The Holy Spirit - Revealing and Convicting (13)

 

  

 

Adoption (IV)

 

As we ponder Romans 8:12 – 30 (in context), what is the story we are reading? If you were to script this for a play, what would it look like? If you were to tell the story of the passage in your own words, to a group of people who had no frame of reference, how would you tell it?

 

Dear friends, if we cannot tell the story then it is likely we do not understand the passage. If we cannot tell the story of Romans or Colossians or 1 Kings or Mark, we likely do not understand these books of the Bible, they have not yet become ours and we have not yet come to belong to them – belong to the Story of the Bible – which reveals Jesus to us in His unfolding glory.

 

What do we “see” in Romans 8:12 – 30? What are the highlights of the story? What is the trajectory? What is the culmination?

 

Where are you in the story? Where are the sons and daughters of God?

 

In this story, how is the term adoption (the placing of a son) used? You might want to ponder Galatians 3:23 – 4:7 to help with this.

 

Adoption, the placing of a son or daughter, is connected to inheritance (this should be especially clear in reading Galatians 3:23 – 4:7). Children do not receive inheritance, it may be ready and waiting for them, but as long as they are children they cannot receive and possess the inheritance, they must grow up, they must mature before they can be entrusted with responsibility.

 

We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, all that Christ has we have in Him, our inheritance is indivisible, it cannot be divided. We are not like ancient Israel which divided the inheritance of Canaan, we do not say that I am of Judah or I am of Benjamin or I am of Gad or Asher – our inheritance is indivisible. We are One Body with Christ Jesus as the Head. We are the Bride of the Bridegroom, and in marriage there is One Person, not two – the two become One. 

English common law long recognized the “unity of person” in marriage, and this concept was naturally found in our original colonies. It is a legal understanding that was practiced into my own lifetime, and in real estate law when a husband and wife purchased property, they took title as "tenants by the entirety,” which meant that they took title as one person. Sadly this legal concept has been destroyed in recent years.

 

This is why, when reading John 16:14 – 15, we are to remember that all that the Father has is Jesus’, and all that Jesus has is ours. The Holy Spirit takes what belongs to Jesus and discloses it to us, but of course we must be faithfully growing in Jesus Christ to be able to receive from Him, we do not share with children what they cannot handle, we do not give children great treasure to steward, we give them quarters or dollar bills.

 

Nor do we place great callings on our children, great responsibilities, they must grow into responsibility, they must be nurtured and trained and disciplined and mentored. (We see this especially in our Galatians passage.)

 

In Romans 8, inheritance is connected with suffering, and suffering is connected with calling, and this is all the fabric of us “being conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).

 

In the Story of Romans, we were once slaves to sin and to fear, but now we are slaves to righteousness as sons of the Living God (Romans 6:15 – 18; 8:12 – 15). But there is more! Having been freed from slavery, we are now called to live life in Christ in such a way that a time, a season, will come in which creation will be freed from its “slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

 

Having been freed from slavery, we are now called not only to free others by proclaiming the Gospel (Romans 1:14 – 17), but we are called to live in such as way, growing up into the Firstborn (Ephesians 4:11 – 16), that the creation will be released from its slavery to corruption into the freedom which we ought to be expressing as the children of God.

 

O dear friends, there is no hope for the creation if we do not live as the sons of daughters of the Living God in Jesus Christ.

 

We are so easily distracted by teachers of the “End Times” who focus on the tea leaves of world events, when we are called to be looking unto Jesus, seeking Jesus, growing up into Him in all things as His People, His Body, His Bride, His Temple. We are to be looking for the New Jerusalem, for the City whose Builder and Maker is God, we are to be about our Father’s business – not preoccupied with discerning the entrails of dead news and chasing after ministries that do not call us to follow Jesus, but which rather appeal to our sense of curiosity and desire for special knowledge. We are called to be mature daughters and sons, not children on a religious playground.  

 

This in turn means that we participate with Jesus in His sufferings, “if indeed we suffer with Him” (Romans 8:17). This means that we learn to desire to “know Him in the koinonia of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). As sons and daughters, we learn to allow “death to work in us, but life in others” (2 Corinthians 4:12). For if we will not embrace the cruciform life which we are called to in Jesus Christ (Mark 8:34 – 38; Galatians 2:20; 6:14), the creation will not know freedom from the slavery of corruption, nor will our generation know the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. (It may know some brand of cotton – candy Christianity, but it will not know Jesus).

 

To inherit with the Son is to participate in all that the Father has, this includes the high – calling of the Son to lay down His life for the world. For you see my friends, God not only loved the world so much that He gave His Only Begotten Son, He loves the world so much that He keeps giving His sons and daughters (who are in the Son). Isn’t it a glorious privilege to be participants in our Father’s love for the world, for all mankind?

 

Are we learning what it is to live as those who are “being placed” as sons and daughters?

 

As those who are learning what it is to be about our Father’s business?

 

What does this look like in my life today?

 

In yours?

 

 

Bonhoeffer's Discipleship Part II - Reflections (4)

 

“Those who are baptized no longer belong to the world, no longer serve the world, and are no longer subject to it. They belong to Christ alone, and relate to the world only through Christ” (page 185).

 

The word “world” can be confusing, though it need not be. It can mean “people,” as in the people of the world, or it can “system,” an order of things and ways and dynamics that is governed and animated by Satan and his minions, which rules over unregenerate mankind and seeks not only its perpetual enslavement, but seeks to enlist it in rebellion against God and the destruction of His Kingdom.

 

Context indicates the sense in which we ought to understand the word “world.”

 

When we read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,” we understand that “world” means the people of the world.

 

However, when read 1 John 2:15 – 17 we see something different:

 

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

 

The world system has myriad subsystems, and none is innocuous, none are innocent. In Christ we learn to be “in the world but not of the world” (John 15:19; 17:13 – 16), which also means that we strive to be a blessing to the people of the world, to show them Jesus, to lay down our lives for others as Jesus laid down His life for us.

 

When Bonhoeffer writes that we “no longer serve the world,” he does not mean that we no longer serve the people of the world, but rather that we no longer serve the system of the world. This does not mean that we do not live and function within world systems, for again we must live in the world for many reasons – to eat and drink, for provide for others, to benefit humanity, to share the Gospel and grace of Jesus – but we do not subject ourselves to the values of the world, to the goals of the world. We refuse to be intoxicated by the world, to grab for what the world dangles in front of us, and we refuse to offer our children on the altars of the world.

 

We have an adversarial relationship with the world system, and this means that we must often say “no” to the world if we are to be faithful to Jesus Christ, to the Church, and indeed to the people of the world. The professing Christian who does not live a life of saying “no” to the world perhaps ought to ponder the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4). The parent who is not teaching his or her children to say “no” to the world might want to consider how deeply he or she truly cares for those children and adolescents.

 

The people of the world need us to be faithful in our obedience to Jesus and in saying “no” to the world system, for otherwise they will not see a better Way, they will not see Jesus. This is one reason why it is critical for us to do all that we do in the name of Jesus and to the glory of God (Colossians 3:17, 23), so that when we do say “no” we will have credibility and integrity. People may not like it when we say “no,” but they may respect it; others may take courage when we say “no” and they may see the light of Christ.

 

But there is more than saying “no,” there is more importantly being an active blessing to those around us, seeking the welfare of others, attempting to improve the condition of our communities and broader world. We are to be the Good Samaritan to the world, the Presence of the Good Shepherd, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting those in prison, caring for the widow and orphan and disenfranchised, clothing the naked and housing the homeless and caring for the sick. Whether at work, at school, in civic life, in recreation and entertainment, in economics – we are to be in the world but not of the world, we are to be showing the people of the world a better Way because we belong to Jesus Christ – we are no longer our own.

 

I am puzzled why we are more pleased with our children doing well in the world than we are in them growing in Jesus Christ. Perhaps because we are more pleased with our own success in the world rather than our growing in Jesus Christ?

 

Bonhoeffer writes, “The break with the world is absolute” (page 185).

 

Followed by, “It requires and causes our death.”

 

Bonhoeffer can be a nuisance, can’t he?

 

What do you think?