Saturday, July 30, 2022

 

Saturday, July 30, 2022


Psalm 72


Hosea 5:5-6:3


Romans 6:12-23


Lesser Festival: William Wilberforce (d. 1833)



For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.



Yesterday, we opened the can of worms of “free will”. Today, Paul turns around and scolds us for our hubris using the analogy of slavery. Before we go any further, we should remember that this section of Romans is talking about a Christian concept called “sanctification”.


Sanctification is a two-dollar word used to describe our walk with God. This walk is, ideally, away from sin and into righteousness. The problem Paul wants us to figure out is how to reconcile the high doctrinal teaching that we experience a “new birth” - where our old self is dead and nailed to the tree - with the real life fact that we continue to sin after baptism.


The key to figuring this out is understanding where we sit as humans in relation to the spiritual nature of God and God's righteousness. We are material creatures and need help understanding this, as Paul points out in verse 19. As such, we live in space and time, so sanctification is a process. Also, we are spiritual beings dwelling in physical bodies, so we need to exercise our mental capacity to refuse the power of sin (verse 12). It is a fact that the more we exercise, the stronger we will get.


So, we understand our walk with God to be a process that takes time, and it involves us using the bodies and minds God gave us. Lastly, let us always remember that God uses the carrot, not the stick. We walk this difficult, narrow path because when we get to the end we will see eternal life and love, and the trek is made easy with the power of God's grace keeping us steady. Even ancient Israel in Hosea's time, a people living in conditions far more evil than ourselves, would be restored after only two days. And the consequent action of God was not punishment on top of punishment, but a coming like the spring rain. Yes, God is holy and perfect. But also, God loves to love. If we abide in this love, the sin will drop away like the dead weight it is.




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