Orphans: Romans 5 & 6 Part 1

I read: Romans 5 & 6

"We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." (Romans 6:6)

This chapter shows the complete separation of us from our sins, and righteousness from impurity, unrighteousness. I think it really shows how diametrically opposed sin and righteousness are and that if we ask the question “How much can I sin?” you’re asking the wrong question.

For in Christ all of our sins have been forgiven, we have been “buried therefore with him by baptism into death” (6:4). Before knowing Christ the Holy Spirit leads us to conviction about many things. Just as the proceeding chapters of Romans strive to convince us of our sinfulness so the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to our disobedience, impurity, and sinfulness before we can fully experience what Paul describes in chapter 5:

“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)

And:

“…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:1)

Amazing! Peace with God! The thing we all want. In Chicago this summer when talking to people about their hopes of an after life nearly all of them said “peace” or something like it. We long for it and we seek it everywhere, in money, fame, relationships, when really what we need is to know god. Just as a baby is most peaceful in their father’s arms so we need that rest in our Heavenly Father’s arms. We long for Him to hold us, kiss us, and to delight in us and love us, us loving and delighting in Him back.

And yet we bumble about not sure what we need. Paul writes “death reigned from Adam…” (Romans 5:14). It’s ruling over us, confusing us, distorting truth and it leads us to deny God:

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:24-25)

I imagine people live their lives stumbling about frantically, filling their lives with crap and things that don’t satisfy – blind to the fat that the reason they are not at peace is because they’re supposed to be their Father’s children, but they’re not! Children are extremely distraught when they are without their parents, and in this way we are all orphans, wandering about, committing more and more evil trying to find happiness in it. But all things done without God don’t satisfy because you’re doing them without God. Good things can lose their meaning – marriage, relaxing, etc. I see an orphan playing with a toy their parent gave them and expecting the toy to fill the role of Father.

To continue with this metaphor our problem of being an orphan isn’t because God died and left us alone, but we died!

“…sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12)

In this rebellion Adam – and every man and woman since him – has ran away from their Father, doing things He hates! And yet we stumble about, drunk, deaf, and blind, headed to the grave because of our sin – mourning for happiness, moaning for it. For joy, for completeness.

Before I was a Christian I stumbled this way, gasping for air, drunk, I don’t know how else to describe the picture in my mind, but I was trying to find joy but couldn’t because the one person I needed the most I had mad into an enemy. I had fallen short of the glory of God, and consequently I could not know Him, nor be complete. The Psalms talk about being headed to the grave.

But thanks be to God in Christ!

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (5:8-9)

So, we rebel and God’s righteous wrath falls on us, we are condemned, and in our disobedience God gives us up to our passions and lets us get more and more confused (Romans 1:24-27). And yet God is so good that He seeks to reconcile Himself to us by His Son.

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (5:10)

I love the ministry of the Holy Spirit, because He comes in to convince us of this truth. He comes in to attest this reality – that Christ did not die in vain, but rather in our place, and in his resurrection we too may rise. Because if God has handed us over to our passions, it’s going to take the truth the Holy Spirit speaks to pull us out of our sinful state. We are deaf and need ears, we are blind and need sight, we tell ourselves we are good but need the truth that we are not. I know that John the Baptizer is the one spoken of in Isaiah about “a voice crying in the wilderness” but I think that’s the Holy Spirit too. We live in a lonely, barren wilderness and the Holy Spirit I picture as this voice calling in the emptiness of our lives to see our sin so that we might fal down at the cross of Christ and repent.

Paul talks of a “complete joy” and this is it: to be with the Father, our God, to Love Jesus, to seek Him, and to listen to the Spirit. To be with them brightens anything, makes everything worthwhile and everything meaningful.

“…we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)