Picasso, "Self Portrait", 1907
Sunday July 6, 2008 (Proper 9)
Romans 7:15-25a
My favorite commentary on Romans is entitled "The Gospel as it Really Is" by Stuart Olyott (Evangelical Press, 1979). One of the reasons I like this book is how Olyott explains Romans 7.
The believer's relationship to the law, Olyott says, is like a housekeeper who has then married the man of the house. This man, upon hiring the housekeeper, posted a list of rules on the wall:
- Meals will be served at 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 6:00pm
- Washing up is to be completed immediately after every meal
- No tea bags will be left in the sink
As a housekeeper, the woman hired resented these rules. "Who is he to tell me how to keep house?" she thought. Yet then they fell in love and married. The man, when he next walked by those rules, thought, "This isn't appropriate anymore", and he took them down. Yet something had changed for the woman. She no longer resented the rules. In fact, she wanted to keep them, because she knew this was part of the love language of her husband.So it is with regard to the law for the pre-Christian who has become a believer. In our new selves, we delight to study God's word, and to live in a way pleasing to him.Yet there remains a problem. The old self still lingers. This is the focus of vv. 15-25. Olyott says this:When we arrive at this point in the epistle, we now have a very clear picture of what a Christian is like. He is not ruled by sin (ch. 6) but nor is he free from sin (ch. 7). . . He is is not the same as the unconverted. They are at peace with sin, but he is at war with it. They live in sin; he does not (ch. 6), although sin still lives in him (ch. 7). He is characterized by holy desires, but frustrated by sin in his members. This is his present and continuing experience until he no longer has Adam's nature.
Olyott closes insightfully:Romans 7:14-25 is the experience of the normal Christian life. It is a life of intense conflict with sin, not of rest from it. It is a life of agonizing dismay at imperfection, not of claimed 'victory'. It is a life of earnest longing for glory, not of satisfaction at having 'arrived'. Those who have any different daily experience cannot have any assurance that they are Christians at all.
Brothers and sisters, let not our continuing struggle with sin today discourage or immobilize us. Let us rather acknowledge the inner turmoil, and in the grace of the gospel as it really is, vow to fight the battle anew.
Rom 6:15-23
For Sunday, June 29 (Proper 8)
When we commit our lives to Christ we are not just making a decision about where we would rather spend eternity: we are committing the entirety of ourselves to a code of conduct summed up in the word righteousness. Though we used to be slaves bound to sin now we are bound to something very different. We are bound to be righteous.
At first glance, the question Paul puts to his readers in v. 15 looks like a repeat of the question he framed chapter 6, verse 1. Yet there are some differences which are more apparent in the original Greek with regard to the verbs Paul uses and the tenses he puts those verbs in. The result is that while the first question asks whether we should remain in sin as a lifestyle, the second question asks whether we should continue to accommodate any sin in our lives given the new lifestyle we have chosen.
Paul's answer to this second question is an emphatic 'No'. No, don't accommodate sin in your lives, because you are bound to be righteous. You live by a code: "... The benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life" (6:22). Following this code of righteousness will lead to holiness, and holiness will then find its proper end in eternal life.
Reading v. 22 in isolation might lead one to think that Paul is teaching a works-based righteousness. But neither the context of this chapter nor the Greek of v. 22 support this. What the NIV translates from the Greek as "... and the result is eternal life" is not the idea that eternal life is the product of holiness, but rather that eternal life is the proper end (Greek TELOS) of holiness. Righteousness, holiness, eternal life - a natural progression for those who are bound to be righteous.
So, given that we are bound to be righteous, what change does the code of Christ require from us today, in the irresistable grace of the gospel of our Lord? May righteousness be unleashed in our souls to the glory of our Father in Heaven.
Repin, "The Volga Boatmen"
For Sun. June 22, 2008 (Proper 7)
If we are saved solely by grace, then why not just keep living as we please, so that more grace can be extended to us? This is the question Paul picks up and answers in Romans 6.
Paul points out that as believers, we have been united with the full spectrum of Christ's experience through baptism. One can't be baptized into the resurrection of Christ without being baptized into the steps that precede: death and burial. So now, just as Christ died to sin, so have we. Just as Christ now lives for God, so do we. The good news for us who believe is that not only has the guilt of sin been removed but also its power (Expositor's Bible Commentary).
"But I'm not doing that?" you might object. Why not? This is what we are intended to do. This is what we are destined to do. Count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The immediately following verses give us the practical step to take: "Don't offer the members of your body to sin... but rather offer yourselves to God. Sin shall not be your master... you are not under law, but under grace." Will you offer your head, heart, and hands to God right now? Take a moment to tell the Lord this. Now simply ask Him, "Lord, how would you have me bring you glory today?" This is the question he gets so excited about answering. May the grace of Christ shine through each of our lives today, both individually and together.
Aivazovky, "9th Wave"
June 15, 2008
I think the rock song "Life in the Fast Lane" has some verbage in it about losing one's mind. That has certainly been my experience. I've found a better lane: the joy lane. How about changing lanes with me? I think you'll like it.
In the joy lane, there is peace with God (Rom 5:1). This peace comes from knowing that we have been justified before God through our faith in Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. Because of this our lives are now framed not by guilt or shame but by grace. We are now free to determine for ourselves how to live our lives as a thank you to God for what he has already done for us (v. 2). Yet even further, we live with an enduring hope grounded in the glory of God. God's glory is going to prevail whether the stock market crashes, the oil stops flowing, or the Middle East erupts into war.
What's more, we now have a way forward through our present pain - whether it be a broken marriage, a family member with cancer, or any other suffering. The way forward is this: pain produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, the very same hope which is grounded in God's glory (v. 4). God's glory is going to be manifest in us - through hope - from within the very pain that seems so ready to overwhelm us in this moment. The Holy Spirit, now present in our hearts, is our guarantee against any doubts that may arise (v. 5).
Now, how do we know this isn't just a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo representing a delusion of hope? We know because Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead. This is a historical fact which can only be skirted if one presupposes that history by definition excludes the manifestation of the supernatural in the natural world. I choose a different presupposition: that God exists, that he has manifested himself in the world, first through Christ, and then through the hope within each of us who believe in him.
Life in the joy lane - let the traffic of life flow on.
