It is the beginning of a new week
of our continued reading in the New Testament. We have come a long way and
we're coming to the half-way point. We are reading in the book of Romans and
today we read Romans 6:1-23 and 7:1-25. With apologies for a long reading (I completely messed up in not posting yesterday), these are two difficult chapters that are important to understand. I invite you to take your time, read them and ponder the sentences and seek to get
into Paul's mind as he writes. After you have finished reading it, I'd invite
you to come back and we'll walk through it together. Go ahead, Romans 6 and 7.
The first rule of biblical
interpretation is "Context, Context, Context". The writers of
Scripture - in this case, the Apostle Paul - wrote to the churches, and
individuals - with a clear purpose in mind. Paul's letters are full of great
theological and biblical truths. His goal is to help us understand God's work
in salvation and how that is lived out in daily life. In other words, Paul's
letters usually begin with Doctrinal or Theological truths, and then are
followed by practical applications to daily life.
In the first section of this
letter, Paul laid out the good news of the Gospel. It is good news because
otherwise there is only bad news. ALL human beings - pagans or religious people
- have the same underlying problem - Our Sin Nature. The good news is that God
did something about it in sending His Son into the world to redeem us - through
His shed blood and death on the cross. We are "justified by his grace as a
gift" (3:23) by the work of Christ. As Paul reminded us, we did no works
to achieve this salvation - even faith is a work of his grace, and that excludes
all boasting on our part that we did something to gain Justification before God
(3:27ff).
It is "Good News" that
God has given to us His salvation. He "imputes" to us the
righteousness of Christ (5:17-19), which means that Christ Jesus took our Sin,
and we received His righteousness - a divine exchange of grace. Luther and
Calvin and the Reformers understood this so clearly. God's salvation is
"by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone" - Amen!
Having made the doctrine of
Justification so clear. Paul begins to deal with the implications of
Justification in our lives. Beginning in chapter 6 and through chapter 8, Paul
reminds us that the Justification we have received is not without its
difficulties being worked out in our lives. The language in this section is at
times troubling, and at times creates doubts and fears for Christians. Having
just told us that we have been saved through the work of Christ, by God's
grace, we now are faced with the realities of how that works itself out in our
lives.
The question Paul asks at the
outset is what frames the conversation: "What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound?” (6:1). Since the Apostle had just said
that "where Sin abounded, Grace abounded more", some took the words
to mean "go ahead and do whatever you wish to do, for Grace will cover
your sin". Paul was often accused of what is referred to as
"antinomianism" - lit., to throw aside the moral and ethical
teachings of the Law of God. I've heard it hundreds of times - "we're
saved by grace, we're no longer under the law". Translated, a person often
means “if I sin, God’s grace will always cover me, so what difference does it
make if I keep on sinning?”
We'll eventually get to the way in
which the Law still operates in our lives as we continue to read Paul's
letters; but for now, let's be clear, Paul has no appetite for a grace that
allows us to continue to serve our Sinful nature - "By no means! How can
we who died to sin still live in it? (6:2). The word he uses is short -
"me" (may) - literally, "absolutely not". Then Paul asks
two more questions - both rhetorical, meaning the answer is clear from the
question: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?", followed by
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?" The questions are framed by Paul so that
the answer is obvious. We who have received the grace of God leading to our
Justification have received "new life in Christ" (6:4), and thus, we
died with Christ and we were resurrected with Christ into this new life (6:5).
All of this was done to end our slavery to Sin.
The U.S. just celebrated
"Juneteenth". It was a celebration of the freedom of slaves made
clear at the end of the Civil War. The war was already over, and the
Emancipation Proclamation had been issued 2+ years before, but slaves in Texas
were still treated as slaves until the Union army made it clear, these are not
slaves anymore - they are freed people. Booker T. Washington grew up as a
slave. He said that after the emancipation proclamation was announced, there
was great rejoicing, and officially the slaves were freed. Yet he writes that
after this, the freedom was still difficult for some to walk in. “While
officially free, they didn't know how to walk out that freedom. Many of the
slaves returned to the plantations to work as share-croppers and in many ways
retained their status as ‘freed’ ‘slaves’.
As a white person, I don't have a
grid for this, but as a Christian, I have a clear understanding of this. We
have been freed by Christ Jesus to live a new life - why do we go back to live
out the slavery of our Sinful nature? Paul uses the imagery of resurrection and
baptism as a way of reminding us that we have a new identity - we are "In
Christ" - spiritually His experiences became our experiences. His death
and resurrection are true for us also. It was the truth he had stated previously in
our Salvation (Justification) (5:21), and now he applies it to our life in
Christ - our Sanctification.
To abbreviate this, let's focus
our attention on three keywords that follow: "Know",
"Consider", "Present".
First, "Know the Truth"
(6:4). We are "baptized" - not water baptism, but a Spirit baptism
- into Christ's death. We gain what he experienced and even as Christ was
resurrected to life, so also as we put our faith in Christ Jesus we are also
"immersed" into His life - a new life as God's child. Now what we
begin to realize, or begin to "know" is that we still live in "this
body of Sin" (6:6) and that the reality of a resurrected life will not
fully be realized until we live with Him in eternity (6:8).
Second, "Consider".
Since our life in Christ is real, but still exists in our body that retains a
sinful nature - we have to choose to die to sin! Paul puts it like this:
"Christ died, was raised, and will not die again" (6:9-10), so,
"So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus
(6:11). Christ Jesus raised
Lazarus from the dead...but Lazarus later succumbed to something that led to
his death, again. Yet, in the resurrection, the dead are raised to eternal life
- never to die again. Here is a summary statement of all that Paul has written
thus far:
The death of Jesus was a redeeming
death for ALL who put their trust in him (3:21-5:21), and now the New life of
His resurrection is Our life as we walk it out by faith in Him (chapters 6-8).
Consider it done...reckon it to be true...claim it as truth and reality every
day. Count on it...live it out. That's the point Paul is making.
Lastly, Present: "Do not
present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present
yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your
members to God as instruments for righteousness. (6:13). Our new identity as a
child of God leads us to a new reality - we can leave our slavery from our Sin
because we have the life of Christ - through his Holy Spirit - within.
Summarized: "For sin will
have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (6:14).
There are two parts to this new life: Sin is no longer a master, and we are not
doing what we do to fulfill the law, but to live in the Grace of God. Grace is
the key...it is not of this world, and operates in the sphere of God's love,
mercy, and joy. Grace is the wonder of God as he parents children who need to
grow up. Because Grace is so foreign to us, it takes a life of it to grow into
a proper understanding of it. It is the work of the Holy Spirit over our
lifetime that gives us awareness of what God is doing in and through us. In
short, he is killing off the old self, and raising up the new person to be like
Christ.
Know the truth of who you are.
Consider the way in which this truth can replace the lies of the sinful nature.
Habits are difficult to break, but God is persistent and never gives up.
Present yourself to God, daily, hourly, minute by minute if need be, and allow
his Grace to inform and transform us from the inside out. Many of us know all too
well the stubborn sinful nature that can arise within us and show its ugly head
at various times. Don't accept it that this is who you are...it's a lie! The
truth is "I am a Child of God".
Bob Dylan had it right - "you
gotta serve somebody". That's the point Paul is making at the end of the
chapter. "Thanks be to God" (6:17)...I can choose Christ! Nothing in
my old life of sinful selfishness ever came out good. That's the end of it all
in our choices, isn't it? (6:22). He ends, "But now that you have been set
free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to
sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but
the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:22-23).
"You gotta serve somebody!"
Now we go on to Romans 7. Romans 7 is one of the most difficult passages to comprehend. Paul had shifted his emphasis, beginning in chapter 6, from Justification - which was how God declared us righteous through the redemption that Jesus accomplished for us - to Sanctification - which is how we walk out the new life we have in Christ in everyday practical ways. Now that we discover we are alive in Christ and that Christ has changed our lives, the obvious question becomes, "then why do I still struggle with Sin?"
The first thing Paul tackles is whether the problem lies outside of ourselves, or within ourselves. The issue he deals with is the Old Testament Law - "I am speaking to those who know the Law..." (vs 1). His audience is the church in Rome, made up, as most early churches were, with Christians who had come from Jewish backgrounds. These people were raised to understand, live by, and obey the Law. In coming to Christ, much of the Law has been set aside, as Christ fulfilled the requirements of the sacrificial and ceremonial parts of the Law. Paul had just made the case that the believer is "not under the Law, but under grace" (6:14).
In the first part, Paul used a hypothetical scenario about the Law in relation
to the death of a spouse. In marriage when a spouse dies, the living
spouse is free to pursue a new relationship without a charge of adultery. The
question we ask then is: "Who died?" Paul had already established the
case that "in Christ" we have died and been raised to a new life in
Christ (5:12-21). Our union with Christ has given us new life, thus we, who are
believers, have been released from the obligations of the law: "But now we
are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that
we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written
code" (7:6).
While it sounds so simple, it is
not. It creates several questions about our past, present, and future when the
support system of "the Law" is no longer in charge of the way we
live. This is now where Paul begins to use the first person "I" over
and over to reflect on how the new life in Christ is still one of struggle.
In terms of the past, Paul makes
it perfectly clear - the problem is not the Law (7:7-12). Paul had often been
accused of abandoning the law of Moses and preaching an "anti-law"
gospel. He makes it clear, the Law serves an essential role in revealing what
is sin and what is not. How do we know killing, stealing, lying, coveting is
wrong? The law says it is, and the law came from God - the problem isn't the
law. In fact, in vs.12, Paul even exalts the law: "...the law is holy, and
the commandment is holy and righteous and good (7:12).
Beginning in 7:14 - 25, the
question Paul shift to is His own present experience and the
struggles of sin in his life as a believer. We might best understand what Paul
is dealing with by reframing the issue like this: "Since I have received
new life in Christ, and am now released from the law to serve in the new way of
the Spirit, how then do I learn to deal with my struggle with ongoing sin?
We begin by understanding that
God's law is not the problem (7:14). The problem is within myself - my Sin
nature is not destroyed (7:17-18), and although it is true that I do have new
life in Christ, it is not a life that makes me immediately perfect (7:21-23).
It is the "now" and "not yet" reality of Christ in me
transforming my life, by the power of the Holy Spirit, day by day, year by
year, from the beginning to the end of life.
The new life in Christ is real -
very real - but we often find ourselves trapped in the past - old records are
playing and we'd like to stop the music, but we can't. The personal struggle
Paul reveals is ours also. Yes, to New Life...Yes to Grace through Faith in
Christ... Yes to the work of the Holy Spirit within...Yes and Amen. BUT, No to
religious pretending...No to outward shows of Piety while inwardly
struggling...No to hypocrisy...No to pride.
The life of a Christian is a life
of humility. I'm not what I was, and I'm not what I want to be - in fact, with
Paul I can say: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this
body of death?" (7:24). The Christian life is not a "now that you've
accepted Jesus all of life will turn out to be easy" - No. Do not let people preach
a false gospel of the life of a Christian in all positive and no negative
terms.
In Romans 7 we learn a valuable,
even indispensable truth. We will never grow up in Christ by trying to perform
our way to self-improvement. What began for us as a gift of God's grace,
continues to be how we grow - by God's grace and the exercise of Faith. There
is no perfection down here...only Saints in process. Our approach to this life
in process was summed up at the beginning of chapter 7, in vs. 4:
"Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of
Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the
dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God (7:4). We turn the page from
chapter 7 to chapter 8 in order to learn how we bear that fruit by living in
the freedom of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Peace
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