So then there is now no condemnation for those who are in Messiah
Jesus,
2 because the law of the spirit of life in Messiah Jesus has set you free
from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the Law could not do because it was
weak due to human nature, God did. By commissioning[928]
His own Son in
the likeness of sinful human nature,[929]
and for sin, He condemned sin in
human nature
4 so that the requirement of the Law[930] may be fulfilled in us,
who live not following human nature but following the spirit.
5 For those
who live according to human nature have their mindset shaped by human
nature, but those who live according to the spirit have their mindset shaped
by the spirit.
6 The mindset of human nature results in death, but the mindset of the spirit results in life and peace.
7 For the mindset of human nature is hostile to God because it does not and cannot submit to the law of God. 8 Those who are under human nature cannot please God. 9 But you are not controlled by human nature, but by the spirit, if indeed that spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the spirit of Messiah, that person does not belong to him.
[931] 10 But if Messiah is in you, your body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of being and doing right. 11 And if the spirit of the One who resurrected Jesus from the dead lives in you,
the One who resurrected Messiah Jesus from the dead will also raise your
mortal bodies through His spirit living in you.
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not under obligation to human
nature, to live by its standard. 13 For if you live by such a standard, you are going to die. But if by the spirit you are putting to death the actions of your lower nature, you will live.
[932] 14 For all who are being led by the spirit of God
are the children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery, leading you back to fear, but you received a spirit of sonship, by which we cry, “Abba,
dear Father!”
16 The spirit itself testifies with our spirit that we are children of
God.
17 And since we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with the
Messiah — if we suffer with him so that we may share in the glory with him.
[933] 18 For I am convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not even worth
comparing with the coming glory which is going to be revealed in us.
[934] 19 For the creation is eagerly waiting for the public revealing of the children of
God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own accord but because of the One who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay and share the freedom of the glory of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation is groaning and suffering birth pains
together until now.
23 Not only creation, but we ourselves also, who have the
first fruits, namely the spirit, groan within ourselves as we wait for God to give us
sonship,[935]
the redemption of our whole selves. 24 For we were saved in hope.[936]
Yet hope which is seen is not hope at all, because who hopes for what they
already see? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it
and persevere.
26 In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we should pray, but the spirit itself intercedes for us with groans that cannot be uttered.
[937] 27 And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the
spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know God works for good[938]
in all things for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those God foreknew,[939] He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that the Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those
whom He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also made
right; and those He made right, He also glorified.
[940] 31 So then what should we say about[941]
these things? If God[942]
is for us,
who can be against us?
32 Since God did not spare His own Son, but gave him
up for all of us,[943]
how will He not also, along with him, freely give us
everything? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s chosen ones?[944]
It is God who makes us right,
[945] 34 so who will condemn us? It is Messiah
Jesus who died — even more, who was resurrected — who is now at the right hand of God,[946]
interceding for us.
35 Who will separate us
from the love of Messiah? Will oppression, distress, persecution, famine,
nakedness, danger or violence?
36 Just as it is written, “For your sake we are
being killed all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are completely victorious through Him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor demons,
nor the present, nor the future, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Messiah Jesus our lord.
Commentary
Romans
[927]
Paul certainly did not consider the sad situation in ch. 7 to be the continuous experience of the
converted Christian. The triumph must be demonstrated in our present lives, since we “have been set
free from the law of sin and death” (8:2).
[928]
“Sending someone is established in Judeo-Christian thought as a way of expressing the
messenger’s or prophet’s authorization, without any reference to his place of origin (e.g. Ps. 105:26;
Jer. 1:7; Mic. 6:4; Lk. 4:26; 20:13)” (James Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary, Romans, p. 420).
[929]
Jesus himself had to learn obedience through the things which he suffered (Heb. 5:8). God
obviously could not learn obedience! Jesus was like us in every way, except that he was sinless.
[930]
The law in the spirit and not the letter (7:6).
[931]
That is, they are not Christian in the biblical sense. This means that Jehovah’s Witnesses
exclude themselves from a biblical definition of a Christian, unless they claim (rarely) to be part of the
special group which they name the 144,000.
[932]
Both now and eventually by resurrection or surviving till Jesus comes back, you will live
forever by gaining indestructible life.
[933]
2 Tim. 2:12: “If we suffer with him we will also reign as kings with him” (cp. Dan 7:14, 18,
22, 27; Mt. 19:28). Achieving salvation in the Kingdom means gaining the honor of administering the
world with Jesus in the first ever successful world government. To this the whole Bible looks forward
with breathless excitement and anticipation.
[934]
Not just revealed “to us,” but revealed “in us,” since we are going to be glorified in the future
Kingdom of glory on earth. “Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their
Father” (Mt. 13:43, citing Dan. 12:3).
[935]
Christians are of course born again now, and are thus spiritual sons now, when they accept the
Gospel of the Kingdom (as in Acts 8:12), but sonship is completed finally at the future coming of Jesus,
when immortality is conferred on the faithful. A foretaste of that future life can be enjoyed now in the
spirit as a downpayment or first installment (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).
[936]
Salvation is in three tenses of the verb — past, continuing in the present (we are being saved)
and completed in the future. The doctrine of “once saved always saved” is entirely foreign to the NT.
[937]
This is certainly not a reference to “speaking in tongues,” since “languages” are words and
utterances and not groans.
[938]
This statement is certainly not a promise that bad things cannot happen to Christians. But the
assurance given here is that God and Jesus continue to work in whatever circumstances believers
experience.
[939]
This is not the Calvinism of double-predestination. Jesus noted that the Pharisees “resisted the
will of God” (Lk. 7:30), and Paul charged those who refused his preaching with “counting themselves
unworthy of the Life of the Age to Come” (Acts 13:46). Christian choice and persistence to the end is
needed for final salvation.
[940]
Note that future glory is expressed in the past tense, just as in John 17:5, where the glory Jesus
“had with” God is the promised glory of the future. That same glory had already been given to
believers who had not yet been born when Jesus promised it to them in John 17:22, 24. Matt. 6:1 speaks
of a reward already stored up with God. We have it, and yet it will be given to us in reality in the future.
[941]
“About” here is pros in the Greek, that is, “concerning.” Cp. the word which is concerning or
about (pros) God in John 1:1.
[942]
As very often in the NT “God” in Scripture is “the God,” the One God of the Bible, of Israel
and of Jesus and certainly not the triune God who appears nowhere in the Bible as God. The only God
recognized by Jesus is the “one God” of the creed of Israel, affirmed by Jesus in Mark 12:29, agreeing
with a unitarian Jew.
[943]
Since God cannot die (1 Tim. 6:16), it is quite obvious that Jesus, the Son of God, cannot be
God, making two who are God.
[944]
Note that the elect as in Matt. 22:14 and 24:31 are not presently unconverted Jews, but the
international church, the saints. The elect, the saints, the true people of God will be gathered to meet
Jesus after (post) the time of the Great Tribulation in the future.
[945]
This making us right is a process, ongoing and reaching finality when we gain immortality at
the resurrection and return of Jesus to this earth.
[946]
The adoni, my lord, not Lord of Psalm 110:1. Adoni is the non-Deity title, all 195 times. It is
never a reference to God who is Adonai, the supreme Lord.
Romans