REPENT AND BE SAVED! Ever since the time of the Apostles, it seems, churches around the world have made it their battle cry: REPENT AND BE SAVED! You’ve all heard those words, I’m sure. But do you know what they mean? I always believed they meant that if I cleaned up my act, became a “Goody-two shoes,” then maybe God would accept me and I could get into heaven when I died. I don’t know what those words mean to you, but let me just tell you this–I was all wrong! The Greek word, which is, translated “repent” just means: Turn around (as in “you’re going the wrong way.”) You see, my old idea stemmed from the concept of having to earn God’s love–if I do everything right, follow all the rules, then God would accept me. But God’s love and God’s grace can’t be earned; it’s freely given. All we have to do is accept it, and it is ours.
The other thing is this: Repentance and following God’s way is not just about going to heaven when we die. Its real purpose is to teach us how to live our lives today in a way that will bring us true joy, happiness and peace, even in the most difficult times and circumstances.
For me, the solution for my life was not repent and be saved, I use repent, be saved, and repent. Hang with me, now. For me repent and be saved meant, “you be good and you can go where God is.” Repent, be saved, and repent means this to me: “Turn around! God is coming to where you are, and God will help you to become good.”
The $1,000,000 question (due to inflation $64 is hardly worth the effort any more, is it? J), of course, is how do we become good? The following chapters will answer that question.
In chapter 7 Paul will explain how Christians are no longer bound by the Law. He explains that the purpose of the Law was to provide guidelines for behavior, but because he is only human his natural instincts often get the better of him–he has a tendency to rebel against the Law. His personal experience with the Law made him feel trapped by it. You may find a little of yourself in Paul’s explanation of his experiences, as I did. It made me realize how little people have changed in 2,000 years.
Romans 7:1-6
Do you not know, my friends, for I am speaking to those who know the law–that the law has authority over a person only as long as he or she lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if here husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. So, my friends, you also died to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to the One who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the Law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the Law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Paul must have had difficulty in explaining this concept, because his thought patterns here are rather complicated. He begins by saying that the law cannot reach beyond the grave. When one dies, one ceases to be bound by the law. He used the analogy that a married woman cannot marry another as long as her husband is alive–that would be breaking the law, and she would be an adulteress. However, once her husband dies she is released from her marriage vows and, consequently the law, which prevented her from marrying another. She is free to marry again.
When Jesus died He died for all of us–He died in our place, as it were, so that in “death” we could be free from the Law. His physical death became our spiritual deaths, that is, as long as we agree. This is where free will comes in. this is why we are called to “Accept Jesus as Savior.” We always have free will to choose whom or what we will follow–or not follow.
In the introduction I said, repentance and following God’s way is not just about going to heaven when we die. Its real purpose is to teach us how to live our lives today in a way that will bring us true joy, happiness and peace, even in the most difficult times and circumstances. More than that it teaches us how to live productive lives, so that we can make this world a better place, helping to bring joy, happiness and peace in the lives of others, and create a legacy for ourselves. Paul calls this bear(ing) fruit to God.
How does this come about? When we choose to accept Jesus as our Savior we become bonded with Him. His death becomes our spiritual death and frees us from our first “marriage” (to the Law). His resurrection becomes our spiritual resurrection. Now that we are free from the old covenant (law) we are free to “marry” into a new covenant–a covenant of the spirit. The covenant of the spirit will provide us with an entirely new way of living our lives. The old covenant kept us focused on sin–what it was, how to do it, how to avoid it, and how to get around it. At the same time, we all know that what you focus on is what you give power to. We spent so much time and energy focusing on the “thou shalt nots,” that we never had anything left over for doing good–for the “thou shalts.” Added to that is the temptation towards the forbidden–the easier, softer way–easy money, free love, addictive power, for example. That’s what Paul was referring to when he said we bore fruit for death. Then he said, but now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the Law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
For me he is saying, you’ve got to surrender to the fact that you’re not always going to get it right every time. You’ll sin. You’ll make mistakes. But god understands that you’re a human being and making mistakes is part of your nature. The point is that as long as following Jesus is where your focus is, then you will grow in the way God wants you to grow. You’ll pick yourself up, brush yourself off and go forward. You don’t have to be afraid. God’s not going to pull the rug out from under you. You’re not up against the impossible task of trying to earn your way into heaven any more–that was the old way. That was the written code. Heaven is yours for the accepting–it’s God’s free gift to you. It’s your home and you are God’s child. Now your purpose in life is to grow and to become God’s instrument to make this world a better place, and to make life better for someone else. When you latch onto this concept you begin to recognize that you are a person of worth–a person of immense value–you are valuable to God. That’s the way of the Spirit.
Romans 7:7
What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would have not known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the Law had not said, “Do not covet.”
In the first 6 verses of chapter 7 Paul has demonstrated for us how we have been freed from the Law. Death frees us from law. Christ died for us–in our place, as it were, to release us from the old law into a new covenant with Him.
Now Paul begins by asking the question we all might be asking: “If Christ died to free us from the Law, does that mean that the Law itself is sin?” A second question we might ask: “If Christ died to free us from the Law, did Christ’s death free us from sin?” Paul asks and answers the question: “Is the Law sin? Certainly not!” The purpose of the Law was to establish guidelines to thoughts, words and behavior. Form the day we’re born human beings have been trained to live within certain limits–with rules and regulations, be they from parents or guardians, the church, customs, traditions, or the state. Without direction from one or more of these sources, left to our own devices, we’d all only be limited by our individual strengths and proclivities, subject to the individual strengths and proclivities of others we’d encounter. Anarchy would reign. The law helps us to separate right from wrong.
Romans 7:8-13
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from Law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
However, the whole concept of law seems to inspire our natural inclination to rebel against it. We human beings don’t like to be told what to do! I remember an old song called “Beans in my ears.” In the song the singer says, “My mommy said not to put beans in my ears…” as the song continues the singer agrees with Mom: “Now why would I want to put beans in my ears…You can’t hear the teacher with beans in your ears…” But the idea has been planted. You probably guessed by now that before too long our singer has indeed put beans in his/her ears. This is a simple example of what Paul is referring to when he says, “But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in my every kind of covetous desire.” It’s our natural inclination to “covet,” that is, desire that which we’re told we can’t or shouldn’t have.
The Law seems to become a great paradox. The Law, the commandment, in and of itself is holy, righteous and good. However, sin, like the wily, ole serpent in Eden, is the instigator for our desires and deceives us into believing, at least momentarily, that we can’t be happy without the object of our desire.
Actually, Paul is in some ways recalling Genesis 2 and 3. Paul says, “I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. (But) I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” Genesis 2:16 God told Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
Before you get to thinking that what I’m saying is too far fetched, think of this: Every time you commit a sin, you die a little. In the fear of getting caught, you die a little, in the shame, however slight that is experienced in sin’s commission, you die a little; in the anger, rage and jealousy that sin opens a person to, you die a little. You cannot tell a lie without somehow doing violence to your body, and you die a little. Sin, like the serpent, is the great deceiver–promising so much but ultimately benefiting nothing and no one.
Romans 7:14-25
We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
In these beautiful passages, Paul aligns himself with all of us, I think. Paul is saying that at heart he’s a good person. He wants to be a good person. He wants to do the good and right thing. But he’s forever at odds with himself. Temptations dog him every step of the way. He gets caught up in the spur of the moment and finds himself engaged in the very thoughts, ideas and behaviors that he knows are wrong. No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t get it right all the time–he misses the mark–he sins. Try as he might he simply cannot keep the Law perfectly, as good as he knows the Law to be.
You can almost hear the despair in his voice as he says, what a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? The harder he tries the more he feels like he’s failing. Without an intercessor, he says, he’s not going to make it. He needs help. Thanks be to God there is a rescuer–there is a Savior. He is saved through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul is a sinner. He knows that. The Law taught him what sin was, but using his own best efforts, he realizes that he just can’t live up to what the Law demands. His human nature, his self-protective, self-centered, selfish, self-righteous human nature, his ego, all get in the way, keeping Paul from doing all that is good and right and just. It’s all too much for him! He’s totally aware that he can’t get right with God all by himself. It is impossible. Ah, then he remembers. He is saved, through Jesus Christ! His very own words come back to him: (Romans 3:21-24) But now a righteousness from God, apart from the Law, has been made known…This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. His salvation from himself comes not from trying to follow an impossible law, but from putting his faith and trust in Jesus to show him the way and lead him to safety (salvation). The wonderful thing about all this is that, what was good for Paul is good for you and me.
The biggest lie perpetrated on the GLBT community is the one that says, “You’re a sinner. Unless and until you stop your sin, you can’t come to God.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say, “What a wretched person I was.” Notice how the “sinful” things he speaks of are not spoken of in the past but in the present: I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. When we studied chapter 1 we saw that what was condemned, was not homosexuality but homosexual acts performed as part of idol worship. The condemnation was idolatry, not homosexuality.
But just for argument’s sake, we still can take the opposite position and say, "so what?" Even if homosexuality were a sin (we know it isn’t) but even if it were, no Christian would have the right to say, “You’re a sinner. Unless and until you stop your sin, you can’t come to God.” Paul’s words in chapter 7 have clearly shown us that regardless of anyone’s sin, our faith in Jesus frees us from the whole of the Law. We can hold on to these words, and etch them on our hearts: (Rom. 3:23 & 24) For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely–freely–by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.