This evening, let’s think about walking. There are many different ways to get from one place to another, including motorized methods, but let’s think about the more manual forms. Just about everyone has their own walking style – their own gait. Sometimes we can hear someone coming, and we know who it is just by the sound of their steps. Some psychologists say that they can analyze people by the way that they walk. A trained ear can determine a person’s outlook on life, attitude or emotion. And it is even possible to judge a person’s spiritual condition by the way he walks, with whom he walks and where he walks.
There is no walk so important as the two that are mentioned here in Romans 8. God clearly tells us that if our walk is always in the flesh we shall be eternally condemned. But if we consistently walk in the Spirit, that is proof that we are no longer under God’s condemnation. In other words, how you walk is more important than if you brush teeth or buckle your seat belt in the car. That is because “condemnation” is a very serious matter. Condemnation entails being cast into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Condemnation is means “Ye shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on you.” Condemnation is a noose around one’s neck with the executioner ready to open the trap door.
Romans 8 is like a pyramid. We begin at the peak – “There is therefore now no condemnation.” Then there is a discussion about who has been freed from this condemnation and who has not. Below that there is the means through which these people have been saved. And throughout the rest of the chapter we have more explanation and detail.
If I asked, “Are you under the condemnation of God,” would you be able to make an honest answer? To deny condemnation is impossible if the rest of our pyramid has not been properly constructed. If I asked, “Do you walk according to the Spirit?” – that is a bit easier to answer. That is rather specific – assuming that we know what is meant.
What does it mean to walk after the Spirit?
It is not the same thing as the indwelling of the Spirit. It is not being in the Spirit or the Spirit being in me. Verse 9 is different from verse 1 – “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The Christ-rejecting, sin-loving, worlding has a spiritual nature that is deader than King Tut. Although he may have physical life, he is spiritually dead.
But when a sinner becomes a child of God, he takes on spiritual life – life through the Holy Spirit. He is “quickened” – “made alive” – where he was dead previously. And the way that dead human spirit is made alive is through union with the Holy Spirit – Christ’s Spirit. “Now, if any man have not the Spirit, he is none of Christ’s” – verse 9. The giving of the Spirit is not a second work of grace subsequent to salvation. There is no salvation from sin apart from the coming, enlivening and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And because the Christian is possessed by the Holy Spirit, he is enable to walk after the Spirit. The sad fact is that not all who profess to be believers are actually in Christ. In fact the vast majority, only periodically even attempt to walk after Spirit. Most are content to confine Christianity to watching others walk, sing, teach and preach after the Spirit. But Bible Christianity is not a spectator sport.
But again, what does the Bible mean with the words – “To walk”? What does verse 6 say? – “To walk after the Spirit is to MIND the Spirit.” That doesn’t help us very much, if we don’t know what it is to “mind” someone. It isn’t simply to think like the Holy Spirit. The meaning is: “To regard,” “to savour,” “to think of” – and thus to follow and obey – the Spirit. To “savour” something is to slowly let the flavor, aroma, and texture, sink into you. It is the same as Colossians 3:2 – “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” To mind the Spirit is to want to please Him, and thus…. to obey Him. To walk after the Spirit is to love the things that He loves; loving what God loves. That means humility, because pride is one of the foremost things that God hates. It means self-denial – verse 13 – “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” The Lord Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Walking after the Spirit means honesty, helpfulness, and a hunger and thirst after spiritual things. It means forgiving others as we have been forgiven by the Lord. To walk after the Spirit is to do what the Spirit teaches us all to do.
In Galatians 5:16 Paul says,“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Verse 19 – “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” These last things are what give evidence that a person is – or is not – a child of God.
What are the blessings which are possessed by those walk after the Spirit.
The verse says that there is no condemnation to those who walk after the Spirit. Notice that the text does not say, there is no condemnation, BECAUSE they walk after the Spirit. As we know, judgment for sin is removed by grace, not by anything that we may perform. In grace the Lord puts away His judicial robes and puts on the housecoat and slippers of a Father. For the child of God the future changes from gloomy to glory – from hellish to heavenly. There is no condemnation, because the Christian is now alive in Christ Jesus. The only way that he can be condemned is for our Saviour, Christ Jesus to be condemned.
What are the blessings received by those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit? They are freed from the law of sin and death – verse 2 – and how is that? Because the son condemned sin in the flesh – verse 3. Christ went to the cross and grave to conquer sin and it’s effects. These people who walk according to the Spirit, prove that they have taken the substitutionary route. Galatians 3:13 – “Christ hath redeemed us curse of law being made curse for us.” Christ Jesus is the shade on a terribly hot desert afternoon.
Think of gravity for just a moment: Gravity says that man must be earth bound, just as he is condemned to perish in hell. But Christ is the law of aerodynamics that says that gravity can be beaten. Walking in the Spirit is proof that the theory works; there is such a thing as flight. There is now no condemnation to those have received Christ and who now walk after the Spirit.
Verse 10 – “if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” “The body” refers to the flesh – and that is powerless to determine a person’s eternity. It is the condition of your personal spirit – not the flesh – which dictates the future. If your human spirit is dead in trespasses and sin, you shall be cast into the Lake of Fire. But if your spirit is alive by union with the Holy Spirit of Christ — there is life.
What are the blessings possessed by the child of God? For one thing, now we can please the Lord – verse 8. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Millions of religious people are still in a condition where they can’t please God. That is true even if they are doing very good and useful things – they cannot please God. Some of them are preachers or priests, some have come to this church, but they can’t please the Lord. And the sad fact is they have blinded their own eyes to the fact. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” Those people walk after the Spirit because they possess the indwelling Spirit. But those that walk in the flesh cannot please God.
Another blessing, guaranteed by the Lord, is that they shall be raised from the grave, verse 11. “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” This is exciting, this is thrilling – there is no need to sorrow as others which have no hope. World, bring on your pain, your murderers, your thieves, your terrorists and your trouble. Satan, even you may attack if you wish, but what ever you do to me, “I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”
We could go describing the blessings that come to those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
But in so doing we must understand that we are absolute debtors to the Lord and to that Holy Spirit.
We owe almost nothing to the flesh, verse 12 – “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” Certainly we owe nothing to the flesh as far as eternity is concerned. If our child was sick and the doctor gave him medicine which poisoned him and killed him, what would we owe to that doctor? Well, our soul is the child and the flesh is the doctor. All the flesh is doing is seeing to it that the soul remains poisoned; killing the true person. It is the Holy Spirit who applies the blood of Christ to the sin-dying soul. We are in debt to Christ through the Spirit.
And we owe it to the Spirit to walk after Him with all of our hearts. If the Spirit of Christ declares us contemptible or condemnable, we are in trouble. “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” But to the sinner in Christ, the Spirit of Christ says, “there is no condemnation.” We owe our souls, and thus our obedience and love, to the person of Spirit of Christ.
But we owe it to ourselves as well. The best life in the world is the one spent walking down the narrow road and paths of righteousness. The Christian who is surrendered to, and is filled with, the Holy Spirit is far better off than the richest – most powerful people on earth. We owe it to ourselves to walk after the Spirit.
Among the many things that this passage does: It tells us that it is possible to know with assurance that our condemnation is passed. And it impels us to seek to walk after the Spirit.