Romans 8:4

If we listen to his spirit in us, and if we do whatever he says, we will not listen any more to that old part of us that tells us to do bad things. We will do good things, like the things in his law.

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

In Context

3You see, the law that came from Moses couldn’t help us. We were too weak. If we thought about some bad thing that we wanted to do, then we couldn’t help ourselves, we just did it. That law just made us think about those bad things, and then we wanted to do them. But God set us free from all that. He sent his own son to us. Jesus had the same sort of body that we bad people have. Then God punished him instead of us. Jesus died instead of us.

5Some people just think about themselves, so they only do whatever makes them feel good. They let that bad part inside them be their boss, and they do whatever it tells them to do. But other people think about God and his spirit, and they do whatever the Holy Spirit tells them to do.

Read all of Romans 8

Cross References

Galatians 5:22But if God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things. You know that a good fruit tree always gets good fruit on it. Well, like that, a person with God’s spirit does good things. If you let God’s spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble. And he will get you to be friendly to other people, and he will get you to do good things. He will make you the sort of person that other people can trust.

Colossians 1:22But God sent Jesus Christ to live as a man, in a human body, and then he let people kill Jesus’s body. When Jesus died, he took the payback for the bad things you did, so you can be friends with God. It’s like he washed you of those bad things, so you are properly good and clean inside. So at the time when God will judge everyone, he will see that you are clean and he will not blame you, he will say that you are not guilty.

1 John 3:2My friends, we are already God’s kids now, and that’s a really good thing. But later, on the day when Jesus comes back, God will do even more good things for us. You see, on that day, God will change us, so that we will be like Jesus. We don’t understand everything about that yet, but we know for sure that it will happen. Yes, we will see Jesus, we will see what he is like, and we will become just like him.

Matthew Henry on Romans 8:2-10

The Believer's Privileges. ( a. d. 58.) 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after… Read the whole commentary →

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