Law of Spirit, Law of Sin

Among the abundant blessings that come to those who are in Christ Jesus (see last week’s blog post) is freedom from the law of sin and death: "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). So here is another blessing that comes to us in Christ: in verse 1, there is the blessing of justification (no condemnation in God’s courtroom). Now in verse 2, there is not only justification from sin’s penalty, but liberation from sin’s power.

Paul says that this freedom comes about by “the law of the Spirit of life”. These are puzzling phrases: “the law of the Spirit of life” and “the law of sin and death.” What do they mean?

Though Paul has had much to say in Romans about the law of God (i.e., the commands and regulations given to the people of Israel by Moses, summed up in the Ten Commandments), I am not inclined to think that this is what Paul has in mind in Romans 8:2 when he uses the word “law.” Notice that in the next verses (v.3-4) Paul says that God has done what the law could not do, namely, free us from the guilt and tyranny of sin. So it seems unlikely to me that Paul says in one verse that the law has freed us from sin and death, and in the very next verse says that God did something because the same law was unable to do it.

Also, when this same phrase “law of sin” is used just a few verses earlier (7:23), Paul seems to be saying it is something different from the Mosaic law:

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law (i.e., not the Mosaic law) waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members" (Romans 7:21-23).

I think that the law of sin which Paul speaks of here is parallel with the “other law” that Paul mentions in this same sentence, and that is something different from the “law of God”. Rather, the law of sin seems to be the law that Paul speaks of in verse 21, in which evil lies close at hand even when Paul wants to do right.

It is somewhat similar to the way we use the phrase, “law of nature.” When we speak of the laws of nature, we aren’t talking about a list of rules and regulations which morally govern the behavior of nature (as in the Ten Commandments). We mean a reality, a principle, an inherent rule or authority or impulse that governs how things are. And I think that’s what the word “law” is pointing to as Paul uses it in both halves of verse 2.

So there is a “law of sin and death.” It is a power or an impulse or a principle or a natural bent toward evil that is at work in our bodies (“in my members", 7:23) that keeps us from doing the good we want and draws us to do evil. The phrase “and death” is added because the “law of sin” leads to death unless we are freed from it by the powerful working of God’s Spirit.

It is that freedom which Paul is speaking of at the beginning of verse 2: “[There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ], for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Understanding “law” in this phrase the same we understand it at the end of the verse, this refers to a power or impulse or principle or authority or bent or governing rule of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of life, because He makes us alive to God when we were once dead, stubborn and hostile to Him and His ways.

So, Christians, all of you who are in Christ by faith, believe this to be true about yourself today: in Christ you have been set free from the law of sin and death. Sin is not the ruling power or principle over your life anymore. You are free, so that you have real, blood-bought power to serve in the new way of the Spirit (Romans 7:.6). And this freedom is not decisively rooted in your own strength or willpower, but in the powerful working of the Spirit, the very same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (see 8:11)!

But what exactly is this freedom? If I am free, why do I still find such a struggle with sin inside of me? Does that ongoing struggle mean that I am not really free, and maybe even, not in Christ? These are big questions, which we’ll consider in a future blog post.