We who are in Christ have new life in Christ. The body is still subject to death because the human race fell from grace, so we are "destined to die once". (Hebrews 9:27) But we are not destined to die twice! If we are in Christ, physical death is the only death we will ever have to face. We will not have to face the second death, which is still an eternal existence of the soul but is also an eternal separation from God. That is a fate far worse than death! Eternal separation from the presence of God is the eternal separation from light and love and hope. This is the most terrible fate than can ever befall a human being.
Paul speaks on the theme of death for the body but life for the soul by saying, "But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you." (Romans 8:10-11)
The fate of our eternal souls is up to us. We can choose Christ and experience only the physical death of the body, or we can reject Christ and experience the physical death of the body and a fate worse than death for our souls. "Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation---but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8:12-13) We accomplished nothing worthwhile when we lived in rebellion toward God. The things we did while we served ourselves are things that brought us shame and not honor. So why live according to the flesh any longer? What use is such a lifestyle? But living for Christ has benefits both in this life and in the life to come. We owe our lives to Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us; we owe nothing to the flesh or to the world or to sin. Sin never did anything good for us; why should we serve it any longer?
Now that we are in Christ and Christ is in us, we are the sons and daughters of the holy God. He couldn't call us His children while we were slaves to sin. We belonged to our father the devil then. (John 8:44) But now that we have redemption through Christ, the One whom Christ called "Father" is our Father too. "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:14-16) A slave cannot call his master "father". He certainly cannot call his master "abba", which is a term that means something like "daddy" in English. But in Christ we are now the children of the living God, and the fear we feel is reverence, not the fear a slave might feel toward his master. Was I ever afraid my daddy would beat me or kill me if I made a mistake or if I came to him for help? Of course not; I had a daddy who loved me. As the children of God we don't need to be afraid to come to Him for help. Like any loving father, God wants us to come to Him for help. My daddy used to tell me that nothing was so bad I needed to lie about it. If I made a mistake he just wanted me to be up front about it, to get it out into the open, and to get past it. God is the same way. He wants us to come to Him and say, "Daddy, I made a mistake. I did something I shouldn't have. I want to tell You about it so I can get this heavy burden off my chest. I want to tell You about it because You can give me absolution for my sincere repentance. You can help me not to keep doing this wrong thing."
Paul is writing to Roman citizens, and in the Roman culture an adoption was irrevocable. When a Roman man adopted a son, that son no longer had any ties or any obligation to his old family. That son became a full heir of the Roman man's estate, just as if he were a biological child. That son had the same rights as any biological children the Roman man may have already had or may have had in the future. Any debts the son may have racked up before his adoption were cancelled. So now that we are in Christ we belong to the Father just as much as Christ (His biological Son) belongs to Him. We no longer have any ties to our old lives. The debt we owed God for our sins is cancelled. In every way we are new people with new lives, just as an adopted son in Roman society was considered to be a new man with a new life.
A Roman adoption was a legal proceeding that had to be witnessed. If at any time someone wanted to challenge whether the adoption had actually taken place or whether it was carried out according to the law, the witnesses would be called to give their testimony that they had in fact seen the adoption carried out properly. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He indwells us as a continual witness that we are the adopted sons and daughters of God. Because the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, and therefore known as God the Holy Spirit, there is no higher authority who can attest to our adoption. If God says we are adopted, there can be no argument about it. His testimony puts an end to any disputes regarding to whom we belong.
"Now if we are children, then we are heirs---heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory." (Romans 8:17) The fact that we are co-heirs with the perfect and holy Son of God is to me one of the most astounding statements of the Bible. We are so sinful and broken. We are so unworthy of being called the children of Christ. But God loved us in spite of our fallen condition and made a way for us to not only be redeemed from a life of futility and sin, but also to become His legal children and to share in the same inheritance He is going to give to His biological Son.
If we are the brothers and sisters of Christ, we must be willing to endure anything that our brother Christ endured. We must take part in whatever befalls the family of God. We can't expect the world to love us any more than it loved Christ. We can't expect to experience only the good times and never experience some hard times. Jesus Christ is the biological son of the living God, and He is holy and perfect, and He is the only human being who can truly be called "good", but He faced hardship and persecution in His life on earth. If the One who did no wrong didn't have it easy here, we can't expect everything to go our way. If we are part of His family, we must love Him enough to stand up for Him, just as He loved us enough to stand up for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment