Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Epistle Lesson just read, from Rom. 8. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- I never really thought of it this way before, but the Holy Scripture and Christianity is filled with morbidity – a preoccupation with death and dismal themes. There is something to be said for this – since after all, our world is also filled with dismal realities and ultimately death.
- Perhaps we would like Christianity to be what Karl Marx called religion – “the opiate of the people.” Yes, even Christianity is often twisted and distorted into a kind of “feel good” and “everything is okay” kind of anesthesia. Maybe we’d like more of this – a lot of people would.
- However, just as Christianity presents the realities of human sin, our fallenness, and the real pain and suffering of this present world, it also holds out hope – and a reality that actually surmounts sin and death. But not as many would hope – an easy road, one within our control, and one which we can attain by our efforts.
- Even for God our sin has caused suffering, sorrow, pain, and death – the death of His own beloved Son as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, our own sins included. This is good news, great good news, but it is presented and placed in a “real” context – that of the continuing reality of this fallen world of sin and sorrow.
- There is hope for the future – things will not always be this way. Christian faith holds to this, just as surely as Ezekiel believed that “dead bones” could be brought back to life. Ezekiel knew God, and He knew the power of God’s Word. We are called to the same faith. But this faith exists in the midst of the reality that:
I. The World Is Full Of Death And Bones, Spiritual Death, Minds That Are Set On The Sinful Flesh And Hostility Toward God
OT Lesson: “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.”
Text: “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. . . . To set the mind on the flesh is death. . . . For the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Statement: This is the nature of human life after the entrance of sin into the world – sin which is passed along to each generation and which infects us all. All of this is contrasted to what God has given to us in Christ Jesus. It cannot be surmounted and overcome by our own efforts, by working a little harder at “submitting to God’s law,” for as Paul observes: “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.” I sometimes use a little analogy, based on Scripture’s description of our natural condition under sin as being “death.” I observe that “dead men do not straighten their ties.” If we are “dead,” there is nothing that we can do to make ourselves alive – that is the nature of death. The dreary sorrow of Lazarus’ death in the Gospel reading is that Lazarus could do nothing to undo his death – nor could Mary, or Martha, or any of their friends. And we have felt the same sorrow in the face of the death of loved ones.
Application: But the good news that has come into this dreary and sorrowful reality is that Jesus can do something about it – and He has. He had power to raise Lazarus back to life – and He has power to do the same for us, and has promised the same. And this is the good news: “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us.” We cannot “straighten” our ties, or bring ourselves back to life, but God can, and He has done so in Christ Jesus.
Transition: But this “raising” us to newness of life, which is what Ezekiel’s vision was about, what he saw, is not what we might think. It is a matter of God’s work, not our own. And it occurs by faith – what we set our minds on – and not by our efforts or accomplishment, so that we live in dependence upon God and give all glory to God. And the process – in this life – is not spectacular to human eyes, but subtle. It is no “opiate” but real. For according to our text:
II. Christ’s Coming, His Work Of Redemption, Brings New Life To Us
A. First, There Is Now No Condemnation For Those Who Are In Christ Jesus
Text: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
Statement: We must grasp this fully – or there can be no life; we will remain in death, with our minds set on the flesh. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – who have taken refuge in Him by faith; for all condemnation was placed upon Christ and absorbed by Him on the cross. Yes, the law continues to condemn our sinful flesh, and we must continue to confess our sins – the truth, the reality; but as Paul asserts in this same Epistle: “you are not under law but under grace.” [Rom. 6:14]
Now if you want to earn your own freedom from condemnation apart from God’s grace and mercy in Christ Jesus, you remain under law – and this means you have rejected God’s gift, and so still have your mind set on the flesh – but this means you cannot please God.
Application: So let us take care to learn this properly – life comes from God, and God has given us this life in His Son Jesus Christ, in His redemption. Unless God removes our condemnation there is no life, only death. And apart from what God has done for us in Christ there is only condemnation, only death. If you want life it starts with accepting the fact that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If you believe this – God’s own declaration, then you have life. For as God’s Word assures us:
B. Believers In Christ Have Eternal Life; They Have Been Raised And Set Free By The Spirit Of God – So That They Have Newness Of Life And Are Led By The Spirit Of God
Text: “By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. . . . Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. . . . To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. . . You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. . . . If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
Statement: How is “setting the mind on the Spirit life and peace”? Because the Spirit assures us of God’s gift in Christ Jesus, what He did in Christ, “condemning sin in the flesh” of Jesus Christ, so that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is freedom from sin and death – “although the body is dead because of sin.” The difference between believers and unbelievers, those led by the Spirit and those with minds still set on the flesh is immense – the difference between the dead bones Ezekiel saw at first and the living army God raised. However, the dead cannot see this difference, only the living – only those with faith in Christ Jesus.
Application: So what will you set your minds on? What will you be looking at? And what will you see? Will you set your minds on Christ, God’s grace, mercy, redemption, and salvation? Or will you set your minds on the law, on your performance, seeking your own way back to God and life? If you do this you will accomplish nothing – and you cannot please God. So we must let this sink in deeply – that we may truly live in newness of life, led by the Spirit, our minds set on God’s love. This is a “resurrection” more powerful than what Lazarus experienced!
Transition: But our bodies remain dead because of sin – but this will not last forever, for:
C. All Believers, Those Alive In Christ, Have The Promise And Guarantee Of God That Our Mortal Bodies Will Also Have Life – Eternal Life And Resurrection
Text: “If the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.”
Statement: The firstfruits of this are the genuine fruits of the Spirit that are present in our lives even here and now – repentance, faith, peace, joy, goodness, kindness, and the like. On the Last Day this life will be full and complete – for as the apostle John asserted: “but when He appears we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.” So also the apostle Paul assures us that on that day “He will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.” [Phil. 3:21]
Application: So what begins as a morbid tale ends a glorious reality – but for now we live in the interim, truly alive in Christ, under no condemnation, led by the Spirit, though we still see sin and death in our members, our body. But the Spirit has “reset” our minds, so that they are focused on Christ, and the glory of God’s salvation, and so we are “set free” by the truth, “set free from the law of sin and death” – thanks and praise be to God.
Conclusion: Thus God has blessed you who have faith in Jesus, so that you are “ALREADY RAISED TO LIFE.” We acknowledge the morbid that remains, but we rejoice with God in the life that is already here! May God bless us all with this new life, and that we have it abundantly. Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting. Amen.