Meditation for July 2

From The Rev. Peter Munson

Romans 7:14-25 (The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson)

 

I can already anticipate the response that is coming:  "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not.  Isn't this also your experience?"  Yes.  I'm full of myself - after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison.  What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.  So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

 

But I need something more!  For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!  I realize that I don't have what it takes.  I can will it, but I can't do it.  I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.  My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions.  Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

 

It happens so regularly that it's predictable.  the moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.  I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.  Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

 

I've tried everything and nothing helps.  I'm at the end of my rope.  Is there no one who can do anything for me?  Isn't that the real question?

 

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does.  He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

 

Needing Help Beyond What the Law Can Give Us

 

In law school we learned that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."  In Romans 7, we learn that even if we know the Law - i.e., the commands of God - we can't keep it.  As Eugene Peterson translates Paul's words in The Message:  "I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.  Parts of me covertly rebel..." (Romans 7:22-23)

 

This is the great "inner battle":  we long to do the will of God, but we often don't.  In a rather famous verse from the NRSV, Paul cries out:  "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (vese 24)  For - as Paul says elsewhere in Romans - "the wages of sin is death". (Romans 6:23)  We need some help.  We need to be rescued.  If you prefer, we need a "transfer" from an old way of life (what Paul refers to as life "in the flesh") to a new way of living (what Paul calls life "in the Spirit").  In other words, we need a Savior, someone who can make us right with God ("justified", in Pauline language).  This is where Jesus comes in.  Jesus forgives us our sin when we repent AND - as he promised - does not leave us comfortless, but gives us (Jesus and God the Father give us) the Holy Spirit.

 

Perhaps this is a good place for us to remember the wonderful prayer in the baptismal liturgy, when the following prayer is said over the newly baptized:

 

"Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon this your servant the forgiveness of sin, and have raised him/her to the new life of grace.  Sustain her/him, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.  Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.  Amen." (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 308)

 

When you come to faith in Christ and are baptized, you are rescued from this terrible inner conflict that Paul writes about in Romans 7, because you have been raised "to the new life of grace."  I don't mean to suggest that we don't struggle with sin anymore.  Clearly we do.  But we have an ongoing source of help and hope, because we have been given the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us (and lead us back to God when we make a wrong turn).  More than that, we have been transferred into a whole new world.  We need to think of this as if we have moved to a vastly different part of the country or the world, where there is no going back to the old way of life.  What Paul is really contrasting is this:  life without God (without Christ and without the Spirit) and life with God (with Christ and with the Spirit).  The difference is as big as night and day.  Or, to use Paul's language, and Jesus', too, the difference is as big as DEATH and LIFE.

 

You have been transferred into the new realm of grace and abundant life and hope.  You have left behind the old life of sin and death and hopelessness.

 

How has this happened?  Through Christ!  "He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different."  We are free to serve God with all our heart and mind and soul now.  We can overcome the power of sin, because the power of the Spirit working in us is a much greater power.  God has given us help.  We have been rescued from this inner battle.  We have been transferred into the new life of grace.  There is no going back.  Thanks be to God!