罗马书

Meditative Reflection
The New Way of the Spirit

For many years, I have had the privilege to walk alongside Christian men through a 33-week discipleship program.  It was such a joy to see many who did not know too much about the Bible come to love reading it.  But transformation is a long process, especially for some of the men who came to know Christ or began taking seriously their relationship with Christ in the second half of their life.  There are a lot of secular concepts and values that need to be “de-secularized”.  There are also “legalistic” mindsets that need to be brought under grace.

As I was helping some of them work out their own Personal Mission Statement, it was not uncommon to see them adopt the Ten Commandments as their rule of life.  But this is a reflection of their lack of understanding of the “new way of the Spirit” (Rom. 7:6).

Jesus, in His “Sermon on the Mount”, has already pointed out the futility of observing the letter s of the law.  Therefore, it is not only physical adultery that we are to avoid committing, but pure thoughts that we are to maintain.  Reflecting the “fruit” we bear for God comes out of cultivating our love for Him.

Under the old “written code” (Rom. 7:6), we can never bear fruit for God.  If the Ten Commandments become the central rule of our life, we will continue to live as slaves to sin, being condemned by the Commandments.  But if we focus on cultivating a love relationship with God, we allow the Holy Spirit who dwells within us to unleash His power to transform us more and more in the likeness of God.

For that matter, I still do not understand why we need to post the Ten Commandments inside the Court.  The cross is a much better symbol, for the Ten Commandments can neither save nor deter sin.  Only when a person’s life is changed by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ can the fruit of repentance be born for God.

Meditative Reflection
The Good Law Condemns!

As Paul argues about the futility of justification by work (or the law), he is careful not to give the wrong notion that there is something wrong with the law which he maintains as “holy, righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12).  However, many may still find his argument in this respect in Romans 7 rather confusing.

Allow me then to use the analogy I suggested for today’s scripture reflection to see if Paul’s argument can be made clearer.  The analogy is about a speed limit sign (the commandment or law, if you like) of say 15 mph posted on a narrow, winding road full of pot-holes. You are (like me) in a hurry and do not like to be bound by the speed limit, and are traveling at, say 60 mph.  Allow me, then to paraphrase Romans 7:7-13 as follows:

“I would not have known what sin (of speeding) was had it not been for the law (the posted sign).  For I would not have known what speeding really was had the sign not said, 'You shall not drive over 15 mph'.  But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the sign, produced in me every kind of desire to speed.  For apart from the sign, sin was dead.  At one time, I was free to drive however fast I wanted to apart from the sign, but when the sign came, sin sprang to life and I died.  I found that the very sign that was intended to bring life actually brought death.  For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the sign, deceived me (15 mph is ridiculous) and through the sign put me to death.  So then the sign is holy…good…in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good so that through the sign sin might become utterly sinful.”

Meditative Reflection
Make Me a Captive Lord

As we reflect on this great passage in Romans 7:14-25 which depicts the intense struggle against sin in Paul’s life, one with which we all can identify, I invite you to reflect on the lyrics of this great hymn by George Matheson, who was greatly used by the Lord in spite of his total blindness at age 20.

Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.
Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms when by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms, and strong shall be my hand.

My heart is weak and poor until its master find;
It has no spring of action sure, it varies with the wind.
It cannot freely move till Thou has wrought its chain;
Enslave it with Thy matchless love, and deathless it shall reign.

My power is faint and low till I have learned to serve;
It lacks the needed fire to glow, it lacks the breeze to nerve.
It cannot drive the world until itself be driven;
Its flag can only be unfurled when Thou shalt breathe from heaven.

My will is not my own till Thou hast made it Thine;
If it would reach a monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign.
It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife,
When on Thy bosom it has leant, and found in Thee its life.

George Matheson (1842-1906)

Meditative Reflection
Our Mind is the Battle Ground

In urging us to live a life in accordance with or governed by the Holy Spirit, Paul repeatedly refers to our mind in Romans 8:1-11.  In other words, in the struggle against our sinful nature, the battle field is our mind.  As a result, he urges us to have our mind set on what the Spirit desires and not on what the flesh desires.

Likewise, in Colossians 3:2, Paul urges us to set our minds on things above and not earthly things.

In this respect, James Allen’s words are worth quoting:

“Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind and to take root there, produces its own and blossoms sooner or later into action, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance.  Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts, bad fruit.

"The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of one’s thought. Both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual.  As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.


"Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which one allows oneself to be dominated…a person at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment in the outer condition of life.”

Meditative Reflection
More to Justification

If we read the Book of Romans simply as a theological treatise, we can fail to do justice to Paul’s passion for the grace of God in Christ. Additionally,  we may not appropriate the marvelous blessings that we ourselves received by being justified before God through faith in Jesus Christ.

True, Paul has developed his arguments to show the futility of the Jews in relying on the law for salvation ― step by step, with passion and with powerful conviction. However, his ultimate goal is not to win any argument, but to help us to fully appropriate the full blessings in being justified through faith in Jesus Christ.  As a result, he recounts his former life, and his struggle against his flesh in chapter 7.  Leaving these behind, he dwells in excitement and passion in sharing the riches of his (and thus our) life in the Spirit. Then in 8:14-17, he “contradicts” his former claim that we are slaves to righteousness (8:15) and declares that “The Spirit you received does not make you a slave, so that you live in fear again”.

Of course, Paul is not really contradicting himself. Instead, he is describing our new condition in Christ using two different angles.  In Romans 6, he emphasizes the change of our owner. He tells us that once we are justified by faith, we are under new management.  Our master is no longer sin, but Christ.  This master operates under very different principles from our old master.  Our old master, sin, seeks to control us and overpower us.  But our new Master seeks to woo us with His love, so that our obedience to Him is not out of fear, but out of love.  This is the point Paul makes in Romans 8. Here he points out that this new relationship is no longer expressed in terms of master and slave, but Father and son — even Abba and son!

To the Jewish mind, this was most unthinkable, as they had never dared to address God with such intimacy. They certainly would have a hard time imagining that Gentiles could call God their Father, let alone Abba!  But such is the privilege, the unthinkable privilege, of justification by faith in Jesus Christ.  We become brothers and even co-heirs with Christ.

But, as most commentators point out, the most amazing word Paul uses is the word “cry” which is not a word of reasoning, but a word of emotion.  The Holy Spirit who dwells in us enables us to appropriate the love of this new relationship in such a way that causes us to cry, like a little child, imperceptibly “Abba” to God.  When was the last time you were so moved by the love of God that you cried out, imperceptibly, “Abba Father”?

Meditative Reflection
Christ’s Definitive Triumph

I am always leery about those Christians who are so passionate to see justice in the here and now that they often engage in the fight for social justice with bitterness, weariness and bewilderment, forgetting that Christ has once-for-all defeated sin and its power on the cross.  Not that we should not concern ourselves with justice on this earth, but we have to understand that we cannot make it happen. It is still, “not by might, nor by power, but by (His) Spirit” (Zech. 4:6), and that the timing is in His hand.

The following prayer by Father Luis Espinal was written shortly before his assassination on March 22, 1980. I believe it reflects his understanding in this respect:

Glorious Christ (A Prayer of Hope)

There are Christians
Who have hysterical reactions
As if the world had slipped out
of God’s hands.

They are violent
As if they were risking everything.
But we believe in history.
The world is not a roll of the dice on its way toward chaos.

A new world has begun to happen
Since Christ has risen…
Jesus Christ,
We rejoice in your definitive triumph

With our bodies still in the breach,
Our souls in tension;
We cry our first “Hurrah!”
Till eternity unfolds itself.

Your sorrow now has passed.
Your enemies have failed.
You are the definitive smile for humankind.

What matter the wait now for us?
We accept the
struggle and the death,
Because you, our love, will not die!

We march behind you
on the road to the future.
You are with us.
You are our immortality…

Take away the sadness
from our faces;
We are not in a game of chance…
You have the last word!

Beyond the crushing of our bones,
Now has begun the eternal “Alleluia!”
From the thousands of openings
In our wounded bodies and souls,
There now arises a triumphal song!

So teach us to give voice to your new life
throughout the world,
Because you dry the tears
of the oppressed
forever…
And death will disappear

Source:  Courtesy Xavier University
www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource

Meditative Reflection
Who! Who! Who!

I hope by now, as you have followed how Paul has developed his argument step by step, you have discovered that the Book of Romans is far from being dry and monotonous, but powerful and life changing.  Of all the passages that we have studied so far, I cannot help but feel the power of this last section of Romans as Paul shouts out the victory of being justified in Christ, as if from the rooftop.  Allow me to share with you the thoughts of ancient Christians concerning these three marvelous rhetorical questions raised by Paul:


1. If God is for us, who can be against us? (8:31)

“Paul was saying: Let me hear no more about the danger and evil which beset you on all side.  For even if some do not believe in the things to come, still they have not a word to say against the good things which have already taken place, e.g. God’s friendship toward you from the beginning, His justifying work, the glory which he gives and so on.”
(Chrysostom)

“Would God give us the greater thing but not the lesser?  Would He sacrifice His Son but withhold His possessions from us?  Note too that there is one person of the Son. [Theodoret of Cyr had been criticized as 'dividing the One Son of God into two Sons' and so, in his own defense, he emphasizes that there is only 'one person of the Son', not two.] His human nature was given for us by His divinity.”
(Theodoret of Cyr)

2. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? (8:33)

“Paul says that we cannot accuse God, because He justifies us, nor can we condemn Christ, because He loved us to the point of dying for us and rising again to intercede for us with the Father.  Christ’s prayers on our behalf are not to be despised, because He sits at God’s right hand, that is to say, in the place of honor, because He is Himself God. So, let us rejoice in our faith, secure in the knowledge of God the Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ, who will come to judge us…”
(Ambrosiaster)

“The only reason why Paul mentioned intercession was to show the warmth and vigor of God’s love for us, for the Father is also represented as beseeching us to be reconciled to Him.”
(Chrysostom)

3. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? (8:35)

“Paul says that he is sure, not merely that he is of the opinion…that neither death nor the promise of temporal life nor any of the other things he lists can separate the believer from God’s love.  No one can separate the believer from God; not someone who threaten deaths, because he who believes in Christ shall live even if he dies, not someone who offers earthly life, because Christ gives us eternal life.” (Augustine)

“Spiritual souls are not separated from Christ by torments, but carnal souls are sometimes separated by idle gossip.  The cruel sword cannot separate the former, but carnal affections remove the latter.  Nothing hard breaks down spiritual men, but even flattering words corrupt the carnal.”
(Caesarius of Arles)