John 3:1-17

John 3:1-17

¹ Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." ³ Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" ⁵ Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' ⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶ "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷ "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:1-17 (Year A, Second Sunday in Lent) continues a reflection upon the relation of Jesus to the Law. 

In 3:1-4:3 is the first lengthy discourse that illustrates the fundamental truth that Christ has come to inaugurate a new order in religion. It is the first of the lengthy discourses in John that set his gospel apart from the other three. He does so by reflecting upon the relation of Jesus to the Law. The discourse discloses and brings home the significance of the Christian revelation, but it is also a summons, a strengthening of faith and a moral exhortation. We best understand it as a proclamation composed by the evangelist that makes use of a lofty style such as is usual in a revelation discourse. It contains the whole Johannine preaching in succinct form. Jesus is confronted with a favorable and friendly representative of the old order, a teacher of Israel, that is being superseded. We see Jesus as a patient and learned teacher. Nicodemus plays the part expected from the interlocutors in debates constructed by John. It is not possible to draw a clear line between reported discourse to the reflections of the evangelist. It begins with the typical misunderstanding of the one engaging Jesus. In doing so, it shows human weakness in approaching matters of the Spirit. The background for this discourse is provided by the saying of Jesus that unless you become like little children you will not enter the kingdom of God (Mk 10:15). This rebirth is the condition of entering eternal life (Kingdom of God), here and now, and in doing so, ceases to be conceived as crude miracle and acquires religious significance. Rebirth is necessary because there are two levels of existence, that of flesh and that of spirit. The main theme of the discourse is the passage of human beings out of the lower order of existence, the realm of flesh, into the higher order of existence, the realm of spirit in which alone is eternal life. This echoes the prologue expression in 1:13 of being born of God. It shows the unique relationship between the Father and Jesus as Son. It shows the important work of the Spirit in bringing people to see what God has done in Jesus. It stresses the importance of a transition or transformation in the lives of human beings. The monologue into which the discourse develops after the retirement of Nicodemus in 3:11 works with the ideas of the prologue, where it also refers to  the incarnation of the Word, and in this discourse refers to the only son of the Father, the descent and ascent of the Son of Man opens the possibility of eternal life, of moving from the realm of flesh to that of spirit, using the imagery of rebirth. In verse 17, the argument moves from the idea of life to that of light.[1] We need to move from darkness to light and from death to life. It stresses the importance of an event of revelation in Jesus. It also stresses the importance of an event in your life and mine as we hear of the event of revelation in Jesus and respond to it. Yet even our response is because of the work of the Spirit.

This passage provides one of the New Testament sources for reflection upon the Trinity. It hints at the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. It does so in a way that reminds us of the importance of relationships. In fact, our human experience of relationships may well be the best way for us to think about the Trinity. As soon as we even try to define it in a logical or mathematical way, we run the risk of heresy. It may well be that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals that relationships stand at the heart of the universe. Atoms do not exist unless they are in relationship with other atoms. You and I do not exist unless in relationships with others. Even God exists in relationship. The human soul is not within. The human soul is not without. The human soul is between. This means that we exist personally, communally, and socially in relationship with others. Our identity is as the body of Christ in relationships with this world. If the essence of God is oneness in community, it may well mean that the destiny toward which Christians pray and work is oneness in community with each other and with creation. 

Nicodemus in Tal Bab Taanith 20a is a wealthy Jewish resident of Jerusalem before 70 AD, but we have no proof he is the same person of this discourse. He will appear again in 7:45-52 and 19:38-42, a journey that suggests a charitable view of Nicodemus has some justification, in contrast to the negative views we find in Augustine and Calvin. He represents a Jewish leader and teacher who slowly came to discipleship. As such, he is living two lives and needs a new life. His coming to Jesus at night may suggest the need for secrecy. It may acknowledge the rabbinic practice of studying at night and engaging in prolonged discussions at night. It may have the deeper meaning that he is emerging from the spiritual darkness in which the Law has encased him and into the spiritual light Jesus brings. His initial statement, Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, is already a strong confessional one. Jesus is already a distinguished rabbi in his view. His reasoning is that no one can do the signs (σημεῖα) he has done without the presence of God, referring to the turning of water into wine at a wedding and his casting out of the money changers in the Temple. Yet Jesus has already said those who rely upon signs do not merit trust from Jesus (2:23-25). The response of Jesus is a metaphor that contains an allegory:[2] that no one can see the rule of God, which is the essence of salvation, Jesus offering a symbol of a new time, the age of the rule of God, and new place as the domain of God. ^[3]  In a saying that characterizes the piety of the early church,[4] in the form of a circumlocution for the action of God,[5] one will not see this rule of God, occurring often in the synoptic gospels but only here and verse 5, without being born from above or anew (ἄνωθεν), opening a discussion of the possibility of a new life. Spirit is the world of God that remains inaccessible to humanity so long as humanity does not live in the spirit, tracing this life back to a birth of the spirit.[6] With a hint of sarcasm, but also typical of the misunderstanding exhibited at the beginning of most the discourses in John, Nicodemus asks how one can have such birth at his age. Is Jesus suggesting he can enter the womb of his mother again? However, Judaism was acquainted with the notion of the coming of the Spirit bring new hearts and spirits (Ezekiel 26:25-26) and making sons and daughters (Joel 2:28-29). The Lord will give them a holy spirit through which the Lord will be their father, and they will become children of the living God (Jubilee 1:23-25). A time is coming when the children of heaven will receive knowledge of the Most High and wisdom to do what is right (Community Rule of Qumran 1S iv 19-21). Thus, although a teacher himself, Nicodemus seems dense in this matter. His emergence from darkness will mean he needs to see the truth already in the scripture and which Jesus discloses by his teaching. Thus, Jesus says, in a saying that has no parallel in secular literature[7] and characterizes the piety of the early church,[8] that no one can enter the rule of God, a phrasing derived from entrance liturgies like Ps 24,[9] without being born of water and Spirit. 

In the background is the biblical witness that the Lord will sprinkle the people with clean water, cleanse them, and give them a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25-26) and the Lord will pour water on the dry land pour the Spirit of the Lord upon the people (Isaiah 44:3). John is referring to baptism and to the gift of the Spirit. In Chapter 1, John has already suggested that the Incarnation overcomes the alienation from the logos that permeates creation, but here, we do not receive the Logos unless we are born anew/from above the Spirit.^[10] It suggests the unity of baptism with regeneration by the Spirit.^[11] The reason for the new birth is that humanity is naturally weak and mortal and needs birth through the Spirit to perceive things related to the human spirit. The flesh is the earthly sphere that is inadequate when one is assessing Jesus, who comes from another sphere. Since the earthly sphere has no knowledge of God it cannot mediate such knowledge of God.[12] Humanity cannot see or enter the rule of God on its own, but only through the agency of the presence of the Spirit. Given the scriptural witness, it should not amaze Nicodemus that Jesus said he must birth from above/anew. John utilizes a metaphor that does not have an allegorical interpretation:[13]

The wind blows where it wishes, 

and you hear its sound, 

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. 

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

 

The wind (πνεῦμα) is invisible force we hear and see, which is an analogy for the one born of the Spirit (Πνεύματος). If God is Spirit, the sound fills creation, and the power gives life to all creatures.^[14] Its blowing illustrates the action of the Spirit, which is not understood in natural terms, but it is also not something abstract.[15] In its incomprehensibility and uncontrollability, wind becomes a metaphor for the one born of the Spirit, the world knowing nothing of the whence and whiter of such a person for such a person is beyond the reach of human perception. The world can no longer measure or evaluate one who has experienced the event of this birth.[16] Jesus is amazed that a teacher of Israel does not understand such things. The association of the Spirit with rebirth is a power to set aside the old and bring to life what is new. The past, as important as it is in shaping us into who we are today, does not determine our future. The agency of the Spirit is the possibility of something new to emerge that will be life-giving and life-sustaining. 

The community of John testifies that it speaks of what it knows and testifies, as in a courtroom,[17] to what it has seen, yet you, Nicodemus receding into the background and the Judaism of the latter part of the first century emerging, do not receive its testimony. John is telling us as readers of the experience the community of John had with the Jewish community of the latter part of the first century. Jesus contrasts the things Nicodemus could have known by proper study of scripture with the heavenly things are to come, especially in the crucifixion. Thus, the Son of Man (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦἀνθρώπου) has descended from heaven, suggesting pre-existence as well as exaltation as well as its Hellenistic origin.[18] Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, referring to Numbers 21:4-9, and the Son of Man must also be lifted up in the cross, resurrection, and ascension to bring liberation and healing to suffering humanity. This presupposes that the manifestation of the glory of the Son of Man consists in his assumption to God, the movement being from below upward.[19]  We have a counterpart to the passion predictions in the synoptic gospels, its content concentrated on the spatial lifting upon high.[20] The image is not beautiful. Like a snake on a pole, like a criminal on a cross, Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice in a way that makes life for others possible. The point is that whoever believes (πιστεύων) in Jesus as the Son of Man, the Christ, will have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). If human beings are to have eternal life, the basis can only be that God wills to live in fellowship with humanity.[21] This work of salvation is the plan of God, the goal of which is the giving of new and eschatological life, which now defines like in the full sense of the term, making earthly life such only with reservations. ^[22]

In the next verses, John turns from the discourse that ends in verse 15 and addresses his readers directly. He is getting personal with us, becoming the preacher, and offering his witness as one who believes. God in a moment and in an act loved (ἠγάπησεν) the world (κόσμον) in a way that elects, helps, guides, and saves. [23] God moves toward the world God has made through the Word in this event. The will of God is toward fellowship with the world God has made. Such love defines the doctrine of election. This verse demonstrates divine election. Election is the giving of the divine self to the work of God in creation. God has singled out the only Son (of God),[24] Jesus, as the object of divine election that demonstrates divine love for the world. Since the Father is so much with the Son, the Father is also with humanity. God wills to be with the world. Yet, the world responds with opposition, even while God responds with affirmation and salvation. Divine election affirms the divine will in creation. We clearly see the divine Yes toward humanity.^[25] It speaks to a unique event that occurs within human history. The object of this love is the world. The world has rejected the light offered in the only Son (of God), but this did not alter the love of God for the world. We see the extraordinary nature of this love in the giving of the only Son (τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ) “of God.”^[26] The language of the prologue in 1:14, 18 recurs here. If we think in terms of the divine essence and existence, the only Son reveals the existence of the Father, and by the sending of the only Son, the Father reveals the divine essence, that is, divine love.^[27] This sending of the Son originates within Hellenistic Jewish Christianity as a development from Jewish prophetic-servant tradition that became traditional early Christian formulae whose intention is to assert that the historical mission of Jesus rests on the divine initiative.[28] However, given that John presupposes the pre-existent Lord after the pattern of Logos or Wisdom, the formula had its roots in this sphere. The sending of the Son is unique in that it is a sending to the cross and thus salvation of the world and the gift of eternal life.[29] The creation of the world is an expression of the love of God. The love with which God loved the world in the sending of the only Son does not differ in kind from the fatherly love the Creator for the creatures God made.^[30] This act of love occurs in the giving of the only and uniquely loved Son. Such giving or gifting to the world the Son, the Father gave the divine self as a gift. Such a gift is a surrendering, a giving up, and an offering up. This type of gift exposes divinity to great danger. God pledges divinity on behalf of those whom God has made. The giving of the Son arises out of the love of God for the world, suggesting that Jesus is truly the human being who is for others.[31] The purpose of this giving is so that one who believes may not perish but receive eternal life. Those who believe become witnesses in this world of this event of divine love. [32] The Christian message consists in the telling of this act of God. In distilling the gospel into a simple statement of the power of divine love, John has served well all of us as readers. The plan of the cross has its root in the immeasurable love of God for the world. The Son is the most cherished gift God had to give. John makes known the greatness of the act of God in the Incarnation and in the mission of bridging the chasm between God and world.  God has revealed this love in the historical mission of the Son, to the extent of the cross. The purpose of this giving of the Son is life for others. God bridges the gap caused by human alienation and sin, bringing reconciliation. The sending of the Son into the world, that we might live through him, declares the love of God for us.^[33] The sending of the Son has the has the aim of bringing the world into the sphere of divine holiness.^[34]  We are reading of the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us, the self-sacrificing of Jesus Christ is the embodiment and revelation of divine love for humanity, and that this occurs through the Holy Spirit.^[35] Such love bridges a vast chasm. What God sees God loves, even though what God sees is on the way to death. God makes a bridge to that which, on its own, is moving toward abandonment and death. God becomes the light that shines darkness. Such is the miracle of divine love.^[36]

John makes things clearer by saying that God sent the Son, a notion that presupposes his pre-existence,^[37] in such a way that his earthly path as the Son was from the beginning a journey to his passion and death. The saving work of the Son is the purpose of the Father in the sending of the Son. ^[38] The goal of the sending of the Son is others. ^[39] The world (κόσμος) is on its way to perishing, but the Father does not condemn the world for that but reaches out to save and redeem it through the giving of the Son. John gives an example of realized eschatology when he says that those who do not believe are under condemnation already, since they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Judgment reserved for the future is already present. Since the desire of God is toward salvation, unbelief brings self-condemnation. Future judgment is acknowledgment of the self-condemnation made during one’s life. John shifts to using the metaphor of light and darkness to express the realities concerning the revelation of God. He defines the judgment as recognizing that the light of the Word has come into the world, but people loved darkness more than light, since their deeds were evil. What we love becomes the organizing principle of our lives. We can love the wrong things. We can love good things in the wrong way. The reason for judgment is that people love darkness. Since humanity is not darkness itself, we have the responsibility to the opportunities given us to respond to the light. God attacks the darkness but does not attack humanity. God does so for the flourishing of human beings.^[40] The Word that has come in the flesh is the light, while the deeds or unbelief of humanity unmasks humanity for what it is. Hatred of the light suggests a preference to remain blind to the truth and light that Jesus brings. However, those who do what is true come to the light and reveal their deeds as of divine origin. 

Practical application

Nicodemus has captured the attention of many in the history of interpretation. Jesus as sympathetic to Nicodemus’ inquiry, but for Augustine, Nicodemus was stuck at the literal sense of the text, and as a teacher of Israel, he should have known better. Calvin had no patience with Nicodemus and thought him a proud man on whom Jesus was wasting his time. Matthew Henry points out that, “Not many mighty and noble are called; yet some are, and here was one.” His charitable view of Nicodemus seems justified by Nicodemus’ later behavior when he defends Jesus, at John 7:50-52. He is also with Joseph of Arimathea as he confers upon Jesus the final dignity of burial after crucifixion. Henry Vaughan’s poem “The Night” says of him:

Wise Nicodemus saw such light

As made him know his God by night,

       Most blest believer he!

 

It is easy to make a straw man, even a villain, of Nicodemus, and to use him as either a symbol of morally arthritic Judaism or the limits of an intellectual approach to faith. In yielding to the temptation, we lose a wonderful opportunity. There are lots of secret disciples of Jesus who need their questions answered, and who themselves need followers of Jesus to take them seriously. John 3:16 applies to Nicodemus as much as to anybody.[41]

In a sense, Nicodemus was leading two lives, one as a Pharisee and the other as a having a secret curiosity concerning Jesus. What Jesus says is that Nicodemus did need a new life. Nicodemus is already leading two lives. He needs a new life. If there is one thing in life we do not do on our own, it is birth. We burst into this world screaming and kicking. We have confused perceptions, blurred eyesight, and thoroughly depend upon others for everything. How can we ourselves arrange to be reborn in the Spirit? Such new birth is not our doing. Such rebirth is a holy mystery, an awe-inspiring gift. That is why we have a whole sacrament to commemorate it: the marvelous, grace-filled sacrament of water and the Spirit called baptism. Receiving the gift of new birth is the work of the Spirit. Whether it happens suddenly or gradually, we cannot make it happen, either by fervent desire and determination or by learning and believing the right beliefs. However, we can be intentional about receiving new birth. Though we cannot make it happen, we can midwife the process. This is the purpose of spirituality: to help birth the new self and nourish the new life. Spirituality is midwifery.[42]

I share a brief analogy of the remaking, rebirthing, in which the Spirit is at work in the world. I am thinking of Michelangelo's statue of David, made in marble.  We note that back of David has a slight bent, as if in the act of hurling the fatal stone at Goliath.  An artist had a cut that piece of marble a century before who thought he had cut too large a slice out of the side.  He thought he could not use it, so he went on to something else.  However, a hundred years later Michelangelo caught a glimpse of the possibilities.  That same cut, which was supposed to be too large, became the curve in David's back. What one artist saw as ruined another artist saw as having possibilities for redemption.  

I think the hymnologist Daniel Iverson had a good understanding of the Holy Spirit and what it does in the lives of believers. In what we can view as a supplication, Iverson’s hymn Spirit of the Living God implores the Holy Spirit to melt him, to mold him, to fill him, and to use him. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus relay similar qualities about God’s Spirit. The Spirit’s association with rebirth denotes its power to destroy the old and bring about a new thing. The Spirit has the power to reshape one’s character, one’s persona. We often hear people speak of wanting to be a different person. They say, “If only I could change,” “If only I could just not be this way anymore.” Of course, if we allow the Spirit to reshape us, a word of caution is in order. You might not like the result.

I have tried to discuss the significance of the cross, but just one more thing.

At the heart of the gospel is the blood of Christ. Such an image is far from pretty. Such an image is messy. His body, broken for us. His blood, the blood of the new covenant. It is central to our identity as Christians and our relationship with God. That is why some of the old hymns are not afraid to address the "blood-theology" of the cross.

 

What can wash away our sins? 

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins.

 

This passage also inspires a discussion of believing. Some people believe and therefore become witnesses to the love that God has for the world.[43] Some people experience this as a one-time, bursting experience of newness, like a conversion experience. William James used the example of a shed roof in a snowstorm. Snow builds up until the stress on the roof reaches the last point beyond which it will not remain intact. Then one flake of snow, almost imperceptible in and of itself, acts as the final weight and the roof collapses. In conversion, any life experience may be that last snowflake. It is an illness, or a sunrise, or an inspiring worship experience, or an addiction which has finally become too much. Then the Holy Spirit breaks through to the person. For other people it may be more subtle, a slowly developing realization that Christ is real, that God does indeed work within us to heal and give life. Then in a moment of realization, one accepts Christ. Eternal life brings stability in life. It means that as we suffer and struggle, and as we laugh and feel good, we learn that in all things God is with us as God empowers and loves us, the divine presence when needed.

Bishop Ruediger Minor, from former East Germany, tells the following story.  Two years before their collapse, the Communist Party called a special meeting.  For 55 minutes a Marxist philosopher lectured on why communism was officially atheistic and why there is no God.  When the official finished, most of the people simply stood with folded arms.  A few applauded nervously.  Then, Communist Party officials led a Russian Orthodox priest to the podium and told him he had three minutes for his response.  The priest began his response by saying he did not need three minutes.  He only needed three words.  The three words were these, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Christ is risen."  The people in that meeting shouted back, "Christ is risen indeed!"  They did this three times.  With that the priest turned from the podium and returned to his seat.

---

[1] (Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953, 1970), 303-11.

[2] (Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 1972) 86.

[3] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 398.

[4] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 146.

[5] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 10.

[6] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 439.

[7] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 32-3.

[8] (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1921, 1931, 1958), 146.

[9] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 154.

[10] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 295.

[11] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 225-6.

[12] Schweizer, TDNT, VII, 138.

[13] (Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 1972) 86.

[14] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 1, 427.

[15] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 452.

[16] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 440-41

[17] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 305, where this could be Galilean Aramaic in which the substitution of we for I is idiomatic.

[18] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989), 89; (Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, 1965), 229-30, 234.

[19] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 273.

[20] Colpe, TDNT, VIII, 466-7.

[21] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), IV.1, 58.2, 111.

[22] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 347.

[23] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)I.2, 18.2, 378.

[24] (Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971), 258, John using Son of God frequently and in this passage “only Son,” and sometimes “the Son.”

[25] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)II.2, 32.1, 26-7.

[26] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)IV.1, 57.3, 70-1.

[27] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 1, 358.

[28] (Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, 1965), 194-5.

[29] Schweizer, TDNT, VIII, 374-5, 386.

[30] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 144.

[31] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), III.2, 45.1, 213.

[32] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)IV.1, 57.3, 72-3.

[33] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 183.

[34] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 1, 399.

[35] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2, 68.2, 765.

[36] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), II.1, 28.2, 278.

[37] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 369.

[38] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)volume 2, 441.

[39] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 320.

[40] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), IV.3, 69.3, 251.

[41] – Peter J. Gomes, Proclamation: Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, pp. 38–39

[42] — Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, HarperOne, 2004.

[43] Barth, CD, IV.2, 66.2, 511.

Romans 8:12-17

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]

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[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.