<p>8:2 Paul starts to speak here in chapter 8 about the Spirit. He has explained that we are declared right by God, even as we stand in the dock condemned; he has said that we must believe this, and that faith in this rather than any works is what makes it true for us. He has then started to explore the mechanics of how it all works out- that we believe &ldquo;into Christ&rdquo; by baptism into Him, whereby we are counted as Him; and so we have changed spheres, positions, identities, from &ldquo;sin&rdquo; to &ldquo;Christ&rdquo;. He has observed that this doesn&rsquo;t mean that we don&rsquo;t sin, and he laments the power of sin within him, always eager to point out the Law has strengthened sin rather than helped us overcome it, and that therefore grace is the all important basis of our salvation. He characterizes the two positions or spheres in various terms, and in chapter 7 he starts speaking of them as &ldquo;flesh&rdquo; and &ldquo;spirit&rdquo;. He observes that there is in himself a struggle between the two, but his real self definitely identifies himself with the Spirit rather than the flesh. Being in the Spirit is the same as being &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, and &ldquo;the Spirit&rdquo; is a title of Christ in Rom. 8:26,27. Romans 8 now proceeds to explore the function of &ldquo;the Spirit&rdquo; in more depth.</p><p><i>For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free</i>- The spirit of life in Christ sets us free from sin (Rom. 8:2); but Gal. 5:1 simply says that &ldquo;Christ&rdquo; has set us free the same Greek phrase from sin. The Man Christ Jesus is His &ldquo;spirit of life&rdquo;; the man and His way of life were in perfect congruence. They always were; for in Him the word was made flesh. Rom. 6:18,22 explain simply that we are &ldquo;made free from sin&rdquo; by baptism into Christ. Here we are given more detail; we were made free from the principle of sin and death, the law which Paul had observed at work within him in chapter 7, that our sinful desires are stronger than our spiritual intentions, and therefore &ldquo;in the flesh&rdquo; we are condemned to death. Our slavery to this principle has been overcome by &ldquo;the spirit of life in Christ&rdquo;. Rom. 6:18,22 says that we were simply freed from sin by becoming &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; by baptism and belief into Him. Rom. 8:2 is saying that this operates, is effectual, by &ldquo;the spirit of life in Christ&rdquo;. This could mean that the spirit of life which was in the Lord Jesus Christ as a person- the perfection of spirit or character which was His, which was like God- is counted to us by our status &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;. It could also, or alternatively, mean that this status we have is as it were mechanically made effective by the work of the Spirit, which sanctifies us before God. It&rsquo;s not so much that the Spirit enters our hearts and makes us righteous, for in chapter 7 Paul has been lamenting how we still sin and are in one sense still enslaved to sin. Rather it could be that &ldquo;the Spirit&rdquo; works in our lives to make us sanctified before God, rather than in the realities of daily life. The &ldquo;sanctification of the Spirit&rdquo; which we read of elsewhere in the NT (e.g. 1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 10:29; 1 Pet. 1:2) would therefore refer to&nbsp;<i>how</i>&nbsp;God counts us as righteous, as in Christ, with a spirit like His. In this sense Christ is made unto us sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). It&rsquo;s by the working of the Spirit. We can on one hand simply accept that God counts us as righteous, as Christ, because we are &ldquo;in Him&rdquo;. But probing further as to how, mechanically as it were, this is the case- the answer is, &lsquo;Through the work of the Spirit sanctifying us, making us holy in His sight&rsquo;.&nbsp;</p><p>Paul&rsquo;s writings are packed with allusions to the Jewish ideas about the &ldquo;ages&rdquo; ending in the Messianic Kingdom and the destruction of Satan. Paul was correcting their interpretations &ndash; by saying that the &ldquo;ages&rdquo; had ended in Christ&rsquo;s death, and the things the Jewish writings claimed for the future Messianic Kingdom were in fact already possible for those in Christ. Thus when 1 Enoch 5:7,8 speaks of &lsquo;freedom from sin&rsquo; coming then, Paul applies that phrase to the experience of the Christian believer&nbsp;<i>now</i>&nbsp;(Rom. 6:18&ndash;22; 8:2).</p><p><i>From the law of sin and death</i>- As lamented in Rom. 7:23,25. The law of sin there refers to the principle of sin within us that keeps on beating us, winning the struggle against our weak spirituality. But&nbsp;<i>even this</i>&nbsp;has been overcome because of the status we have &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; and by the work of the Spirit this involves.</p><p>The New Testament develops the theme of &lsquo;living in the spirit&rsquo;. We can often understand &lsquo;spirit&rsquo; in the NT to mean the dominant desire, the way of life, the essential intention, the ambience of a man&rsquo;s life. The idea of life in the Spirit is often placed in opposition to that of living under a legal code. We are asked to live a way of life, rather than mere obedience to a certain number of specific propositions. And yet whilst we are free from legal codes, we aren&rsquo;t free to do as we like. We are under &ldquo;the law of the spirit&rdquo; (Rom. 8:2), &ldquo;the law of Christ&rdquo; (1 Cor. 9:21). The law of Christ isn&rsquo;t only His specific teaching, but the person of the real, historical Jesus. This is the standard of appeal which should mould the spirit of our lives. We must live &ldquo;according to Christ&rdquo; (Rom. 15:5; Col. 2:8), and the character of Jesus is the basis of Paul&rsquo;s appeals to us to live a spiritual life (Rom. 15:3,7,8; 1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:2,25; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Thess. 1:6).</p>