Victory Through The Spirit 

 

 Begin with prayer to the Holy Spirit 

Readings : Romans 8:1-13

 

    St. Paul brings us to a high point in this eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans in his writing on the need for delivery and who delivers us from our old nature and continues to provide us with victory. In my experience during 30 years of ministry I would have to say the understanding gained about this subject is extremely liberating in our ongoing journey and response to the Spirit filled life. There are many struggles that bring us to the edge of emotional, spiritual, and psychological struggle and our own competency. It may at times cause us to question our own sanity and ability to make right choices in difficult times. This often leaves us with regrets based upon our decisions or lack of decision. 

 

    What I think is gained from these writings of Paul in one aspect, and I say one aspect carefully because there is not always one question raised in many of the chapters of Paul's writings nor is there one simple answer. Often when a question is raised and a probable answer is given within the context of a chapter it leaves us with many more questions and subject matter. This is why year after year and meditation after meditation even on the same chapter a new door is opened to walk through and learn from.  Many true biblical scholars with a level of humility will say after a life time of reading, meditating, and studying sacred scripture, I just wish I had more time to read the scriptures. This helps me to temper any swift evaluations of writers and their subject matter and their line of reasoning. Perhaps like Paul learned to be patient with others we can learn to be patient with ourselves. Is there not an inference to that in this chapter which points us toward a dependency upon the Spirit of God for leadership and direction which in turn is an ongoing learning process of which Paul himself at times admitted is his own life. 

 

     I believe that it is vitally important to identify this contrast between the life in the Spirit and the life in the flesh. It is also important to understand the antagonistic nature of both and how it forges our character. Perhaps the metaphor of iron sharpening iron is an appropriate word picture in identifying this conflict. As in Prov. 27:17, "Iron sharpens iron and, one man sharpens another." It also keeps us in this soldier like mode with a tendency toward taking back and putting in its rightful place our true nature which is not earthbound but originated and is guided by the life giving Spirit of Christ. The Collegiate Bible Commentary Pg. 1088 says this about these competing fields of power, "Flesh describes the earthbound person left to unaided individual ability. Spirit describes the earthbound person guided by the life-giving force or Spirit of Jesus. The self-centered all sufficient-person leads a life that can only lead to death, that is definitive alienation from God. Such a person doesn't need God, doesn't submit to God's law in general, can't obey and please God. On the other hand, the person guided by the life-giving Spirit finds both life and peace."  Ultimately in the final analysis the indwelling Spirit who raised Jesus will raise us up as well. Our obligation is to live not after the flesh but to the contrary we are challenged to mortify the deeds of the body through a consistent reliance upon the life giving power of the Holy Spirit.       

                                                                                                            

Quotation for Meditation

 

Romans 7 is answered by Romans 8, which is Paul's most spectacular piece of creation-theology, a bursting out of a flesh reading of Genesis 1-3, coupled with the Exodus narrative of liberation from slavery and the journey to the promised inheritance: creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay, to share the freedom of the glory of God's children. And the fulcrum around which the argument turns is Romans 8:3-4. God has done what the Torah, weakened by the flesh, could not do: that is, God has accomplished the goals for which the covenant was put in place, while dealing simultaneously with the fact that the covenant people themselves were part of the problem within creation. Through Jesus and the Spirit there is therefore covenant renewal, which results, as you would expect once you locate Paul within an overarching Jewish narrative of creation and covenant, in new creation. That is the underlying logic of Romans 7 and 8.  

 

N.T. Wright, Paul In Fresh Perspective,  Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Pg.31

 

Quiet Time and Then Discussion

 

Questions for Meditation

  

1. Discuss what it means to be delivered.

2. How do we temper our own conclusions on a given subject while being loyal to the truth of Sacred Scriptures? 

3. Or is truth where the conflict ends? What would St. Paul say?

 

Prayer 

 

  Let us now return to you, O Lord Jesus Christ, that we may not be overcome. For with you we find a perfect goodness which is your presence itself. We have no fear that there is no one to return to merely because we have fallen away from you. Our failures do not cause our hope of eternal life to dim, for you yourself are that everlasting home in which we hope to live with you forever. Amen.

 

 Fr. Benedict J Groeschel, C.F. R., Healing The Original Wound, Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Pg.67