Romans Chapter 8
Originally posted Friday, June 27, 2008
Romans Chapter 8:1-17 Life
in the Spirit
In
the previous chapter Paul established the two alternatives for the path one
travels in life although the journey is not so simple that difficult choices
are not required. In fact choices are necessary every step we take. For Paul we
live according to the flesh, giving over our bodies to its passions, or we live
according to the Spirit of God. As we travel, the scales of closeness to one
pole or another are always swaying back and forth. To keep as close to the
center as possible requires our constant attention to whom or what is our
guide. For Paul, if our guide is self centered gratification the end of
the road is ruin and disappointment - he would call that death. On the other
hand, if our guide is the Spirit of Christ and we know ourselves as part
of God's work of justice in the world, there is no end of the road, for
what we do will live on in the mind of God and we along with it.
In
this Chapter Paul develops the meaning of life in the Spirit as a follower of
Christ. For such a person there is no condemnation. To be in Christ is to be
free from the restrictive shackles that weigh us down in useless pursuits that
seek good only for ourselves and our kind. Our freedom has been won for us and
is not of our own doing, but it is of our own faith. It is a faith in the
God who was in Christ working through the horror of Jesus' death by the
sinful hands of others that lets us glimpse the beauty of that humble
spirit unwilling to stop short of offering his life for God's people and God's
world. In the forgiveness of his
persecutors surrounding the cross, he took their sin upon himself.
That is what forgiveness does; it cleanses the offender if even for a moment
and in that moment there is an entire universe of possibilities. Blessed
are those who are caught in the mystery of the cross and who, though they
cannot comprehend its meaning, know they have been set free to be other
than they have ever been, now living the new life of the Spirit.
Paul
writes that to live according to the Spirit is to set one's mind on the things
of the Spirit. Having defined living according to the flesh as the self
absorbed life opposed to God, we can reason with Paul that living in the
Spirit brings peace. This is not a peace free of conflict,
heartache and struggle. It is a peace that knows we are on the right road,
being part of the solution rather than the problem and feeling a sense of
fulfillment that we are contributing to goodness, justice and compassion
in the world, the smaller one in which we live and the wider one of all
humanity. This is what it means to affirm the mystical indwelling of the
Spirit, not as part of any tangible reality but as the holy presence. For Paul that presence is generically called
Sprit but he alternates indiscriminately between Spirit of God and Spirit
of Christ. He does not equate the two, but he does understand the Spirit of
Christ as containing, representing and doing the work of the Spirit of
God.
With
regards to salvation, Paul reiterates his Gospel message of the
saving effect of remaining in the Spirit, living in the Spirit, being led
by the Spirit, doing the things (works) of the Spirit and the indwelling
of the Spirit. While Paul certainly believed in a final resurrection
and judgment at the end of the age, we would cheapen his understanding if we
relegate the idea or the content of salvation to some other worldly realm. To
do so is to fit the category mentioned by Oliver Wendell Holmes (and sung
by Johnny Cash) as one who is so heavenly minded as to be of
no earthly good. Salvation is a way of living now, not some escape
from a dreary world. Salvation works to make the world better not to
ignore it as inconsequential or evil. That is a heresy of the ancient
Gnostics and not a small number of today's Christians. It is, fundamentally, a
rejection of what God loves. We are not, as one author wrote, in this world as
if it were a training ground for something better or a nursery preparing
us for a better place.
In
the last verses of this section on "Life in the Spirit," Paul writes
of what might be his understanding of the highest "privilege" of
being led by the Spirit: to be a child of God. This is an elevation of the
human condition beyond the mundane experience of life as a "veil of
tears." Paul understands that we become children of God through "a
spirit of adoption." The "spirit of adoption" is an interim
guide pending our final adoption on the last day (vs. 19, 23). "Children" is plural, for the Spirit
gathers into community all in whom the Spirit dwells. The children so led
call upon God as "Abba" (Aramaic for father), the familial heart of
the children's relationship with the Father. He goes on: if we are God's
children we are God's heirs and therefore joint heirs with Christ. Paul
may be thinking in Roman terms where adoption is an elevation of the equality
of the one adopted with any existing son, a common practice among Roman
aristocracy. Paul would not understand that in adoption we are
elevated to equality with Christ. He does understand a similar heritage of
sharing in the glory of God, the heavenly existence. He seems to add a proviso
that our sharing in God's glory is contingent upon our suffering
"with" Christ. This is not a mandate for needless suffering as if we
must fit suffering into our schedule. Paul is simply pointing to a reality he
has experienced. Wherever he preached the Gospel and proclaimed Jesus as the
messiah among his fellow Jews he endured sufferings for the cause.
Here he warns the "children of God" that they, too, can expect to
suffer if they hold fast to their Christianity in a hostile world.
Romans Chapter 8:18-30 The
Future Glory
Paul
considers his (and others') suffering to be inconsequential compared to what he
understands to be the glory of the impending return of Christ (Parousia).
Indeed, he understands the future of the world itself, now in the futility
of decay, groaning in its own labor pains, to be linked to that
moment when it and the Children of God will be freed from that bondage and
share in God's transforming glory. While we and the world patiently and
hopefully wait, the Spirit is not absent. It is active, assisting our
faltering prayers, interceding to convey the unspoken sigh of our hearts
on our behalf. No matter the sufferings, God will use it for the ultimate good
of God's children and God's world. We have been called according to God's
purpose of transformation, Paul writes that God knew, predestined and
justified those whom God would conform to the image of Christ who is the
first of many to be glorified. By "predestined" Paul does not mean
that God predetermined or chose in advance those who would and would not be
called as if we had no choice in the matter, a position in contradiction to the
entire Biblical understanding of free will. We do have the choice to reject the
prevenient grace of God and be a god of our own making. Predestination is
not the same as omniscience - a timeless all knowing. Predestination is God
with a really big database, putting check marks next to the names of those who
get through the gate and those who didn't get the password. For Paul
predestination means that God has predetermined the "process," that
through faith we receive the forgiving grace of God, are justified
and receive eternal life.
Taken
as a whole, the passage looks toward and forward to the end times, the return
of Christ. Paul, as did all early Christians, believed it was
not only imminent but that it would occur in his life time. He was of the
opinion that with the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, the task was
complete. He still had the hope of making it to Spain after visiting Rome but
he does note that he was running out of places to go. As with others across the
centuries, he believed the suffering of his time was a sign of God's
intervention.
Roman Chapter 8:31-39 God's
Love Expressed Through Christ
Here
we read one of the most brilliant outpourings of Paul's heart. It is a
doxology, a literary coda at the end of the first section of the letter. We
have heard these words many times and no doubt can recite them with the
speaker. They are often used at funerals to celebrate the inseparability of God
and God's children which continues even beyond the confines of this life.
There is no charge that can be brought, no one who can condemn and no
force that can separate, be it political, heavenly or mystical. Faith
and faith alone moves us to repeat the words and make them our own: nothing
"in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
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