flesh and spirit in romans,and beyond (7)

Rom 7:1-6 (ESV)
Or do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to those who know the law-that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.  Likewise, my brothers, 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, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 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.

Rom 8:9 (ESV)
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

For Paul, Christian living is, purely and simply, life in the Spirit.

In previous blogs on this topic we noted that while, for Paul, ‘flesh’ is an anthropological term (describing humanity in its creaturely weakness) it is also and primarily an eschatological term (describing humanity not only as a created and weak but belonging to a creation that is fallen and passing). For Paul, ‘flesh’ describes humanity and life in the old world while ‘Spirit’ describes life in the new.  Christians are eschatological people.  That is, they are people of the future.  They  do not belong to the world that is present, polluted and passing but to the world that is prospective, perfect, and permanent.  They are the people of the World to Come.

If we fail to grasp this eschatological perspective in Paul we miss the heart of what it is to be a Christian. A Christian is not merely someone who has a faith in the true God.  He is not simply someone who follows Jesus rather than Buddha.  He (she) is not even simply someone who knows Jesus died to bear his sins and finds forgiveness in trusting him.   A Christian is an alien from another world.  He is a visitor from the future – a future world beyond this world created by the Spirit of God from the death of the old.

The age or world to come will be physical but it will bring physicality to a new reality that can be truly described as ‘spiritual’ for God’s presence will be present in power and glory by his Spirit it as never before.  Thus God’s people live in this old and passing world of flesh-people as people of the new and coming world, Spirit-people.  This eschatological perspective shapes and informs profoundly what it means to be a Christian, or better what it means to belong to the church, God’s community of the Spirit.

Gordon Fee in his encyclopaedic study of the Holy Spirit in the writing of Paul, ‘God’s Empowering Presence’ expresses the above well when he writes,

Probably the one feature that distances the NT church the most from its contemporary counterparts is its thoroughly eschatological perspective of all of life.  In contrast to most of us, eschatology – a unique understanding of the time of the End – conditioned the early believers’ existence in every way.  The first clue to this outlook came from Jesus’ own proclamation of the kingdom – as a present reality in his ministry, although still a future event.  But it was the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the promised (eschatological) Spirit that completely altered the primitive church’s perspective, both about Jesus and about themselves.  In place of the totally future eschatology of their Jewish roots, with its hope of a coming Messiah and the resurrection of the dead, the early church recognized that the future had already been set in motion.  The resurrection of Christ marked the beginning of the End, the turning of the ages.  However, the End had only begun; they still awaited the final event, the (now second) coming of their Messiah Jesus at which time they too would experience the resurrection/transformation of the body.  They lived “between the times”: already the future had begun, not yet had it been consummated.  From the NT perspective the whole of Christian existence – and theology – has this eschatological “tension” as its basic framework…

This is the perspective of Romans and indeed Scripture.  The gospel is the good news that through faith we are rescued and delivered from the old age of flesh, sin and death (subject to law and under wrath) and translated by grace through the death and resurrection of Christ into the new age of the Spirit and so of  life and righteousness.

If we are to think and talk about what it means to be a Christian we must speak a great deal of ‘life in the Spirit’ for this is what the Christian life in fact is.

In future blogs I hope to explore this further.

flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (5)

If you look at the preceeding blogs on this topic you will be better placed to grapple with the issues in this one.  The fundamental point made is that Christians ought to view themselves not as ‘in the flesh’ but as ‘in the Spirit’.  This is a biblical distinction between two realms or two worlds.  According to the Bible, the Christian belongs to the world or realm of the Spirit and not that of the flesh (Roms 8:1-16).  This, we should note, is not a distinction between a material world and a non-material world – a Gnostic and Greek distinction and not a biblical one.  The World to Come to which believers now belong will be a material world.  Jesus in resurrection had a material body.  It was composed of flesh and bones.  But it was a resurrection body, energized and enlivened by the Spirit, and not what the Bible calls a ‘natural’ body. In a fundamental way Christ’s resurrection put him beyond what the Bible calls ‘the days of his flesh’ (Hebs 5:7).  In his death, he died to life in the old world forever.  He now lives as the First of a new creation spiritually sustained (Roms 1:3,4).  He was put to death in the flesh but lives in the Spirit (1 Pet 3:18).  In fact, the very forces in the flesh to which Christ subjected himself, he now rules (1 Pet 3:21, 22; Eph 1:21, 22; Col 2:10).

We too have died to life in the flesh, in him.  We are to consider ourselves as dead to all that belonged to that old world (removed from its claims, authorities and powers) and alive to God (1 Pet 4:6).   In the last blog we noted we are to consider ourselves, in Christ, dead to sin but alive to God. (Roms 6:1-14).  In Christ, and the resurrection life that is ours in him, the authorities and powers to which we were once subject in the flesh no longer have authority, in fact they become our servants.  Thus Paul can say, ‘All things are yours… and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (1 Cor 3:21,22).

freedom from the law

Most Christians (perhaps especially many in avowedly Reformed churches) grasp what Paul is saying in Roms 6.  They understand they are no longer slaves of sin (though they are often unclear as to why).  They find it much harder to accept the teaching of Roms 7.  For if Roms 6 teaches us that through our death in Christ we are freed from the rule of sin, then Roms 7 teaches us that for the same reason, our death in Christ, we are free from the rule of law.  The Law, that is the Mosaic Law, has no rights, no claim in any shape or form on the Christian.  A contention Paul bases on a premise stated in the opening verse of the chapter.

Rom 7:1 (ESV)
Or do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to those who know the law-that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

Paul takes it as axiomatic, as self-evident to any who understand the law, that it (Mosaic or indeed any other) has authority over a person only as long as he lives.  When we die the voice of law is silenced.  You cannot tell a dead man to love the Lord his God.  You cannot tell a corpse he must not commit adultery or steal or covet.  The very notion is nonsense.  The dead person is beyond the claims and rules of the law. And of course Paul’s point is simple; having died with/in Christ believers are in precisely this position.  The Law has no jurisdiction over them.  Let me put it bluntly, you cannot tell a Christian he must keep the Ten Commandments for he is no longer alive in the world where these are authoritative.

Now to many such a statement is horrifying, even heretical.  It seems antinomian.  It seems a licence to sin.  Well of course, antinomianism was precisely the charge brought against Paul’s gospel (Roms 3:7,8; 6:1).  The immediate instinct of the flesh is to look for rules.  And so some say, well while the law cannot justify us, nor perhaps has the power to sanctify us, nevertheless it remains an authority in the life of the believer as a ‘rule of life’.  We must live by its commands.  I have already addressed some of these issues in a previous blog and don’t intend to go over them here.  See the previous blog for its points are pertinent.

However, two points at least must be made.

Firstly,  it is not I who asserts the law has no commanding authority over the believer; it is Scripture.  Those who wish to impose the law in some way on believers must by-pass Romans and Galatians (and of course some try to do just this). They must relativize what the Scripture teaches as absolute, namely, that the believer has died to the law.  Romans 7 has been a battle ground for centuries.  Christians argue over what it teaches, especially who Paul refers to in the later part of the chapter.  However, it is clear that whoever Paul may be describing in the latter part of the chapter and whatever the details of the main body of the chapter teach, the opening section of the chapter is fairly plain and relatively uncontested.  Indeed it is a summary statement of Paul’s is teaching regarding the believer and the law and the rest of the chapter is simply an exposition of it.  If we can grasp the meaning of the opening section 7;1-6 then it is the key to interpreting the whole.

What is Paul’s opening statement?  We read:

Rom 7:1-6 (ESV)
Or do you not know, brothers-for I am speaking to those who know the law-that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.  Likewise, my brothers, 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, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 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.

Paul’s point is plain.  Marriage is a contract (a covenant!) broken only by death.  In the death of the believer with Christ his contractual obligations to the law finished and so he is freed to enter a new marriage (covenant!) and submit to a new husband (authority!).  We cannot submit to the law and Christ.  We can be obligated to one or the other but not both.  Thus Christians (especially Jewish Christians) must understand that they were not obligated to the demands of the Mosaic Covenant; they were now married to Christ. We are ‘released’ from the law, not in part, but completely.  Nothing could be plainer.

Why are so many, especially reformed Christians, afraid of this?  Well, as I have said above, they are afraid it will lead to licence to sin.  It is ironic, for exactly the opposite is the case. And this brings us to the second point which is: only when we are free from the law and find life in Christ alone do we actually produce fruit for God. Christ is not only the basis of our righteousness (justification) and the strength for righteousness (sanctification) but he is also the measure of righteousness.  If we want to see what a godly life looks like we find it in the gospel of Christ – in all that is involved in his life, death and resurrection.

What we are in Christ is our rule of life.  Not the law.  This is precisely Paul’s point in Galatians 6.  In a book where Paul has been strenuously combatting all ideas of the Law having claims of any kind on believers he says:

Gal 6:14-16 (ESV)
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

What rule?  The rule of the law?  No, the rule of living as someone who is dead, who is crucified with Christ and is a new creation.  Weigh Paul’s words well.  Weigh well too the argument of the book in which they are found.  Is Paul antinomian?  Is the gospel of new creation antinomian?  Is it indifferent to sin?  Of course not.  Perish the thought.  It is only the gospel that can deal with sin and only the gospel that can produce holiness.  Thus again and again when exhorting to holy Christian living Paul’s reference point is not the Law but the grace of God in the gospel.  Paul lays it out clearly to Titus:

Titus 2:11-14 (ESV)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

It is the gospel that trains in righteousness and not the Law.  I wrote an article some time ago that is really just a scout through the NT showing how text after text takes us to the gospel as our impetus and paradigm for holiness.  It can be found here.  The evidence to my mind is compelling, indeed incontrovertible.  Rarely do the writers of the epistles cite the Ten Commandments (only a part of the law I know, but the part many wish to insist is authoritative) in the context of holy living, and when they do, as an example and never as an authority in the life of the Christian.

does it matter?

Is this issue no more than a fight over words?  No it’s not.  It is important for it affects profoundly how we think of ourselves as Christians and so how we live as Christians. Below are some examples.

• Living by a ‘rule’ mentality is sub-Christian.  We give children a list of rules not adults.  Adults have maturity and are act appropriately not because of imposed rules but because they have character, insight and wisdom.  This is precisely Paul’s point in Gals 3:23-4:6.  Christians who live with a ‘rule’ mentality are likely to remain immature in faith.
• A ‘law’ mentality keeps a distance between us and God.  Those who think about living by the moral law have not fully grasped what it means to have God as Father.  ‘Law’ implies a Judge.  Judges make laws.  Kings make laws, not fathers.  Again this is Paul’s reasoning in Galatians 3:23-4:6.  A Father/Son relationship is not built upon laws to be obeyed but upon, ‘I delight to do your will’ and ‘all that the Father has given me to do will I not do’.  It is not a question of ‘laws’ or ‘law’ but doing the will of the Father.  It is a relationship based on reciprocated love not a legal obedience.  Language such as ‘living by the moral law or Ten Commandments’ undercuts this relationship.  It introduces fear where fear should be absent (1 Jn 4:18)
• An example of the above is the often repeated claim that when we sin as Christians the law is God’s instrument to accuse us so that we flee back to Christ.  But is this true Christian reasoning?  When we sin, is God’s method to send in the law as a ‘heavy’ to bring us back into line?  Is he really standing ready to ‘accuse’ us when we fail?  The whole point of Roms 5-8 is to refute such thinking.  The argument of these chapters is that God does not ‘accuse us’.  He justifies us.  Who then accuses us (Roms 8).  It is true that when we sin the Spirit comes and prompts us and convicts us.  He may do so from the Word or apart from the Word.   But while he convicts he does not accuse.  There is something legal (the law) and even antagonistic (Satan) in accusation.  Fathers’ chide, discipline, teach, train etc but they do not accuse.  Again, ‘accusation’ is language and concept that puts us on sub-Christian ground.  Moreover yet again the assumption is that the law can do what the gospel cannot.  It is the gospel that convicts us of sin and not the Law.  Paul’s fundamental argument against sinning is not that sin for a believer is wrong because the law forbids it but incongruous because it is opposed to the gospel.  How can we who have died to sin live any longer therein? (Roms 6).
• We may well ask too, in connection with the above point, are we really saying that the Law is more powerful than the gospel to create conviction of sin?  Are we saying that where the gospel has failed (to produce conviction and repentance) the law will succeed?  Is the shadow stronger than the reality?  Surely not.  If a ‘believer’ wilfully resists the gospel and acts rebelliously then the law is no help.  In Hebrews, the writer’s conclusion is that if they resist and reject the word of salvation in Christ then there is no further hope.  It is impossible to renew unto repentance those who reject the gospel (Hebs 6:6).
• Law is a poor teacher in holiness because it tells us more about what we ought not to do than what we ought to do.  Further, it provides us with a standard but no example.  One more reason why the NT focus in holiness is Christ.  To quote but one example: ‘By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.’ (1 Jn 2:5,6).  I also doubt if the standard of righteousness the Law requires is as high as the life that the gospel displays.  Did the Law demand that we go the second mile?  Did the Law command us to love our enemies?   Did the Law command that we forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us?  Does the law demand that we lay down our lives for our brothers?

The fact is, the Law was given to man in the flesh (Roms 7:5: Gals 3:3).  It assumes unregeneracy (this do and you shall live).  It is not for those in the Spirit who relate to God on a completely different level than Law.  They belong to a realm or world where Law has no claim, no jurisdiction, no accusatory rights, no voice.  To grasp this is vital if we are to live with a proper gospel perspective on our relationship to God.  Paul says:

Gal 5:1 (ESV)
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (the yoke he refers to is the law)

and again

Gal 5:13-14 (ESV)
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

and again

Gal 5:16 (ESV)
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

and again

Gal 6:14-16 (ESV)
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

This blog does not address all the issues of this topic.  By no means.  However, I hope what has been said helps to give us a clearer biblical focus.  Far too often thinking on this issue echoes confessions rather than Scripture.

flesh and spirit in Romans, and beyond (2)

This is the second in a short series of blogs reflecting on the ‘flesh/Spirit’ contrast that controls Romans and beyond.  In a previous blog we observed that this contrast is not metaphysical, a God/Man divide nor anthropological, a Body/Soul divide but chronological and eschatological, a divide of two Realms and Eras.

The gospel is about transformation.  It involves the ethical transformation of sinners but it is so much more.  It at heart a radical transformation between two different worlds, two different realms, two realities.  It takes people who belong to the realm and reality of ‘the flesh’, and translates them into the realm and reality of ‘the Spirit’.  Indeed it is not simply transformation, but translation.  It is a change so fundamental and far-reaching that Paul is able to say of it, ‘…  the old things have passed away; look all things have become new.’

While this is a transformation that takes place in God’s people, it first takes place in Christ.  In his transformation, the transformation of God’s people and indeed creation itself is realised.   The history of Christ involves transformation.  It translates him by a means no less radical than death and resurrection from life in ‘flesh’ to life in ‘Spirit’.  Romans 1:3,4 and  records this transformation or translation.

Rom 1:1-4 (ESV)
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

However, Romans does not stand alone, other Scriptures also record this fundamental change of realm- reality in the history of Christ.

1Tim 3:16 (ESV)
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

2Cor 13:4 (ESV)
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.

1Pet 3:18 (ESV)
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

The 1 Timothy passage probably notes this realm-divide in three vivid contrasts.

Humiliation                                                        Glorification

manifested in flesh                                                 vindicated in Spirit

seen by angels                                                       preached among the nations

believed on in the world                                           taken into glory

Scripture is consistent and clear, Christ ‘in the flesh’, metamorphs via death and resurrection to a new existential reality, ‘Christ in the Spirit’.  It is a transformation involving both continuity and discontinuity.  A previous blog considered what it meant for Christ to live ‘according to the flesh’: this blog explores what it means for Christ to live ‘according to the Spirit’.

Christ in the Spirit

If, as we noticed in a previous blog,  ‘flesh’ describes humanity in the weakness and impermanence (and in our case rebellion) of the old creation, then ‘Spirit’ describes humanity in the power and vitality of the new creation.  Christ is the bridge between these two worlds.  He became one with us in the realm of ‘flesh’ to the point ultimately of being identified with our sin in his ‘flesh’ on the cross that he may in his death end the old reality of ‘flesh’ (which due to sin had written over it the sentence of death) and in his resurrection birth a new realm, a realm of ‘ the Spirit’, so radical that elsewhere Scripture refers to it as ‘new creation’ (2 Cor 5:17).  Indeed so, important is this new realm of existence that Paul says it is the one we should primarily have in mind when we think of who we are as Christians and who Christ is.

2Cor 5:14-17 (ESV)
… one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Jesus, while on earth, impressed this new relationship upon Mary Magdalene consequent to his resurrection.  She would have clung to him ‘after the flesh’ but he wishes her to now know him ‘after the Spirit’ .  The eschatological age of the Spirit, the End Time Salvation, which the OT regularly anticipated, arrived in fulness not in the earthly Christ but the heavenly one, the risen and reigning Christ, this Mary must realise and it is this Christ to whom she must now relate  (Jn 20. Read previous blog).   Of course, in one sense the Eschaton arrived with Christ ‘in the flesh’ for even then he was God’s Servant-Son endowed with and energized by the Spirit.  Yet, in resurrection, this Spirit-Sonship entered a new phase, a new dimension, for in resurrection he is ‘designated the Son of God with power by the Spirit of holiness‘ (Roms 1:3,4).  The emphasis is on the recognition, power and authority that becomes Christ’s in a new way in resurrection.

Christ in the Spirit is recognised for who he is.  He is vindicated (1 Tim 3:16).  While on earth Christ was never properly recognised and vindicated.  The voice of God was heard from heaven by a few.  His manner, message and miracles pointed to the unique glory of his person, yet he was crucified as an imposter, a misguided Messiah.  He was crowned with thorns in mock parody of his  rightful crown as King.  It is not ‘in flesh’ he is vindicated but ‘in Spirit’ in resurrection.  He is ‘designated [appointed] son of God in power by the Spirit of holinesss by his resurrection from the dead‘ (Roms 1:4). God exalted him when men did not.  God enthroned him when men refused.  God declared him righteous and worthy of life when men declared him a sinner and worthy only of death.  When he is raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit it is his vindication as righteous.  And his vindication, his being raised to glory, is proclaimed to all the nations (1 Tim 3:16).  The apostolic message to the nations was and is,

Acts 17:30-31 (ESV)
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Whether to gentile or Jew, the apostolic message is of a risen and reigning Christ – ‘this Jesus whom you crucified has become both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:36).  Christ, in the Spirit, is established as God’s King.  He is exalted at the right hand of the God (Acts 2:33), the Majesty on high  (Hebs 1), given a name that is above every name (Phils 2), declared to be ‘Lord’ (Phils 2:9), and God’s anointed King-Son (Hebs 1; Ps 2), to whom every knee must bow (Phils 2:10) and whose enemies will become the footstool of his feet (Hebs 1:13).  For Christ, the new realm is one of reigning and ruling.  It is a realm where ‘all authority is given to him‘ (Matt 28).  Thus it is a realm of power, power which he wields on behalf of his people (Eph 1:19-22).

Christ in the Spirit lives in the sphere of life.  Of course, while alive on earth, he had ‘life in himself‘.  Yet he had a human body that could die.  It subjected himself to the limitations of ‘flesh’.  Resurrection materially changed all this.  He entered as mediator a new realm of ‘life’.  While he is still physical, with a human body (Lk 24:39), its composition is different (cf 1 Cor 15:39).  We can do no better than use the language of Scripture to describe this new life.  Hebrews tells us he now lives  in the ‘power of an indestructible life‘ (Hebs 7:16).  He is no longer able to die.  He died to sin once for all while in the flesh but now he lives to God and death has no hold on him; he will never die again (Roms 6:8-10).  The reasoning of Roms 6 is simple: Christ lives in a new realm where these old malevolent powers of sin and death have no power.  He is in heaven, no longer facing testings and temptations.  He no longer inhabits this polluted world but lives continuously in the presence of God  ‘holy, harmless and undefiled, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens’ (Hebs 7:26).  Thus, he is not a priest in weakness, distracted by the difficulties of life in a fallen world, but a priest ever living making undistracted intercession (Hebs 7).  His is not a body of humiliation, weak and susceptible,  but a ‘body of glory‘ (Phils 3:21).  He exists no longer in weakness but power (2 Cor 13:14; Cf. 1 Cor 15:42).

Christ once lived in the old age with its powers and conquered and overthrew them.  He is now ‘perfected‘, and perfected ‘forever‘ (Hebs 7:28).  However, Christ’s victory in the old world and the consequence of it, life in the new world of the Spirit, was not for him alone.  It was for us.  He was the seed that must die to bear much fruit (Jn 12:24).  He became ‘flesh’ that he might deliver us, through the death of flesh, from the realm of ‘flesh’ and bring us with him into the realm of ‘Spirit’, to what Paul calls, the ‘glorious freedom of sons of God‘ (Roms 8:21).  He is, in resurrection, ‘the beginning, God’s firstborn from among the dead’ (Col 1:18).

Herman Ridderbos, in his, ‘Paul: an Outline of his Theology’, writes,

“As the Firstborn among the many … Christ not only occupies a
special place and dignity, but he also goes before them, he opens up the way for them,
he joins their future to his own. … In him the resurrection of the dead dawns, his
resurrection represents the commencement of the new world of God.”

To begin to grasp the implications of this is to begin to grasp the gospel; we begin to grasp the implications of this Easter Sunday. In the words of N T Wright,

“With Easter, God’s new creation is launched upon a surprised world, pointing ahead to the renewal, the redemption, the rebirth of the entire creation.”

In future blogs we will examine what it means for Christians to be no longer  in ‘the flesh’ but in ‘the Spirit’.

flesh and spirit in romans, and beyond (1)

We cannot properly understand Romans until we learn  it describes two realms of existence.  In fact, the Christian gospel, which is of course the theme of Romans, has not been truly grasped until it is seen as the story of two distinct and deeply different worlds.

Different images are used in the Bible to describe this distinction: nature and grace; natural and spiritual; old man and new man; Adam and Christ; ‘in Adam’ and ‘in Christ’; and especially, creation and new creation.  Romans does not use the more absolute and dramatic language of ‘new creation’ (Gals 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17) but does develop another way of saying pretty much the same; it speaks of  ‘flesh’ and ‘Spirit’.  This distinction is first mooted in the opening verses of the book.

Rom 1:1-4 (ESV)
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

This text is clearly significant.  Paul signals, right at the outset of Romans, in this compressed summary of the gospel, that it centres on Christ and his two stages of humanity, flesh and Spirit.  By ‘flesh’ and ‘Spirit’, Paul is is not referring to Christ as he is essentially, that is, in his hypostatic union of humanity and deity, nor is he referring to Christ anthropologically, that is, psychosomatically, in his human composition as body and soul, rather he is referring to Christ redemptive-historically, that is, in his two spheres of existence as incarnate ‘Messianic-Son’, namely, his humiliation and exaltation; before resurrection, Christ is Son ‘according to the flesh‘ and upon resurrection, he is Son ‘according to the Spirit‘.

If we are to make any sense of the flesh/Spirit divide so important to Paul (and other NT writers) we must first consider it as Romans does, that is, Christologically, in terms of  Jesus.

Christ ‘in the flesh’

In doing so, however, a complication must be addressed.  For the distinction between old creation and new creation that applies to us does not apply in direct parallel with Christ. The parallel exists, but only with qualifications and contrast (rather like Roms 5:12-21).

• Firstly, in one profoundly important sense, Christ was from incarnation ‘new creation’.  He was always, not ‘Adam’ but ‘Christ’ (Roms 5), not ‘the First Man’ but ‘the Second Man’ (1 Cor 15:47).
• Secondly, although he came as the First of a New Creation he was also truly ‘ in the flesh’ (Jn 1:4; 6:51; Roms 8:3; 9:5; 2 Cor 5;16; Col 1:22; Hebs 2:14; 5:7; 10:20; 1 Pet 3:18; 1 Jn 4:2).  In a very real sense he was our ‘flesh and blood’.
• Thirdly, he was not ‘flesh’ in precisely the way we are.

‘Flesh’ in Scripture can convey a number of ideas.  Two are especially important.  One conveys the idea simply of being part of the first creation even in its primal state.  Animal and human life is simply ‘flesh’ (Gen 2:21; 1 Cor 15:39).  In this sense it conveys the weakness and frailty of humanity, whether living in Eden or beyond Eden (Ps 78:39; Roms 6:19).  However, ‘flesh’ often conveys the idea of fallen and rebellious humanity, humanity in opposition to God and under the power of sin, Satan, and death.  Christ became ‘flesh’ in the first sense but not in the second sense (though, as we shall, see even here some qualifications must be made).

Thus, although Christ is from incarnation God’s new creation humanity, ‘The Second Man, the Lord from Heaven’, yet he entered truly into our first creation humanity.  Scripture establishes this in a number of ways.  He is,  ‘the seed of the woman‘ (Gen 3:15) who ‘takes hold of the seed of Abraham‘ (Hebs 4:16), and is ‘born of a woman‘ and ‘under the Law‘ (Gals 4:4).  Significantly, we discover in each text cited he embraces our humanity that he may save humanity.  He became ‘the seed of the woman‘ that he may ‘bruise the head of the serpent’, that is, that he may overthrow Satan (Gen 3:15).  He lays ‘hold of the seed of Abraham’ for the same reason.

Heb 2:14-17 (ESV)
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

He must identify with us if he is to deliver us.  And so he was born of a woman and under the Law to ‘redeem those who were under the law and all their lives subject to bondage’ (Gals 4:4,5). Scripture therefore takes great care to affirm that he was really part of our humanity – his body would weary, his mind tire and be troubled, and his emotions be in turmoil.  He even subjected himself  in some ways to the powers and authorities that rule ‘flesh’ – he lived in a world where the power of Satan, sin, death, and Law were active all around.  In various ways these impinged on him  – in temptation, weariness, opposition,  suffering, submission as a Jew to the Law, and finally submission to sin and death in the sense that he became sin and entered death (Roms 6:9,10; 2 Cor 5:21).   Yet, he was himself ‘without sin‘ (Hebs 4;14) and ‘knew no sin‘ (2 Cor 5:21).  Romans 8 sums up the ambiguity of the mediator’s ‘flesh’ well

Rom 8:3 (ESV)
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. (Cf Phil 2:7,8)

Notice again, his identification with us in ‘flesh’ is redemptive in aim.  Christ came in flesh, yet not sinful flesh, that in flesh, his crucified flesh, ”sin in the flesh’, may be condemned and die.  This is the profound mystery of the incarnation.  God’s Son, Israel’s  promised ‘seed of David’, the Mighty Warrior-King destined to destroy God’s and his people’s enemies came in flesh.  Yet the enemies he must destroy were far greater than Israel ever imagined; the greatest enemy was not outside the people, it was inside the people, it was the people itself.

‘Flesh’ itself, was the enemy that must be eliminated, the rebel that must be executed.  ‘Flesh’ must die for only in its death and the death of the old order of which it was an integral part was salvation possible.  And in Christ, that is precisely what happened.  He became real flesh, the only righteous flesh, that he may in death represent flesh, rebellious flesh, and so revoke flesh.  In his death the history of ‘flesh’ is finished.  But it is finished that a better humanity, a better life, and a better world may be born.  A world, humanity and life existing not in the weak realm of ‘flesh’ but in the powerful realm of ‘Spirit’.  Romans 1:3,4 is compressed further and echoed in the words of 2 Corinthians and of 1 Peter

2Cor 13:4 (ESV)
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.

1Pet 3:18 (ESV)
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.

Death is the transition of Christ from humiliation to exaltation, from flesh to Spirit, from weakness to power.  The two biblical realms of existence, ‘flesh’ and ‘Spirit’ find their bridge in Christ.  In flesh, incarnation, he came down to where we are in our weakness and death; in Spirit, resurrection and exaltation, he raises us to where he is in power and life.

And that is the subject of the next blog on this topic.

what was wrong with C1 judaism?

What was wrong with C1 Judaism? Was anything wrong? There must have been something wrong since Israel rejected her Messiah.

About what was wrong, scholars are divided. Surprise, surprise! The traditional answer (the old perspective) is Judaism was legalistic; it taught salvation by works. The modern answer ( the new perspective) is it was nationalistic; it saw salvation in Jewish ethnicity.

We should be grateful for scholarly research but never in thrall to it. The final and certain resource for a Christian is Scripture. There we find, surprise, surprise, that both legalism and nationalism blinded C1 Judaism.

John the Baptist warns the religious leaders not to trust in their ethnicity (…do not say, we have Abraham as our father Matt 3;9) and Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and Publican against the Pharisees (who trusted in themselves that they were righteous Lk 18:9-14).

They did not grasp that ‘not all Israel are of Israel’. Nor did they realise that Law was a covenant of works that condemned rather than justified.

They had a false confidence in both their lineage and their law. Tragically, because of this, they failed to recognise their Lord.

boasting excluded

Theologians spill a lot of ink (or hit a lot of binary codes) telling us about God’s Covenant of Works with Adam.  What they don’t know about this covenant (if such a covenant existed) they are not slow to make up.  Whole books are written about a Covenant that Scripture never directly calls a covenant (with the possible exception of Hosea 6:7) and whole theologies are built on the idea.  We are told, for example, that Adam was placed by God in the Garden in a probationary covenant of works.  If he remained true to God and obeyed all his commands (or laws) then in time God would reward him with eternal life or what we may call glorification.  Well there is not a word in Scripture to back up this previous sentence and much to refute it (1 Cor 15:45).

In refuting it, we could look at the so-called probationary works Adam had to do.  We could note there is no mention of Adam being tested by a series of God-given laws.  In fact the narrative is making precisely the opposite case.  There is in the garden but one law.  It is not even a law demanding what he must do, but what he must not do.  The narrative purpose is to show both God’s generosity to Adam and the undemanding nature of the test .  Some point to God’s instruction to tend the garden and procreate as further commands.  However, this is to mistake the narrative intent.  Only one law was given with a sanction.  The NT makes this clear (Roms 5:12-21).

We could also note that Adam is not promised life if he keeps this law, what he is promised is death should he break the law.  Adam had ‘life’.  Now, I acknowledge, this was not ‘new creation life’ as in the gospel; Adam was not immortal (he could die).  Yet he had access to the tree of life and had no need to die.  What is completely absent is any hint that in some way through time Adam could work his way from creation life to eternal life  through obedience.

However, the real nail in the coffin of any dogma suggesting eternal life can be  ‘earned’  by our works is Romans 4:1,2.

Rom 4:1-5 (ESV)
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness

In Ch 3 Paul taught that none are justified before God by seeking to live a good life.  For some the question immediately rises, what about Abraham?  C1 Jews believed Abraham was justified by works.  Moo comments,

‘The question of Abraham being justified by works is no idle one… the Jewish interpretation of Abraham stressed his works, the essence of his piety, and the basis for his extraordinary exemplary relationship to God.’

But Paul will have none of works-based righteousness.  Why?  Because works-based righteousness, whether Abraham’s, Adam’s, Israel’s, yours or mine gives us a reason to boast before God and, for Paul, such boasting is inconceivable.  That is what he means when he says, ‘if Abraham has been justified on the principle of works, he has something to boast about, but not before God’.  For Paul, the idea that a person may have anything to boast about before God is blasphemous. God will allow no flesh to boast in his presence (1 Cor 1:29).   This principle is trans-historical, that is, it applies to every era of human history.

Paul demonstrates that Abraham’s righteousness was not,  as Judaism taught, a works-righteousness but the righteousness of faith; quoting Genesis 15 he says, ‘ Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’. Significantly, this first reference to faith in Scripture (though not the first instance of faith) is in the context of justification.  If Abraham is righteous then it is God’s doing not Abraham’s.  Scripture is emphatically monergistic.  All that is good is God’s gracious doing; no man is justified on the principle of works, lest he should boast (Eph 2:8).

Now to him that works the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but of debt: but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.

Life, whether natural or eternal, is always a gift from God.  God’s grace alone must reign.  There is no ‘earning’ a reward with God, not ever.  All ‘rewards’ are a gift of grace, before or after the fall.   Yes, Abraham was a person of exemplary character.  Abraham was not under the Mosaic Law, however, Moses speaks as though he were, to emphasize the godly character of Abraham.

Gen 26:2-5 (ESV)
And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

At first blush we may think God’s reward to Abraham is after all based on Abraham’s efforts.  That is the mistake C1 Judaism made.  But it is not.  Abraham was justified years previously on the basis of  faith (Gen 15:6).  His ensuing obedience, which God acknowledges and rewards in the above text, is the activity of God’s grace in Abraham’s life. Thus God’s promised reward to Abraham in Gen 26 is not a reward for work, his wage or due,  but the ‘reward of grace’.  God works righteousness in Abraham but rewards Abraham as if Abraham had achieved it.  And so we see Abraham’s justification and every other blessing he received beside was his because he believed in him, ‘who justifies the ungodly‘.

Let me repeat, no-one earns the righteousness of eternal life by works, whether Adam, Abraham, Israel, you or me.  God  alone justifies, and so justification is by faith so that all  boasting is excluded (Roms 3:27).  Let him who boasts boast only in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).

NB I intend over the following months, God willing, to blog occasionally about various aspects of   Justification  interacting, as I do so ,with some aspects of current debate on these topics.

the end of the law

I am reading Jason Meyer’s study of the Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology, ‘The End of the Law’.  It is proving an accessible read. It is not coming from confessional stands but seeks to explore its topic from inductive consideration of key texts and concepts.  This biblical theology approach helps to open up fresh avenues of thought while its conclusions are sane and biblical.  I recommend the book thoroughly.  Below is a quotation from it that is surely true and we do well to remember when a) we think we have Paul sussed b) we think Paul is self-contradictory.

We may compare Paul’s epistles to an iceberg, with the main body below the surface. They do not express theoretical theology, but pastoral theology as addressed to specific congregations facing specific problems. Any given passage may only reveal the ‘tip’ of the iceberg, which is built on a much larger structure that is sometimes left unsaid.  On occasion, Paul will reveal more foundational aspects of the larger structure of his thought in order to support his positions.

We should remember too, that the underlying ‘iceberg’ is not simply Paul’s inventive mind working out a theology but that his gospel (his theology) he received by direct revelation from the risen Lord Jesus Christ (Gals 1:12; Eph 3:3).  Paul was a man ‘caught up into the third heaven’ and given revelations and visions about which he could not even speak.

When we read Paul, we may not diss his teaching because we do not understand it, find it difficult to systematize, or disagree with it.  We may not do so for when we read him we are reading  an authoritative revelation from God.  Let Paul’s words judge us, God forbid we should judge Paul’s words.