Free From The Law

Free From the Law

Romans 8:1-11

Romans 6:14 contains these words "...for ye are not under the law, but under grace." This words have become, as John McArthur, points out "a sort of an open door for all kinds of misdeeds and misbehavior. This statement, "You are not under law," has been misinterpreted to free people as freedom from any obligation to the revealed law of God." But if this is not what is meant then what is the freedom which Christians enjoy? Romans 8 provides us with the answer.

I. Free from the condemnation of the Law

A. Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus..."

B. Romans 3:22b-3 " For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

C. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;

D. When Adam sinned, he involved all his posterity in his condemnation ( Romans 5:18 -19), as we have been born in His likeness. Everyone has inherited a fallen nature. All areby virtue of that nature are guilty beyond question and stand convicted and sentenced to eternal condemnation.

E. Ephesians 2:3 describes the state of people without Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior when Pauls says, "we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."

F. All men and all women on the face of the earth, through all of time and human history, are, by nature, children of wrath. That is to say they are objects of divine wrath. They are targets for God's judgment. All have sinned. All have come short of the glory of God. All stand under the wrath of God facing eternal judgment in an endless hell of torment. - John Piper

G. John 5:24 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment (condemnation), but has passed from death into life."

H. John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

I. "No condemnation (judgment)" (v.1). The word "condemnation" literally means "judgment coming down (on someone)." God’s judgment is not going to come down upon me! If I were still under the law of sin and death then I would be under God’s condemnation (sin demands judgment, death and condemnation - the penalty for sin must be paid!). But, praise God, Calvary took care of it all. God condemned His Son (Rom.8:3) so that I might never be condemned - McGee

J. "There is no condemnation, there is no hell for me,

The torment and the fire my eyes shall never see;

For me there is no sentence, for me has death no stings,

Because the Lord Who saved me shall shield me with His wings.

No angel, and no Heaven, no throne, nor power, nor might,

No love, no tribulation, nor anger, fear nor fight,

No height, no depth, no creature that has been or can be,

Can drive me from Thy bosom, can sever me from Thee."—Paul Gerhardt Romans Chapter 8 commences with 'No condemnation' and ends with `No separation'

II. Free from the bondage of Legalism

A. 1 Timothy 1:8 " But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully."

B. God's law shows us a need that only God's grace can supply.

C. Romans 8:3-4 "For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

D. The law could never save anyone. The only way that a person could be saved by keeping the law would be to keep it perfectly without violating one iota - not in a deed, not in a thought, nor in an attitude of mind or heart. It would require absolute perfection before God.

E. Romans 3:12 " There is none who does good, no, not one."

F. Charles Hodge points out the overwhelming need of humanity:

"Our guilt is great because our sins are exceedingly numerous. It is not merely outward acts of unkindness and dishonesty with which we are chargeable; our habitual and characteristic state of mind is evil in the sight of God.

Our pride, vanity, and indifference to His will and to the welfare of others, our selfishness, our loving the creature more than the Creator, are continuous violations of His holy law.