Let’s pick up where we left off in Romans 8. I am convinced that if we paused to consider what Jesus has done for us, we would live differently. He has already accomplished all that He calls us to be and do. The Christian life is not about you and what you must do. It is about God and what He has done.

… He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
—Romans 8:4

Jesus lived a perfect life for us and died a death for us so that everything He told us to do would be considered done. Because of Jesus’ life, God looks at us and says the law is fully accomplished. We can follow the Spirit without the pressure to perform because Jesus has performed perfectly for us. Instead, we are empowered by God’s Spirit to live.

Remember today that you follow the Spirit, and so you have fully met every requirement that God demands.

Of course, many will try to abuse this freedom and inwardly reason “Since Jesus did everything, I don’t have to do anything.” But we who think thus deny the Gospel by our lives, and show the Spirit does not live in us. Jesus told us the SPirit would come and make all that is His become ours; so, to not walk in the pattern of living as Jesus is to reject Him as Lord and Savior. But, to welcome His fully accomplished work for us is to rest and revel in His greatness, goodness, grace, and to rejoice in His glory be shown through our lives. This happens through God’s continual presence, His Spirit in us.

“The Christian is like a man who has the right tune in his head but cannot remember all the words. So when Paul says that love fulfills the law (Romans 13:8; Galatians 5:15), that is not to [declare] that Christians are perfect, but that they live … according to the Spirit.
—James R. Edwards

—Quoted in the Sojourn project, forty: romans eight (to meditate on and memorize Romans 8 over the course of 40 days).

 

The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
—Romans 8:3

The law of Moses says, “do this.” The gospel says, “it is done.” God looked at the law and said, “This might be impossible for you, but nothing is impossible for me.” What was impossible through the law God made possible. It’s impossible for us to save ourselves by doing what we’re told because we can’t do what we’re told.

God put into effect a different plan. He made what’s impossible for us possible when He send His own Son to live the life we should have lived, and die the death we should have died. By doing that, God destroyed sin’s control over us.

In this new plan God does for us and in us what we could not do for ourselves, because of the principle that is at work in us: sin and death. When we own up to this reality we are on the road towards recovery.

Christ became our substitute, conquering sin and ultimately death for us, bringing us to God.

“God sent his Son, who took to himself a nature — a body and all the other components of human nature, with one noticeable exception: he did not take to himself sinful human nature. The incarnate Christ has without original sin. Christ came like us, meaning he looked like us, but not with the sin we are born with. If he had come as sinful flesh, he himself would have been a sinner and could not have saved himself, let alone us. God destroyed sin’s control over us. The cross of Christ was where God poured out his judgment upon human sins. Believers’ sins were imputed to Jesus and God condemned them. That is why there is now no condemnation left for anyone who is in Christ, because the condemnation has already taken place on the cross.
—R.C. Sproul

—Quoted in the Sojourn project, forty: romans eight (to meditate on and memorize Romans 8 over the course of 40 days).

 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
—Romans 8:1

So now means “now that you are a Christian,” or, “because of all that God has done.” If you are a Christian, if you belong to Christ Jesus, because of all that God has done for you, there is no condemnation for you. No here literally means no, as in nada, zip, zilch. There is no judgment left, no penalty, no fine to be paid. We can kick and scream and feel guilty all we want, but there is no condemnation left for those who belong to Jesus because Jesus has paid for all of it.

Have you trusted in Christ Jesus? Then there is no condemnation left. Today, remind yourself you belong to Christ Jesus.

—Quoted in the Sojourn project, forty: romans eight (to meditate on and memorize Romans 8 over the course of 40 days).

 

It is the unspeakable privilege of all those that are in Christ Jesus that there is therefore no condemnation to them. He does not say, “there is no accusation against them,” for this there is; but the accusation is thrown out. He does not say, “there is nothing in them that deserves condemnation,” for this there is, and they see it, and own it; but it shall not be their ruin.
—Matthew Henry

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
—Romans 8:1

Quoted in the Sojourn project, forty: romans eight (to meditate on and memorize Romans 8 over the course of 40 days).