Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ROMANS
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SANCTIFIED EXPERIENCE.
1. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” N. B. — This is
all we have in the verse, the other clause appearing in E.V. having been by some transcriber taken
up from verse 4 and inserted here without authority. The illative conjunction, “therefore,”
connecting this bold affirmation of “no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” is a logical
deduction from the elaborate discussion of the preceding chapter and the brilliant victory ringing out
in the triumphant shout of verse 25. But this is justification? Very well; but is the justification
following entire sanctification in contradistinction to the primary justification identical with the
remission of actual transgression, which precedes it? We can not be justified in a full and final sense
till after complete expurgation from the very sin-principle in entire sanctification. Hence we see that
final justification follows sanctification (1 Corinthians 6:11). Here the bold affirmation involves the
sweeping conclusion that the parties who have been delivered by the Omnipotent Sanctifier in verse
25 are actually exonerated from all the penal consequences of sin resultant from the Fall, both
personal and original.
2. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death.”
One definition of “law” is a rule of action, which is pertinent in this verse, where. the Holy Spirit,
the Author of life, has actually given you perfect freedom from all the power and influence of sin and
death.
3. “For the impotency of the law, in which it was without strength through the flesh.” This is one
of the rare instances in which “flesh” evidently means this mortal body. Wesley says we can only
think, speak and act through these “organs of clay,” which have been so dilapidated by the Fall as
really to become disqualified to serve in the capacity of efficient media through which the perfect
law of God is verified in this world. Adam, before he fell, was competent, through the wisdom and
power of the indwelling Spirit, perfectly to keep the divine law. From the ostensible fact that the
whole race in the Fall signaly forfeited the power to keep the law, God in his condescending mercy,
gave humanity a second probation under the mediatorial reign of the Second Adam. Otherwise we
must have gone hopeless forever, like the fallen angels. “God sending his own Son in the likeness
of the sin of carnality, and concerning sin, condemned sin in carnality.” The antithesis carries us
back to Eden. What was the creature instrumental in the abduction of humanity? “He was the most
subtle,” i.e., the wisest. This would locate him with the bipeds. The argument is altogether against
the conclusion that he was a snake. He was a biped, the next link to man, looking more like him than
a gorilla, which walks upright, using his hands like a man. So this creature only lacked the immortal
human spirit. His very existence added much to the facility of human temptation, as he could speak;
otherwise the surprise would have defeated the temptation. The position of this animal is now vacant
in the zoological catalogue, as we see he was taken out of his place by the transformation which
followed as a divine retribution. When God called him to account, I know he stood upright like a
man till the awful anathema fell, “On thy stomach thou shalt go,” showing that he had not previously
moved prostrate in the dust, the implacable odium of the human race. When this anathema fell on