Set Free (part 1)

For the law of life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. – Romans 8:2 (NET)

Paul writes this as a follow up to the statement of the first verse of the chapter, where we read that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). In these two verses, he twice uses the extraordinarily important phrase “in Christ Jesus.” It is in Christ Jesus, that is, in union with Christ Jesus, which can be summed up as believing in Jesus Christ as Lord through the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith, which has come through the preaching of the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. That salvation, indeed, is the setting free from the law of sin and death.

In union with Christ, and therefore being made to share in His Resurrection power by the faith-giving and belief affirming presence of the Holy Spirit, we are dragged out of our exile from God. We are converted, if you will, from being outside of His covenant family, to being inside His covenant family, and this, based on allegiance to Him that is demonstrated through the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Outside of the covenant, we were unable to bear God’s image. Outside of the covenant family, we were subject to the wrath of God against sin, which is death. Inside the covenant family, because we are in union with Christ, as demonstrated by calling Him Lord, which is the mark of the renewed covenant people of God, we have overcome death because Christ overcame death.

In the next verse, Paul goes on to write “For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh” (8:3a). Of course, we know that it was God’s people, Israel, that were given the law. Why were they given the law? Ultimately, it was to bring God glory. They were given the law as a way to approach that which God intended for humanity, but which had been rejected and lost in the fall. Unfortunately, at the fall, not only was mankind ejected from off the path of God’s purpose for the beings that He created in His image, but the power necessary to adequately bear that image and properly steward the creation and shine the light of God’s glory into the world was lost as well. Israel was in a better position to fully trust their God than was the rest of humanity, because of what they had seen and experienced at God’s hand owing to the covenant promises that had been made to Abraham, but they failed to trust, they failed to perform at the level of minimum expectation (no idolatry, reverence the sanctuary, keep the Sabbaths), and thus they failed to bear God’s image in the world.

God had intended for His people to be a light to the nations, to illumine the world through the knowledge of the blessings that their God would pour out upon them simply for being people that were faithful to the their covenant responsibilities. Owing to their idolatry, however, and the curses and exile that God brought upon His people---as promised if they succumbed to idolatry---Israel became a people that profaned the name of God, as the nations looked upon their experience, and responded with mocking and ridicule. Israel was to lead people to the knowledge of the providential, creative, and covenant God, and be a source of blessing not just for themselves, but for all the peoples of the world. The law was to be a tool in their hands for this purpose.

God wanted to free a family of people beyond national Israel from the effects of sin and death, but this could not be accomplished, because the law that was meant to help accomplish this thing was unable to be kept by those to whom it was given. Again, owing to the fall, man had lost the ability to be the creature that God created him to be. Even when they sincerely believed that it was being kept with a rigorous and scrupulous minutiae, in the years following the return from the Babylonian exile, through the time of Christ, this purpose of God for the world through His people was still left unaccomplished, because the intention of the law was being weakened through flesh. It was not being used as a means of attracting the nations, in full display of the blessings of providence, but now, was being used to keep Israel separate from the nations.

Israel was looking to its own house, looking for its own messiah, its own restoration, its own deliverance from exile through a new exodus, and its own new kingdom through which they would be set above all nations. They were looking for and expecting their God to act on their behalf, and only on their behalf, to set the world right according to their view. Because of that, the provisions of the law were being used as boundary markers and walls of separation. Essentially, Israel was unwilling to carry out God’s purpose and plan for the law, which was to magnify Him before all people because of the blessings that He would bestow upon His people for their adherence to it. Instead, they took that which was intended to make them a light to the world and hit it under a basket.