31 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 7:1-6

Observations:

"The law is binding to a person only as long as he lives." What is the point being made here? Paul gives an example example of marriage - that of a woman bound to her husband by law, but released upon her husband's death, making the point that she is then free to marry another and is only an adulteress if living with another man while still married (i.e. husband is still alive).

"Likewise ... 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." It appears that Paul is making a similar statement of the law having now no hold over us through our acceptance of Christ's death on our behalf, rendering our former contract ended. This, rhetorically speaking, enables us to cleave now to God.

Paul affirms this idea in vv 5-6

"For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 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."

While we were under the law, Paul reiterates that our sinful natures reacted to the law by instigating us to sin. Then, working with the prior assertion that Christ's sacrifice made possible a realigning of allegiance from sin to Christ,  we see that, not only are we no longer bound to our old sinful nature, doomed to the punishment deserved therefore, but also, we are no longer subject to the law, but rather directly to God. We are not trapped in a litany of prescriptions, but are freed to worship and obey the spirit of the law, enabled by the spirit of God residing within us as our counselor.

Application:

So, then, if we are no longer under the law, but under the spirit of God, then what?

Automatically, it defuses the question begged at the end of ch. 5, "Should I sin that grace may abound?" (6:1).

If we are living under the spirit of God (not to mention having sworn new allegiance to God) and sin is direct contravention of God, then sin is not an option.

So, then, what does it mean to live under the spirit of God? What does it mean to pursue God?

Clearly it's not a shopping list of dos and don'ts - we were freed from that. Instead, I would argue, that it means we should be living in such a manner that God is pleased by us. That would then entail living in a manner consistent with his example, both in the old and new testaments - seeking purity and righteousness, loving others as Christ loves us, spreading the gospel, etc.

(I'll just be straight here and make a note that loving others doesn't mean living in some kind of Lennon-esque utopia. If you note how God loved the Israelites, providing for them and enduring their insults, and for all man, sacrificing of himself for the benefit of man despite man's direct antagonism towards him. ("While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Rom 5:8, "For ... while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son..." Rom 5:10a).

Christlike love is not some fluffy sense of mutual good feeling to man, but rather the seeking of others' betterment as the sacrifice of self.

"But I'll be taken advantage of!" you exclaim.

Did God call us to only love on and care for those who would be a wise investment for our efforts? Not so. We see a direct command from Christ as a summary of half of the commandments: "And love your neighbour as yourself." And let us remember the parable of the good Samaritan - our neighbour is any of our fellow men.

27 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 6:15-23

Observations:

Paul carries on from yesterday's passage, returning to the question of continuing to sin because we are now under grace. He makes a good point here, though, that the one to whom you submit, be it sin or God, is the one to whom you are enslaved. So, then, if a man were to claim he follows Christ, yet continually submits himself to sin under the pretense of grace, we would be right in assuming that he is not saved in that he is still enslaved to sin instead of being a slave of God.

But Paul says to the Romans, "But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness." (vv 17-18)

So, I may have jumped the gun a bit, and in a negative bent, but the idea of being either a slave of God or of sin is continued here, as Paul encourages the Roman church in their following of Christ. Notice his phrasing, "... obedient from the heart..." To me, this stands out, because the heart is the innermost being, the core of one's identity. So, for someone to become obedient to Christ from their very hearts means that they are totally and completely given over to God. Contrast this with the pharisees, whom Jesus called "White-washed tombs", indicating that they obeyed on the surface level, but their hearts were not impacted by God.

Freedom from enslavement to sin involves a heart-level change in obedience from our sinful desires to God.

Paul, in verse nineteen, rephrases his statements in the prior verses before continuing on.

In closing for today, we see Paul making a comparison. He compares slavery to sin and slavery to God by virtue of the fruit produced. The fruit received from sin is death. The fruit received from God is sanctification and eternal life. While we are enslaved to one, we are free from the other. The question is, which master's wages would you prefer? While sin's enslavement may seem more pleasurable now, it's compensation, it's payout, it's wage is death. Slavery to righteousness, however, is often seen in a bad light: one of asceticism and drudgery, following a list of laws for a policing, judgmental God in the hope of being good enough for reward. This is wrong. In focusing on the laws, the dos and don'ts, we are actually not trusting in God, but in ourselves to meet the law and, as such, have missed the point. No, slavery to righteousness is the result of a heart-deep repentance and obedience, a relationship that leads to life. In fact, Paul reiterates an idea from earlier in this letter, saying that the life given is a gift from God.

Application:

Obedient from the heart.
What fruit were you getting...? [T]he end ... is death.
Now that you have been set free from sin ... the fruit you get leads to sanctification and ... eternal life.

For me, those are the three key ideas. I've always focused on verse 23 in this passage, being one of those stereotypical Sunday School verses and a part of the common evangelical gospel delivery. Verses 17 and 20-22 really stood out to me because they highlighted the status of the heart and the consequences of either slavery.

I like the idea here, of slavery. Some might prefer the term "servanthood", as slavery has so many negative connotations and serving God is a good thing, but let me put it this way, as I see it. A slave is owned. He or she is the property of his or her master, completely at the mercy of the master in  every way.

Obedient from the heart.

I desire to be a good slave, honouring my master not only in my external actions, but internally, with my attitude, demeanour, and thoughts. From the inside out is the direction of true, lasting change and it is this change which I crave.

26 March 2016

 Scripture: Romans 6:1-14

Observations:

Carrying off of the end of the last passage, that where sin increased, grace abounded more, Paul rebuts the question hanging in the air: "Shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound?"

He doesn't just say, "no." No, Paul very adamantly rejects that question, responding with one in kind: "How can we, who died to sin, still live in it?" Even more so, he draws the connection that, as we are baptised into Christ, we are baptised into Christ's death, so that, just as Christ was raised into life, that we would be as well. How lightly do we take that when we continue to sin?

Let me rephrase that: In accepting Christ, you take part in the death of God's Son, receiving freely-offered life.

In continuing to sin, we say that Christ's sacrifice amounts to nothing.

In a sense, it's like taking whatever amount of money you've earned from your inheritance and spending it all on prostitutes.

It is a blatant disregard of Christ's sacrifice, that we continue to live in sin!

As Paul continues, we see that it is not only a blatant disregard, but it is an impossibility. We have been crucified with Christ so that we may be no longer enslaved to sin. And if we have died with Christ, then we have also been resurrected into life with him, as Paul reasons, a life that is not subject to death any longer. Paul makes it clear that Christ died to sin and lives to God, illustrating that, if we are to be mirrors of Christ, then we, too, must die to sin and live to God.

For this reason, it is absurd that a Christian would return to a life of sin, that eh would so cheaply forsake the sacrifice of God. Indeed, I would argue that a desire to remain in sin is pathognomonic for a still-unsaved soul, which brings us to this last segment:

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 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. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." Romans 6:12-14

Paul is speaking directly. Do not allow sin to reign in your life. Paul's not saying that Christians don't ever sin. He's saying that Christians seek after God, not sin, giving themselves over to him, because sin no longer has jurisdiction over them.

Application:

WE ARE NO LONGER UNDER THE CONSTRAINTS OF SIN!

So why, then, do we live and act as though we are?

We act as though our sins run us, that they determine all of our actions, attitudes, and thoughts, when we should be living that way with regard to God.

Now, this is not saying that Christians will never sin, but that Christians will not have a mentality or predilection of sin anymore.

22 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 5:14-21

Observations:

We start off, finishing Paul's complicated thought from before, "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." (v 14) So we see that sin is still being considered and punished by death, even among those who did not sin as Adam did, men like Joseph or Job. (I'm not saying they were perfect and did not sin, but that they did not blatantly act in contradiction of an edict from God)

From there, Paul segues into talking about Christ. He makes the obvious comparison, that, just as death came to man through one man, so life came to man through Christ. However, that is where the similarity ends. Paul makes some important contrasts between Adam and Christ.

• In Adam, many died through one sin. In Christ, the free gift of God's grace has abounded for many.
• In Adam, the judgment of one sin brought condemnation. In Christ, the gift, given after many sins, brings justification, that is, absolution.
• In Adam, death reigned. In Christ, those who receive the grace of God reign in life abundantly

This draws Paul to the conclusion that just as one sin led to the condemnation of all men, so did one act of righteousness, love, and grace lead to absolution and life for all men.

He then returns to the idea of the law with this thought: "Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." What he's saying is that, because of the law, sin became defined and grew in magnitude from a corruption of man to direct disobedience of God's commands. Because of that, however, it also increased the magnitude of the grace given to man. 

Consider it this way: One of your coworkers offends you in a way that violates your internal, unvoiced boundaries. Still, you forgive him or her. Shortly thereafter, another of your coworkers offends you, crossing a boundary you've clearly expressed from day one. Again, you choose to forgive him or her. Which forgiveness required and gave more grace, the offence which was done in innocence and ignorance or the offence which was made known previously to be an offence?

Similarly, then, despite our sin, our offence against God, God's grace reigns through the righteousness of Christ, redeeming us from death and placing us instead under life.

God's forgiveness is given in grace. He would have been perfectly justified to condemn mankind to death in punishment for the sin that, thanks to Adam, reigns in us, but, instead, because of his love for us, took upon himself the punishment and consequence of our sin, an act enabled only by his perfect righteousness and, taking on the form and nature of man, he offered himself as the pure, unblemished sacrifice, fully God and fully man, sufficient where mere animal sacrifice was not to atone for the sin of all men for all time. 

How great, then, is the grace and forgiveness of God, that He would take upon himself the punishment due to us for the purpose of enabling us to come to him in righteousness, having communion with him once again?

17, 20 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 5:12-13

Observations:

All right. In this passage, Paul is making three distinct points.

1) Sin, and death, the punishment of sin, came into the world through Adam and has permeated mankind, even when the Law was not yet given. (vv 12-14)

Now, there are a couple points here worth noting. Paul explicitly notes that all of sin entered the world through Adam. It is because of his sin that mankind is inherently sinful. Next, he notes that, even though the law had not yet been given, sin was still considered sin before Moses' time.

I will say that verse 13 took me a while to understand. So, I broke it into parts and consulted some commentaries

1. [F]or sin indeed was in the world before the law was given.
   This is pretty straightforward to me. Adam's disobedience constituted sin, ergo sin was present before the law was given to Moses, generations later
2. but sin is not counted where there is no law.
   This was a good deal trickier. At first, it appears like Paul is saying that sin was present, but not punished, which we know is not so, after all, we have the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the curse of Cain, and even the exile of Adam and Eve. Not to mention, death, the prescribed punishment, had been in the world the whole time as sin had become such that God began scaling back the lifespan of man from multiple hundreds to barely a single hundred. So, I looked at the Greek and both uses of "law" involve the same word, which doesn't help. Next, I looked at some commentaries, namely Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, A Popular Commentary on the New Testament, John Wesley's Explanatory Notes, Jameson, Fausset, & Brown Commentary, John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (e-Sword is a valuable reference tool). Of all those, I think the last two put it best (Though Popular had some good exposition into the varying theories surrounding this passage) :
   
   "but sin is not imputed when there is no law. This looks like an objection, that if there was no law before Moses's time, then there was no sin, nor could any action of man be known or accounted by them as sinful, or be imputed to them to condemnation; or rather it is a concession, allowing that where there is no law, sin is not imputed; but there was a law before that law of Moses, which law was transgressed, and the sin or transgression of it was imputed to men to condemnation and death, as appears from what follows." - Gill
   
   "for until the law] This and the following verses are not a parenthesis: see on Rom_5:12.—“Until” here practically = “before.” The period “from Adam to Moses” is in view, the Law of Moses being taken as the first elaborate statute-giving of God for man. “Laws” existed long before Moses; e.g. those of Marriage, of the sanctity of Life, and of the Sabbath. But the Mosaic Law covered the field of duty in a way unknown before; so as to suggest the question whether human beings, in the previous ages, in some instances, had not satisfied the claims of then-known duty, and so escaped death. But no: in those ages, as in the Mosaic, “death reigned;” therefore there was sin; therefore there was broken law; and that law, in numberless cases, (viz. infantine,) must have been broken only “in Adam;” for it was unknown to the persons in question.law … law] Both these words in the Gr. are without the article. In spite of some difficulty, we must interpret the first of the Mosaic Law, and the second of Law in some other sense; here probably in the sense of the declared Will of God in general, against which, in a particular case, Adam sinned, and we “in him.”is not imputed] So as to bring penalty. Therefore, had there been in no sense a (broken) law in the primeval age, there would have been no death. But death was universal." - Cambridge
   
   So, then, at the very least, we see that mankind is punished for its sin according to Adam's disobedience. We can also see that mankind is punished for its inherent sinful nature, a result of Adam's sin. The question I would ask is whether man is punished for committed sin and, if so, according to what standard?
1. By all appearances, man is punished before the Mosaic law for committed sin. Take the examples given above: Adam and Eve's punishment and exile, the cursing of Cain, the flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Each of these followed the commission of some kind of transgression against God
1. In the case of Adam and Eve's punishment and exile, they were punished for direct disobedience of God's command (Gen 2:15-17). They were then exiled to be kept from eating the fruit of the tree of life, thereby escaping the final punishment of sin, death (Gen 3:22-24)
2. In the case of Cain, he was warned in advance that he was close to sinning, due to the attitude of his heart (Gen 4:5b-7). When he did sin, God declared that Abel's blood was crying out to him from the ground (Gen 4:10)
3. In the case of the flood, God decided within himself that mankind had become increasingly wicked, later disclosing that decision and punishment to Noah (Gen 6:6-7, 11-13)
4. Lastly, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God decided within himself that they were living in sin and disclosed that to Abraham (Gen 18:16-21)
2. 
   

15 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 5:1-11

Observations:

So, Paul begins at the tail end of yesterday: because we have been justified by our faith, we have peace with God and have access into his grace. Having access to his grace, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (vv 1-2)

Here comes one of Paul's trickier, loaded statements: we rejoice in our sufferings

• Sufferings --> endurance
• Endurance --> character
• Character --> hope (vv 3-4)

Hope, Paul writes, does not put us to shame. Why? Because God's love has been poured into our hearts via the Holy Spirit (v 5)

Paul then breaks down the idea of God's love.

• When Christ died for us sinners, we were still weak, unable to save ourselves (v 6)
• While we humans may consider dying for the sake of another who is exceptionally good or righteous, Christ died for us while we were still living in sin, distant from him in disobedience. (vv 7-8)

Christ did for us, his then enemies, what we could not do for ourselves. In doing so, he modeled what love looks like - sacrificial and unconditional.

The effect of Christ's sacrifice, offering justification on our behalf, is that we are saved from God's wrath and judgment. (v 9) Paul presents it interestingly. If we are considered to have been reconciled to God by Christ's death, then we are saved (Gk: σώζω - saved [from death, peril], delivered, protected, healed) by his life. (v 10) Some scholars assert that this means that because Christ lives, we are eternally saved. So, we are justified by his death (that is, freed from all consequences of past and present sin) and secured by his resurrection (that is, no future sin will affect our standing before God), is what Paul seems to be saying.

Paul wraps up this segment with rejoicing. He began by speaking of rejoicing in suffering and the hope of the glory of God and he ends by speaking of rejoicing in God in gratitude for our reconciliation. (v 11) In between the "bread slices" of rejoicing, we have the filling of our literary sandwich - the reason for rejoicing in suffering, the magnitude of God's love in dying for sinners, and the reconciling and saving effects of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Application:

I'll be honest. This passage is one I have difficulty seeing how to apply. The only thing I can think of is gratitude to God for acting in such mercy. He didn't have to, but because he loved us so much, he did.

14 March 2016

Scripture: Romans 4:13-25

Observations:

Paul begins this segment following after the previous passage (remember, Paul didn't divide his epistles into handy chapters and verses, that was a later development)

So, we have the idea that Abraham's faith being counted as righteousness before the covenant of circumcision leading to Abraham being the father of both the faithful circumcised and the righteous uncircumcised, which is where Paul picks up.

Paul makes a bold statement that Abraham's promise came by faith, not by the law. He then contrasts it, that if it came from the law, faith would be null and void. It would no longer be a promise upon faith, to trust in, but a wage that is earned. To my mind, it acts almost as a filter, as any person, righteous or not, can follow a set of laws. Well, in the case of God's all-encompassing laws and high requirements, not so - no-one can follow that set of laws perfectly except Christ. Hence the promise is void, as no one would ever manage to receive it.

Then Paul makes this statement: "For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression." (v 15)

True. The law defines sin. There is now a codified set of ethics. Where before conduct could be quibbled over and considered fluid (much as in today's society), after the writing of the law there was no denying that certain acts were unacceptable, subject to trial by a supernatural, all-perfect judge.

So, the law serves to provide awareness of unrighteousness.

Instead, the promise rests on grace - it is dependent on God's action, not man's and serves as surety that all of Abraham's descendants, circumcised or not, are subject to the promise.

Paul then elaborates on the faith of Abraham in the promises of God given to him, unwavering in his belief that God could make good on his promise.

It is for that reason his faith was credited to him as righteousness.

Similarly, for us, our faith in the resurrection of Jesus and his deliverance of us from our sins, which led to our justification, will be attributed to us as righteousness