Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 17, 2023

17 Jan 2022

Text: Rom 7:21-8:17

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

St. Paul describes a civil war that rages within the Christian.  He describes it as a war between his mind and his flesh.  For the mind of the regenerate Christian, at least intellectually, desires to obey the Law and live a godly life.  But the more base instinct in us, sin which inheres in our Old Adam, pushes back.  The apostle refers to this as “the flesh,” the more animal part of our nature.  And of course, as part of creation, our flesh is fallen.  Our minds are actually part of our fallen flesh, but by virtue of the Holy Spirit, Paul will later speak of the “renewal” of our minds (Rom 12:2). 

So one part of us delights in the Law, while another part of us rebels against it.  St. Paul famously asks rhetorically: “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  He then answers his own question, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

In spite of the very real sinful flesh that threatens to drag us down to death and hell, St. Paul boldly confesses and preaches: “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  For, “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”

Dear friends, hear this Good News!  God Himself rescued us from this standoff between the Old Adam and the New Man, “by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”  In other words, we do not affect our own redemption by willfully walking according to the Spirit, rather, because Christ fulfilled the Law on our behalf, and because we are “in Christ Jesus,” we now, in our regenerate self, according to God’s will, walk according to the Spirit.

This redemption is always seen in light of the resurrection: first our Lord’s, and then our own: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

This means, dear brothers and sisters, that not only our renewed minds, but also our fallen flesh, will be restored and raised from death, “to walk according to the Spirit.”  This is what it means that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”  Our sonship of God is in Christ Jesus, and in Him, all Christians, men and women alike, are adopted “sons” – heirs of everlasting life.  Our sonship grows from Christ’s Sonship, and His righteousness and life are given to us by grace.  This is why we join Jesus in calling God our “Abba,” our dear Father, and indeed, we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”  And suffering is not evidence of our estrangement, dear friends.  For St. Paul is clear that we are co-heirs with Christ “provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.”

“Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.