Freedom

Romans 7 & 8

Perhaps you are a person with a sincere desire to live your life pleasing to the Lord but find that your Christian life is more of an experience of frustration and disappointment than anything else. Perhaps, you’ve come to this blog site feeling defeated, discouraged or weakened by sinful habits. I know this happens to Christians and for some, it can be the norm. But I also know Hosea 4:6 says “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” The question you need to settle is this: “Am I experiencing spiritual defeat due to lack of knowing the full extent of what Christ has accomplished through His redemptive work on the cross?” Think about it. The Lord has equipped us with every source of strength and power needed to come out a winner. It takes rigorist training to win Olympic gold and yet, only one contestant can take it home. The Christian race is different. We all can take home gold. So let’s go for the gold.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles...running with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:1& 2) However, the issue may run a little deeper than simply throwing of a garment of sin that’s impeding our progress in the faith. For others, it may be a lack of knowledge or a theological understanding of the finished work of Christ on the cross. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” If freedom is what you want than you have come to the right place. Christ has made you a winner and win you will!

Roman 7: 14-25

How did our Lord make us winners? The Apostle Paul admitted he was a constant loser until he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus. He tried hard to be a good person but fell short of the mark. Paul said, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

Isn’t it frustrating when you find yourself succumbing to the same temptation; repeating the same mistakes and overtaken by sin? It’s absolutely frustrating! Paul said “I had every good intention to be good; but then he admits, “We know the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.”

Paul’s admitting that that the life he lived as a Pharisee he lived “as a slave to sin.” Wow! Now that’s a confession if ever I heard one. He’s expressing spiritual frustration and admitting the truth about himself. The Apostle Paul was a devote man before He met Christ; a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Paul said, “according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee...if anyone thinks he has reason to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eight day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” (Philippians 3:5) Paul is confessing, outright, to be a slave to sin before his encounter with Christ.

Listen to what he wrote in Romans 7:21

 “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”

Let we give you a definition of the word “law.”

Webster Dictionary says a law is a binding custom or practise of a community: a rule of conduct or action...enforced by a controlling authority.” The Apostle Paul is admitting before he met Jesus his life was regulated by a power called “the law of sin.” 

There’s a regulatory power or principle that operates within every man known as the “the law of sin”. It’s as though there’s a legislative power embedded in the DNA of every human being. No amount of therapy, counselling, positive thinking, psychology, education, social or religious conditioning can alter this controlling power at work in our bodies. Humanly speaking, there’s no earthly cure for this demise.

Romans 7:8

Paul throws up his hands in despair and cry’s out to God saying “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

The Damascus experience changed everything for Paul. Paul’s name was Saul before his encounter with Christ and after his encounter with Jesus our Lord gave him a new name. He was given a new name to go with his new nature. It was there on a dusty road Saul met the risen Savior who entered into his life and smashed the regulating power that held him a slave to sin.

Romans 8:1

Now, Paul can write and say “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

“The law of sin” was no longer controlling or regulating Paul’s life. He’s now free from its legislating authority. He’s no longer a slave to sin. The problem with some Christians is that they think that “the law of sin” and “the law of the Spirit of life” can co-exist. It`s one or the other. It can’t be both. It`s either the “The law of sin” or its “the law of the Spirit of life.” Paul said, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” (Romans 8”9b)

 Some look for freedom from guilt and condemnation but do not expect to be set free the power of sin that controls their live. But what God has done in Christ through the cross sets us free from the power of sin. It is not only freedom from guilt; it’s also freedom from the enslaving power of sin. “But whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”

Romans 8:2

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of a sin and death.”

What is the law of the Spirit of Life? The Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of life” because he is the author of life and He is life. The word “law” is used as regulating or setting into motion a power or a legislating authority. Now that we are in Christ “the law of the Spirit of Life” operates in us to make us free from the power of sin which is unto death. The power given by Holy Spirit is unto life, and therefore, it makes us free. When Christ enters into our lives He breaks and cancels the law of sin controlling the flesh. He brings judgement upon it. Only Jesus can bring judgement upon the law of sin so as to destroy its power; nothing else can do this. This is exactly what God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.

Romans 8:3-4

“For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by sinful nature, God did by sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”

Condemned here means destroyed. He cancelled, or it can be said, Christ “smashed” the strong hold of sin in our bodies, that controlling, legislating authority that holds us captive to sinful habits. 

The scripture says that Jesus came in the “likeness of human flesh.”  It doesn’t say He came in “sinful flesh.”

When the Father sent the Son into this world of sin, of misery, and of death, He sent him in a manner that brought him into the closest relation to sinful humanity possible without becoming Himself sinful.

He himself was holy and undefiled. The word “likeness” guards this truth. But he came in the same human nature. And that is the purpose of saying “in the likeness of sinful flesh.”

The Father sent the Son for no other reason than for the purpose of dealing with sin. It was to deal with sin that He came and it brought Him into the closest possible relation to sinful humanity without becoming Himself sinful. And in doing this he destroyed sin in the flesh and overthrew its power.

Today is Freedom Day for you. Christ will break every form of addiction, every sinful habit, every controlling spirit over your life because “greater is He that is in you and then He that’s in the world and you are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.”

Romans 8:5-9

Now, we are free to live; I mean really live! You’re to live in complete spiritual freedom from sin. Always and keep this in mind every day of your life that you’re free from guilt, shame, free, condemnation, addiction, and every kind of slavery to fleshly sins.

Do you not realize that the things you think about serves as an indicator of your spiritual freedom? What consumes your thinking? What’s your deepest desire? What’s does your heart long for? Are your thoughts constantly upon worldly and fleshly things or, is your mind on things above?  Is your mind free from sin and pure before God? Or are you a slave to sexual perversion, pornography, homosexuality, alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, fits of rage, gossiping, jealousy, envy? The list can go on but the buck stops with Christ.

Jesus not only blotted out our sin’s guilt and brought us near to God. He also vanquished sin as a power and set us free from its enslaving dominion. The way to remain free is be filled over and over and over again with “Spirit of life.”

“The law of the Spirit of life” is the regulating and controlling power of the Holy Spirit. We are to ‘walk not after the flesh but the Spirit.’ The Spirit is the Holy Spirit and He is the directing power in our lives not the flesh but the Holy Spirit. It is by His indwelling and direction the righteousness of the law comes to its fulfillment in our lives, and by the operation of grace which is an empowering grace. There’s no contradiction or opposition between law and grace. The law demands and the Holy Spirit energize – “the law is Spiritual.”

This gospel is designed to set you free! Are you free? Take your freedom! “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”