Romans 8
8
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who are not walking according to the flesh.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.
3 For though this was impossible under the law, because it was weakened by the flesh, God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and because of sin, in order to condemn sin in the flesh,
4 so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us. For we are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
5 For those who are in agreement with the flesh are mindful of the things of the flesh. But those who are in agreement with the spirit are mindful of the things of the spirit.
6 For the prudence of the flesh is death. But the prudence of the spirit is life and peace.
7 And the wisdom of the flesh is inimical to God. For it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be.
8 So those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.
9 And you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if it is true that the Spirit of God lives within you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is within you, then the body is indeed dead, concerning sin, but the spirit truly lives, because of justification.
11 But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead lives within you, then he who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall also enliven your mortal bodies, by means of his Spirit living within you.
12 Therefore, brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh, so as to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if, by the Spirit, you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.
14 For all those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
15 And you have not received, again, a spirit of servitude in fear, but you have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry out: "Abba, Father!"
16 For the Spirit himself renders testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God.
17 But if we are sons, then we are also heirs: certainly heirs of God, but also co-heirs with Christ, yet in such a way that, if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with that future glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the anticipation of the creature anticipates the revelation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to emptiness, not willingly, but for the sake of the One who made it subject, unto hope.
21 For the creature itself shall also be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.
22 For we know that every creature groans inwardly, as if giving birth, even until now;
23 and not only these, but also ourselves, since we hold the first-fruits of the Spirit. For we also groan within ourselves, anticipating our adoption as the sons of God, and the redemption of our body.
24 For we have been saved by hope. But a hope which is seen is not hope. For when a man sees something, why would he hope?
25 But since we hope for what we do not see, we wait with patience.
26 And similarly, the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself asks on our behalf with ineffable sighing.
27 And he who examines hearts knows what the Spirit seeks, because he asks on behalf of the saints in accordance with God.
28 And we know that, for those who love God, all things work together unto good, for those who, in accordance with his purpose, are called to be saints.
29 For those whom he foreknew, he also predestinated, in conformity with the image of his Son, so that he might be the Firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestinated, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
31 So, what should we say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
32 He who did not spare even his own Son, but handed him over for the sake of us all, how could he not also, with him, have given us all things?
33 Who will make an accusation against the elect of God? God is the One who justifies;
34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus who has died, and who has indeed also risen again, is at the right hand of God, and even now he intercedes for us.
35 Then who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or anguish? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or persecution? Or the sword?
36 For it is as it has been written: "For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are being treated like sheep for the slaughter."
37 But in all these things we overcome, because of him who has loved us.
38 For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor the present things, nor the future things, nor strength,
39 nor the heights, nor the depths, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Romans 8
8
The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms
1-2With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
12-14So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
* * *
18-21That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.