Romans 8:12-17
12So then, brothers
and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13for if you live
according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the
deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not
receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a
spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16it is that very
Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer
with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
In Romans 8:12-17,
a segment that continues to verse 25, Paul focuses upon the Spirit making
people children of God. This formation occurs through the pain, struggle, and
suffering of a human life. This portion of Chapter 8 reminds me of a basic
human reality. The
life-journey of every human being involves pain. We may wonder why. We may
rebel against it. However, the harsh reality is that living things struggle and
suffer to maintain life. Often, such pain deepens the experience and
appreciation of life. In fact, if we knew the secret history of our enemies, we
might in him or her a sorrow, pain, or hurt that would disarm us of our hostility
toward them.[1] Life
has hurt everyone. No one receives an exemption from the pain that comes in
living a human life. Paul is not going to offer what philosophy and theology
would later call theodicy. He will not explain suffering. Suffering and pain in
life is part of the training we experience that will reveal who we are. If the
person remains oriented toward God while life pierces the person with the nail
of affliction, the nail pierces a hole through creation, through the thickness
of the veil that separates the person and God.[2]
Could pain deepen our character, help us appreciate life, and even enable us to
go deeper with God? We learn in this passage that Paul answers Yes.
Paul will also
bring the role of Father, Son, and Spirit into a unique discussion of the life
of the children of God. He will focus upon relationship. It may well be that is
the best way for us to discuss the Christian view of God as Trinity. We adopt
our favorite position of prayer. We are trying to get in touch with God. We also
know that that God within us is prompting us to pray. We also know that we know
God through Jesus of Nazareth. This Jesus is also the risen Christ who is with
us and helping us to pray. This three-fold life of God is part of the life of
the prayer of the Christian.[3]
Thus, all appearances to the contrary, God is one. The mystery beyond us, the
mystery among us, and the mystery within us unite as one mystery. We have an
interior life known to us and those to whom we choose to reveal that interior
life. We could call this the Father. We also have a face that reflects this
interior life. We could call this the Son. We also have an invisible power to
communicate who we are with others. We could call this the Spirit. Yet, people
experience us as one.[4]
In a sense, the Trinity is a dynamic community defined by love. To see one is
to see all. To dance with one is to dance with all. Adoption into the family of
God includes the invitation into the divine circle of love.[5]
Defining the Trinity may be beyond human capacity. However, relationships, as
mysterious as they are, are so much a part of who we are. We are social
creatures. It may well be that the best way to understand the Trinity is
through relationship. This teaching of the church is precious. God (as Father)
reveals who God is (in Jesus Christ), and becomes the life-giving presence of
God in the world and in our lives (the Spirit).
Paul encourages
those whom the Spirit has freed to participate in the life of the Spirit. The
believer continues to struggle in this age with the ancient problem of the
flesh. The flesh is weak. It exerts its power over humanity by introducing a
form of bondage to it. The weakness of the flesh shows itself in enticing
humanity away from the life-giving Spirit. It shows weakness in its reliance
upon finitude and the self. The flesh represents the totality of our life
decisions to rely upon the isolated self. Yet, the life in the Spirit Paul is
discussing in Chapter 8 offers a new possibility. Recalling Genesis 2, Paul
reminds us that the Spirit of God gave life to a lump of clay. Paul himself
could refer to his own physical disability as a sign of the weakness of the
flesh. Life lived passionately within this weakness is life under the shadow of
death. The edifice of human life, defined by the weakness of the flesh, is
questionable. Living within the weakness of the flesh is still a possibility
for those in Christ and in the Spirit. Yet, to do so is a form of slavery when
living in the freedom of the Spirit is also a possibility.[6]
Paul affirms that the Spirit will lead believers personally without
extinguishing their unique personality. The Spirit will lead them to a life
that finds fulfillment and completion that involves freedom, faith, and love.[7]
Such leadership is like that of a pilot guiding the ship.[8]
Thus, the Spirit is not a blind force. Paul has experienced this personal
leadership of the Spirit. Paul is reminding us that the real human struggle is
between spirit and flesh. Sin is a malevolent force working against the good of
the individual. Struggles against sin will not succeed without divine help. For
that reason, Paul will speak of human weakness more than of human sinfulness.[9]
Paul will use the
contrast between being a slave and being part of a family. As believers, the
Spirit adopts us into the family of God. The Spirit is the seal and guarantee
of participation in the family of God. One has authentic freedom in this
family.[10] The idea of adoption has in the background
the notion of the chosen quality of Israel and the Jewish people. Paul
reaffirms this chosen status of the people of God, but focuses upon the Spirit
as the active agent who brings this special place in the heart of God into
effect.[11]
Contrary to contemporary understandings about the way families form, in
antiquity the birth of a child to a husband and wife was not enough to ensure
the infant the care and protection of the family. To bring a child fully into
the family, the father needed to accept the infant, invariably in a ritually
determined manner. For instance, the Jewish rite of circumcision brought the
boy into the family of Israel . Absent
such a decision on the part of the father, a child would not have a family and the
parents would leave the child outside to starve.[12] This sense
of family formation is what appeals to Paul. Adoption into the family of God
provides Christians with the strength to overcome the weakness of life in the
flesh. The divinity of the emperor became a political and cultural matter
around 40 AD, adopting the successor as a son in a futile attempt to secure
political stability. [13] For
Paul, divine adoption meant divine protection. The adoption becomes a reality
in the life of the believer through the experience of the Spirit. For the Romans, war
established divinity. The Old Testament has a few references to the king of Israel as the son of God (II Samuel
7:14 ; Psalm 2:7; 89:26 ff.), but both
the Old Testament and later texts extend the category to include the whole of Israel , the righteous and martyrs as sons of God.[14] Peace flowed
from justice and righteousness rather than war.[15] The
authentic freedom we find in the Spirit is by the one who grants this freedom
by not only liberating us from fixation on our own ego and lifting us above our
own finitude. The Spirit becomes lastingly ours as the Spirit gives us a share
in the sonship of Jesus Christ. “Spirit of adoption” refers to the Spirit as
the seal and guarantee as well as a partial realization of the new status. Animated by God’s Spirit, Christians cannot
have an attitude of slavery, for the Spirit sets one free. Christians have thereby won out over the
anxiety of death and the fear of slavery.
Adoption is the special status of Christians before God.[16]
A sign of this
adoption is that we can refer to God in the same way Jesus did. Jesus called
him Abba,[17]
Father, and we can do so as well. The free life of the children of God is the
work of the Spirit sent into their hearts. Crying Abba means they are not
slaves, but children, living before and with their Father. If being "in
the spirit" makes us adopted children of God, we are also fully brothers
and sisters with Christ.[18]
In this way, the Spirit bears witness to us that we are children of God. If so,
as part of the Body of Christ, as one “in Christ,” one has this personal
experience of the Spirit. Such experience has an emotional quality, a form of
ecstasy, illumination, inspiration, or intuition. Paul will part company with
those who seem to suggest a purely intellectual faith. The Spirit integrates
emotion, reason, and will. The Spirit transplants the Christian into a sphere
of behavior one characterize as freedom of the children of God. In that sense,
the Spirit becomes a personal center of action residing outside the individual.
The Christian lives outside the self as weakened by the flesh and thus lives in
the power of the resurrected Jesus and in the Spirit. The Spirit living within
believers has its basis in believers having the ground or foundation of their
lives outside the weakness of self and flesh and therefore in the Spirit.[19]
Of course, as I John 4:1 reminds us, this personal experience of the Spirit
does not absolve us from testing the spirits.
Paul is envisioning a struggle. The struggle
unites humanity with the rest of creation. Yet, the struggle is no longer an
indication of futility. Because of Jesus Christ, the struggle has meaning and
significance. As children of God who participate in Christ, believers share in
the destiny of Jesus as defined by his cross and resurrection. The struggle is
a sure sign that something new is happening. Paul makes it clear that believers
suffer with Christ. How does this happen? For many believers, we prayerfully
reflect upon the cross, its suffering, pain, and judgment, recognizing that one
innocent man died for us, who are weak and guilty. For some followers of Jesus,
the suffering extends to receiving persecution from the hands of governments
who fear followers of Jesus. Further, each of us has our pain to bear simply
because we lead a human life. If we love God, aware only of the roughness of
the divine hand, we have indeed gone deeper in our walk with God. Such personal
pain and affliction is a reminder of the sufferings of the present time. While
this life may bear a hint of eternity, it always remains debatable and
ambiguous.[20] Paul
makes clear that salvation in Christ means undoing the work of Adam, restoring
humanity to the purpose of God. What God has in view, beginning with the call
of Abraham, is the reversal of the fall of Adam and of its consequences. The
analysis of the human condition as in Adam that began in 1:18 has its
culmination in the restoration of humanity as children of God. Redemption is
the completion of creation, and humanity is part of that creation. We see our
present suffering in the shadow of the Day of Jesus Christ. The time in which
we live and suffer is the present time. The future will reveal the glory. In
this sense, Christianity is “thoroughgoing eschatology,” as redemption remains
a hope. The believer will live by this hope.[21]
[1] If we
could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life
sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. - Henry Wordsworth
Longfellow
[2] Weil, Simone. "The love of God and
affliction." Waiting for God. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1951.
[3] C.
S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. “An ordinary simple
Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with
God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is
also God: God so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all real
knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God — that Christ is
standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is
happening. God is the thing to which he is praying — the goal he is trying to
reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on — the motive
power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that
goal. The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on
in that ordinary act of prayer.”
[4] Frederick
Buechner, This is from Wishful Thinking. “The much-maligned doctrine
of the Trinity is an assertion that, appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding, there is only one God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit mean that
the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us and the mystery within us are all
the same mystery ... “If the idea of God
as both Three and One seems farfetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror
someday. There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you
choose to communicate it to (the Father). There is (b) the visible face, which
in some measure reflects that inner life (the Son). And there is (c) the
invisible power you have which enables you to communicate that interior life in
such a way that others do not merely know about it, but know it in the sense of
its becoming part of who they are (the Holy Spirit). Yet what you are looking
at in the mirror is clearly and indivisibly the one and only you.”
[5] John of Damascus, one of the
early church fathers who lived during the late seventh and early eighth
centuries, avoided the normal definitions and calculated reasoning about the Trinity
and came up with a different term for the oneness and threeness of God — perichoresis,
which loosely translated from Greek means “circle dance.” In other words, we
understand the Trinity as a circle — a dynamic community defined by love. To
see one is to see all — to dance with one is to dance with all, where the
divine realm invites us into the circle and into a love relationship where we
see God face to face, as children hold hands and dance with loving parents.
[6] Barth, Romans, 291-95.
[7]
Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 176-77,
Systematic Theology, Volume II, 316.
[8] Chrysostom,
homily on Romans.
[9]
(Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles [Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1976], 40-52).
[10] Pannenberg,
Systematic Theology Volume III, 130.
[11] Barth, Romans, 298.
[12]
(Pamela Eisenbaum, “A remedy for having been born of Woman: Jews, Gentiles and
Genealogy in Romans,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 123/4 (2004),
671-702).
[13]
(John Dominic Crossan
and Jonathan
Reed, In Search of Paul: How
Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom [New York: Harper Collins, 2004], 135-152). Further, coins from this period bore the likeness
of Caesar Augustus with the inscription “son of a divinity,” referring to his
adoption by Julius
Caesar. The
development of an imperial theology of the divinity of the emperor continued.
In A.D. 40, the Emperor Caligula
proposed erecting a statue of himself in the Temple
in Jerusalem. At the same time, in an
often futile attempt to secure political stability, the emperors adopted as
sons those they wished to succeed them.
[14]
(James D. G. Dunn Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into
the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 14-16).
[15] Isaiah 11, for instance, opens with a description
of the just king, one who “with righteousness ... shall judge the poor, and
decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with
the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked”
(Isaiah 11:4,). Jesus proclaims this
messianic agenda at Nazareth (Luke 4:17
ff.). He takes on the prophetic charge “to bring good news to the oppressed, to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to
the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, when debts are
forgiven, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn”
(Isaiah 61:1-2).
[16] Pannenberg,
Systematic Theology Volume III, 130.
[17] The Aramaic cry abba as used by Jesus in the moment of his supreme earthly confidence
in God, was a cry cherished in prayer by early Christians in memory of Jesus himself.
Many NT interpreters regard the Aramaic abba as an instance of ipsissima
vox Iesu. Such a mode of address for
God, abba, is unattested in the OT. The
cry "Abba! Father" -- which newly adopted sons and daughters may now
legitimately call out -- itself demonstrates the closeness of a believer's
relationship to God. The Aramaic "Abba" was, of course, Jesus' own favorite divine address. Paul's letter reveals that early Christians had
quickly taken to using this address as well.
[18] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2 [37.3], 604.
[19] Pannenberg,
Jesus God and Man, 177.
[20] Barth, Romans, 301.
[21] Barth, Romans, 302-314.
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