12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for 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. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For 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!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and 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.
18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
In Romans 8:12-25, Paul focuses upon the Spirit making people children of God. He will complete his discussion of walking by the flesh or the Spirit (verses 12-17) and open his discussion to reinterpreting the sufferings of our finite and temporal lives (verses 18-25). This formation occurs through the pain, struggle, and suffering of a human life.
In Romans 8:12-13, the struggle or tension in the Christian life derives from the tension between the weakness of our flesh and the energy of the Spirit. The flesh brings death, and the Spirit will bring life. 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. The freedom acquired through Christ must not become a pretext for self-seeking to which Christians are dead in virtue of their fellowship with Christ. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. Part of Paul’s distrust of the flesh may have been his own experience of physical disability, convincing him of the universal weakness of the flesh. Scholars explain that Paul saw sin as a malevolent force working outside the individual. Struggles against sin may be valiant but are doomed to failure without divine help. Hence, Paul speaks of his and humanity’s weakness rather than sinfulness.[1] The life of the flesh is one in which one lives the unbroken life of the world of time, things, and people, to take that life seriously and to treat it as real life. One lives naively as though satisfied with the possibilities of this world, to submerge ourselves in its lowest or to revel in its highest possibilities, or to commit oneself to either conservative or revolutionary political ideology. To live passionately within the possibilities of the flesh is to live under the shadow of death. Paul is offering an exhortation, but this does not mean replacing one code for another. The point is that the entire edifice of human life becomes questionable. No one, not even the humble, upright, broken person, has any “rightness” about him or her. Life emerges only at the point of “mortification.” Clearly, although Christ has condemned sin in the flesh, the flesh remains a problem for believers. Living in the flesh is a real possibility for believers, even if they are “in Christ” and “in the Spirit.” But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Paul thus recalls the experience of Pentecost when the Spirit provided new life to the Christian community and invokes for his readers the account in Genesis 2 of the Lord’s bringing life, human life, to the lump of clay through God’s own divine breath. Christians united with Christ do not have to depend on the aspirations of the flesh. Paul describes the consequences at first negatively: Christians are not obligated, like debtors to that power. Freedom from the power of dominating sin and death through justification results in consequences for the present and eschatological existence of Christians. Paul implies that our obligation is to God, to Christ, and to the Spirit. Paul’s thought was broken off. Those whom the Spirit frees are no longer indebted to the flesh. A person enslaved is obligated to that master; there is no choice. A person freed by the Spirit is no longer under that obligation. One owes the old master nothing. Nevertheless, it is not easy to cast off the reflexes and well-rutted patterns that were part of the old way of living under sin and death. The new kingdom life of the Spirit is not easy! Choices become real and have significant meaning.[2]The "life" promised here is genuine eternal life, such as experienced only by true sons and daughters of the divine. When Paul speaks of the Spirit, he is speaking of something concretely known in the experience of the believer as a member of the body of Christ.
In 8:14-17, the distinction between those who "live according to the flesh" and those who live "by the Spirit" becomes even more graphic. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 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.[3] 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.[4] Such leadership is like that of a pilot guiding the ship.[5] Thus, the Spirit is not a blind force. Paul has experienced this personal leadership of the Spirit. Paul is reminding us that the 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.[6]
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery (δουλείας) to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit (πνεῦμα) of adoption (υἱοθεσίας). 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.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9] 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. [10] 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.[11] Peace flowed from justice and righteousness rather than war.[12] 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.[13]
A sign of this adoption is that we can refer to God in the same way Jesus did. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” Jesus called the God of Israel Abba,[14] Father, and we can do so as well. Children are in intimate communion with the loving parent. Paul appropriately focuses on the communicative power of the gift of the Spirit. When we cry “Abba! Father!” this is the passionate cry of the child of God. It is also a most intimate designation of God – “daddy!” It is the designation that Jesus used, when in agony in Gethsemane, he prayed, “Abba, Father, with you all things are possible; remove this cup from me” (Mk 14:36). The cry “Abba, Father!” is probably that liturgical form that the early Christian community used in its prayers when it gathered. The community prays “Our Father in Heaven” (Mt 6:9b) in the Lord’s Prayer, and thus cries “Abba! Father!” How does the child communicate intimately with the parent? The child speaks through the language that the parent has taught. How do we, as beloved children of God, communicate with God? The Spirit helps us to communicate. What is prayer but communication with God? 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.[15] 16 It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. He is here speaking of the subjective testimony of the conscience. 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. [16] Paul will part company with those who suggest a purely intellectual faith. The Spirit integrates emotion, reason, and will. The Spirit transplants the Christian into a sphere of behavior one characterizes 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.[17] Of course, as I John 4:1 reminds us, this personal experience of the Spirit does not absolve us from testing the spirits. The Spirit is in strange company when the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God. Distinguishing between the Spirit and our spirit is not so easy, given our capacity for self-deception. [18]
This passage has an influence upon how Christians view God and upon how Christians view their life with God. I would like to discuss both.
This passage is influential in the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Paul is not beginning a metaphysical discussion of the Trinity with his readers. In this chapter, Paul refers to Christ as the Son (verse 3). Christians live their lives by and through the Spirit (of Christ, God, Holy Spirit). Abba, Father, has adopted us into the family of God as children. Paul is opening a discussion of the Christian experience of God. The intent is to not to create an unsolvable puzzle, but to bring clarity.
As more Muslims come to the United States, the Trinity is the primary teaching of the church against which the Koran argues. It repeatedly says, “God does not have a Son.” In fact, in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dialogues in which I have participated, this is one place where Jews and Muslim unite against Christians. The charge against Christians is polytheism. As I had occasion, I shared with them that you have shown is that you have not taken the time to understand what Christians believe concerning God or how they experience God on the other.
Here is why you should care. We baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” We affirm the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, both of which have their basis in the Trinity. When we serve Holy Communion, the prayer of Great Thanksgiving begins with the Father as creator, the Son as redeemer, and ends with the Holy Spirit as the giver of life. Now, Christians do not teach about God the way they do because they have a fascination with the number three. Christians affirm the oneness of God. Yet, because of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and because of the gift of the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, Christians also affirm the loving fellowship that the one God experiences as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do not know God as written in a Law. We do not know God as written in Arabic because that is the language of God. Christians make the paradoxical claim that universal truth has appeared at a point in history, in a Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth. Christians pay attention to the way God was present in Jesus of Nazareth to shape their view of God and to understand the ways of God in the world. In particular, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth confirms, for Christians, that Jesus is whom the New Testament claims he is – the Son of God, in relationship with the Father, creator of all and the God of Israel, and in relationship with the life-giving Spirit. Further, the loving fellowship of the Triune God overflows in creation and in the invitation to human beings to join in their loving fellowship.
We affirm wonderful things about Jesus so regularly that we forget how extraordinary they are. A new group, all Jews, gathered in the name of Jesus, not because he was an effective political leader, a persuasive teacher, or a military leader, but because they experienced him as the source of a life that transforms human life. He was Messiah, Lord, and Son of God. As such, the church invites people to live their lives centered in serving Jesus Christ. Such a center will transform and enrich the way people serve the plan of God for the salvation of the world.
Many have tried over the centuries to explain a concept that the Bible itself does not define clearly. The word trinity does not even appear in the biblical text. Many Christians have learned analogies to the Trinity in Sunday school. The Trinity is like water — H2O — which can be a gas, a solid or a liquid but is still and always H2O at a molecular level, or the egg with its yolk, white and shell, or the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government, or they learn St. Patrick’s cloverleaf metaphor. You can think of a lot more of these, all trying to explain the concept of how one entity can also be three. The mathematical approach is also attractive, the equilateral triangle being the most popular math symbol for the Trinity. All these metaphors and explanations, though, fall short. Despite our best efforts at explaining the Trinity, a full understanding eludes even those of us who have been lifelong churchgoers. Church history itself reveals an eclectic and often violent debate over the metaphysics of the whole thing.
However, here is a thought. Trying to offer definitions of God may be the problem in our understanding of the Trinity, rather than offering the possibility of a solution. Trying to use definitive terms to describe God is a bit like nailing Jell-O to a tree — eventually the thing falls apart.
I want to explore another approach that recognizes the power of relationships. Think of the most loving relationships you have in your life. Consider what a definition of that relationship would like. Think of the most joyful experience you have ever had. Consider defining it precisely. In fact, reflect upon the most meaningful, life-changing experience you have had in your life. Please, define it precisely. My point is that you cannot. God created us in the image of God. Such experiences bring us to the limits of human language. If all we had were instincts, we would not even have such experiences. If language were simply a matter of describing what is in the world, we could not even hint at such experiences. Yet, human language in its poetry, novels, and stories keep trying to express a reality beyond what mathematical equations and science can describe. What I am suggesting is that our language about God is more like that.
Paul sees God at work in a uniquely relational way, both within God’s own nature and with humans. Paul shifts the language to relationships. The Father adopts those who live by the Spirit as children of God and makes them co-heirs with Christ. They actualize their glory or beauty through suffering.
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 produced 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.
Paul will 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 contact 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.[19] 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.[20] 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).
The truth is that we will never understand the Trinity by trying to define it. Even Paul, one of the most prolific writers and theologians of his day, refuses to become too precise. The only way we will really “get” the Trinity is to join the circle and live into that relationship.
This teaching has become increasingly precious to me. If God is, it makes sense that God would reveal whom God (Jesus) and that God, creator of life, would be the life-giving presence in the world and in your life (Spirit).
I care about this teaching of the church. It reflects upon the teaching of Paul. I think Paul is suggesting that if we accept the invitation to join the loving relationship that defines Father, Son, and Spirit, it will make all the difference.
This passage influences how Christians view their life with God. They are children of God. They are heirs with Christ. Yes, we are heirs to the beauty and glory that awaits us. I could think of many treasures of the church. Rembrandt did a painting called, “The Prodigal Son.” Another painting is St. Joseph the Carpenter. Yet, you do not have to go to the Louvre, the richest of museums, to see them. You do not need to visit the State Hermitage to view the greatest art treasures in the history of the church. If we want to see the church's greatest art treasures, we need to look all around us. We need to open our eyes to the acts of service, the acts of grace, and the acts of compassion going on all around us by heirs of Christ. Jesus said it:
"I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I needed clothes, and you clothed me"?
The Spirit may well have inspired Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rouault. Paul lets us know that the Spirit is at work within us.
God sent Jesus to be born in you. In the words of onetime Methodist, Vincent van Gogh, "Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh; he makes men instead of statues." God is calling the church to be the greatest art treasure. God is calling Christians to be the church's greatest art treasure. In the words of Ephesians 2:10, "For you are God's workmanship" (NIV). In other words, "You are God's masterpiece." Alternatively, as some translations render it, "You are God's poem" and others, "You are God's handiwork," which really means, "You are God's artwork."
You are God’s work of art. I encourage you to reflect upon your story. You as a work of art are still in process, on the way to the destiny appointed by God and revealed in Christ. "He's quite a piece of work." Yet, God says precisely that of you and of me. The Spirit at work in us says that we are indeed a piece of work, God's work. You, me and those around us are works in progress that God is creating for his glory. Let us recognize the genius of the Holy Spirit in each of us and be open to the brush strokes of the Spirit in our daily lives.
In Manhattan, Woody Allen says to Mariel Hemingway, "You're God's answer to Job. You would've ended all argument between them. He would've pointed to you and said, 'I do a lot of terrible things, but I can also make one of these.' And then Job would've said, 'Eh, okay. You win.'"
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. Thus, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. 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 is careful to add that the hope of destiny with Christ comes at the cost of identifying with the Christ who suffered: if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 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.[21] 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 or beauty of the end of humanity. In this sense, Christianity is “thoroughgoing eschatology,” as redemption remains a hope. The believer will live by this hope. We must desire nothing higher or better than hope.[22]
Not only do those in the "Spirit" live, but also, they will live in a new and exalted state as "children of God." Through the Spirit, the Christian becomes a child of God, destined for glory. We are children of God, contrary to anything we can observe. The Spirit enables one to put to death the deeds of the body and gives new life. The Spirit also sets up for human beings the relationship to God of an adopted child and heir. The notion that human men and women can become part of God's own family is what stands behind the whole idea of Jewish chosenness and Israel's "special place" in God's heart. Paul reaffirms the chosen status of God's people with his words but is careful to make the Spirit the active entity. By virtue of this Spirit, they can be children of God now, and therefore free from the servile fear for which they would have good reason to have. What makes them Christians is that they can stand by Christ and live by this discovery.[23]
In Romans 8:18-25, Paul expands on the notion of suffering in nature. Paul does not divorce the personal from the cosmic. 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. Paul challenges his readers to expand their conceptual horizons and place chronological time and personal experience within the context of eternity. Paul invites his readers to catch a glimpse of the "big picture." 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it. The travail of creation is quite real, according to some theories of the history of the earth. The Earth may have been repeatedly pummeled by asteroids between 3.5 and 4.5 billion years ago, snuffing out all early life. There may have been prolonged periods during which life repeatedly spread across the globe, only to be nearly annihilated by the impact of large asteroids. To put it lightly, just when your life-form is beginning to make some progress -- BAM! -- an asteroid knocks you back to the first chapter of Genesis. The early Earth may have been "an interrupted Eden" -- a planet where life repeatedly evolved and diversified, only to be sent back to square one by asteroids 10 or 20 times wider than the one that hastened the dinosaurs' demise. When the surface of the Earth finally became inhabitable again, thousands of years after each asteroid impact, the survivors would have emerged from their hiding places and spread across the planet --- until another asteroid struck and the whole cycle was repeated. It is just a theory, granted. Nevertheless, it is a reminder that it is tough to live a meaningful life when you are shot, or when you live in an interrupted Eden -- that is, a place where you know that at any time a catastrophic event might knock you back to square one.[24] The one who subjected creation to this process did so in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Paul moves from the concept of slavery to adoption and from passive, futile struggle to active participation. Those who are in the Spirit experience, in their own being, the labor pains of the birth of the new age within. Something new is being born in the world. The new age of God is not just a redesign of the old age but is the birth of something fresh and unexpected. God's new creation will come out of the old creation and will quickly grow up to replace it. At the center of this transformation is the Holy Spirit, a current of divine power that comes directly from God. Nature is in sorrow, as the strong devour the weak, and the crying of the wind, etc. The whole creation is crying for release. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. Paul's use of the metaphor of a mother delivering a child is rich and passionate. The person who is disappointed by Paul's teaching about the role of women in the church in other letters must be touched by the fullness of this image here. Paul's ability to conceive of the transformation of all creation in terms of giving birth is so gracefully inclusive and utterly marvelous! All creation is in the process of hard labor; the contractions are coming faster and harder, although the experience of the passage of time seems cruelly slow. 23 In addition, not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. We await the manifestation of our adoption as children of God. In verse 15, we have received the Spirit of adoption, but God has not yet adopted us. We groan because of the frustration that the life in the Spirit cannot find complete embodiment in the life of the believer. It refers to human weakness that causes so many human endeavors to end in futility. For Paul, then, the two entities of personal and cosmic suffering converge on a path of redemption. What is happening within is also happening without; the entire creation is experiencing labor pains, too. There is complete synchronicity between the microcosm of the inner life and the macrocosm of the universe. Through the immanent work of the Spirit in us and in creation, God is liberating and redeeming creation. The goal of creation is to share in the life of God. The sighing of creation is an expression of the presence of the life-giving Spirit of God in all creatures. The immanent work of the Spirit both gives life to all and suffers with all creation. Paul is not explaining why suffering exists. He is offering the insight that the Spirit suffers with all creation, and therefore with you and I amid our suffering. In this work of the Spirit, all creation participates in the destiny of the children of God, which we see by way of anticipation in the resurrection of Jesus. Creation will share in the eternal fellowship of the Trinity. Each part of creation has divinely given independence. God has granted to human beings the unique responsibility of respecting this independence of all creatures.[25] 24 For in hope we were saved. Paul discusses the fact of Christian hope. Paul properly concludes his discussion in Chapter 8 with some reflections on hope. In the present time of suffering and pain, the believer lives by hope. Such hope waits silently for the Lord. It restrains faith from expecting too much. It refreshes faith when it becomes tired. For believers, such hope has its basis in the One for whom the Christian hopes. Christ defines that future.[26] God, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, has freed humanity. God, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, is also effecting the liberation and redemption of the entire created order. Not only do persons but the whole creation experience slavery. Paul suggests that the creation must wait for the redemption of the children of God before God fully and completely redeems it. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? Such hope reaches beyond the present to something not yet visible. Caught up in the process of delivery, powerless to resist the urge to push, the believer and all created order must remain focused on that which is unseen but certainly and painfully felt. One must envision the end and know that it is surely coming. This is Paul's definition of hope. One believes the certainty of the Unseen One's promised end in the midst and of the muddle of the present chaos. One cannot see the crowning. However, one feels the contraction and knows that new life is on the way! Christians who are justified by faith and baptized into Christ live in hope of the eternal salvation already achieved for them by Christ Jesus. This hope gives vitality to endure the sufferings that lead to glory. Christian groaning and waiting has its root in hope. Christians may still be in the first aeon as shown by the sufferings they must undergo, but they also experience in faith the longing that is to be. The longing manifests itself in Christian hope. 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. We have dissatisfaction with the frail and perishable quality of this life. Christians believe they are on the way to a future fulfillment that transcends the weakness and suffering of the present. We vacillate between hope and despair for that reason. The basis of such hope could be the natural processes of life and its anticipation. For Jews and Christians, its basis is in the promise of God.[27] Hope understood in this way involves waiting. Our existence in relation to God is one of waiting. We can wait anxiously. Paul encourages us to wait patiently.
Waiting means we have and do not have. We do not have that for which we wait. We do not now have, see, know, or grasp. Any religion or individual who has forgotten what it means to wait replaces God by what human beings have created. They have created an image of God. Too much of religious life involves that type of creation. Theologians and preachers are particularly in danger of thinking they possess God in a doctrine or system. They cease waiting for God. If we enclose God in a book, institution, or experience, then we stop waiting for God. Thus, our present is one of enduring not having God. Rather, we wait for God. Such an existence is not easy. Preaching every Sunday can lead one to think one possesses God. The task is not easy as we both proclaim the good news of God while admitting that we also wait for God. Frankly, much of the resistance to Christian preaching and teaching may have in the background resistance to the idea that anyone can possess God. The prophets and apostles maintained this sense of waiting. They did not wait for the judgment and the fulfillment of all things. They waited for the God who was to bring that end. God is not a thing we can grasp amidst other things we can grasp. Frankly, we must wait for the person to reveal to us who they are. Yet, regardless of the intimacy of our communion with another human being, we have an element of not having and not knowing, and therefore, we wait. By analogy, then, we wait for the infinitely hidden, free, and incalculable God. Yet, we must wait in the most absolute and radical way, for we never possess God.[28] Present and future, experience and hope, stand in contradiction to each other in Christian eschatology. Our existence is not in harmony and agreement with the given situation. We are drawn into the conflict between hope and experience. Christian hope directs us toward what is not yet visible. We are hoping against hope, thereby branding the visible realm of present experience as a god-forsaken, transient reality that is to be left behind. The contradiction to the existing reality is the situation in which one places one the contradiction out of which hope is born. It is the contradiction between the resurrection and the cross.[29]
Hence, the time now is one of waiting patiently, but not passively. While hope silently waits for the Lord, it restrains faith from hastening on with too much precipitation, confirms it when it might waver concerning the promises of God or begin to doubt of their truth. Hope refreshes faith when it might become fatigued, extends its view to the final goal, so as not to allow it give up in the middle of the course, or at the very outset. In short, by constantly renovating and reviving, it is furnishing more vigor for perseverance. Humanity can venture to realize this hope in its own free act, looking and moving forward as free people. Of course, human hope usually orients itself toward something other than God. Christian hope has its power in the One hoped for who is its basis, who is present in it even though it still looks and moves to Christ. The basis is God in Jesus Christ who is the future of humanity, creating its own expectation. As Christ is that future, one experiences saving now in hope.[30] Christian hope reaches beyond what is present to something not yet visible. This is true of all hope, and hence hope is essentially part of our being human. Self-transcendence characterizes human life, especially marked by the fact that dissatisfaction with all that we are now and have fills us at least in the sense of realizing that all things earthly are frail and perishable. We are on the way to a future fulfillment that transcends all that now is. Hence, new hopes always fill us, or rather, we vacillate between hope and despair. For on what can we base our inclination to hope? Where does it find any solid ground? Ernst Bloch thought of hope as having an ontological basis in the natural processes of life and its anticipation. Jewish and Christian hope has its basis in the promise of God.[31]
We have here the decisive eschatological reference for the understanding of nature. We need to reject any talk of the sacramental reality of creaturely things as too general and imprecise. Nevertheless, we may make a positive view of the thought of Teilhard de Chardin that in the sacraments of the new covenant, and above all, in the Eucharistic bread and wine, Christian worship takes up all creation into the sacramental action of thanksgiving to God. We learn that the goal of all creation is to share in the life of God. Why else should it sigh under the burden of corruptibility? We may view this sighing as an expression of the presence of the life-giving Sprit of God in creatures. The creative divine Spirit is vitally at work throughout creation, but also suffers with creatures because of their corruptibility prior to taking creative shape in humanity, in one man. Only in this way can the rest of creation participate in the liberty of the children of God, in the eschatological future of the children of God, which has already come in the resurrection of Jesus. The destiny of creation is to be in fellowship with God, in the sense of sharing in the fellowship of the Son with the Father and through the Spirit. It has not yet found direct fulfillment in the existence of each individual creature. It could not do so because only at the human stage in the sequence of creaturely forms did express distinction come to be seen between God and all creaturely reality. Without their distinction, there can be no creaturely participation in the self-distinction of the Son from the Father. Hence, in Romans all creation is waiting for the manifestation of being a child of God in us, by which the creatures themselves will also be children. Nevertheless, even with the rise of humanity in the sequence of creatures, creation has not attained participation in the fellowship of the Son with the Father. The tension between the emergence of humanity as the last link in the chain of creaturely forms and the fulfillment of humanity’s destiny connects with the fact God intends humans as creatures to be independent beings. This is true of all creatures. Human beings are the climax of their creaturely sequence. The creature needed a prehistory of growing independence in a sequence of creaturely forms. Humans came into existence at the end of this sequence. They had to develop their own independence. As creatures ripened for independence, we are to relate to God as children who receive all things from their Father. We can see here that creation and eschatology belong together because in this way we can see the destiny of the creature will come to fulfillment. For the creature, the future is open and uncertain. Creatures awakened to independence open themselves to the future as the dimension from which alone their existence can achieve content and fulfillment. The experience of the creature is that the origin and the consummation do not coincide. They form a unity only from the standpoint of the divine act of creation. Yes, human beings are to have dominion, but acceptance of our own finitude must also mean giving to all other creatures the respect that is their due within the limits of their finitude.[32]
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.[33] Life has hurt everyone. Everyone is broken. 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.[34] 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.
Everything is in the process of decay. Exercise and eating right move against that process and slows it down, but it will not stop the process of our bodies. We can take perfect care of our environment, but it will not stop the process of decay of nature. The no pain/no gain philosophy regarding our physical health remains true. When we test our limits and get out of our comfort zone, we run the risk of short-term pain for long-term gain.
Take, for example, the well-known prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Listen to it as if it is an instruction sheet for exercising your faith and note how it speaks about both pain and gain. First the pain:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
And then the gain:
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Yes, suffering can be part of the pain that trains us to go deeper with God, to know better who we are and whose we are. Suffering can also unite us to each other. Recognition that life has wounded us can lead us to focus obsessively on our pain. This would be a sickness that would lead to an inability to move past the pain and continue with our lives in a healthy way. At the same time, seeing truly our wounds can be the pathway for us to see that everyone we encounter, even the one whom we count as an enemy, has wounds they have experienced. Our woundedness does not justify inflicting further wounds upon others, but they can, if we let them, lead to deeper understanding and sympathy.
[1] (Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976], 40-52).
[2]
[3]
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[5] Chrysostom, homily on Romans.
[6] (Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976], 40-52).
[7]
[8]
[9] (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).
[10] (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.
[11] (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).
[12] 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).
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[14] 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.
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[16] Despite the comment by
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[19] 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.”
[20] 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.”
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[24] Benson, Etienne. "Geophysicist studies life in the early solar system." Stanford Report, December 14, 2001, news-service.stanford.edu/news.
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[26]
[27]
[28] Paul Tillich, Chapter 18, “Waiting,” The Shaking of the Foundations
[29]
[30]
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[33] 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
[34] Weil, Simone. "The love of God and affliction." Waiting for God. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1951.
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