THE BOOK OF ROMANS 8:1-4 | THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL OF GOD

Mike Balloun teaches today. 11/21/20.

THE BOOK OF ROMANS 8:1-4
OUR WAR AGAINST THE FLESH

VERSES: Galatians 5:13-25; 1st Thessalonians 3:12; John 5:30; Exodus 12:15; Mark 8:32-35

STUDY NOTES: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pipllhmd6eo1t7i/AACmI-WiG9Y9JnjJSYypSPRPa?dl=0

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In the Holy Spirit’s organizing of the Canon of New Testament Scripture, the Book of Romans comes first in the doctrinal letters. And rightfully so in that within its pages are found the foundational truths necessary for understanding the rest of Scriptures. It has been established thus far in Romans that all mankind are naturally born in Adam and under the condemnation of death (physical and spiritual). It has also been established that God justifies and saves on the basis of progressive Faith as seen in Abraham. God gave the Law of Moses that sin might be seen as exceedingly sinful. All men stand condemned under the Law of Moses; effectively the Law points to faith in Christ for redemption. God has justified those who have faith in Jesus Christ’s redemptive offering from Sin and the curse of the Law of Moses, nailing the Old Nature to the Cross. And thereby, God gifted to them a new nature by which they should now serve Him in newness of life. Additionally, to that end He has removed them from under the Law of Moses to under the Law of Grace.

We have noted before how Romans 5:12-6:23 explains the two lineages of mankind; ‘in Adam’ and ‘in Christ’ and have also noted how Romans 7:1-8:39 reveals the walk in Christ after justification as being one of our spirit versus our flesh. This is seen in the necessity of not only being ‘in Christ’ now in order to serve God but that we must walk in the spirit/Spirit. The challenge now, being in Christ, is to walk in the spirit, not the flesh, in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we get it wrong here in Romans, we will be wrong throughout.

In Chapter 7, “I myself” …is discovered to be the hindering issue to Paul’s new nature received at his conversion to Christ in the going on to sanctification/holiness in serving God. He had seen the light of Christ’s Crucifixion Cross that illuminated his need for imputed righteousness/justification, but he had not yet seen that part of the Cross that sheds the light upon the need for him (his carnal self) to be crucified. That includes all his flesh he had been blind to and that of religious self-determination that served him so well in Judaism. That is, all his determined works in holiness originated from the flesh/the carnal soul and body. (Philippians 3:4-6) He had brought his religious fervor and selfish ambition from Judaism with him into Christianity. It was to him at last discovered that the works of the flesh are powerless, and fruitless in obtaining holiness ‘in Christ”. The sins of his seemingly uncontrollable flesh resisted all of his New Man’s attempts to serve God acceptably. The New Man, or spirit that the Father had given him, was at enmity with the flesh nature within his soul and body.

So we have arrived then at Chapter 8, which is the mountaintop in these progressive doctrinal truths. In that, we can look at Chapter 8 as being where chapters 1-7 have pointed us to. Chapter 7 ends in Paul’s Christian desperation in being besieged by the flesh discovered yet within him; and Chapter 8 begins in his rejoicing in the revelation in attaining liberty to answer the call to serve the Father.

Jesus said in John 5:30, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” Jesus is the prototype for us. He took the path that we are to follow. He said…“I can -- of mine own self (out from myself, that is from the reasoning soul of a man’s will without the directive of God) do nothing (acceptable to the Father): as I hear (from the spirit/Spirit), I judge (my movements): and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will (in the supremacy of my soul’s will), but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” In Adam, man had acted in himself apart from the Creator and it was a tragedy. He was made a ‘living soul’ in a spiritual state of communing in a loving dependence upon the Creator’s Will and he fell to ‘living by the soul’ in self-dependence without internal spirit communion with God. (1st Adam leaned upon the reasonings within the soul.) He was then, in the fall, relegated to the carnally-controlled soul and body state without spirit abilities, the condition wherein all men of Adam are born.

The spirit/Spirit view of Christ for living life was first acted out figuratively in consecration in John’s Baptism, in that He committed to suffering death....

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