Romans 7 speaks of the problem of indwelling sin in the life of the believer. He has a new disposition that wants to do good, but he still has the nature of the flesh that does the things he does not want to do (and doesn’t do the things he wants to do). But thanks be to God through the provision of Jesus Christ who has set us free from the indwelling law of sin and death! Because of Christ the believer has the power now to do that which he was unable to do prior to his salvation — he can do the righteous deeds he desires to do and he can lay aside the evil deeds he does not want to do.
But even more astonishing is the conclusion that Paul draws in the next chapter:
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Because of Christ, not only is there freedom to do righteousness, but there is no condemning wrath for anything done in willful disobedience to God. No more is there any hopelessness. God’s love is not contingent on our merit. It is contingent on His character and the work of Christ. Let that truth weigh on your guilty conscience and free you from a spirit of unrest.
In fact, Paul will restate this idea several times in different ways in this chapter:
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (v. 11)
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. (vv. 16-17)
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (v. 31)
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? (v. 35)
The believer in Christ, through no merit of his own, is secure and kept and hopeful in the love of God.
Jonathan Edwards reflected on this truth of the magnitude of God’s love in his sermon, “The Everlasting Love of God:”
God’s love to his saints has had being from all eternity. God often in his Word is setting forth how great his love is to his saints, how dear they are to him. But this love of his to them he had before ever they had any being. There it was in the heart fo God of old. In former ages, thousands of years ago, in the ages before the flood, and when God created the world, there was that love; yea, and before the foundation of the world. And if we look back ever to far, there is no beginning of it. This love that God has to his saints that is thus everlasting, is not only general, as God did from all eternity love saints, i.e., loved their character; the qualifications of saints were what he naturally delighted in. But his love to the particular persons is from eternity. He did as it were know them by name, and set his love in such particular saints. And therefore God is said to have foreknown his saints, i.e., he from all eternity saw them particularly, and knew them as his own.
And this truth that God loved in eternity (before time) means that He will also love through eternity (in all time and after the end of time). His love is everlasting and astoundingly gracious.
Words of Grace 