|
THOUGHTS ON ROMANS 7 AND 8
` . . . heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ '
We would move on in our `Thoughts' - now in the fulness of understanding of that unique Passover Feast in Jerusalem in which Jesus revealed the fulness of His love to them with the exhortation `Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another's feet'. We have seen that this is more than a charismatic act of humility but a priestly act in preparation for proclaiming Him as the Sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and reconcilliation for all men to God. So we move on in these `Thoughts' concerning Paul's revelation given to him by Jesus of the reality of being `baptised into His death . . therefore buried with Him . . and raised to New Life in Him to the glory of the Father'.
We have noted before the way in which the same words spoken by different people can so often have different meanings depending on the heart-intent. That difference in heart-intent springs from a person's relationship with others, or the circumstances within which they live out their lives. The way in which we react or respond to words spoken in varying circumstances reveal the different personality defects each person uses to cover their deep-seated - and often unknown - anxieties which, when examined, always lead back to insecurity in some form or other. Such difficulties, when they arise in family circumstances, are called by the psychiatrists `relationship problems'. Often the advice is to remove oneself from that relationship and into another - only to find that the relationship problem is really a behaviourial problem, which no-one can remove themselves from in their own strength for this behaviour has become an integral part of that person's personality. They then take this into every relationship they will ever experience - with the same disastrous results.
This leads us back to our opening remarks that, although in Christians this should not be so, the reality is that the problems which lead to many broken and deeply divided churches and fellowships have been caused through behaviourial problems, usually covered up as `doctrinal differences'! As we move through our Christian life we hear the same words and phrases used again and again . . `born again' . . `complete in Him' . . `a new creation' . . `the old has gone, the new has come'. Yet if we continue to carry our behaviourial problems with us we shall find that the same words do indeed outwork in different ways, revealing the emptiness that comes from mere repetition of Scriptural words. In truth the Word of God is a living word which brings release for the prisoner and healing for the wounded, but it is not through the mere repetition of words that such release and healing comes, and while at the same time we try to avoid religious cliches it must be said in a way that can be clearly understood. For the believer in Christ, who is a new creation, it requires only an ongoing yielding to the Word of God for that peace and healing to become a reality. Our behaviourial problems which we bring into our new creation will resist that yielding with everything in their power, and this will lead many into a cycle of continual guilt and condemnation.
Here we need to bring in a Scriptural position in order to justify these opening remarks. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, whose eyes had been truly opened by the power of God, records the ongoing battle within each believer: (Romans 7:7-25)
" What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the Law had not said, `Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetuous desire. For apart from Law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from Law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did what is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, to that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understandwhat I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is the sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's Law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's Law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. "
Paul ends his exergesis on `behaviourial problems' with these triumphant words: `Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord'! We also need to remember that Paul's letters and epistles were one ongoing developing exposition of his understanding of God's will for His people - they were not intended to be picked over for any choice morsels to be enjoyed. Therefore, once he had finished with his triumphant cry, that `through Jesus Christ our Lord' our behaviourial problems are dealt with, he continues: (Romans 8:12-17)
" Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation - but it is not to the sinful nature to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received a Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, `Abba, Father'. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. "
This is Scriptural yielding to the Word of God! Who can set us free from the behaviourial problems that continually destroy our relationships? `Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord'! How can we yield to the powerful Word of God? `We have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it'. Behaviourial problems stem from insecurity . . . insecurity breeds fear . . . fear leads us back to that position where we once again cry out: `What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? And so a cycle of guilt and condemnation continues, taking us further from the fulness of life that God has prepared for all His redeemed people! And yet Paul's Letter to the Romans did not stop at chapter 7, or even half-way through chapter 8. It is an ongoing and full revelation of the Gospel of God, of which he writes: (Romans 1:16-17)
" I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, as it is written: `The righteous will live by faith'. "
In chapter 8 Paul continues to write about the Gospel, for which he was called and set apart to preach: (verses 15-16)
" For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but
you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry out: `Abba, Father'.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. "
God calls those He has redeemed `sons'. Behaviourial problems which continue to make us again slaves to fear reveal that although we may know this sonship, we certainly do not live in it. Sonship does not allow us to continue in our behaviourial problems; it asks us to yield our insecurity to the Spirit of God so that we may walk as sons of God. Living experiential sonship is the fulness of the life to which every believer is called. Very few Christians wholeheartedly embrace worldly pleasures, but, equally, so very few wholeheartedly embrace the fulness of sonship, although it would enable them to walk out of their behaviourial problems - which Jesus has set them free from! Those who live in a cycle of guilt and condemnation have received the promise of sonship but will not yield their fears to the Lord to enable them to live in the fulness of sonship. Words may well be spoken and choruses may well be sung, but the Holy Spirit within can only cry `Abba, Father' when we are living experientially in that promised sonship!
It is that yielding of our fears in the Holy Spirit that enables Him to testify with our spirit that we are God's children. Only then can we enter into our inheritance, for without experiential sonship there can be no entrance into an experiential inheritance. The words may well be spoken, but without the knowledge of sonship we remain only within the promise but outside the life of sons as `co-heirs with Christ'. But just as Paul did not stop writing his Letter at the end of chapter 7, neither did he stop writing at verse 16 of chapter 8. The knowledge of sonship will bring us to the entry point of our inheritance as `heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ', but Paul continues in verse 17: `If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory'. The promise of sonship must be transformed into the knowledge of sonship, which then reveals an inheritance into which we can only enter through sharing in His sufferings. Our inheritance, therefore, is not seen as a triumphal walk into material and emotional blessings as sons of God. Rather we must be willing to enter into His sufferings in order to share in His glory.
But staying at the cross is not our inheritance! To embrace the cross is but the entrance into our inheritance - which is the same glory Jesus received from the Father as He walked in His way in His sufferings according to the Father's will. Christ Jesus, in entering into His inheritance, secured that inheritance for those who as sons of God would follow on as co-heirs in His glory. In embracing the cross He won for all who would follow on an inheritance free from the spirit of fear which in the past held us as slaves to fear and as subjects to sin. He now holds that inheritance open to us, and the way into it as sons of God, through suffering . . . through yielding our `behaviourial problems' so that His glorious life may be found in us!
Let us move on for a brief moment to another of Paul's Letters, where we see this inheritance set out in a different way: (Galatians 2:17-31)
" If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a law-breaker. For through the Law I died to the Law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the Law, Christ died for nothing. "
This is sonship - knowing that we have been crucified with Christ, so that we can yield our behaviourial problems to Him to enable us to be led by the Spirit, as sons of God, into our inheritance of Christ's glory, His life in us more fully revealed!
However, as we continue through Paul's Letter to the Romans we need to grasp the understanding of what it means to walk an experiential walk into our inheritance, which brings us back again to Scripture: (Romans 8:19-27)
" The creation waits with eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express, and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. "
Paul is revealing here God's timing - not only for His sons coming into the fulness of the glory of their inheritance, but also for `the whole creation (which) has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time'. Until God's timing is complete we will continue to stumble . . . we will continue to sin and make mistakes . . . and in our weakness the Spirit will help us as we yield our behaviourial problems to the Word of God and `groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies'. The walk into our inheritance as sons of God is a walk of continuous repentance to God and forgiveness towards each other, putting right our mistakes, correcting our errors and living in the reality of our inheritance, held open for us by Jesus, who entered in as the Firstfruits of those who would follow on - `heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ'.
Paul tells us that we can live as the forgiven, beloved children of God now: (verse 27)
" And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because
the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. "
It is living in the reality of what we long for that enables the believer in Christ Jesus to live in an atmosphere of freedom from the guilt which arises from behaviourial problems when they occur on our walk with the Lord. It is this treasured possession that is the inheritance of the believer - not that he is infallible, but that he knows an infallible God who loves him as a son and gave His life for him. Our adoption as sons carries that certainty of what we have received, but we are still waiting in certain hope for its completion, and we wait, says Paul, patiently for it! As we wait for what is already ours - although from time to time our fallible nature leads us back to our behaviourial problems - we have this steadfast assurance of God's total regard for us as sons: (verses 28-39)
" And we know that in all things God works for the good of whose who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? 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, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justified! Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
` For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. '
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life; neither angels nor demons; neither the present nor the future; nor any powers; neither height nor depth; nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord' "
Christ the Firstfruits, raised to new life, is at the right hand of God, and He is interceding for us! It is this knowledge of sonship that lies at the heart of our relationship with God - a relationship with God maintained and led by the Spirit of God that deals with our behaviourial problems. The concluding words of chapter 8 reveal God's total concern and protection as we wait, and as we walk into the fulness of our inheritance. The `who is he that condemns'? is our carnal nature - the endless cycle of behaviourial problems. The guilt and condemnation arising from failure condemn - and we condemn ourselves, with much help from others, let alone the dark spiritual powers! `Who shall separate us from the love of God' when Christ Jesus Himself is at the right hand of God interceding for us as co-heirs of that inheritance we already have? Spiritual sonship springs from a spiritual relationship, grounded in natural circumstances. Neither death nor life, angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, for He intercedes for us! Now if the way into our inheritance is through a relationship with God as sons, then abiding in the inheritance comes from a trusting obedience to everything that the Father allows to come across our path, without reverting back to our behaviourial problems which leave scars of continuing guilt and condemnation.
In drawing these thoughts on chapters 7 and 8 of Paul's Letter to the Romans to a close we need to place this Living Word into our contemporary timescale. Together with the wind of the Holy Spirit that has been blowing through the Church in the West over the past few decades, there has also been blowing a wind of another spirit. This has resulted in grave lawlessness and rebellion. One has led to a glorious awakening of the promise of sonship amongst believers; the other has led to a less-than-glorious awakening of the rebellion expressed as `individualism' that lies at the hearts of all men. True sonship will awaken in the believer a desire to do the will of the Father - a Father who reveals His will to His son and draws him into an outworking of His will at the expense of the son's own `natural desires'. And the son, in yielding his `desires' to that Person, finds total peace and security within the sonship into which he has been drawn, saying: `Your will, Father, not my own' to a Father who has the right to command such a yielding. That is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit about which Paul writes: (Romans 8:28-30)
" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to,the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. "
The sonship that He offers draws those He called into an inheritance - that inheritance is to be co-heirs with Christ, sharing His glory and being brought into the `glorious freedom of the children of God'.
The other wind (or counter wind) which has blown across the Church will not stop the promise of sonship, but it will, if not resisted, leave the sons with the promise of sonship never fully fulfilled . . . the inheritance never fully entered into . . . and, therefore, never fully sharing in His sufferings by yielding their behaviourial problems to the will of the Father `to be conformed to the likeness of His Son'. As these are only `thoughts' on Romans 7 and 8 there is therefore no desire or intention to criticise or judge the heart motive of any believer - they are perhaps more properly reflections on what we have seen and experienced over the years. Sonship - the entering into our inheritance, being co-heirs with Christ, sharing in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory - is all the work of the Holy Spirit and is outworked over many years, in which time behaviourial problems will occur and reoccur and must be yielded in every believer's life until the final glorious day when `we will know Him as we are known'.
Until the end of that journey each believer will constantly need to be reminded of God's total faithfulness and love for those whom He foreknew, those who would be conformed to the image of His Son. The Scriptures tell us that this is so - and we also need to tell one another that this is so: (Romans 15:5-7)
" May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. "
|
You may E-mail us at: derek@northernstyletrust.com or Telephone (01493) 444494 (UK)
Our Web Address: www.northernstyletrust.com
|
