Reconnecting with the Gospel pt. 43 – A Greater Creation

/ adamrenken
Last time we labored together to see the depth of our condemnation as sinners born of Adam and how great a salvation we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Today we’re going to be looking at what God has for us in Romans 8:2-8.  What God through Paul is wanting to unpack for us in this section of scripture is both how God accomplished removing our condemnation and what that means for us who are “in Christ.”

Romans 8:2-8 – “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.“

“The law” was given in the Old Testament and inlcuded the over 600 rules and regulations by which God ordained man should live.  The law was good, showing us the righteousness of God and what we needed to fulfill in order to be in a right relationship with God.  The problem of the law, we saw back in Romans 5, began with the sin of Adam.  As a result of Adam’s sin, everyone born through him inherited his sin.  Therefore, everyone of us that have been born “of the flesh” through Adam had an insurmountable weakness.  We could see the righteousness of God from the law, but our flesh would not submit to it – it was our nature to run from it.  That is why Jesus came in “the likeness of flesh”.  In order to be our sinless savior Jesus was not born through the line of Adam, not born of the flesh; He was born of the Spirit of God through a virgin.  Therefore, Jesus did not inherit man’s sin nature, and lived a perfectly righteous life under the law.  Jesus was not “weakened by the flesh” like each of us have been.  By living a perfectly righteous life under the law, Jesus did what all of us were incapable and unwilling of doing. 

Christ’s holiness was not limited to the law – He was perfectly, infinitely Holy.  Therefore, God demonstrated His love and mercy by taking all of the sin of believers past, present, and future and placing it on Christ.  The condemnation that man had by being born in the flesh became the condemnation of Christ who bore our sin.  2 Corinthians 5:21 – “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Galatians 3:13 – “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”  When Christ died, we were with Him, because our sin was with Him.  When He died for sin, we died to sin.  Our physical death is a testimony to the wages that our sinful flesh requires, but in Christ we have a great hope.  Just as Christ was raised to life, we too will be raised by the Holy Spirit.  Just as Christ was led by the Spirit, we too are led by the Spirit of God.  As the Spirit empowered Christ to do the will of the Father, so too will the Spirit move in us to guide our steps according to the will of God.  We therefore no longer walk according to the flesh, according to it’s guidance, but we are guided by the Spirit of God.

This is what Paul proclaims in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 
So that is how God accomplished removing out condemnation.  He accomplished it through the Lord Jesus Christ, by placing our unrighteousness on His infinitely righteous Son.  The implications for us who trust in what God has done for us in Christ, is eternal life and reconciliation to God.  Though our sin and flesh was condemned with Christ, we have life through God, the Holy Spirit.  God also tells us what that looks like to live by the Spirit and how to discern living by the Spirit of God from living according to the flesh (the Spirit Filled Christian vs. the natural man).  God tells us that “setting our mind” on the Spirit is evidence of the Spirit of God at work in us.  Setting your mind on the flesh is no large thing, it is the natural state of anyone apart from Christ.  Setting the mind on the Spirit though, requires us to be a new creation; a massive work of God to change the inclination of our heart and mind away from pursuing joy in the world and towards a fullness of joy in knowing and being known by God.
What does it maen to set the mind on the Spirit vs. setting the mind on the flesh?  Now some of you would expect me to compare a good work, like lets say feeding the homeless against something clearly sinful like adultery.  If I did that, it would be of no help to us, because the same person could do both of those things and have a mind set on the flesh in both.  So I want instead to use an example that Paul uses in scripture – preaching the gospel.  There is a way to preach the gospel that flows from a mind set on the Spirit and there is a way to preach the gospel from a mind set on the flesh.
Paul says in Phlippians 1:15-18 – “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will.  The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.  The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.  What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
So Paul says that one group did a good work of preaching the gospel (something few Christians earnestly do) yet they did it out of a heart that was envious of Paul, perhaps the fame he had as a minister of God’s word.  Their mind was set on the flesh.  Another group preached the gospel out of love.  To encourage Paul who was imprisoned to know that the message of God was continuing to grow outside the walls of his imprisonment, his heart’s desire.  Their mind was set on the Spirit of God, to desire to seek after and do the will of God. 
Even as Christians we can find ourselves setting our mind the flesh even in doing “good things”.  As a teacher of God’s word, there is a great temptation to become prideful or to desire others to think highly of you.  How I combat my flesh in that, is to continue to remind myself that the Kingdom of God is far greater than one person, and to make much of how God is using other people.  In that way, my mind ceases to consider myself in what I’m doing, but only what God is desiring to accomplish.  The rebuke of the Lord is helpful in this too – God has a way of humbling you if you start to set your mind on your flesh. 
So my encouragement to all of us is to consider the work of God in Jesus to remove our condemnation and rejoice.  God has done this, and it is finished.  In reponse, my encouragement for all of us who known and love our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is to consider how we can actively be setting our mind on the Spirit each day, in prayer asking God to move in us and through us.  God who gave us His son, and sealed us with the Holy Spirit, Christ in us, will meet us in that desire each day.  By God’s grace, Christ will be formed in us – He will increase and we will decrease, for His glory and our joy. 
2 Corinthians 5:16-17 – “ From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  We who were dead have life in Christ, the Spirit of God in us, and we will never be the same.
Grace and Peace,
Adam

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