Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
No Condemnation
Romans 8:1-4
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. · WEB
The second great therefore — no condemnation now — and what the law could not do, God did, so that the law's ordinance might be fulfilled in walkers by the Spirit.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
The sentence answers the cry of the wretched man across the chapter break, and every word is placed. No condemnation — the verdict-word: not merely reduced sentence but no adverse verdict at all, for people still inside the war chapter 7 described. Now — since the but now of the gospel's arrival Romans 3:21, and now in the middle of the ongoing struggle, not after its resolution. To those who are in Christ Jesus — location, the union of chapters 5 and 6 Romans 6:11: the verdict attaches to the address, not to the performance of the resident.
Verse 2 states the liberation in the chapter's own idiom: for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. Two laws — two regimes, two operating principles Romans 7:23 — and the stronger has broken the grip of the weaker: the Spirit's regime of life against the occupying law that kept winning the war. The me is the same me that was captive two verses ago; the tense of made free is settled fact.
Then verse 3 explains what happened, and its clauses are the gospel compressed: for what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
The law's inability is located precisely — not in the law but through the flesh, the material it had to work with Romans 7:14; a perfect standard cannot empower its subjects. What the law could not do, God did: the sending, into the likeness of sinful flesh — real flesh, the phrase guarding both the reality of the incarnation and the sinlessness of the one sent — and for sin, the Greek Old Testament's phrase for a sin offering. And there, in that flesh, he condemned sin — the condemnation that verse 1 lifts from believers landed on sin itself, executed in the very territory where sin had ruled.
And the purpose clause vindicates everything chapter 7 said about the law's goodness: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit Romans 8:4.
Fulfilled — not waived, not lowered: in us. The law's righteous requirement is not the casualty of the gospel but its product, realized at last in people who walk by the power the law never had to give Romans 3:31.
settled What this mark means