THURSDAY March 7th
Romans 8:2–4
‘For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.’
There are two laws mentioned in these verses, the law of the Spirit of life and the law of sin and death.
The one, the law of the Spirit of life has released us from the law of the other, which was that of sin and death.
We were all under the law of sin and death, this was because of the entrance of sin into the world through Adams disobedience to the command of God. As Paul has already written in Romans, ‘The wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). Not one of us through any effort of our own can escape the consequences of sin which is death. But God has put a new law into action, the law of the Spirit which gives to us life through the Lord Jesus Christ. God put this new law into action by sending his Son into the world, made in the likeness of sin and flesh, (John 1:1,14) that is God became a man, so that by going to the Cross, he may condemn sin in the flesh, the flesh of his own body, so that the just demands of God could be met.
How could this new law in the Spirit become effective? Well, Jesus in becoming a man, was not only born through miraculous means that meant he was born sin free, but he also lived a sinless life, which meant he could die as an atoning sacrifice for our sin, and Christ, not only lived according to the law, but he also fulfilled it. Therefore, we can come by grace to be saved, not through any effort of our own, but by and through that which Christ has done on our behalf, and whereas we could not keep the law, Christ has kept it on our behalf.
It is the law of sin and death that keeps us under condemnation, but the law of the Spirit of life taking away our sin also removes the condemnation from that sin. Therefore, we can say as we saw in verse one, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’
Which law are you under as you read this devotion?
If you have never come to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, then you are still under the law of sin and death, therefore you are still under condemnation and under the real and definite threat of death, today you can know what it is to come under the law of the Spirit of life, and to do so, you need first to acknowledge that you are a sinner, and to repent of your sin and accept that Christ alone can forgive you and give to you eternal life. For, it is only those who have truly known what it is to be born again by the Spirit that will know what it is to be set free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death and be brought under the law of the Spirit of life.