Romans 8 begins with a wonderful description of God’s work in the Trinity, the unity of one God yet three persons (vs 1–4). God did what the Law could not do, because although the Law is holy and spiritual (7:12,14), it is weakened by our weakness (v 3).

Think of a time you did something for someone else, something they could not do for themselves. Big or small, that is a picture of this.

Your Bible version may have the words ‘controlled by’ or ‘governed by’ in verses 5 to 8, but Paul is really talking about who (or what) we ‘belong to’. Look back at chapter 7 verse 4: Christians ‘belong to another’; who we are has changed. Therefore, through the work of the Spirit, what we do is able to change too (7:4–6).
And it must change. God sets us free, so that we can ‘live ... according to the Spirit’ (v 4). Obedience is necessary, but as the fruit of our salvation, rather than as the requirement for it.

Having reached this point, ask the Lord to help you piece Paul’s arguments together and to embed them in your heart and mind.

In this climactic chapter, Paul now celebrates the themes he has previously set out. He begins with triumphant affirmations about our position in Christ. We are not condemned! We are set free! Paul contrasts life in the Spirit and life in the flesh. It is important to understand the word ‘flesh’. It does not refer (here) to the body as such. Bodily existence is good and wholesome because created by God and fundamental to our existence. The ‘flesh’ refers to unregenerate human nature, that part of our nature that rejects and resists God’s gracious rule in our lives. The flesh is hostile to God (v 7). To overcome this hostility, God sent his Son to be a sin offering. He became one of us and was sent in the ‘likeness of sinful flesh’ (v 3). This means that he shared our bodily nature without sharing our sinful nature (flesh): he was like us in every way but without sharing in our sin.¹ In this way he is able to help us.

Once more we find here the use of the word ‘law’ to refer to a power or force at work within us. There is the ‘law of sin and death’, which drags us down and ‘the law of the Spirit who gives life’ (v 2) and lifts us up. Both laws are at work in our lives. This is like our being subject to the law of gravity, causing us to fall, and another law, such as that of aerodynamics, which defies gravity and lifts us.

There is a warning here. Gravity is overcome only for so long as the laws of aerodynamics apply, and this can only happen in so far as an energy source allows them to operate. Remove this force field and disaster follows. The Spirit of God who upholds us is such a source.

‘So I say, live by the Spirit.’² 

¹ Heb 4:15  ² Gal 5:16