Romans 8:2

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Today’s is another long section of commentary, because there is a lot of background we need to understand if we are going to get the most out of our reading. Don’t give up!

To recap:

Paul has been explaining that even though Israel had the Law—Torah—that Law couldn’t save them because their hearts were still enslaved to sin and death. Here, Paul explains how the death and resurrection of Jesus has solved that problem.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

The Law has two sides to it, the blessing side and the curse side, and every person is living on either one side or the other.

This is how Moses puts it in his farewell sermon to the Israelites, before they enter the Promised Land:

26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known [Deuteronomy 11:26-28].

1. If you obey the Law, then blessing is the result;
2. If you disobey the Law, then curse is the result.

It’s either one or the other.

What Paul calls here “the law of sin and death” is what happens to people who turn aside from God and choose not to honor Him. (See Romans 1:18-32.) The problem is that ultimately everyone has turned aside from God, which means that as a consequence everyone is facing death. This is the problem that Paul is working through in chapters 1–7, namely that both Gentiles and Jews are under the law of sin and death.

But there is another side to the law, and this is the side that applies to people who are obedient to God, who choose to honor Him as God. Just as Moses promised the Israelites, those who choose to obey God will receive blessing and life:

15 See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them [Deuteronomy 30:15-20].

Jesus was obedient even to the cross, and His obedience unleashed blessing and life on his people, namely all who trust in Him. (This is what we looked at yesterday.)

In the very first chapter of the Bible, we learn that God created mankind for the purpose of representing Him and ruling over the rest of creation:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” [Genesis 1:26-28].

It would seem that humanity’s rebellion—which begins in Genesis 3, in the Garden of Eden—would put an end to that plan. NO. God never gives up on His plan to have His human creations work alongside Him. But how can God make that happen?

God sets His plan into motion starting in Genesis 12 with the call of Abraham. Abraham’s family will be key to God’s plan. When the time is right, God sends His Son Jesus to be the perfect Israelite, to die for the people, and to release blessing and life to all who trust in Him.

God then sends the Holy Spirit to everyone who trusts in Jesus, and this Spirit is the Spirit of life. Now, everyone who trusts in Jesus lives in the reality of the Spirit, and the Spirit makes it possible for them to actually live the way God wanted them to live all along. This is what Paul means when he says

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

People in Christ are still under the Law, but it is no longer the law of sin and death—now it is the law of the Spirit of life.

In the rest of chapter 8, Paul will explain what is now possible for people who are living in the reality of the Holy Spirit.