1. Remember, Paul is still writing a letter (from prison) to the believers in Rome.
2. If you are “in” Jesus, you cannot be condemned to death (separation from God). Are you in?
3. Being “in” Jesus means that you are now under a new jurisdiction: you went from the law of sin and death to the law of “the Spirit of life.” Sounds good to me. Now what are the rules?
4. The “law of sin and death” couldn’t bring people life because it was an endless cycle. “Here are the rules. If you break them, you are in trouble.” The sinful nature of man made it near impossible for us to comply. It’s like going down the china aisle with a wobbly shopping cart.
5. Jesus was a “sin offering.” This was all part of the wobbly cart system. If you sinned (which was inevitable), something had to die. In this case, though, it was Jesus, the once and for all sacrifice.
6. It’s not like God hit the reset button on the old rules. In fact, He satisfied the old rules of the game by allowing Jesus to die as the supreme sacrifice. So, now, we are on to a new law “according to the Spirit.” That old dynamic no longer applies because it has been satisfied. There is a new one.
7. So…if we are “liv[ing] in accordance with the Spirit” (WE ARE), then we should really be living for what the Spirit desires. These are the “new rules.” Life and peace sound a whole lot better than death. Submitting to God’s ways sounds a whole lot better than being hostile to God and not pleasing God.
8. So…we are no longer in this hostile mindset, though. We are controlled by “the Spirit”, the Holy Spirit, God Himself! So why do we still act dumb?
9. No Spirit equals no Christ. God that. Do you think the average Christian is afraid to talk about the Holy Spirit? Why, if it’s supposed to be what controls us?
10. Dead body. Alive spirit. That definitely makes sense to me. Sometimes my body feels zombie-like. But Paul is saying that if God can raise Jesus from the dead, he can also raise our “dead” bodies from the dead. I am not a zombie. I want God’s breath to be my life blood. I don’t want to act like I’m dead when I’m not!
11. We are OBLIGATED. In other words, “we have to.” We have to what? We are obligated to live “by the Spirit” and put to death all this dead man stuff, this sinful stuff. It’s not even like we “have to” because we are God’s slaves. It says that we are His “sons.” Whoah!
12. We can call God, “Daddy.” That’s what “Abba” means. Think about how close that must mean we are!
13. Here’s a perk of being God’s kid. You are an heir. You get an inheritance. We share the “family sufferings,” but we also get the family “glory.” We are the same family. This is just how it works.
14. Paul wants everyone to understand that this suffering (the suffering that God’s family experiences) is NOTHING compared to the future glory that we will have as sons and daughters of God. Pretty amazing. Paul is laying it down.
