Everyone has a choice, live in
accordance to human desires resulting in bondage to sin, followed by
death. Not the choice I would recommend. The other option is to live according to the Spirit, gaining
the supernatural ability to to live free from sin. If we live
according to the will of the Holy Spirit who joins with our spirits, we live as a child of God and will be blessed as a father blesses
his child. (I love this knowledge, it is amazing to know when we
hurt so much we don't even know what to pray, God himself prays for
us, using the Holy Spirit.)
Paul moves on to remind us that if
Jesus (God's own Son) was allowed to suffer, that we will suffer at
times as well. Our suffering will be incomparable to the glory that
is yet to be revealed to us. Also, even while suffering we are
blessed with hope. What hope we have! In the final section Paul
appears to allude to (probably unintentionally, but the impression I
get nonetheless) the story of Jesus asking the innocent (there were none) to accuse
(and execute) the adulter. Nobody is left to accuse us, God the
Father has declared our innocence, and Jesus died to pay for the sins
we so deserved convictions of.
My part in the discussion of Romans 9 will be short since I don't
understand it. I find it difficult to read, just as I struggle
through Job, lamentations (or pretty much any of the books regarding
the prophecies regarding the Babylonian exile and Israel's
punishments). It is clear that Paul is anguished over the Jewish
denial of Jesus as the Messiah. Paul is trying to understand through
his own study of scriptures, which he shares with us. Basically this
section boils down to “God is God, and (we) are not”. Any
comments for those with a better understanding of this text?
I love the Message translation for chapter 9. There are some wonderful "one-liners" that I need to print out and paste on my desk.
ReplyDelete"27 Isaiah maintained this same emphasis: If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered and the sum labeled "chosen of God," They'd be numbers still, not names; salvation comes by personal selection.28 God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus"
and
"19 Are you going to object, "So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?"
20 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?"
I guess it all boils down to that Stephen Curtis Chapman song where he sings "God is God and I am man." I don't have the faintest idea of where God may lead me in the days, weeks and years to come. But some days I'm really happy that I know just enough to get through the minutes, hours and day ahead of me today.