In the previous devotional we began looking at why Jesus came from Romans 8. Paul says the reason there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus is because the law of the Spirit of life sets us free from the law of sin and death. So, in Romans 8 Paul’s going to talk about the law of life that we get from Jesus.
This is what we’ll look at in today’s video.
The Old Testament law mandates the control of external behavior and relies on obedience to be successful. The law is good, but as Paul says it is impotent because the desires that control people are evil and are opposed to righteousness. The law was also weakened because it is just that, an external control, and our problem is not an external one. It’s an internal one. External legislation cannot fix a sin broken heart, a sin broken identity, or sin broken mind. Sin is heart deep, identity deep, and mind deep. And the only thing external controls can do is to prove how laws prove how sinful we are. So, it’s a law, Paul says, of sin and death.
Paul speaks further about this in other places. For example, in Galatians 3:20 Paul tells us that no one can be righteous before God through the law. He says the law just ends up showing how sinful we are. In the gospels we hear Jesus himself saying that breaking an external law is not the reason we are unclean. The reason that we break the law is because of the sin that’s already in our heart, that comes out of us. And that is why we do wrong.
The law is powerless to transform the heart, the mind, or the identity.
Therefore, Jesus, Paul says, came as one of us, and in his own flesh condemned sin and fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law. And that is how Jesus achieved freedom from the condemnation of the law for us. Because righteousness can now be fulfilled in him; it can be ours through him.
Freedom is available for all who by faith do not live following desires of sin or following attempted controls of the flesh through the law. But freedom is available to us who live in step-by-step communion and obedience with the law of life from the Spirit of God; those who live by receiving the Lord’s cleansing and transforming presence.