Reflections on Romans 4:1 – 5:11: (7)

 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance proven character; and proven character hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:1 – 5 (NASB).

Tribulation/suffering; perseverance/endurance; character; hope that does not disappoint or let us down or put us to shame – why? Because God’s love has been poured out [from God] into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

“Through the Holy Spirit” – life in the Spirit is amplified in Chapter 8, but here we see the role of the Holy Spirit in our formation into the character and image of Jesus Christ (8:29), a role which will be expanded upon in Chapter 8, to the point where we can say that we are sons and daughters of God through and in the Holy Spirit. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (8:14). The Spirit of sonship lives within our hearts, the very love of God for God is love.

This love sustains us and draws us into Christ in our suffering, developing endurance within us as we submit our will to the will of God; our submission to the will of God (by the grace of God) places us in the position for God to form the character of Christ within us (both in affirmation and negation), and as we allow the Holy Spirit of God to work out the will of God within our inner selves our hope in God grows deeper and brighter and into a heavier substance, reaching beyond the veil (Hebrews 6:19; 10:19ff)) – and the love of God draws us onward and upward and ever deeper into the Trinity.  

Affirmation in Christ confesses the complete and perfect work of Jesus Christ, the fullness of the Atonement – “By this will [the will of God manifested in Jesus Christ] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). We affirm the transforming power of the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:14 – 19). We affirm the “already – not yet” (Romans 8:30; 1 John 3:1-3).

Negation is found in our denial of “self” – “…If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). We also practice negation when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9 – 2:2). We live lives of negation as we continually consider ourselves “dead to sin” and then live lives of affirmation when we consider ourselves “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).

The process of transformation into the image of Jesus involves both affirmation and negation, a vision of Jesus Christ and a repudiation of who we were/are outside of Christ. The sculptor must free the image embedded in the marble by chipping away at all that is not of the image.

“We have come to know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). Coming to know the love of God is a process, it takes time and it takes experience, and much of the experience can be in the form of tribulation and suffering – we don’t really understand this love that the Holy Spirit has poured within our hearts; we don’t understand and accept the deep assurance that it brings, we don’t really understand its nature, and we don’t comprehend the unwavering character of God’s love – not at first, not most of us anyway.

This is a love so “other” than we are that it loves its enemies (Romans 5:10) and not only loves them, but loves them to the point of drawing them into intimate relationship – of dying so that its enemies might live. Ought we not to humble ourselves and bow our knees before such love?

Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 107

“The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot comprehend this one thing: what sin is.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 94.

On page 95 Bonhoeffer tells us that in the presence of a psychologist we can only be sick and that psychology does not know that we are “ruined” by sin and need the healing that comes with forgiveness in Christ. “Another believer views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus Christ.” Our baseline need is not therapy but confession of sin and forgiveness.

He goes on to say that when we live daily in the Cross that we will lose the “spirit of human judgmentalism.” “The death of the sinner before God, and the life that comes out of death through grace, becomes a daily reality for them.” For the Christian this is Romans Chapter Six in practice, considering ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, living in our identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the person who does not yet know Jesus, before we can arrive at Romans Six we must journey through Romans chapters 1 – 5:11; we must repent and trust Jesus Christ for forgiveness and new life – for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Then comes the great transfer of Romans 5:12ff.

Bonhoeffer writes not just as a theologian and pastor, but he also writes as the son of a famous doctor, Karl Bonhoeffer, who was chair of the department of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at a Berlin Hospital and whose research is still cited in psychiatric papers. Dietrich grew up in an academic and theological environment, so when he writes about what psychology can’t do in identifying sin and offering hope through Jesus Christ he writes with an integrated perspective.  “The psychologist views me as if there were no God” (page 95).

Of course in our own time there are counsellors and psychologists and psychiatrists who are Christian, the challenge is at least twofold – the first challenge is whether the Bible is the foundation and the context of their thinking and practice. For unlike physiological medicine which treats the body (though it should also treat the whole person), these practices treat the inner person and there is simply no other foundation upon which a practitioner of the inner person ought to build, and no other context within which he ought to serve, than that of the Bible and its anthropology and its doctrine of God.

The second challenge is the therapeutic mindset of the professing church; just as we have been taught to reach for a pain pill with every ache and at the first sign of discomfort, so we have been taught to run to counseling if things go awry within us or with others, or to watch the latest therapeutic video presentation or read the latest popular therapeutic book or attend the hottest new program for making our lives and relationships better. This mindset is so embedded within much of the professing church that we may not be able to extricate ourselves from it. We instinctively turn to counselling before we turn to Christ and His Word in the community of believers, in life together.

It is the Word of Christ that must form us and heal us and transform us into His image; our goal, our aim, is not to feel better but to be more like Jesus. Are we living obedient lives to Jesus Christ? Are we submitted to the Word of God? The Biblical self-image is not that “I am special” it is that Christ is everything and that when I am in Christ that I have all that I need – and yes, He has especially made me (Psalms 139), but let me not be deceived about who I am outside of Christ, outside of Him I am the greatest sinner who ever lived. I am not called to be preoccupied with myself, I am called to love God and others and to lay my life down for Christ and my brothers and sisters.  

In my own service to others in pastoral work, when I learned to ask, “Where is the lordship of Jesus Christ in your marriage?” things took on an entirely different perspective with husbands and wives in marital difficulty. Then there could be confession of sin, then there could be healing, then Jesus was Lord and He was bigger than the marriage – and not only could the husband and the wife repent and confess, but the marriage could repent and confess. Yes, I could still coach them in communicating and decision-making and in other areas of marriage, but that was secondary, the lordship of Jesus Christ was first and that meant confession.

Just as there are healing properties in our physical bodies, so are there healing properties within the Body of Christ, in life together; learning to confess our sins one to another and praying for one another that we may be healed (James 5:16) presents us with an image of those properties in action. A healthy body is a body in which the parts are in balance and relationship, one in which every part, every element, is fulfilling its God-designed purpose. Can we not see that this is who we are as God’s people? (Ephesians Chapter 4).