So the Christian reads the account of his present spiritual wealth, and of his coming completed life, "his perfect consummation and bliss in the eternal glory." Let him take it home, with most humble but quite decisive assurance, as he looks again, and believes again, on his redeeming Lord. For him, in his inexpressible need, God has gone about to provide "so great salvation." He has accepted his person in His Son who died for him. He has not only forgiven him through that great Sacrifice, but in it He has "condemned," sentenced to chains and death, his sin, which is now a doomed thing, beneath his feet, in Christ. And He has given to him, as personal and perpetual Indweller, to be claimed, hailed, and used by humble faith, His own Eternal Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, the Blessed One who, dwelling infinitely in the Head, comes to dwell fully in the members, and make Head and members wonderfully one. Now then let him give himself up with joy, thanksgiving, and expectation, to the "fulfilling of the righteous demand of God's Law," "walking Spirit-wise," with steps moving ever away from self and towards the will of God. Let him meet the world, the devil, and that mysterious "flesh," (all ever in potential presence,) with no less a Name than that of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Let him stand up not as a defeated and disappointed combatant, maimed, half-blinded, half-persuaded to succumb, but as one who treads upon "all the power of the enemy," in Christ, by the indwelling Spirit. And let him reverence his mortal body, even while he "keeps it in subjection," and while he willingly tires it, or gives it to suffer, for his Lord. For it is the temple of the Spirit. It is the casket of the hope of glory.
[119] "In this surpassing chapter the several streams of the preceding arguments meet and flow in one 'river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,' until it seems to lose itself in the ocean of a blissful eternity."—David Brown, D.D., "The Epistle to the Romans," in "Handbooks for Bible Classes."
[120] There can be no reasonable doubt that the words "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," should be omitted. They are probably a gloss from ver. 4; inserted (perhaps first as a side-note) by scribes who failed to appreciate the profound simplicity of the Apostle's dictum.
[121] We thus indicate the thought given by the otherwise difficult "For" of ver. 2. That "for" cannot mean to imply that there is no condemnation because the Spirit has enabled us to be holy; this would stultify the whole argument of chapters iii.-v. What, in that context, it must imply is the complex fact (1) that we are in Christ—where there is no condemnation, and (2) that we are there by the Holy Spirit, who brought us to saving faith. Now we are to learn (3) what that Spirit has done also for us in giving us union with Christ.
[122] Τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χπριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. In the Greek of the N. T. it is possible so to interpret. Classical Greek would require τῆς ζωῆς τῆς ἐν Χ. Ἰ. The rendering, however, "the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus," (making the last three words govern the whole previous thought,) is amply admissible.
[123] Περὶ ἁμαρτίας: the phrase is stamped with a sacrificial speciality by the Greek of the O. T. See e.g. Levit. xvi. 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 15, 16, 25, 27. And cp. Heb. x. 8.
[124] "The way of him that is laden with guilt is exceeding crooked." Prov. xxi. 8 R.V.
[125] We do not translate the δὲ. It seems to be best represented in English by connecting the clause only by position with what goes before.
[126] The Greek lays a solemn emphasis by position on Θεῷ.
[127] We refer the word πνεῦμα here, as throughout the passage, to the Holy Ghost. No other interpretation seems either consistent with the whole context, or adequate to its grandeur.