Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20080113.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Romans: Charter Of God's Salvation Grace
Part IV: The Sanctification Of The Justified By Faith Through Grace, Romans 6:1-8:39
E. Utilizing The Believer's Relationship To The Indwelling Holy Spirit, Romans 8:1-39
1. Utilizing The Holy Spirit's Power For Freedom From The Sin Nature's Control
(Romans 8:1-11)
  1. Introduction
    1. Having established the fact that the believer in his own best efforts can not live a godly life due to his sin nature's influence, Paul moved into the victory we can have over that nature's control in Romans 8:1-39.
    2. At Romans 8:1-11, he noted what the evangelical community in America so desperately needs today, that the believer can live free from his sin nature's control by depending upon the indwelling Holy Spirit!
  2. Utilizing The Holy Spirit's Power For Freedom From The Sin Nature's Control, Romans 8:1-11.
    1. [Romans 8:1 has a textual problem affecting key theological beliefs, so we must discuss it (as follows):
      1. The King James Version states there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ and who also do not walk after the sin nature ("flesh"), but after the Holy Spirit. This suggests the believer escapes God's eternal judgment (condemnation) providing he lives sinlessly, a conditional salvation security position that implies that if you sin as a believer, you have lost your salvation and are headed to hell!
      2. However, the verse should end with "Christ Jesus", a reading (a) "strongly supported by early representatives of both the Alexandrian and Western types of text" in the Greek manuscripts, and (b) evidence that "later manuscripts introduce an interpolation from ver. 4 in two stages", adding first "who do not walk according to the flesh" (v. 4b) and then later the phrase, "but according to the Spirit" (v. 4c), Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the New Testament, 1971, p. 515.
      3. Thus, in Romans 8:1, Paul announced that, due to his position in Christ following justification, there is no eternal condemnation for the believer! He has unconditional salvation security, cf. John 5:24!]
    2. Romans 8:1 thus teaches that, regardless of the lingering presence of the (Romans 7:14b-24) sin nature, the believer must recall he has unconditional salvation security; there is no more condemnation weighing upon him: that was settled in God's justification of him (Romans 3:23-28), and he has been made free from the law of sin and death on the positional plane through the saving work of God, Romans 8:1a, 2!
    3. Further, not only does the believer have unconditional salvation security, his positional liberation from the law of sin can be applied in his Christian life for victory over committing acts of sin, Rom ans 8:2-10:
      1. Because of the believer's positional liberation from the law of sin and death in Christ, he can have liberation from acts of sin in his experience as a believer (implied), Romans 8:2.
      2. This liberty comes since God's sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin so effectively condemned sin in the body that the righteousness of God's law might be fulfilled in us who rely upon the Holy Spirit for living rather than relying on the condemned sin nature, Romans 8:3-4, 5!
      3. Paul elaborated on this truth, stating the sin nature is at enmity with God, and one who lives by its power as a way of life can not please God, Rom. 8:6-8. Yet, those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit due to justification by faith in Christ, people who are thus true believers, have the capacity to live in righteousness by the Holy Spirit's power opposite the hopeless failure of the unsaved, Romans 8:9-10.
    4. To further encourage his readers, Paul jumped ahead of his immediate theme to announce that, in the believer's ultimate sanctification from sin (at the rapture), the indwelling Holy Spirit Who raised Jesus up from the dead in great power will also raise up the believer's mortal body from death in ultimate triumph over sin and its product of death, Romans 8:11 with 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 54-57!
Lesson: Victory over the believer's living by his own SIN NATURE is BASED on the POSITIONAL victory over eternal condemnation he has in Christ so that he never needs to dread a loss of salvation. This positional victory may be EXPERIENTIALLY applied to one's life by LEANING on the HOLY SPIRIT, the One Who will give him ultimate victory over sin's presence at the rapture! (Romans 8:23)

Application: May we CEASE living by the SIN NATURE and rely on the indwelling HOLY SPIRIT to live ABOVE sin until the Spirit changes our bodies in ultimate, permanent victory over the sin nature!