Romans 8:4 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Phillips: So that we are able to meet the Law's requirements, so long as we are living no longer by the dictates of our sinful nature, but in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit. (Phillips: Touchstone)
Wuest: in order that the righteous requirement of the law may be brought to completion in us who, not as dominated by the sinful nature are ordering our behavior but as dominated by the Spirit.
Amplified So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit]. (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
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so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us
The Law demands fufillment; to the letter.
When the Law says do not covet, it does not bend. When Jesus said that lust is the same as adultery, the law will not get us off the hook. It will not dismiss the violation.
When the Bible tells us to forgive those who hurt us. There is no exception. When the law says to make things right with those we clearly offended, we must do it.
The laws of God demand full obedience to the letter. But do not be discouraged. I'll explain, that though we fail and cannot keep the demands of the law of God, there is God's way. I'll explain later.
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Jesus died to remove the practice of living by the Law in our own strength.
The Christian life is meant to be lived following the steps revealed by the Spirit, not independently lived on our own. On our own we cannot live by any of the laws, concepts, and principles of the Bible.
Jesus provides the Way. And that way is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, living in union with Him. In Christ, the Spirit leads us to learn God's Word, the Bible, and directs us in circumstances when we keep a close walk of yieldedness when challenged.
Now don't glide over what I just said. Think and grasp that truth. Learn that you cannot obey Christ on your own.
It by yielding to Him in EACH moment of experience is the way to doing the will of God.
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On the cross, Jesus legally pleased God for us. His obedience in all things became God's satisfaction for the Father. His death supplied the payment for the penalty of our sins.
The only condition for obedience and payment for sin is turning to God with a whole heart. Recognizing our sins, calling upon Him for forgiveness. Putting our whole faith in Christ for what He has done. Then committing our life to knowing who He is in order to follow and please his Father.
I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
We are adopted into the family of God. Once adopted we are filled with the Spirit of Christ, He enters us, plants Himself as the Divine Seed [1 John 1]. He lives within to give us the divine life--His--to live by, to apply in times of need. But we must open up our whole heart.
He comes into our life to cleanse us of past sins, convict us what is sin, and to wash us when we do sin. But more than that, He lives in us to show us the consequences of sins and how obedience and trust in Him is the better higher way to live. Only by faith and experience can we know this to be true.
The Christian life is more than practicing biblical teachings. Though good, they themselves have no power if we are trying to live them in our own power. But when we live moment by moment following after the Holy Spirit, our conscience is guided, our heart directed, our soul assured and enriched.
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By receiving Christ the Law is legally fulfilled. Why? Because He fulfilled the Law for us.
By looking to Christ for help in each experience of life provides direction and power to fulfill the purpose of God for our life. We fulfill the law of God in particular situations when we know we cannot obey it, so we ask His help to fulfill it.
Our Responsibility
Love the Lord with all your heart, is the focus of our life. This is the greatest commandment which fulfills all others. Turning each life struggle into loving the lord provides what God desires in us.
Your journey is to explore the meaning of life in Christ. We do this by learning to talk to God [prayer], studying the Word of God [the Bible], allowing the Spirit of Christ to reveal the process for you to move beyond yourself and become like Christ. In experience we choose to apply what the Holy Spirit reveals to us.
He is Light unto our path. His Light shines the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
By the Law we are concerned with the outward rules.
By the Spirit we are concerned with Christ within us and listening to His voice.
Thus, we obey the Spirit who provides the Way to Fulfilling the Law in Experience
When we listen to Christ in an experience, follow what He says to us, we then fulfill the law of God. For this is the law of the Spirit.
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who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
- this phrase defines who we are, how we are identified, what kind of people we are. Particularly, more descriptive than the word "Christian." Christians are people who order their lives in harmony [according] with the Holy Spirit.
- Christians order our lives after the Spirit, not the flesh [that lower nature pursuing gratification opposing God's laws.]. An easy way of understanding it, is that the flesh is like "the fruit of knowledge of good and evil." There are certain things we are told to "not eat." Certain "forbiddings" are given because though they may taste delicious but possess a corrupt "virus"--we cannot sense nor taste--which destroys the soul and its harmony with God and all things. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, this "Sin Virus" entered permanently in their soul and passed down to every human being since then.
- Today we all have that same "gene" to sin. It pulls within us to sin more. We have the taste for sin that cannot be eliminated apart from a new heart [a base of Christ's residence through the Holy Spirit]. The new heart gives us desire and power [grace], a new taste, a new delight higher than the taste for sin. That taste is Truth [ Truth is Christ Jesus; the Person and His words which provide freedom from the penalty, pollution, and bent toward sin] from the Word of God
- the walk in the flesh is a choice. Though this walk is as popular to many professing believers as it is to the lost, the consequences are very harmful to the soul and perhaps the body.
- Each sin, confessed or not, stunts the growth of certain areas of our soul; hope, confidence, motivation, love, kindness, patience, gentleness, humility, self-denial, faith, on and on. Confessed, we are able to regain what we lost, but depending on the sin and the depth sin has made its way into our life.
- We struggle to break free of these things. Healing of the soul does take time. But the good news is that God has gifted us with prayer and the gift of His Word. Both, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, provide immediate cleansing and the beginning of healing to these various targeted functions by our sins.
- God has given us a will. Too little information is provided to us about the will. But the will is our gift of choice. Though our will cannot do what we want to do, the will can be the main function of surrendering the body and soul to Christ. The will cannot resist sin, nor always do right. But the will can bring the body and soul into submission unto Christ. Once we "will" ourselves to God, God helps us to do right.
- The will to walk in the Spirit is not always easy. The will is of itself non-emotional. The will is a choice of action. Many times our flesh uses all the feeling and desire to oppose the choice to resist it and for us to trust in God. Flesh hates trust. Flesh loves immediate gratification.
- The road of discipleship in Christ is "narrow" but rewarding. It is more productive and less stressful when we remove influences that feed it--music, visuals, activities, etc. Sporadic prayer and Bible is not as good as a daily connection with Christ, involving our transparency and will to follow His Word in the particular choices we face.
- Total submission to Christ is the key to power. Total submission is not a simple quoting of Scripture, or a rebuke to the devil in Jesus' Name. Those may be starting points. But the flesh is too intelligent to be dismissed by a few words.
- When our will is set, "standing fast", "enduring", "looking to Jesus" steadfastly--then at a point flesh can stand it no more, it lets go. Why does it let go? Because our will is set to trust in Christ. And then Christ moves upon the flesh until it cannot fight any longer.
- Be it known, once we look to Christ, His response may not be immediately sensed. But we cannot trust what we cannot see. We walk by faith not by sight.
Middletown Bible has a very good explanation first reminding us that…
"Righteousness" means "righteous requirements." The law has certain righteous requirements. The law demands and requires that a person live a righteous life of loving God (perfectly) and loving one’s neighbor (perfectly). How can I fulfill what the law requires? How can I keep the law? The Person and Power of the Holy Spirit makes this possible. Note carefully that the verse does not say "by us", it says "in us"! This is something God does IN ME by His power and by His Working and by His Spirit!
- No matter how hard I want to keep the Law--to be a provider, love my family, resist any sin--I cannot. But God's Spirit works in me to fulfill the Law.
"How to perform that which is good (the keeping of God’s law) I find not" (Ro 7:18)
the character of God that is demanded in us now can be fulfilled in every one of us because the Holy Spirit of God has come to live in us. On one hand the Law shouts at us
"Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not"
And I say
"Come on flesh, we've got to do this thing".
And the flesh says
"No we can't."
And then you say
"Well how am I going to do this Lord?"
And the Lord says
"I fulfilled all of that already and I am in you. Now obey Me. In you is the fulfillment of everything I require by the Holy Spirit's power Who will work it out of you." https://www.preceptaustin.org/romans_84-9
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walking by [after, in reliance to] the Spirit
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes (God's empowerment), and you will be careful to observe My ordinances (our responsibility). (Ezekiel 36:26, 27)
commonly called "walking with the Lord", "led by the Lord"
The Holy Spirit dominates us, as Sin dominated us pre-salvation. Spiritual domination does not mean control as being forceful, but meaning He the supreme influence directing our choices.
A walk does not mean without a fall or a turn. A small child walks, makes steps, but falls happen, but do not prevent the getting up and pursuing the goal.
The walk by the Spirit is our lifestyle, our way of life. There are choices which we make that deter our walk and we walk after the flesh.
In a walk, we can waste time going astray, losing focus and attempting paths of vanity and gratification. But conviction will always tell us to turn around and go back to walking in the path of the Holy Spirit.
How much of that walk is our choice. But making the wrong choices will show us their vanity and destructiveness. It's all to convince us there is no better way to walk than by the Spirit.
The way may be slow and hard at times. But it is the way, the process acceptable by God, to fulfill the law.
William Newell adds that the requirement of the Law "is fulfilled in us as we consent to reject the flesh and choose to walk according to the Spirit. In the Spirit lies all the power. With us, the responsibility of choice-a blessed, solemn one!" (William Newell. Romans Verse by Verse).
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The Holy Spirit is the only one to help us keep the laws of God. Only He enables us to obey. How? By walking with Him.
Walking with the Spirit of Christ involves acting in a submissive/learner servant attitude. It means following and listening. If your conscious thoughts are elsewhere, Evil will deceive you to follow and listen to "something [they think] better."
So walking in the Spirit is a conscious mind-set, yet is not always easy to do. Of course, we have work, relationships, etc. But when we have choices to make in any of these we ought to check with our Spirit for a judgement of what would please Christ. He will judge what we do on the job by directing full detailed correct completion of the tasks given us. He will judge how we ought to handle each circumstance with people. He will also judge things like our activities; are they right, are they wrong, do we need to spend more time or less time, etc.
The Spirit of God will also judge your spending habits; too much, clarification of what to buy to take care of your body. He desires to judge your attire. Do your clothes distract and question who you are on the inside? Do they distract from the glory of God? Or do your clothes draw attention to your sexuality rather than pointing people to the Christ you serve?
Walking with the Spirit also includes a personal friendship. I have learned over the years the greatest gift from God has been the privilege of prayer. I not only enjoy talking with the Master about my heart and life. I enjoy listening.
Listening to God, the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord are all the same. They are all one. And listening is not listening to audible voices, but rather parrticular thoughts from the Mind of Christ.
How do we know the Spirit is delivering the message or it is of ourselves?
If the thought is about your selfish desires, your glory, neglecting or hurting others, involving sin--it is not from the Spirit of the Lord.
If the message is without a doubt in agreement, supported by the written Word of God, then believe that message is from the Lord.
Oftentimes when I am talking to God about issues in my life, once I've emptied a thought or feeling, I'll get an immediate message from the Lord. It will be corrective, instructive, encouraging. Sometimes when I say something in like a sentence, I get an immediate Scripture delivering God's thought on it. Many times it is a rebuke of what I think or feel.
You see, the Spirit speaking to us has little to do with the future. His directives are for the moment. If you live by this principle, you will succeed with your steps of the furture.
We should judge each thing we do that is out of the ordinary tasks in the will of God: like family, work, church.
We should judge people [meaning discern fruit of character and action, never condemnation and withdrawal of the love of God].
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We should judge our activities.
- Does the appearance suggest agreement with evil
- Does it reveal our love of the world
- Does it rob our time with concentrated prayer and study of the Word
- Does it rob our time using our presence and gifts in the body of a local church
- How do we spend our money
- Are we giving when the Lord's work is needing your support
- How well do you judge your viewing of movies
- How are you using your spiritual gifts to advance the kingdom of God
- How are you being a light among the lost
- Are you trying to look and act like the world; those whose lives practice evil
As the verse of Ezekiel says, God has given us a new heart. Follow it. In that heart is a desire to please God, to know Him, to follow Him to please Him. If you do not feel this way, you do not have the heart of God and you need to be born again.
Walking with the Spirit is choice, action. It is not always desire. Certainly the desire to please God is present, but many times flesh raises its sensual head and that feeling for God is covered by the feelings of the flesh.
Therefore, to walk in the Spirit, though not felt, must be acted on by our will alone. We should choose what we know pleases God. Our conscience will tell it. Our heart will tell it.
if we walk in the light as [God] Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1Jn 1:7).
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