June 26, 2005

Set Free to Follow

Speaker: Paul Kelly

Romans 6:12-23

As most of you know, my wife Kathy and I, along with our four children, lived and worked for several years in the West African country of Togo. We were with Wycliffe Bible Translators -- there to bring God's written word to the Gangam people of northern Togo. To accomplish this we had to learn the language, help develop a writing system and then begin the translation. As you might imagine, among a previously non-Christian group like the Gangam, finding ways to translate the "key terms" used in Scripture was a major undertaking. Terms like grace, faith, the Holy Spirit and others were concepts that needed to be very carefully handled ­ there were no one-to-one correspondents for these words.

In 1991 we held a meeting/study session with representatives from the churches of our village, both Catholic and Assemblies of God, along with the native Gangam Language Committee (made up mostly of older men who were not Christians). Our goal was to try out the key terms our translation team was proposing and to come up with alternatives if needed. The word baptism was troubling for us because the two local churches were using different terms, neither of which was very satisfying (that's not too surprising since translators into most of the world's major languages had chosen to transliterate the Greek word and sidestep the whole issue). I wanted to try a word that meant immersion, and had the support of the AG church in this. I thought it would be helpful to convey the imagery of the burial with Christ that it symbolized. Everyone seemed to understand and go along with this term, but some seemed troubled (though I didn't imagine why). Finally, after I had read the proposed translation of several passages about John the Baptist, the village chief spoke up and said, "this must be some kind of parable otherwise this John person was really mean." You see, in my zeal to "accurately" communicate the message, I had John immersing all those people. . .. They must really have been dedicated to let John drown them like that.

Evidently, the Apostle Paul's teachings, such as those found in Romans, had a good deal of controversy surrounding them. Peter wrote (2 Peter 3:16) "Paul writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." Paul himself addresses this in Romans 3:7 and 8, where he writes, "Someone might argue, if my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Why not say ­ as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say ­ 'Let us do evil that good may result'? Their condemnation is deserved."

In Romans chapter 8, Paul gives a sample of how he taught, speaking of how the spirit helps us in our weakness ­ intercedes for us and how that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Evidently Paul even includes our weaknesses and failings in "all things". Some people would turn that type of teaching into the kind of controversial distortion mentioned earlier.

When Romans is discussed, some people try to summarize it by simply saying it's all about grace being superior to law. They sometimes twist this to imply that since there is "no condemnation" for us, it is not so important (as pertains to salvation) how we live today ­ Faith is what it is about ­ not works.

Martin Luther was so convinced that the teachings concerning the need for righteous works were against the idea of the all-sufficiency of faith, that he felt the epistle of James had no place in the recognized books of the New Testament.

This type of easy gospel seems to resonate with many people ­ All I have to do to have eternal life is to pray the sinners prayer then go on my self-centered way. This is the type of teaching found in Gnosticism and today in Christian Dualism. It is an idea that there is such a separation between the spiritual and the physical natures of our existence, how we actually live our physical life doesn't touch our spiritual condition. It was considered heresy then and it still is.

In his commentary on Romans, John E. Toews writes that one of the primary purposes of Paul in writing this letter "is to enable Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to promises of God to Israel without becoming ethnic Jews. . .He is redefining the people of God to embrace Gentiles, as well as Jews. . .It is about God as the God of Jews as well as Gentiles; about the seed of Abraham; incorporation into the new humanity of Christ over against the old humanity of Adam. . .Paul redraws the boundaries that mark out the covenant people of God."

Paul's letter to the Romans is his "confession of faith" in which he tries to explain what this new faith is all about. He had not been to Rome and seems to have not had any direct influence in the conversion of these believers. He wanted to make sure that the Christians there, both Jews and Gentiles, really understood the basis of their relationship with God. It's not the kind of subject matter that lends itself to the type of "sound byte" communication with which we've become accustomed.

If you've ever read our Confession of Faith In A Mennonite Perspective (and if you haven't, you need to), you can imagine the effort that went into such an undertaking. Much prayer and discussion and careful selection of words and phrases are evident throughout. We need to be extra careful when we "summarize" what being a Christian is all about or we may fall into the trap of simply reacting to our specific context -- perhaps over something someone else is leaving out -- and leave out something that leads to major distortion. Some say that the Christian message is "it's all about love". Yes, God is love but if we're not careful we can make love our God. Or if we say "it's all about peace", we can lose sight of the importance of teachings of Jesus like "I've not come to bring peace, but a sword".

Some people in Paul's time thought he was advocating a "lawless" lifestyle because of his attempts to explain how the law is inadequate to bring about justification. He was trying to explain to the Jews something that they should have known from their own experience -- that the law did not take away their tendency to sin, it just made them more aware of it. But the Jews then would argue that if the gentiles did not have to keep the Jewish law, they would be wild and lawless.

Paul poses and then answers two questions relating to this in Romans 6: First he asks, "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" And then in our text for today, "Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?" Paul answers both questions with a resounding NO. In his commentary, Toews points out that when talking about sin, there must be a distinction between "Sin" (with a capital 'S') and sins in general -- the former being a system that is opposed to God, exalts self and can and does enslave us. Paul writes, "don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. . . Our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." And then in answer to the second question (from our text today), "shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace", Paul writes: "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey -- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? . . .You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Imagine the people of Israel, after having been rescued from slavery in Egypt and being led on dry land across the Red Sea, wanting to go back into slavery to serve their harsh Egyptian masters who made them kill their male children. And more recently, imagine released slaves in this country wanting to stay on with their old masters, being abused and not enjoying the life that was theirs for the taking. That's what Paul was talking about. How could we possibly even consider staying in our slavery to sin.

I would like to close with a reading from Toew's commentary on Romans concerning sin in the church (p. 189 - 191)

The media is full of "sin" stories among Christians, sins of physical and sexual abuse, sexual unfaithfulness, financial corruption, personal and financial selfishness and greed, lack of integrity in relationships in homes and in the church. Romans 6 is about these sins.

Do Christians live in Sin? Paul's answer is, "absolutely not!" It is impossible because they have died to Sin and entered a new kingdom community; they have become slaves in the new kingdom. As citizens of a new kingdom, they live differently, present themselves for battle against Sin, obey Righteousness, and they live out the teachings of the gospel.

What do we do with the gap in the church between Romans 6 and the prevalence of sin in our communities and lives? Is the problem that becoming a Christian no longer involves a fundamental transformation for so many in the church? Is it possible that incorporation into the curch is no longer linked with death, with a deep-seated change of allegiance?

The sixteenth-century Anabaptists consistently believed that being made righteous effected a real death and a real transformation in people. "The heart" of a believer, Menno Simons said, "is renewed, converted, justified, becomes pious, peaceable, and joyous, is born a child of God." (in Wenger, 1955:115). Salvation renews the divine image in people and makes the believer a participant in the divine nature. Therefore, this tradition especially calls for walking the talk, for living the new life of the new being.

The Anabaptists did not understand such transformation to lead to "perfectionism," to the notion that believers do not and cannot sin. They recognized that Paul speaks of two deaths in Romans 6, a past dying and a present dying with Christ. The two do not contradict each other. Paul is addressing two important and related issues: 1) a decisive event in the past that changes the nature of reality and people, 2) the continued existence of the old world and its magnetic pull for all human beings. If the first is weakened, there is nothing essentially new about the Christian's situation in the world. If the second is forgotten, Christianity degenerates into the kind of spiritualism that Paul battled in the Corinthian churches. Past death and daily present death belong together. There is no complete redemption of humanity until the total transformation of the cosmos. For the present Christians still live in the body and in the world. They continue to be the point of the battle between God and Sin. It is still possible for Christians to be slaves of Sin by acts of sin. Paul's exhortations are aimed at this possibility.

Christians are active participants in a cosmic struggle with Sin. They engage in that struggle as people who have been released from the former slavery, and who have been enslaved to a new master. A new power in a new kingdom now determines their lives. But the power of the old kingdom must never be underestimated. The enslavement of the Christians to the reign of Grace must be renewed daily in death to Sin and obedience to God. Human beings are saved, become Christians, only because they have a new lord. Grace is a new lordship. Therefore, Paul exhorts to remain in this new lordship, and to manifest this new lordship in will and actions every day.

Baptism has become a rite of passage in many churches within the believers church tradition. It is what happens in the transition from childhood to adulthood. Baptism for Paul is a rite of passage, but from an old life in solidarity with Adam and Sin to a new life in Christ and the Spirit. Might the problem of sin in the church be a function of a low doctrine of baptism? What is baptism a death to in the church today? Baptism is usually not expected to effect much of a change these days. What if baptism became as important in the church today as it was for the sixteenth-century Anabaptists? For them it marked a deep and profound commitment to leave the ways of sin and the world and to follow Jesus even unto death. Baptism in water and the Spirit meant a willingness to accept the baptism in blood, death for obedience to Jesus.

Paul conceives of the Christian life as one modeled on Jesus--death with Christ, buried with Christ, to be resurrected with Christ. The believer's life corresponds to the life of Jesus--obedience to God, death, burial, and resurrection. To be a Christian is to be like Jesus, to relive the life Jesus lived. This co-Jesus life suggests a narrative spirituality, a living with and dying with Jesus, which challenges most modern and post-modern spiritualities. Living like Jesus, rather than pursuing self-fulfillment, might also address the problem of sin in the church.

This narrative spirituality says that the modern gospel that "God accepts us the way we are" is nothing less than heresy. God calls Christians to change--to become slaves of Jesus as Lord, to live in God's kingdom, and to become soldiers of righteousness in the battle with evil.

If you want to make a short summary statement concerning what our faith should be, it could be something like this, "authentic Christian faith is about becoming like Jesus!"

He is the "alpha and the omega." He is the beginning of our faith and the goal of our faith. He is also the means of our faith. Our lives are to be so enmeshed in him that "it is no longer I that lives, but Christ who lives in me." May God bless us to make it so.