriac and the Greek word, St. Paul seems to point out the joint cry both of the Jewish and gentile believers.The spirit of bondage here seems directly to mean, those operations of the Holy Spirit by which the soul, on its first conviction, feels itself in bondage to sin, to the world, to Satan, and obnoxious to the wrath of God. This, therefore, and the Spirit of adoption, are one and the same Spirit, only manifesting itself in various operations, according to the various circumstances of the persons.
8:16 The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirit - With the spirit of every true believer, by a testimony distinct from that of his own spirit, or the testimony of a good conscience.Happy they who enjoy this clear and constant.
8:17 Joint heirs - That we may know it is a great inheritance which God will give us for he hath given a great one to his Son.If we suffer with him - Willingly and cheerfully, for righteousness' sake. This is a new proposition, referring to what follows.