The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Spiritual Calculus?

My darling wife and I were having our daily reading of the scriptures this morning and we were reading Roman ch7 where Paul is dealing with sin and it’s manifestation. On reading after the law and marriage illustration we got to the meat as it were. I recall learning the rudiments of differential calculus in college and having to accept the idea that it works when I could not really picture what was happening. I eventually passed maths with some difficulty. :laughing: Anyway this description by Paul tends to strike me in a similar way, a sort of theological calculus, so can anyone please explain? :unamused:

Hello Chris,

I am no theologian nor am I a mathemetcian. Just introdcuing myself with a comment after reading what I guess you are mainly referring to namely verses 16 to the end of the chapter.

My guess is that this refers to Paul`s painful problem which he expresses from time to time but without saying clearly what it is that pains him - you will surely get some clear answers from the masters we are fortunate to have on this Forum.

For me, apart from that guess, Paul expresses with great clarity the dreadful conflict between giving way to physical desires despite our coscience telling us not to, despite our mind’s knowedge of the God’s Law, despite the small quie voice within trying to steer us from from things of the flesh to things of the spirit. Paul agonises in the extreme doing wwhat he hates to do instead of what he likes to do (vs 15,16), tormented as a prisoner to what he calls the law of sin as he fights against the law of his mind.(vs . 23).

However Paul shows us that the call for help, rescue from this unhappy state, from our body leading us to death, is answered “thanks be to God, who does this” - rrescues us “through (our) Lord Jesus Christ” va 24-25), and thanks to that Paul humbly accepts his codition vs25 that he can on his own serve God’s law only with his mind, while his human nature serves the law of sin.

That seems to me Paul’s warning to us today:

Think before you click, or en extremis a quick “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil” to rescue us, and thus prevent the click!! :laughing:

Affectionately

Michael in Barcelona

Paul uses two metaphors: the woman and her husband, and the master and his slave. I wonder, since Paul is writing to the mixed Jew/Gentile church of Rome, which seems to be having some difficulty with love between the very different cultures, whether the first metaphor might apply to the Jews and the second to the Gentiles. (Not sure, though.)

Either of the metaphors are based in a legal analogy. The slave who has died is freed from the law of his master. So the believer who has died in Christ is free from bondage to this world and to sin. The woman whose husband has died has been freed from the law of her husband (the Mosaic law?)

So, has Christ put the Mosaic law to death on the cross? This is kind of what it looks like to me. Not that we are then free from the need to obey the spiritual law of love, but that the Jews (though they often choose to continue in it) are no longer obligated to the Mosaic law. It has been fulfilled and laid to rest in Christ. Thus, they certainly shouldn’t be bristling if the Gentiles amongst them choose not to submit themselves to the Mosaic law. It must have seemed so very hard to them. This law they’d been taught all their lives WAS spirituality and connection to God is suddenly declared irrelevant. Later in the epistle we see Paul appealing to the Gentiles and the Jews who no longer hold so tightly to the law to have some mercy on their “weaker” brethren in not making a big deal of flouting the law in their presence, and maybe even going along with some of the dearer restrictions to avoid hurting the tender scruples of their weaker brethren. But that’s getting off-topic.

The slave who has died (the believer) is likewise freed from the law of this world, which is primarily bondage to sin. Paul makes no such concessions to this particular “law,” and admonishes his readers to submit their members as instruments of righteousness unto God instead. He also makes it very clear, though, that neither are the Jews answerable to the Mosaic law, nor the Gentiles. But he doesn’t try to talk the Jewish brethren out of still holding to the things they instinctively see as right and good. He does, however, make it clear here in this passage that they are no longer obligated to the law of their former “husband,” but rather to the law of Christ.

I feel like I’m kind of rambling here, but maybe something I’ve said will help spark something in you and your wife. I do think it’s important to see the vibe of this letter, and that the thrust of it is in explaining for a somewhat divided fellowship what new life in Christ is all about, and how and why that works and why their differences in culture and expectations didn’t need to be a cause of division amongst the body.

Love, Cindy