Living in the Spirit
June 27, 2014
Scripture Reading: Romans 6:12-23
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 6:20-23
For some reason, going to heaven after I die doesn’t mean a lot to me, spending eternity with God does. I like the imagery of Revelation 21:1-4 describing God as pitching God’s tent among God’s people. I do not know where my angst with going to heaven came from. I do remember as a child learning that some slave owners did a number on American slaves by quoting Paul to them telling them to be good slaves and they would go to heaven someday. I did not think that was right. Sounds similar to what some Muslim jihadist are telling young, vulnerable people being recruited as suicide bombers today. It apparently did not set well with God in America during the 19th century. I doubt if it sets well with God in our world today.
I have since discovered N. T. Wright and I think what he has to say makes sense. In his book Paul and the Faithfulness of God, he writes…this is not to say that personal ‘salvation is not at issue or is deemed unimportant. That is a regular slur against fresh interpretations of Paul, but it misses the point entirely….What is being said, however, is (a) that salvation doesn’t mean what the western tradition has often taken it to mean (escaping to a disembodied ‘heaven’),…[it] serves a much larger purpose, namely that of God’s restorative justice for the whole creation. (page164f)
We as followers of Christ are called to live into that purpose today with every fiber of our being. Eternity for us started the day we signed on as a part of the Body of Christ and will never stop.
Prayer: Lord, make us restorers of justice, your justice. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.