About three or four years ago, no longer than
that, six or seven years ago, I preached through the Book of Romans once. It probably took me two and a half years,
but over the last twenty years I have not been in a position where a series that would
last for two and half years was appropriate. I was the evening the preacher at First Presbyterian
Church in Jackson, Mississippi and the meant typically shorter series than two and a half
years. Then Ligon Duncan, who was the senior minister,
took a sabbatical which lasted for three months and I had a three-month window to preach something
in the mornings consecutively, and I thought this is the opportunity, not to do the whole
Book of Romans, but to do Romans 8. And I called it ‘The Best Chapter in the
Bible.’ That was the title of the series, ‘The Best
Chapter in the Bible.’ After the first sermon, a deacon – there’s
always a deacon – pulled me aside at the end of the service and had a go at me. He said, ‘I object to this title.’ You know, at first I thought he was joking,
then realized that he was deadly serious, because I was calling in question the inerrancy
of Scripture – that all Scripture is the best chapter in the Bible. And I said, “Look, chill, you’ve got two
minutes to live; you are in a hospital, doctor’s coming and you’re going to die in two minutes. And I’m the pastor there beside your bed
and I am going to read to you some Scripture. Where do you want it to come from? The first eight chapters of Chronicles, which
is a list of names or Romans 8? And the clock is ticking. You now have one minute and forty-five seconds.” It’s a no-brainer. It’s Romans 8. It begins with ‘no condemnation’ – “there
is therefore now no condemnation” and it ends in verse 35 with ‘no separation’. Because of our status of Christ within the
Gospel, there is no condemnation. That’s what Paul has been arguing for in
the first seven chapters. We are law-keepers and covenant-keepers in
Christ in the Gospel. There is nothing that can rise up and condemn
us. When we stand before the judgment seat of
Christ, God will see only perfection, He will see the righteousness of Christ – the imputed
robe of Christ’s righteousness. That’s what He sees. It is one of the most beautiful statements
in all of Scripture. “There is therefore no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus – in Christ Jesus.” One of the telltale signs that this is Paul
– union with Christ. I sometimes ask my assembly students, ‘if
an archeologist, digging in the sands of Palestine somewhere or Syria somewhere, uncovers, more
likely in Asia Minor or Turkey, one of the lost letters of Paul to the Corinthians. You know, we have Corinthians 1 and Corinthians
2, but there is probably a third and a fourth, and there may even be a fifth, because when
you ________ the first one, he has already written a letter, and then in between one
and two he refers to another letter that is not number one, so there is at least four
letters that he wrote and only two of them survived and they are part of the Canon of
Scripture. But supposing, an archeologist were to find
one of these lost letters, how would you know that it was Paul’s? Well, one of things that you would look for
is the telltale signature, In Christo, in Christ. Where did Paul get that? Well you might say, from the Holy Spirit. True. But from a human point of view, where did
Paul get that? I think he got that on the Damascus Road. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” He was persecuting Stephen. He had been writing letters of consent for
the killing of men, women and children, this Paul. But in effect, what he learned on that Damascus
Road was, “you lay a finger on one of Mine and you lay a finger on Me, because they are
an extension of Me, they are in Me, in Christ.” Paul would never forget. I don’t think Paul went to bed at night
without thinking of what he had been or what he once was. And so it is doubly amazing that he can write
here in Romans 8:1: “There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ
Jesus” – no condemnation. What is Romans 8 about? Let me fly over Romans 8 with you. It begins with a section that calls for practical,
observable, tangible, measurable, quantifiable holiness and godliness on our part, as gratitude
for the Gospel that we have received in Jesus Christ. So he talks about, “for the law of the Spirit
of Life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death, for 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 requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us – in order that the righteous
requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” And I think that Paul is saying that as a
result of our believing in Jesus Christ, as a result of our faith union in Jesus Christ,
that manifests itself with outward works of righteousness – sanctification. Sanctification that’s observable, measurable
and quantifiable – the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk,
not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. In the Law Gospel debate – it’s not a
new debate, it’s a debate that has taken place in every century since the first century. It was a debate at the heart of Augustine’s
writings. It was a debate at the heart of medieval Catholicism. It was a debate at the heart of the Reformation. It was a debate at the heart of Puritan theology
in the seventeenth century. It was a debate at the heart of Scottish Presbyterian
theology, in the Marrow controversy in the eighteenth century and Thomas Boston and so
on. It’s at the heart of many a debate today
– what is the relationship between Law and Gospel. One of the things that Paul seems to be making
very clear here is that as a result of our ‘no condemnation’ there is a righteous
requirement of the Law that is now manifested. It is the quantifiable, measurable, visible,
tangible obedience on our part as those who believe the Gospel – works of righteousness,
works of holiness, in gratitude for the Gospel. It’s a clear call to godliness. You notice this extraordinary sentence, ‘by
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin’. Paul is walking a knife’s edge. If he had said, and we’re in verse 3, ‘by
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh’ – supposing he had dropped the
word “likeness” – by sending His own son in sinful flesh, that would have made
Jesus a sinner. What if he had said, ‘in the likeness of
flesh’, now that might have implied that Jesus didn’t have a real human body as the
docetists were saying. And there were those in the first century,
John for example, says in his first epistle that he who denies that Jesus Christ come
in the flesh is antichrist. So Paul is writing here on a theological tightrope
because he wants to say on the one hand that Jesus is human in every conceivable way, a
human mind, human affections, human psychology, a human body, and yet without sin. As close as possible as He can get to our
condition without sinning. The second Adam to the rescue came. And then, in Romans 8:13: ‘For if you live
according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of
the body, you will live.” In 1974, over 40 years ago, I picked up John
Owen’s Volume 6 of his collective writings on the mortification of sin. Many, many different publications of that
have been made, some of it more condensed, some of it in modern English and so on. It was half of Volume 6 of his collective
writings on the mortification of sin. John Owen was the vice chancellor of Oxford
University in the 1650s and these were sermons that he delivered to what would then have
been boys – there would be no girls in Oxford University – and you entered Oxford University
in the 1650s when you were 12. So typically the average age of his audience
for these sermons was probably somewhere around 15 or 16 years of age. I didn’t realise that when I first read
it, that he was actually speaking to teenagers, because they read as though he is speaking
to adults. Kill sin, or it’ll kill you. Kill sin or a part of a sin every day. The need to put sin to death, to crucify it,
to show it no mercy. John Owen uses very violent language and he
talks about putting your hands on the throat of sin and holding it until it doesn’t move
anymore. Many of us have a memory of when we read John
Owen’s ‘Mortification of Sin’. You back to verse 5: “Those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according
to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” John Owen wrote another treatise on the duty
of being spiritually minded, and it is based on that 5th verse in Romans 8 – the duty
of being spiritually minded. In 1975, I graduated from college. I was beginning seminary in Britain and then
I would transfer to the United States to finish my seminary education, and I lived in the
manse of Jeff Thomas. Jeff Thomas was the minister of Alfred Place
Baptist Church in Aberystwyth in Wales. He was a graduate of Westminster Seminary
in the middle of the 1960s, and I lived in the manse for a year as a seminary student. He decided, when I’d probably been there
for a month or so, it would be a very good idea if the two of us were to get up early
in the morning – 4:30 – and read John Owens on The Duty of Being Spiritually Minded. I’m not a morning person, I don’t like
communication first thing in the morning, I kind of grunt. My wife likes a cup of tea in bed in the morning,
but we don’t communicate. It’s all done by sort of rote, there’s
a pattern and things happen, and there are occasional grunts, but there’s absolutely
no communication. Currently there is a dog that sleeps on the
bed. It goes out the door, comes back in again;
I feed the two dogs, I don’t speak to them, because as soon as they have eaten they go
back to sleep. Reading John Own on the duty of being spiritually
minded at 4:30 in the morning was a chore, but I will never forget it. I will never forget the one question that
he asked in that book, which has remained with me for the past 40 years: what do you
think about when you are not thinking about anything in particular? What’s the default setting of your thoughts
worth? What do you gravitate to when you’re kind
of in cruise control in your mind? That’s a test. John Owen said, that’s a test of whether
you are spiritually minded. Does your mind gravitate by default into spiritual
thoughts? It’s very challenging. It’s volume 7 of his writings. Then let me drop down to verses 26 and 27. We’re passing over a great deal in Romans
8, but in verses 26 and 27, there’s a section here on the Holy Spirit. “26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Now there’s an exegetical and theological
question as to whether the groaning of the Spirit is something – is it the Holy Spirit
who groans or is it we by the Holy Spirit who do the groaning? Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, in his fourteen or
fifteen volumes of sermons on Romans, is very insistent ‘The Holy Spirit does not groan’. Well, that needs to be sorted. But it’s this verb, the Spirit helps us. It’s a five-letter word in English. In Greek it is synantilambanetai. It’s a big word and it’s a word that Paul
has made up. Lambanetai is the word, but he’s added two
prepositions – a bit like German where they keep on adding bits to the front of the word. He uses two prepositions that, on the surface,
look directly opposite – ‘syn’ meaning with and ‘anti’ meaning opposite. So the Spirit is with us and He’s opposite
us. He’s with us and not with us. Synantilambanetai – a fascinating word. I remember somewhere in the 1980s we moved
into a house in Belfast in Northern Ireland, where I was a minister for 18 years, and somebody
left me a piano. Now I don’t play the piano but my daughter
was in her early teens and she would eventually learn to play the piano, and play it well,
and this was our first piano. It was an old piano, it had woodworm in in
– I didn’t know that until I actually brought it into the house, but it was an upright
piano with a steel frame. It was heavy. It was a brute. And I thought ‘deacons’ – that’s what
deacons are for. So, I got the six deacons that we had said
I had a job for them to do, and it was to lift this piano and bring it into my front
room, and there would be dessert! To get into the front door you had to go up
three steps, turn, go up another couple of steps and into the front door. It was tight, it was awkward and it’s a
piano, and it’s heavy. The deacons, most of them fairly young and
beefy, and I remember being there – I can still see myself holding part of this piano
and then I can remember myself sort of letting go and thinking, ‘yes this works, it’s
still moving, and all I need to do is grunt and groan a little, but actually I’m not
really doing much at all.’ Was it me or was it them, or was it both? I think that’s what Paul is saying, that
the Spirit in our infirmities… You know sometimes it’s us – “work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will
and to do at His good pleasure.” (Phil.2:12b,13) Extraordinary ministry of
the Holy Spirit helping you when you’re at the end of yourself, when you are groaning,
when all you can do is groan. Have you ever been in the place when all you
can do is groan? Do you have a trial in your life? You’ve rationalized it, you’ve thought
about it, but you don’t know what to say anymore. Lord, I don’t even know what to say anymore. And all you do is a kind of groan in the Lord’s
presence and the Holy Spirit can take that groan, fix on the way up and present it as
a prayer, an effectual prayer, before our Heavenly Father. There’s a little treasure in the middle
of Romans 8. And then in verse 32 you’ve got the heart
of the Gospel. I referred to it earlier this afternoon, in
verse 32, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He
not also with Him freely give us all things?” He didn’t spare His own Son. He freely gave Him up for us all and if He
has given the best that He has, if He has given us His Treasure, what is there that
He won’t give you? Tell me what it is that He won’t give you
if He has given you His Treasure, His everything, His all, His own Son. And then you’ve got these four questions
at the end and they all begin with a personal interrogative – who, not what, but who. Who can be against us? v.31 Who shall bring
any charge? v.33 Who is to condemn? v.34 You remember it began with “there is no condemnation.” Who can separate? v.35 Who? Who? And the answer is Satan of course. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but
against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Dr. Beeke’s address about an hour ago, ‘Satan
has desire to have you that he may sift you like wheat’. And here’s Romans 8 and it climaxes in this
glorious _________________ like a symphony. And it’s coming now to its grand conclusion
that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord,
not life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor thing to come, nor
powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. We are more than conquerors through Him who
loved us. Why is this the best chapter in the Bible? Because it covers everything. It covers the whole span of the Gospel. It gives us assurance that having begun a
good work He will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. It begins with no condemnation in union and
fellowship with the Lord Jesus and it ends with no possibility of separation for those
who are in Christ. It calls for perseverance. It calls for works of sanctification, the
mortification of sin, the duty of spiritual-mindedness. It reassures us that along every trajectory,
in every circumstance, in every set of contingences, there is the power of the Holy Spirit, and
all you can do is groan when you can’t even articulate your prayer anymore, He’s there
helping, nudging, prompting, guarding, protecting, enriching, comforting. For me, this is the best chapter in the Bible. For me, if I have 2 minutes to live and I
have 2 minutes to speak, then I want you to read this chapter to me. I wonder, if I were to ask you what’s your
favorite verse in the Bible, I am almost certain that many of you have a verse from Romans
8. You may have a collection of verses, but I’m
almost certain that this protruding peroration of Romans 8 is among your favorite parts of
Scripture. It’s a treasure and I wrote it up into a
book and it’s called, “How the Gospel Brings us All the Way Home.” It began life as a series of sermons and it
has, perhaps, that sermonic sort of feel to it, but I think of all the books that I’ve
written that this is my favorite one because it points to my favorite chapter in the Bible. Now I’m not sure I can say as robustly as
Steven Lawson, ‘go buy this book’ – I kind of feel self-serving, but I do think
if you buy it and read it, it will help you. And I do feel that if you buy and read this
book it will help someone else that you might give this book to, particularly Christians
who need a little encouragement, who need just a little bit of help, who need that little
bit of Gospel comfort in their lives. So, how the Gospel brings us all the way home. Go buy this book!
