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)
The Apostle Paul pens
this statement as a follow up to the statement of the first verse of the
chapter, where it is 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 a believing
allegiance in Jesus the Christ as Lord of all, which has come about through the
preaching of the Gospel (Jesus is Lord of all) that strangely transmits the
power of God unto salvation. That salvation (in its many facets and
implications), indeed, is the setting free from the law of sin and death.
In union with Christ,
and therefore being made to share in the restorative, re-creating power of the
Resurrection (the in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven), the believer, like
Israel from Egypt, is dragged out of his exile from God. The one who
believes in Jesus as Lord is converted, if you will, from being outside of His
covenant family, to being inside His covenant family. This conversion and new covenant status is based
on allegiance to Him that is demonstrated through the confession of Jesus the
Christ as Lord and Savior. Outside of the covenant family, one is unable
to rightly bear God’s image. Inside the covenant family, because one is
in union with Christ, as demonstrated by calling Him Lord, which is the mark of
the renewed covenant people of God, the believer has ultimately overcome the
final exilic curse of 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, it is understood it
was God’s people, Israel, that were given the law. Why were they given
the law? Ultimately, it was to bring the Creator God glory by rightly
bearing His image into the world, which, according to the Scriptural narrative,
was the charge laid upon Adam. This
would reflect the glory of the Creator God into the world, gathering up His
praises from the whole of the creation. Israel was given the law as a way
to approach that which the Creator God had intended for humanity, but which had
been rejected and lost in the fall.
Unfortunately, at the
fall, not only was mankind ejected from off of 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. Owing to their exodus and what
accompanied it, 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
their story is largely one of a failure to trust. The covenant people (like Adam in a sense)
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.
The Creator 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 largely to their idolatry (which resulted in
their inhumane treatment of one another, according to the prophets) 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. The nations looked upon Israel’s experience
and responded with mocking and ridicule. Israel was to lead people to the
knowledge of the providential, creative, and covenant God, and was to 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.
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