| Home > e100 > Essential 100 -- "From 'the Law'?! Don't make me laugh!" |
| Essential 100 -- "From 'the Law'?! Don't make me laugh!" | | Date Created: May 03, 2005, 07:05 AM |
81 — Monday May 2 — Romans 8
What an amazing chapter! In every culture but the modernist West, of course, even the first verse will ring out: "There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!" Modernity managed to lose the sense of responsibility and postmodernity doesn't seem to have found it yet. Everyone but us, before and after our time, recognizes Paul's message of freedom from condemnation as good news, while those of us in the modern (and just barely postmodern) era put our hands on our hips and say ironically "Oh 'there is no condemnation now'? Well, I should hope not!" with all the emotion of someone whose favourite TV show is not going to be postponed after all. 'No condemnation' is, like, written into the Constitution, isn't it? It's my right, doggone it.
But even for those of us made myopic by the spirit of the age, God led Paul to also give a different metaphor, one that perhaps our age will see more clearly than some others: the whole of creation subject to frustration (8:20) and the whole galaxy shuddering and groaning in it (8:22). Perhaps precisely because of our ability to ignore our sin and spiritual disease, we are masters at understanding and feeling stress and frustration.
Tell someone Christ has freed them from the Law and it's no biggie. For each of us, the Law of God -- like the speed limit, like copyright laws -- is something that applies to someone else, not me, because I'm a little different, I'm worth it. Tell someone Christ has freed them from the Law and it means nothing. But tell them Christ will free them from Murphy's Law and you've got their attention. How sad our state and how far down Christ stoops to pull us out of the waves. |
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