Friday, February 22, 2013

Set Free (part 1)


For the law of life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. – Romans 8:2  (NET)

The Apostle Paul pens this statement as a follow up to the statement of the first verse of the chapter, where it is read that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1).  In these two verses, he twice uses the extraordinarily important phrase “in Christ Jesus.”  It is in Christ Jesus, that is, in union with Christ Jesus, which can be summed up as a believing allegiance in Jesus the Christ as Lord of all, which has come about through the preaching of the Gospel (Jesus is Lord of all) that strangely transmits the power of God unto salvation.  That salvation (in its many facets and implications), indeed, is the setting free from the law of sin and death. 

In union with Christ, and therefore being made to share in the restorative, re-creating power of the Resurrection (the in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven), the believer, like Israel from Egypt, is dragged out of his exile from God.  The one who believes in Jesus as Lord is converted, if you will, from being outside of His covenant family, to being inside His covenant family.  This conversion and new covenant status is based on allegiance to Him that is demonstrated through the confession of Jesus the Christ as Lord and Savior.  Outside of the covenant family, one is unable to rightly bear God’s image.  Inside the covenant family, because one is in union with Christ, as demonstrated by calling Him Lord, which is the mark of the renewed covenant people of God, the believer has ultimately overcome the final exilic curse of death, because Christ overcame death. 

In the next verse, Paul goes on to write “For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh” (8:3a).  Of course, it is understood it was God’s people, Israel, that were given the law.  Why were they given the law?  Ultimately, it was to bring the Creator God glory by rightly bearing His image into the world, which, according to the Scriptural narrative, was the charge laid upon Adam.  This would reflect the glory of the Creator God into the world, gathering up His praises from the whole of the creation.  Israel was given the law as a way to approach that which the Creator God had intended for humanity, but which had been rejected and lost in the fall. 

Unfortunately, at the fall, not only was mankind ejected from off of the path of God’s purpose for the beings that He created in His image, but the power necessary to adequately bear that image and properly steward the creation and shine the light of God’s glory into the world was lost as well.  Owing to their exodus and what accompanied it, Israel was in a better position to fully trust their God than was the rest of humanity, because of what they had seen and experienced at God’s hand owing to the covenant promises that had been made to Abraham, but their story is largely one of a failure to trust.  The covenant people (like Adam in a sense) failed to perform at the level of minimum expectation (no idolatry, reverence the sanctuary, keep the Sabbaths), and thus they failed to bear God’s image in the world. 

The Creator God had intended for His people to be a light to the nations, to illumine the world through the knowledge of the blessings that their God would pour out upon them simply for being people that were faithful to the their covenant responsibilities.  Owing largely to their idolatry (which resulted in their inhumane treatment of one another, according to the prophets) however, and the curses and exile that God brought upon His people---as promised if they succumbed to idolatry---Israel became a people that profaned the name of God.  The nations looked upon Israel’s experience and responded with mocking and ridicule.  Israel was to lead people to the knowledge of the providential, creative, and covenant God, and was to be a source of blessing not just for themselves, but for all the peoples of the world.  The law was to be a tool in their hands for this purpose. 

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