<p>8:4&nbsp;<i>That the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us</i>- Paul explores how in fact we have been declared righteous, justified in a legal sense. All that is true of Christ becomes true of those who are in Him. He perfectly fulfilled the Law, and I have suggested earlier that this in a sense entitled Him not to have to die. No longer was Adam literally everyman; there was one Man, the Lord Jesus, who did not sin like Adam did. The righteousness or &ldquo;requirement&rdquo; of the Law was ultimately love, love unto death, even the death of the cross. Both &ldquo;love&rdquo; and Christ&rsquo;s death on the cross are elsewhere stated to be the fulfilment of the Law (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14). We who have broken the Law are counted as in Christ, and therefore we are counted as having fulfilled it to its&rsquo; ultimate term- love unto the death of the cross. The passive verb form of &ldquo;might be fulfilled&rdquo; suggests that we are reading here about something being done for or in us; the fact it is fulfilled &ldquo;<i>in&nbsp;</i>us&rdquo; rather than&nbsp;<i>by</i>&nbsp;us confirms that we aren&rsquo;t reading here some exhortation to do the righteousness of the Law, but rather a statement about what has been fulfilled in us- by the representative death of Christ for us and our identification with it. Thus we are changed by status from being condemned lawbreakers to being counted as having ultimately fulfilled it. In a clearly parallel passage in terms of thought, 2 Cor. 5:21 says that God made Christ &ldquo;sin&rdquo; for us &ldquo;that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him&rdquo;. The Law was fulfilled in the perfect character of the Lord Jesus and finally in His death. Baptism into death means that we are counted as having died with Him- and therefore we too fulfilled the Law to perfection.&nbsp;</p><p><i>Who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit</i>- cannot mean, given the context, that our righteous &lsquo;walk&rsquo; fulfils the Law- for we stand condemned by it. Rather is this again a reference to the two spheres of life- flesh and Spirit, Adam or Christ, out of Christ or in Christ, condemned or justified. We are to &ldquo;walk&rdquo;, to practically live, in the sphere of the Spirit.&nbsp; I am inclined to interpret the idea of &ldquo;walk after&rdquo; as meaning &lsquo;to be occupied with&rsquo;, as the Greek is indeed elsewhere translated in the AV. If our orientation is around the Spirit and not the flesh, then we are demonstrating that indeed our change of status has been for real. Because we are &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us insofar as it was fulfilled in Christ and has been counted to us.</p><p>Paul states that because of the Lord's death &quot;as an offering for sin&quot;, thereby the 'commandment &quot;requirement&quot; RVmg. of the Law is fulfilled in us' (Rom. 8:3,4). But in the practical part of that same letter, Paul defines the requirement / commandment of the Law to be one thing- simply &quot;love&quot; (Rom. 13:10). Love as God understands it is that we keep or fulfil His commandments (1 Jn. 5:3). What, then, is the connection? How could the Lord's death on the cross lead to the fulfilment&nbsp;<i>in us&nbsp;</i>of the Law's commandment / requirement of love? Quite simply, because it is now impossible for a man to be passive before the cross, and not to be inspired by Him there towards a life of genuine love. Paul isn't simply making some mechanistic, theological statement- that the cross fulfilled the Law, because it fulfilled all the types etc. It fulfilled the Law in that the Law intended to teach&nbsp;<i>love</i>; and the cross and dying of the Lord Jesus is now the means by which we can powerfully be inspired to the life of love which fulfils the entire Law.</p>