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.

- Chapter 5: God’s grace is greater than the power of sin. A new pattern of life has been established in Jesus that we can draw on – particularly as we participate in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

- Chapter 6: The resurrection of Jesus has ushered in a new opportunity for life. He put to death the dominion of sin and makes it possible for us to be transformed by his grace. We were once slaves to sin, but through baptism, we have been set free and are now the people of God. We should no longer present our bodies to sin as master, but we must now present the members of our body to God for his service and purposes in the world (sanctification).

- Chapter 7: Continuing to live by the law is to continue on in the flesh. To live by the flesh only leads to failure. Only the Spirit of Christ can set us free from life in the flesh.

People of the Spirit (8:9-11)

- For Paul, when God raised Jesus from the dead, he raised the Messiah, the one who represents his people, and who therefore guarantees to that people that what happened to the Messiah will happen to them as well.

- When Paul talks about the body being dead he seems to be implying that what he earlier termed the “flesh” or the dominion of the flesh – a life serving the desires of sin – has been put to death. We are no longer under the dominion of sin. Life in the Spirit, however, is a life filled with the power, love, and presence of Christ.

- In Jewish thought, the living God who was over and above his creation was also mysteriously present within creation. Paul inherited a rich tradition of ways to refer to this presence: God’s wisdom, God’s spirit, God’s glory (particularly as it dwells in the Temple), God’s word, and of course God’s law.

- Therefore, if the presence of Jesus the Messiah dwells in us we are free to give our bodies over to the dominion of grace (transforming grace). This is what Paul means when he says that our bodies are on the one hand dead – they are no longer put to use obeying sin as master – but are on the other hand made alive or reanimated by the Spirit of God that dwells within us and puts the members of our body to work for his purposes (sanctification).

Adopted Children (8:12-17)

- We are now no longer in debt to the flesh; it has done us no favors, and we owe it nothing in return. If we continue to live as debtors to the flesh we are simply continuing to invite the kind of brokenness that Paul can only describe as death.

- To return to the Exodus story, when the Israelites found themselves in the wilderness they found that the lure of “the flesh” was still strong. Their temptation was to return to the slavery from which they had been delivered.

- But if they would follow the Spirit of God – which in the Exodus story is made known by the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire – God would lead them into the promised land where they could live in freedom as God’s children.

- The story is almost the same for the first century believers and for us. Even after leaving the dominion and bondage of sin the lure of “the flesh” is strong, yet if we will be led by the Spirit that dwells within us, God will lead us into a life that is not the life of a debtor but the life that Paul can only describe as the life of inheritance as loved and adopted children of the Father.

- We have not been given a spirit of fear that draws us back into slavery, but we have been given the Spirit of beloved children crying out “Abba, Father” – the most intimate name a Hebrew person can call God.

The Whole Creation Groans (8:18-25)

- It is critical that we see in this text that for Paul the plan of redemption was not just for individuals but this redemption takes up all of creation.

- This is God’s promise; though the world is still God’s good creation, and is pregnant with his power and glory, it is not at present what it should be – nor are people the proper dominion keepers that they were created to be. God’s covenant faithfulness was always about his commitment that, through the promises to Abraham he would one day put the whole world to rights. God allowed and allows this state of slavery to continue, not because the creation wanted to be like that but because he was determined eventually to put the world back to rights according to the original plan.

- The whole creation is waiting (on tiptoe) for the particular freedom it will enjoy when God gives to his children that glory, that wise rule and stewardship, which was always intended for those who bear God’s glorious image.

- We are, Paul says, longing for the time when we ourselves will receive our promised resurrection bodies. We groan and sigh, if we know what we are about, as we experience the tension between the glorious promise and the present reality. The tension is demonstrated in the fact that the Spirit is already at work within us, but has not yet completed the task of full renewal.

- What we have now are the first fruits of the Spirit’s life and the hope that God (although patient) is fulfilling his covenant promise.

And So We Pray (8:26-27)

- Now that we are God’s children and are filled with God’s Spirit, we join creation in its groans of expectation. The “Searcher of Hearts” desires to find, above all else, in his children the sound of the Spirit’s groaning.