The Romance of Romans-Part 43

Romans Chapter 8 cont'd

5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. ESV

Comments:
The word "flesh" in Scripture is used in a variety of ways...and because of this, it can be easily misconstrued. It can mean: humanity, a physical body, the entirety of a person's life, a corpse, a relative, food, and human (not necessarily sinful) weakness. Remember "God became flesh"! And in Luke 24:39, the risen Christ is describes his glorified human body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." In Paul, especially in Romans and Galatians, it also is very much linked to sinful human nature.

In A. R. G. Deasley's excellent article in Baker's Evangelical Dictionary on "flesh", he makes the point that Paul uses the word "flesh" in two distinct ways in his writings. Of the first way, he states... "the term acquires the transferred sense of that which is frail and provisional (1 Cor 1:26; Gal 1:16; Php 3:3). As transient, it is not the sphere of salvation, which is rather the sphere of the Spirit. This does not imply that flesh is evil per se: life "in the flesh" is normal human existence (Gal 2:20), but it is still merely human. This picture accords generally with that of the Old Testament."

Of the second, he points out that Paul builds upon the first definition and states..."The uniquely Pauline understanding begins from the idea that flesh, as weak, becomes the gateway to sin (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 12:7; Gal 4:14). Still more, as the arena in which sin entrenches itself it becomes the instrument of sin (Rom 6:12-14) to the extent that it becomes sinful itself (Rom 8:3), and so an occupying alien power (Rom 7:17-20). The accompanying war Paul describes as a struggle between flesh and Spirit (Rom 8:5-17; Gal 5:16-24). The seriousness of the struggle is indicated by the fact that the mind-set of the flesh leads to death (Rom 8:6), and that those living in the flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8). Accounts of this conflict are most vivid in contexts where Paul is describing the demands of the law on the one hand (Rom 7:4, 7-11; Gal 5:2-5), and its impotence to enable the believer to meet them on the other (Rom 8:3; Gal 3:10-12). Flesh, however, is not intrinsically sinful, and may therefore be the scene of sin's defeat. This it became through Christ's coming and crucifixion in the flesh (Rom 8:3). Those who identify themselves with him by faith likewise crucify the flesh (Gal 2:20; 5:24) so being emancipated from the power of sin in the flesh (Rom 6:14; 8:9)."

Wow...it takes some thinking to sort it through properly. Wherever the word is used, a careful examination of the context is essential. Because of how Paul links "flesh" to "sin" in certain passages like the one above and it's other meanings in the Bible, it has been easy for casual readers of Scripture to get a negative moral perspective about the physical, material or visible realm, as supposedly in strict opposition to, the spiritual, immaterial and invisible realm. This has opened the door throughout church history to an unbiblical philosophical dualism, and it's step-child, religious gnosticism, that are terribly counter-productive to a healthy spiritual life in Christ. (see The Romance of Romans-Parts 29 and 30)

More to say in the next installment.

The Romance of Romans-Part 42

Romans Chapter 8 cont'd

What the Mosaic legal system could not do because the people under it were infected with sin, God himself did by sending his Son from heaven to live as a man and personally identify with human weakness. Then, because of our serious sin problem, God fully vented his righteous anger against sin as Jesus, bearing all the past and future sins of humanity, bled and died on the cross. Now the moral essence of the Mosaic code can actually be fulfilled in Christians whose power center is the Holy Spirit within them instead of their own mental, volitional, emotional or physical powers.

Comments:
The effort to obey the law of Moses could never be sufficient to make a person righteous or holy in the sight of God. Moreover, it was never intended by God to do so. Our Father in heaven knew all along that we needed more than the laying down of a magnificent, but impersonal, law code to form us into the kind of people he longed for us to become...people who would become fit to live in harmony and friendship with him. He saw that our very core of our being was shut down by the heaviness of guilt and shame.

He chose, after historic preparations that were endorsed as divine through powerful interventions and inspired ancient prophecies, to come "in person" to fulfill the prophecies and "once and for all" affect the change in human life that we so desperately needed. He did this by sending his only begotten Son to become like us so that we, by the grace of God, could become like him. He did this by leading his Son to a cruel and bloody execution to pay the terrible debt of the sins of the world that he himself did not owe. He did this by raising his Son from death and bringing to birth the new beginning...the new genesis...the new creation...that paved the way for the reconciliation of heaven and earth. He did this by offering his salvation to us as a free gift and qualifying us, by that, to become living temples of his very Holy Spirit, who comes to indwell the souls and bodies of those who simply believe and humbly receive.

We are not alone, left to ourselves, or left to our own resources in responding to this high calling to live as friends of the Father and his Christ. His Spirit has come within us to be the new "power center" of our humanity. All our other powers are willingly offered in joyful subordination to this blessed Holy Spirit who then, mostly invisibly and subtly, takes the helm of our lives, progressively refines and integrates our human capacities under his gentle dominion and empowers us to bring great pleasure to Father's heart through the enjoyment of being his...and naturally then...in all our worship and service.

Oh, Holy Spirit, come and fill me anew with the love of God...and all that this inevitably involves.

The Romance of Romans-Part 41

Romans Chapter 8 cont'd

But things are very different for those who are in Christ- they have a real choice. They are enabled to walk in the Spirit's power and not just their own. Therefore they have been liberated from the endless guilt trip associated with human religious performance and its impossible demands. For the law of life in the Holy Spirit has been instituted in Christ, which supersedes and transcends the law of sin and death- like aerodynamics over gravity! What the Mosaic legal system could not do because the people under it were infected with sin, God himself did by sending his Son from heaven to live as a man and personally identify with human weakness. Then, because of our serious sin problem, God fully vented his righteous anger against sin as Jesus, bearing all the past and future sins of humanity, bled and died on the cross.
Now the moral essence of the Mosaic code can actually be fulfilled in Christians whose power center is the Holy Spirit within them instead of their own mental, volitional, emotional or physical powers.

Comments:
The Father has always known that only Christ could, and can, successfully live "the Christian life"! Think of the joy that he and his glorified Son felt after the work of redemption was done and the Spirit could then be sent to literally indwell those who simply opened their hearts to agree with the good news of it all. Contemplate the divine plan (and may we never "outgrow" the wonder and awe that attends such awareness) of how Jesus conclusively dealt with the entirety of human guilt and shame in his substitutionary death and inaugurated the "new and living way" of experiencing human life by his powerful resurrection and glorious ascension. Savor the realization that the Father set his love upon you long before you were aware of or wanted him, drew you to faith in Jesus by the "magnetic" personality/power of the Holy Spirit and transplanted a new heart deeply within you that pulses to know, worship and serve God above all else.

In his wisdom, God has chosen to allow the "gravitational pull" of sin's presence to remain for a while longer in his creation. Until Christ returns, it will always be there exerting it's force and pressure upon our lives. (Kind of a bummer, eh?) It is a power we, as believers, are free to turn and succumb to. It has enough power to bring us down if we try to overcome it by self-reliance.

But there is another amazing power at work in this world...and alive in our souls...as well. It is the power of Christ's resurrection life. By this power, we can defy gravity and "walk on the water" of this fallen age...but only as we keep our eyes on Jesus and don't try too hard to calculate, measure or boast to others about how spiritual we are. Only Jesus Christ himself really knows how far we have developed into his likeness, only he is the true measure of our new life and only he is our boast.

The most "holy" people I know are more aware of their weaknesses than they are impressed by their strengths and they are able to take God and his great kingdom seriously without taking themselves too seriously. They are not sanctimonious in the attitudes they emote. They are not uptight around earthy people and they are able to perceive what these may become. They are not uncomfortable in their own skins. They are not bound by a multitude of behavoral rules. They are free spirited, constrained by love, bold, authentic, tender, tearful, transparent, good listeners, humorous, self-unconscious, happy for others to be the center of attention, non-defensive, quick to repent when they are wrong and even more humbled when they are praised. Father, help us to walk in your love by a true fellowship with your indwelling Spirit. And...make us more like your Son in every way each day.

The Romance of Romans-Part 40

Romans Chapter 7
A deeper part of me would love to obey God's moral law, but another "parasitic" force uses my bodily members as its "host" and controls me. A civil war rages between my moral values and the sinful passions that operate through my body. And sin is winning the war! I am truly a miserable person! Who can liberate me from this living death? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ will!" (So friends, this is the awful dilemma of anyone who tries to serve God apart from the Holy Spirit's presence and power living in him and flowing through him- his mind agrees with God's moral law, but another part of him is in bondage to sin and he is unable to live up to its standard.)
Chapter 8
But things are very different for those who are in Christ- they have a real choice. They are enabled to walk in the Spirit's power and not just their own. Therefore they have been liberated from the endless guilt trip associated with human religious performance and its impossible demands. For the law of life in the Holy Spirit has been instituted in Christ, which supersedes and transcends the law of sin and death- like aerodynamics over gravity!

Comments:
Oh, that divine interruption, "but God"! Here, it is in my paraphrase, but it is in the original in various NT texts that communicate the same point. God has done something for humanity "in Christ" that most of us have not yet comprehended, internalized or externalized. Who can liberate us from the dreaded Romans 7 treadmill driven by our religious will power? Who can empower us to face the presence of sin in this world and in our own lives...and then...beat up the bully who has intimidated and dominated us for so long? Thank God, Jesus Christ will...by the power of the Holy Spirit!

It is also clear that Paul is not primarily speaking about living in this kind of freedom only after this earthly life is over. Certainly, we will not see the fullness of the effects of this liberation he has purchased for us until he comes again. However, the apostle is referring to an experience of the richness of Christ and his Spirit in this world...in this age...in this soul and body...whereby we can substantially live in freedom from the mandatory dominion of sin that Romans 7 describes in such gory detail.

On the practical level, there is a mystery that needs to be unraveled for us to achieve the "liftoff" that Paul holds out to us. We have to look away and emotionally distance ourselves from our intimidating past failed experiences to "obey God" and even, to "walk in the Spirit", into the truth of what Jesus has already done for us and in us...in order to tap into the realm of grace of which the apostle is speaking. We need to discover more deeply in our heart of hearts who we are "in Christ" so that we find the solid higher ground on which we can confront the bully...thereby gaining an unfair advantage. When we know who we really are "in Christ", it is not a battle with one stronger than us, or even between two equals. It is a unfair battle between Christ within us and something that he has already trumped and judged.

I have to say here that one of my favorite albums of all time is, The Art of Crushing, by Trump Dawgs. (Coincidentally, my son, Luke, was the lead guitar player for this group!) If you like funk rock, you will love this recording. Many of the songs reflect what I am referring to here...like the song Locomotive. You can get it online: cdbaby.com/cd/trumpdawgs

OK...more Romans 8 to come!

The Romance of Romans-Part 39

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! NIV

The most stark and vivid "Romans 7" season in my life happened between the years of 16-18. At 16, I had experienced a supernatural conviction experience while sitting in a conservative Baptist church service in the northern suburb of Detroit where I grew up. My older brother, Mark, had become a believer through their influence and had challenged me to come to this church with him. It's a long story, but it's enough to say here, that the Holy Spirit spoke directly into my heart about my sinfulness and lost-ness.

Even though I didn't really want to believe it, I somehow knew in my heart how true it was, but I decided to run away from Jesus Christ. I thought that I would like to make myself more presentable to him after making some personal reformations. And...that is what I attempted to do for two years! Only...I failed more miserably on the moral front the harder I tried to "be good". I was what the Puritans referred to as an "enlightened sinner". My conscience was very much tenderized toward good and evil, but I was progressively losing personal power to resist temptations and to even live up to my own standards...not to mention, God's.

God used this terrible season of internal agony and "civil war" to prepare me for the amazing conversion encounter that I had with Jesus at age 18. I was so ready to surrender to him by then. I felt very much like I had been dragging "the body of death" around with me that Paul so eloquently pictures above. The historical background for the word picture that he apparently had in mind when he wrote this passage is recounted below.

"Near Tarsus, where the apostle Paul was born, a tribe of people lived who inflicted a most terrible penalty upon a murderer. They fastened the body of the victim to the killer, tying shoulder to shoulder, back to back, thigh to thigh, arm to arm and then drove the murderer from the community. So tight were the bonds that he could not free himself, and after a few days the decay in the body of death spread to the living flesh of the murderer. As he stalked the land, there was none to help him remove the body of death. He only had the frightful prospect of his own slow, gangrenous death." Barnhouse, Romans, Vol 3, Book 2, p. 241.

24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! Come on...Romans 8!

The Romance of Romans-Part 38

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

I have discovered a principle of human nature: when I set out to do good, an evil within me sabotages my efforts. A deeper part of me would love to obey God's moral law, but another "parasitic" force uses my bodily members as its "host" and controls me. A civil war rages between my moral values and the sinful passions that operate through my body. And sin is winning the war! I am truly a miserable person! Who can liberate me from this living death? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ will!"
So friends, this is the awful dilemma of anyone who tries to serve God apart from the Holy Spirit's presence and power living in him and flowing through him- his mind agrees with God's moral law, but another part of him is in bondage to sin and he is unable to live up to its standard.


Comments:
Many people have gotten uptight about whether the person to whom Paul refers could be a genuine Christian or not. It obviously could be a religiously-inclined person who is not. However, I really don't think that this is the main issue. Many true followers of Jesus have testified of having gone through phases in their post-conversion journey, that were characterized by an ongoing struggle with fleshly habits and addictions and cycles of moral defeat.

That's why I posit the notion that this whole Romans 7 dynamic is about getting past and rising above religious will power (human zeal power!) to externally perform "up to code"...irrespective of it being the mere will power of an unconverted or converted person. It's about transcending what has become known as "performance orientation". And...this normally doesn't happen in our souls without some deep and painful self-realizations over time through life experience. In the NT, Peter is the classic study on this as he: struts his stuff to Jesus; has Jesus prophesy both his future sin of betrayal in the courtyard and it's later positive outcome; experiences deep contrition and brokenness over his spiritual pride and lack of love; and then is restored and recommissioned by Jesus on the beach after his resurrection.

So...taking the principle in Romans 7 to this deeper level and more subtle application.... From my observations over 35 years as a spiritual counselor (and from my own experience), I am convinced that most believers do experience phases in which we serve God out of our own human zeal and enthusiasm (that does seemingly propel us forward in God for a season), only to later and rudely discover that this motivating force resulted in degrees of self-righteousness, legalism, judgmentalism, lack of love and mercy and...thereby...spiritual defeat. (And, of course, these features are what merely religious people are infamous for!) Then, out of our disoriented awareness that we have to somehow discover a better source for our spiritual life-flow because our past religious efforts didn't actually please God, the "pendulum naturally swings" to the other extreme as we finally are forced to relax the religious "muscles" that we have been tensing for so long.

At this point in this divine breaking process, the deepest part of us still longs to please God and avoid sinning, but, we suddenly discover that we don't possess the will-power within us to perform as well on the external moral/spiritual front as we once had. God wounded our spiritual pride (the more deadly sin that had been very active and hiding in our hearts) by setting us up for a strategic "religious failure". (In some of my writings and sermons, I have referred to this as an apparent "divine betrayal barrier" that we each must confront and cross to become the proven spiritual dads and moms that God longs for us to become.) So we end up, as genuine believers, experiencing something very much like the Romans 7 treadmill for a time...or at times. Then, with seasons under our belt marked by two starkly contrasting spiritual dynamics, we progressively realize that neither basic posture is what Jesus truly came to offer us. Then, we are much more ready to consistently enter into and live in the joy and liberation of Romans 8.

Sometimes I really wish coming into spiritual maturity didn't have to be such a long and challenging journey. How 'bout you? But then I think about how I really don't have anything better to do with my allotted years of earthly and, yet imperfect, life than to discover in every season how the Father is slowly conforming me, more and more, into the image of his Son through both blessings and trials...and then trying to learn to cooperate with him more fully.

The Romance of Romans-Part 37

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

Now don't get me wrong. God's commandants are right, fair and good. So are God and his moral laws to blame for my spiritual death? No! Never! Again, the problem is the sin hiding within us. God wanted to expose its presence, power and pervasiveness and allowed it to even use his holy commandments to reinforce to us how evil it is. God’s moral law itself is spiritual, but the problem is in us- left to ourselves, we are sinful and our hearts are in a terrible bondage.
Allow me to narrate the frustrating experience of trying to live up to God's moral standard by our own strength and will power without the energy of the Holy Spirit flowing through us.
"What I do, I hate. What I want to do, I don't. What I hate, I do. By wanting to do right, even though I don't, it proves that I value the rightness of God's standards. This reveals that there is something within me blocking me from being who I really am- it's sin. I realize that my inner longings are somehow short-circuited because the performance of the good that I would like to do eludes me. For the good that I want to do, I don't do. But I actually do the evil that I don't want to do. So I conclude that the deepest part of my being is not controlling me, but a foreign power called sin has invaded my life. I have discovered a principle of human nature: when I set out to do good, an evil within me sabotages my efforts. A deeper part of me would love to obey God's moral law, but another "parasitic" force uses my bodily members as its "host" and controls me. A civil war rages between my moral values and the sinful passions that operate through my body. And sin is winning the war! I am truly a miserable person! Who can liberate me from this living death? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ will!"
So friends, this is the awful dilemma of anyone who tries to serve God apart from the Holy Spirit's presence and power living in him and flowing through him- his mind agrees with God's moral law, but another part of him is in bondage to sin and he is unable to live up to its standard.

Comments:
I don't believe that Paul is here illustrating "the normal Christian life". Rather, I think it is a reference to "everyman"...though, certainly, he must have experienced this frustrating dynamic along the way in his spiritual journey. It is unquestionably a description of a person who has been somehow awakened spiritually to the degree that she/he believes in God and has a sincere desire within to please him. And...this is a good and noble thing. Many would say that this stage of spiritual life seems to be a necessary phase that we go through on the way to true spiritual maturity that marks and brands us with a deep personal conviction that efforts in our own strength (flesh) to please God are not sufficient and ultimately self-defeating. Jesus and the apostles did teach the truth of this latter clause in many places. In their writings, both Kirkegaard and Nouwen both articulate something akin to this. I do believe they were onto something and I will expand on this in the next installment.

The Romance of Romans-Part 36

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

I know what you're tempted to think. "If this is the case, the Mosaic law is to be equated with sin." Right? Wrong! First of all, this code clearly defined sin from God's perspective. For instance, I didn't know about the evil nature of covetousness until I was taught the Ten Commandments. Before we are educated concerning God's moral standards, we obviously have many ethical "blind spots." But secondly, it created another more subtle and ironic dynamic. When we do become exposed to the knowledge of good and evil, our rebellious hearts spring into action and conceive new ways to sin. (Once I learned about lusting, the latent and hidden lust in my heart went into “overdrive”.) You see, the problem is not in the commandments, it is inside of people's hearts. When I was more ignorant of good and evil, I thought everything was fine; but when I learned more, sin awakened within me, overpowered me and wiped me out. The knowledge of God's commandments, which I stockpiled to equip me for the moral battle, was the very ammunition that sin stole from me and then loaded into its weapons to destroy me. I didn't realize that it had been hiding in the munitions depot the whole time!

Comments:
In Romans 7, Paul speaks in detail about the emotional and psychological processes that we, in our weak humanity, experience in relation to law, ethics, temptation and giving in to sin. One of the amazing things that stands out to me as I read this passage is how God is not shocked, scandalized or intimidated by the sins of humanity...far from it. He knows the conditions of our hearts so much better than we do ourselves, and because of his grace, he wants us to see more clearly how we tend to minimize, suppress, hide, redefine and put "cosmetics" on our brokenness and rebellion. Have you ever raised a beloved two year old?! It seems that, left to ourselves, we are stuck in the "terrible two's", spiritually speaking. Our Father in heaven loves us so dearly, but he calls us to face our failures and limitations head on: "De-nial ain't just a river in Egypt!"

Paul posits the concept that God instituted the law through Moses, among other reasons, to function as a compassionate diagnostician that ferrets out the dis-ease (that which is robbing us of true peace) that has permeated our nature, life and relationships. It is a tool he has used across the span of history and cultures to prepare people to receive the free gift of salvation he has extended to us in Jesus the Christ. Because our inner nature is bent toward "doing our own thing" rather than "minding" God and because we justify ourselves in our independence from him in so many imaginative and self-deceptive ways, he gave us his law to expose to ourselves the mess that our inner being is in. Sin is so bad that God had to come in person to the planet to deal with it in a comprehensive and conclusive way by means of an ultimate personal sacrifice. To cover it up is not the solution to its presence or effects in this world.

God's law provides the necessary dynamic "relief" or contrast so that we can perceive how far short of his beauty we fall when left to our own wisdom and strength. To humbly acknowledge our moral and spiritual brokenness and to gratefully agree to believe in God's miraculous provision for us in Jesus Christ is the only sure foundation for the new life that he longs to freely dispense to any person who will simply receive it like a child.

The Romance of Romans-Part 35

Romans Chapter 7 cont'd

When we were living in our natural state, God's moral standard provoked our sinful passions, which used our bodies as a base of operations to produce bad fruit. But now that we are spiritually alive in Jesus, we are set free from trying to live up to an external code without an internal transformation and motivation. Before, we were held in bondage- spiritually dead. Now, we can serve God in this new way because we have spiritual life dwelling inside of us.
I know what you're tempted to think. "If this is the case, the Mosaic law is to be equated with sin." Right? Wrong!

Comments:

As Paul unfolds "God's Big God-Story" throughout Romans, he faces the major challenge of helping his readers understand that God has not failed or lied in regards to the promises He made to the OT patriarchs and to Jewish people in general, but that the gospel of Jesus Messiah is the climactic fulfillment of those very promises. He takes pains to expose that everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, needs the personal redemption that the Father has provided for us in Christ...and that simply being born a Jew and sincerely attempting to keep the law of Moses is not sufficient for the kind of spiritual life that God had always had in mind and has now made accessible for us all to receive. The Holy Spirit, through the gospel, provides a new understanding...the revelation of a mystery that had been hidden in past times...regarding how the various pieces of God's dealings with humanity in history fit together.

Paul especially must reveal how this very large piece of Israel's story...the law given through Moses...fit into the big picture of God's salvific purposes. He makes it clear that law keeping was not the basis of father Abraham's righteousness, but, rather, that his "believing God" was. And beyond this, this "covenant of faith" became the historical rootwork for the flower of God's righteousness that bloomed in Jesus so many centuries later. If it is seen in the context of the larger story, the gospel is a logical, though admittedly dramatic and surprising, extention of God's promise to Israel (and the whole world) through the patriarchs. So...to expand the analogy...the law of Moses then can been seen as the essential long plain "stem" of the plant upon which the flower is set...and, thereby, it is enabled to show forth it's beauty to all creation.

The law of Moses was useful for various purposes in "the bigger story". One of these purposes was, and is, to create the ironic but essential dynamic of how the good and holy law of God...when it is deliberately engaged with...diagnoses and exposes "sin" in fallen human nature by coaxing it out of hiding. And the Father in heaven has always intended to use this irony to set people up to receive the good news of Jesus the Messiah. "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:17 More to come....

The Romance of Romans-Part 34

Romans Chapter 7

Let me draw an analogy that you Jews will understand from your knowledge of the Mosaic legal system. As general principle, a law remains in force as long as a person is alive. For instance, a wife is legally bound to her husband until he dies. After he dies, she is obviously free from her marriage commitment to him. However, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is guilty of adultery. But again, if her husband dies, by law she is free to marry another man without being charged with adultery.
Now here's the application, dear friends. Again, you need to grasp the awesome impact of both the death and resurrection of Jesus. You have died to the Mosaic law through your identification with the crucified Christ (On the cross he embodied this law which was your first "husband"); so that you can be honorably "remarried" to Another Man- the resurrected Christ. Now you are free to bear the good fruit of being intimately joined in spirit to him.

Comments:
Paul uses another analogy as he continues to reinforce the radical change that has happened in the cosmos, the human story and in the very core nature of a person who has truly placed their faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. There are various ways in various passages that this change in dominions or eras is described in the NT...grace vs. law; new creation vs. old creation; Christ vs. Adam; Spirit vs. flesh; new covenant vs. old covenant; faith vs. works...but they all refer to the same basic shift...though sometimes from different angles.

The death and resurrection of Jesus are sometimes juxtaposed in Romans, as in this passage. In his death, Jesus dealt conclusively with the sinful adamic nature and also the law (given through Moses) that the sinful nature was bound under and to. Then...in his resurrection, Jesus opened the way for our fallen nature to be miraculously transformed and made new by the power of the very same Spirit that raised him from the dead and also liberate us from any paralyzing sense of obligation to earn God's love and favor by living up to a complicated and demanding external code.

The risen Christ actually lives within us as our closest companion, friend and the pilot of our lives. He is not our co-pilot, rather, we are now sitting in the "second seat" of our lives...living in cooperative concert and interactive response to the resurrected Lord...who is pleased to express himself through the practical daily life that he has given each of us to live. Something shifts deeply within us when we become continually conscious that he is alive in us and we are alive in him.

The Romance of Romans-Part 33

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

Before you "couldn't even relate" to what was holy. Now you look back on your shameful and fruitless old life realizing that it only leads to death.
So now, in Christ, we "can't even relate" to living in sin because we are love-slaves of God and we enjoy the fruit of living whole and holy lives, which leads to everlasting life. For death is the paycheck for sin; but God's free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Comments:
In Romans Paul expounds on the nature and scope of "salvation" in God's kingdom...and the term covers a lot of territory...it's a "large" word in theology. In evangelicalism we have often reduced the word and the concept to refer to the crisis experience of being "born again"...and there is certainly a lot to say about personal justification. However, "salvation" in
Romans relates to everything from the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham...to the vindication of God's integrity...to the historical Person and Work of Jesus...to the future full and complete release of all creation from the effects of the fall in Eden when Christ returns.

On the personal level, "salvation" involves not only the crisis of regeneration, but also refers to what the theologians have tagged as "sanctification" and "glorification". In the NT, "sanctification" is used in two primary ways: "to be set apart for God" and/or "to be made holy". Given these two uses of the term, there is a proper sense in which sanctification both precedes and follows "justification"...and there is a "seamless" connectivity between them. Again...we have too often separated justification and sanctification in our teaching and understanding, but they are deeply wedded...and our ultimate glorification in Christ is also connected to them both, to the point that, in God's sight...it is a done deal.

Here at the end of Romans 6, we see that personal justification, naturally, bears the fruit of sanctification in our lifestyles and relationships. In our quest to become like Christ, we must continually connect justification and sanctification and not allow them to become separated in our thinking and teaching. They are in a symbiotic relationship and they fuel one another. Moreover, "holiness" (same word as sanctification), must not be divorced from "healthiness" or "wholeness". These concepts are also connected linguistically to the word for "salvation". Many "holiness" groups and movements throughout history have focused on getting their followers to adopt a rigid set of "beliefs and behaviors" without reference to becoming "whole" people or engaging in "healthy" relationships. But this kind of conformity does not do justice to the kind of abundant life that Jesus came to bring us. And this kind of religious conformity will not be powerful enough to give the kind of compelling witness to a watching world that is worthy of the truly good news of Jesus.

May God give us the grace to become the "whole and holy" people that flows freely from that amazing miracle that has already occurred in our deep heart through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Romance of Romans-Part 32

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

I keep repeating myself because these concepts are so foreign to us and we so easily lose our grasp of them. Just like you used pour your energies into loving unclean things in unclean ways; now put your new energies into loving and serving what is right and pure. Before you "couldn't even relate" to what was holy. Now you look back on your shameful and fruitless old life realizing that it only leads to death.
So now, in Christ, we "can't even relate" to living in sin because we are love-slaves of God and we enjoy the fruit of living whole and holy lives, which leads to everlasting life. For death is the paycheck for sin; but God's free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Comments:
We don't often hear the truth about who we really are, what has actually happened to us and what kind of amazing resources are now available to us in Christ from the daily newspaper, the nightly news, the popular culture and its mediums or from most of the people all around us in this world--even in our church communities. From where on earth can we hear this amazing news repeated? How can it be reinforced to our inner beings? It seems that Paul understood that this great news tends to be elusive and needs to be repeated to us in various ways for it to really sink in. In this chapter, he just kept laboring and laboring on behalf of his readers in his jealousy for them to internalize it and never let it go.
By the grace of God, we were mysteriously included in and identified with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (the book of Ephesians adds his ascension as well) and this has forever changed our essential nature and our relationship to and basic posture toward this world, our old self and the spiritual powers of evil. As Peter states in his epistle, God, by his power, has provided everything that we need for both life and godliness though our having an intimate and experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Pet 1:3).
The only ways (literally speaking) that I have experienced the ongoing reinforcement of these truths in my heart and mind is by regular meditation on the NT scriptures, the whispers of the Holy Spirit to my soul and by being around friends who also believe and know these things and who make a concerted effort to encourage me over and over again. It's important to hear these things preached in public and pondered in solitude...but, for me, it has also been vital to have a circle of friends who have known me well and who have, face to face, thought deeply and pondered out loud with me about these truths and their applications. Meaningful relational connection with a few true friends is often the missing divinely designed context within which these biblical truths find the right kind of soil to be rooted, cultivated and nurtured into maturity.
If you don't have this kind of circle of friends, ask God to provide and then go and sincerely offer yourself to be this kind of friend to a few others you seemed drawn toward and see what happens. Father, I ask you to lead my friends into these relational circles of Christ's love.

The Romance of Romans-Part 31

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

Now if your still tempted to think I am recommending that we still live in sin because of the compensating nature of God's grace and that we are no longer pressured to live up to a complicated external code, you have really missed the point! If you're looking for an excuse for sin, then your wrong understanding of God’s grace is already betrayed. This issue I'm talking about a matter of the heart and its motivating passions. All of us are love-slaves. Either we love sin and serve it, or we love God and serve him. Now, you used to love sin but, thank God, he opened your heart to believe and obey the good news of Jesus, which was preached to you. Now you have been freed from the mastery of sin and have become love-slaves of righteousness.

Comments:
Here Paul makes a life of devotion to God so simple and...in one way it is. "His yoke is easy and his burden is light." Still, there are some complicating factors that we have to deal with on the journey into becoming fully like Jesus. It is no small matter for our whole being to become truly integrated into the kingdom of God and there is no substitute for time and cooperative experience with God when it comes to achieving a life of mature love. I haven't met one person who has "arrived" yet. (I have met some who seem to emote the attitude that they have...but this always comes across as spiritual bravado in contrast to reality to me.) The apostles didn't teach that believers, new or old, reach a place of actual "sinless perfection" in this world, though some texts might seem to indicate this if viewed in isolation from other texts. (The right "hermeneutic" principle is: a correct doctrine is arrived at by examining/collating/integrating all the texts of scripture on any given subject.)
The simple side of "overcoming sin" is to recognize that something at the core of a believer's being has been miraculously transformed because of what the Trinity (working in concert) has done for her/him. Hatred of sin and love for God has been infused into the heart/essential human nature of a believer and a new heart "of flesh" has displaced the old heart "of stone". Whatever ongoing struggle believers may have with inner sinful passions, desires or attitudes (and associated behaviors), they must uncover the fact...as a starting point for the winning the battle(s)...that yet deeper within them is, "all-ready", a desire and power to love and serve God that He has freely given to them as a gift in Christ. The risen Christ is living within us by the Holy Spirit and he is now intent on progressively living and demonstrating his life through our lives.
And this...I believe...is the essential and clear point that Paul is making in the passage above.

The Romance of Romans-Part 30

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

Even during this earthly life, you can now say "no" to the enticements and impulses of your lower passions- so just do it! You are not to submit to the selfish demands and compulsive cravings of your physical drives. Courageously resisting sin is another key to your victory. No longer turn over your human powers to become weapons of unrighteousness and thereby continue in sin. Rather, consciously and deliberately surrender your powers of both mind and body to God and he will possess and use them as weapons in his powerful hands for his noble purposes. After all, you are alive for his pleasure.

Comments:
Following are some simple ways to think about the physical side of our lives:
1. It's more biblical to think in terms of the "visible and the invisible", when it comes to the "duality" that exists between the heavens and the earth, rather than the "spiritual and the "natural"--the latter leads to "dualism".
2. It has always been tempting for religiously inclined people to imagine that the "spiritual" realm is holy and the "natural" realm is unholy. But scripture makes it clear that both the invisible and the visible realms were created by God as good and both realms have also been affected by rebellion and sin. Christ came to bring and ultimately apply his salvation and justice to both realms--thereby redeeming/renewing the whole of God's good creation and securing/fulfilling the amazing eternal destiny of human life under and with God.
3. Sin in human nature goes deeper than sins of the body...right to the core of the heart, soul and mind...the actual fountainhead of sin. But sin has certainly taken advantage of our physicality and very often uses the physical needs/drives as a base of operations for it's expressions: food, drink, sleep, sex, strength, speech, wealth, beauty, companionship and the like. None of these things are sinful in and of themselves, but...they are often conduits of sin in human life. Most every "sin of the body" is simply a God-ordained human need/activity taken beyond its proper bounds or expression.
4. The body, through Christ, becomes holy, sanctified and a temple of the Holy Spirit himself.
5. In following Jesus as disciples, we are called, not to suppress or negate our physical drives and needs, but, rather, to subordinate them to the dominion of the Holy Spirit and thereby enjoy and celebrate the physical side of life through its proper expressions, which are defined and protected by the boundaries set for them by God's word and wisdom.
6. Spiritual disciplines (solitude, silence, prayer, fasting, secret giving, contemplation, study and the like) are useful in training our bodies to cooperate and integrate with the Holy Spirit (I call them "humility drills") and are to be engaged in: regularly, gracefully, rhythmically and temporarily. (Extreme asceticism is actually counter-productive to becoming more like Christ by the power of the Spirit...though it appears very holy.) They are not meritorious in nature or signs of our spiritual maturity to flash around for others to admire--and this is the constant danger associated with utilizing them.
7. The Holy Spirit wants to use our bodies/physical life as a vessel of his life and power. This is a manifestation of the "incarnational" nature of true biblical spirituality that is modeled to us by our Lord Jesus...our simple presence, our speech, our gaze, our smile, our touch, our hospitality, our sleep, our work, our marriage and family life, our talents, our art, our science, our money, our menial services, our property and the like.

Let's ask Christ to be the Lord of our body...a mobile fiery and living sacrifice...useful in this broken world to bring a taste of heaven's love and grace and power here and now...to the people he brings our way today and every day.

The Romance of Romans-Part 29

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

No longer turn over your human powers to become weapons of unrighteousness and thereby continue in sin. Rather, consciously and deliberately surrender your powers of both mind and body to God and he will possess and use them as weapons in his powerful hands for his noble purposes. After all, you are alive for his pleasure.

Comments:
If we read Romans 6-7 in too much of a "surface-y" way, it is easy to get the impression that Paul tagged the human body as the source of our moral/spiritual struggles. The thought that the body and its needs and drives are intrinsically evil and opposed to spirituality is ancient, powerful, popular and very damaging to biblical spirituality...as though we'd be better off to escape this "prison of the soul". It is also quite "natural" for us to think this way and this is why gnosticism and the dualism that undergirds it are regularly cropping up in their various forms throughout history within religious movements (including the church world--and especially in "revivalistic" environments). Our physical drives are an "easy target" for angry, ambitious or bored preachers and false guilt is powerful lever that can be, and has been, used to pressure people into responding extravagantly to their persuasive appeals for surrender, service, time or money. (We have enough real guilt to deal with in our lives...who needs false guilt thrown in to confuse the issue?!)

For years I have been laboring to help believers acquire a healthy and scriptural view of the body and how it's proper use fits in to the overall process of becoming more like Jesus Christ (who, even still, has a body himself). Through a "redemptive" lens, we can overcome any past intimidation that our bodily drives/passions held over us and come to see how the body is actually our friend, not our enemy, in sanctification. As Paul implies above, it's members can and must become "weapons" of righteousness instead of "weapons" of unrighteousness.

More to say....

The Romance of Romans-Part 28

Romans Chapter 6 cont'd

Now you've got to get this! Knowing this truth is a key to your liberation. What happened to Jesus has happened for you and to you. You are dead to sin's loveless lordship and fully alive to God's loving fatherhood because of what the Lord Jesus did for us. Even during this earthly life, you can now say "no" to the enticements and impulses of your lower passions- so just do it! You are not to submit to the selfish demands and compulsive cravings of your physical drives. Courageously resisting sin is another key to your victory. No longer turn over your human powers to become weapons of unrighteousness and thereby continue in sin. Rather, consciously and deliberately surrender your powers of both mind and body to God and he will possess and use them as weapons in his powerful hands for his noble purposes. After all, you are alive for his pleasure. Now knowing the truth and resisting evil are vital measures, but incomplete. Passionately pursuing God is the third key to living above the dictatorial power of sin. Remember, sin is no longer your master because you have passed through the night season of religious externals into the brilliant day of grace- may your eyes adjust to the light!

Comments:
On the firm foundation of knowing in our deep heart that we have been translated out of the environment of our old "sin and death" life into a new atmosphere that is infused with the fresh air of heaven itself (breath and spirit are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek)...and that we are truly and already integrated into the New Creation that Christ has inaugurated...we are able to face and deal with the ongoing realities of "the world, the flesh and the devil" from an entirely new vantage point. So much of the daily battle to "overcome" turns on the hinge of maintaining the awareness...the alert consciousness...that we have been graciously born anew on this higher ground. The higher hill is our hill...we have a new and righteous heart, 2/3's of the angels didn't fall...the Trinity is fighting with us and for us...and our victorious destiny is secure in Christ. Besides...we are built for the battle and the fight is the noblest one ever fought.
Today...and each hour of this day...we can rise up and calmly say "no" to sin, live in an opposite spirit from the world around us that is fueled by "the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life" (imagining ourselves to be independent from God and his grace), firmly tell satan to "get behind" us when he confronts us and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live in an interactive friendship with our Papa that is characterized by a running dialogue in the course of both our activities and leisure. Then...we can sleep enfolded in the Father's mighty arms and rise to do the same tomorrow.
May the Lord help us to look away...and make a clean break...from any past failed strategies to overcome and re-engage our lives from a Christ-centered angle that is grounded in the ancient wisdom of his first apostles. He formed them into authentic geniuses of human life under God.

The Romance of Romans-Part 27

Romans Chapter 6

For God's intent in our dying and being buried with Christ is not to leave us lying powerless in the grave, but also to raise us with Jesus to live a transcendent life in him. Our old "sin and death" life was put out of commission through a mysterious co-crucifixion with Jesus. As a result, a life lived under the compulsion of our lower passions has passed away with a vengeance and such selfishness is no longer our master. We are dead and therefore liberated from the mandatory control of sin.
But, as I said, we didn't just die with Christ, we have been catapulted into life with him: Jesus only had to die once and he vanquished death once and for all through his resurrection. He died for sins just once, but he lives perpetually for his Father's pleasure.

Comments:
I believe that one of the deepest longings of a human spirit is to be transformed into a better person. Most people try to "make this happen" at points in their lives. Most of us fail to see transformation to any significant degree through our self-help strategies and programs. Many people give up on trying to change for the good at all and then dive more deeply into expressions of human depravity. One of the great attractions of the gospel of Jesus is the embedded hope and promise of radical personal transformation. Only, in the case of the gospel, the help we receive is not essentially self-help as we commonly understand the term (though we ultimately do participate cooperatively and meaningfully in the process), but it is the help that occurs through a powerful, gracious and undeserved divine intervention...acts of the very Holy Spirit himself.

The New Testament speaks of this transforming experience with God in the stark terms of a necessary personal "death" and subsequent "resurrection" that is not, first of all, physical...but is rather to do with our core nature...or the condition of our "heart". We must somehow both "die" and be "raised" for this core change to actually occur. However, the active principle...the animating force...of this change is not based on us "killing" and "raising" ourselves, but on accepting for ourselves the vital identification with Jesus Christ that God has amazingly arranged for us. What Jesus accomplished, once and for all, in his historical death and resurrection is relevant to our personal transformation because the power of the Holy Spirit rests and remains "all over" the message of it and is released upon and within us in "real time" when we simply believe in and humbly surrender to Christ as our Lord and Savior. After all, Jesus is dead no longer, but is alive and still acting in our world to perform this miracle of "new birth" in the lives and hearts of those childlike enough to accept this free gift.

Though this beginning can seem more or less dramatic in the way it actually takes place in the various stories of individuals...it is quite dramatic in the invisible realm nonetheless. And...it is the only sufficient and effective foundation for the kind of real and lasting personal transformation for which we long and yearn and journey toward in Christ.