Letter to the Romans – Part III

 

LET’S KNOW THE BIBLE

 

Because of Adam’s sin, all are sinners, but by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, all are made righteous to a right relationship with God, all are given this opportunity. This is the gospel of Paul that we are considering in the letter to the Romans. In the first part, the apostle destroys a religious mentality that believes that salvation is merited by one’s own works, saying that it is possible only through grace.

The first five chapters of the letter to the Romans focus on humanity in general. All have sinned, all can be brought into the right relationship with God. On the other hand, in chapters 6, 7, and 8, St. Paul focuses on the group of Christians, that is, those who have expressly accepted Christ’s salvation.

“What shall we say then?” This is his usual way of changing the subject and attracting the reader’s attention: “That we must go on sinning so that grace may abound?” He had already said, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more;” that is, in human nature, “the grace of Christ abounds much more.” Sin has led to death; therefore, grace must reign to lead to righteousness and eternal life. It is absurd, therefore, to continue to remain in sin after having obtained grace.

Paul emphasizes the Christian condition as the situation of the baptized and begins by reflecting on the sacrament of baptism as the fundamental event of the life of grace. Unfortunately, in our present situation, we have lost the dignity of baptism, the greatness of the baptismal sacrament has turned it into an almost hidden rite, a familiar rite and not very meaningful for life.

It is necessary to recover the fundamental importance that baptism has in the life of a person; we must keep in mind that in the case of Paul and for many centuries, all Christians were baptized as adults, and baptism was a personal, responsible, life-changing choice of the person. By asking for baptism, the person had the intention to adhere totally to Christ, and the rite helped to understand the meaning because the word ‘baptism’ is Greek and means immersion; it indicates a gesture in which the person descends into the water.

The person descends into the water until he is submerged underwater, totally under water, in a dead condition because if they remain underwater for a long time, they die. The scene in which the catechumen went down into the baptismal pool, sank to the bottom, and then rose to new life, signified the participation of the catechumen in the death and resurrection of Christ.

This idea is important. We receive only the idea of washing; two drops of water on the head of the child evoke a washing; but before being a washing, baptism is an immersion, it is a participation in the death of Christ, buried with him in the bottom of the water, to rise with him to new life. The Christian, through baptism, is a person who has personally lived the experience of Christ’s death and his resurrection. He is a dead person who has returned to the living, and therefore the Christian spirituality is a spirituality of the living, is rooted in this event of transformation, death, and resurrection.

Let us listen to Paul’s teaching, a very important text that the Church makes us read on Easter night, at the great Mass of the Easter Vigil, after the hymn of glory, this text from chapter 6 of the letter to the Romans is immediately proclaimed, showing the participation of each one of us in the resurrection of Christ.

“Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Note well the words: “we too might live in newness of life.” In that event of grace, we have been given the possibility to live the relationship with God in a new way, and to live the practical moral consequences.

“For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.” Here is the problem: to be slaves of sin. In Latin, ‘slave’ is ‘captivus’ (captive, prisoner). In Italian, the word ‘cattivo’ means ‘bad,’ we are bad, that is, prisoners of sin. We are still evil, we still need this redemption, this liberation, because the evil that we carry within us is that deep wickedness that prevents us from having a good and total relationship with God, and we continually need this grace that frees us.

Baptism is not a magical event that affects only an initial moment in our life, but the existential condition of our whole life. To remember baptism means to live continuously in that state of grace, knowing that the old man is dead, is dying, must die with Christ. Elsewhere Paul defines the ‘old man’ as the flesh. The flesh is not the body, not even sexuality. When Paul speaks of the flesh, he means the negative instinct, something like what we call character. When we say, ‘I’m like this… what can I do? I’m made that way.’ It’s my flesh, instinct, and character, and I usually say, ‘I’m like this.’ I’m like that when I’m accused of something, when I’m accused of misbehaving, and I see that I can’t help it. Did it never occur to you to say, ‘I can’t help it? It’s stronger than me.’

What is stronger than you? The sin that is in you, the old man, the flesh because it is not yet completely dead. In the water of baptism, that old man that was in us is not drowned, it is not finished; we are still in this sacramental phase of descending into death with Christ to rise with him to new life.

In opposition to the old man, Paul speaks of the new man; in contrast to the flesh, he shows the Spirit. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit; it is the person of God that has been poured into our hearts; it is a force that comes from above; it is a force different from us; it is the grace of God; it is his love that from within makes us live in a new way. Then the person faces his own natural and instinctive character, inclined to evil but is confronted with the grace of the Holy Spirit that from within liberates and makes the person capable of a new life.

In chapter 7, the apostle presents the inner struggle; a wonderful text that is influenced by classical literature and develops a line of reasoning with unexpected psychological depths. Paul speaks with a generic ‘I’. He is not confessing his own situation. He is putting himself in the shoes of a person in general; it represents the drama of division: on the one hand, I know what the theory is; on the other hand, I cannot put it into practice. We know that the law is spiritual while I am of the flesh. Notice the contrast ‘spirit – flesh.’

The law comes from God, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want.” And you have not understood how you should behave, and then you behave differently? We know the theory, but in fact, how many times have we behaved differently, and why did we do it? Because it came to us instinctively, because that’s the way we are because we are slaves of our flesh, of our sin.

In us, there is a desire for goodness; it would be nice to do so, it would be necessary, and at the level of theory we are all masters, but then we realize that in practice, we don’t get it; there is a desire for goodness, but not the ability to put it into practice. I consent in my heart to the law of God, but in my members, I see another law that makes war to the law of my mind and makes me a slave to the law of sin. “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?”

It is the cry of humankind, of Adam, the everlasting man who desires good and realizes that he is unable to do it. “Who will deliver me?” Jesus Christ. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is he who has delivered us from the flesh and has given us the possibility to live in the Spirit.

Chapter 8 of the letter to the Romans is the summit, the most beautiful part, and I recommend that you go and look for the text of your bible and read it repeatedly, try to understand it the best possible way; better to learn it by heart. It is a fundamental chapter of our Christian faith. It is the theological and poetic representation of life in the Spirit. The Spirit animates the Christian’s life. We are no longer under the flesh, under the dominion of the flesh, compelled to do evil because we have no other possibility. We live influenced by the Spirit of God. We are not beholden to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

With the help of the Spirit, we put to death the works of the flesh to live. It is the existential continuation of baptism: putting to death the works of the flesh to live in the fullness of the Spirit of God. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption.”

Here is the summit: we have become children of God; God has adopted us, placed as a part of his life; we have become partakers of the divine life; we have become into true sons and daughters. From slaves, we have become sons and daughters; we have received the Spirit of Jesus who is the only Son, and we too have become sons and daughters of God. We have received the Spirit within us cries ‘Abba,’ an Aramaic formula that Paul preserves. The formula used by Jesus in your filial prayer. The formula used by Christians because they have become sons and daughters and cry ‘daddy,’ it is the Spirit of Jesus crying out from within us filial affection to God.

“If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” We have been saved in hope and are destined for glory; that is, all has not yet been fulfilled, there is still an earthly situation of difficulty where sin still plays a role, and therefore, the struggle is not over. We have been saved in hope, not in illusion.

Hope is the certain expectation of what has been promised, and he who promised is faithful, he guarantees. We have already been saved in the past and yet we are still waiting. “For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” to attain that deep and intense friendship with the Lord. “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

The end of chapter 8 is of a lyrical splendor, of confidence. “God is on our side,” wonderful definition. God is on our side. And then, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” The sufferings that we still encounter are not an obstacle, they are not counter-proof; they do not prove that salvation does not work. The sufferings we still must go through do not hinder the fulfillment; the striving for glory will come to an end.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ?” Who will be able to separate us from the work of love accomplished by God in Christ Jesus? The difficulties of this world? Paul lists 7: anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? Can these things separate us? Think that the last one, the sword, will be the one that, ten years after writing these words, will cut off Paul’s head; and that sword that cuts off his head can it separate him from the love of Christ? It will be that very tribulation that will lead him to the definitive union with Christ. “In all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” By our merit? No, “thanks to him who loved us.”

Paul concludes with a very intense personal statement: ” For I am convinced that—he lists ten that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”