Romans 8:12-25

Romans 8:12-25 (NRSV)

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.

 

Paul focuses upon the Spirit making people children of God. 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. The debt we owe is not to the old pattern of humanity in Adam, but to the new pattern we find in Christ and in the power of the Spirit. Putting to death the deeds of the body will lead to life, while not doing so will lead to death.

When the Spirit of God leads you, you are a child of God. Such a leading is not a blind force of nature. Such leading is personal. The Spirit is a personal reality and therefore does not extinguish the individuality and uniqueness of the person. Rather, personal life finds fulfillment through willing dedication. Such persons are on the highway of a life of freedom, faith, and love. Obedience is not the alien obedience of the slave. Such obedience is an expression of free agreement with the Father. [1] The spirit you have is not one of slavery that will lead you back to fear. Rather, you have received a spirit of adoption. You can come to God with “Abba, Father,” for the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. He writes of the authentic freedom we find in the Spirit. We have this freedom because we are no longer fixated on the ego. The Spirit lifts us above our finitude. The attitude of slavery is behind the Christians. Christians have won out over the anxiety of death the fear of slavery. Adoption is the special status of the Christian before God. [2] If you are child of God, then you are an heir of God and joint hears with Christ, if you suffer with him so that God may also glorify you with him. 

Paul has a similar thought in I Corinthians 3:16-17, where he reminds them that they are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in them. In Galatians 2:15-21, Paul stresses that he died to the law so that he might live to God. God has crucified him with Christ, so that he no longer he lives, but Christ lives in him. The life he now lives is by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him. In Philippians 2:5, Paul urges the readers to have the same mind among them that Christ had, going on to point to the servant aspect of Christ and his obedience. Colossians 3:5 urges the readers to put to death the earthly in them. I Thessalonians 5:23 is a benediction, praying that the God of peace sanctify them thoroughly.

In Romans 8:18-30, Paul continues his consideration of this new humanity as he focuses on the suffering of the present and its connection to the future glory. The focus here is verses 18-25. He begins by saying that he does not consider present suffering worthy of comparison with the glory that God will soon reveal. Paul lived with the expectation that Christ would return in glory within his lifetime. This reminds him that creation itself waits with longing for the revelation of the children of God. Creation experiences bondage and decay, and it longs for freedom from that, which it will have with the revelation of the children of God. Creation longs for that moment as a woman in the pangs of labor with child. As part of creation, we as children of God, possessing the first fruit of the Spirit, groan inwardly for adoption and the redemption of our bodies. 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." 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 are persons enslaved, but the whole creation. Paul suggests that the creation must wait for the redemption of the children of God before God fully and completely redeems it. Hence, the time now is one of waiting patiently, but not passively. 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 his 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. In hope, God will save us. 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. The experience of the creature 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.[3]

If we see that for which we hope, we would no longer hope. If we hope, due to the promise of God in Jesus Christ, we wait with patience. Hope refreshes faith when it might be 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. [4]  We are filled with a sense of dissatisfaction with all that we now are and have, 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, we are always filled with new hopes, or rather, we vacillate between hope and despair. [5]

In I Corinthians 15:42-50, Paul writes of the contrast between the physical and spiritual body, which is also a contrast between the first Adam and the last Adam. We bear the image of the man of dust, but we are also to bear the image of the man of heaven. Dust and the perishable will not inherit the kingdom of God. In II Corinthians 4:16-5:5, the outer nature is wasting away, while God keeps renewing the inner nature. The slight momentary affliction prepares us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. The earthly tent is dying, but we have a building from God. Here we groan and long for the heavenly dwelling. We sigh with anxiety in this tent. Yet, God has prepared us for this by giving as the Spirit as a guarantee. Galatians 4:5-7 refers to receiving the adoption as children of God. As children, God has sent the Spirit of Christ into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” they are no longer slaves, but children and heirs of the blessings of God.

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[1] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 176-77, Systematic Theology, Volume II, 316.

[2] Systematic Theology Volume III, 130.

[3] Systematic Theology, Volume II, 136-37, 138-39, 231.

[4] Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [73.1], 913-4.

[5] Systematic Theology Volume III, 175.

John 14:1-14

 John 14:1-14 (NRSV)

 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

John 14:1-14 has the theme of Jesus as the way to the Father for those who believe in him. The issue of this segment is what will happen to Jesus after his departure. The disciples are not to have troubled hearts. They believe in God, so they are to believe in Christ. He reminds them that the house of the Father has many rooms. As Karl Barth stresses, the comfort and warning here is that disciples are not in their own house, but in that of the Father of Jesus, a house that has many rooms, including some of which they do not yet know. [1] As John continues, Jesus has told him that he will prepare a place for them. If he goes, then he will return to take them to himself. In that way, they will be where he is. He reminds them that they know the way to the place where he is going. Yet, Thomas says they do not where he is going, so how can they know the way. As is typical in John, Thomas is thinking on an earthly level, while Jesus is trying to get him to think on a spiritual level. The response of Jesus is that he is the way, and therefore truth and life. No one comes to the Father except through him.

John has many such “I AM” statements: "I am the bread of life" (6:35); "the light of the world" (8:12; 9:5); "the gate (for the sheep)" (10:7, 9); "the good shepherd" (10:11, 14); "the resurrection and the life" (11:25); "the (true) vine" (15:1, 5); and in this passage, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6). They all express the role of Jesus in our spiritual lives, and therefore, the health of the heart – spiritually. Karl Barth stresses that Jesus speaks of himself as the Way itself. In John, Truth does not mean something static, but that truth imparts itself to others. Life does not mean self-sufficient life, but rather, the life that imparts itself and redeems from death. He directs us to Eduard Schweizer, who says that the Johannine Jesus describes himself as the true and proper object of all the metaphorical conceptions he uses, include that of truth and life here. The point of Barth is that Jesus points to his own person as the Way, which is as such the Truth and the Life. [2] He also says that Jesus is the Way because he is truth (revelation) and life (salvation).[3] Pannenberg says this verse is important support for the reciprocal self-distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit as the concrete form of Trinitarian relations. God is infinitely above all that is human and creaturely. Therefore, one may know God only through the Son. Only through the Son can we as human beings know the Father. The Son is the revelation of the Father, since the one knows the Father only through the Son. [4] Pannenberg says that in using the word “truth,” John is identifying Christ with the truth of God that grounds, sustains, and comprehends all things. The saying is in keeping with the eschatological awareness that Jesus had at his coming. Therefore, any interpretation of his person and history claiming to be a relevant understanding of its object, has to do with the truth claim that defines the coming of Jesus and its confirmation by the resurrection of Jesus in which the Christian faith has its basis. He stresses that Christians live with faith in this historical testimony to Jesus.[5] 

Pannenberg stresses that only the doctrine of the Trinity could clarify the question of union and tension between transcendence and immanence. This doctrine makes it possible to link the transcendence of the Father in heaven with the presence of the Father in believers through the Son and Spirit. Therefore, in virtue of the consubstantiality and perichoresis of the three persons, the Father, notwithstanding transcendence, Christian theology could view as present and close to believers through the Son and Spirit, a point this passage makes clear. Therefore, the Trinitarian life of God in the economy of salvation proves to be the true infinity of divine omnipresence. [6] As to the phrase in verse 9, where one who has seen the Son has seen the Father, Luther will make the point that the Trinitarian God is revealed in Jesus Christ. As Pannenberg interprets Luther at this point, implied here is a connection of the Father and Son to the distinction of the hidden and the revealed God. Yet, the point is not that the Father is the hidden God and incarnate Son the revealed God. In the event of revelation, the hidden God is revealed as the Father of Jesus Christ. The unity of the hidden and revealed God is manifest in the unity of the Father and the Son. If for Luther the unity of the hidden and revealed God will be definitively manifest only in the light of eschatological glory, this means that the unity of the Trinitarian God is still engaged in the process of history. The Trinitarian distinctions of the Father, Son, and Spirit are not hidden. The divine reality discloses itself in the event of revelation. What is hidden is the unity of the divine essence in these distinctions. [7] Dunn makes an interesting point when he says that John in his notion of Logos and Son has resolved a tension within the Jewish faith, for God is transcendent and immanent. He identified the impersonal Logs with the person of the Son, and presented Jesus as the incarnate Logos who explains the unseeable God, the immanent Son who makes the transcendent Father visible. Yet, in resolving the tension for the Jewish faith, he set up a fresh tension for the Christian faith. For when the divine power that seizes upon conscience and will, heart and mind, is identified with or as a particular person it is bound to have an encounter with God had been experienced as personal address, it had not been conceived in terms of a person distinct from God. However, now in John the word of God is identified with a particular historical person, whose pre-existence as a person with God is asserted throughout. [8]

As John continues with the response by Jesus, if you know Jesus, you will know the Father as well. From now on, they know the Father and see the Father. Phillip responds that if Jesus would show them the Father, they will be satisfied. Again, Philip is not quite getting the spiritual level at which Jesus is speaking. Jesus responds with disappointment, wondering that he has been with them for so long, and still do not know him. Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father as well. Jesus wonders if they believe that the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son. His words are not his own words. The Father dwelling in him does the works of the Father. He wants them to believe that he is in the Father and the Father is in him. However, if they do not believe, then believe him because of the works (or signs) he does. What Jesus has done is explain that he can do the powerful acts that God can do because he and God are related, essentially and substantially, as any human parent and child share relationship. He is the true Son - the Child of the Heavenly Father. He and the Father share an essence, an access to power, and a relationship that allow the full exercise of that power. As Barth sees it, the terms Father and Son in John are such that the content of the one presupposes the other, and there follows the declaration that from knowledge of the content of the one there can be knowledge of the content of the other. In John, one is form, the other is content.[9] He also offers the opinion that the believer can have confidence in the providence of God because our creator is also a gracious Father to the children of God. In this verse, we can see that the Christian belief in providence sees the Father, and therefore God over us, and therefore the Lord of the world process. The will that rules the history of created being is not concealed. Word and work complement each other. In addition to this most unique and overt naming of Christ's divine power, John also relates unique teachings of Christ, unparalleled in the other gospels, which make clear his plan for the disciples and for the faithful who will come after them. Phillip's question implies the desire for a vision.  Jesus' answer is that now that he is here, Jesus is the only vision they need.[10]  Verses 12-14 have the theme of the power of belief in Jesus. Those who believe will in fact do greater works than he has done, for he is going to the Father. In fact, he will do whatever they ask in his name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If they ask anything in the name of the Son, he will do it. The disciples can wield the same authority, do the same actions and even greater acts, if they will only believe that they, too, share this familial bond with God through Christ. As Dodd puts it, Christ is “coming again” in the mighty works in the disciples. The miracles of Jesus were signs of the revelation and salvation he brings.  The works of the disciples continue this ministry.[11] Pannenberg that the Spirit makes it possible to pray to the Father “in the name of Jesus,” to which Jesus promises a hearing. All of this suggests that their works are, in reality, Jesus' works - and by extension the works of God the Father. [12]  

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[1] (Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [68.3] 808)

[2] (Church Dogmatics, III.2 [44.1] 56)

[3] (ibid., II.1 [25.1] 29)

[4] (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 308, 315)

[5] (Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 155)

[6] (Systematic Theology, 1988, Volume 1, 415)

[7] (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 340)

[8] (Christology in the Making, 1980, p 250)

[9] (Church Dogmatics, I.1 [5.4] 176)

[10] (ibid., III.3 [48.2], 29)

[11] (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1940, p 395)

[12] (Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 204)