Romans 8 Commentary

God sent His son, Jesus, as a sacrifice to free us from sin and the condemnation of the law. Christ died and resurrected to restore our relationship with God and to save us from eternal condemnation. Now, saved from Hell, we can also be delivered from the earthly consequences of sin, if we walk by the power of the Spirit. We do not have to suffer from sin. Although we are not under the law, we fulfill the requirement of the law when we walk by faith in the power of the Spirit.

Every believer has the power to choose to follow the Spirit, rather than the flesh. If we dedicate our thoughts to the desires of our flesh/sin nature, we’ll live that way. We’ll live a sinful, selfish life and gain adverse consequences as a result. But if we dedicate our thoughts to the Holy Spirit and live our daily life in obedience to God, then we’re living a new life in the Spirit. The flesh results in death and disconnection, while the Spirit results in experiencing life and peace. The flesh is a total enemy of God; it does everything it can to fight Him, and it only leads to ruin. 

If you don’t have the Spirit, then you’re not a Christian, which means all Christians have the Holy Spirit, the Helper, living inside them. The only way to truly live the fulfilling life God has for us, despite our sinful body, is through the Holy Spirit, through His power, and through our willingness to follow Him in faith.

Paul wants the Roman Christians to realize, since we have the Holy Spirit, we are free from our sin nature and can continue to follow Him rather than our selfish desires. We are now obligated to God, who has saved us, and has empowered us to live real life while fighting off our sin. We put our sinful actions to death, ending them and choosing our new life in the Spirit. If we are following the Spirit, we are living as sons of God; we are living out our new identity in Christ.

Christians have been spiritually adopted by God. We are not slaves who are afraid of their old evil master, but sons taken in by a new master, whom we endearingly call "Father." The Holy Spirit indwelling us is a sign that we are indeed children of God.

Christians are children of God, and from Him every believer unconditionally inherits being justified in His sight and the promise of one day being with Him in His glory. For Christians who suffer as Christ did, there is a specific inheritance reward; Jesus was given authority over earth by God for what He did as a man—dying and resurrecting to take the punishment for our sins. God rewarded Jesus Christ for this suffering. For those of us who suffer as Christ did, enduring rejection from the world, He bestows the privilege to be fellow heirs with Him in His coming kingdom. Ultimately, the sufferings on this earth are trivial in light of this wonderful opportunity of reigning with Christ in His future reign on earth.

All of God’s creation desires for God to finally restore it to a perfect, harmonious state. One day God will do this, and all of creation will be freed from its corrupted state and will once again be as God originally designed it. And believers who receive the reward of reigning with Christ will take their proper place as joint-heirs, or "sons." But for now, we’re looking forward in hope to this day, despite whatever pains we experience.

Even though believers have been gifted with the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we continue to struggle in this fallen world. We eagerly await the finalization of our adoption by God, when He will fully raise us up and give us new bodies that are freed from sin and pain. This is Glorification Salvation. The word ’groan’ expresses a deep, powerful, inherent desire for relief and restoration.

We have hope that one day God will restore everything to the way He first designed it, a time when the world is redeemed as well, and no longer resists the will of God. It is in hope that we look forward to this event because it has yet to happen, and so we are determined to wait with excitement for this restoration.

In the same way that we are not fully redeemed, our ability to communicate with God is not fully restored. In our weakness, the Holy Spirit helps us talk to God, in ways we could never express with mere words. In our struggle against our sinful nature, our struggle to walk in faith, to live harmoniously, it is God who helps us. It isn’t the law, it isn’t a set of rules, it is God who is our constant helper. He sent His Son to save us from eternal death, and then He sent His Spirit to speak on our behalf and guide our steps.

God promises that He causes every circumstance to conform believers to the image of Christ, with the intent that many would rule with Christ as joint heirs.

Because of Jesus’s sacrifice and our faith as believers in that sacrifice, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. The Heavenly Father who loved us enough to have His Son die for us, obviously wants us to have ultimate and lasting fulfillment; He wants to give us "all things." The world cannot rightly judge how we should live; only God can, He who loves us.

Paul is nailing this point down, that because of the love of God, a love that is shown to us through Jesus’s death on the cross, we as believers cannot be separated from that love.