Romans 3:23-24 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. [TNIV]

I learned the first half of the sentence that comprises Romans 3:23-24 in grade school. It was part of a Bible memory program well known through out the U.S. and, to some extent, throughout the world. Today, I have to wonder what motivated the program’s designers to truncate Paul’s message.

Taken by itself, 3:23 is a negative message. It says that “Everyone is a sinner.” Taken as a whole, the message is, “Yes, everyone is a sinner, but God has chosen to justify everyone.”

The first message was presented as saying you are lost. You have to accept Christ as your saviour if you don’t want to go to hell. The second message is that God has completely wiped out the guilt of your sins. There is nothing left for you to do but to let the reality of God’s all encompassing love become your power to actualize your own potential.

If you want to teach that God is going to send some people to hell, you must explain how a person that God has justified can possibly be in hell. Did God do an ineffectual job of justifying? Was the work of Christ on the cross insufficient to fully justify a person? To me, that is pure blasphemous foolishness.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” [KJV]

I believe that when Paul talks about salvation in Romans, he is not talking about eternal life. From Paul’s point of view, God has resolved the eternal life question by declaring every last one of us as justified. We are all going to be forever with God. Every last one of us.

Paul wants us to know that salvation has come. This salvation of love has the power to save this earthly, human life. We can start to improve things right now, right where we are, and we are guaranteed God’s help in doing that job.

The old statement of spirituality is that if you obey you will have peace. The new statement is since you have peace, obey.

Paul wants us to know that God loves us. That is the central reality of every person’s life. That is the good news. In Christ, God expressed his love for us all in language that is hard to misunderstand. The central message of the cross is that it says no effort is to extreme for God if it allows God to get through to us that he loves us.

Since we have that love secured forever, we can begin to use God’s love to learn that we are lovable, we can love each other, and, by that means, create cells of love that will allow us to live lovingly here and now in this world.

In other words, the good news of God’s invincible love can provide the basis for saving our lives in this world. Eternity is a foregone conclusion. Since that is true, let’s get on with the job of allowing God to bring his salvation to our lives in this world, in this time, in the space of this planet.

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

Salvation is by faith. The question here is:
“Salvation is the result of whose faith”?
“Am I saved by my faith or are we all saved by the faith of Jesus Christ?
For me, there is no difference in any of us. We all are saved by the faith of Jesus.

We all have these things in common:

1. We have no faith in and of ourselves. As Ephesians 2 says, faith is not of ourselves, it is God’s gift.

2. We all have sinned. Paul is not interested in de-emphasizing sin. To Paul, sin is a huge problem and it is a problem every single person has. Furthermore, whatever form sin takes in a person’ life, it is a life threatening problem. It is capable of ruining our life here on earth and it is capable of killing us. As he says in Romans 6, “The wages of sin is death.”

3. God has solved our problem. Because of the faith of Jesus Christ, we have all been justified. Every person’s salvation is a done deal. Salvation is a fact of every human’s history. We have all been saved.

It is left to us to incorporate the gift of salvation so that our human life becomes something beautiful and wonderful. I have seen people with solid Christian doctrine and people with virtually no doctrine learn to take advantage of God’s salvation in a life transforming way.

My 12 step experience has allowed me to witness the life giving love God has put in the world
in every category of human beings. It is not a doctrinal salvation. It is in no way a performance salvation because it does depend on me doing anything.For me it is a salvation that is a gift to the world given to everyone, [There is no difference], by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Developed with Morey’s help.

“For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

This passage is very important to me. Paul wants to see the Romans. He has planned to go to Rome in the past, but has been frustrated in his attempts to get there. He is he is bursting with spiritual gifts he wants to give to the Romans.

His desire to bless these people comes out in his writing When he says, “I long to see you.” In other words, I long to let you know of God’s inexhaustable grace.

I am told that the word translated “Bless” in this passage means something like what we mean when we use the word “Happy”. For example, we say,”I want my kids to be happy. Paul wants the Romans to live in the abundance of God’s provision for them. In that manner, they can be blessed or in our language, happy.

God feels the same way about us. He longs for us to live in joy. We are prepared to receive such a small slice of what God wants to give us. We feel unworthy of a good life. We feel we are too twisted to ever be happy. We push away blessing. Like Paul, God longs to come to us and give us the firm foundation for life for which we all long.

As soon as Paul writes that he wants to impart a gift to the Romans, he realizes that there is more to be said. It is not just that he has a gift for the Romans. He acknowledges that the Romans have something to give to him.

“That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

Paul understood that he was as dependent on the Romans as the Romans were dependent on him. In any real fellowship, there is that mutual benefit. You have gifts for me and I have gifts for you.

I do not trust any relationship that is one way. If someone only wants to take form me, I am uncomfortable. If someone only wants to give to me, I am uncomfortable. A healthy relationship is always of mutual benefit.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith.”

It is important to how I understand Romans to look at the phrase “From faith to faith.” Let me start this discussion by reviewing what I said commenting on Romans 3:22.

In my discussion of Romans 3:22, I take the view point that our salvation is not by our faith but by the faith of Jesus Christ. It was the faith of Christ that led him to the cross and enabled him to endure the cross that gives me and everyone else in the world our salvation.

That means the foundation of the Christian good news is the faith of Christ. Two thousand years ago, salvation came to the entire human race, because Jesus had such immense faith.

However, that isn’t where faith ends. In order to give me the life here on earth that God wants me to have, I have to add my faith to the faith of Christ. So my salvation history goes from the already established acceptance of me by God because of the faith of Jesus, to my faith in God’s goodness, that grants me the willingness to accept the help of God so that my day to day life can become wonderful.

At Birth or before, the faith of Christ gives me salvation then at some point in my life, my faith puts God’s salvation to work, and makes the power of God’s salvation applicable to my day to day life here on earth. Now I want to look at the phrase “From faith to faith.”

FROM FAITH
My eternal destiny is a given. Heaven and Hell are no longer an issue. It is a given of my life and everyone else’s life that we all are going to spend eternity with God. In an eternal sense, we are all saved. That is the sense of the two words, “from faith.” The realization that God loves me is where my faith finds its beginning point.

I do not need to accept Christ as my saviour. I do not need to be born again. I do not need to accept a particular doctrinal position. I do not need to muster up enough faith in order to be saved. The good news is, that it was the faith of Christ on Calvary that gave each of us permanent, irrevocable, unchanging peace with God and that happened a very long time ago.

That is the sense of what St. John taught us in John 1 :

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Christ enlightened every man, not just Christians, or Westerners, or Jews, or Holy Spirit baptized people, or good people or any other category of mankind that our bent toward divisiveness causes us to create. Christ has already touched every person.

There is a related text in Acts 2:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh…”

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was given to specific men so they could prophesy [Like Elijah or Isaiah] or rule [Like Moses or David]. The new arrangement is that God is giving us all the Holy Spirit so that our sons and daughters, old people and young people, men and woman can hear from and speak for God.

There are simply no qualifications necessary for receiving the Holy Spirit. There are no exceptions. If I believe “All” means everyone when it is said “For all have sinned…”, it is dishonest to claim that all means only certain people when it talks about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh.

The faith of Jesus has saved everyone even before they are born. The light of Jesus has enlightened every person every second of every day that person has lived. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on every person ever born. That is the Gospel.

TO FAITH

God has totally accepted all of us on the basis of the Faith lived out and died for by Jesus. However the story does not end there. Salvation is from faith [The faith of Jesus] to faith [My faith]. My faith does not bring salvation. My faith actuates God’s power so that it can be applied to my everyday life, in this world, in this body, at this time.

Many people have faith in the message of Jesus, who don’t believe in Jesus. I do not think that matters in the least to Christ. Jesus did not come to aggrandize himself. God sent Jesus to give us a better picture of God. God is love. God is light. God is unmarked by the prejudices, fears and angers that corrupt me. God’s love is pure, undiluted, creative, powerful, and accessible. That is the gospel of Jesus.

God is, who God is, quite independent of anything I believe or do. When the unmanageability of my life, knocks down the fences I have erected against God’s love, I come face to face with the God Jesus wants me to know. One AA man said, “Most of us had our first clear glimpse of a God who really cares while we were puking in a toilet.” In the same way, when the terror of a battlefield destroys a persons God blocking defences, that person is suddenly aware of a God that cares.

Here is how Jesus said it in The Beatitudes:

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

When, for whatever reason, we want to learn a new way to live out our lives , God is there. That is the gospel.

Will a person that turns his life over to God ultimately come to the place that he acknowledges Jesus? Frankly, that is none of my business. That is strictly a matter between that person and her or his Higher Power.

I do think that more people would come to recognize the role of Jesus, if the church would offer a view of Christ that is as beautiful as Christ actually is. I know the Jesus I know today, after twelve years in 12 step recovery is far lovelier than picture of Christ the church gave me as a boy.

Now I want to look at another part of this scripture. If our eternal destiny is a settled matter, in what sense is it that the Gospel is salvation to those who believe. We have already touched on the answer. The term salvation refers to a changed life here on earth. It is not refering to eternal salvation.

When we understand that God is everlastingly on our side, we can begin to turn our will and our life over to him. At that point, our human life can begin to experience the power of God for the salvation of our human, earthly life.

Applying the word save to this life as opposed to eternal salvation is common biblical practice. For example if you search the Psalms for the word “Save” it normally refers to saving the human physical life. That is normal for the whole Old Testament.

Using the word save to refer to this life is common in the New Testament also. For example:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. [Matthew 16]

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Paul’s use of the word salvation refers to our life here on earth and not to eternal life.

“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”

This passage is a comparison of the damage done by the first Adam, [Of Garden of Eden fame], and the grace made available to the world by the life and work of the Second Adam. [Jesus Christ].

Paul argues that the problem of sin became the problem of every person of every subsequent generation when Adam sinned in The Garden. The first Adam did something that took us all down.

He offers no proof or explanation for his belief that Adam made us all sinners. I think that he simply looked at the destructive nature of the world around him and felt that all people and all human institutions, were all fatally flawed and carried with them the seeds of their own destruction.

I see how he felt. I can feel a deep despair if I look at my world without the hope that God’s grace daily gives me. World news is almost always bad news.

Then Paul looks at the life and work of Christ and concludes that the negative force begun by the sin of the first Adam has been greatly exceeded by the grace that has come into the world by the life and work of Christ. As he says, a few verses after the verse we are considering, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:”

In other words First Adam brought sin to us all but Second Adam brought salvation to us all. Look at the second half of our text. “…Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”

A standard translation says,”…Leads to justification and life for all men.” [English Standard Version] Here again, notice the word “ALL”.

The “Justification of life” came to all people of all times because of the work of Jesus. There is no standard of behavior or belief system or faith in Jesus required. Salvation is a totally free gift given by God to absolutely everyone.

Whether or not I actualize the gift in this life, in this body, in this place at this time is another matter to be discussed later. But the issue of eternal salvation is a completely settled matter; settled by the faith lived out by Christ.

I wrote this to a friend back East who had lost her brother:

“He starved to death at a banquet table full of food and died of thirst by a stream. For years, all his family wanted to do was to be able to show him love. If it had been up to you people, he would have died surrounded by his loving family”

So it is with so many of us. We live out our earthly life unaware that we have been completely accepted, redeemed, justified and every other good thing by God. That is God’s gift to us all. May we each enjoy and be empowered by this gift every day from now on.

The doctrine of original sin teaches that man is by nature totally sinful, and without redeeming qualities. I think that Original Sin is a particularly unbiblical idea.

According to Genesis, man is made in the image of God not in the image of some evil creature, that is fudamentally flawed. Therefore, I am not an original sinner, I am originally like God.

Furthermore, as soon as God finished creating mankind, he blessed mankind. Therefore, I am not only originally wonderful by creation, I am originally blessed by God.

I can not imagine a more beautiful picture of the wholesome heart nature of the human race than being made in God’s image and being blessed by God. There is no room for the idea of original sin in that picture.

Sin is certainly a problem in Scripture. However, sin is not seen in the Bible as man expressing his true nature, but as man betraying his true created nature.

Sinning is like when I have a cold. The cold is not apart of my true nature. It is an invasion of my body by a foreign substance, namely a virus. Yes it is my nose that runs and my eyes that water, but the cold is not me. In time, my body rejects the invading virus and i am healthy again,

That is the sense of Paul’s remark in Romans that when I sin it is not me that is doing it, “But sin which dwells in me.” [Rom 7:17]. Sin isn’t me, it is a outside invader.

I am still responsible for my behaviour, Responsibility is not Paul’s point. His point is that sin is acting counter to my created nature.
When I sin I am acting against my true self not expressing my true self.

I was not taught that Iwas a wonderful person created in God’s image and blessed by God. I grew up with this idea. “I am a piece of shit”.

I thought “Lucky for me, God is so loving that he can even love a piece of shit like me.” What a vicious mockery of scripture.

That sense that I am unclean,[a piece of shit] is what we call shame these days. Shame is the driving force behind all my character defects.

I am slowly learning what it means to be made in God’s image. That means I can become an ever better person. The limit of my potential is God. That is to say that I can grow so much, that as a practical matter, I am limitless.

I am not a pathetic creature trying to sneak into Heaven, looking for a way to hide from you so you will never discover how unacceptable I am.

When I read this verse this morning, I saw something new. I could treat this Scriptural phrase as a title for the Law of Moses. I imagined all the laws of The Bible listed on a document that was entitled, “The Way To Experience Sin and Death”. That would mean that if I wanted to experience sin and death, I could do so by attempting to live my by the rules.I take that to mean that any attempt on my part to experience spirituality by means of performance of the law can only result in guilt and misery.

Later in Romans 8, it says, “Through the law came the knowledge of sin.” That means that the purpose of the law was to give me the knowledge or make me aware of my of my sin. Being aware of my sin is experienced by me as guilt. Therefore, if I try to live by the law, the result will be that I will feel guilty.

That nicely explains why I have spent most of my life feeling guilty. I have wanted to approach God on the basis of my own efforts to do it right. That has never worked. I have never felt good enough. I have always lived under the threat of God’s condemnation.

In my case, I have not been primarily bothered by what you  the laws of Moses. I have made up my own laws like “If you are fat you are no good.’ Or, “If you are not miserable, you are not really paying attention to the problems of the world” Another would be, ” You can  always do better”,or “Work harder’, or “It”s my fault.”

These laws I made up, and scores more just like them,  proved to be cruel masters. I was kept so miserable that I was unable to learn from my mistakes. It is hard to hear the quiet and loving voice of God when my internal voice is screaming. at me. God has always been willing to help me , but I was deaf to his voice and terrified of having him near.

I have decided to live my life on a new basis. God’s grace is total and unqualified. My shortcomings are completely overmatched by God love.

If I have a bill for $100,000, I have a big problem. It is less of a problem if I have $100,000,000 in the bank.I still have to deal with the debt, but I have the resources to easily do so. God’s grace is not just huge, it is limitless. When I live immersed in God’s love, it makes it possible for me to learn from my mistakes. That is true because I am quiet enough internally to hear God instruct me.

I have two tasks. One is to allow God to be lovingly present to help me. The second is,  I am to enjoy my life.

By George Caywood

I have never felt comfortable with the idea of imposing my ideas about Jesus on people who do not want to hear them. I have reasons for feeling that way.

First , I was severely abused as a boy. I felt overwhelmed by the angry onslaught that sometimes assailed me. The very people I had a right to expect protection from were powerfully invasive with my body and my emotions. As a result I am loath to impose myself on anyone.

I have imposed myself on people when I was angry or when I felt cornered or when I needed to prove my manhood to myself.  However, when I behaved like that, I felt as if I had betrayed myself. Worse, I felt that I had treated the people in my life in the same reprehensible way my parents had treated me .

My second hesitation about imposed witnessing is that I don’t see Christ or even the highly assertive Paul doing it that way. The power and appeal of Christ and Paul generally generated all the opportunities to speak they felt were necessary.

I am comfortable with being a letter of Christ. If I am a letter, the recipient of the letter has full control over how much of my message he receives.He can throw the letter unopened in the trash. He can open the letter and just glance at it. He can put the letter aside to be considered later, or he can read it immediately. Similarly, I love to talk to anyone about Christ, but I want the other person  to feel that the amount of sharing I do is completely under their control.

Occasionally, one of my daughters will ask my advice. Other times, they  want to talk a situation through with me. Those are wonderful experiences . At the end of one of those conversations, if I feel I have been overly assertive with them, I say, “The nice thing about being an American is that you are never more than twenty feet away from a trash can. Feel free to throw what I said in the trash.”

By George Caywood

“Then they that feared the Lord spake often to one another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it,and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. Malachi 3:16.

I think this is one of the loveliest images in the Bible. It is a picture of a type of gathering God enjoys very much.

I see a large, comfortably furnished, inviting room. In the room, sprawled all over the furniture, is a friendly gathering of six or eight people. Delicious snacks and drinks  have been served.

An animated conversation is going on. There is some disagreement between various people, but no animosity. It is obvious that people are heavily invested emotionally, in what they are saying. There is always someone talking, a little interupting, but overall, a respectful courrtesy is apparent.

People are also listening expectantly. Everyone wants to capture for themselves, the things of value that are being  shared. No one is just being quiet, waiting for their turn to speak.

The overall subject is the love of God but not in an abstract sense. One person is talking about a Bible verse that has just become clear. Another is thrilled with a book they are reading. Someone else received help from God in a tough situation at work. There is a struggle to overcome worry over a family member There is help needed to deal with the loss of a love one.

The nature of the talking is not like a string of pearls, where each share is next to but not necessarily related to the previous topic. It is more like a tossed salad, where every ingredient is flavored by all the other ingredients.

God is in the room. God is not one of the speakers. However, the whole room is being energized by his presence. Only a few of the people are conscious of God’s nearness. Most of the group is just aware that they are having a really good time.

God is happy. That much is obvious. If God could be seen, a person would be sure that he wanted the talking to go on forever.

God is writing in a book. He is writing down everything said, how it was said, how the others in the room were responding. He wants the whole situation to be preserved forever. He is feeling, “This is just too much fun to risk forgetting.”

This scene is even better to me when I consider what precedes it in Malachi. Malachi always seems like a play to me. In the play, there are two characters or voices. One character is God. The other voice is the voice of the people.

The people are making angry , hostile, accusations at God. Over and over, in different ways, they are upset at what they see as God’s unfaithfulness.

“We did our part. We have obeyed your law. We have tried to please you our entire lives. But you don’t respond. we just don’t see your promised blessing. Our situation just gets worse and worse. You don’t keep your word. We did not ask you to make us promises, but you made them anyway. Now your promises just serve to mock us and all our efforts to receive your help.”

There is an angry background hum of voices. Every time a new accusation is made, the noise in the background gets louder. It soon escalates from a hum to a murmur. Then it becomes more like the howl of an angry mob.

From time to time, God answers his accusers. His answers are strong but measured. None of the accusations against God stick. His answers turn the focus back to the hard self centered heart of the people.

In time the crowd exhausts their rage. They become like cried out babies. They quiet down because they are too tired to do anything else.

God begins to serve the delicious, refreshing,food and drinks. The refreshments do their job. The people are refreshed.

Gradually, they start to share their memories of times in their lives God has been good to them. Someone akes a bad joke. The people look at each other and chuckle or groan. The persons bad jokes are welcome because the only jokes he ever tells are bad jokes. It is the kind of good humor people enjoy because the jokes  are born out of a shared history.

Now people are expressing their fears not as accusations, but from a desire to share each other’s burdens. The mood is sweet, warm and tender

God says, “Finally.”

Then he finds a comfortable chair back in a corner. He sits down to listen to what is being said. He reaches for His journal

By George Caywood