Baptist pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon is remembered today as the Prince of Preachers. But in addition to his sermons, he regularly reading a Bible passage before his message and gave a verse-by-verse exposition, rich in gospel insight and wisdom for the Christian life.
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Sample: Romans 8:1-3
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Romans 8
Some people talk about “getting out of the 7th chapter, into the 8th.” But who made this into an eighth chapter? Certainly, the Holy Spirit did not. There are no chapters in the Epistle as he inspired Paul to write it, the whole of it runs straight on without a break: “Therein therefore now no condemnation”—while struggling, fighting, warring, contending—
1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
“No condemnation”: that is the beginning of the chapter. No separation: that is the end of the chapter. And all between is full of grace and truth. What a banquet this chapter has often proved to the souls of God’s hungry servants! May it be so now as we read it.
No condemnation even now. Many doubts, but no condemnation. Many chastisements, but no condemnation. Even frowns from the Father’s face apparently, but no condemnation. And this is not a bare statement, but an inference from powerful arguments.
There is no condemnation; that is gone, and gone for ever. Not only is part of it removed, but the whole of it is gone: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” This is their legal status before God—in Christ Jesus, without condemnation; and this is their character:
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
This is the distinctive mark of a man in Christ Jesus. He does not let the flesh govern him, but the Spirit. The spiritual nature has come to the front, and the flesh must go to the back. The Spirit of the living God has entered into him, and become the master-power of his life. He walks “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
2. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
“Hath made me free”—that is, the real “I” of which he wrote a little while before—the true man himself: “‘The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’ I have broken its bonds, I am a free man. Contending against its usurpation, I have escaped from under its yoke, and I shall yet tread sin under my feet, and God shall bruise even Satan himself under my feet shortly.”
Sin and death cannot govern me—cannot condemn me—cannot destroy me. Another law has come in. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has brought me into another kingdom wherein I cannot be affected, so as to condemn me, by the law of sin and death. I am not the bond-slave of it; I am the enemy of it; I am free from it, fighting against it, struggling like a free man against one who would bring him into captivity; but even though I sometime feel as if I were a captive, I know I am not, I am free.
Dr. Chalmers has a remarkable sermon upon “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection;” and it is this new affection for Christ, which is the accompaniment of the new life in Christ, which expels the old forces that used to hold us under bondage to sin and death.
3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
The law of God was a good law, a just and holy law. It was weak, not in itself, for, verily, if righteousness could have been by any law, it would have been by the law of God. But it was weak through our flesh. We could not keep it. We could not fulfill the conditions of life laid down under it.
