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Ponderings

June 10, 2003

Wandering back toward the thoughts that I spoke briefly about in my March 11th post, I thought I would continue some of those musings here. I had written about how Paul sees the human being as a concert of physical being and mental existence. Thus, his distinction between "flesh" and "spirit" where one is bad and the other good, cannot be a distinction between our physical body and our mental self. Instead, they need to be viewed as a distinction in mindset, or spiritual orientation. Paul writes extensively in chapter 7 of Romans about how what he wants to do, he cannot perform and what he hates doing, he does anyway. He then points out that such behavior is not him, but rather sin that is still ingrained in his physical body. From this distinction, and other passages of scripture, it seems quite feasible, then, that salvation, rather than "going to heaven" some day, is really about the freedom to do what we choose in this life! The Calvinists has long understood this sort of freedom, in that they believe that scripture tells us that we are unable to choose to do what is right and thus are not free in a libertarian sense. I think however, that they have taken it much further than Paul himself did. Paul seems to contend that we can want to do what is right, but without the grace and salvation of God through faith in Jesus, we can never be capable of performing what is right.

In order to do what is right, we must move beyond law and reach toward transformation. Jesus himself taught this, although we often distort his teaching because of our desire to have clearly established rules and guidlines. The Sermon on the Mount is often taught as Jesus establishing even more stringent regulations than than the OT law. Not only can you not murder, you will certainly burn if you think about your brother with hate in your heart. Not only should you not commit adultery, you are in sin for thinking about it. So and so on we go, making Christ's message no different than the OT law: a righteousness based on external actions, on things that we need to control, subdue, or force to conform. Jesus, however, sarcastical knocks this notion, in essence saying: if what your eyes see or your hands do are what cause you to sin, then chop them off! The message Christ came to preach is that righteousness is a state of the heart. It is a mindset to please him, and as we, through faith, work with him on being transformed, we will find that our actions fulfill the law. If we aim at fulfilling regulations, we will certainly fail, because doing so leads to pride and conceit, even if we manage to somehow do what we are trying to do (which is unlikely). However, if we will try to become the kind of person that Jesus asks us to be and helps us in becoming, the actions of the law will become our modus operandi, the way we act in every situation. Not out of legalistic requirements, but because it is genuinely in our heart to do so, and because Christ has set us free.

(Rom. 6-8, Matt. 5-12, Col. 2-3)

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