Romans 8:1 and its disputed ending
By John Hooper
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
It was with some surprise that I discovered not long ago that most of the modern versions of the Bible today abbreviate Romans 8:1 quite considerably. In fact, they either make no mention at all of the words “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” or they relegate them to a footnote with the comment that some manuscripts “add” them. Of course, if we look just a few verses down the passage we find the same words in verse 4, and as I understand it, the argument runs something like this. The majority of ancient manuscripts have the disputed words only in verse 4 while just a few place them in both verses. There is no dispute about verse 4, where Paul goes on to develop the theme of flesh and Spirit through much of the chapter, but why do we have the words in verse 1 as well? The reason, so it is said, is that a scribe made a mistake, inadvertently duplicating the phrase, which then found its way into a small number of copies. The translators of the Authorised Version chose to follow these few rather than the many.
I have no intention of venturing into textual matters but it does seem to me that in drawing the conclusion that an ancient copyist mistakenly repeated himself, an unwarranted assumption is being made. The author of sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, and He uses repetition to give added emphasis to matters of special importance. Also, it is possible that a phrase may be used in two different contexts in order to bring out two different aspects or applications of the one truth. Or if by the removal of the phrase some fundamental doctrine is contradicted or compromised, then we need to ponder very carefully as to who it is that has made the mistake: if it is not the ancient scribe, is it the modern critic?
Romans 8:1, as we find it in the Authorised Version, presents us with no fewer than three precious and essential doctrines of the Gospel in one verse. They are the believer’s spiritual union with Christ, his justification before God, and his sanctified life. We need to notice how closely related these are to one another and then we will see what the consequences are if one of them, the last, is removed.
1. A Spiritual Union
Lying at the centre of this well-known text are three words that speak to us of a doctrine so rich that we can never fully exhaust its meaning. The words are “in Christ Jesus” and the doctrine is our spiritual union with Him. Here we have the fountainhead of all other blessings. Here we are ushered back into eternity to contemplate the decrees and purposes of the Father with respect to the Son, the second person of the holy Trinity whom He ordained to be His servant. Our Lord Jesus Christ is called by the Father, “mine elect” (Isaiah 42:1). Christ is the elect of God, in whom all the church from the beginning of the world to the end is reckoned. Have you ever wondered what the apostle meant when he wrote that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4)? Well, it is to this election of Christ in eternity, and of the church in Christ, that he refers. The Head and the body were chosen together.
A.W. Pink expresses the idea helpfully when he says, “The union between Christ and His church is so real, so vital, so intimate that God has never viewed the one apart from the other … He never saw Christ as ‘Christ’ without seeing His mystical body; He never saw the church apart from its Head.” Or, as Thomas Goodwin put it, we were “formed together in the eternal womb of election.” In eternity we were there, in Christ, and, as Kent puts it,
What from Christ that soul shall sever,
Bound by everlasting bands?
Once in Him, in Him for ever,
Thus the eternal covenant stands.
At Calvary we were there, in Christ. At the resurrection we were there, in Christ. And in heaven we are there, in Christ. In contemplating this glorious union with our Lord we stand on holy ground.
2. A Sound Judgment
One of the glorious blessings that spring from this fountainhead of spiritual union is our justification. Thus it is that we read, “There is … no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” God has made us “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). We are “in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us … righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The picture is of a courtroom and we are in that courtroom being judged according to the law. As the evidence is brought and the witnesses take their stand we know what that verdict should be: the law condemns us. According to the standard and judgment of the law of God we are guilty, every one of us, but amazingly it is not the verdict that is given. According to the text there is no condemnation.
How can this be? Have not all the witnesses spoken? Indeed they have: conscience has testified honestly and truthfully in saying that, yes, we are guilty as charged. The world too has known us and seen our behaviour; it has heard our conversation and experienced our inconsistency, so now it too takes the stand and testifies against us. Three more witnesses, suffering, death and the grave, in their turn speak of our sin and direct their accusing fingers toward us. Finally the chief witness, the accuser of the brethren himself, comes to the stand and speaks most eloquently, and for once all he says is true. One by one the witnesses have brought their great weight of evidence before the court, testifying to the sinful character and life of the one in the dock. He is guilty. And yet the judgment is given: no condemnation!
How can this be? The Scripture answers: There is no condemnation “to them which are in Christ Jesus.” We are not condemned because we are in Christ. Christ has put Himself under the law for us, taking our nature and bearing our sin so that the law does not condemn us. It can never condemn us. It will not condemn us on the day of judgment and neither does it condemn us today for this is a present, continuing judgment. Every day, every moment of our lives, God judges the thoughts, deeds and intentions of our hearts, and we know that He ought to condemn us for there is every reason why He should; but He does not because He views us in the Beloved, and in the Beloved we are accepted. “The believer in Christ receives a present justification … We are today accepted in the Beloved, today absolved from sin, today acquitted at the bar of God … There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of His people. Who dares to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon anyone believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of all the earth” (Spurgeon)
3. A Sanctified Walk
But there is a common objection to this doctrine of “forensic” justification and that is that the mere declaration of a “not guilty” verdict does nothing to change us. We are no longer under condemnation but we are the same sinners that we were before. In ourselves, in our desires and inclinations, our works and our sins, we are unchanged, therefore justification, it is claimed, must involve more than a legal verdict. This kind of objection was mounted at the Reformation by the Roman Catholics and the Anabaptists and it is still encountered today.
In essence, it reveals confusion between justification and sanctification, but it is an objection that is answered by the second part of the text with its disputed words, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” How vital these words are for a balanced understanding.
a] In the first place, these words teach us that the work of God’s grace has not finished at justification.
Yes, He has declared “no condemnation” in Christ, but there is a distinct and on-going work of sanctification as we are led by the Spirit to walk in newness of life. A work is done in us as well as for us; something is imparted as well as imputed; there is a moral and experiential change as well as a legal verdict. The guiding principle of our life is no longer the flesh, but the Holy Spirit whom Christ has sent to indwell us and to lead us in the paths of righteousness by way of the Scriptures.
The fact that this is stated twice in the space of four verses stresses the importance of sanctification. The objections to forensic justification have no warrant. One cannot claim the blessing of “no condemnation” and yet not walk according to the Spirit. What these words do not teach is that this internal work of God, this imparted holiness, this Spirit-led walk, contributes in some way to our justification. It is distinct. The Anabaptists were sadly mistaken when they said things like this: “Faith alone and by itself is not sufficient for salvation … Rather, faith must express itself also in love to God and the neighbour” (Hubmaier). Or, “Faith does not [by itself] bring about justification” (Hoffman). Of course we do not dispute that faith must express itself in love to God and love to our neighbour, but our love does not justify us, not even in part.
In recent years confusion on these issues has arisen again. In the USA some prominent theologians, seminary professors and ministers, associated with the so-called “Federal Vision” teaching, are saying that justification is not by faith alone: the works of faith also contribute. Not only faith but the obedience of faith justifies us before God. In effect, what are really the fruits of faith are being erroneously bound up with and identified with faith itself.
b] In the second place, Romans 8:1 is telling us that these two distinct works of God, justification and sanctification, are nevertheless inseparable.
As justified, we walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, hence, the Lord’s words to the woman caught in adultery: “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). Jesus was here declaring her to be justified but also in the same breath commanding her to sin no more. She must walk no more after the flesh, in the counsel of the ungodly, but after the Spirit, delighting in the law of the Lord.
c] In the third place we learn that justification and sanctification are connected by our union with Christ.
Our way of life, our walk and our works can never justify us, but as justified and no longer under condemnation, we manifest our union with the Lord by our walking “after the Spirit” in the midst of a wicked world. We have already referred to one of the pictures that Scripture uses to portray our union with Christ, that of the body, but another is the vine and its branches (John 15). As the branches are united to the vine and as the sap flows from the root to the branches, so those branches draw all their strength from the vine and bear sweet fruits. Likewise all who are in union with Christ draw their strength from Him and bring forth spiritual fruit that are sweet to His taste, works that are acceptable to Him. To be “in Christ” is not only a legal relationship, it is a living union.
From a superficial reading of Romans 8:1 we might suppose that this walk “after the Spirit” is an easy thing and that we might even be able to fulfil it to perfection, but that is far from the case. We are not to deceive ourselves that this walk is an easy stroll. It is a difficult walk, it is a daily battle. Paul writes elsewhere that it is an on-going struggle that every child of God will experience as “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and
these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:16,17). He writes of his own experience with this struggle in Romans 7, and we can identify with him.
So how then are we able to walk this hard walk? It is by the life that we live in Christ. As members of the body of Christ our life is in Him, for as the Scriptures declare, He is our life (Colossians 3:4). I am “alive in Him, my living Head” (Charles Wesley). Apart from Him, I am dead. I draw my strength, my sanctification, from Him as a branch of the vine draws sap from the root. He it is who works within me so that the good that I do is not me but Christ. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
In conclusion then, to shorten Romans 8:1 in the way that modern Bible translations almost universally have done, is to mutilate a verse that is utterly consistent with the preceding chapters of the book, summarising them so perfectly. Justification and sanctification, the two principle themes of this letter, are here brought together in one brief verse, resting on the central pivot of the believer’s spiritual union with Christ. Are we really to believe that those disputed words have been slipped in by a careless copyist? Would that not be telling us something most unworthy about the attitude of our holy and infallible God to the accuracy of His own Word? It would be to accuse the divine Author Himself of carelessness in the preservation of His Word.
Neither need we be alarmed nor discouraged by the scarcity of ancient manuscripts that include these words. It is quite in keeping with the character and ways of God that He should preserve His Word in the few and not in the many. Force of numbers or argument carry little weight with Him whose foolishness is wiser than men. He chooses those things that are foolish and weak in the eyes of men to confound the wise and the mighty so that no flesh should glory in His presence. Let us therefore trust Him, believing that all of the Word He has preserved for us really is His Word, including the disputed ending of Romans 8:1.