Have you ever spent some time in Romans 8 to find out how many activities there are on God’s side and how many activities there are on our side? Actually, this chapter does not stress how much God does, but rather it stresses how much we do.
We need to consider some of the problems in Romans 8, but first we must spend some time to lay a foundation so that we may be enabled or qualified not to solve the problem, but at least to understand the problem. Understanding the problem sometimes is harder than solving the problem. The best students are those who know how to question and how to find out the problems. The foundation we need to lay in order to understand further problems is to see what are the doings on our side and what are the doings on God’s side in Romans 8.
Some might say first of all that the law of the Spirit of life has freed me. Whose doing is this? It doesn’t say God does this. Then you may say it is the Spirit’s doing. But neither does it say that the Spirit has freed us. Rather, it is a kind of law—the law of life. The law here means a kind of law of nature, not the law of the Ten Commandments. For example, gravity is a law by nature. No doubt, such a law by nature was first set up by God, and God still operates it. It is the natural law of gravity. Once a law is set, there is the need of the one who set the law to operate it. Gravity is a law. Who is operating it? No doubt it is God Himself. Do you believe that whenever the law of gravity operates, it needs God to operate it again and again and again? No! The law is there. But whether this law operates or not does not depend upon God’s side. It depends upon our side. Whenever we would fulfill the requirement of that law, that law works.
Electricity is another example. It has been installed into this building. If you need heating, you don’t need to telephone the power plant asking them to operate the electricity. You just need to fulfill the requirement. When you fulfill the requirement, the power operates. Is this your doing or the power plant’s doing? If this room is dark and we need light, do I need to kneel down and pray that God would send the light? Even if I prayed for my whole life, the light would never come. But if I just fulfill the little requirement of turning on the switch, light comes. Whose doing is this? Surely this is our doing! But don’t say this is altogether your doing. Before your doing, some work had been done already. Some installation had been made already. Some operating was taking place far away in the power plant. If there had never been a kind of installation and if there were no power in the power plant, no operation in the power plant, although I switched on the switch a thousand times, nothing would happen. On the one hand, this is my doing because I switched on the light. But on the other hand, this is my doing plus the installation with the operation. I couldn’t do the installation, nor could I do the operation of the power plant. This is a kind of cooperation. My switching on the switch is a kind of cooperation to the installation and the operation in the power plant.
In traditional theology there are two schools: the Calvinist school and the Arminian school. The Calvinist school would say that everything is done by God. You can do nothing. The Arminian school would say that you have to do everything. If you don’t do anything, nothing will happen.
Paul, though, said, “Work out your own salvation” (Phil. 2:12). Apparently this is altogether against Martin Luther’s teaching. Salvation should be by faith, not by works. Yet Paul says to work out your own salvation. What is this? This is just switching on. To work out your salvation is to switch on. God has installed something, and God is still operating something, but you need to switch on. Romans 8:2 says, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and of death.” But who is this me? It is the switching me. It doesn’t mean that the law of the Spirit of life frees every believer with no qualification. At least the one in Romans 7 was not freed; he was still struggling there. Until Paul reached chapter eight, the law had no way to work out something. The law had been set up, and the law was still under God’s operation, yet it needed Paul’s switching on. Over fifty years ago I heard messages and I read books on this verse concerning the matter of the law of the Spirit of life. But no one ever told me that this law does not work without certain activities on the believers’ side. Actually, Romans 8 is a definition of how the law of the Spirit of life is working. The subject of Romans 8 is the freeing of the law of the Spirit of life. But just by verse 2, you don’t know how the law of the Spirit of life works. So from verse 3 onward, nearly the entire chapter is a definition of how the law of the Spirit of life operates. The law of the Spirit of life doesn’t free everyone. Many Christians today have not been freed. The law of the Spirit of life only frees certain believers who fulfill all the doings in this chapter.