Epidemic

Here is a sobering but not too surprising report about the rise of porn. Justin Taylor also provides a list of aids in fighting this battle.

Romans 7:13-20

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:13-20)

Depravity Redefined. When theologians speak of total depravity, many get a false and muddled picture of human sinfulness. Total depravity seems to indicate a wholesale fall into perversion. Man is as wicked as he possibly could become. However, neither the Scriptures nor experience support such a view. The fact is that the portrait of human evil is quite a bit more complex than this, and Paul gives a very helpful analysis of our predicament.

I want but I don’t. Oddly enough the depths of our waywardness is revealed by the good and healthy desires of our heart. We, like Paul, often find ourselves wanting to refrain from certain activities. We don’t want to grow bitter and resentful or to be controlled by greed or lust. In this our hearts “agree” with God’s law, which as creatures created in the image of God is engraved upon our conscience (Romans 2:15). However, there is no grounds here to grow confident in our own goodness, for Paul points out that although we reveal God’s imprint through healthy desires, we immediately reject those healthy wants and do what we “hate.” Bondage is not control that goes unresisted. When we speak of slavery, we speak of those unfortunate peoples forced into labors and duties that they would not choose for themselves and are offered no proper reward. In the same way, the bondage of sin is not a slavery that goes uncontested within us. The descent into depravity is an embattled one. Thus, the shackles of our wickedness is powerfully demonstrated by the fervent though impotent resistance of our hearts. We don’t want to do it, and we do it again and again and again.

Is it sin or me? Paul ends here by stating that it is sin and not “I” who does the deed that I do not want. It may, then, seem like Paul is removing himself and us from the culpability of our actions. Given the entire context of Romans, and Paul’s other writings, this clearly is not the case. In the very next section, Paul proclaims, “Wretched man that I am!” and not “Wretched sin that dwells in me.” “Sin” is his master, and at the same time sin is a part of him. It rules him, and yet it dwells in him and is not external to him.

Total Depravity. Thus, total depravity does not mean we are as bad as we can possibly be. It means that we want to live a good and righteous life, but we can’t want it enough. We are tortured souls ever living with the hatred of our own words, thoughts, and deeds, but powerless to speak, think, or act differently. And so we are perpetually condemned to valley of guilt, regret, and shame with a longing to climb out but lacking the strength to do so. If only there was someone willing to descend into this dark, deathly ravine, who also had the strength to carry us out.

Athens and Jerusalem: Church and Culture Part 2

“What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem? What between the Academy and the Church?” These are the famous words of the early church father Tertullian, and they mark the philosophy that he attempted to live by. He totally denounced all Roman authority, he exempted all Christians from civic obligations, he decried all forms of public entertainment, and he rejected the notion that any good could be gained from secular philosophy. What’s more, Tertullian promoted a rigorous ascetic lifestyle that sometimes went to unhealthy extremes. In short, Tertullian advocated complete rejection of all culture.

“What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Well, apparently more than Tertullian realized. It is well known that he was highly influenced by Stoicism as a young man. The Stoics believed that one needed to maintain an emotional detachment from the physical world, part of which they achieved through a strict asceticism. It is pretty clear that this Stoic detachment from pain and pleasure influenced Tertullian throughout his Christian life. For example, he believed that sexual pleasure of any kind was a sin and should be avoided. Stoic philosophy was so embedded in him that although he claimed to reject it entirely he actually filtered his Christian beliefs through it.

Tertullian’s blind spot does not provide the answer for the questions of Christianity and culture, but it does provide some significant warnings. First, total separation from culture is simply not possible. One can hardly imagine an individual going further extremes than Tertuallian, and even he could not escape. Culture is the air the we breath. Christians obviously need to be discerning of culture and must reject much of it. But to say that Christians should avoid all culture is a non-answer. The very motives for rejecting pagan culture may be pagan themselves.

Secondly, Tertullian’s blindness reminds us of our own blindness. What Tertullian viewed as righteousness was actually an ethic derived from a secular, pantheistic philosophy. This early church father tried to draw dark, bold lines between Christ and the world, and he failed. Can you draw the lines between Christ and the world? It seems that suspicion is in order. Perhaps the world isn’t out there. Perhaps the world is much closer than you think.

African Prosperity "Gospel"

Here is a heartbreaking report by Christianity Today on the spread of the prosperity "gospel" in Africa.

The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

Early Christians and Culture

The subject of church and culture is one that I have been studying for some time. Of course, this is subject that is on the front burner of contemporary American Christianity, and in one form or another has always been front and center. Think of how significant and comprehensive are the questions regarding this issue. How involved should the Church be in politics? What is Christian art? Should Christian art even be obviously “Christian”? How far should Christians venture into “worldly” movies, music, and entertainment? What exactly is “worldliness”? What meaning is there in “secular” employment? How does the Church be “in the world” without becoming “of the world”? How does the Church proclaim a counter-cultural (by the way, what does “counter-cultural” mean?) gospel without becoming irrelevant to the culture (and what does “irrelevant” mean and should we care?). Enter John Barber’s The Road from Eden, which is an attempt at a comprehensive history of how the church has interacted with culture. As I slowly work through this book, I thought I would share some perspectives on church and culture from various points in Christian history.

Up first is a piece of early Christian art, the painting titled Raising of Lazarus. In the picture Christ is portrayed as a “large, senatorial, Apollo-type figure.” The Roman senate was the most distinguished and powerful class in the Roman Empire. Apollo was the god of power, and one the three most significant gods in the Roman mind. So why would a Christian artist fashion Jesus after a pagan god?

At first, this painting appears to be simple syncretism, a thoughtless absorption of pagan culture into Christianity. Christianity, even at this early date, appears to be blending with the Roman worship of power. But the situation isn’t that simple. In pagan mythology Apollo is extremely powerful, but he has his limits. And one particularly notable limitation is that he can’t raise people from the dead. But the painting is about raising Lazarus from the dead. Is it not ironic that such a picture would feature Apollo? Ironic or antagonistic? The painting sends a subtle and powerful message into its culture, Jesus is greater than Apollo. Jesus can do what neither the Roman empire, nor its gods could ever do. The Roman elite, the emperor, the pagan gods are not lord. Jesus is Lord.

The painting reveals that the early Christians understood well their neighbors and friends, but it also reveals their devotion to Jesus. They knew how to communicate to the pagan mind without compromising the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Not only did know the pagan culture, they were able to wield for the sake of Christ. This painting (and Barber actually lists several other examples) raises the question: Can Christians use pagan culture to proclaim a counter-cultural gospel?

Romans 7:7-12

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

The Gift of Knowledge. The law does something very helpful for us. It lays out for us the way of life and the way of death. Once I drove a 2 ton truck loaded with construction material over a septic tank. The result wasn’t pretty. Of course, I didn’t know the tank was there. No one did. But a map that said ‘drive here’ and ‘don’t drive here’ would have been helpful. That’s what the law does. It points out the proverbial septic tanks of life. That’s good knowledge to have, and it may seem like that is all that we need, but it's not.

The Problem of Knowledge. Note that Paul doesn’t say the law makes us sin. He says the law informs us to what is sin. And armed with that knowledge, we not only break the law but are compelled to break it more and more. At first this sounds like a bit of an overstatement. Would I really covet less if I didn’t know that it was wrong? I know the cookie jar explanation (i.e. when you tell a child not to take a cookie from the cookie jar, you actually increase the temptation to do so), but it seems a little juvenile. But Paul’s argument is far from juvenile and shows deep and sophisticated insight into the human psyche.

Surprise Attack. Armed with the law it would seem sin doesn’t stand a chance. But the assault of sin is hardly ever frontal. It “deceives” as Paul says. The law keeps sin front and center in our minds. Take coveting for example. Of course, coveting is always there, but the law points it out. And suddenly with the gift of its knowledge I see coveting not only in a few isolated instances, but all over the place. Surprised by my own transgression, I dig in my heels. Coveting must go. But it doesn’t go at all, and soon I start coveting those who seem not to struggle with coveting. Then guilt starts taking root. Perhaps, I am a seriously flawed and sinful person. But there is an alternative. Who is to say that this “no coveting” law is the best way. There are many happy coveters in the world. I may even begin to resent God for making such an impossible rule. I may grow so resentful that not only do I give myself over to coveting, but I begin coveting with a vengeance. Now this is merely one path sin may take.

What’s Wrong With Me. This is the thought the text is driving into my heart. How can I be so messed up, that good information actually becomes my downfall. I was just having a discussion with someone about a person destroying their life with alcohol and drug addiction. “Some people,” I said, “have become so messed up that helping them actually hurts them.” I retract that statement. The truth is all people, all of us, are so messed up that the holy help of the law actually hurts us.

Ways Not To Be Missional

Jonathan Dodson is starting a new blogging series on ways not to missional. He starts with "event-driven evangelism." Read it here.

Lessons From Topsail

My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary this past week by taking a trip alone to Topsail Island, NC. We rented a condo built right on the beach and overlooked the ocean. Though I took a week sabbatical from all serious study, I learned quite a bit a bit on this trip. Here is just one reflection.

A Great Day. I’ll never forget last Thursday. The day began with me taking pictures of the sunrise over the ocean at 7am. As it turned out, I was far too sleepy for the task and all the horizons were slanting up. Then I had breakfast on our deck overlooking the ocean, took some more pictures of a shrimping boat I thought our kids would enjoy, and read a bit. Shortly after Jen and I were on the beach. We played like children in the waves. Jumping over them, into them, getting pummeled by a good many of them. We reclined in our beach chairs with a good book in hand as the rising tide licked at our feet. We took small walks through the cool water and sand collecting shells and shooting pictures of crabs. For dinner we drove to a local seafood market, bought some shrimp caught that morning, took it back to our room and grilled some shrimp kabobs.

Not Enough. It was a great day. One of the funnest days I’ve had in a long time. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Not that I’m complaining. I was flooded with perpetual gratitude that day that God would blend wind and water, sun and sky into such a glorious experience, that I have a wife who didn’t feel too adult to splash like a child in the foaming waves. And as I read in the midst of the ocean tide, sipping Sobe, and stealing glances at my beautiful wife, I constantly thought, “Can it get much better than this?” But at the same time, there was something sad about the experience. Sad because it had to stop. As it turns out, sun, wind, sand, waves, shells, and even my wife, though rapturously delightful, are also thoroughly exhausting. My frame came to the end of itself and could take no more.

“We shall be like him, because we shall see him as He is.” I gained a greater insight into this statement this past week. If the power and splendor of the ocean is too much for my frame to contain, then how much more its Creator. The tricky thing about joy is not that there is so little to be had. Even in this fallen world, wonders of delight abound all around us. The problem is that we cannot endure. They are too much for us. We think we grow bored, but in reality we are often just weary and spent. And if we were placed in the arena of unceasing pleasure, we would not be pleasured unceasingly. If there was no escape, pleasure would turn to torture. As the waves and wind break the rocks into specks of sand, so they would break us, pulverize us. What then would the infinite splendor of God do were we admitted into his presence?

“We shall be like him, because we shall see him as He is.” There are several layers to this statement, but one layer is certainly this. Only as we are transformed spiritually, morally, physically into a splendor ourselves could we enter into his splendor and find life rather than death. So I long for the day, when I stand in the seas and not grow weary, and when I can stand in the gaze of its Maker and pulsate with his unremitting pleasure.

Romans 7:1-6: Part 2

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:1-6)

A Bad Marriage. So what is the deal with Paul’s opening example of marriage? My guess is that this marriage is a bad one. That was not exactly an uncommon occurrence, and still isn’t. But in a culture where parents chose the spouse of their children, there were certainly plenty of Abigails legally bound to Nabals (see 1 Samuel 25). And here Paul points out that so long as the dud husband is alive, the wife has no choice but to be his wife. Prenups, no fault divorce, even divorce for that matter were virtually none existent for women.

Til Death Do Us Part. Sinners and the law make a bad marriage. They would completely bomb on the Newlywed Game. They are tragically incompatible. The law isn’t sleeping around on us; it just makes a really bad spouse. We may or may not be sleeping around on the law, but regardless we need a better marriage. However, apart from death we are legally bound to the law. We are faced with only two choices. One we try our best to stay faithful to the law, or two we run off with someone else.

A Bad Spouse. So why does the law make such a bad spouse? Living with the law is like living with a husband who perpetually points out your mistakes, uncovers your shame, and exposes your deepest flaws. And it does all that without a shred of mercy. So the law undresses our faults, and when we reply, “Okay, so I’m screwed up. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me” the law doesn’t just shrug and walk away. No, the law looks directly into our eyes and says, “I can’t do that . . . (long awkward pause). I can only give you what you deserve. I can only damn you.” Mercy simply isn’t part its repertoire.

Bad Fruit. So when messed up people are bound to the law, they end up conceiving some bad offspring. Demands without grace produces guilt and shame, which in turn produces isolation, anger, bitterness, hopelessness, fear, and pride. But again there is nothing wrong with the law itself. In reality, the law is nothing more than wedding vows. Wedding vows are great at forming the proper context of a lifelong relationship, but it is impossible to have a relationship with vows. Our main problem is that we are separated from the true spouse. We are simply left with vows. The damning, condemning vows that speak nothing but obligation, that give us no hope for redemption, that never speak a word of forgiveness.

The True Husband. Our hope is not in keeping the vows. Even if we do really good at adhering to them, we still don’t have the husband. Yet unless the vows are kept there can be no marriage. So Paul says that the answer to this dilemma is that in Christ we can die to the law. We can be set free from its legal obligation. Not that the obligation has vanished. Far from it. But the true husband has come. He has kept the vows on our behalf. He has died under the law’s cursed damnation. And only in our new relationship with him can we hear the most blessed words ever spoken to the guilt-ridden, “I forgive you.”

The Pharisee and Me

Great short post from Ray Orlund

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” (Luke 18:11-12)

What was wrong with the Pharisee?

There was a lot right with him. He really didn’t do those bad things. He really did those good things. And he gave glory to God for it all: "God, I thank you . . . ."

So, what was wrong with him?

Just this. He sincerely believed he was “not like other men.”

Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee!

Romans 7:1-6: Part 1

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:1-6)

Yesterday was Labor Day, which means that along with a little barbecuing, some family time, and (at least in my home) the US Open, there was the annual Jerry Lewis telethon. Its not that I don’t have any heart for “Jerry’s kids,” but I have an almost impulsive repugnance for telethons. And I don’t just mean Jerry’s telethon. I pretty much despise all telethons in every form they come in. They generally provoke from me audible groans and sighs. Until recently I hadn’t given a lot of thought why this is, but then I realized the issue. Telethons are about the law.

Telethons and the Law. The universal strategy of telethons are as follows. First, explain to people what they should do (i.e. give their money to this obviously worthy cause). Second, keep them off balance by reminding them of their moral superiority one instant and then piling up layers of guilt in the next. “Americans are the most giving people in the world,” we’re told. Then we’re shown some tear jerker of a story and asked, “How can you not give to help X?” Subtext: “You are good enough to give what is necessary, and you’re an incredible jerk if you don’t do it.”

Universal Strategy of Law Alone. Such methodology should not surprise us. It’s what every charity, parent, teacher, etc. uses to push those in their sphere of influence to do the right thing. But this message is the message of the law. Here’s what I mean. God’s law by itself simply provides us with commands, rules, and instructions. The law is not bad in and of itself, as Paul makes clear later in Romans 7. But ripped from the story of God’s saving work, the law merely leaves us with a command and the implicit expectation that we can and should keep it. Does such a strategy work? Paul’s answer, and I think any deep thinking persons answer, is a resounding “no.” Living under the law produces the fruit of death (7:5).

The Delusion of Obedience. That seems a little bit extreme especially considering the fact that telethons raise millions of dollars every year. But they do so because salving our conscience with a small monetary gift is relatively easy. We can walk away assured that we are better people. But are we better? Or has our gift simply created a delusion of goodness that blinds us from our real problems. My marriage may be wreck. I may say spiteful things every day to my spouse. But obviously I’m not the problem. I give to Jerry’s kids. That takes some heart and real love. My wife just doesn’t see the good in me. How can I not get frustrated with her. So does the contribution reveal my goodness, or does it simply provide a rationale for my own anger and bitterness? Thinking these thoughts may be a little disturbing, but once we start down this path we are heading in the right direction.

Real Joy

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. (Psalm 51:8 )

“Joy” and “Gladness” refer to more than just a delighted spirit or an internal yet calm satisfaction. These Hebrew terms are used in connection with singing, festive eating and drinking, playing instruments, dancing, frolicking, stamping the feet, clapping hands, etc. It is quite a raucous kind of joy. The kind that bubbles up and overflows into jubilant outward expressions. It’s the kind of joy at a wedding reception, or when you see your son hit his first home run. The psalmist wants more than just a warm feeling, or a sense of calm content. He wants a party. He wants singing, dancing, shouting, clapping. He is now morose and melancholy. Perhaps, even desperate and despairing. But he calls for foot-stomping joy.

Why are we so reserved in our joy? Why do we not seek to make our hearts, minds, bodies overflow in boundless enthusiasm and jubilance? Why do we not have a raucous, hooting, and hollering joy flooding our souls and spreading to our mouths, and feet, and hands? I think we feel it irreverent and ridiculous. But what is more irreverent or more ridiculous than knowing the God of the universe, feeling the power of his salvation, knowing the freedom of his cleansing from the bondage of sin, and not hoot and dance? Irreverent is the polite, shallow smiles of our Sunday mourning services. Ridiculous is hollow slap-stick remarks so characteristic of Christian entertainment. Fake joy or shallow goof-offs are the respectable forms of raucous joy. But this is not that kind of joy, because it’s based on something real. Joy for joy’s sake is no joy at all. Joy that arises in order to have joy in and of itself is empty. That’s why modern Christian joy is so emaciated. We want to be happy, and so we are happy, or at least we try to make ourselves such, just to say that we are happy. But real joy has a real object. It rejoices in a thing. Like a man rejoices in his lover, or a boy over his ice cream cone. We have the grandest of all objects, God. No amount of physical display is too much. You just can’t make too much of God. But you can make far too little.

Busy Christianity

Busyness is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. So I was greatly encouraged by these thoughts from Kevin DeYoung. Here is his conclusion.

A cross, yes. Jesus said we would have to carry one of those. But a cross that kills our sins, smashes our idols, and teaches us the folly of self-reliance. Not a burden to do the impossible. Not a burden to always do more for Jesus. Not a burden of bad news that never lets up and obedience that is always out reach.

No doubt some Christians need to be shaken out of their lethargy. I try to do that every Sunday morning and evening. But there are also a whole bunch of Christians who need to be set free from their performance-minded, law-keeping, world-changing, participate-with-God-in-recreating-the-cosmos shackles. I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.

Romans 6:15-23

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:15-23)

The Wrong Kind of Free. You’ve heard the expression, “Freedom isn’t free.” I have a good number of America’s “greatest generation” in my church, so I hear it a lot. And of course it’s true. The freedoms of press, speech, religion, self-government, etc. came to this country at the price of much blood shed. A sad fact of history is that it rarely comes in any other way. Yet freedom at the cost of blood shed is still freedom; however, freedom at the cost of slavery is not. Of course, a free slave is an oxymoron, but that is what we all are according Paul. If you are a slave of sin, then you are free to righteousness. If you are a slave to righteousness, then you are free to sin. Such language seriously challenges our assumptions about freedom. Can there be a freedom that is no freedom at all? Can there be a slavery that is really freedom?

Free to Righteousness. What exactly does it mean to be “free of righteousness.” Perhaps Paul means something like “contamination.” A “slave of sin,” which he says we all once were or currently are, is free from the contamination of righteousness. Righteousness does not creep into his life like a healing gangrene and spread its life-giving aroma. No, the natural man is absolutely free of such health, absolutely free from moral good. This might sound like an overstatement. Certainly, even apart from Christ, we are not entirely free of moral good. Even a rapist may send his mother a card on her birthday. But as I said in my last post, Paul is not concerned with good and evil merely at the level of the will. Evil is more than an action or a choice, and so is good. The fruits of righteousness are not the fulfilling of a moral obligation. They are love, joy, peace, patience, etc. That is, they are matters of the heart and soul. So for example, the natural man, the man apart from God’s grace, can perform an act of kindness, but he does so because of what sociologists call reciprocity. He gives because he knows that he will be given to, because he knows he needs to be given to. Others are really tools of the self. You give to receive. His motives are completely free from the contamination of righteousness.

The Wages of Sin. Romans 6:23 is oft quoted by Christians to non-Christians in hopes that they will see the dangers of living life their own way and the hope found in the gift of salvation. However, it is important to note that Paul is addressing believers, and Paul’s point is not primarily about the punitive effects of sin. His focus is on the fruit of sin. He is not thinking of the court room but of the garden. The problem of sin is not merely the problem of a guilty verdict (though that is his point in Romans 3:19-20); it is also the problem of a putrid fungus eating away at the life of a fruit-bearing tree. Sin produces death. God’s punishment is simply condemning it to face its own demise.

The Free Gift of God. But righteousness is not like sin. Self-destruction comes to us as the product of who we are as slaves of sin. Righteousness and the life that follows is not produced by us. It is given to us. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the producer. Thus, Paul sets before us two roads. One is to walk in our efforts fighting for our own freedom from the authority of God. This is the road of shame with a destination of death. The second road, and God help us never to cease being amazed that there is a second road, is the road of Jesus’ efforts and the healing product of those efforts freely given to us. Is not the choice obvious? And if you do not wish to make the obvious choice, then at least admit that you are not free.

Romans 6:12-14

Finally back to Romans.

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

“Let not sin reign.” That phrase should immediately signal to us that Paul’s notion of sin is quite different from ours. Sin is lying, hurting, gossiping, lusting, etc. Sin is about doing. Doing bad things. It’s a convenient theory. Reduce the amount of naughty things you do and the better you are. Then we read Paul, and Paul says, “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies.” How exactly does an act “reign” over us? It doesn’t. But Paul isn’t talking about mere acts, for he says, “Let not sin reign . . . to make you obey their passions.” Sin is rather personal here. It is a power, a force with desires and passions. Sin isn’t just the results of our poor choices; sin is the cause of them. Sin is the desires that lie behind the choices we make.

Farewell Self-effort. This is literally a life-changing discovery. Becoming a better person can no longer be considered a battle of self-effort. Self-effort is about the strength of the will, but here we find that the will itself is corrupt. The will is not an independent force that we can muster against any and all that opposes the good. The will is subservient to the values and desires of the heart. The heart says, “I want something sweet,” so the will says “Let’s go to Starbucks.” The hearts declares, “But I’d rather not put on some extra weight,” and so the will says, “Make it a skinny.” It is not the reverse. The will does not say, “Heart, desire something sweet, so I can choose Starbucks.” The will doesn’t desire. The will chooses, and the will always chooses what the heart wants. You might think, “Not always. I really didn’t want a decaf, sugar-free, skinny latte, but I choose it.” True enough, but all you are saying is that you valued your appearance or your health (or both) more than you valued the enjoyment of fat and sugar. Therefore, gritting your teeth and marching forward in the determination to do better simply isn’t going to get the job done. You want to fight with the will, but the will is a slave to the heart. And if the heart is crooked, the will will be crooked also.

Under Grace. When you read Paul’s command, “Do not present your members to sin . . .”(8:13) you immediately conclude Paul is instructing you to toughen your will. And if sin were simply a bad choice, that would be sufficient. But as we have seen sin isn’t just a bad choice; it is distorted desires behind the choice. So although Paul gives a command, which seems like an appeal to self-effort, he looks elsewhere for the power to keep that command: “Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”(8:14). “Law,” I think, refers merely to self-effort. But we are not under the demands simply to perform; we are under grace. Grace says you don’t have to perform because Christ already did. It says you are accepted even when you fail. The law by itself keeps us under the delusion that we can do it if we just try hard enough. Grace frees us from the delusion and tells us we can’t. The law by itself enhances the dominion of sin by enslaving us to the soul-destroying cycle of effort, failure, condemnation, guilt, effort, failure, condemnation, guilt, ad nausea. Grace frees us, for Christ took our guilt, absorbed our condemnation, paid for our failure, and redeems our efforts. The pursuit of righteousness then is no longer an effort of futility. Rather, under grace it is a pursuit in which we have nothing to loose and everything to gain. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.