Title: The Way of Total Salvation, July 10
Romans 8:1-11
Path to total salvation
the demands of the law
Paul explained in Romans 7, based on his personal experience, that there are two worlds at war in man. “Here I have discovered a law. In other words, whenever I try to do good, evil lurks right next to me. I know that in my heart I welcome God's law, but in my body there are other laws that are fighting against the law of my reason. That law takes me captive and makes me a slave to the law of sin in my body” (Romans 7:21-23).
It is a little surprising that the apostle Paul, the greatest theologian and mystic in Christian history, is feeling uneasy about his inner life. Shouldn't he be in complete unity in moral and spiritual aspects if he is the Paul we are expecting? Judging from his statement alone, he seems to be no different from us ordinary people. Our lives are always up and down like a wagon with different wheels. Some days it takes on a plausible shape, but at some point it breaks down. It seems that you are given some peace of mind, but at some point you are overcome with anxiety. Sometimes they seem to have a good relationship with their friends and neighbors, but without realizing it, they fall into conflicts large and small. Is Paul pointing out the conflicts in life we are going through now?
Ladies and gentlemen, don't think of Paul's teachings as our culture or morals. Now Paul is struggling with the law issue. We are asking whether such a law that people who believe in God must obey can really save us. He is a man who lived to fulfill the law. Before meeting the resurrected Jesus, all Jews, including Paul, thought that the law given through Moses would save mankind. Paul devoted his best to the law that made him the most exemplary human being, but the conflict between the different spiritual worlds continued. This is the unavoidable limit of human beings. In this context, Paul confesses: “I am truly a miserable human being. Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
Our lives today are also closely tied to this law. In other words, it is a life that puts everything on the line of making a model student. Just how serious this is is so obvious that I don't even need to explain it here. The proof is that all forms of life are focused on making someone better than others.
Studying well, making money, and being a good person are good, but the seriousness of the problem is that we can never be saved in that way. The salvation we are talking about here is not just about going to heaven after death or not being able to go to heaven, but it is directly connected with our lives now. Let me explain with an example. Korean students cannot escape the pressure to study well. Students who placed 3rd place have a sense of pressure to move up to 2nd place, and students who placed 1st place have a sense of pressure to keep that 1st place in the future. I can't let go of the desire to beat other students in order to stay in first place. If a student who competes with you says that it is in your advantage to make mistakes, you may say it politely by saving face, but on the inside, you want that student to make a mistake. If you are a student who is sensitive to this kind of self-centeredness, you will suffer yourself, and if you are a dull student, you will become a slave to your own desires even more seriously without realizing it.
Some people may think that this is why they should give up on worldly affairs and believe in Jesus. But in the legal state, things work in the same way as things in the world or in the church. How much effort do Christians put in to do something well? Churches compete with each other and believers compete with each other. Unusual methods are sometimes mobilized to build the largest church in Korea, and in order to become a person who is morally superior to the rest of the world, he leans toward hypocrisy beyond what he can handle.
All of these are struggles to fulfill the law, and no matter how good the results are, these struggles only cause internal conflicts like Paul did. Because our good will is always accompanied by an evil will. If you try to achieve the impossible, you will end up destroying your life or falling into self-delusion. This means that we cannot fulfill the requirements of the law.
fulfillment of the law
If even Paul, who worked hard to fulfill the law, raised his hands, it goes without saying that ordinary people like us. Paul recognized the wretchedness of his spiritual existence, but we may not even notice it, and we may be living like me. Just as people in psychiatric hospitals think they are normal, we may be mistaking Paul's spiritual anguish as normal without knowing it. In this situation, what path is Paul showing us?
Paul states: “God has accomplished what the Law could not do because of the weakness of human nature. God took away the sins of this world by sending His Son in the form of a sinful human to die in his flesh. In this way all the requirements of the law were fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3,4).
Paul's logic is very clear. Because human beings are weak by nature, they cannot fulfill the requirements of the law. Only God can do that. The event of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law. What does this phrase we hear often mean? You might think that this means that Jesus saved us. That's not a bad idea, but we need to think more practically. Jesus, who lived in this world in the same form as us humans, was crucified according to the law. The law that was supposed to save man killed man. God's corporate law killed the Son of God. In human life, the law could no longer remain the law of God. If everything had ended here, the path to human salvation would have been blocked forever. Who can fight against the law that even led to the death of Jesus? But God raised Jesus from the dead by the law. The resurrection of Jesus is now a new light of salvation.
These stories are so doctrinal that they may sound too obvious to you, or too foreign to you. Let me explain it a little bit as follows. Salvation now comes from Jesus Christ, not from a law to be fulfilled by man. Salvation is not something we create, it is something God creates. No, you've already done it. Because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the demands of the law that humans could not do now were fulfilled.
dismantling the law
Have the requirements of the law been fulfilled in us, who believe in the cross of Jesus, as Paul is saying? This is the question of whether we have actually been transformed into exemplary human beings. Are you no longer greedy, no longer competing with others, being good enough to set an example for, or perfect? If the law's requirement is to become such a perfect person, shouldn't that life be concrete now in those who believe in Jesus Christ?
But in reality, we are troubled by the fact that we have not changed that much. We're still too quick to succumb to secular interests. No matter how righteous it is, if it is judged that it may cause harm to me, I am not very good at such work. What does it mean for us to say that the requirements of the law have been fulfilled in this field?
Guys, please see more precisely how Paul explains this matter. Paul said, “All the requirements of the law have been fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (verse 4). Here, all the demands of the law have been fulfilled, which means that the law no longer requires of us. In fact, it does not mean that our lifestyle and heart have completely reached the level required by the law, but that the law itself has been extinguished. For example, when soldiers are discharged from service, they have nothing to do with the military law, or when they are freed from slavery in the past, they no longer have to listen to their masters. Those who are freed from the requirements of the law are Christians who live by the Spirit.
However, although we listen to Paul's teachings like this, we still often listen to the demands of the law. We still often feel like we must do something for God. It is easy to fall into an obsession with “I have to pray at least.” In fact, the church demands a lot of that. From offerings to evangelism and various volunteer activities, the demands of the law still hold us captive. The reason we still obey the requirements of the law even though we live in a world after the law is that the law itself is attractive. If you follow the requirements of the law, you will not only be recognized by others, but you will also feel a sense of accomplishment. Just as a person who has been a slave for the rest of his life still retains the spirit of slavery even after being freed, even though the requirements of the law have been dismantled, it is not easy for us to give up the spirit itself. These demands will never let us go unless we experience a whole new world.
living by the Spirit
The whole new world we are talking about here comes from the transition from the physical life to the spiritual life. So Paul compares the life that follows the flesh with the life that follows the Spirit in verse 4 and below. “If you set your mind on the physical things, death will come; if you set your mind on the spiritual things, life and peace will come. Anyone who cares about the flesh is an enemy of God, because he does not and cannot submit to the law of God” (vv. 6, 7). Paul continues to describe two different lives in verses 8 and 9.
What do you think Paul's explanation means? Many preachers teach that following the Holy Spirit is not drinking or smoking, living honestly, and coming to church diligently. While it is good for Christians to live soundly, it should be borne in mind that the Bible speaks of a different dimension to this. To follow the flesh, which Paul refers to, is an attitude to gain righteousness through the law he explained earlier, and to follow the Spirit is to live in Jesus Christ with a clear awareness of the fact that it has been dismantled. In other words, “according to the flesh” is equivalent to “according to the law” in Paul’s statement that “those who live according to the flesh cannot please God” (verse 8).
If you interpret this verse as advice about living immorally following your physical instincts, you fall into the ‘spiritual dualism’. The idea that the body is lowly but the spirit is precious, that our body is worldly but the spirit is holy is by no means biblical. Man is a creature of God whose spirit and body are completely united into one mysterious cushion. If the spirit is holy, the body is also holy. If the flesh is corrupt, the spirit is also corrupted.
So Paul states in verse 11b that the Spirit of God who raises Jesus Christ gives life to our “even mortal bodies.” How amazing is it that He brings back our entire real life again? He never makes a binary distinction between the human body and the spirit. It is said that as long as we are in Christ, our whole person, including our body, is saved. It doesn't matter if we don't achieve anything plausible. All such plausible achievements have lost their effectiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ. For those who live with their heart in this new world of life, total salvation including body and soul occurs.