For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free , [ eleutheroosen ] - 'freed me,' referring to the time of his conversion. Since the sense of this verse must rule that of the profound verse which follows it, and two very different senses of it have been contended for, it must be examined with some care. By "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," some of the older German divines (as Calovius), followed by Witsius, Bengel, Reiche, and in our own day by Haldane and Hodge, understand the Gospel. In accordance with this, they naturally take "the law of sin and death" to mean the law of God. Hodge's six reasons for this are briefly these:
(1) This verse is intended to explain why there is no condemnation to believers; now, if it means most critics hold) that the regenerating power of the Spirit frees believers from the power of their inward corruption, it will follow that our regeneration is the cause of our justification, which is totally opposed to the apostle's teaching. But if this verse is understood to express the believer's deliverance from the condemning law of God through the Gospel, it gives an adequate explanation of the statement of Romans 8:1.
(2) The deliverance here spoken of is represented as one already accomplished: this is true of the believer's deliverance from the law through the Gospel, but is not true of his deliverance from indwelling corruption, which is a gradual process. The former, therefore, must give the true sense, the latter not.
(3) The Gospel may justly be called "the law of the Spirit," as (in 2 Corinthians 3:8) "the ministration of the Spirit;" He being its author-while the law of God may be termed "the law of sin and death," as being productive of both, as the apostle himself says, Romans 7:5; Romans 7:13, etc
If this is correct, the subject of this and the immediately following verses will be seen to be not sanctification (as most critics suppose), but justification. These reasons, however, appear to us quite insufficient to justify so unnatural an interpretation.
(1) The most plausible argument is that Romans 8:2 is intended to explain why there is no condemnation to believers; but (so far as we understand it) the sense which Hodge gives to Romans 8:2 makes it no explanation, but a mere reiteration of the statement of Romans 8:1, only in another form. (2) The believer's deliverance from the dominion of indwelling sin through union to Christ (which, as we take it, is meant in Romans 8:2), is an accomplished fact, as much as his justification; and the gradual mortification of it in daily life, through the growing strength of the renewed principle, is quite consistent with this.
(3) To make "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," mean simply the Gospel, is to put (as it appears to us) a strained, not to say a shallow, sense on so rich an expression; while to suppose that the apostle calls the holy law of God "the law of sin and death," is something repulsive
To use the words of Fraser (who, without knowing it, almost echoed the words of Chrysostom against some who before him had taken the same view of this verse (the passage will be found in 'Philippi,' p. 280), 'It were not consistent with the reverence due to the law of God, nor with the truth, to call it "the law of sin and death." Yea, it could not be so called but in plain contradiction to the vindication the apostle had made of it (Romans 7:7), "Is the law sin? God forbid;" and Romans 8:13, "Was that which is good made death to me? God forbid."' No, it is the Holy Spirit who is here meant. And before we notice the import of the statement itself, it is important for the student of this Epistle to observe that only once before has THE HOLY SPIRIT been expressly named in this Epistle (in Romans 5:5), and that only now and here does His Personal Agency in believers begin to be treated. Little space, indeed, does the subject occupy. The formal treatment of it is limited to the first 26 verses of this chapter. But within this space some of the richest matter, dear to Christian experience, is compressed; and as almost every verse in this portion opens up some fresh view of the Spirit's work, the light which it throws upon this vital department of the work of redemption is out of all proportion to the space which it fills.
Let us now observe the import of this pregnant phrase, "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." He is called "the Spirit of life," as opening up in the souls of believers a fountain of spiritual life (see John 7:38-39); just as he is called "the Spirit of truth," as "guiding them into all truth" (John 16:13), and "the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord" (Isaiah 11:2), as the Inspirer of these qualities. And He is called "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," because it is as members of Christ that He takes up His abode in believers, who in consequence of this have one life with their Head. And as the word "law" here has, beyond all reasonable doubt, the same meaning as in Romans 7:23 - namely, 'an inward principle of action, operating with the fixedness and regularity of a law,' it thus appears that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" here means, 'that new principle of action which the Spirit of Christ has opened up within us-the law of our new being.
This "sets us free," as soon as it takes possession of our inner man, "from the law of sin and death," - i:e., from the enslaving power of that corrupt principle which carries death in its bosom. The "strong man armed" is overpowered by the "Stronger than he;" the weaker principle is dethroned and expelled by the more powerful; the principle of spiritual life prevails against and brings into captivity the principle of spiritual death - "leading captivity captive." If this now be the apostle's meaning, the "For," with which the verse opens, does not assign the reason, but supplies the evidence of what goes before (as in Luke 7:47, and other places); in other words, the meaning is not, 'There is no condemnation to believers, because they have gotten the better of their inward corruption' (very different doctrine this certainly from the apostle's); but 'The triumph of believers over their inward corruption, through the power of Christ's Spirit in them, proves them to be in Christ Jesus, and as such absolved from condemnation.' This completely meets the only objection to our view of the verse which we think has any weight. But this is now to be explained more fully.