The Lord’s Assembly

Something to chew on…

The assembly really is not just a congregation, not just the coming together of people for services, meetings, conventions, etc., but the bringing together of individual heart exercise in the appreciation of the Lord Jesus in such a way that the Father can see His Son’s features expressed in human lives. That is the true nature of assembly life…

…each brings his own apprehension and appreciation of the Lord Jesus and all are united together in the assembly, the Father can look down and see the various features of His Son. That is the testimony of Jesus on earth: that is Christ tabernacling among us. As each one follows on to know the Lord in private, personal life history, so new discoveries are made of the virtues and values of God’s Son, and these are brought together in assembly life. When we have made such new discoveries of the grace of Christ we can come together with other children of God and speak and sing together of what we have proved experimentally in a living way and so we become a collective and corporate representation of the house of God.

T.A.S.

You can read the entire article here.

A Flipped Script?

If a follower of Jesus considers the ‘church in general’ to be ‘worldly’,  shouldn’t they be able, then, to change many of  Jesus’ sayings about the world and apply them to the ‘church in general’?

“You are the light of the church. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden”.

“Woe to the church for temptations to sin!  For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes”!

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole church as a testimony to all (denominations?), and then the end will come”.

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole church and forfeit his life”?

“He was in the church, and the church was made through him, yet the church did not know him”.

Likewise, could it be that as we are seeing such massive numbers of people leaving behind institutional Christianity,  shedding their religion in search of real Life, that we might find more sincere and authentic ’saints’ in ‘the world‘ than we would, typically, in most church services?

I know that I’m making a bit of stretch in my second paragraph especially, but I don’t think that it is unreasonable to believe that this could, one day, become the reality unless something shifts dramatically in the way institutional Christianity, as well as other smaller Christian movements, believe and practice The Faith.

Just something to consider.

The Fullness of Christ: a meditation

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to

walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness,

with patience,

bearing with one another in love,

eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit

—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—

one Lord,

one faith,

one baptism,

one God and Father of all,

who is over all and through all and in all.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

And he gave the apostles,

the prophets,

the evangelists,

the pastors and teachers,

to equip the saints for the work of ministry,

for building up the body of Christ,

until

we

all

attain

to the unity of the faith

and

of the knowledge of the Son of God,

to mature manhood,

to the measure of the stature of

the fullness of Christ,

so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,

by human cunning,

by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up

in every way

into him who is the head,

into Christ,

from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,

when each part is working properly,

makes the body grow so that

it builds itself up in love.

Not I.

I own no rights to any of the images used in this post. If you do and disapprove of the images being used here, please let me know and I will remove them immediately. Thank you!

Let’s continue our study in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

If you are new to this study, please take the time to read over…

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Our text for today is Romans 7:14-17

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Now that we have reconsidered our perspective of God’s law we can see that the problems that we have with our interior lives (and exterior conduct) are related to the flesh and the sin.

As Paul points out;

I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Notice that in this passage Paul states that this ” I”  is not the slave of the flesh, but rather this  “I” is of the flesh.

There is a more accurate translation which reads like this:

I am carnal, sold under sin.

It is when we present ourselves to the sin that we find ourselves acting out in ways which we  (hopefully)  despise.

This kind of behavior is mentioned in another one of Paul’s letters as well, and it reads like this…

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.

I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.

For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

The above passage speaks volumes to the Church in this present hour if we would but have ears to hear.

For the moment however, I would like to point out the fact that in the above passage, Paul is directly addressing a church which is very young Spiritually speaking.

They have not yet come into the fullness of the expression of the Divine Nature.  Rather than exhibiting behavior which speaks of their maturity in Christ, they manifest behavior, even among themselves, which reveals their Spiritual immaturity,  hence Paul says; “…are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”

This kind of carnal behavior is divisive by it’s very nature.

(More on that soon.)

For now, let’s continue in our Romans 7 text and see how Paul explains what it is like to be a “carnal” man, one who is perplexed at how his outward behavior contradicts his innermost desire….

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

How many of us can relate to this passage? A better question might be, “Who cannot!?”

Paul’s struggle here was that he actually wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to obey Gods law.

Paul truly wants to be truly spiritual.

He did not want to sin. In fact, he hated the fact that he could not harmonize himself with Gods ways.

Maybe this is something that we should all check our hearts on from time to time.

“Do I truly desire to truly love, as God truly desires me to truly love?”

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

The above statement is key.

What Paul is trying to explain to us under the anointing of the Spirit is that when we find ourselves vexed over our own unlawful behavior, this in itself reveals that, however deep down and covered up it may be, our true self is actually in agreement with God’s government.

In fact, our true self is not the one responsible for lawless behavior.

Read on…

So now it is no longer I who do it , but the sin that dwells within me.

Oh my!

Did you catch that?

If we, even as children of God, find ourselves behaving in a way which we know to be wrong, knowing and agreeing that Gods government is the true and proper way, we must realize that it is not us who is orchestrating such erroneous behavior.

No, it is not us.

It is the sin which dwells in us!

Does that fly in the face of what you have been taught or what you believe?

Well, it is the word of God.

Yes, I know that there are passages of scripture which work to balance this reality out, but let’s first grab hold of this reality as it stands here.

You see, all that any human being can do is to work the will of their master, and there can only be one master at a time.

Jesus illustrates this truth here in Luke’s gospel:

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other…

The two paths from which we must choose:

The government of the sin (which is what the evil one would have us to choose…).

or…

The government of the Spirit.

We can either hate the sin and love Christ or we can hate Christ and love the sin.

Either way, we will be loyal to one and despise the other.

These are heavy words, but they are also very true words.

However…

heavy as they are, friends…,

Let’s not lose sight of the good news!

If we were to stop here without reconsidering the blessed work of Christ Jesus, the very work which we learned something about in the last three parts of this study, we would all be in quite a mess, amen?

We need to be reminded of the fact that the work of Christ has effectually covered our past sins and is available to us to nullify the power of the sin within us.

As we look to this blessed Truth with hearts full of faith we shall see that we express the nature of our True Master.

This is what Paul reveals to us in his letter to the church in Galatia:

I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me…

Not I but the sin.

or…

Not I but Christ.

Whatever the case, it is not “I”.

Remember, Saints;

“WE (I) have    been    crucified    with    Christ”!

(To be continued….)

My Journey: Life with Mrs. T

Greetings!

We have internet at home again so, Lord willing, I will be writing and posting a little more frequently.

I am currently working on the next installment of our study in Romans as well as  some things concerning prayer and our Lords desire for unity in the church.

For now, however, I wanted to give you a little insight into my own personal and spiritual background.

If you are new here, or one of  —or should I say— my only faithful reader…

perhaps this  will help you to understand where I am coming from personally.

********************************************

I am a man who didn’t grow up in ‘Christianity’, but I did grow up in the midst of it.

While my home town, Pensacola, is very heavily populated with churches and the local culture is permeated with ‘Christianity’, I grew up viewing much of it as  nothing more than religious fodder.

Why?

There are a few different reasons for this, but at this time I would like to zero in on just one:

My mother is a Christian….

but she will not ‘go to church’.

Every since I can remember, whenever she would comment on why this was so, it went something like this:

You  don’t need a man preaching at you all the time. All you need to do is love God and treat people the way that you would want to be treated.

You don’t have to dress up and go visit God. He lives on the inside.

And she practiced what she preached.

I can already hear the theologians squirming in their seats.

Rest easy. I hear you, and I ‘amen’ much of what you are thinking, but hear me out.

I don’t know if I can ever remember a time growing up when we didn’t have some displaced soul living at our place with our family.

There always seemed to be someone there who, due to poor choices or unfortunate circumstances, found themselves in a desperate situation….usually a friend of one of my mothers children or an acquaintance of some other acquaintance…

Sometimes it would be an extended family member…

but my point is this:

Her home was also the home of anyone that needed a home.

“That’s nice and all, brother, but we need the church. We need the gathering of the saints!”

Let me tell you, oh compassionate friend, she knows more about ‘the church’ than many of these so called church’ “leaders”  that we have  today.

As I sit and write this article I vividly recall Sunday mornings at our little single wide mobile home on Navy Blvd.

Mom would get up early in the morning to begin making “brunch”.

The meal would always consist of some kind of good old fashioned country cooking, often with some variety of fresh Gulf seafood:

Baked ham, pork chops, fried chicken, collard greens, green beans, lima beans, corn fritters, corn bread, rolls, crawfish, fried catfish, mullet, brim,

banana pudding….

Did you hear that?

Was that the sound of an artery hardening?

But I don’t want to miss the point here…

The food wasn’t just for our family, but it was for everyone.

But it wasn’t just all about the food.   That would miss the point…

There was fellowship.

Acceptance.

Care.

Love.

LOVE.

L O V E !

It was for the person that we housed at the time.

It was for the folks that we had housed in the past.

Sometimes, as it turns out, it was for the people that we would house in the future.

It was for close family and extended family.

It was for friends of the family.

It was for people that we had come into relationship with somehow….

It was even for the ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends of moms kids.

We had hippies, druggies, alcoholics, bikers, preachers, Christians, heathens…

Blacks, whites, Asians….

And they all loved “Mrs. T”.

And as far as i know, they all do still.

(And they all had a certain respect for “Mr. T”.)

(That’s Mrs. and Mr. Thomas for those who weren’t aware of my last name.)

Now, we didn’t really ‘pray’ then…

and we didn’t talk about Jesus much or share bible verses…

But what I didn’t understand at the time, and what I am so blessed to understand now is that we embodied much of what the bible pointed to.

We embodied the living Christ.

My mother cooperated with God to answer the prayers of these hungry, displaced and confused souls.

Not only that…

but she also

cooperated with God to answer the prayers of  many saints.

While many dear saints have felt obligated to the religious duties of attending stale sermon meetings, and routine “worship services” they have also prayed that a deeper and more authentic expression of the church of Christ would become a living reality.

In their hearts, they have all asked the same thing:

Is this it?

Could there be more?

Something more than a ‘worship service’.

Something more than a ‘bible study’.

(I can’t help but wonder if these prayers are not just as prevalent today. I know that they are in my own heart.)

In This way, we did not miss the point.

In this way, we were without sin.

This was ‘organic” before ‘organic’ was cool.

Sadly, these Sunday meals fizzled out about fifteen or so years ago and perhaps that’s another story for another time.

These gatherings were special. So very, very special.

Now, I’m not trying to paint an unrealistic picture here, just because she’s my mom.

She is human.

She is not without her own personal flaws.

But if you were to ask anyone who knows her, I assure you, you would not receive one bad report.

She is an earthen vessel of both grace and humility.

This is the foundation of my own personal Spiritual journey.

It is thoroughly rooted in the Spirit and Truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps I will be able to continue this train of thought soon as it is a good reminder for me to bring these things to remembrance.

It’s a good thing to reflect on the things which help to define who you are from time to time.

And maybe this testimony will provide a slightly different perspective on what authentic Christianity can look like.

God bless.

N.T. Wright on the Parousia

Update: My Personal Top 11

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t written much here in a while.

I’ve been consumed.

Life can be very demanding sometimes, ya’know? But it can also be very rewarding.  There is something to that…, something holy.

It would take me a while to write about my more current thoughts and experiences….so that’ll have to wait for the time being.

Instead, I’m going give you some links to what I currently believe to be my most important writings from this blog:

Here are the first three installments of a study on Romans 6,7, and 8:

Don’t You Know?

Death and Remarriage

The Law is Good

(There is more to come in this series, so please stay tuned!)

Here is a little poetry:

All in the Family

This is basically my take on living the Christian life in general (not that I have ever done it, of course…)

Us or Him…?

An open letter to my most favorite denomination:

(This one almost didn’t make the cut, but I believe that it is still very relevant indeed!)

OPEN LETTER

Here is a two part admonition against being triple minded:

Be-think-do

Be-think-do-2

What is ‘the world’ anyway?

What Is the World 1

What is the World 2

What is the World 3

Thanks for reading…and please feel free to leave any comments!

Romans 7- part two: The Law is Good

This is the second  part of our study in Romans 7.

The first part of the Romans 7 study can be found here.

If you haven’t read the post on Romans 6, please feel free to do so here.

Let’s move on, shall we?

While these next few passages of scripture speak very plain and simple truths, they are also very rich and dense in substance and go against the grain of the fleshly mind. Since this is the case, we are going to take them in small ‘bites’ so to speak , so as not to eat too much in one sitting.

In other words, I believe that it is going to take a couple of separate posts to digest and assimilate what the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul in these next few verses (Romans 7:7-13).

* * * * * * *

Paul has already established that, by the death of Christ and our immersion into that death, believers have been released from both the union with sin as well as the dictates of law. At this point, he seeks to clear up any confusion there may be surrounding our attitudes in regards to these two different and yet related subjects.

Sin and Law

What shall we say then? Is the law sin?

Interestingly enough, many of us have learned to treat these two separate categories, sin and law, as one and the same thing.

In overreaction against legalism, many of us have adopted an unhealthy perception and understanding of Gods law.

Is it bad for God to say to us, “You shall not murder” ?

How about, “You shall not commit adultery”?

Do we suppose that we should be free to kill or cheat if we so choose, or to act as if God would lead us into such behavior?

Do we suppose that the judgments of our own hearts are more wise than those of the Most High God?

Not I, friends. I agree with the law of God in my inner man. It is good.

Now I am not saying that there is no correlation between law and sin. There most certainly is a definite relationship between the two, but are they the same thing?

Is or was the law ever a mistake of some sort?

In Paul’s words:

By no means!

The law and sin are in no way the same thing.

NOTE TO LEGALISTS:

Don’t get too excited. 

*****

NOTE TO ANTINOMIANS:

Relax. It’s going to be fine. 

Now let’s begin to look at how sin and law are related:

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known the sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But the sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all manner of concupiscence.

I can remember a time in my own life, years ago, when I did not know much of the scripture at all. The Lord had been wooing me for some time, but I had not yet began to peer into the annals of God’s interaction with man.

Before this time, I was alive. I had a certain kind of vibrancy, a certain vitality. Oh sure, I was self deceived but I had not yet realized it.

I was happy-go-lucky, going about my own merry way, doing my own thing….and  carelessly leaving a trail of chaos behind me.

As far as I knew, me and whatever ‘God’ was were okay.

But I became hungry inside, and very curious. I already had a clue that the God revealed in the Judea-Christian scriptures was The One, and so I began to peer into them a bit to see what He had to say about what it means and what it takes to be a righteous and just person.

The more I read, the more my gut wrenched. The more I understood, the more my throat constricted. How could I possibly attain to this level of righteousness, this level of goodness which I found laid out in the Judea Christian scriptures? At this point, I knew myself, and I knew that I was dead meat.

The more I became aware of the high and holy standards of God as revealed in His law, the more I became aware of just how short of that standard I came. I began to realize that I desired the very things that God forbade, and at the same time believed that I could rise above my own lusts.

Over time I began to realize something else;  I had grown very angry at God over all of this.  My experience became increasingly frustrating.

After all, how could the one true God be so ridiculous in His requirements of man? Even still, I was determined to  somehow become a righteous man.

While many religious texts offer promises of enlightenment, I had discovered that God’s text, His law, that is, offered no such thing to me.

Oh sure.

It was ordained unto life, but it serves an entirely different purpose to the fallen human being.

The law is not sin.

Instead, the law reveals the sin which is already in us.

The law is not a bad thing…. but we’ll get back to this point later in the study. For now, I want to take a moment to zero in on something that the Lord has revealed to me recently.

Look at how Paul expresses his experience with the sin:

” …the sin..   siezed an opportunity through the commandment….”.

‘The sin’ has an intention. It’s the intention of expressing it’s father, the serpent, and it does so by taking a certain kind of action;

It seizes opportunity.

You see, ‘the sin’ is an opportunist, and he will creep his way into any scenario, including good and holy scenario’s, in order to get his way.

This thing, the sin, really seems to work that way. Although it was passed down to us all from mankinds original earthly father, it exists, often unrealized, within our very own flesh and when we are presented with God’s  law, we suddenly become aware of it’s presence and power.

When the unadulterated light of YHWH’s law shines upon us, the sin just creeps right up in us and begins to constrict. As it constricts, it also infects us with all kinds of unholy and unhealthy desires.

It’s as if our flesh totally freaks out when presented with God’s standard and begins to scream out for attention, acceptance, comfort, security, validation and a myriad of other cries for, well… Love.

These cries become manifest in the form of sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,  drunkenness….etc…

Sometimes these manifestations look very ‘heathen’ but other times can also look  very ‘religious’.

Truth is, they are all the same.

The sin assures us that somehow, just somehow, we can pull it off, we can measure up….and when we find out that we can’t, it convinces us that we can just go on about our own business as if nothing ever happened.

Ultimately we discover that we, in and of ourselves, lack the kind of Life which is pleasing to God.

And so what do we do?

Until we experience what it means to live by the Life that Jesus offers to us, we live by the dictates of the sin which resides in our flesh.

And Paul has a word for what this kind of slavery to the sin is like, what it ‘looks’ like:

“All manner of …. concupiscence“.

What?!

Concupiscence means; desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, lust, etc.

Concupiscence is a frame of mind, a way of thinking. I will even go so far as to say that it is a way of living which has it’s origin in a certain kind of life.

The sin is like the serpent. It has a life and intention all of it’s own. When it get’s hold of you, and seduces you, it causes you to think and behave like it.

Apart from the law, the sin lies dead.

This statement alone proves that the sin is a life form, one which can die.

I was once alive apart from the law,…

And we see that ‘ I ‘ am also a life form which once lived when I was apart from the law.

…but when the commandment came, the sin came alive…

Notice again that Paul is stating clearly that the sin is a living organism.

…and I died.

From these two statements we may confidently say that…

When the law is presented to us as a standard to live by, the sin comes to life…

and we die.

Paul explains it like this:

And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.  For the sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

This reminds me of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

Remember, God gave a certain commandment to this man and woman, a command which was meant to preserve their lives before Him:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

From very early on God spoke His Word to mankind. It was His intention that they  listen to, and obey His Word.

‘The sin’, then, is manifest as disobedience to the Living God through obedience to the seduction of the serpent.

There was nothing wrong with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What was wrong was that Adam and Eve partook of it when God told them not to.

“Do not desire to know what is good and what is evil.”

Why not?

“Because if you do, you will certainly die”.

His commandment.

His law.

If only they would have been obedient to what the Lord YHWH said to them (actually, the commandment was given to Adam) then surely they would not have died.

The fruits of their transgression have since been passed down to every man and woman that has ever lived.

Concerning the law and the commandment, Paul comes to a conclusion:

Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

There is nothing wrong with Gods law. In fact, it is holy as is His commandment, which is also just and good.

…and Paul continues:

Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not!

There is no blame in God, nor in His law.

But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

God’s law serves a wonderful purpose to mankind.

It points out our weakness and failure….

It points out our need for a Savior.

(To be continued…)

The Love of God

Greetings!

I’m in the process of finishing up the next installment of our Romans 7 study.

Soon afterwards we’ll be going into chapter 8 followed by at least part of chapter 9.

I am truly looking forward to what the Lord might have to say to us through it all.

In the meantime I thought that I would post a link to my very first (and only) spoken message that I have ever shared with a group of believers.

It’s a message which was inspired by our time together in the Gospel of John, and was shared during the Lords supper.

I humbly submit to you The Love of God. 

Grace to you all.

Death and Remarriage

Recently, I posted a message using the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome .  If you have never read that portion of scripture, do yourself a favor and read it.  It contains some rather life changing insights.

By the way, if you haven’t read the post that I’m referring to please check it out (if you feel so led, of course). You just might come away blessed.

Either way, here is a brief recap of the message:

In Romans 6, Paul was explaining how a person is always either under the influence and authority of the sin (as translated in the Young’s Literal Translation of the bible)–

which is simply the exchange of the reign of God in the heart for self-reign, as proposed by the serpent….,which ultimately leads to the death…(If you want to know more about this ‘original sin’ and it’s consequences, read Genesis 3.)

or…

…they are under the influence and authority of God which ultimately leads to eternal life (aka The Kingdom of God).

Anyway, in Romans 6, Paul goes on to explain how those who have been baptized into Christ should know that they have been baptized into His death–that they, themselves, were included with Christ in His death– and that they should therefore consider themselves to be dead to the sin. They are in a position of freedom based on Christ’s death, a position which they should have understood at baptism.

Main point?

By the death of Jesus we have been delivered from the kingdom of the sin!

SET FREE.

However Paul doesn’t stop there. Instead he wants the believer to see that not only are they free from the authority of the sin by the death of Christ, but that just as Jesus Christ rose from the dead and now lives unto God Himself, we should also consider ourselves to be ‘alive unto God’ and available for His service.

Second main point?

By the resurrection of Christ, we have been transferred into His Kingdom!

IN HIS KINGDOM.

At this point I would like to keep tracking with Paul so as to see how the Holy Spirit led him to further develop his thoughts on the new relationship in Christ. This study will not be as “interactive” as the last one. Instead I will be using cross references from other area of scripture to help broaden our understanding of what he is saying here.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Moving along to the next chapter, Paul is taking a different angle. He is shifting his focus away from the sin/God dichotomy and opening it up to the law/Christ dichotomy.

In this instance, Paul is going to show us why the believer can live according to and in union with Christ rather than living according to and in union with the law.

On to Romans chapter 7…..

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?

In this very first verse, Paul is stating that a person is bound to the Law so long as they live. In this passage, he is simply echoing the word of His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Read them as recorded in Mathews Gospel account (5:17-20):

`Do not suppose that I came to throw down the law or the prophets — I did not come to throw down, but to fulfill;

for, verily I say to you, till that the heaven and the earth may pass away, one iota or one tittle may not pass away from the law, till that all may come to pass.

`Whoever therefore may loose one of these commands — the least — and may teach men so, least he shall be called in the reign of the heavens, but whoever may do and may teach [them], he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens.

`For I say to you, that if your righteousness may not abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye may not enter to the reign of the heavens.

Now those were Jesus’ own words as spoken to his disciples. In light of them, let’s keep tracking with Paul:

Thus 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.

Now we have the specific example that Paul was led to use;

The Law of Marriage.

Once again, Paul is not coming up with any new doctrine concerning the law nor the law of marriage. Instead, Paul’s thought is in total harmony with what Jesus has already shared with His disciples  (as in Matthew 5:31-32):

`And it was said, That whoever may put away his wife, let him give to her a writing of divorce;

but I — I say to you, that whoever may put away his wife, save for the matter of whoredom, doth make her to commit adultery; and whoever may marry her who hath been put away doth commit adultery.

Now don’t let the “whoredom clause” throw you off. Jesus said that it was a legitimate reason to put away ones wife.

In that instance, she doesn’t need her husbands help to make her an adulteress– she has done a fine job of it herself already!

Paul, once again, is in harmony with Jesus on the matter:

Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she is joined to 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.

The only difference between what Jesus shared and what Paul shared is that  while Jesus makes it clear that the law remains intact ‘…till that the heaven and earth may pass away’ , Paul informs us that there is one way and only one way to be free from the law:

DEATH.

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.

Can I get an amen!?

Once again, Paul is referencing the union that we share in and with Christ Jesus.

In Romans 6, we discovered that by the death of Christ, we died to sin. This death to sin allows us  freedom from it’s rule over our lives, and the resurrection of Christ affords us a new life which we may now live unto God.

And for what purpose?

“… the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life”.

And now in this first section of Romans 7, we see how that, through the body of the crucified Christ, we have died to the law–not simply to be free and single to wander aimlessly–but so that we might be joined to Another, that is the Risen Christ!!

And for what purpose?

“…that we may bear fruit for God”.

Now to let Paul finish out his thought:

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.

Here, Paul is describing what life experience is like when we are…

a) “in our flesh”

b) with our “sinful passions” which are…

c) “aroused by the law”.

resulting in…

d) they  worked “in our members” to produce “death”.

There is always some kind of fruit.

I love it that Paul has no reservations about stating the fact that the sinful passions of the flesh are aroused by God’s law!!

…and it’s not that the law is a bad thing, it’s that there is something ‘bad’ in our mortal bodies, something which we inherited from Adam….(but we’ll get to that later).

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

Alas, Paul’s thought comes to a beautiful climax where we discover that since we died with Christ in baptism, and have been set free from law (which is the strength of sin), we may now serve…

IN THE NEW LIFE OF THE SPIRIT!!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this last verse! In times past I have somehow gotten caught up in a viscous cycle which went something like this:

Now that I am a Christian I should be able to serve the law and fulfill the written code (rather it be the commands of Moses, Jesus, Paul or anyone else)….I desire to ‘do the right thing’, but I continually find myself doing the very things that I shouldn’t….

Again, it’s not that the written code is a bad thing.

No, it’s a holy thing….

But we’ll get into all of that in the next installment of this series.

Till then, walk under His grace, and not under the law.

~Peace~