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?
