“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” -Romans 8:10 It should grab our attention that Paul says, “if Christ is in you.” Up till now, he has said “If the Spirit of God dwells in you.” And he will continue using […]
If In Fact The Spirit of God Dwells in You
“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.” -Romans 8:9 A concise summary of what Paul writes here is we become Christians by God’s Spirit. If the Spirit […]
Cannot Please God
“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.” -Romans 8:7–8 As Paul continues his explanation of the two potential states of mindedness (phronema/φρονημα) of the individual and how it relates […]
Two Trajectories of Mindedness
“For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” -Romans 8:6 The two ways of living have two different ends. For the man who sets his mind on the flesh, his end is death. For the man who sets his mind on […]
Living According To Is Setting One’s Mind On
“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.” -Romans 8:5 It is necessary for Paul to clarify the difference between those who “walk according to the flesh” and those […]
What God Has Done
“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 […]
Set Free By the Spirit of Life
“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” -Romans 8:2 Picking up the theme of law again, Paul contrasts the two possible states of a human being to explain the reason for his bold statement that there is now no condemnation. […]
No Condemnation in Christ Jesus
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” -Romans 8:1 There is a significant shift that takes place here based on what Paul has previously argued. Therefore connects his words of consolation in 8:1 to what has already been established in 7:6 (“the new way of the Spirit”). Furthermore, it […]
Jesus is the Answer
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” -Romans 7:25 Paul concludes his argument that the law is not sinful but sin is sinful by assuring his readers that the answer to […]
Wretched Man That I Am!
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” -Romans 7:24 Paul concludes his argument with this vehement exclamation: ταλαίπωρος ἄνθρωπος ἐγώ! ταλαίπωρος (Talaiporos) is a strong word and the only other time it’s used in the New Testament is in Revelation 3:17. The word means to be miserable, wretched, […]
Conflicting Laws
“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law […]
Nothing Good Dwells In Me
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now […]
The Law is Good
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that […]
I Do The Very Thing I Hate
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” -Romans 7:15 What Paul means exactly in this passage has been, in some theological circles, an ongoing debate; and, how one chooses to understand it carries notable implications. That said, the […]
Sold Under Sin
“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.” -Romans 7:14 The point of this verse is to highlight the contrast between spirit and flesh. The modern church has had two thousand years of experience with God’s spirit being poured out on and in his people, so […]
Sinful Beyond Measure
“Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.” -Romans 7:13 Something difficult for all humanity is the ability to see […]
Proved to be Death
“The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” -Romans 7:10–12 It is a most unfortunate surprise to those who desire righteousness as […]
When Sin Came Alive
“I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” -Romans 7:9 Continuing in his argument that the Law give life to sin, Paul illustrates using a reversal of conditions. He was alive before the Law but when it came on the scene, sin was brought […]
Sin Lies Dead
“But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.” -Romans 7:8 Paul personifies sin as if it were some sort of military operative waging war war against every human being. The commandment, though good and just in itself, is weaponized to […]
If It Had Not Been For The Law
“What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”” -Romans 7:7 Again Paul anticipates the […]
The New Way of the Spirit
Romans 7:1–6 (ESV): Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the […]
Death Nullifies the Law
“Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?” Romans 7:1 This pericope, for which verse 7 is the introduction, references back to chapter 6:14; we should then see 6:15-23 as a kind of digressio—a rhetorical […]
Wage vs. Gift
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 Paul has been arguing for a new and better life in Christ using death vs. life and slave vs. free analogies. Here he boils down his argument to this succinct summary of […]
Slaves of God
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. -Romans 6:22 For when in the previous verses described their condition before Christ. But now describes their condition in Christ presently: they are no longer slaves to […]
When You Were Slaves You Were Free
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. -Romans 6:20–21 (ESV) Using the principle of contraries (slave vs. free, sin vs. righteousness), Paul […]
So Now
“I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” -Romans 6:19 All of God’s revelation is a matter of condescension. Human reason […]
Free Indeed
“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” -Romans 6:17–18 Paul now gives thanks to God for the conversion that has taken […]
Poetic Knowledge in Education
One of the great joys of raising small children is witnessing their poetic and artistic appreciation of the world–even before they’re ever able to read or even speak fluently. Everything they learn and know is derived from a sensory-emotional experience of reality. This way of learning or coming to understand the world is what the […]
You Are Slaves of the One You Obey
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” -Romans 6:16 When Paul said By no means! in response to his rhetorical question as to whether or […]
What Then? Are We To Sin…?
“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” -Romans 6:15 At this point Paul is compelled to provide a refutatio for what he anticipates to be the next carnal argument against what he is teaching. In the previous verse (Romans 6:14), he had stated emphatically, […]
Not Under The Law But Under Grace
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no […]
So You Also
“For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” -Romans 6:10–11 Paul now applies to the present purpose of his letter his argument that we are in […]
The Dominion of Death
“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” -Romans 6:9 All humanity lives under the dominion of Death. In the modern world, humanity seeks to elude Death at all costs. They are obsessed with their god Progress and with progress’s priest, Science, whom […]
IF We Have Died With Christ
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” -Romans 6:8 Paul repeats what he said earlier (vs.4) that he might set the stage for what follows, namely that Christian must pursue the newness of life while they remain in their earthly tabernacle the same way they mortify […]
Set Free From Sin
“For one who has died has been set free from sin.” -Romans 6:7 Death, it has been said, is the great equalizer of men. Death puts everyone it touches out of commission. It takes from him all his accomplishments and all of his future. For the man in prison, death frees him from his cell. […]
Crucified With Christ
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” -Romans 6:6 Using an old man/new man narrative, Paul now begins to expound on the theological mechanics of that which he asserted in […]
United With Him
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” -Romans 6:5 The word translated united in this verse is the Greek word συμφυτος (symphytos), meaning organically united. The AV (KJV) translates it planted. It could also be translated engrafted. […]
Baptized Into Christ’s Death
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” […]
By No Means!
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” -Romans 6:1–2 Now we see what profound depths of God’s wisdom and saving grace Paul must plunder in order to make the gospel, so clearly laid […]
Grace Abounded All the More
“Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” -Romans 5:20–21 Paul now explains why the law was brought into the picture. In verses […]
Two Adams, Two Headships
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” -Romans 5:18–19 Paul, continuing his comparison, summarizes the […]
Not Its Own Cause
This post is partially inspired by the photo I’m posting here. The photo was taken at the SLC airport and is part of Delta’s “shared humanity” marketing campaign. This particular ad is striking because it speaks to the normalization of that which is unnatural and abnormal, something that in literature is symbolized by using the […]
We Shall Reign in Life
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” -Romans 5:17 Before moving to the next point of Paul’s argument, it is worth considering more deeply […]
Two Adams Contrasted
Romans 5:15–17 (ESV): 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one […]
The First Adam
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even […]
But Wait, There’s More!
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. -Romans 5:11 (ESV) In addition to rejoicing (boasting) in the hope of the glory of God and in our sufferings as well, we can also rejoice in God himself because Jesus Christ has completed our reconciliation. […]
Saved By Him
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. -Romans […]
God’s Love Is Greater
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:7–8 (ESV) To illustrate the extent of God’s love, Paul appeals to the unexpected and shows how […]
At The Right Time
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” -Romans 5:6 Here Paul begins a new argument founded on the previous assertion regarding the love of God being poured out to us. He will argue from the greater to the lessor. That is, he will show that if God […]
We Rejoice Knowing
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:3–5 While the believer is […]