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Today our text is verses 1 through 4 of this great favorite of many Christians.

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If Romans is like a gold ring, chapter 8 is the jewel on the ring.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin

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and death.

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For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his

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own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in

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the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not

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walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

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There is a new theology that is being preached by some liberal missionaries and clergymen

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in various places in our world.

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This theology called liberation theology is accepted by masses of people who are religious,

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aware of biblical terms, but ignorant of what the biblical meaning of them is.

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Liberation theology is a clever adaptation of biblical terms to Marxist teachings.

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Thus communist revolution is being promoted in the name of the church and a revolutionary

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Jesus.

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That liberation theology is neither liberation nor is it theology.

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It is rather a cleverly disguised political philosophy and today it is being used by unfortunately

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liberal missionaries from North America to lay a foundation for communist revolution

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in Central and South America particularly.

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The Bible though does teach a different kind of liberation theology, a spiritual liberation

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theology.

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This liberation theology is an eternity changing liberation from the tyranny of sin.

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Let's review for just a moment where we have been in the book of Romans.

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Chapters 1-3 talk about sin and the fact that righteousness is needed.

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Man is a sinner.

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Chapters 4-5 talk about salvation, that is, righteousness provided by God's grace through

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Christ's sacrifice on the cross and made available to us by faith.

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Then chapters 6, 7, and 8 talk about righteousness experienced or sanctification.

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That is, not only has God declared us to be righteous in his sight, but he has made it

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possible for us to know that righteousness on a day-by-day basis.

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How do we know that righteousness in our day-by-day experience?

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Chapters 6 and 7 tell us that it is through our union with Jesus Christ.

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We now have a union with him.

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We have died to the law.

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We have died to sin.

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We are one with Christ.

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Because we are one with him, we can now experience the righteousness of God and live righteously.

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In chapter 8, he gives us a second reason why we can experience this righteousness of

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God.

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It is because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

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If you notice in chapter 7, the word spirit was found only once.

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That was in verse 6 referring to the Holy Spirit.

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Mostly the spirit was absent from chapter 7.

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But as we come to chapter 8, the Holy Spirit really is the key theme.

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In fact, the word spirit is found in chapter 8 21 times.

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So we come to a new emphasis.

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It is on the emphasis of the Holy Spirit.

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Chapter 8 answers the question, how can I live pleasing to God?

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There are two answers that are in the extreme to that question.

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There are some people who say that we live pleasing to God through legalism.

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That is by keeping rules.

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Sometimes rules from the law of God and sometimes rules that are manmade and cultural.

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But they say if you keep these rules, you will please God.

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That's legalism.

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The other extreme is license.

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There are some people who say, well we have no rules.

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They throw everything out the window.

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They say now we have no rules at all.

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We have license to live the way we want to live as Christians.

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But actually the secret as to how to please God, or maybe a better word would be the key

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as to how to please God, is found in a balance between the two.

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A balance that we might call liberty.

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Neither legalism nor license but liberty.

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That's really what chapter 8 teaches us.

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It teaches us that we have a freedom in Christ.

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Warren Wiersbe in his book Be Right has outlined this chapter as well as any person I've ever

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read.

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He says we are free from condemnation, verses 1-11.

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Free from obligation, verses 12-17.

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That is free from obligation to the flesh.

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We are free from frustration, verses 18-30.

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And finally we are free from separation, verses 31-39.

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This theme of our liberty in Christ, our freedom, can be traced through this whole chapter.

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He begins with the text that we have this morning.

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God has provided for you and for me to know true biblical liberation.

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And it is that liberation theology that we want to examine.

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There are five truths that we see regarding our liberation in Christ in the text today.

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I invite you to follow along with me on your copy of the outline.

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The first truth is the reality of our liberation.

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He says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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He says there is therefore now.

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Therefore ties us in with what we have said before.

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And I think it is especially significant because in verse 25 he concluded that chapter by saying,

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So that on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other

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with my flesh the law of sin.

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And you remember last week we talked about the struggle that we Christians have.

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And the more spiritual, the more mature we become, the more keen that struggle seems

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to us because we become more sensitive to sin.

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And so as he concludes chapter 7, it is with the honest confession that with his mind he

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serves the law of God, but in his flesh and the members of his body there is another law

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at work, and that is the law of sin.

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Immediately after saying that, he goes on to say there is therefore now no condemnation.

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Isn't that great?

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For just after he has honestly, transparently dealt with the principle of sin that is still

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active in him, he goes on to confess that though that is true, in God's sight there

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is no condemnation to those who are in Christ.

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Perhaps chapter 8 verse 1 is most directly linked back to chapter 7 verse 6.

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And I think that's probably the best way to understand the flow of thought here.

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You see chapter 7 verse 7 through 25 is sort of a parenthesis, as an illustration, as a

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drawing out of what he said.

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It's a personal autobiography of Paul.

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If we link chapter 7 verse 6 with chapter 8 verse 1, it reads like this, but now we

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have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we

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serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

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There is therefore now no condemnation.

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What is it that pronounced condemnation?

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The law.

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And he says we have been freed from the law.

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We have been freed from that which bound us and therefore there is now no condemnation.

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What does it mean that there is no condemnation?

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Well, it means that we are free from judgment.

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This is another way of defining that word justification that we saw earlier in the book.

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There we said that is God's legal declaration that we are righteous in His sight.

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It is a legal thing that God does for us when we trust Christ.

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That's justification.

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This is another way of saying it, there is no condemnation, no judgment.

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As it says in John chapter 3, he that believes on Him is not condemned.

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But he that believes not is what?

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Condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

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So when we believe on Christ, it is true of us from that point on through eternity, no

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condemnation.

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Now please notice he does not say here there is no failure.

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He does not say there is no weakness.

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He does not say there are no falling shorts.

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He does not say that there is no inconsistency.

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But what he does say is that there is no judgment for those who are in Christ.

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And when he writes this, the apostle writes it emphatically, no, no condemnation.

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That's the first word that he uses in the Greek.

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When that first word is placed like that, it means that that is the emphasis.

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Paul is saying there is no sort of condemnation.

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In other words, our justification in Christ is total.

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It's perfect.

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W.H. Griffith Thomas said, therefore, rather, he said, grace is intended to keep us holy

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and to prevent us from lapsing into sin and ever needing justification again.

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And so God's declaration that there is no condemnation is one that is good for our lifetime

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as well as for our eternity to come.

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There is therefore now no condemnation.

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That's the reality, folks, of our liberation.

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We are freed from condemnation.

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We are freed from judgment.

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But I want you to notice that the last part of the verse emphasizes the restriction of

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this liberation.

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It says that this is true for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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This freedom from condemnation is only for those who are in Christ, who have this new

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identity.

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You may recall back in chapter 4 and in chapter 5, we learned that we had an identity in Adam

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and in sin by our birth into the world.

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We were in God's sight in Adam and therefore in sin.

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That was our identification.

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But when we trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, we were taken out of sin and Adam was placed

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into whom?

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Into Christ.

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Right.

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So that we have this new identity.

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A new union has been established.

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Now he says that this freedom from condemnation is only for those who have done that.

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In other words, those who have never trusted Christ are still under condemnation.

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Again, I go back to John 3.

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He that believes not is condemned already.

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It's not that someday he's going to be condemned, but already he is under the wrath of God.

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Now this seems rather exclusive, doesn't it?

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And it's narrow.

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And in some circles it's very unpopular to say these kinds of things.

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For there are people who say, well, I know sincere people in other religions.

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Surely God isn't going to send them to hell because they're sincere about what they believe.

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I'm reminded when I hear things like that of a cartoon strip called Peanuts that some

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of you are familiar with.

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Charlie Brown on one occasion was lamenting the fact that his ball team had lost 27 straight

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games.

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And in the last of the frames he turns around and looks back at the empty field and he says,

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how can we lose when we're so sincere?

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But sincerity, you see, doesn't alter truth.

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It doesn't change facts.

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Sincerity is not the measure of truth.

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What is true is true.

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People can be sincerely wrong.

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There are those who say, well, all religions are working toward the same goal.

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People are just going in different paths.

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Muhammad and Buddha and Krishna all claim to be sent from God and to show the way to

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him.

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And it's true they may have claimed that.

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That Jesus Christ stands out from them as being different because he not only claimed

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to be from God, but he claimed to be God himself.

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And he himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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No man comes to the Father but by me.

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That's very narrow and exclusive.

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He says, I am the way, period.

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Not I am one of the ways, not I am a better way, but he says I am the way.

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And essentially that's what the apostle is saying here.

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That this condemnation is for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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In whom is your faith?

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Is your faith in yourself?

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Do you think that somehow you will be able to pull it together?

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So that by the time you must stand before God and give account, surely God will find

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you acceptable?

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You say I'm very sincere in believing that.

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I commend you then for your sincerity, but I must warn you of your error.

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I must warn you that that is a way which may seem right, but in fact will lead to death.

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We dare not even trust our own sincerity.

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We must trust in God's only revealed provision for salvation, His Son, Jesus Christ.

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When we trust Him, we become in Him, or united to Him, or identified with Him, so that there

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is therefore now no condemnation.

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We can no more experience now the judgment, the wrath of God, than could Jesus Christ

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Himself.

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It is just as likely that Jesus Christ will go to hell for eternity than it is for a believer

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to go to hell.

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Because we have been identified with Him so that when God sees you, He sees you in His

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Son.

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And He says regarding you, no condemnation.

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That's the reality and the restriction.

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In verse 2 we have the rule.

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And here is the rule that makes verse 1 possible.

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He says the law of the Spirit of Life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

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The word law here is not like a set of rules, but it's referring to a principle.

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It's a principle like there are laws of mathematics, or laws of chemistry, or physics.

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Those are principles.

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Those are governing principles that are dependable.

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Now He says here are a couple of laws or principles.

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On the one hand there is the principle of sin and of death.

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This principle is the source and the result of condemnation.

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The source is sin and the result is death.

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It's where condemnation comes from.

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It is this controlling principle that is in all who are unsaved and regenerated.

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Every person outside of Jesus Christ is controlled by the principle of law, rather the principle

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of sin and of death.

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And even those of us who have trusted Christ still have that principle active in the members

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of our bodies, don't we?

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It doesn't control us.

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It's not the sovereign anymore, but it's the survivor.

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Back in chapter 7 verse 23 He says, but I see a different law in the members of my body

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waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which

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is in my members.

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That's a Christian talking.

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Now whereas an unsaved person is completely dominated by and controlled by that law, that

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principle, those of us who are saved are still infected by it.

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It's still in the members of our bodies.

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That's the difference with us.

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That's one principle, but the other one He says is the law of the spirit of life in Christ

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Jesus.

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I believe the word spirit here should be capitalized because it refers to the Holy Spirit.

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This is one of the names given to Him in the Bible.

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He is the spirit of life.

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He says here that this law is the principle of the spirit of life.

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In other words, it's made operational by Him.

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He's the one who works this law, this principle.

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He says that it comes to us through Christ, for it's the spirit, it's the law of the

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spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

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So the Holy Spirit does it, but as an outworking of what Christ has done for us.

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He's not independent of Christ.

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Now this is called the spirit of life.

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That's what this principle is.

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It's life as opposed to death and sin.

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It is life in its fullness.

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And I think we can say that this life is Jesus Christ Himself.

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In Colossians 3 and 4 it says, and He is our life.

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In other words, what the apostle is saying here is that whereas once we were controlled

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by, dominated by the principle of sin and of death, God has done a marvelous thing.

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He has caused that principle to be broken, to be overridden, so that there is a new principle

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that is at work in the life of the believer.

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And that is the principle of the spirit of life in Christ.

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God has given to us the very life of Jesus Himself.

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He says that this one law has set us free from the other law.

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Set free.

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That word is in a particular tense in the Greek that means it happened once and for

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all.

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It's a point action.

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It's not something that progressively happens.

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He's talking about the one law overriding the other at one given moment of time.

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And that time of our freedom was the moment that we trusted Christ.

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This freedom that we have is found in chapter 6 verse 18 as being a freedom from sin.

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He says, there having been freed from sin.

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We see it here in chapter 8 verse 2 as freedom from the law of sin and death.

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In chapter 8 verse 21, he says, the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery

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to corruption.

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And then it's used again in chapter 5 of Galatians in verse 13 where he says, for you were called

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to freedom, brethren.

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And so here is that freedom and how we got it.

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We have been freed from the law of sin and death by a higher law, the law of the spirit

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of life.

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By the way, here in Galatians 5, the apostle says this in an interesting way.

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He says, for freedom you were called, brethren.

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And Paul there is basing that phrase upon something that took place in their society in that day.

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It was called manumission.

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What it refers to is that a slave's release in that day was sometimes effected through

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a legal fiction.

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In other words, the owner of the slave would bring him to that pagan temple and would there

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pay a price into the temple treasury.

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A document was drawn up at that moment which contained the words, for freedom.

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What it meant was that a god now in that temple owned as of that moment the slave.

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And no one could ever buy him again because he was owned by a god.

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He was called a manumitted slave.

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It was the law of manumission.

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The document that was drawn up always contained those words, for freedom.

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Now Paul is drawing upon that picture here when he says that you and I have been called

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for freedom.

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And he says that we have been purchased by God himself so that no one can ever lay claim

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to us again, to be slaves to sin or to death or anything else.

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We are now owned by God himself.

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We have been called for freedom.

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Can the law of gravity be broken?

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Is it possible to break the law of gravity and get away with it?

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Well, I would guess that most of us here today have done that.

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We have done that by riding on an airplane.

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Now when I go to the airport, I never cease to be amazed that those machines get off the

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ground.

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Do you feel the same way as I do?

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Especially the large ones, the DC-10s, the 747s.

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And they almost seem to hang there in the air.

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Have you noticed that?

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They almost hover as they come in for landing.

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And their takeoffs are with such power and grace as they lift into the air.

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Every time they take off, they break the law of gravity.

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How is it that the law of gravity can be broken?

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It's overridden by a higher law.

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And that is the law of aerodynamics.

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By using one law, another law is broken.

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And that is what the apostle is saying here.

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We were controlled and held down by the law of sin and death.

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When we trusted Christ, a new law came into effect.

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The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

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And that law has set us free from the other law so that we're not bound by it anymore.

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That's the rule that makes us free in Christ.

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And now in verse 3, he gives us the reason why this law works.

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And again, you'll notice he uses the word law.

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And this time he refers to the Mosaic law.

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That is the law of God.

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For he says, what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did.

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The first thing he does is to remind us again of what the law could not do.

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He says the law could not produce righteousness in us.

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Now why was that?

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The law was righteous.

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Well, the answer is that man's nature is sinful.

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His flesh is sinful and therefore that was the weakness.

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The law could show us the standard.

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The law could tell us what we ought to be, but the law could not give us a new heart,

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a new spirit, a new nature.

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And that was the only way deliverance could come.

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So he says what the law could not do, because of the weakness in man's flesh, God did.

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What does he mean?

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God did, in other words, provide righteousness.

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How did he do that?

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He tells us what God's work was.

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He says first of all he sent his own Son.

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There we have the deity of Christ.

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He sent his only Son.

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In other places, some of the Gospel writers use the word begotten Son.

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That doesn't mean that God created him.

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It is a word that describes the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.

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This is a strong affirmation of the deity of Christ.

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When it mentions the Son, it does not mean that somehow he is less than the Father, for

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he is equal with the Father in essence.

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But for the purpose of redemption, the second person of the Godhead identifies himself as

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the Son, so that we could see that there is Father and Son, and that God himself within

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the mystery of his triunity is coming into the world.

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And that's what he says.

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He says he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

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There we have the incarnation.

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And notice how delicately he phrases it.

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He does not say in the likeness of flesh, because that would mean that he was not in

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a real body, and that would be heresy.

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Notice he says that he came in sinful flesh, because that would mean he was a sinner, and

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that too would be a heresy.

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And both of those heresies have been fought in church history.

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But he carefully phrases it just as he does in Philippians 2, in the likeness of sinful

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flesh.

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In other words, he came in a literal, corporal, real body, but it was without sin.

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That was the incarnation.

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So we have his deity, we have the incarnation.

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And then he says, as an offering for sin.

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And there we have propitiation.

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That was the word we saw back in chapter 3 that means satisfaction.

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God's holiness was offended by man's sin.

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God provided himself satisfaction for that offense.

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That's propitiation.

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He came as an offering for sin, and it says by that he condemned sin in the flesh.

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And there we have our liberation.

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It says he punished sin.

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And when it says sin in the flesh, it's talking about the flesh of Jesus Christ.

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In other words, he was in the flesh, and in him sin was condemned.

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As Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 2, who his own self bore our sins, in his own body, on

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the tree.

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In other words, it was he who was in the flesh, and that price for sin, that punishment for

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sin was placed upon him.

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So we have a lot of truth there in verse 3.

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It's the reason that this law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus can make us free.

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It's because he as God came down as a man sinless, and offered himself for sin, and

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dealt thoroughly with sin.

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He crushed it.

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He bore the punishment for it in his own body, and thus the law of God is satisfied.

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And in verse 4 we see the result of all of this.

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Why have we been set free?

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So that we can be free from hell as part of it, but there's much more than that.

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In verse 4 he says this has happened in order that the requirement of the law might be

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fulfilled in us.

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In other words, so that the righteousness that God required in the law could be fulfilled

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in our lives.

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There are some people who see salvation only as a fire escape from hell.

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But my friend, God's real purpose in salvation is that we might be like his son.

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It's so that we might be sanctified.

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00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,160
A legitimate word, right?

402
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,500
A Bible word.

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00:32:24,500 --> 00:32:27,200
That we might be made holy.

404
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:28,880
That is God's will.

405
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,840
First Thessalonians 4, 4.

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For this is the will of God, even your what?

407
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,080
Does anybody know?

408
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:36,080
Sanctification.

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00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:41,520
That you be made like Jesus Christ.

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00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:45,800
And so God has not tossed out the righteousness of the law and discarded it.

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Rather he has now made it possible for it to be realized in the life of the Christian.

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He says that that requirement might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh,

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but according to the Spirit.

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That same phrase is found in the King James Version, back in verse 1.

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The best scholarship that we have today shows that that phrase does not belong in verse

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1.

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00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,880
The best manuscripts do not have it there.

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00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:21,720
It belongs in verse 4, where it is.

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00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,160
What does it mean there?

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Those who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

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Well there are those that say that that's referring to a class of Christians.

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In other words, it's those Christians who walk according to the Spirit and not according

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00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:40,360
to their flesh.

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But I don't believe that's the way Paul means it in this verse.

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00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:51,400
In Galatians, he does use the word walk in the Spirit, but there in chapter 5 it's a

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00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:56,640
different word walk than it is here in verse 4 of chapter 8 of Romans.

427
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What is he talking about here?

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00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:03,840
Well he's trying to define for us what a Christian, a real Christian, is.

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00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:09,960
He says a real Christian is one who does not walk according to the flesh, but according

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00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:10,960
to the Spirit.

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00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:16,160
Now he's going to follow up more on that in the next few verses that we'll look at next

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week.

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But he's saying that all who are truly saved do not walk according to the flesh, but according

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to the Spirit.

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That is the general tenor of their life.

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00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:38,000
The direction of their life is one of following the Spirit and not the dictates of the sinful

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00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:43,440
nature.

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00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:49,880
I've asked some people on occasion, are you a Christian?

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00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,400
Why sure I'm a Christian.

440
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,400
Well how do you know you're a Christian?

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00:34:55,400 --> 00:35:02,920
Well back in 1961 I went forward in the service and I prayed and I haven't lived much like

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00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:10,120
a Christian in the last 22 years, but back then I went forward in church and made a decision.

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00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:17,880
When a person answers me that way, I always wonder in my heart, did that person really

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00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,040
trust Christ?

445
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,200
You know why?

446
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,280
Because when a person is genuinely saved there's a new direction in his life.

447
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:33,120
Now he doesn't say here that a Christian can't sin because Christians can sin, we've

448
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:38,440
talked about that last week, chapter 7 makes it so clear there's a struggle with sin.

449
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:44,720
But what he's saying is that a genuine Christian does not follow the flesh as the direction

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00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:52,040
of his life, rather he follows the Spirit.

451
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,960
You take David for an example.

452
00:35:54,960 --> 00:36:03,080
David committed some grievous sins, sins that he paid for dearly in his own family, in his

453
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,360
own life.

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00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:14,200
But David was a man after God's own heart because the general direction, the flavor

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00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:22,160
of his life was one that was seeking after God, following him, though there were times

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00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:26,840
of sad and tragic stumbling.

457
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:28,560
That's a Christian.

458
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,120
That's a Christian.

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00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:39,920
As you look at the direction of your life this week, this year, the last five years,

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00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:45,040
can you honestly say that since that time that you prayed the prayer or went forward

461
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:52,920
or whatever you did, that there's been a new direction, that you walk now after the Spirit

462
00:36:52,920 --> 00:37:02,620
and not after the flesh, although there are times that you do sin and the flesh dominates

463
00:37:02,620 --> 00:37:08,440
you and you're brought into bondage to sin for that moment as we talked last week, you

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00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:15,440
are guilty and you confess it to the Lord and you go on walking after the Lord?

465
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:19,600
You know, it concerns me that in our day we have a lot of people who come to church and

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00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:26,040
who have followed what is called easy believism, who have been challenged to believe on the

467
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:31,440
Lord Jesus Christ but who have never repented of sin and therefore their faith is only superficial

468
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,720
and not genuine.

469
00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:39,600
And who although they do good things in the name of Christ will someday hear Jesus say,

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why do you call me Lord, Lord?

471
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:47,320
You've not done the things that I said.

472
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:52,520
What a tragedy that would be for a person to be a member of an evangelical church, to

473
00:37:52,520 --> 00:38:00,240
have known right theology and had good head knowledge of it all and yet go to hell because

474
00:38:00,240 --> 00:38:06,160
he's not repented in his heart of sin and turned genuinely and deeply and truly to Jesus

475
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,000
Christ.

476
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:17,480
The evidence that one has done that, has trusted Christ is that his direction of life is walking

477
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,280
after the Spirit of God.

478
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:27,440
I remember hearing a story about a bomber in World War II that took off from North Africa,

479
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:34,200
went across the Mediterranean Sea, dropped its load on Italy and made its return flight.

480
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:41,440
However, somehow on the return flight because perhaps of shrapnel the plane's instruments

481
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,880
were in error.

482
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,020
The crew trusted the instruments.

483
00:38:47,020 --> 00:38:51,920
They were taught to do that and they sincerely believed that those instruments were guiding

484
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,720
them back to their base in Libya.

485
00:38:55,720 --> 00:39:04,080
But in fact the instruments were wrong on that cloudy, dark night and they crashed and

486
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,840
all perished out in the desert.

487
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,760
What was the problem?

488
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:11,840
It was the direction of their life.

489
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,260
Oh, they were sincere.

490
00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:21,020
They believed what they knew in their instruments but they were sincerely wrong.

491
00:39:21,020 --> 00:39:23,160
What is the direction of your life, my friend?

492
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:28,760
I'm not asking you how sincere you are but what's the direction of your life?

493
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:33,640
As you're able to get God's accurate instrument out and test the direction you've been heading

494
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:37,660
in, are you heading in the right direction?

495
00:39:37,660 --> 00:39:40,400
Are you walking after the Spirit?

496
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:45,160
If so, then you have experienced true liberation.

497
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:50,500
There's been a new law come into your life and you've been set free from the law of sin

498
00:39:50,500 --> 00:39:56,400
and of death because of what Jesus Christ has done.

499
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:01,840
I hope that's been your experience and you're walking after the Spirit.

500
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:09,420
Heavenly Father, thank you for this truth today, this true liberation theology.

501
00:40:09,420 --> 00:40:15,120
We thank you that in Jesus Christ there is no condemnation.

502
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:20,960
Now I would pray that that would be true of every one of us today, but lest there be some

503
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:28,320
friend here who is deceived, however sincere, I pray that if there be one of us who is not

504
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:40,040
in Christ, who may be in religion and into good works but not into Christ, today you

505
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,800
would show that one the direction of his life.

506
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:50,400
May there be repentance, a turning, and a trusting in Christ.

507
00:40:50,400 --> 00:41:01,280
Father, for those of us who live in this freedom, this liberation, may we be exhibiting the righteousness

508
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,480
of the law.

509
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:12,280
May the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ be seen in our thoughts, in our words, in

510
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:17,240
our motives, in our deeds.

511
00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:19,040
We pray this in his name.

512
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:46,680
Amen.