Strand 2: The Inward Law from Adam
Our new strand begins with Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” The life of Christ will offer more than a resumption of the fellowship with God that we lost through sin. It will be the cause for keeping us living the righteous life in faith. More on this later.
Rom. 5:12–21 teaches that Adam sinned and passed on its effects to the rest of us. That includes his unrighteousness, guilt, death, sin, and condemnation. This condemnation “is the sentence pronounced, the condemnation with a suggestion of the punishment following” (Vine’s). Condemnation is a negative sentence, already passed. This condemnation was baked into each one of us from the get-go upon birth, passed on to all because Adam was the head of humanity.
What about the life of Christ mentioned earlier? It is His life that replaces the so-called life Adam passed onto us. Rom. 5:12–21 points out the benefits of grace from Christ: Adam’s unrighteousness replaced with righteousness; death replaced with fellowship with God; sin’s dominion with sin’s power broken; and guilt and condemnation replaced with justification—acquitted from all guilt, freed from its punishment of wrath, and graced with righteousness by God.
In effect, Adam’s life was passed onto us at birth. But Christ’s life was passed onto us through our initial faith in Him. At this point our strand 2 hasn’t been specifically identified, but it originates in this Adam.
We pick up our strand 2 in Rom. 6:3-11, where we find that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose to life again. But behind the scenes, something more transpired. Paul explains it using baptism. Baptism has been misunderstood. I heard someone say that when she returned to the Lord after falling away, she was baptized again to demonstrate her re-dedication. But this is a misunderstanding of baptism (though the re-dedication itself was authentic enough).
If we have an unbiblical idea of baptism, then the explanation of baptism in chapter 6 and its benefits to our victory over sin may be distorted or even rejected in favor of a more customary meaning. (So I write this as a caution.) Paul uses believer baptism to convey the following truths.
When Christ went to the grave, “the body of sin” was “done away with” that we received from Adam (6:4–7). The believer confessing Christ for the first time joins Christ in His death and burial, then joins Him in His resurrection, and the believer’s own sins were left behind in the grave (6:3–11).
But something more took place: all that we inherited, the unpleasant list we mentioned earlier from fallen Adam, was buried there, and we rose with Christ as a new creation, no longer in Adam but in Christ. Christ is the head of a new humanity and we derive our image from who He is. So “we shall be saved by His life,” as mentioned in 5:10.
In Christ is not death but life. Not guilt but acquittal. Not unrighteous, but with the righteousness of God. And not condemned but without any condemnation at all. More reasons for Paul to praise God through Christ! Again, Paul telegraphs the reason for the gap that leads to thanksgiving.
In the opening verses of Rom. 7:1-6, we learn that the law that bound us to the life of Adam was severed with our identification with Christ’s death and burial, and no longer applies to us. Paul explains this with an illustration from law, where a wife must remain married to her husband as long as he lived; but if he died, that law was no longer in force, so she was free to marry another. In the same way, our ties with the old us were severed with our death, and we are free to be joined to Christ (vv. 4–6).
How did Paul discover Strand 2 working in him?
There was a time when Paul was convicted of the sin of coveting (7:7–11), and discovered that it incited him to sin, and it brought grief. He thought the opposite was supposed to happen, that it would bring life.
There was a time when Paul turned inward to figure out why the law did not “work” as expected. The Spirit had him where He wanted him, and opened Paul’s eyes to see the law of sin working behind the scenes (7:23).
There was a time when Paul realized that it was the law of sin that turned his desires against himself, and Paul wrestled with “another law in my members … bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (v. 23). Strand 2 concerns this “law of sin” that ties us to the old person we were.
We know this slavery to the inner law passed on to us through Adam very well: “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (v. 15). This inner law prevented Paul from wholeheartedly obeying the written law. It corrupted his motives so he did the right thing with the wrong intentions, to further his own purpose and not to glorify God. As with Paul, so with us.
There was a time when Paul found that to live in the flesh with this law meant death (8:13), and it brought no end of wretchedness to him (7:24).
There was a time when the Holy Spirit opened his eyes and enabled him to put to death that and other deeds of the body, and live (8:13). As a result, he gave thanks to God, for it is through Jesus Christ and His work that brings deliverance.
With the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, that law of sin was severed and no longer holds those of faith in slavery. In other words, there’s a way we can reject the forces that make us struggle the way we do. They rise up as feelings, lusts, passions, promptings, and urges, but they do not really have power (6:11–19). The good news of our salvation means that by asserting the truths of God in faith, shown by our yielding to the Lord, we overcome these promptings to sin.
We assert with confidence toward Christ (that’s what faith is, remember?) that we are dead to the old life (“I don’t have to do that anymore”) and we live to God, now in Christ and no longer in Adam, and are therefore no longer under the dominion of sin, but under the sphere of grace (6:11–14). We recognize the temptation, and turn our attention to trust the Lord and serve Him (“Lord, I give myself to You to do Your will”), and we escape. According to the opening verses of chapter 8, when Jesus bore our sins on the cross, He “condemned sin in the flesh,” passing eternal judgment on it. Then He was buried, leaving that body behind, and rose as a new creation in His new glorious body (v. 3-4). When we rose with Him, all the wrath of God had passed onto that body of sin that was left behind, and we were freed. The old person is jettisoned like a Saturn rocket discards the stages of its launch, leaving the capsule free to reach up and beyond.
So Paul could conclude, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ” (8:1). Christ fulfilled all the law in His perfect life on earth, and that fulfilling of the law is put to our account as well; our faith is counted as righteous moment by moment because we are in Him moment by moment as we share His life (8:4), not Adam’s death. So again, “we shall be saved by His life.”
The person enslaved to the law of sin in 7:23–24 through faith in Christ is then dead and buried and beyond reach of the sin, which is devoid of power; the law of sin has no more bearing on those who live by the law of the Spirit of life (8:2). They are a new creation, placed in Christ, fitted as a branch in the vine and receiving its nourishment from the vine, with all the blessings in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3) available by faith.
We have access to all these gifts of grace through faith, so when “the just shall live by faith” (moment by moment), the just truly enjoy that gift, that promise they are believing the Lord for in their walk at that time.
The gospel of Christ is the power of God for salvation to all who believe; to all who have faith in Christ, not to all who try hard. The gospel is the power of God, and not of the sharer of the gospel, however the gifts of his or her oratory powers. The power of God results in salvation, or deliverance, from the tempting urges the righteous will experience day by day. The power of God by faith results in new life, Christ’s life, and is governed by the “law of the Spirit of life” in 8:2.
All laws have principles that operate in that law’s sphere. The principles of the law of the Spirit of life include living by faith toward Christ, and from that position, taking from Christ by faith (with assurance and firm conviction) all that we need as the Lord leads His children along.
So the law of the Spirit enables us to live moment by moment in the Spirit, set our minds on spiritual things, know life and peace, and please God (8:5–8).
Due to the principles of the law of sin operating in us, in the flesh/body (for the fleshly principle is embedded in the body and all its faculties), the body of sin had to be left behind because it has no spiritual appetites at all. Vine’s describes the flesh with several meanings, including “the seat of sin in man (but this is not the same as the body).” The flesh could not trust in Christ. It cannot comply with the law of God from its heart because its own interests subverts His at every turn (8:5–9). It cannot be reformed. So Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection was required and sufficient. What a magnificent plan in the cross of Christ!
This law of sin in us prevents humanity from gaining righteousness before God by good deeds. This law in us is the underlying reason why following outward laws can never work. This law in us blinds our minds and turns us to alternate avenues of help—governmental, social programs, education, psychiatry, science, technology, and more to fix what’s wrong. The law of sin in the flesh cannot help us seek God. Until Christ comes again, all plans for utopia will fail.
The strands of the two laws are found in the illustration at the beginning of Rom. 7 of the woman bound by law to her husband until he dies, when she may be married to another. This remedy applies to both strands.
In the section following that section, we momentarily take up the first strand, where Paul, at first glance, is pained from blowing the outward law from Moses (Rom. 7:7-11). But in contrast to the other laws, “You shall not covet” (the law Paul was concerned with) is an inward motivation. When Paul turned inward to examine this failure, the Spirit plunged the sword of the Word between the soul and spirit to reveal the inward law of sin from Adam, in the last section, 7:15-23. His agony was multiplied when he discovered that this inward law of sin had corrupted all of his good deeds in the past to profit him nothing towards righteousness before God. As Paul has already shown, allegiance to both laws are terminated by faith in another, by our identification with Christ, and we “thank God—through Jesus Christ!”
Conclusion
Paul found relief from these two laws when the Spirit went on to reveal to him, by revelation (Gal. 1:11–12), the material in the earlier chapters. Paul grasped the fundamentals of the gospel of Christ and was freed from his agony. Paul did something many Christians don’t do. He wondered why he still sinned. Didn’t the angel tell Joseph to call the baby “Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21)? Why couldn’t he change who he was on the inside? Most Christians seem content to have the attitude, “I confessed, so I’m good.” That wasn’t enough for Paul, and it should not be enough for us, either.
Paul’s wretchedness was on account of the “law of sin” he encountered in Rom. 7:14–23 operating in him to undo all the good works that he had been doing throughout his life before Christ (as the “old man”—Rom. 6:6). What powered his old life was the law of sin, or the sin nature inherited from Adam, operating on the flesh in all peoples. Through faith in Christ, that law is broken in the sense that it no longer has a hold on the life of the new creation. Since that law is broken, what law rules the believer now? Rom. 8:2 supplies the answer with “the law of the Spirit of life.” No longer does the flesh rule; for many in Christ, the Spirit of life does. As the Father led Christ through the Spirit, so Christ leads us by His Spirit in the believer.
Those identifying with Christ are not prompted by the fleshly urges from within, but prompted by the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. The work of the Spirit is to help the believer choose the right path by the way of faith. When faith in Christ is chosen over feeling, the law of the Spirit is at work and grace is released for the believer to live life in the Spirit. This is the life the Lord is bringing all disciples to who deny themselves and bear their cross and follow Jesus.
The life of faith is more than a general believing of something. Through faith in God’s direction, the saints of Hebrews 11 embarked on their journeys by the power of the Spirit, and so it will be the same for us who live by faith.
When we live by biblical faith, with assurance and firm conviction in a God who cannot lie, then the law of the Spirit of life pours out grace, and keeps us continuing in freedom from the flesh, “free from the law of sin and death” (8:2), freedom to believe Yahweh, to obey the Lord from a disciple’s heart, and truly live out the life of Christ in a sanctified life. God is always working to bring us to this kind of faith; as Christ said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29).
Paul expected the Spirit to replicate his journey in his readers. Rom. 8:13 tells us the same choices await all His disciples—to continue in the ways of the flesh, or to work with the Spirit to put to death its deeds. If we do the latter, we will live the new life God promised. That life is to be “led by the Spirit,” which leading uniquely characterizes the “sons of God” (Rom. 8:14).
This is the operation of the new law by which we live in Christ. Sin does not dominate in this believer, as Rom. 6:14 says, “for you are not under law but under grace.” The flesh is enslaved and ruled by the law; the Spirit of life reigns over its passions with grace. When you by the Spirit “do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts” (Rom. 6:12), and switch to live by faith in Christ, then the old man’s hold on you is broken and grace is released. The old man cannot have faith in Christ, so faith breaks the believer free. “The just shall live by faith,” not by the feelings of the flesh, but by trusting Jesus moment by moment.
If you’ve ever wondered what it means to “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16), you now have your answer.
By way of application, you the disciple are told to “present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom. 6:13); “that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). The flesh cannot yield to God, so as often as we yield by the power of the Spirit, we break free of the flesh and enjoy this new life as alive from the dead. As often as we confess Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10:9) and yield to Him, we “receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness [and] will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17).
What does this life as led by the Spirit (Rom. 8:14) look like? When I yield myself to the Lord as his servant when I awake, I am no longer operating in the flesh. When the flesh taps my shoulder to take over, and I recognize it, then I yield to God once again and I continue in the Spirit. Being “led by the Spirit” is a real-life, real-time occurrence, an outworking of the gospel: When I need direction, such as in understanding the Scriptures or in what to do next (especially in the context of my gifts), I ask and pay attention to the Spirit, to see what light He may give or in what direction He may prompt me.
When I was asked to give ministry somewhere, I asked for a message from the Lord first; when given, I accepted the invitation. If not given, I declined. When the enemy reminds me of my past life, I shrug it off with “that was my old life; Lord, Your will be done,” and the voice is silenced and I am thankful. In all of this is the life of faith, and the Spirit gives me vitality in peace and joy. He gives life to my daily chores at home or other duties; He adds life to it all by His presence. All this as we live by a “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).
Because of this teaching in Romans, I learned that the many examples of this leading of the Spirit in me were not flukes or exceptions. They are the normal outcome of the work of God to make me more like Christ, who Himself was guided by the Spirit on earth.
