Life at PazNaz

Catching Up With Paul’s Argument:

- Problem: Jewish and Gentile believers reconciling together over following Christ and obeying the law (in particular the law of circumcision).

- Chapter 3: Righteousness (setting our relationship right) with God is a free gift given simply out of the loving character of the Father and it does not come through obedience to the law or through the nature of our character.

- Chapter 4: Abraham followed God before being circumcised. Abraham’s faith was demonstrated in his willingness to participate in God’s blessing of all the nations through him. God is reversing the destruction of sin in his creation and Abraham has “joined the revolution” and his faith was credited to him as righteousness.

Grace Abounded All the More (5:18-21)

- The law had a serious problem according to Paul.  The law could point to sin – in fact the law seemed to multiply our trespasses – but it could not change the human heart away from sin.  As the prophets pointed out again and again, what the people needed was not more law but a changed heart.

- For Paul, where this sin abounded, the grace of God abounded all the more.

- Certainly Paul means that the forgiveness and mercy of God was greater than the sum of all of the trespasses, debts, and sins of humankind, but more than that, God’s grace holds within it the potential for transformation.

- The abundance of God’s grace does not only want to pardon us from our connection with Adam but the grace of God offers us Jesus Christ as a new pattern for living and extends to us the mysterious power necessary through the Spirit to draw our essence and character from the pattern he has given us.

Through One Man Death – Through the Other Man Life (5:12-17)

- Having dealt with the faith of Abraham, Paul returns to the nature of sin as he contrasts the old life of brokenness begun with Adam to the possibility of new life through Jesus Christ. Adam represents the interconnectedness of humankind in sin and death.  Theologians often refer to this connection as “original sin.”  As Michael Lodahl writes, “Whether we like it or not, our lives are intertwined in such a way that the sin of one person exercises destructive effects throughout the human race, like the ripples of a pebble thrown into a pond.”

- Paul’s description of Adam and sin is probably dependent upon a form of Greek metaphysics.  Greek philosophers, such as Plato, believed that all things draw their essence or nature from an eternal and unchangeable “form.” 

- We are all the unfortunate and sinful children of Adam, continuing to drawing on the “form” of Adam and thus reproducing the brokenness of his original rebellion in our relationships with God and others. The good news is that God has given humankind a new Adam, a new pattern, a new form from which we can now draw our essence and character. This is part of the reason the early church was so adamant about the full humanity of Jesus Christ.  Jesus took on all that is and was human in order to break the power of sin and death that holds us captive.

- Jesus is the new Adam, the new person who embodies the hope of a new creation.  In Adam we see all God wanted humankind to be and what we have utterly failed to become.  In Jesus Christ we see a complete picture of what God is like, but we also see what, by the power of his grace, we too can become.

God Proves His Love for Us (5:6-11)

- The cross reveals everything that is wrong with humankind. We see in the broken Messiah the embodiment of the violent and rebellious heart of humankind as we continually break relationship with God and with each other.

- Yet, when we look again, we see the grace of God that confronts our evil and transforms it. If there were ever a time when God’s wrath would be justified, it is in the crucifixion of his only Son, and yet what we receive from God is the judgment of grace. When we look at Jesus, the Messiah, we are looking at the one who embodies God’s own love, God’s love-in-action.

The Glory of God in Suffering (5:1-5)

- Paul does not leave his theology at the cross. In Christ salvation is both complete but also in need of completion. For Paul, as we participate in the sufferings of Christ we continue to bring about his reconciliation and salvation.

- Sharing in the sufferings of Christ develops endurance which leads to character, which in turn produces hope – the hope that in suffering God is reconciling all things to himself.

- Sharing in the sufferings of Christ is NOT:

…glorying in our natural sufferings or seeing the pain and suffering of others as something good in itself.

…trying to redeem the world by creating suffering for ourselves and others through conquest.

…trying to please God through self-punishment and intentional suffering.

- Sharing in the sufferings of Christ IS:

…entering into the problems of the world through empathy and identification. It is the willingness to “take up the cross” and work at overcoming evil with good.

- Participating in redemptive suffering is not an easy call for the disciple to fulfill, but participation in Christ’s sufferings produces endurance and endurance produces the character and nature of Christ in us. It is the formation of this new character in broken humankind that produces the hope that all things may be new in the power and love of Jesus Christ.

“Without our suffering our work would be just social work – it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the redemption.”

“Innocent suffering is the same as the suffering of Jesus… It is co-redemption. That is helping to save the world from worse things.”

“We need a pure heart to see the hand of God, to feel the hand of God, to recognize the gift of God in our suffering. He allows us to share in his suffering and to make up for the sins of the world.”

Mother Teresa