BROTHERS AND SISTERS , we are all spiritual beings whose souls inhabit a body of flesh. The body is a wondrous thing, but the acts done in the body that are called “sin” do have consequences. The Holy Spirit in the mind of the believer is the voice of conscience in times of sin. He is best heard and acted upon quickly to lessen the damages and to reverse the corrosive consequences of sin. (cf. 1 John 1:8-10)
The Apostle Paul often speaks of sin and its consequences. He also always addresses the way away from those consequences, the most important of which is this: “A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.” (Gal. 2:16a) The labyrinths of our minds are as convoluted, marvelous, and dangerous as Uzbekistan’s Dark Star Cave, one of the seven most dangerous caves in the world. It has claimed the lives of many explorers, who, seeking wonders, found death. Similarly, in our minds are all our driving elements of life and thought that have formed, malformed, or deformed us as we have explored life; there are also places that remain as yet undiscovered. We are all a work in process, and the very elements that have shaped us to be who we are will resist new forces of change, whether for good or for ill. If we are to progress beyond the trapped places within us of shame and blame, wounds and crippling, spiritual deadness or death, we need an agent of change powerful enough to shift our internal embedded dynamics of thought. The Apostle Paul speaks of the most powerful dynamic of all, and that is faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He includes himself in a journey out of dark and confusing places. “We too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith.” (Gal. 2:16b)
Paul sets his argument in favor of faith in opposition to our frustrated striving to please God through works, continuing, “and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.” (Gal. 2:16c) Further in this extended discourse he says, “Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” (Gal. 3:11)
And then comes a point that we must carefully examine, for it is one that afflicts us all, confusing and making the way of faith painful and potentially debilitating. Paul asks the difficult question, “If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin?” (Gal. 2:17a) His answer regarding the holiness and righteousness of Christ is an emphatic “Absolutely not!” (Gal. 2:17b) But our personal sin, with both the responsibility and consequences, remains an issue. Paul has dealt with this issue before, at a very personal level, something he only addresses by inference. “To keep me from becoming conceited there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.” (2 Cor. 12:7-8) Perhaps it is this same issue he is dealing with when he says, “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 man I am!” (Rom. 7:22-24a)
There is some cold comfort here for us; if Paul had the same struggles we have in faith, then we also may yet have hope, even while feeling trapped in our sins. In the caverns of our minds, a chill wind forces focused and clarifying thought: ‘There must be some way out of this!’ For Paul, that way remains his ever-present underlying faith in Jesus. He expresses his personal release from the consequences of sin. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24b-25), he says, and concludes with a homage to God, who assured him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
The bitter sting of active sin in the life of the believer is something that we all know about, as even Paul knew. He says, and he speaks also for you and me, “If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.” (Gal. 2:18) But he then adds, and this is at the very center of the core of hope for Paul, and is both the personal and the theological resolution of the bitter sting of sin: “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.” (Gal. 2:19) This is at first hard for us to grasp, so he clarifies: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Hope for all of us sinners, then, is found only in Jesus. This is an ongoing hope, as we faithfully “continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” (Phil. 2:12) In times of fear, we “Set our minds on things above, not on earthly things. For we died, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:2) In times of trembling, we refocus our minds on Jesus, and we “do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:21) And we remember these words of the most faithful of all: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age . ” (Matt. 28:20)
Q. Is my hope built only upon the finished work of Jesus Christ?
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