Paul’s two laws

The two laws—the law of righteousness by the Spirit and the law of sin without the Spirit.

 

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:2).

 

“For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:3,4).

 

Can this be understood? Is it a bunch of theological or spiritual mumbo jumbo? Can it actually be put into practice? Is it for the common person to have?

 

Let’s see.

 

What is the law of sin and death? Can we find where Paul first brought up the subject?

 

The first word regarding the law of sin, that I see, is from the previous chapter, verse 21.

 

“I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” (Rom. 7:21).

 

The law of sin. A power dwells in all of us that keeps us subjugated to a selfish, self-indulgent, self-exalting, self-pitiful state of mind. We need deliverance from self—“the flesh”. “For the creature was made subject to vanity…because the creature” is in “the bondage of corruption. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” (Rom. 8:20-22). The flesh.

 

“The flesh” and “the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1) stand counterposed. They are opposites. “It is the spirit that quickeneth [comes to life]; the flesh profiteth nothing.” (John 6:63). Whether or not we have the Spirit determines who controls us. We all are controlled by Christ or Satan. Our conscience is either inhabited by the holy power of Christ or the demonic power of the devil.

 

From our first birth, our naturally fallen condition has no holiness to guide our thoughts, words, or actions. That holy guide from natural birth left our race when Adam abdicated His loyalty to God and fell under the influence of the serpent. No longer could Adam’s progeny inherit a holy nature because Adam had none to bequeath. All that Adam could pass down was a physical body, empty of the holy nature that made him wholly in God’s image.

 

But that holy internal guide can be restored through faith in Him who was God incarnate, made the fullness of God bodily. Christ had the eternal Spirit, the Spirit without measure. If we will come under His influence, that is, His Spirit, by realizing His goodness and His everlasting love, then we can have some of His Spirit upon our mind and heart. Then we will have a new spirit, an impowered spirit.

 

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” (Rom. 8:16).

 

This is the law of the Spirit of life. It only comes to us when Christ comes to us. The Spirit comes with Jesus. The Spirit is Jesus divested of His human form, “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:2).

 

“Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally; therefore it was altogether for their advantage that He should leave them, go to His father, and send the Holy Spirit to be His successor on earth. The Holy Spirit is Himself divested of the personality of humanity and independent thereof. He would represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit, as the Omnipresent. ‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall (although unseen by you), teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you’ [John 14:26]. ‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will come not unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you’ [John 16:7].” 14MR 23.3.

The law of sin and death is how Paul described the presence of the Law of God in a conscience that was not submitted to God. This was the condition of Paul before He met Christ, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.” (Acts 9:1). His conscience had been quickened to the knowledge of sin by the Law. “I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” (Rom. 7:9).

 

Christ’s power of conviction latched hold onto Paul’s conscience and wouldn’t let go. Through his natural pride Satan was influencing him to cast arrogant mockery at the Law’s sky-high requirements. The Spirit of Christ was fighting for him to surrender to the Law. Paul couldn’t see enough benefits to obeying righteousness to find any worth in the Law because the devil wouldn’t let him see the benefits. Satan was keeping him blinded to all the good life that comes from the Law of love. “The commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” (Rom. 7:10,11).

 

Looking back from the perspective of his new nature, Paul could see the clear deception from Satan’s whispering, that the Law is worthy of abrogation. But, even at the time and the condition of Paul’s unsurrendered heart, something in him kept him coming back to the Law; the Spirit of Christ kept calling to him that to not reverence the Law was a delusion from Satan. Hence the only natural conclusion in Paul’s mind: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” (Rom. 7:12). Only the work of Christ could lead a sinner to come to that conclusion.

 

Paul was fighting a battle with the powers of darkness. But he was not alone. Christ Himself was fighting Satan. “Thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.” (Isa. 49:25). As Christ delivered so many people from devil possession when He had walked among us, He was doing the same with Paul.

 

“Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” (Rom. 7:13).

 

God doesn’t make His Law of love and life death to any sinner. Satan makes the Law death, binding his victims by his miserable and commiserating influence, and preventing the presence of Christ to inhabit their conscience. Their tastes, the thoughts and intents of their heart, the whims and bent of their nature, Satan rallies all that is within to enlist them against the entrance of Christ’s Spirit. Christ is making His move to free the soul by His Father’s Law, but the soul must consent to the new Master. Until the soul consents to the love of Christ, he will not be delivered from Satan, even if he hopes in the Law of God.

 

Paul said, “I consent unto the law that it is good.” (Rom. 7:16). Yet consenting to a Law didn’t deliver him from sin and Satan. He still cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).

 

It took time for Paul to see his own ability to be good before he could admit to complete moral and spiritual deformity. “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” (Rom 7:19,20). He needed the Spirit of Christ filling his empty conscience with “all the fulness of God.” (Eph. 3:19).

 

Slowly, as Paul analyzed the situation and his condition with a growing appreciation for the righteousness of God’s Law, silently a new discernment developed and a vision solidified. “I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” (Rom. 7:22,23).

 

His help lay beyond anything he could humanly conceive of. Help must come from outside of him and apart from his personal resources. Now he was floating on an ocean of hopelessness without a rudder and feeling alone.

 

“Who shall deliver me”?? (Rom. 7:24). Suddenly, Christ moved in by His Spirit. The environment was perfect for His entrance in Paul. During his wrestling with righteousness, Paul had filled his mind with the precepts of the Law, and had pinpointed and repented of all his personal weaknesses. Even if his repentances were not prayers to Jesus, Jesus heard them nonetheless, and knew this pitiful heart.

 

Christ’s power having permission to overthrow the devil by Paul’s efforts to please God, now a new law held sway in Paul—“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:2).

 

Happily delivered from Satan and the devil’s efforts to darken his mind of all delight in righteousness and to amplify fear of ramifications for following after obedience to the Law, Paul proclaimed his means of deliverance, “God through Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 7:25).

 

From that day forward Paul knew how to cooperate with Jesus for a continued freedom from the power of the devil. “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:25).

 

Notice that at this point Paul doesn’t yet counterpose the flesh with the Spirit. He is counterposing the flesh with the Law. Paul doesn’t despise the Law, nor desire its non-existence. Paul felt that way while Satan held his mind captive, but he doesn’t feel that way anymore. He knows the importance of the Law of God for convicting the conscience of sin for the means of surrendering to the authority of God over the sinner and for the means to having the blessedness of God through Christ’s Spirit. “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be.” (Rom. 8:7). “O how love I Thy Law; it my meditation all the day.” (Ps. 119:97). And the importance of the Law of God in the mind of man is Paul’s segway to unleash the principle and the power of the Spirit for kicking Satan out of every weakened and confused sinner, and giving them a new lease on life.

 

The flesh and the Law are as equally contrasted as the flesh and the Spirit are. Our controlling element must be either the flesh or the Law and Spirit. The Spirit of Christ brings the deadened spirituality to life in the new Christian. Redemption is actually re-creation. or spiritual creation. It is restoring fallen creatures to their original freedom that Adam and Eve had in paradise.

 

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of Hhis inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power…. You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Eph. 1:17-19; 2:1).

 

This was not an arbitrary quickening (bringing to life), but a new source of life that resulted from the soul’s tireless search for a knowledge of God seen in His Son. Trusting in the Son of God brought power, energy, effort, freedom to choose, and the ability to accomplish the choice, for aligning with the Law of righteousness. “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.” (Eph. 1:12). Everything necessary for obedience with a good conscience is what came to Paul with the Spirit of Christ as He presented Himself through His word. It was the touch of Omnipotence, the finger of God. Rest, true rest from Jesus.

 

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:2).

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:1).

 

The new avenue to holiness and the new approach to the Law of God through beholding Christ took hold of Paul. It possessed him. The love of Christ possessed Paul. Christ possessed Paul; He moved this holy man of God. Paul could draw back from the possession by Christ whenever he so desired, but the holy love of Christ was what became Paul’s greatest delight during his wrestling over the Law in Romans 7. Paul’s greatest delight was to be possessed by Christ. Possession by the heavenly agencies was the solution to every problem in the world. Why should he be ashamed or doubtful of this panacea solution that could help every living soul on planet Earth? To be wooed away from his paradise would be as great a foolishness as Adam’s loss.

 

To return to dependence on the flesh with its law of sin and death would be suicide. The flesh without help from the Spirit only makes bad habits increasingly binding. Satan mishandles the pure principles of the Law and makes them say the opposite to their true message. “It is through false theories and traditions that Satan gains his power over the mind. By directing men to false standards, he misshapes the character.” Desire of Ages, p. 671.

 

“The strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1Cor. 15:56-58).

 

“The Comforter is called ‘the Spirit of truth.’ His work is to define and maintain the truth. He first dwells in the heart as the Spirit of truth, and thus He becomes the Comforter. There is comfort and peace in the truth, but no real peace or comfort can be found in falsehood.… Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the mind, and impresses truth upon the heart. Thus He exposes error, and expels it from the soul. It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself.” Desire of Ages, p. 671.

 

Approaching the Law without the Spirit ends in humanism and dead works from a conscience dead to holiness. And God understands this. God has been involved in conversions since the day He bought back the heart, soul, will, and loyalty of Adam and Eve by the sacrifice of the very first lambs. Our Creator knows better than we do that having “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal. 4:6) is the only way to obedience to all His commands.

 

“For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Rom. 8:3).

 

It is impossible for us to do God’s will by using our empty soul to achieve obedience. We need the Son of God in the likeness of our fallen flesh, who will expose sin from the context of love and His personable helpfulness. This is the way Jesus condemned sin before our eyes. In Him we have a model of friendliness and of perfection of holiness. We have a friend in our Deliverer who we can trust in, yet who helps us to have His holiness that we tremble before. “In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.” (Heb. 2:17). But, “being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” (Heb. 1:4). “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:9), the Prince of princes whose glance convicted everyone of sin.

 

Now He has passed into the heavens, and is beyond our sight and hearing. But by Christ’s Spirit, “the Spirit of Christ” (1Pet. 1:11), which is “the Holy Ghost” (2Pet. 1:21), He still helps us obtain His righteousness through His written word, the Law. When we see Him in His strong inspired writings or in His Father’s stronger Law then He can again “be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” (Heb. 2:17).

 

By His gift of faith, we come to Him and we expose ourselves to His high and Holy Scriptures. “Search the scriptures; for…they are they which testify of Me. And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” (John 5:39,40). As we surrender to the holiness, righteousness, and goodness seen in the Law, we become more susceptible to the Spirit of Christ that uses the holy Law as His avenue to our soul. By His Law He puts in us enmity against sin and love for His character. We gradually transfer our loyalty to God’s character and He gives our mind and heart the law of the Spirit of His Son. We no longer have to see our wretched selves counterposed to the blinding light of the Law of a pure God. Having the evidence of God’s love for us individually, we no longer have to live under Satan’s relish for the mixture of good with evil in his fallen race that derange our hope in pure goodness. So long as we look for Christ in the Law, we are delivered from the condemnation and hopeless shame, perpetual service to temptation, and a walking death, which Satan’s fixation on our sins brings to us.

 

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified inthe Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” (1Tim. 3:16).

“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit.” (Rom. 8:4). We are God’s through “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9); and we are Christ’s through the “the law of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:2), the principle of coming to Christ in His Holy Writ for life and a spirit after the divine nature.