Reiterating to impress upon his audience, Paul emphasizes that there is no condemnation for those who place their faith in Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, which draws us closer to the Father. What the Law could not achieve, God sent His obedient Son to accomplish on our behalf, allowing us to return to Him.
And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:4 (NIV)
Our Inability to Forgive Others
If we truly believe that there is no condemnation in Christ, why do we still condemn the transgressions of others?
The simple reason people still condemn others is that they have never truly experienced forgiveness themselves. When a person has not felt what it means to be fully forgiven, they cannot extend that same forgiveness to others. You can only give what you have personally received. So, rather than showing compassion, they criticize and condemn individuals for their sins and mistakes, failing to recognize that Jesus has atoned for the sins of all mankind, including their own.
There are also some who have heard that they are forgiven but have never truly felt the freedom that comes with it. They have heard the words, gone through the ceremony — but the freedom has not reached them. Like the unmerciful servant in the parable, his master cancelled his massive debt, but he went straight out and choked a fellow servant over a small amount. These people have experienced forgiveness only in name. They had heard the verdict but never felt its weight lift and are not able to extend the same to the offenders in their lives.
Then there are those who believe their good deeds, offerings, volunteering, and religious works are what earned them forgiveness. Because they worked so hard for it, they simply cannot accept that someone else can be freely forgiven without doing any of those things. They have turned grace into a meritocracy, and so they will always struggle to extend it freely. This is exactly like the workers in the parable who laboured all day and became angry when those who came at the 11th hour received the exact same pay.
If we truly understand what Jesus has done for us — that He forgave us completely and freely while we were still sinners — we will naturally stop condemning others. A forgiveness that is truly felt in the heart will always produce mercy, never judgment.
Law Without Grace
For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.
Romans 8:3 (NIV)
How did our fleshly desires weaken the law?
The Law was never weak in itself — it was holy, righteous and good. But our fleshly desires made it powerless to bring us redemption. Because we live according to the flesh, we were never able to fully obey the Law. Our sinful nature kept pulling us in the opposite direction, and so the Law could not do what it was meant to do in our lives. The flesh was too strong for us to keep the Law, and the Law had no power to change the flesh.
The Law was only able to show us what sin is, but it had no power to remove it. In fact, as Paul says, the Law is the very strength of sin. When the Law says “do not do this,” the flesh immediately wants to do exactly that. So rather than defeating sin, the Law actually gave sin more power over us. The more we tried to obey in our own strength, the more we failed, and the more sin increased.
The Law was never designed to stand alone. It should have always been complemented with the grace of the Gospel. The Law shows us our sin and our need, but only Grace through Jesus Christ can actually deal with it. When we try to live by the Law without Grace, sin takes advantage of that and wins every time. But when we stop trying to satisfy the Law in our own fleshly strength and instead abide in Christ, sin loses its power over us because the Law no longer has anything to condemn us with.
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
Romans 8:7-8 (NIV)
The mind governed by the flesh, Paul writes, is hostile to God. The natural human mind, left to itself, does not drift toward God; it instead resists Him. This is why teaching people to perform religious activities without transforming their minds leaves them hollow. A person can attend every service, give every tithe, and volunteer for every program and still have a mind that is fundamentally at war with God.
Belonging to Christ
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Romans 8:9 (NIV)
Paul simply says that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ at all. This is not a small thing. This is the very test of whether a person is truly saved or not. And this is exactly why so many people feel the pressure to prove they have the Spirit, leading some to take baptism as a ritual or even lie about having experienced the Holy Spirit. They know that belonging to Christ depends on it, but instead of truly seeking God they settle for the outward appearance of it.
What does it mean to have the spirit of God?
Without the Spirit, a person is still governed entirely by their flesh, and the flesh is always hostile to God. It cannot please Him and it never will. This is the root of the problem. People sense this emptiness inside them and know something is missing, but instead of going to God honestly, they look for shortcuts. This opened the door for people to sell and buy the Holy Spirit, just like Simon the magician who tried to purchase the gift of the Spirit from Peter. There are people today who are making a business out of selling the Holy Spirit, promising people the experience of the Spirit in their churches while blinding their eyes to the teachings of Jesus.
So while people are made prosperous in worldly things but remain completely poor in matters of the Spirit. They are given shortcuts to follow God rather than being taught how to truly walk with Him. They are taught the act of religion but never taught how to actually connect with God personally. So people remain empty and hollow, going through religious motions but not truly knowing God at all.
The only way to have the Spirit is to be with God — not to have attended enough services, not to have checked enough boxes. Walking with God is learned not in a single moment of decision but through the long, uneven experience of falling, getting up, and falling again, each time learning more about our own weakness and more about His faithfulness.
Amnesty in Christ
But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
Romans 8:10 (NIV)
Does having the spirit immunise us from sin?
Having the Spirit of God does not make us immune to sin at all. What the Spirit actually does is give us a conscience towards sin. Once the Spirit lives in us we become deeply aware when we have done wrong. The Spirit inside us grieves, convicts and draws us back to God. However, if we keep sinning repeatedly and ignore the conviction of the Spirit without repenting, the Spirit will eventually depart from us. Every time we sin and feel that pull in our heart to turn back, that is the Spirit leading us to repentance. If we keep rejecting that leading again and again, we are essentially pushing the Spirit out of our lives little by little.
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
2 Corinthians 7:10 (NIV)
Paul makes a clear distinction between two kinds of sorrow. Godly sorrow is when we are genuinely broken over our sin because it has hurt God and separated us from Him. This kind of sorrow leads to true repentance, which leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow is when we are only sorry about the consequences of our sin, sorry we got caught or sorry about how it affected the lives of people around us. That kind of sorrow leads only to death because it produces no real change.
If we reject the leading of the Spirit and refuse to repent, we are not truly free from sin. Freedom from sin only comes when we follow where the Spirit leads, respond to His conviction with genuine repentance, and keep living by the Spirit to walk closely with God.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:12-13 (NIV)
The Jordan Valley 
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