‘For the powerless incapable law, within which it is weak and feeble by means of the flesh, God, having sent His Son within resemblance of self-forfeiting flesh, and concerning no share and self-forfeiture, has condemned loss and self-forfeiture within the flesh, 4 in order that the judicial approval of the Law is being made full and complete within us – the not walking around down from flesh, but down from breath’, [pneuma], (Romans 8 v 3, 4).
Paul does not direct Christians to try to observe the written codes of Sinai Covenant law such as the Ten Commandments in the way legalists would have Christians do. Instead he points Christians to God’s free gift of His only-begotten Son. The free gift of the Son is the means of judicial approval. But legalists begin to qualify what Paul is saying. ‘Aha!’ they say. ‘When Paul talks about law, and when he talks about Christians dying away from law, (Romans 7 v 4), and being set free from the written code of Covenant law, (Romans 7 v 6), he means Ceremonial Law’. This is because legalists divide Covenant law into two aspects - Ceremonial Law and Moral Law - and they then propose that Christians are delivered from Ceremonial Law, but that they are still under Moral Law. Why? Because Jesus has fulfilled the Ceremonial law, but he has not come to abolish Moral law. On this basis they turn Christians once again to the written codes of law such as the Ten Commandments, so as to encourage them to keep the Sabbath, or to tithe, or such like.
But that is not what Paul is saying. Nowhere does Paul make that kind of distinction concerning Covenant law, and he certainly does not do so here in his letter to the Romans. Neither was it customary for Jews – to whom Sinai Covenant law was given – to understand Covenant law in this way. They saw Covenant law as a whole, as a unified entity, an integrated system. So I dismiss this legalist proposal.
Paul does not direct Christians to Covenant law but instead, as we see in verse 3, he does the opposite. He points out the weakness of Covenant law and directs Christians to the Messiah instead. Why? Because Christians retain their flesh with its inherent principle of self-forfeiture, but Jesus decisively judges down against loss and self-forfeiture within our flesh, by condemning it within the likeness of sinful flesh as God’s sacrificial Lamb without spot or blemish. Self-forfeiture and loss is effectively condemned and sent away for those entrusting the Messiah by means of the Messiah’s acceptable substitutionary atoning sacrifice as the spotless Lamb of God. Jesus paid the purchase price required to buy back those whom God has selected – that price being the spilt life-blood and physical death of the Messiah within the likeness of sinful flesh.
Why is self-forfeiture and loss condemned and paid for by the Messiah on behalf of those brought forth by God? Paul tells us in verse 4 – ‘in order that the judicial approval of the Law is being made full and complete within us’. For Christians, the judicial approval of the law is now being made full and complete – not by Christians trying to observe external written codes, but the law is being made full and complete within them. How is this happening? What is the fundamental principle or dynamic process? He goes on to tell us.
Self-forfeiture and loss is condemned by the Messiah in order that the judicial approval, the fundamental principle of the law – the enactment of law, the practical obedience which the law calls for, the goal of the law - is being made full and complete in us, or ‘realised in us’. He defines ‘us’ as ‘the not walking around down from the flesh, but down from breath’. In other words, Christians who are conducting their daily lives within the movement and direction of the Breath of Life in the Messiah that is present in their deep inner core.
The purpose of the law is being made full and complete in Christians who are walking around moment-by-moment within the unction of the set-apart Breath residing in their heart
The self-forfeiting impulses of the Christian’s flesh still remain active as the verses that follow distinctly show, but the opposing Breath within Christians has broken their tied enslavement to these impulses. In this way, Christians have been brought forth as a new orderly form, their old form or self has passed away, impaled on the execution post of the cross.
However, it does not follow that any Christians will actually completely avoid all wayward behaviour, nor that they are accepted on the basis of their own actions. This would contradict other Scripture texts (James 2 v 10; I John 1 v 8). Paul confessed that he was not already perfect or fully complete himself, (Philippians 3 v 12). But fullness and completion by means of the atoning sacrifice of the Messiah and the set-apart Breath dwelling within them, is presented as the goal and the means of those whom God has selected (Matthew 5 v 48). By actual practical, progressive growth and maturity Christians are to show that their union with the Messiah is real. The Breath within them gives a new dynamic, direction and tone to their character and their life, working in opposition to the impulses that still remain active within the fabric of their fleshly constitution.
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