Fifth Sunday in Lent
Romans 8:1-11
March 22, 2026
No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – for those who live according to the Spirit, that is. But for those who live according to the flesh, there is nothing but condemnation on account of hostility toward God.
It seems like once again, the matter of being saved is very black and white. You are either are or you aren’t. It’s not a matter of nuance or perspective. You’re either in or you’re out, of the spirit or of the flesh, set free or in bondage.
In the Old Testament reading, the bones were all dead and dried up. There was no partial dead or “those bones were nice bones so surely they were alive,” or any such thing. They were dead, dried up, useless bones.
In the Gospel, Lazarus was dead – dead as a doornail, no life in him, no breath, no pumping heart, no functioning brain, nothing – he was dead. And for Lazarus, the only other option was for him to not be dead.
And in the Epistle, same thing, a person is either alive in Christ or dead without Christ. That’s it. God does not provide for compromise or exceptions. Dead is dead, alive is alive, flesh is flesh, and spirit is spirit.
I think we can understand this dichotomy. Oh, we are tempted to try and bring in some grey between the black and the white, but unless our Lord Christ brings in the grey, do not bring in the grey. Let the dichotomy stand just as our Lord set it up.
In the ancient Didache, the “catechism” of the 1st century written by an apostle or bishop or student of an apostle, it says the same thing – there are but two ways, the way of life and the way of death.
Now, the BEST-case scenario of living for the flesh is to believe God exists, but not to believe in Him as Savior. He’s a problem-solver, but not a rescuer from sin. The worst-case scenario is living so much for the world that one denies there even is a God – or of course to worship a false god or false gods such as in other religions.
To live according to the flesh is to be dead on account of sin. It’s as if one goes to the hospital and the doctor says, “unresponsive” only in this case it’s a spiritual deadness, not physical. God is the giver of life, the sustainer of the living, and being dead in sin is like being so spiritually covered in filth and grime that His life, His light can’t reach the spirit and give life, where the grime and filth is unbelief and sin.
One who is dead because of sin cannot be alive on account of Christ. And as John the Baptist says, those who do not bear good fruit are gathered up and thrown into the unquenchable fire. These aren’t my words – I didn’t make this up – and it isn’t merely some Lutheran thing. It is the Word of God.
The way of death cannot lead to eternal life anymore than the way of life can lead to eternal death. There are only two ways, and the two ways are utterly opposed to one another. One cannot continue to seek the way of death while claiming to live by the way of life, anymore than one can seek the way of life while claiming to live by the way of death. One is either dead or he is alive, and the two shall not mingle.
Now, the way of life is the way of faith. It’s not about works. In other words, you cannot make yourself alive by saying or acting or doing. There is no “sinner’s prayer” which flips the “Now I’m saved” switch in your heart or mind; there is no altar call or emotional experience which activates your faith self and brings you to life. That’s all forms of existentialism or fideism but not saving faith.
Charles Finney, the 19th century lawyer slash questionably presbyterian theologian, believed that preaching and worship style needed to stir the emotion because God saved people through their emotions. He took a firm stance against the increasingly popular rationalistic notions of the American Enlightenment where human reason triumphed over all and where God was, at most, a distant deity who cared nothing for His creation.
But Finney went too far – as most movements do in the church – and imposed an idea which Scripture does not support – salvation by emotional experiences, and many people fell into this second great awakening trap. But it was short lived.
Finney and his great awakening only served to foster growth in the mainline Christian churches for a short time because the thing about emotions is that they easily succumb to boredom when there isn’t constant stimulating change and new and different.
Faith is not born from emotion, anymore than it is born from reason. Article IV of the Augsburg Confession says it like this:
Men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.
No human reason, no human emotion. It’s faith. Faith informs reason and shapes emotion, but it is not born from them. Faith is a firm trust in Christ and His salvation, despite what human reason insists. Faith is a firm trust in Christ and His salvation, despite what emotion, or lack thereof, exists. And by faith, we are made alive. It clings to Christ who transfers us from the way of death to the way of life, not because of something inside of us, a work or a merit or a disposition we might exhibit toward God, but because of something outside of us, because Christ has died, and by His death we have forgiveness.
This is what Paul means in Romans 3 when he writes, “But now, completely apart from the law, a righteousness from God has been made known.” Completely apart from the law means that, whatever the laws says and demands of us, be it a mind which agrees or a heart which feels, cannot save us, but only a foreign righteousness which comes from outside us in every way.
Otherwise, we could boast about it; we could say, “I chose” or “I did” or “I said,” much like Adam and Eve were seeking when they ate from the tree. But faith doesn’t boast because it trusts. The object of faith is Christ, and not just Christ, but Christ who died, whose blood was shed, whose body was broken on the cross as a propitiation or atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Faith grabs hold of that historic work and sure promise and says, “Despite reason, despite emotion, I will hold on to this for it is my hope and purpose.” The way of death dies, and the way of life comes alive.
In Luther’s introduction to the Book of Romans, Luther writes, “Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.” No human work or source could do this. God’s grace isn’t contingent on our ability to reason it out or feel it. God’s grace is God’s grace. Jesus has died; His blood was shed; His salvation is complete.
So, for this universal, objective work – Christ dying on the cross and forgiving the sins of the world – to make you or me alive in Him, this is the great miracle of God brought about by His Word.
God sends preachers; He sends people to proclaim the Word of God. That Word goes out from their lips, and it makes its way into the ears of the dead. And in that Word, there is a power which brings the dead to life, just like Lazarus, just like those bones in the valley, and that power is the Law and the Gospel; it is the revelation that you and I are sinners, that we break God’s commandments, and that we deserve God’s eternal wrath as the consequence for our sins. But that in Christ, God has forgiven us our sins and given us eternal life on account of His great love for us.
And we don’t want to add to this powerful and living and active Word some additional things such as the “but you gottas” where the work of going from death to life suddenly becomes something we do or a new law we have to accomplish.
He saves us, He makes us alive, He puts to death – death in us, and like the bones in the great valley of Ezekiel, we receive this gift by the Spirit of God. Like Lazarus in the tomb, when the Word opens His mouth and says, “Come forth,” we receive and even with ears that can’t hear, the Word brings life.
This is all the Lord’s doing; it’s all His work.
If we were to continue on in Romans 12, we would discover that, because we are made alive by the Spirit of God, we are also children of God, and because we are children of God, we are heirs of everything He has. And we rightfully want to say this includes all the riches and glory of heaven including eternal life with our brother and Savior, Christ Jesus who rose again, but it’s more than just what awaits us.
For our Lord suffered in life, and because everything He has is ours, we also have suffering in this life. People are going to despise us just as they despised our Lord. People are going to mock us and attack us just as they mocked and attacked our Lord.
Why did people mock and attack and hate and revile Jesus? Was it deserved? Of course not. Jesus never lied, never deceived, never stole, never looked at another person with lustful, selfish intent, never sought power and glory or sought it through unrighteous means, He never cheated anyone or talked behind anyone’s back in a slanderous way. He loved and worshiped and trusted His Father in a way which we can only marvel.
And because of this, the devil saw fit to challenge Jesus at every turn, use every tool in his bag to defeat Jesus including insult and threat and slander and hate, and crucify.
But Satan couldn’t defeat Jesus – it was impossible, and Jesus rose from the dead in complete defiance against death, and so now the devil turns to us, to the holy Christian church, to believers like you and me, and he uses the exact same tools against us that he tried and failed to use against Jesus. But trusting in our Lord to lead us and protect us, Satan will fail with us just the same.
This is the cross we bear – the cross we’ve inherited as God’s children. But we should not be like the wicked servant, the one who buried his talent out of fear. If we are unwilling to bear our crosses in this life, it also means we are unwilling to follow Christ, and if we are unwilling to follow Christ, both in the good and in the suffering, it means we are still dead in sin.
Instead, let us learn wisdom from our Lord and understand that whatever suffering we might face in this life on account of faith is nothing compared to what glory awaits us in the life to come, and that, no matter what we face now, God always works things out for our good – maybe not always the way we want – but for our good, especially on the Day of the Lord when we will be with Him forever.
Our suffering, be it the aches and pains of living in broken bodies, the suffering that comes from living and interacting with a broken and fallen world, or even the suffering that comes from temptation and sin, it is nothing compared to the life that awaits us when the Day of the Lord is revealed and all of this living with weaknesses and limitations comes to an end.
We are people of life, not death. We are people who, by His Word and Spirit, have been given sinews and muscle and flesh and been brought to our feet, a mighty army engaged for battle by the power of our God. We are people who have been brought up from the grave to live and breathe and worship and pray, give thanks, serve, and obey our God and Father as only the living can do.
By God’s grace and Spirit, may we be a living people, a people of hope and purpose and a future, a people who have been given all things – and most importantly, given Jesus who gives us salvation by His blood. Amen.
