The Law of Sin vs. the Law of the Spirit

Just as the devil acts against the law of God, persuading men to do the opposite of what God has commanded (Rom 7:24). For the law of sin is said to be fully ensnared in the members, showing that the soul is not pleased with the sufferings of the body, even though it is often dragged down together with it.

It must be noted that this is not simply from this body, but from the death of the body; for it does not pray to be released from the body, but from the death that binds the body through sin (Rom 7:24). He remains, exposing the old man's warfare against himself, not being at peace with the soul of the body. He argues these things in order to demonstrate the achievements of the Savior's arrival and the union and peace of soul and body that has come through the rebirth of the washing. Thus he brought together what he intended, and came to what he was preparing, saying: 'Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus' (Rom 7:25–8:1).

For having shown that those under the law, as they live according to the flesh, are under sin and condemnation, he led to the conclusion that those under Christ are not under condemnation, because they do not walk according to the flesh. He spoke of the law of the spirit, contrasting it with the law of the letter (Rom 8:2), instead of the life-giving grace from Christ. For that which was impossible for the law, in which it was weak through the flesh (Rom 8:3–4), it was not the law, he says, that commanded the impossible, but the flesh was unable to fulfill the legal requirement because of the hindering evil, which Christ condemned through his own flesh.

God, he says, having sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. When the apostle turns toward the Lord's flesh—truly being flesh, from which he was born and was raised and lived his life—he clearly brings the flesh into the conversation, as he also leads the reader there: he condemned sin in the flesh, and writing to Timothy: 'God was manifested in the flesh' (1 Tim 3:16). But when he turns toward the sinless, pure, and holy aspect of the flesh, he calls it a likeness of flesh, not because he was differing from nature, but because it was like the fleshly sin.

He says that God sent his Son not in the likeness of an angel or of any such power, but in the likeness of flesh, so that flesh, having been defeated over Adam, might conquer the evil one on behalf of the Lord. He says that the Lord was sent because of the prevailing sin of men; for this is the 'concerning sin' instead of 'because of sin', and the 'and' passes over. He says that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, just as he intended to fulfill the requirement of the law, but it was weak because it allowed them to live in luxury. What then continues? That it would not have been received unless it were descending with them in their weakness. What then did it profit to descend with them, if not to justify? That it called back the mind having fallen into an insensibility of ignorance. To those who do not walk according to the flesh, he says, instead of 'according to the law'; for the law had carnal observations, and the allowing of luxury was also carnal.

Regarding Romans 8:9, he says, 'You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit', instead of 'You are not in carnal desires, but live in the Spirit'. If the Spirit of God dwells in you, it stirred them up to keep the mind awake and not to be submissive, as if they had achieved perfection, having brought forth the word saying, 'If the Spirit of God dwells in you'. For to puff them up and blow them about as if they already possessed the Spirit of God would have been sufficient to cut off their zeal.

Regarding Romans 8:11, having foretold the Spirit of Christ, he says again that the Spirit of him who raised Christ dwells in you. Having brought the Spirit back from Christ to the Father, he is clearly teaching nothing else but that the Spirit is also from the Son and is not foreign to the Father's divinity, and to those who have one energy, with these also the essence is co-existing with the Father.

Consequently, he says that when the Holy Spirit has come to dwell and sin has been put to death, those who are struggling fall into trials, the first and greatest of which was the resurrection from the dead. Regarding Romans 8:15, 'The law he called a spirit of slavery and slaves are those under the law'; for to be commanded by the law and the commandment and to fear a threatened punishment is a sign of slavery, but the permission to call Father God because of the purity of life promises the hope of adoption. Whether a spirit of slavery was given or of adoption, the same Spirit is upon both.