We began this thread yesterday by posing three questions about our situation as followers of Jesus in this day and place in which we live: Where are we, what should we do, and how is it going to turn out? I suggest that Romans 8:18-28 contains the answers to all three questions.
Romans is a letter the apostle Paul wrote from Corinth to the Christians in the city of Rome. Most scholars hold that Romans was written in AD 57, give or take a year, near the end of Paul’s third missionary journey. Evidence within the Scriptures tells us that the church in the Roman Empire’s capital city was more Gentile than Jew. And there were conflicts. There were cultural and racial divisions within this church and there was dissension along theological and church practice lines. One of Paul’s purposes in writing this letter is to reconcile the arguing factions. He wants to bring about unity in belief and purpose. Our unity with Christ and in Christ, he says, needs to stem from the Gospel truth that all people and things are being brought together in Jesus Christ. This union with Christ and in Christ should characterize all of God’s people today and forever.
With that as our backdrop, let me suggest that the answer to our first question, “Where are we?” is made clear in Romans 8:18, but is implied throughout the passage.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us…”
“The creation was subjected to frustration… the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom…”
“The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
The world is in pain. That’s where we are. That’s what’s happening. The whole world is in pain. Creation is groaning out of frustration. The rocks and trees and animals and birds and rivers and people–it’s all subjected to frustration. All of creation is a slave to decay. The whole world is in bondage to corruption. And it’s groaning. Right up to the present time. Right now.
And it’s groaning because of sin. Everything got messed up when we decided we know better than God. We know what’s best for us better than the one who made us. So when the one man Adam went against the will of the Creator, all of creation was infected with his sin. Everything that exists now is somehow corrupted by sin. Everything we know is distorted, it’s twisted, it’s unable to realize or achieve its God-ordained purpose.
This goes back to the curse in Genesis 3. The groans and pains of childbirth, the hard work and frustration and sweat, women and men struggling against each other for power and control and the man always winning. This is the result of sin. And when sin entered the picture, so did death. Now, everything decays. Nothing is permanent. Everything dies. Everything you know, everything you experience, even all the really good things–all of it is subject to corruption and decay. Relationships, work, our bodies, our marriages, the people and things we love–it’s all contaminated by sin and death. Right up to the present time. This is what’s happening now. This is where we are.
Racism. The discrimination and injustice against minority peoples that part of our fallen nature and built right into the systems and structures of society. Poverty. Selfishness. Greed. Lust. Power. Control. War. Disease. Dictators. Thirty-nine kinds of sexual sin. The sins of our society and our own individual sins separate us from God, they divide us from each other, and they devour our bodies and souls.
So people are hurting. Suffering. People are dying. People are crying out in pain. That’s where we are today. The world is in pain.
What is the Church called to do? How are Christians supposed to respond? We’ll cover that in this space tomorrow.
Peace,
Allan
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