Life in the Spirit

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24 & Romans 8:12-25

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost/17^th July 2011

There’s no doubt about it, Romans 8 is one of the most majestic and theologically profound chapters in the Bible.  There’s no doubt about it, it’s also demanding.  It’s particularly demanding for preachers, and those who listen to them, to do it justice.  Sure, it’s easy to pull out a beautiful verse here and there and draw comfort from it, such as 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; or 8:6, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”  Without knowing the Greek, without knowing the meaning of these words and phrases such as, “in Christ,” “mind,” “flesh,” “death,” or “Spirit,” we can glean something uplifting from the text and feel like we’ve heard a Word from the Lord.  On the surface, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach.  The problem is, however, that we miss the depth of the text, the depth of Paul’s argument, the life of depth toward which Paul is continually calling us.  This text demands something of us—a willingness to struggle, to use our brains and our hearts, to wrestle with our faith, to give up things we used to believe in order to welcome what Paul is really saying here.  So may the Spirit lead us here this morning as we again go deep into this text.

            Paul is difficult to read and difficult to preach on for many reasons, not the least of which is his vocabulary.  Once we get a clear (or clearer) sense of what he means by certain words, once we have a glimpse of how he viewed the Christian life, then we can begin to enter into his world and, by God’s grace, begin to see our world transfigured by such a view.  In terms of preaching, getting to the point of the text is labor intensive because it requires considerable background information before one can really preach from the text.  We looked at the context last week.  But in order for these verses in the middle of the chapter to make any sense (and to help those who weren’t here last week), we need to set the stage again.  I’ll be briefer than I was last week.

            Why is Paul writing to Christians in Rome?  Because there’s deep disagreement and confusion among them.  On the membership rolls of First Church, Rome, are Jews who have come to follow Jesus as Messiah and Lord and Gentiles who, too, have come to see Jesus as Lord and God’s Messiah.  They can’t agree about what to do with the Law.  By Law we mean Torah, the 610 laws of the Mosaic Covenant.  For Jews the Law was viewed as the way toward righteousness, that is, toward a right relationship with God.  Follow the Law and all will be well.  If the Gentiles wish to follow Jesus, who was a Jew, then let them honor the Law.  If you wish to please God, who gave you the Law, then see to obey the Law.

            But as Paul came to know, the Law does not save us. Following the Law does not save us.  Why?  Because no one can live up to the demands of the Law.  But why?  Because Paul came to know of another “law” at work in the depths of the human spirit, a deeper, powerful, contravening force at work in the lives of everyone who attempts to live according to Torah:  the power of sin.  In Paul’s theological worldview sin is not so much an act as much as it is a force; that is, a power at work outside us in the world and also within us because we are in the world.  Many, like Paul, in the First Century viewed their reality in terms of domains, of living under spheres of influence, of living under the domain of forces, of the gods, of empire.  Sin, too, was seen as a domain, a force.  What is this force?  Sin is a power that is at odds with God’s will, a power at work in the world and in us that seeks to tear us away from God, that’s hostile to God, that seduces us into believing that we matter more than God, that we can live apart from God, that we can make choices as if God doesn’t exist, a kind of egotism that puts us at the center of our universe.  Due to the influence of this force we are therefore bound, enslaved, trapped, caught, and foiled in our attempt to follow God’s will, the Law.  Because of this power, we sin and commit deeds that are sinful.

            “Sin” is also synonymous with another word Paul uses here, “flesh.”  “Flesh,” sarx in Greek, means human nature that is caught in the grips of sin.  Flesh does not mean body.  Because of the power of sin there are sinful “deeds of the body,” as Paul says here in Romans 8:13.  And the other word Paul uses in a similar way is “death.”  Death, too, is a kind of force that is at odds with life.  It’s a force that tears down, breaks down, destroys—life, lives, souls, relationships, justice, hope—and actively works against God’s desire for life and soul and relationships and justice and hope.

            But because of Christ there is good news—for, as Paul came to see, God sent the Son to take on, wrestle with and ultimately defeat the power of sin and the flesh and death itself.  God sent the son in love to do what only love can do—liberate, redeem, grant life, offer peace.  There is another “law,” a greater power at work deeper than the power of sin, flesh, and death; that’s the power of God’s love which brings us to life.  That’s what the resurrection means for Paul—not the promise that when we die we go to heaven.  The resurrection is now.  Jesus’ resurrection is a demonstration that there is a creative power at work that can bring life out of death and decay and destruction.  There is a creative force that strives to undo the work of sin and death.  There’s a creative force at work in the world and in us that is stronger than these oppressive forces.  To be “in Christ” (en Christos) for Paul means that we are participating in a new domain, participating in Christ, not just believing in Christ or praying to him or trusting him, but participating in him.  To participate in him is to share in his life, suffering, death, and new life, all aided by the Holy Spirit.

            From Paul’s perspective human beings are either under the influence of the “flesh,” and have the mind of the flesh (a mind hostile to God), or under the influence of the “Spirit,” that is, have the mind of the Spirit.  These are two different mentalities, two different ways of being in the world, facing reality, two different ways of being.

            Paul wants the Romans—and us—to know that right now, to be “in Christ” (en Christos) means no condemnation.  To be in Christ means, then, that the Spirit is at work in us, already.  “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9).

            In verse 12, Paul picks up this discussion.  We are not debtors to the flesh—we owe the flesh nothing; we belong to the Spirit—we belong to the Spirit of Christ, participating in the resurrection of Christ, which means that we need to realize that the Spirit is continually doing something.  It’s the “doing” that Paul now stresses here, the main theme of this section.

            This is the simple, yet stunning revelation at the heart of these verses. What Paul wants us to know is this:  right now we are participating in the very being of God.  For us to be “in Christ,” to be in relationship with him means that we are living in the life of God.  As Martin Laird has said, “Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible.  God does not know now to be absent.”[1]

            Right now, God is present to us, around us, but also within the depths of our souls.  We belong to God, right now, and nothing can change this.  There’s no possibility of separation.  There’s no possibility of God rejecting us, forgetting us, or not loving us.  The way Paul gets this point across is by his reference to adoption, which was not a Jewish, but a Roman custom.  “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children [literally, sons] of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.”  There’s a word-play going on here between “sons” and the word “adoption,” which is lost in English translation.  “This imagery is drawn from the well-known established practice, provided for by Roman law but not by Jewish law, by which one formally and officially designated someone other than physical offspring to be ‘son,’ the heir designate.”[2]  This is exactly what Julius Caesar  (100 BC – 44 BC) did with his nephew, Octavian (63 BC – 14 AD), who he adopted as a son and made heir to the throne of Rome, later known as Caesar Augustus.  Paul is making the point that by Christ we are all God’s adopted children, especially Gentiles.  Severing all ties with our old family, the old way, the “flesh,” we are not part of God’s family—not because of blood lines, not because of anything owed to us.  We are God’s adopted children and heirs with Christ as children of God.  “The imagery fits Paul’s theology because adoption confers on the ‘son’ a new status, to which he has no right but which he receives solely because of the father’s decision—theologically, adoption is a grace.”[3]

            How do we know we’re part of the family?  When our spirits cry out again and again to God, “Abba!”  “Father!”  “Daddy!”  For when we “cry,” that is, cry out, shout, even shriek, “Abba!  Father!” it is that very “Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and 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.”  If you weren’t already a member of God’s family, you wouldn’t be crying out, “Abba!”  “Father!”  The use of this Aramaic word, “Abba,” used in a Greek text as a way to address God “was early, significant, and distinctive of the Christian community.”[4]  And do you hear this language of participation, of sharing a life, of the Spirit being present to us, leading us, guiding us, reminding us who we are?  Children of God.

            The Spirit, struggling against every mentality or attitude, every self-conception or self-deception that doesn’t believe, can’t believe we’re children of God, yearns for us to know who we are.  The Spirit is struggling with us and for us.  Indeed, the Spirit wants us to grow and to grow up into Christ.

            That’s where the groaning comes in.  The creation groans for healing and hungers for restoration.  So, too, humanity, as part of creation, inwardly groans for something more, for healing and wholeness and meaning; we hunger for the way of the Spirit, which is freedom, life, and peace.  Yes, there are struggles and setbacks now; yes, there’s pain and suffering and injustice, but “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.”

            This is all heady stuff, I know.  I’ll be sharing a story next week that I hope will embody what Paul is getting at here, as we look at verses 26-39.

The one thing I would lift up this morning and invite you to think about, to meditate on this week, is this verse, the “Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  God is not “up there.”  God is not an idea or concept or image that we are asked to believe in, but a reality, a presence who dwells within us, who wants us to know who we are.  It’s the Spirit of Resurrection who wants to bring us alive.  We are given glimpses of this Spirit’s activity when we pay attention to our cries to God, when we acknowledge the “inward groans” of the Spirit about to birth something new within us.  It’s our own “labor pains,” the groans and desires of our hearts that might just tell us that God is moving in our lives, might give us direction, might give us hope.

            People often ask the question:  Where is God?  People what to know where God is in their lives.  How do you know?  Years ago, I learned that one way of knowing is by paying attention to what you hope for, desire, cry out for.  Very often it’s the deep hungers, the inner groanings that have something to do with the Spirit; it’s the Spirit who places these groanings in us or releases these groanings within us and eventually causes us to act on them.  They are signs that God is up to something in us.

            We always need to pay attention to the “inward groans” within us because they give us some clue as to what the Spirit is trying to do in us and through us.  How do we do this?  Through prayer—not prayers of petition, when we’re always asking God for something, either for others or ourselves, but contemplation.  There are times when we need to shut up in prayer and listen, in silent prayer we can become attentive to our feelings and emotions.  In worship—in the way a prayer or hymn touches you, the way you hear scripture or something in a sermon, in the prelude or postlude or the children’s message.  On mission trips—when you come back with eyes open and full of anger and frustration and with a desire to make a change.  In our grief—when we mourn the loss of a loved one, grieve the loss of health, the loss of a job, grieve a change in role or identity or purpose.  In the things that fire us up, the things we desire, hope for, what we long for, not in a selfish, egocentric way, but the opposite of these, such as in our hunger for justice.  In conversations, work experience, in walks along the shore or in the forest.  We have to cultivate a way of heeding the message of the inward groan.

            The Spirit is continually bearing witness with our spirits that we are God’s children.  If we can open ourselves, open ourselves up to the Spirit’s movement, become attentive to the fact that we exist in Christ, as we will see next week, who knows what we will yet discover about the power of God’s love at work to redeem and “restore an anguished creation back to its Creator.”[5]  May it be so.

---

[1] Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land:  A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2006), 15.

[2] Leander E. Keck, Romans (Nashville:  Abingdon, 2005), 206.

[3] Keck, 206.

[4] Keck, 207.

[5] James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment (Colorado Springs:  Helmers & Howard, 1989), 219.

Life in the Spirit

Romans 8: 1-11

Sixth Sunday in Pentecost/ July 10, 2011

In last week’s sermon on Christian freedom, I shared a story about a dog, four dogs actually.  I know it resonated with many.  I found myself thinking about it this week in conjunction with this text.  In both last week’s text, Galatians 5, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1), and today’s text, the subject is freedom, of being liberated in Christ.  Here, in Romans 8, Paul is talking about the indwelling of the Spirit who continues to teach us and helps us to know that in Christ we are free. 

            Here’s the story again:  Martin Laird teaches in the theology and religious studies department at Villanova University.  In his book, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, he recounts an encounter he once had walking along open fields (probably in England).  He would take this route whenever he needed to clear his head.  He often saw a man walking his four Kerry blue terriers.  “These were amazing dogs,” he relates. “Bounding energy, elastic grace, and electric speed, they coursed and leapt through open fields.  It was invigorating just to watch these muscular stretches of freedom race along.” Three of the four dogs acted this way.  The fourth stayed behind and, off to the side of its owner, ran in tight circles.  Laird never understood why he did this; the dog had all the room in the world to leap and bound.  One day he asked the owner, “Why does your dog do that? Why does it run in little circles instead of running with the others?” He explained that “before he acquired the dog, it had lived practically all its life in a cage and could only exercise by running in circles.  To run meant running in tight circles.” [1]

            Laird writes that this event has stayed with him as a “powerful metaphor of the human condition.”  This is how Laird puts it:  “For indeed we are free, as the Psalmist insists, ‘My heart like a bird has escaped from the snare of the fowler” (Ps. 123:7). But the memory of the cage remains.  And so we run in tight, little circles, even while immersed in open fields of grace and freedom.”[2]

            Although Laird cites Psalm 123, last week I said he could have just as easily quoted from Galatians 5, or from here in Romans 8: 1 and 2:  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”  Paul offers these words, indeed this entire chapter, as part of his concluding remarks regarding the Jewish law, the nature of sin, justification, and the new life we have in Christ. Paul is treading through deep theological waters in these chapters, addressing issues and concerns that, in many ways, are not as central to our lives today. But Paul has something to say to us, the Spirit still has something to say to us.  In order for this text to speak to us today, we, too, must be willing to tread some deep theological waters. So let’s go deep.

            Paul is writing to Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome who struggle over whether one has to first become an ethical Jew by following Torah, the Law, before becoming a follower of Christ.  For Jews following Jesus it’s a question of whether or not Torah, the Law (the 610 laws of the Mosaic covenant), needs to be followed or not.  The Law was viewed as the way toward righteousness, that is, toward a right relationship with God. Follow the Law and all will be well. 

            But through his experience in Christ, Paul came to know of another “law,” a deeper force, a dynamic, contravening tendency at work in the lives of everyone who attempts to live according to Torah:  the power of sin.  Note that I said “sin” in the singular, not “sins.”  In Paul’s theological worldview, sin is not so much an act as much as it is a force; that is, a power at work outside us in the world and also within us. Due to the influence of this force — a power that is at odds with God’s will, a power at work in the world and in us that seeks to tear us away from God, that’s hostile to God, that seduces us into believing that we matter more than God, that we can live apart from God, that we can make choices as if God doesn’t exist, a kind of egotism that puts us at the center of our universe — due to this power, human beings are bound, enslaved, trapped, caught, and foiled in their attempt to follow God’s will, the law.  This is how Paul understands sin.  Because of the influence of this power, we sin and commit sins. 

            “Sin” is also synonymous with another word in Paul’s vocabulary – which has caused all kinds of confusion across the years – flesh. “Flesh,” sarx in Greek, is Paul’s word for humanity that is under the influence of the power of sin.  Flesh does not mean “body;” Paul is not saying the body is sinful; to suggest so is a misreading.  Suggesting that the body is the cause of sin has led to all kinds of distorted views of sexuality within the Christian experience that continues to wreck havoc upon the church.  The body is not sinful, not any more than any other part of ourselves bound as we are by the force of sin. If Paul had meant our physical bodies he would have used the word “soma.” 

            There’s also another word he uses in a way similar to sin and flesh, as a kind of force, it is: death.  Death, too, is a kind of force that is at odds with life.  It’s a force that tears down, breaks down, destroys – life, lives, souls, relationships, justice, hope – and works against God’s desire for life and soul and relationships, justice and hope.  This is Paul’s view of the human condition.

            Paul knows there’s something in this world that holds us captive, that hinders and hampers our ability to love, to forgive, to be generous, to be agents of justice – to do God’s will.  If we’re honest with ourselves and analyze our feelings and experience, we know he’s right.  Sometimes it feels like there’s a force outside us, that we are the victim of circumstances beyond our control that steal away our life, our freedom, our energy, our zeal, our hope, our love.  Other times, this force is at work within us, in our egotism, our selfishness, our insecurities and our fears, all the ways our thoughts betray us, withholding compassion and love to ourselves, stirring up all kinds of images and scenarios in our mind that generate anxieties and worry.  Paul is a pastor-theologian.  I also hear him as a psychologist, adept in fathoming the depths of the human experience, he knows what lurks and lingers in the human soul and around us and thwarts what we hope and really want.  Earlier in chapter 7, Paul writes, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (21-25).

            Here we begin to see Paul’s understanding of the cross, of the incarnation, of why God sent the Son into the world.  Listen here: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do:  by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom 8: 3-4).  In other words, Christ didn’t die on the cross in our place; he didn’t receive the punishment that we have come to believe we deserve, punishment from a God who is eternally angry with us because our sin.  That’s not what Paul is saying. 

            Jesus came to “deal with sin,” to “condemn sin in the flesh.”  In other words, Jesus came to take on the power of sin, the power of the flesh, the power of death – all symbolized by the cross – so that these powers – sin, flesh, death – would no longer enslave and entrap us, that we would be set free, that we would be released from the things that hold us captive.  We would then be able to come out from under their oppressive influence, to stand up free, and run in the vast, open space of God’s freedom, instead of running around in tight circles in a cage – soul-crushing, life-denying cages. 

            Paul wants the Romans to know, wants us to know:  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  One more time:  “There is therefore now no condemnation [– judgment – ]for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  We have been set free.  Because to be in Christ, to be baptized in him, to be identified with him, to participate in his life and to have his life in us – which is what it means to be “in Christ” – means that sin, flesh, and death no longer have the last word in our lives, that we are not ultimately defeated and oppressed by these forces.  These forces are still out there, to be sure, but they are no longer definitive for the one who is “in Christ.”

            Because of what he discovered through Christ, Paul knows there’s still another force at work in this universe, another power, another law at work.  He encountered it face-to-face on the Damascus Road and in his own life.  It’s the power of love at work through faith (Gal. 5:6).   That’s what the resurrection means for Paul – not that when we die we get to go to heaven, but that resurrection itself demonstrates that there is a creative power at work that can bring life out of death and decay and destruction. There is another law that strives to undo the work of sin and death.  There’s a creative force at work in the world and in us that is stronger than these oppressive forces, stronger than the egotistic self.  That force is God and its face is Jesus Christ and the one who continually embodies this force and this person in people and the world is the Holy Spirit.

            Between now and the day when death has finally lost its sting and sin is swallowed up in love, we find ourselves in the midst of a cosmic struggle between two “minds”:  the mind or mentality of the flesh (the attitude, the mind at odds with God) and the mind or mentality of the Spirit, the Spirit who embodied and extends the creative work of Jesus Christ.  Paul believed that every person who is in Christ is not ultimately under the domain of the flesh, but under the domain of the Spirit.  Indeed, to be in Christ, to be incorporated into him means that the Spirit is influencing us, actually dwelling within us, deep within the depths of our spirits.  He wants them to know that there is another law at work in us, the indwelling-life of God’s Spirit is within us.  It is active and dynamic and powerful and a force to be reckoned with.

            In the meantime, how do we know if our lives are being shaped by flesh or Spirit?  How can we tell?  “For those who live according to the flesh,” Paul writes, “set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  To set the mind on the things of the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

            The Spirit shapes us and molds us by releasing within us the very power, the creativity of God.  Not in some, not in isolated religious or spiritual experiences for spiritual elites, but for everyone who is in Christ.  For he who raised Christ from the dead is also at work in us to raise us from the dead – not after we die, but here and now.  The resurrection is now. It’s the kind of life that “breathes the promise of resurrection.”[3] The resurrection dwells in us because the Spirit dwells in us. Wherever the Spirit is there is freedom. Wherever the Spirit is, there is life. Wherever the Spirit is, there is peace.  To be shaped by the Spirit’s mentality is to be called into greater freedom, called out of the cages that entrap us.  To be shaped by the Spirit’s mentality means that we are continually being called more and more into life, into peace – even in the midst of chaos.  These are touchstones, signs, fruits of the Spirit’s work in us:  freedom, life, peace.  These are signs that God is at work in us and doing something with us and through us, activating something new in us – when we embody and exhibit greater freedom, in those places where we are coming alive, when we have a deep sense of peace, confidence, assurance, trust in the work of God in our lives, even in the midst of chaos and confusion. 

            We will pick up these themes the next two weeks when we look at the rest of the chapter. This week, let us examine our lives and look at the way the world operates:  where do you see evidence of the mind of the “flesh” in your lives and where do you see manifestations of the mind of the Spirit?  Paul tells us that to be in Christ means we already have the mind of the Spirit.  But do we?  Do you, do we realize this?  Do we live from it?  Do our life-choices reflect this mentality?  What blocks us from realizing this?  What causes us to forget who we are? What will it take for us to claim it, to claim who we really are?   

           

            A good way to move through these questions is with prayer.  An ancient prayer of the church is was Veni Creator Spiritus. Come, Creator Spirit.[4] It’s simple, yet profound.  To pray these words is to ask for God’s creative presence to fill our lives, to speak to our situation, our circumstances, in our hearts.  It’s offer with the hope that our minds might be set on the things of the Spirit.  Veni Creator Spiritus. Come, Creator Spirit.  Come.

---

[1] Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010), 19-20.

[2] Laird, 20.

[3] C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 172ff.

[4] Cf. the quotation from the worship bulletin:  “Come Creator Spirit is a prayer of open surrender to the absolute creativity of God.”  Thomas F. Torrance (1913-2007), Theology in Reconstruction (London:  SCM Press, 1965), 245.

Liberty of Conscience

Galatians 5: 1-16

Third Sunday after Pentecost/ July 3, 2011

Martin Laird teaches in the theology and religious studies department at Villanova University.  In his book, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, he recounts an encounter he once had walking along open fields (probably in England).  He would take this route whenever he needed to clear his head.  He often saw a man walking his four Kerry blue terriers.  “These were amazing dogs. Bounding energy, elastic grace, and electric speed, they coursed and leapt through open fields.  It was invigorating just to watch these muscular stretches of freedom race along,” he writes.  Three of the four dogs acted this way.  The fourth stayed behind and, off to the side of its owner, ran in tight circles.  Laird never understood why he did this; the dog had all the room in the world to leap and bound.  One day he asked the owner, “Why does your dog do that? Why does it run in little circles instead of running with the others?” He explained that “before he acquired the dog, it had lived practically all its life in a cage and could only exercise by running in circles.  To run meant running in tight circles.”[1] 

            Laird writes that this event has stayed with him as a “powerful metaphor of the human condition.”  This is how Laird puts it:  “For indeed we are free, as the Psalmist insists, ‘My heart like a bird has escaped from the snare of the fowler” (Ps. 123:7). But the memory of the cage remains.  And so we run in tight, little circles, even while immersed in open fields of grace and freedom.”[2]

            Although Laird cites Psalm 123, he could have just as easily quoted from Galatians 5.  He could have easily cited Paul’s deep anguish over the plight of Christians in Galatia who, even though they had been invited by grace of Christ to live immersed in open fields of grace and freedom, prefer instead to live in tight cages of soul-crushing, life-denying legalism. That’s what Paul is getting at here in this epistle, this chapter in particular.  “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). For freedom Christ has set us free – we’ll come back to this phrase in a minute.  But first, note the tense.  Not some day we’ll be free in Christ. Not, if you live a certain way, behave a certain way, then you’ll be free in Christ.  Now. Already, Christ has set us at liberty. It’s a present reality.  And because freedom is offered to the Christian, as a priceless gift, a grace, Paul is anguished, frustrated, indeed furious with these new Christians because they’re trading freedom for slavery to a former way of living.  And that former way of living was a life of legalism, a life under the Law, a religious life that believes one can curry God’s favor and acceptance by living in a certain way, behaving in a certain way, believing in a certain way. 

            Odd as it may seem to our ears today, Paul is struggling with Christians who believe that in order to follow Jesus they must first become ethical Jews, follow the Jewish Law, which would include, for men, the practice of circumcision as a sign of the covenant with God.  Paul has explained to them, repeatedly, that that practice no longer has any ethical, theological meaning.  Because if you’re going to follow the Jewish law on this one issue, then you’re “obliged” to obey the entire law, which includes not just the Ten Commandment but all 610 laws in the Old Testament.  Paul is clear – we are not justified, that is made-right with God, by following the Ten Commandments.  Paul is insistent – we are not justified, that is brought into a right-relationship with God, accepted by God, by following the rules, by trying to be good.  If “you want to be justified by the law,” Paul writes, with an intentional play on words, then “you have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”  In the end, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything – the only thing that counts is “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).

            To be bound by the law, to live with the anxiety that one might not be justified with God, to live with the question that one might not be accepted by God and then live exerting considerable energy to prove to yourself, others, and even God that you’re acceptable, good, worthy – because you’re following the Law – is not to live in freedom.  It’s the very opposite of freedom.  It’s a kind of living hell.  “For freedom Christ has set us free.” 

            What is this freedom?  What is Christian freedom? It is the freedom that comes with knowing that we don’t have to be anxious about the state of our relationship with God.  It’s the freedom that comes knowing that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), which means that Christ really loves us, and that even our sin cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:39).  To live with this kind of knowledge, to have this peace of mind, to know deep in one’s heart and soul that one is, right now, profoundly loved, accepted, forgiven, redeemed, claimed, saved, justified, and sanctified – this is freedom.

            To forget this, to try to earn one’s salvation is to fall back under the former yoke of slavery.  This is what happened in Galatia.  Paul is furious here:  “You were running [so] well; who prevented you from obeying the truth?  Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you [meaning God].  …whoever it is that is confusing you,” Paul writes, “will pay the penalty.”  He doesn’t say what that is.  Then, in one Paul’s most uncharitable statements – one of the most unloving verses in the New Testament, he says, of those who wield the knife of circumcision, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves.”  (I’m not making this up; it’s all there in the text.)

            “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters.”  Why is Paul so troubled by what’s going on in the church?  Why is Paul so angry?  Because he knows what’s at stake here, he knows from his own experience that at the core of the Christian life is freedom. It’s because the experience of freedom is an “indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15) that Paul is at pains to stress.  He wants them to get it.  He wants us to get it:  that the grace of Christ is a gift, something is giving to us in the relationship, something that changes the way we see ourselves, the world, and even God, and one dimension of that gift is the gift of freedom.  “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

            Christ wants us to be free and wants us to live a life from within the knowledge of this freedom.  This was true for Paul and it was taken up again by John Calvin (1509-1464).   Stacy Johnson, professor of theology at Princeton Seminary, writes, that “One of Calvin’s most powerful convictions is that we are enabled to be free and responsible persons in Christ.”  “Living in the Spirit brings with it freedom.”[3] It might come as a surprise then to learn that Calvin was a theologian of freedom – what he experienced in Christ in his own life was an experience of liberation, a freedom from the errors of the past, freedom from a burdensome, legalist faith, and freedom for a new life in Christ, freedom for the future, open to where the Spirit might be leading him, freedom to develop and grow. 

            And at the center of Calvin’s theology of freedom was his concern for the liberty of conscience.  What did he mean by this?  “For Calvin the freedom that conscience provides is not a freedom to do just anything.  Our consciences are meant to be captive to the Word of God.”[4]  Freedom is the knowledge that comes when we know our lives are bound to God, dependent upon God, connected to God.  To live apart from God, to live as if one can do without God, to make choices assuming that God doesn’t not exist is not freedom, but the opposite of freedom.

            Human beings possess conscience (literally, with knowledge, con+scientia=knowledge), with this conscience we are able to discern, however imperfectly, the claims of God upon our lives.  Conscience helps us to know things – who we are and who we aren’t,  how to evaluates things we have done and have left undone, whether our lives are aligned with God’s will or thwarting God’s will or against God’s will.  Conscience tells us these things.  Calvin, and the Presbyterians who later followed him, have always claimed that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”[5]  And it is through the conscience, imperfect as it is, that God attempts to communicate with us, to speak to us.  Conscience can convict us of sin, show us our ingratitude, challenge us, maybe even judge us.  Conscience, as a kind of knowledge, can also liberate, it can lead us in the right direction, it may challenge us to grow or to change.  Ultimately, what matter most for Calvin is that it was important for the conscience to be at rest – it should not be in a constant state of anguish, worry, or guilt. 

            Christian freedom has three features in Calvin’s view:  First, “we have the freedom that is ours in salvation by grace alone.”  This brings us back to Paul – Christ frees us from the rigors of legalism.  Calvin was troubled by his experience of Roman Catholic in which people were always worried about the state of their souls, weighed down with guilt and shame, living with the sense that whatever good one did, it was never enough to remove the burden of sin.  That’s not freedom.    Second, “we have the freedom of responding in gratitude.”  We follow God and serve God and love God, not because we have to, but because we can and because we want to – freely.  When one is bound by sin, we are not free to respond toward God with gratitude.  Third – and this is important – the “gift of freedom of conscience regarding adiaphora.”  Adiaphora is Latin meaning “things indifferent” or “things that do not matter.”    These are things “over which Christians may reasonably differ without breaking fellowship with one another” – like whether one kneels for prayer or sits, whether a minister wears a pulpit gown or not, or whether women could speak in church or should they wear head-coverings in public (according to 1 Cor. 11:5).[6]

            Freedom was so important to Calvin, because he believed, “Christ is obscured, or rather extinguished in us, unless our consciences maintain their liberty.”[7] The liberty of one’s conscience, itself, liberates humanity and increases liberty and freedom within and among God’s people.

            On this weekend as we celebrate our independence, watch parades and fireworks, cherish our freedoms and liberties, as we give thanks for the likes of Washington and Jefferson, we should also lift a glass of thanks to John Calvin.  Theologically, philosophically, and politically there is a direct line from Calvin to John Winthrop (1587/88-1649) and the Puritans in New England (whose search for religious liberty was rooted in an act of liberty of conscience, to be free from the Church of England[8]) to the American Revolution.  John Adams (1735-1826), himself, attributed the work of Calvin and Calvin’s Geneva, which was a “free city” of refuge for those seeking liberty of conscience throughout Europe, as the birthplace of the Revolution, particularly liberty of conscience.[9]    Liberty of conscience frees the individual to act.  It’s this idea that empowered the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and empowered people to rebel (the Revolution was known as the Presbyterian Rebellion in the Houses of Parliament in London), and to imagine a new world.  Unfortunately, the founders did not go far enough at the time to liberate everyone – a Civil War would later do that, which, too, was an act of conscience.

            We’ve come a long way from Paul – who, along with Calvin, could not have imagined a Democratic, capitalist world.  What they taught us and continue to teach us, however, – and it’s built into the experience of Christ – is that freedom is a grace, it’s a gift.  The nature of freedom is that it frees us to determine the things that matter and the things that do not matter and the freedom to determine what matters and doesn’t matter.  Our Presbytery polity is structured to ensure that nothing binds the conscience of our neighbors in Christ.  We make every effort to try to keep the conscience free. This means we are free to decide what is and what isn’t adiaphora. 

            Sometimes in our public life and in the church, we argue and debate over adiaphora (things that don’t matter) as if they were things that matter.  And when we do this, the things that ultimately really do matter – like faith working through love – are tossed to the side.  We become like the dog who runs in tight circles and then expects everyone else to run in the same tight circles, because to give freedom to others to run around in the vast, open, expanse of grace and freedom is just too threatening.  Love, you see, creates a space of freedom.  Freedom liberates.  The more we know our own freedom in Christ – when our consciences can rest in Christ’s love – the more we can let things be, let people be, allow freedom to thrive and grow.  It’s a way for faith to work through love.  And as Christ showed us with this life, to be loved by God is to be free indeed. To love is to free and freedom liberates.

---

Image: “The Assertion of Liberty of Conscience By the Independents at the Westminster Assembly of Divines,” John Rogers Herbert, R. A. (1810-1890)

[1] Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010), 19-20.

[2] Laird,

[3] William Stacy Johnson, John Calvin:  Reformer For the 21st Century (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 69.

[4] Johson, 69.

[5] Westminster Confession of Faith (1644).

[6] Johnson’s summary, 69.

[7] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), III.19.14

[8] See the new interpretation of Puritan life and thought in David D. Hall, A Reforming People:  Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (New York:  Knopf, 2011).

[9] Charles F. Adams, ed. The Works of John Adams [1851], Vol. 6, 313-314.