The Righteous Requirement of the Law Fulfilled in Us: An exegesis of Romans 8:1-4

One of the greatest strengths of evangelical churches can also be one of their greatest weaknesses. Unlike the mainline denominations that seem to be shrinking in membership and influence, more conservative denominations of evangelical Christianity have continued to basically preached the Gospel message and grow in membership. However, the Gospel message often preached has an emphasis on the initial moment of salvation to the detriment of consistent and solid teaching on the Gospel’s expectation of Christian living. This often results in church members either believing that there are not real expectations for the Christian (after all, we are “saved by grace”) or in the creation of a law-based Christian life in which believers attempt to attain spiritual maturity through behaviors fueled by self-effort.

This is not a new problem in the church. Apparently Paul found the church in Galatia to be making the same mistake in the first century, prompting him to ask them, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” [1] The Christian life is to be lived with certain expectations of obedience; fruit is supposed to follow regeneration. However, the fruit of obedience is the work of the Spirit who indwells believers, not a result of human self-effort alone. This is a truth missing in the Gospel preaching of many evangelical churches today, and it is expressed clearly by Paul in Romans 8:1-4. In this passage, Paul teaches that there is no condemnation for believers because the death of Christ has given them the ability to follow God through the power of the Spirit.In verse one, Paul shifts from speaking about the forensic benefits of salvation (discussed in previous chapters) to more full discussion on Christian living, saying that believers do not have to experience the condemnation for their sin. Verse two grounds the truth of verse one in the new relationship to the law that believers have through the indwelling Spirit. Verses three and four are related as statements of action and purpose. The action, given in verse three, is the death of Christ as an atonement for sin; the purpose of this action, found in verse 4, was to bring about faithful obedience in the lives of believers. Therefore the death of Christ is the means through which God intends to set people free from the old life of sin to a new life of Spirit-empowered obedience.

No Condemnation

Paul begins chapter eight with “therefore,” which means that he is basing the coming statement on whatever he has written previously. Few commentators believe that the logical flow of the book allows 8:1 to come directly from the end of chapter seven; this is because while 8:1 speaks of a present reality that is “now,” 7:24 speaks of a future deliverance. Therefore, rejecting a simple linear connection in Paul’s argument between chapters seven and eight, some believe that Paul is drawing a summary inference from his entire argument thus far in the letter. [2] Many others, including Moo [3] and Cranfield, [4] point back to 7:6 and the basis of the “therefore.” This option is founded upon the observation that 7:13-24 can be read as exposition of 7:5, and 8:1-17 similarly as an exposition of 7:6. In Romans 7:6, Paul writes that Christians have been released from and died to the law, allowing them to serve in a new way through the Spirit rather in the old way of the law. The content of 8:1-4 present this same truth. [5]

It is likely that the “therefore” of 8:1 is both a reference to 7:6 and to the entirety of Paul’s argument thus far, for the content of 8:1 would lose a great deal of meaning without the truths laid out in preparation for it. Romans 5:1 states believers have been justified and have peace with God through faith in Christ, and this same truth is stated in negative form in 8:1-those in Christ Jesus now have no condemnation. According to chapter 5, “condemnation” resulted for all men when Adam fell, but Christ’s “one act of righteousness” removes this sentence and results in justification and righteousness. [6] The subjects of this blessing of “no condemnation” are “those who are in Christ Jesus,” presumably united with him through the identification with his death, burial and resurrection as pictured in baptism and explained in Romans 6:1-11. Therefore, Paul is both restating the realities of salvation which he has previously laid out (freedom from condemnation, justification and peace with God, and union with Christ) and transitioning to the next reality of salvation which he will discuss: freedom to obey God.

The “condemnation” in 8:1 from which believers have been liberated is not merely forensic in nature, for that would not fit with the immediate context of the passage as situated between chapters seven and eight. [7] In chapter seven, Paul wrote in explicit terms about the inability of the law to produce righteousness in man. For him to speak so colorfully about the experience of sin leading him to act contrary what he knows is right and the struggle that exists within him because of these conflicting desires and behaviors (7:13-23), and then return in chapter eight to speaking only of legal, forensic status attributed to the believer in Christ seems logically unlikely and even incoherent. Also, 8:2 makes a mere forensic understanding of “condemnation” unwarranted. Verse two begins with “for,” showing that it provides the ground for the truth of verse one. Believers now have no condemnation because they are “set free” from the “law of sin and death” by “the law of the Spirit of life.” This is meant to be understood as an experiential description of yet another blessing of salvation that comes to believers-liberation from the law of sin and death-rather than a restatement of the promise of satisfaction for the legal debt accrued for sin. [8] Therefore, Paul begins this passage by transitioning from speaking about the forensic state of being justified to speaking about the experience of “no condemnation” in the believer’s life.

New Liberation

Paul’s use of the word “law” in 8:2 has caused much discussion among commentators. [9] It seems unlikely that Paul would so quickly change the meaning of the word “law” without giving a clear sign to his readers that he is doing so. Therefore, it is preferable to read both uses of “law” as having consistent meaning and to understanding the “law” in 8:2 as a reference to the Torah, as Schreiner argues. [10] Paul has already stated that the Mosaic law is not evil in itself; on the contrary, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” [11] However, when the flesh is enslaved to sin, this law has the effect of arousing disobedience and producing the fruit of “death.” [12] This is confirmed by the next verse, Romans 8:3, which states that the law could not produce righteousness in us because it was “weakened by the flesh.” So, in 8:2, when Paul calls the Mosaic law the “law of sin and death,” it is not because the law or its contents are intrinsically evil, but because living in the flesh and knowing the law lead to the experience of sin and death. This is what Paul previously argued in 7:5, 13-14: when sin is the operating power, the law becomes a means through which sin is aroused and death is produced.

However, the converse is also true: when the Spirit of God is the power at work, this same law gives life. The Torah makes this very claim about itself. For example, in Deuteronomy 30:15, after laying out the blessing for obedience to the law and curses for disobedience to the same law, the words of the law are spoken of as being set before the Israelites “as life and good, death and evil.” [13] Another example is found in Psalm 19:7-8, in which the law is said to have the effects of “reviving the soul,” “making wise the simple,” “rejoicing the heart,” and “enlightening the eyes.”Writing verse two as a statement that grounds 8:1, Paul teaches that Christians do not currently experience the condemnation of sin because the Spirit of God is at work producing life as they encounter the commandments of God. No longer are they experiencing sin and death produced through the holy law by the flesh enslaved to sin. This means that the freedom in view in verse two is not freedom from law or from the commands of God, but freedom from the negative, sinful effects that result from the flesh encountering the law. The Spirit of life brings a new experience to the liberated believer, the ability to “serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” [14]

Christ Condemned Sin

The next two verses, 8:3-4, further explain this new liberty proclaimed in 8:2. The ESV translates the first portion of this 8:3: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.” What is it that the law could not do? In 7:10, Paul writes that “the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me,” and then continues by explaining that his sinful flesh “seized the opportunity through the commandment” to produce death. The commandments of the law give instruction that would produce life in man, but they are unable to do so because they do not also overcome man’s orientation toward this fallen world and give man the power to obey. [15] Therefore, as Paul writes in 8:3, God steps in to do what the law alone can not do; namely, God-by His Spirit-produces life in the believer, enabling him to follow God’s law.

As verse three continues Paul points to the death of Christ as the means through which God gives life to believers. He writes that God sent Christ “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” meaning that Jesus truly identified with humanity by taking on a nature just like ours, susceptible to sin and death. [16] This does not mean that Christ ever sinned; indeed, the next phrase (“for sin”) is evidence that He did not. This phrase “for sin” occur in the LXX as a reference to a sin offering forty-four out of fifty-four total appearances; thus, it is likely that Paul had such a meaning in view here. [17] For Christ to make atonement for our sin, He had to share flesh like ours yet be without sin. This is precisely what He did, and in doing so He “condemned sin” while making sinners who trust in Him to have “no condemnation” (8:1). Just as Paul saw the death of Christ as the ground which secures the believer’s forensic justification (5:9), so now he sees the cross as the ground securing the believer’s experience of life in the Spirit. This is made explicit in the next verse.

Fulfilled in Us

Paul begins 8:4 with the Greek “hina,” which indicates that whatever follows is the purpose for the preceding action. This means that God sent Christ to be incarnated and offered as an atonement for sin, “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us” (8:4). What Paul has in view when he writes of “the righteous requirement of the law” is a matter of debate among scholars. Some argue that perfect obedience to the law is what is meant in this verse. If this is true, then for this righteous requirement to be fulfilled “in us,” the meaning must be judicial rather than experiential since no human can perfectly obey the law. Christ perfectly obeyed the law and thus fulfilled the righteous requirement, and then believers were granted Christ’s righteousness through identification with Him. As evidence for this interpretation, scholars point to the passive tense that is employed in the main verb, “might be fulfilled.” [18] From this they conclude that Paul does not have in mind actual activity on the part of the individual Christian.

However, understanding verse four as anything but a living reality in the believer’s present life is problematic. The experiential nature of the passage has been argued from verses one and two above. Additionally, the rest of 8:4 also discredits a merely forensic understanding of this “fulfillment” of the law’s requirement. The second half of 8:4 describes the “us” of the first half: the fulfillment in view occurs in those “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The use of “walk” (peripatousin) strongly implies actual activity in the lives of believers. [19] Therefore, whatever is meant by this “fulfillment” is something more than the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the legal status of Christians.

If this passage is meant to describe the experience of the Christian, then the understanding of “the righteous requirement of the law” must be referring to activity in the life of the Christian that is born out of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. Given what Paul wrote in 8:2, this purpose clause in 8:4 is best understood to clarify what is meant by being “set free from the law of sin and death.” [20] Whereas sinful flesh previously responded to God’s law with disobedience, the death of Christ “condemned sin in the flesh” (8:3). Thus believers, being identified with Christ’s death and the death of flesh, have now been given His Spirit and are free to respond to God’s laws with obedience. This interpretation finds support in Old Testament texts that look toward the new covenant. Ezekiel 36:27 records the Lord saying, “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules.” Similarly, Jeremiah 31:33 records the Lord describing the new covenant by saying, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” When fallen flesh is the operating principle behind the law, sin is the result. But God promised a day when by His Spirit He would bring about obedience in His people. This new covenant and its promises were purchased with the blood of Christ.

In other words, the death of Christ is not only ground for forgiveness of sins and justification before God, but it is also the ground for sanctification. [21] Later in this chapter, Paul will write that God has “predestined [believers] to be conformed to the image of His Son.” [22] Christ said of Himself, “I have not come to abolish [the law and the prophets] but to fulfill them.” [23] If God has purposed to conform believers to the likeness of His Son who fulfilled the law, then God has purposed to see that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled” in them (8:4). Cranfield points out that Paul writes of a singular requirement of the law rather than many requirements; this shows the unity of the commandments of God. [24] Jesus spoke of this unity when He said all the commandment could be summed up in the command to love God and then to love others.

Paul’s use in 8:4 of the passive verb “might be fulfill” followed by his description of believers as those who actively “walk according to the Spirit” is consistent with his theology of Christian living found elsewhere. In many places Paul writes about the need for diligent obedience, but He also affirms the necessity of the work of God in our ability to obey. For example, in Philippians 2:12-13, Paul tells believers to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling,” then grounds there ability in the truth that “it is God who works in [them], both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” This is also how Paul understood his own ability to serve Christ: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” [25]

Conclusion

Thus when Paul describes believers who have the righteous requirement of the law fulfilled in them as those who “walk according to the spirit,” he is affirming both divine sovereignty and human responsibility in living the Christian life. Believers cannot trust Christ for their salvation and then rely upon themselves for a life of obedience. Another implication of Paul’s teaching is the simple reality that believers are expected to live a life of righteousness. This does not mean that perfection or sinlessness is possible in this life; indeed, as Cranfield writes, “Chapter 7 must not be forgotten.” [26] What Paul has in view here is a change in desire and disposition from being hostile to God to one of loving Him. That is essentially what is missing from so much Gospel preaching, the amazing truth that along with forgiveness from all sin we receive the Spirit, who gives us the desire and ability to obey the God we now love. Living marked by this kind of obedience allows the believer to fully experience the life of “no condemnation” that Christ died to provide.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C.E.B. Cranfield. The Epistle to the Romans. The International Critical Commentary, ed.J.A. Emerton, C.E.B. Cranfield, and G.N. Stanton, vol. 1. London: T&T Clark International, 2004.

Millard. J Erickson. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.

Douglas Moo. The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon Fee. Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.

Thomas R. Schreiner. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.

Joseph Shulam. A Commentary on the Jewish Roots of Romans. Baltimore, MD: Lederer Books, 1997.

Stott, John. Romans: God’s Good News for the World . Downers Grove: IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994.

[1] Galatians 3:3[2] John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World (Downers Grove: IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 217.[3] Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon Fee (Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 471.[4] C.E.B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, The International Critical Commentary, ed. J.A. Emerton, C.E.B. Cranfield, and G.N. Stanton, vol. 1 (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 373.[5] There is a third option, argued by Schreiner, that 8:1 refers to 7:6 and is also connected to 7:24. He reconciles the future emphasis of 7:24 with the present emphasis of 8:1 by pointing out the present-future reality of the Kingdom. In Christ, the future restoration of all things in the coming age has reached back into the present age. Therefore, he argues, the future deliverance has been initiated-though not consummated-in present. (See Schreiner’s Romans, 398)[6] Romans 5:16, 18[7] Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 399.[8] See esp. Schreiner, Cranfield; contra, e.g., Moo.[9] Some believe that both uses of “law” in this verse refer to a “principle,” “authority,” or “power” (see Shulam, 275; and Cranfield, 376). Others believe only the first use of “law” is referring to a “principle,” and the second use carries a different meaning. Moo takes this stance, claiming that the second use of “law” could be a reference to the “law written on the heart” of Jeremiah 31:31-34 (Moo, 400). Stott believes the first “law” mentioned in the verse is the “Torah” and the second is actually a reference to the Gospel (Stott, 218).[10] Schreiner, 400.[11] Romans 7:12[12] Romans 7:5, 10-11[13] Joseph Shulam, A Commentary on the Jewish Roots of Romans (Baltimore, MD: Lederer Books, 1997), 275.[14] Romans 7:6[15] While he did not believe that either use of “law” in verse 2 referred to the Mosaic law, here in verse 3 Moo joins Schreiner in understanding “law” to be referring to the Torah. I have also made use of his interpretation of the “flesh” as the “this-worldly orientation that all people share.” (478)[16] Schreiner, 403; Cranfield, 381; Moo, 479.[17] Schreiner, 403; Moo, 480; contra. Cranfield, 382.[18] Moo, 483-484.[19] Schreiner, 405-406.[20] Cranfield, 383.[21] Schreiner, 404; Cranfield, 384; Stott, 220.[22] Romans 8:29[23] Matthew 5:17[24] Cranfield, 384. See also Erickson, 989.[25] Colossians 1:29[26] Ibid. 

~ by jakeporter on November 16, 2007.