How to Be Set Free From Our Human Nature (Romans 8: 1-4)

Episode Title: How to Be Set Free from Our Human Nature

📖 Romans 8:1–4

🎧 Welcome

Welcome to today’s episode of The Bible Project Daily Podcast! We’re reached what some people consider the mountain peak of the New Testament—Romans chapter 8.

After identifying the root of our spiritual struggle in Romans 7—our sinful human nature—Paul now reveals how we are set free from being controlled by it.

In just four verses, we hear the liberating truth: In Christ, there is no condemnation. The power of sin is broken. And through the Spirit, we can live in freedom—not by our own strength, but by God’s power at work within us.

If you’ve ever wrestled with guilt, shame, or felt stuck in patterns you can't break, this message is for you. There’s real hope here. There’s real transformation.

Let’s explore it together.

📝 Study Notes

📌 Key Verse 8:1 (NIV)

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death…”

💡 Key Takeaways

• No Condemnation: Those who are in Christ are no longer under judgment or enslaved to sin.
• Two Laws at Work:
  • The law of sin and death: our fallen human nature pulling us down.
  • The law of the Spirit: the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit that lifts us up.
• Freedom Through the Spirit: Victory over sin isn’t found in trying harder—but in walking with the Spirit of God.
• Fulfillment of the Law: As we live by the Spirit, God produces in us the righteousness the law was always pointing toward.

🔍 Word Focus

• Flesh (sarx): Not just physical flesh, but human nature in its weakness and sinfulness—our tendency to follow selfish, worldly desires.
• Spirit (pneuma): The Holy Spirit who empowers believers to live a new life aligned with God’s will.

📖 Related Scriptures

• Galatians 5:16 – “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
• Romans 7:24–25 – “Who will deliver me from this body of death?... Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
• Romans 13:10 – “Love is the fulfillment of the law.”

🙏 Reflection Questions

1. What does “no condemnation” really mean for your daily life?
2. Where do you still feel the pull of the flesh—and how might the Spirit be offering a new way to live?
3. In what areas are you trying harder instead of trusting deeper?

Thanks for joining us today. Don’t forget to subscribe and share. And come back next time as we continue through Romans 8 and discover the next result of

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Transcript

How to Be Set Free from Our Human Nature (Romans 8: 1-4)

Transcript: 

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Half the battle is knowing what the problem is.” That’s true in many areas of life, including our spiritual lives.

I’ve been told that in pastoral conversations, when someone says they’re struggling, one of the most helpful steps is to try and isolate the real issue. Once it’s identified, we’re halfway there. 

That’s exactly where we’ve arrived in our journey through the Book of Romans. In chapter 7, Paul identified the problem that every believer wrestles with: the flesh—our sinful human nature. He made this painfully clear in the last chapter.

“The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin” (7:14).

“I know that in me nothing good dwells” (7:18).

“So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the fles I serve h the law of sin” (7:25).

In other words, the real problem isn’t outside us,  it’s within us.

That’s a crucial insight. It stops us from looking for external solutions to an internal problem. But identifying the problem is only the half of it, we’re still left with the big question:

What do we do about it?

Should we try harder? Dedicate ourselves more fully? Seek some kind of spiritual experience to overcome what Paul calls, the flesh? Or is there a process—a path of sanctification—that actually sets us free?

Romans 8, I believe gives us the answer, shows us that path.

Many have called this chapter the mountain top of the New Testament. One writer said, “If the Bible were a crown, Romans would be the jewel in the crown.

So, let’s climb this peak together, today in TBPDP….

Just four verses today, beginning with verses 1-2:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

(Romans 8: 1-2)

This is the turning point. 

After the frustration of Romans 7—where Paul cried out, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”—Romans 8 now begins by offering us hope: There is now no condemnation….

That word “condemnation” doesn’t just mean judgment—it carries the sense of penal servitude. In Romans 5, Paul used this same word to describe the state of all humanity descended from Adam: enslaved to sin, he says, like living under a sentence of death.

But now? For those who are in Christ, that penalty is gone. The chain is broken. The condemnation has been lifted. Why? Because Christ has done what the law could never do: He set us free from the power of sin and death.

That’s today’s key takeaway:

You are not condemned. You are not enslaved anymore. You are not powerless anymore.

In Christ, you have the victory, and you are free.

So don’t go back to trying harder in your own strength. Don’t live under guilt and shame.

Instead, walk in the Spirit and live in the freedom Jesus has already won for you.

Paul doesn’t just tell us that there’s no condemnation—he goes further and shows us why. 

He does this by introducing a powerful contrast: Showing that two laws have been at work in the believer’s life. On one hand, there's “the law of sin and death,” which we saw in Romans Ch 7—a downward pull of our fallen nature. 

On the other hand, there is now “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” working in us, which sets us free.

Notice the context. 

In chapter 8 Paul is not primarily talking about justification anymore. That was covered thoroughly in Romans 3 through 5. The focus now is sanctification—how we live free from sin's grip. Romans 7 described the struggle: “I see another law in my members... bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” (7:23)

That’s what Paul means by the law of sin and death. It’s not a written code—it's the power of sin working in our flesh, producing death.

But now, Romans 8 announces the breakthrough: The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from that old law.

Just like gravity pulls you down, sin pulls you down also. As the famous Dr. Louis Talbot said years ago, when you step into the elevator of the Spirit, a new law takes over—a greater law, one that lifts you up.

Let’s be clear: Paul isn’t just saying you’re saved and someday you’ll be free from sin in heaven, that’s true and he will talk about that later. But he’s saying that right now, if you walk according to the Spirit, you don’t have to live in bondage. You don’t have to be dragged down by the law of sin. There is a new power at work in you—the Holy Spirit, bringing life and freedom.

Let’s go back and connect the dots:

In Romans 7:23, the “law of sin” was winning. It brought Paul into captivity.

In 7:24, he cried out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Now in 8:2, we get the answer: The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free.

This is more than theological theory. It’s practical. It's personal and its everyday. You can live this. You don’t have to be dominated by your old nature. You can walk in the Spirit…. And when you do, the first result is this:

You are set free from the law of sin and death.

You may still feel the pull of the flesh—but you’re no longer a slave to it. You no longer have to be controlled by it, you’ve been given another way to live, another power to live by.

This is what Galatians 5:16 affirms so clearly: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” Not you might not—you shall not. That’s a promise. That’s the power of the Spirit.

So, the question isn’t whether you struggle. You will. The question is: Who are you now walking with? Are you walking according to the flesh—or according to the Spirit with not just God by your side, but with you, in you.

Because that’s the key difference. That’s the turning point. And that’s the first result of living by the Spirit: Real freedom.

Now let’s look at verses 3 and 4, where Paul gives us the second result of walking according to the Spirit: not only are we freed from the law of sin and death, but we also end up fulfilling God’s law.

Paul continues by saying,

“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh.”

(Romans 8:3)

In other words, the law had no power to save us. It could point out our sin, yes. It could expose it, highlight it, condemn it even—but it couldn’t fix it. 

However, the problem wasn’t with the law itself; the problem was with us. The law was weak—not because of anything wrong with it, but because of our human reaction and inter-action with it.

This is where God stepped in. What the law couldn’t do, God did. 

How? By sending His own Son, but in the likeness/appearance of sinful flesh—and He did it, Paul says, “on account of sin.” That phrase carries all the weight of Christ’s death and resurrection. 

Jesus came in a body like ours, faced the same temptations we face, yet without sin—and He dealt with sin in that same flesh. He judged it, He condemned it, and He broke its power.

And the result of that, Paul says in verse 4, is that

In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

(Romans 8:4)

So, here's the logic: the law couldn’t save us, but Jesus did. And now, by walking in the Spirit—by living under the influence of God’s Spirit—we find that we are, almost as a byproduct, fulfilling the very law that once condemned us. Not by striving to meet every letter of it, but by the Spirit’s work within us.

Now maybe you’ve heard the old illustration. It’s been told by men like Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer and William Pettingill—whoever first used it many years ago, it goes like this: 

One of them said they were visiting someone’s house and stepped into the kitchen just as the hostess was pulling a roast from the oven. She slipped a fork into the meat to lift it out—but the roast was so tender that the fork tore right through it. The fork couldn’t hold the roast. The problem wasn’t the fork—it was the weakness of the meat.

That’s what Paul is saying. The law was like that fork—it couldn’t lift us. Not because it wasn’t strong, but because we were too weak. We couldn’t hold together under it. The flesh was the problem. And so God sent His Son, and Jesus did what the law could never do. He gave us life—and He gave us the Spirit.

And now, walking by the Spirit, we fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. Not because we’re chasing after rules, but because the Spirit of God is producing something deeper within us.

So, how does that actually happen?

Well, Paul will spell it out more clearly in Romans 13. But here’s a quick preview: later in Romans he will say.

“Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” 

And what’s the fruit of the Spirit? Galatians 5 says the very first one is love. So as the Spirit works in us, producing love, we end up fulfilling the law—not by effort, not by trying to avoid every little mistake, but by loving other people, the way God loves them.

And if you're loving people, you’re not murdering them. You’re not sleeping with their wives or husbands behind their backs, you’re not stealing from them, lying about them, or coveting what they have. You're doing the very things the law pointed out all along.

That’s the difference between law and grace. The law commands but doesn’t empower. The Spirit commands—and empowers. 

So, if you walk according to the Spirit, not only are you freed from the law of sin and death, but you will also fulfill the very ideas the law was always pointing toward quite naturally.

There is a third result, but we will look at that tomorrow.

But for today just  let me try and  summarize what we have looked at today.

This is a very difficult passage because it is so highly compressed, and because, all through it, Paul is alluding to things which he has already said in previous chapters.

Two words keep occurring again and again in this chapter, flesh (sarx) in Greek and spirit (pneuma) in Greek. We will not understand the passage at all unless we understand the way in which Paul is using these words.

Sarx literally means flesh. Even the most cursory reading of Paul's letters will show how often he uses the word, and how he uses it in a sense that is all his own.

It is quite clear, especially from this instance, that Paul is not using flesh simply in the sense of the body, as we might say flesh and blood. He really means our human nature in all its weakness and he also means human, in our vulnerability to sin. 

He means that part of a person which gives sin its bridgehead. He means sinful human nature, the part of us that chooses to attach ourselves to the world instead of to God.

To live according to the flesh is to live a life dominated by the dictates and desires of our sinful human nature instead of a life dominated by the dictates and the love of God. 

The flesh is the lower, base side of man's nature.

It is to be carefully noted that when Paul thinks of the kind of life that a man dominated by the flesh, lives he is not by any means thinking exclusively of sexual and bodily sins. When he gives a list of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21, he includes the bodily and the sexual sins; but he also includes idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, heresies, envy, murder. 

The flesh to him was not just a physical thing but a wide ranging spiritual problem. It was human nature in all its sin and weakness; it was all that man is without God and without Christ.

There is also the word pneuma as used for the word Spirit. In Romans it will occur in chapter 8 no fewer than twenty times. This word has a very definite Old Testament background. In Hebrew it has two basic thoughts

It is not only the word for Spirit; it is also the word for wind. It has always the idea of it having power behind it, like the power of a mighty rushing wind. In the Old Testament, it always has the idea of something that is more than human. Spirit, to Paul, represented a power which was divine.

So, Paul says in this passage that there was a time when the Christian was at the mercy of his own sinful human nature.

In that state the law simply became something that moved him to sin, and he went from bad to worse, a defeated and frustrated man. But, when he became a Christian, into his life there came the surging power of the Spirit of God, and, as a result, he entered into victorious living.

Remember that he began today by saying that every single one of us sinned in Adam. We saw how the Jewish conception of solidarity made it possible for him to argue that, quite literally, all people were generatio al descended, (they had the biblical generational lists of the Old Testament) so they all knew they were descended from Adam and thereby inherited Adam's sin and in its consequence--death. 

But into this world came Jesus; with a completely human nature; and he brought to God a life of perfect obedience, of perfect fulfilment of God's law.

Now, because Jesus was fully a man, and also in human terms descended from Adam through the continuing family tree given in the Gospels. Just as we were one with Adam, we are now one with him; and, just as we were involved in Adam's sin, we can now be brought into connection with Jesus' perfection.

Just as in Adam humankind brought to God Adams fatal disobedience. People are now saved because those who were once involved in Adam's sin but are now connected to God through Jesus' righteousness.

That is Paul's argument, and to those who heard it, it was completely convincing, however hard it is for us it might be to grasp in with a modern mind set.

What we are told here is that because of what Jesus did, there opens up to us the possibility of a saved Christian a life no longer dominated by the flesh but by that Spirit of God, which fills us with a power not our own. 

The penalty of the past is removed and strength for his future is assured. So rejoice in that.