Morning Prayer: 08 August – Romans 7:1-6 ~ released to serve God

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 7:1-6 (NLT)

Now, dear brothers and sisters — you who are familiar with the law — don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
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Reflection: Romans 7:1-6 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s law and Christian discipleship (7: 1– 25)

What is the place of the law in Christian discipleship, now that Christ has come and inaugurated the new era? In summary: three possible attitudes, the first two of which Paul rejects, and the third of which he commends. We might call them ‘legalism’,‘antinomianism’ and ‘law-fulfilling freedom’.

Legalists are ‘under the law’ and in bondage to it. They imagine that their relationship to God depends on their obedience to the law, and they are seeking to be both justified and sanctified by it. But they are crushed by the law’s inability to save them.
Antinomians (or libertines) go to the opposite extreme. Blaming the law for their problems, they reject it altogether, and claim to be rid of all obligation to its demands. They have turned liberty into license.
Law-fulfilling free people preserve the balance. They rejoice both in their freedom from the law for justification and sanctification, and in their freedom to fulfill it. They delight in the law as the revelation of God’s will (7: 22), but recognize that the power to fulfill it is not in the law but in the Spirit.

Thus legalists fear the law and are in bondage to it. Antinomians hate the law and repudiate it. Law-abiding free people love the law and fulfill it. Directly or indirectly Paul alludes to these three types in Romans 7.

(vs 1-6) Release from the law: a marriage metaphor

a. The legal principle (1)

Paul lays down the principle which he assumes his readers know: the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives (1)…. Death brings release from all contractual obligations involving the dead person…. So law is for life; death annuls it. Paul states this as a legal axiom, universally accepted and unchallengeable.

b. The domestic illustration (2–3)

As an example of this general principle Paul chooses marriage, and in applying it extends it…. By law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive (or ‘until death parts them’), but if her husband dies, she is released from her marriage vows. The contrast is clear: the law binds her, but his death frees her…. Only death can secure freedom from the marriage law and therefore the right to remarry.

c. The theological application (4)

As death terminates a marriage contract and permits remarriage, so we also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that we might remarry or belong to another (4a)…. Death has secured our release from the law and our remarriage to Christ…. The purpose of our dying with Christ to the law is that we may now belong to Christ… and that we might bear fruit to God (4c)… i.e. holy living.

d. The fundamental antithesis (5–6)

In our old life we were dominated by that terrible quartet — flesh, law, sin and death (5). But in our new life, having been released from the law, we are slaves of God through the power of the Spirit (6). The contrasts are striking. We were ‘in the flesh’, but are now ‘in the Spirit’. We were aroused by the law, but are now released from it. We bore fruit for death (5), but now bear fruit for God (4). And what has caused this release from the old life and this introduction to the new? Answer: it is that radical double event called death and resurrection.

The Christian life is serving the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit.

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Canticle

Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.

Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 07 August – Romans 6:20-23 ~ the bondage that offers life

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 6:20-23 (NLT)

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Reflection: Romans 6:20-23 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

United to Christ and enslaved to God (6:1–23)

God’s grace not only forgives sins, but also delivers us from sinning. For grace does more than justify: it also sanctifies. It unites us to Christ (1– 14), and it initiates us into a new slavery to righteousness (15–23).

b. Enslaved to God, or understanding our conversion (15–23)

Since through baptism we were united to Christ, and in consequence are dead to sin and alive to God, how can we possibly live in sin? Since through conversion we offered ourselves to God to be his slaves, and in consequence are committed to obedience, how can we possibly claim freedom to sin?

(vs 20-22) The paradox: slavery is freedom and freedom is slavery

Each slavery is also a kind of freedom, although the one is authentic and the other spurious. Similarly, each freedom is a kind of slavery, although the one is degrading and the other ennobling…. The way to assess the rival claims of these two slaveries or freedoms is by evaluating their benefit, literally their ‘fruit’.

The negative benefits of slavery to sin and freedom from righteousness are remorse in the present (a sense of guilt over the things you are now ashamed of), and in the end death (21)… meaning the eternal death of separation from God in hell.
The positive benefits of freedom from sin and slavery to God are holiness in the present and in the end eternal life (22b)… meaning fellowship with God in heaven.

Thus there is a freedom which spells death, and a bondage which spells life.

(vs 23) The terms of service on which the two slave-owners operate

Sin pays wages (you get what you deserve), but God gives a free gift (you are given what you do not deserve). If, then, we are determined to get what we deserve, it can only be death; by contrast, eternal life is God’s gift, wholly free and utterly undeserved.

The only ground on which this gift is bestowed is the atoning death of Christ, and the only condition of receiving it is that we are in Christ Jesus our Lord, that is, personally united to him by faith. Here, then, are two lives which are totally opposed to each other.

Jesus portrayed them as the broad road which leads to destruction and the narrow road which leads to life.
Paul calls them two slaveries. By birth we are in Adam, the slaves of sin; by grace and faith we are in Christ, the slaves of God.

Bondage to sin yields no return except shame and ongoing moral deterioration, culminating in the death we deserve. Bondage to God, however, yields the precious fruit of progressive holiness, culminating in the free gift of life.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 06 August – Romans 6:17-19 ~ the slavery exchange

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 6:17-19 (NLT)

Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

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Reflection: Romans 6:17-19 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

United to Christ and enslaved to God (6:1–23)

b. Enslaved to God, or understanding our conversion (15–23)

(vs 17-18) The application: conversion involves an exchange of slaveries

Conversion involves an exchange of slaveries.

First, you used to be slaves to sin (17a)…. All human beings are slaves, and there are only two slaveries, to sin and to God. Conversion is a transfer from the one to the other.

Secondly, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted (17b)…. Paul… sees conversion not only as trusting in Christ but as believing and acknowledging the truth.

‘One expects the doctrine to be handed over to the hearers,’ writes C. K. Barrett, ‘not the hearers to the doctrine. But Christians are not (like the Rabbis) masters of a tradition; they are themselves created by the word of God, and remain in subjection to it.’

Thirdly, [you] have been set free from sin (18a), emancipated from its slavery. Not that [you] have become perfect, for [you] are still capable of sinning (e.g. 12–13), but rather that [you] have been decisively rescued out of the lordship of sin into the lordship of God, out of the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of Christ.

Fourthly, [you] have become slaves to righteousness (18b). So decisive is this transfer by the grace and power of God from the slavery of sin to the slavery of righteousness that Paul cannot restrain himself from thanksgiving.

(vs 18) The analogy: both slaveries develop

Slavery is not an altogether accurate or appropriate metaphor of the Christian life. It indicates well the exclusivity of our allegiance to the Lord Christ, but neither the easy fit of his yoke, nor the gentleness of the hand that lays it on us, nor indeed the liberating nature of his service.

Nevertheless, Paul continues to compare and contrast the two slaveries. But this time he draws an analogy between them (Just as …so now) in the way they both develop.

Neither slavery is static. Both are dynamic, the one steadily deteriorating, the other steadily progressing…. Thus despite the antithesis between them, an analogy is also drawn between the grim process of moral deterioration and the glorious process of moral transformation.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 05 August – Romans 6:15-16 ~ the choice of obedience

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 6:15-16 (NLT)

Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
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Reflection: Romans 6:15-23 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

United to Christ and enslaved to God (6:1–23)

b. Enslaved to God, or understanding our conversion (15–23)

What Paul does in the second half of Romans 6 is to draw out the logic of our conversion, as in the first half he has drawn out the logic of our baptism…. Since through baptism we were united to Christ, and in consequence are dead to sin and alive to God, how can we possibly live in sin? Since through conversion we offered ourselves to God to be his slaves, and in consequence are committed to obedience, how can we possibly claim freedom to sin?

(vs 16) The principle: self-surrender leads to slavery

Self-surrender leads inevitably to slavery, whether we thus become slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness (16b)….

Conversion is an act of self-surrender; self-surrender leads inevitably to slavery; and slavery demands a total, radical, exclusive obedience. For no-one can be the slave of two masters, as Jesus said.

Once we have offered ourselves to him as his slaves, we are permanently and unconditionally at his disposal. There is no possibility of going back on this. Having chosen our master, we have no further choice but to obey him.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 04 August – Romans 6:14 ~ set free by grace

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 6:14 (NLT)

Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
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Reflection: Romans 6:14 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

United to Christ and enslaved to God (6:1–23)

a. United to Christ – understanding our baptism (1–14)

(vs 14) Sin will not be our master

Law and grace are the opposing principles of the old and the new orders, of Adam and of Christ. To be under law is to accept the obligation to keep it and so to come under its curse or condemnation. To be under grace is to acknowledge our dependence on the work of Christ for salvation, and so to be justified rather than condemned, and thus set free.

For ‘those who know themselves freed from condemnation are free to resist sin’s usurped power with new strength and boldness’. Grace lays upon us the responsibility of holiness.

This was William Tyndale’s thought concluding his Prologue on … Romans (1526):

Now go to, reader … Remember that Christ made not this atonement, that thou shouldest anger God again; neither died he for thy sins, that thou shouldest live still in them; neither cleansed he thee, that thou shouldest return (as a swine) unto thine old puddle again; but that thou shouldest be a new creature and live a new life after the will of God and not of the flesh.

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