T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

The Remarkable Transformation from Defeat to Triumph

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:2).

When Simon Magus offered Peter money to possess the ability to confer the Holy Spirit, he was summarily reproved for having such mean and unworthy thoughts and ideas as to the person of the Spirit of God. None of us are in danger of meriting such a rebuke. Nevertheless, I think most of us have erred, and perhaps do err, in this respect that our ideas as to the Holy Spirit, our attitude toward Him, are very mean and very inadequate, and fall very far short of the divine reality. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". We want to hurry on and read the rest of the chapter. We want to read, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" But the key and the secret is verse two which you and I hurry over so quickly and so often.

There could be no Romans 8 if there were no 'law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus'. I believe the apostle breathed a sigh of relief when he finished Romans 7. I am sure he did when he finished experiencing it, and when he looked back after those dark, unsatisfactory days of spiritual experience and wrote them down for the benefit of the Lord's people then and now. When he wrote the sorry history of a despairing struggle to do the will of God, I am sure it was with a sigh of relief that he, as it were, started chapter 8 and emerged out of a realm of disappointment and despair into a blessed, glorious, surpassing experience of triumph and blessing and victory, a full salvation. For that is what it is, an emergence out of a realm of disappointment and despair. Here is the secret of the emergence: the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

All the experience of Romans 8 is to be traced back to that, and that means far more than the mere personal experience of a man enjoying full salvation, though thank God, it did mean that, for when we emerge from that struggle over our own personal need for God's deliverance, we come into a much vaster realm than we had ever thought possible.

Until now it has all been so very personal. My sins, and my sin, and so on. Well, it had to be personal. The apostle saw to it that it became personal. All this airy talk about the whole creation, and the world, and the future, and mankind - that is all very well, but the moralists, the religionists and the philosophers are brought by the Spirit of God as well as the logic of the holy convicting power of His Word, down to their own personal condition. Never mind the world, where are you? Never mind the needs of mankind, what about your needs? And so the arrow of conviction makes it a personal matter and those who are so ready to talk about the nations, the world and mankind, find the Lord pointing to them and saying, "Who art thou that judgest, oh man? You are the one. You are the sinner." And most of us know only too well the experience of feeling as though in the whole world, we were the culpable, guilty, vile, miserable offender, and as though all the light of all the judgments were focussed upon us and our sins, for this had to be and the Lord sees to it that it becomes personal.

And then you go further into the book. Thank God it is also personal in salvation. My sins, my pardon, my justification; and then the whole question of holiness arises and it is not now my sins, but my sin. It is me, and my need for sanctification and, praise God, my experience of sanctification that comes into view. My old life, such a shameful thing; my new life so full of promise. And then Romans 7 seems somehow to bring into concentrated expression this full personal exercise of the individual soul. I wonder how many there may be whose life history is found in Romans 7?

It seems to me that the last verse which, in a way, seems strange after the cry of gratitude for deliverance has already gone forth, is a summing up of the whole position. The apostle says, "So then" (Rom. 7:25) this is not the last word, but it is the last word about that condition. So then I, in myself, me, this strange complex being, am serving the law of God with my mind, serving the law of sin with my flesh. Was he a Christian, or was he not a Christian? That is all very important: Christian or non-Christian? In myself that is what I am like. So this is all about myself.

But when you come into Romans 8 you find, first of all, as to myself, there is a glorious deliverance. The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free! Hallelujah, thank God for a personal salvation; it has made me free from the law of sin and death. But before we get very far into the chapter, we find that it is not only a question of my being made free, but that the context broadens until we are talking about the whole creation and a glorious emergence from a realm of disappointment and despair. For me, praise God, but not only for me, but for the whole creation because, the apostle says, the whole creation is groaning.

The Groaning of the Creation

When you were in Romans 7 you thought you were the only one groaning, and my, weren't you groaning, wanting to be delivered from this body of death, this pathetic, groping, miserable state of sinfulness. How you groaned! You groaned because of sin at the core of your being and it was spoiling your life and you groaned. The apostle says, "Listen, and look and take heed. The whole creation is groaning. There is sin at the heart of creation as well as in your heart. And this is the explanation."

You can read all your volumes on history, the rising and falling of empires, the waxing and waning of dynasties, all the concentrated misery of the human race through the ages, not of the human race only but of the whole physical creation, and in one simple sentence you can get an explanation of it all. The law of sin and death is at the heart of it. There is something wrong. The whole creation is groaning and, thank God, if the groaning sinner of Romans 7 emerges into the glorying saint of Romans 8, the apostle says that is just a little foretaste or earnest of the fact that the whole groaning creation shall also emerge into Romans 8. In the widest, vastest, realms of God's creation, there shall go forth the same note of praise and relief: "I thank my God through Christ Jesus", it shall be delivered. The groaning turns to praise, and the secret is what we are going to talk about.

The secret is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". That is the secret of the deliverance. How this triumphant saint sings his doxology, praising and blessing the Lord! The darkness has passed; the light has come; everything is altered. Life is just one glorious experience of bliss, not because for him the world is different, but because in a sense, it does not matter what happens to the world; the secret is in himself by the Holy Spirit. In himself naturally he has the law of sin and death, but now in his very being, by the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, he has all the blessing, all the glory, all the triumph, all the love, of which this chapter speaks.

The Cosmic Application

Now I want you to try and think of Romans 8 not only in these personal terms, but in what I might call cosmic terms, in terms which affect the whole creation, and I am obliged to keep to the scriptural word. I cannot say, 'the universe', because that means everything, and we know there is that in this universe which does not wait in hope of the glory of God and will never see it. And so I keep to this term, creation.

I think the apostle was speaking more specifically of the literal physical creation, but that would mean an empty world. It will be a full world of redeemed ones. But think of Romans 8 in world terms, in cosmic dimensions - what a wonderful world it will be! You come down the list: liberty, peace, life, righteousness, wisdom, led by the spirit of God, the favour and smile of heaven, pleasing God; God - pleased with the whole world, the glory, the hope, "all things working together for good", the triumph, the absence of all the shadows, no condemnation in this world, no separation, the love of God known and enjoyed. This will not be for a passing period, but for ever. Not only height, nor depth, nor things present, nor things to come, can ever change this state of absolute bliss and glory. Well, thank the Lord that is a better prospect than you read in the newspapers, though they try and work up a little optimism in them sometimes. It is true, Paul says, the creation has been subjected to vanity: corruption, frustration, and misery, but God has done that in hope.

So, poor struggling, miserable, despairing saint in Romans 7, there is hope, there is a different kind of life which perhaps to you seems unattainable, but it is all so simple. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" leads you right in, and so, poor struggling creation, groaning and despairing, God's word for you is not despair, but hope, and the way in, as we have said concerning individuals, is the way of the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus". What do I mean by that?

Well, just look at the groaning again. The creation is groaning (8:22), but we see in verse 26, the Spirit Himself is groaning. We go back to verse 23 and we find that the redeemed saints are groaning. What is this? What is the creation waiting for? Well, waiting for the day when Romans 8 shall dawn. Yes, but what is coincident with that day, indeed more than coincident with it; what is the effective cause of it? What is this inarticulate groaning of the creation tending towards? It is written down here: the manifestation of the sons of God. What are we groaning for? Exactly the same thing described in another way - the adoption. So the whole creation waits for the consummation in the saints of that which takes place when the "law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" begins to operate in us.

Romans 8 then tells us, not merely of the experience of full salvation, but tells us also of the meaning of full salvation and this is precisely where we need to ask the Lord to give us light. The experience, if only personal, blessed as that may be, is failing of its purpose if it is not tending toward the Divine end which God has in view and that end is something big, much bigger than your or my experience of full salvation. That end is as large as God's creation. That end is in vast worldwide terms, and this poor saved sinner, struggling along to learn the secret of the victory, when he does emerge, finds that he has not only learned the secret of victory, but he has been brought into the secret of Divine purpose for the whole creation.