Tonight's study focuses on freedom from sin and death. If you're a Christian but do not know what it means to be saved, or you think sin is something bad that we simply need to avoid, we need to reconsider these things in this study. We will study how sin affects the Christian life tonight. Sin neither controls you, nor we it.
(A) Life comes to us only through Christ who sets us free from sin (Rom. 8:2)
Paul mentions two principles in Romans 8:2 -- the law of Spirit of life and law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit refers to the law of the Holy Spirit and the law of sin and death refers to our state of judgment and death. By reading verse 2 without the word "law", we see it more clearly. We can read this as "the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from sin and death.”
Paul mentions two more things about the “law of the Spirit of life” in verse 2.
- The law "set(s) us free".
Paul is speaking of a very specific freedom here. He is using it to describe freedom from the law of sin and death. What does it mean here? Perhaps we can first consider the ways people try to gain their freedom. The opposite of being free is being enslaved or imprisoned. Are there people today that feel like they are imprisoned? Some people might feel imprisoned in poverty or irrelevance; they may feel like they are unimportant. These days, people understand freedom and freedom from the army or the government, more civil rights like LGBT rights, freedom from restrictions or freedom of speech. Some people may also feel that they have no purpose in life.
People who are imprisoned always try and escape this restriction through rationality. The rational response for example to being trapped in poverty is to pursue money. Very similarly, if you are trapped in unimportance, you will seek to be important. If you are trapped in loneliness you will try and get married or have a lot of friends. Your personal understanding of freedom is what you put your hope in. It could be your career, a person or a possession. These are things that our world deems as good and important today. But all these things will pass away eventually. They may even fade away in your lifetime. People can lose their reputation, their career, their relationships and their money overnight.
As Christians, we are free from all these restrictions. But what does that mean? To be free from sin means that you are no longer under its control. Being free from the control of sin doesn't mean that you don't sin anymore. We covered this last week in Romans 7, where even Paul admits that he sins. Freedom from sin involves a lot of other things and we will cover them in this study. If we are free from sin, we become more able to resist sin and its power. We are able to be blessings to others and inherit God's blessings as well. One way that we are free from sin is that we are free from the hold of things that are temporary and we can instead focused on what is eternal, God Himself.
- This freedom "in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death"
This freedom is a condition -- you can only be free of the law of sin and death if you are in Christ Jesus. We have just covered something very complex. Sin is being apart from Christ. Sin is death. Sin is being outside of Christ, if life is being in Christ. Sin is being in bondage/imprisonment/enslavement. Therefore, sin is not just moral failure. It really means that if we are sinners, we are outside of Christ. We don't often think about this because it offends non-Christians. If we say that we are free, that means that everyone else is a slave and will die. Everyone who dies is a slave because they are outside of Christ. These are two parallel lines that never ever touch.
The following are two examples of misunderstandings that people often have:
(a) Some people say that I am in Christ, I am still a slave to my sin and God doesn't love me. There is no hope and God doesn't love me. I am dead. OR
(b) I am not a Christian, I am sinful but God will receive me somehow.
Both of these ideas are false. Romans 8:2 tells us plainly that if we are in Christ, we are free from the law of sin and death. The Christian knows that if you are on the wrong path, all that you call freedom is not truly freedom. The only true freedom we can get is found in Christ. Does this desciribe you? Where is your freedom? Are you aware of that freedom or are you looking for another form of freedom?
(B) Christ has justified us by fulfilling the requirements of the law (Rom. 8:3-4)
This law is also described to have been weakened by the flesh. In Romans 7:7-8, Paul identifies two steps to the weakening of the law by sin.
(1) Knowledge of sin. Before we had the law, we did not know what sin was. Once the law arrives, then we know what sin is.
(2) Desire to sin or temptation to sin. Once we know what sin is, sin then produces in us, desires for that sin.
Do you now understand why Christ had to die for us on the cross? Do you understand, as the song we sung earlier said, why it was your sin that left him there? The reason is because even the law – itself holy, righteous and good, and designed to make God’s people holy and righteous, was itself entirely crippled by the sinfulness of our nature, a nature that is utterly opposed to God.
How, then, did God accomplish what the law could not do? Let us examine Romans 8:3b closely.
| Verse fragment | Paraphrase | Significance |
| By sending his own son… | Jesus Christ was sent by God. | Why is this important? God couldn't have sent anyone else. There was only one person who was perfect enough for the job. There is no one else who was perfect and righteous. |
| In the likeness of sinful flesh… | In human form. | Humans experience temptation, pain and suffering. The significance of this is that he had to experience everything that humans suffer. Happiness, joy, sorrow and heartbreak. He understands everything that we are going through. He understands when are sad or happy. |
| And for sin… | For sin. | This is another way of saying that Christ was sent as a sin offering. The way that we understand this is coloured by the OT. In Leviticus, we learnt that a law was passed that required the Lord’s people to sacrifice for their sins daily. They had to give a sin offering daily. The sin offering had to be a spotless animal, just like Christ was without sin. They slit the throat of the animal and cut it into pieces just like Christ bled and was flayed for us. Lastly, the animal is burned. Christ on the cross was cut off from God when he cried out to Him. That means that Jesus actually went through hell on that cross. |
| He condemned sin in the flesh | He won victory over sin. The penalty for sin has been paid. | Christ was our substitute. He was sent by the Father and came in human form to be our sin offering so that he could condemn sin in the flesh and win victory over it. He did all of this so that we wouldn't have to. We couldn't do any of these things. |