May I speak in the name of the living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
We have come to one of the happier parts of Paul's letter to the Romans. All of Chapter 8 is very positive, and it is an excellent chapter to read when you might ask yourself: What difference does faith in Jesus Christ make? Is there really any good news in the Gospel?
But like the rest of this letter, Paul's style of writing is not always easy to grasp at first hearing. This forces us to go back to the texts and reread them, contemplate them, digest them, and make them our own. Paul uses a rhetorical style that was well-known in his times. The orator or the writer imagines his audience in his mind, and he tries to anticipate their questions, even their objections. For this reason, even in these eleven verses, Paul uses several syllogisms like in a course of logic. If X is true, then we can deduce that Y is also true. He does this by making comparisons between two manners of thinking and living. As in previous passages, he constantly brings out these dichotomies, contrasting two things that are opposed or entirely different.
So, what difference does faith in Jesus Christ make? Is there really any good news in the Gospel? It might be good at this point to remember some of the highlights in the first seven chapters. These positive points can only be fully grasped if we follow Paul's theology, that is, that the good news really is good when we understand what went wrong and what still goes wrong in human history. Helen and David have explained these points brilliantly, so I will certainly not belabour them again. But a little repetition never hurts when we're trying to get our head around some concept. So, please bear with me as we recap some of those points. These highlights, Paul's exclamations, are like shifts in a symphony that sometimes we forget about, until we hear the opening notes, and then its pleasant melodies and refrains come back to mind.
At the beginning of the letter to the Romans, after the encouraging introduction, Paul begins with the bad news. Humanity has not lived up to their high calling. Something went wrong. All have failed to enjoy true fellowship with God and with one another. They have not lived according to God's high standards. And Paul reminds his readers that this was true for all nations, even for the Jewish people, God's covenant people, to whom God had given his revelation. No one loved God for who he really was. Not only this, some people even gloried in their rebellion against their creator.
But the good news is that God did not leave the situation like that. He provided a remedy to allow people to be reconciled to him, to be put in a right relationship with him, and even to receive his righteousness despite their failures. So, Paul says with confidence: 'Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ' (Rom 5:1). Peace with God! This was not a common notion in ancient times. And the remedy, as we have heard, was not a self-help philosophy that allowed us to fix the problem ourselves. Rather, it came through a person, the person of Jesus Christ who took upon himself the weight of our sin, our unrighteousness, our guilt and he bore them on the cross. He showed God's love for us through his sacrifice, and he showed it through his actions and his words throughout his life. So, reconciliation with God is made available through him. There is new life in Christ, a new beginning. Paul proclaims the good news again: 'But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life' (6:22). Indeed, that new life begins now.
But then the music shifts again in Chapter 7 as Paul shares some uncomfortable news. After reconciliation with God, we can still have moments of struggle, when we still don't live up to God's standards. We don't live according to the righteousness that he has given us in Christ. So, it can seem at times that nothing has changed. And Paul cries out: 'Who will rescue me from this body of death?' And then the good news breaks through: 'Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!'
So, the beginning of today's passage, in verses 1 to 4, can be compared to another shift in the music, because Paul remembers, that despite his imperfections, there is hope, there is great hope, to the point where he exclaims, 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' (v. 1). No condemnation!
When you hear the words: to condemn or condemnation, what thoughts come to mind? For me, they conjure up negative feelings, as they are almost always used in negative contexts. Among other meanings, they express the idea to pronounce an adverse judgement on someone, or to express strong disapproval of someone. We might picture a prisoner who has been condemned for a crime. Or we might think of a politician who is condemned by the press for an untimely word. We have already heard 'condemnation' twice in chapter five, where Paul says: 'Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.' (5:18). These words are generally negative, except when you put a small word in front of them like 'no' or 'not'. No condemnation. It is like when a defendant hears with a great sigh of relief: 'Not guilty.' Yet, this does not fully illustrate Paul's point. It is stronger than that, because we are guilty before God. Yet, he says to us: 'In Christ you are forgiven; the condemnation does not fall on you but on him.' This is the difference. It is not cheap grace, and this shows the greatness of God's mercy.
But someone might say to Paul: Condemnation for what? What have I done that would condemn me in a court of law? That is precisely what the previous chapters tell us. In God's court of law, as it were, humanity is declared guilty. But the Gospel, the good news, tells us that thanks to Christ, we can be acquitted, declared righteous, and our condemnation is removed. Metaphors like this one from the judicial field helped people, and still do, to understand the importance of the subject: condemnation and freedom. This sentence probably had great significance for Christians in first-century Rome, which of course was famous for its law system, but not always for its application of it. This is in some way the irony. What the Law, even the Jewish law inspired by God, could not do, God did for us. Freedom is available through another source. Paul writes: 'For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.' Again, Paul's theology does not offer a self-help religion; we cannot do this ourselves. He drives the point home by saying, '...by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us...' (v. 4). There's that word: condemn. He has condemned sin in Christ's sacrifice; therefore, he does not condemn us.
That's not all. This good news is completed by more good news. We can now begin to display God's righteousness through our lives with the help of the Holy Spirit. We have divine assistance in this as well. In fact, this is one of the greatest passages that help us to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We touch on it today, but Paul gives us more food for thought in the rest of the chapter, which we will explore in the coming weeks.
This is all good news. Yet, Paul knows that among his readers and listeners, some might disagree with him. Or some might not have understood the importance of this point. So, in verses 5 to 8, Paul issues another warning to those in Rome who may not be in Christ, or they think they are but are living completely contrary to Christian teaching. He raises another dichotomy: 'life according to the flesh' and 'life according to the Spirit'. The reality remains that someone who has been set free can still choose to live under the former regime, 'according to the flesh', living independently of God. This expression does not mean occasional actions against God and others. Rather, it concerns regular and stubborn patterns of behaviour and thinking that are opposed to God's desires for us. This is one of the warnings that we find in many of Paul's letters and indeed in other letters of the New Testament. In fact, it is one of the points of the 'Parable of the sower and the soils' that we heard in today's Gospel reading. A choice is placed before us to receive God's word and to allow it to grow in us and transform our lives.
Then Paul comes back to the melody of the good news in verses 9 to 11, because he believes greater things for the Christian communities in Rome. He says: 'But you are not in the flesh, since the Spirit of God dwells in you'. He is quite categorical here. These points are again two opposing ways of being: to be in the flesh or to be in the Spirit. Either the Spirit of God dwells in you or it does not. Paul then draws a lesson for them through another promise: 'If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you' (v. 11). We notice again the repetition of the word 'life', because the Spirit makes experience of this life with God possible, in the present and in the future. Life with God begins now. We may have some ups and downs in our relationship with God, but the Spirit perseveres and helps us to grow into a stronger relationship with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For this reason, Paul reminds his readers that to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (v. 6).
So, when we feel the heavy weight of guilt, shame, condemnation, let us remember this beautiful verse in Chapter 8, verse 1: 'There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' We have an advocate who defends us.
Do I have regrets for some of my actions and words in the past? I certainly do. Do I deserve God's forgiveness for those things? No. I don't deserve it, but I can receive it. This is the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not condemnation; rather, freedom in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prof James Morgan