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.
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