There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1).
I used to make frequent road trips between Denver and Kansas City. For any of you who have made this drive you know how monotonous this trip can be. You can almost point your car east and not steer for the next 600 miles.
What made this trip even more boring was the imposition of the 55 MPH speed limit that was put into effect across the country in the mid-70s to save gas. It became painful to make the drive.
In recent years, that 55 MPH speed limit has been changed. Most of the drive can be made at 75 MPH. It doesn’t change the lack of scenery, but it makes it go by a little faster.
You might be wondering what this has to do with today’s text. Imagine you are making the above drive, but you don’t know that the law has been changed. You are putting along at 55 wondering why everyone else is flying past you. You really want to push down on the accelerator a bit, but you don’ t want to break the law. Oblivious to the new law, you putt along under the old. The same can be true in our spiritual lives.
There is a new “law” or principle that is now in effect for the believer. In this part of Romans, Paul calls it “the law of the Spirit of life”. He tells us that this new law has set us free from “the law of sin and death”. That was the law of performance that could never get us into the right relationship with God, and constantly made us aware of our inability to do so. We labored under the burden of a performance principle that we consistently failed to keep. If you were a Jew, that “law” was the Law of Moses. If you were a non-Jew, it was the law of God’s revelation in nature and the law of conscience.
What Jesus did on the cross fulfilled the Law of Moses. When we believe in Jesus and receive him, we are no longer under that old law. Performance is replaced by faith: faith in the finished work of Jesus being “reckoned” to our account. Our sin was crucified with him, and his righteousness was accounted to us. It has been called the “Great Exchange”.
As part of that exchange, we come under a new “law”. We can never earn God’s favor by our performance. And in what is a radical truth that I fear even most believers don’t fully believe, God is not even keeping score. And if God is not keeping score, there can be no condemnation. Condemnation comes from a “guilty” verdict in the “courts” of God. But you can’t be condemned when the “speed limit” has been raised to infinity!
This truth is so radical, that early in church history, it was lost. When we don’t grasp this truth, we tend to do something really stupid. We make a new “law”. The “law of the good Christian”. We set up another performance standard. It is called religion.
Being religious is much easier than walking in the dynamic of the Spirit. But it never accomplishes what God desires our lives to look like. When you walk in the Spirit, (what Paul here calls the “law of the Spirit of life”) you are not under any performance standard. Further, Paul says that we will fully meet the old laws righteous requirements. That is true positionally (always), and becomes true experientially as we mature spiritually and allow the Holy Spirit to dominate and guide our lives.
Even when we get sidetracked and begin to allow the old nature (what Paul calls “the flesh”) to be the dominant influence, we are not condemned. The Holy Spirit convicts, he doesn’t condemn. When he convicts, we are to agree with that sense of conviction. The word “confess” actually means “to agree with”. And when we confess, we ask Christ to take control again and fill us with the Holy Spirit. We immediately “push the accelerator” and speed up to 75 MPH, realizing that the “law” has changed.
This is really heavy-duty truth that we must master. If you need to know more, I’d advise you to check out the entire message I gave on this at the link below:
To hear more about this subject, check out: http://www.highlinecc.org/go/index.php/teaching/recent-sermons/sermon/19…