Title: Present Suffering and Future Glory
Present suffering and future glory
physical life
Those who have been religious to a certain extent will feel familiar with the text we read today, and those who are not will feel unfamiliar. Just because it feels familiar doesn't mean you know it well, or just because it feels unfamiliar doesn't mean you don't know it at all. I'm going to briefly summarize some of the religious terms used here, so listen to how they feel. The debt of the flesh, the power of the Holy Spirit, the children of God, the slaves, the father and the father (father pater), the heir, the suffering, the glory. How is it? It varies from person to person, but most of the time you will understand the literal meaning of these terms, but you will find the spiritual meaning of these terms a little difficult. The reason lies in the fact that these words were written 2,000 years ago and the spiritual depth of Paul who wrote this letter is much deeper than ours. Imagine an elementary school student reading a letter written by a philosopher. When reading such a letter, an adult must explain it to you. I can't say I'm a theological adult, but I think I can explain Paul's statement in a comprehensible way.
Paul said in verse 12 that “we are indeed indebted” but not “indebted to the flesh”. He then warns us that we are not obligated to live according to the flesh, and in doing so we will die. We must first understand what it means to be indebted to the body. While we think of the human body as a body in Chinese and a body in Korean, the Greeks divided it into two. Sarx and Soma. Similarly, sarx emphasizes the biological part, while soma refers to the whole body separate from the spirit. The word Paul used in this text is sarx. Paul's words that he is not obligated to live according to Sarx or that he will die if he does it sound like he should not live by pursuing his own physical instincts. Of course, warnings about such a body-oriented life are contained in his teachings, but more important is a warning against a legal life. Christianity is concerned with something far more fundamental than mere moralism, which is evident in Paul's statement today.
overcoming evil
Verse 3 quoted above states that it is no longer a human law, but a whole new way has begun. It is not an impossible human work, but something that God Himself did. It is the death of Jesus Christ. His death took away the sins of this world. So now we don't have to risk our lives on impossible laws or morals to overcome sin. You might be a little puzzled when you hear this. To say that Jesus' cross completely overcame sin can be thought of as merely dogmatic Christian doctrine that stems from no understanding of reality. How many sins and violence are there even now in this world? Even those who try to live conscientiously are still self-centered and often suffer from feelings of guilt or harm.
That's a correct point. Existentialist philosophers have taken this topic much more seriously. Others such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Karl Marx criticized Christian teachings in this regard as too naive to approach human reality. In the dark corners of this world reality, it seems foolish to claim that the cross of Jesus dismantled sin. So, is the Christian faith ultimately the fanatical self-delusion of those who have not faced reality?
It's not like that. Paul is well aware of how powerfully evil moves into human life. Nevertheless, he was clearly aware that such evil had already been overpowered by the cross of Jesus. No one else saw it, but Paul saw it. All early Christians recognized it. Now, we too live in this world based on that belief. On the surface, evil prevails, but its central force is no longer in power. Humans no longer have to cling to the law, morality, and humanism to overcome evil.
living by the Spirit
You may understand the saying that you must be freed from the law, but you may think that living by the guidance of the Holy Spirit is something vague. It seems that, despite being freed by the gospel, Christians still fall prey to legalism, in that the legal life yields some tangible results, whereas living by the Spirit is ambiguous. We cannot teach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in today's sermon class. You can't even explain the Holy Spirit to your eyes. I try to follow the biblical text as faithfully as possible. Let's read verses 14-16. “Whoever lives under the guidance of God’s holy spirit is a child of God. The Holy Spirit you received is not the one who makes you a child of God, not the one who enslaves you back to terror. So, by the Holy Spirit, we call God ‘Father, Father’. It is the Holy Spirit that proves that we are children of God. And we have that conviction in our hearts.”
Living by the Spirit, not the law, means accepting the fact that we are children of God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can call God “Father, Father.” Similarly, when a man and a woman who did not know each other meet and fall in love, they can call “Baby!” when the Holy Spirit guides us, so we can call God by the most familiar title, “Daddy, Pater.” This title was already used by Jesus when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before the cross. Now, God does not establish justice through judgment and punishment, but Father Ho Pater, who accepts us as we are despite our mistakes.
glory and suffering
Paul frees us from the torment of the law. Through the cross of Jesus, all human beings are now freed from legal obligations. The relationship between God and man has changed to that of father and son, or mother and daughter, rather than master and slave. We have become children acting out of joy, not slaves acting out of duty. God does not look at our observance of duty, only whether we trust him as Father Pater or not. Paul describes this relationship figuratively in special Roman terms. That's what the 'heir' is. In the movie Ben-Hur, the protagonist was a slave who had to row a battleship, but after saving the life of a military commander, he adopted him. That means he soon became the heir to the estate. He now has full powers as heir to Rome's supreme family wherever he goes. See verse 17a. “When you become a child, you also become an heir. Indeed, as heirs of God, we are heirs with Christ.”
Do you understand the word heir of God? Inheritance is the right to inherit property after the death of the parents. This is not to say that God dies. This verse focuses on the fact of inheritance. Paul sees that our inheritance rights are not originally given to us, but are given through Jesus Christ. We became children of God through Jesus. So you inherit with Jesus Christ. What will we inherit? If you are thinking of money, you must break your dream. It is suffering and glory that we inherit. In 17b Paul says so. “Since we are suffering with Christ, are we not going to receive glory with him?”
From now on, you must listen more to the sermon. If God is our “Father, Ho Pater,” there are some people who wonder why difficulties come to me. If we are not immature, do not think of glory without suffering. Now we cannot help but suffer. This is not because my fate is particularly unlucky. Because Jesus Christ has already suffered such suffering, we cannot but suffer such suffering. This is not to say that you have to live your life painfully from the beginning. The Christian faith is not self-righteous, but if we follow Jesus Christ, there are hardships we have to endure. I can't say with certainty what it is. Because your life is different, the difficulties are also different. But do not lose sight of the fact that we are children of God because of such suffering.
If suffering is what we are to inherit in this reality, glory is an eschatological inheritance. The glory of God awaits us. Although we do not fully experience that glory today, we will share in it in the end times with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That glory is both divine and absolute life. It is the only true world of God that we cannot compare with anything else on this earth. I don't know if you would think it's too vague to explain like that. It is at this point that we need faith. Those who believe in the resurrection from the dead that occurred in Jesus Christ can believe in this eschatological glory and even the splendid life. Before we can participate in this glory, we must still participate in the sufferings of the cross while living on this earth. The suffering of the cross is our existence today, and the glory of the resurrection is the promise and hope of tomorrow. Those who clearly perceive and believe in the glory of tomorrow will know that today's suffering is a shadow of glory.