At the end of Chapter Seven Paul cries out for release from the sin that chained his body, the sin that results in spiritual death.

The purpose of the eighth chapter is to teach those same Jews, and all Christians, how the law of the Spirit of life in Christ sets us free from the sin that binds us, the sin that the Law of Moses defines and emphasizes.

First, Paul tells us, we are without condemnation—marvelous news to an observant Jew who has striven all his life to please God.

Paul immediately informs us that the righteousness of Christ, who kept the Law perfectly, is ascribed to us providing we "do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." The righteousness of Christ is not ascribed to us if we continue in our fleshly, sinful nature. This condition is not always preached today, and so the believers have a false understanding of how imputation works. Imputed, ascribed righteousness, is issued to us on the condition that we live according to the Spirit of God and not in the appetites and impulses of our flesh and soul.

Then Paul proceeds, in Chapter Eight, to tell us of the importance of living in the Spirit of God. He says our physical body is dead because of the sin residing in it but our inward nature is alive because the Spirit of God is living in us.

Then Paul goes a step further and speaks of the fact that at the coming of the Lord the same Spirit who now lives in us will make alive our body, thus completing our salvation. All of this is in answer to the question, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:11—NIV)

Because all this is true, we do not owe our dead body anything in the present hour that we should satisfy its demands. It rather is the case that if we, as we are guided by the Holy Spirit, put to death the sinful acts of our body, we will proceed forward to the filling of our body with eternal life. However, if we choose instead to live in the appetites and passions of the flesh, we will not attain the resurrection of eternal life in the body. Paul is repeating what he said previously in Chapter Six.

Moving forward in Chapter Eight, Paul reminds us that the entire material creation, including our body, is groaning in the chains of corruption. God placed this curse on the creation in the hope that one day the creation can be released into the liberty of the children of God, that is, into life lived not in the corruption of flesh and blood but in the incorruptible life of the Holy Spirit.

To be continued.