Romans 8
There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life (ho nomos tou pneumatos tēs zōēs) has set them free from the law of sin and death—a superseding (not abolishing) of juridical structures by pneumatic power. The Spirit-flesh dualism frames Paul's soteriology: the mind set on the flesh is death, and the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, for the flesh sets its mind against God and cannot submit to God's law. Yet God's redemptive work has condemned sin in the flesh (katakrima tē hamartia), manifesting the condition of the law's righteous demand through Christ's incarnation and death. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus dwells in you, then the same God who raised Christ will give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit dwelling in you; Paul thus makes the resurrection power of Christ's raising the prototype and guarantee of the believer's transformation. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and joint-heirs with Christ, crying Abba Father, though suffering with him that we might be glorified with him. The groaning of creation subjected to futility in hope, the Spirit's intercession with groans beyond words, and the conviction that all things work together for good (synergei) for those who love God, are woven into a theology of redemption as cosmic, not merely individual. The golden chain—foreknew → predestined → called → justified → glorified—marks the divine intention from eternity through completion; the rhetorical cascade of unanswerable questions (if God is for us, who against us; who will bring a charge; who will condemn; who shall separate) crescendos into the final certitude that nothing in all creation—neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither present nor future, neither height nor depth, nor any other creature—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, the ultimate theodicy and the heart of Pauline assurance.