So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
via Passage: Romans 8 (ESV Bible Online).
What bothers me about this is I don’t remember Paul ever presenting fear as a problem to be solved.
The only possible precedent that sounds like it may be relevant is Romans 5.1ff:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
That seems to work with what Paul goes on to write later in Romans 8.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But it’s easy for parents to slip into denial. We wouldn’t dream of dropping our daughters off at college and saying: “Study hard and floss every night, honey—and for heaven’s sake, get laid!” But that’s essentially what we’re saying by allowing them to dress the way they do while they’re still living under our own roofs.
David thought the interview had gone well so far. Huxley Industries needed a slave to answer phones, keep records, and do other office work. David needed some better income and he had a slave to rent. His slave could easily do the jobs they needed to be done.
“So can your slave be here by 7:30 am every weekday morning?”
David’s heart lurched. “You start that early?”
Well, we need him ready to go before others come to work. We found this position works better if he starts a half hour earlier.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a problem?” Sharon, the interviewer sounded completely non-judgmental about David’s slave. He was thankful for her professionalism.
“Well, I have my slave during most of the day,” said David, hating to have to admit the truth out loud. “Body is a good slave and I’m sure he could do the work here.”
“But?”
“But I’m not completely his sole owner. His other master may make that 7:30 start time difficult to meet.”
“Someone else has ownership that early in the morning?”
David shook his head. Not in the morning, but usually late at night. Wine, Women, and Song are part owners from about 9 p.m. until pretty late. Getting up that early might be a problem.”
Sharon nodded. “That was actually why this position didn’t work with the last slave we tried to rent from someone.”
“Did Wine, Women, and Song have part ownership?”
“No,” said Sharon, “I think it was Late Night Television. It kept the slave up at night and when the other owner got full control back in the morning, the slave was too groggy to work for us effectively.”
David sighed.
“I appreciate talking to you about the job,” said Sharon. “But you have to understand lots of slaves can do the tasks we need done. Our problem isn’t the tasks themselves but the simple fact that the owners are not really total owners. You can’t really rent out a slave if you already share him with other masters.”
My pastors are preaching through Jesus’s sermon on the mount. It’s refreshing to be reminded of the rightful place of God’s law in the Christian life. Sometimes it is easy for us to dismiss the place of law for the Christian; after all, we are not under law, but under grace. And since the law cannot save us, is there any use for it other than to condemn us and drive our miserable souls to Jesus?
If we were to stop there, the godly sentiments of Psalm 119 are left sounding completely foreign to us. How then are we to understand the law as a source of blessing and delight?
Read the rest: Sweeter than honey « I gotta have my orange juice..
OK, try this:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For [in it] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood through faithfulness. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faith of Jesus.
Others have suggested that the wrath is revealed in the Gospel… but they have appealed to passages that don’t speak of God’s wrath revealed now, but rather promise it will be revealed later:
Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
That is still waiting in the future. It can’t be what Romans 1.18 is claiming.
They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Again, future. It is involved in the Gospel message but it is not identical to what Paul claims reveals God’s wrath from heaven.
Jesus on the cross revealed God’s wrath on sin. And it is revealed in the Gospel so that it reveals God’s righteousness.
From Proverbs 3:
Do not plan evil against your neighbor,
who dwells trustingly beside you.
Do not contend with a man for no reason,
when he has done you no harm.
Do not envy a man of violence
and do not choose any of his ways,
for the devious person is an abomination to the Lord,
but the upright are in his confidence.
The first four lines seem pretty self-evident. But I wonder if this neighbor is himself the violent man you must not emulate even in trying to “fight fire with fire” against him. The statement is that “he has done you know harm,” but I wonder if Proverbs 24 is the same situation:
Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause,
and do not deceive with your lips.
Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me;
I will pay the man back for what he has done.”
“For no reason,” “he has done you know harm,” “without cause,” are all assertions made against what you want to believe. You think it is payback time and Solomon is telling you otherwise.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
This reads like a story of “our” conversion. It is as if Jesus’ death was the time that we came to faith and were justified.
But many had faith before Jesus died and many did not come to faith until long after. Some were, like Abraham, already justified in some way. Others were still under the wrath of God long after Jesus died.
So Paul is somehow personifying the human race in history and regarding Jesus’ death as an objective verdict on us all.
He likewise personifies the nation of Israel as a single Jew whom he questions in Romans 3.
And this means that he could identify with Israel in Romans 7. He has already set the precedent for this sort of rhetorical strategy.
LIFE AND RULE THAT (WILL) FAR SURPASS DEATH AND SLAVERY: Romans 5.12-21
I’m sure all of us have heard the horrible news about the earthquake and the tsunami that has devastated Japan. When we hear about these awful and death-dealing natural disasters, as Christians we are reminded of the sin of Adam and how God cursed the ground in response to that sin. Our text today promises us that the curse on the earth is not the last word. Hear the word of the Lord.
[SING PRAYER]
You may be seated.
The passage I read starts with a “therefore”
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man…
Why “therefore”? Paul is making an observation based on the statement he has just made. So look at the preceding verses and see how they lead Paul into this discussion of Adam and Christ.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Now this passage is deceptively familiar, but remember Paul is not talking about a conversion experience you or I had. He is summing up the human races downward spiral of sin which he started describing in Romans 1.18ff when he wrote:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…
And he goes on to describe human culture, both Gentile and Jewish, as it descends from sin to sin. It was in the middle of that awful history that Jesus came and appeased the wrath of God and provided atonement for sin… “while we were still weak” “while we were still sinners” “Christ died for us”
And that means that now, since Christ has died for us to reconcile us to God, now much more “shall we be saved by his life”
So Paul now says, “Therefore” because what he has said means that Jesus’ victory is mightier than Adam’s defeat. Jesus’ salvation is mightier than Adam’s misery. The human race’s spiral into sin started with Adam and Jesus is going to far far outshine Adam’s darkness. So we read.:
sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned
From Adam and Eve onward sin has been a fact in human existence. We grow into it spontaneously. And we live in a world suffering under the curse of death because of sin. As Paul writes later in his letter to the Romans:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
We see this futility in food shortages and natural disasters. We see it in hurricanes and flu outbreaks. Just the other night I watched a special about the influenza outbreak of 1918. I had never heard of that because there was seemingly an effort to forget it happened. But we lost more people to influenza that year than died in World War I. In fact, if you graph the life expectancy of Americans over the years you see it plunges down and then comes back up due to this flu epidemic. The curse on the world is real.
And we see it most directly in the universal fact of death.
— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Adam and Christ are alike in that they both were covenant representatives whose actions affected the entire world. Paul points out that Adam was himself a kind of prophetic image of Jesus.
But Paul also writes about how the giving of the Law to Israel intensified sin. Paul here is building on something he wrote in Romans 3, “through the law comes knowledge of sin” and by “knowledge” I suspect he means intimate acquaintance, not simply intellectual knowledge. The law, Paul writes, rather than alleviating sin, intensified it.
Think about Adam and Eve. They were in a special garden sanctuary, in the land of Eden, where they used their privileged position to transgress God’s boundaries. People sinned after that, but it wasn’t until Moses that God again set up a special sanctuary. The Tabernacle plans were given with the Law from Mount Sinai. As a result, Israel was enabled to commit transgression just like Adam did.
Paul makes it clear, by the way, that when he writes “sin is not counted where there is no law,” that he means it is not counted as much. He is being intentionally hyperbolic. As he writes just below, “the law came in to increase the trespass.” It did not create trespass but it increased it. The Law intensified sin and guilt.
But why give the Law if it is only going to increase trespass? Paul deals with that issue in more detail later in Romans, but he gives a short answer here if we read a little further. But first he contrasts Adam and Jesus:
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
So here is the basic claim. From Jesus salvation as a free gift is going to spread and grow to leave a far greater mark on human history than Adam’s sin. It may not look like it yet. We may wonder how God is going to convert billions of people, but make no mistake that God’s long term agenda is to see the work of Christ produce results that far outstrip the horrible results of Adam’s sin.
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
Now here is another parallelism. Not only does Paul compare Adam and Jesus, he also compares the sin of Adam to the sins that led Jesus to the cross. He contrasts “judgment following one trespass,” with “the free gift following many trespasses.” Adam’s sin brought condemnation. You would think that the many more sins would bring even greater condemnation. After all, that is what those sins deserved.
But it all turns out to have been God’s plan for grace and salvation! God was creating a Judgment Day not in order to condemn humanity further, but to deal with sin in a way that provides salvation. As Paul writes in Romans 8,
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
When Israel rejected Jesus and chose Barabbas so that Jesus would be crucified, that climactic crime–the culmination of many transgressions in Israel’s history–turned out to be part of God’s plan for mercy. As Paul writes in Romans 11
So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Nations, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
Now the timing of this is debatable but I want you to see that it is clear that Israel’s sin of unbelief, which resulted in the crucifixion of Jesus, was part of God’s plan to provide atonement.
For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
So all this sin—all the trespass that was intensified by the giving of the Law to Israel, was all part of God’s plan to provide the means for judging sin. Jesus came in the fullness of time to stand in the place of the world and pay the penalty for sin.
That’s why over and over in Romans Paul deals with people who are outraged by his message and mock him saying “Let us do evil that good may come” Remember these words from Romans 3:
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,
“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.
You see, God had promised to bring salvation to the world through Israel and told Israel to be faithful to the covenant. Yet we find now that God used their unfaithfulness to keeps his promise to bring salvation to the whole world, Jesus and Gentile alike—to anyone who will place their faith in Jesus. So now we have a free gift that is greater than the condemnation resulting from Adam’s trespass. And it is a gift that, amazingly, was brought about through many trespasses.
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Did you catch that? Paul writes that “death reigned” and you would expect him to say that now “life will reign” But he doesn’t. He says that “death reigned” and now WE REIGN: “much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life.”
This is the promise of Daniel 7. The Son of Man (Son of Adam) is vindicated and that means the saints are given the kingdom. Adam was given dominion but then reduced himself and us to slavery to sin. So now Jesus exalts us as rulers with him over the cosmos. Paul is telling his readers that the prophecy of Daniel is already true. It has been fulfilled.
Now maybe you don’t feel like a ruler. But that’s because you’re not looking with the eyes of faith. When God called Abraham he said he did so in order to give him a position of authority. In Genesis 18 we read, “The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do…” And what follows is the story of how Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason why we pray is because we are kings and queens. We are God’s counselors. We have access to God’s throne room.
But we can trust that there will be other tangible growing blessings as well as the Faith spreads. If we compare our world to the world of Paul’s day, in terms of disease and natural disasters I think we can see some pretty favorable changes. Maybe we’ll lose some ground in the near future, but God’s kingdom will not be stopped. That is what Paul tells us in Romans.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Now Paul has already made it clear that only believers benefit from Jesus work, but the point here is that he expects more believers than not. If it frustrates you that we don’t see more of these conversions in our own time, that is good. Pray for them. Work on being used to bring them about. We are given these great descriptions of what God expects and promises to bring about eventually in order to make us impatient to see them now. We should be motivated to share the Gospel.
And so Paul sums up.
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul wrote at the beginning of Romans that he was called and “received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” Romans is a book about the Great Commission. God is not content with a small remnant. He loves us but he wants us to be the seed of something much bigger. He has a vision of the whole world being more dramatically affected by the death and resurrection of Jesus than it was by the fall of Adam.
Remember his words through Isaiah the prophet in chapter 49 of that book:
Listen to me, O coastlands,
and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The Lord called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.”
And now the Lord says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Woodenly, it says, “to declare His righteousness on account of the passing-over of before-happened sins.” That still might mean “God had passed over sin, and therefore people thought Him unconcerned with sin; He finally has shown that He’s serious about sin by putting forth Jesus as an expiating sacrifice.”
Perhaps, but it might also be taken to mean something else: first, that the passing-over was itself righteous, that God demonstrated His righteousness in forbearing in the face of sin; and, second, that the fact that His forbearance was righteous all along is shown when Jesus is set forth as a hilsterion. Either way, we cannot know God’s righteousness without the cross. But the two interpretations of the passage give us quite distinct interpretations of what God was up to in the Old Testament: Was His forbearance unrighteous or righteous? Was it an act of mercy that had to be “corrected” by the cross, or an act of justice whose justice is only evident after the cross?
via Peter J. Leithart » Blog Archive » Righteousness and sin.