Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
211: Joey Dodson, Rethinking Romans 7 and Christian Freedom
Dr. Joey Dodson unpacks the commonly misunderstood passage of Romans 7, revealing how the dominant interpretation has mistakenly led Christians to identify with defeat rather than victory in Christ.
• Historical interpretation shows earliest Greek readers understood Paul was impersonating someone else, not describing his own post-conversion experience
• Augustine shifted the interpretation during disputes with Pelagius, influencing Luther and Calvin
• The "I" in Romans 7 is completely dominated by sin, with no mention of the Holy Spirit
• Romans 7 likely portrays Adam/Israel under law's condemnation, not the normal Christian life
• Paul presents sin as a cosmic tyrant, not just individual actions
• Christians are already sanctified but not fully expressing that reality
• Our identity is primarily as sons and daughters, not sinners
• Community and the Holy Spirit are essential for freedom – isolation keeps us in darkness
• Grace doesn't just forgive sin – it frees us from sin's power
The gospel brings liberation from sin's dominion, not just forgiveness. Our struggle isn't because we must sin, but because we choose to. We've been delivered from the domain of darkness into his marvelous light.
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Yo, welcome to the Death of Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and I'm actually not in this podcast. This is a podcast with Jonathan interviewing Joey. We just had Joey Dodson on the podcast a few weeks ago and we heard his story. This is where they get a little bit more theological and they break down Romans, chapter seven, and so put your thinking caps on. I know Joey talks fast. You can slow it down to hear what he's saying. I love this episode. I've loved it on Internet Church. I've learned so much and it's been such a blessing to me. So, guys, buckle up and strap in. This is Jonathan and Joey. Love you guys, appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2:I know that for me, back in 2016, I was just at the cusp of leaving it all behind. I was actually also doing a PhD in systematic theology at our university, the Adventist University, andrews University in Michigan, and it was there that I had just come to the end of myself, because I was absolutely addicted and committed to my lust in such powerful ways that I was using theology as a mask and trying to present myself as theologically knowledgeable, precisely because the power of the gospel wasn't alive in me, because I grew up without a knowledge of the gospel. Adventism is information heavy and theoretical and theological framework heavy, and sometimes at least for me, I could speak. It was missing the gospel, like the liberating gospel. And so 2016,.
Speaker 2:I actually saw Todd White on Facebook and he was purporting to have healed a man of deafness. Right, and I don't know if you're familiar with Todd White. Todd White is a charismatic preacher down in. I think he's in Texas now, but anyway, I'm watching this guy. He's claiming to have healed this deaf man and, being someone who is so theological at least I thought myself so theological the moment you see somebody claiming the spirit at work and liberating a captive, I interpreted that as the work of Satan Right, and so I'm like man. Who is this charlatan?
Speaker 3:He did that as well, and it didn't work out very well 100%.
Speaker 2:And so I went to listen to this guy just to, you know, knock him down a peg in my own mind and in a presentation of his he said two things that changed my life. It was one he's like you know that without the Holy Spirit you're never going to make it. And the problem with the way we tell the prodigal son stories that we always highlight him as prodigal but we forget the whole time that he was always son Right. And so the Lord led me on this journey of absolutely recognizing that, first and foremost, I'm actually loved by my father and that, because I'm loved on my father, that that's exactly why he sent Jesus into the world to free me from the slavery, the condemnation, the absolute corruption and curse of sin and death Right, and I didn't it's crazy now to say this out loud but I didn't know that Jesus came into the world to deliver me into absolute freedom through his spirit Right and, just like Paul, that while we are still in these mortal bodies, these tents right, that we are just teeming with life through the spirit right. I didn't know that. So you know, I couldn't read Paul, like, from my vantage point, I couldn't read Paul with any approximation of agreement, because it was so confounding and I did know that in my former life I could retreat to something like Roman seven. I thought, well, you know I'm, I'm such a wretch and I don't want to watch porn, but this thing is so alive in me and it is what it is.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until the Holy spirit just came in and actually really revealed the love of the father through Jesus in the spirit, that one day I woke up and I had this realization that, oh my God, god actually does love me, right, yeah, he loves me. And then two, since he loves me, he has actually given me a gift of victory that I felt it inside of me, but I didn't know where it came from. And I felt this so deeply inside of me that I actually went to a porn website and I was like, man, what's going on? I went to a porn website and I was appalled at what I saw and I shut the screen and I was like what, what is going on? So I'm diving into the text, I'm reading Ephesians, colossians, and I'm like I've been resurrected with Jesus and my life is hitting Christ, with God. And I'm pouring over Romans and I'm like hold the phone, like I'm free from sin. What does that mean? Right?
Speaker 2:And me and Justin met around this time and I'm sharing with him all these things that I'm discovering, and he subsequently receives this gospel and he himself also comes into this freedom in the spirit, freedom from an addiction to porn and as Adventists we're like what is going on Right? And so we go back into our Adventist community and just trying to tell everybody like yo, the gospel is so much freer and so much better than what we've been told. It hasn't worked out. It's worked out pretty good for us, but on other fronts, legalism is alive.
Speaker 2:Um, but, yeah, man, uh, me and Justin actually did a podcast series on the book of Romans in our naivete back then, just trying to walk through it, and we actually got to Roman seven. And as we're working through Roman seven, it hits us that Romans 7, 1 through 4, is literally an illustration of us dying with Christ because he took on the Adam 1 reality and we die through him and with him so that we might belong to another. And now it's so clear in the text, but before we were so confused and we're like yo, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:And so, uh, now our ministry, wherever we can, is actually first to Adventist Cause that's where we're at and then to anybody else that's willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, we are in, in fact, free from sin to live in the spirit, because the father has loved us with such a great love that we have been delivered from the domain of darkness into his marvelous light. And though we're in these mortal bodies, and you might feel, and that, and that, like the mindset we now have in the reality that we have, then, that we live in, is romans 8 right, and so that that's a little bit about where we're at and why we are absolutely so passionate about the content that you have promoted and we're so unbelievably grateful for your book. Uh, and so, yeah, man, yeah, thanks so much, you.
Speaker 3:you don't need me on here. You just keep preaching that that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh no man, We'll actually dive in.
Speaker 3:And you got a better voice for it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you got the cooler look, my guy, you got the cooler look. So, hey, man, if you don't mind, justin, you on the mic, is it all right? We have a word of prayer and then we'll just kind of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Thanks, go for it, justin. You mind praying for us?
Speaker 4:Sure thing, God. We just want to thank you so much for the privilege of preserving this message for us all the way down to today, so that we can be encouraged to know that our life is not just one constant struggle but a victory because of Jesus. And so we pray that, through this conversation, those who eventually listen to it might be able to encounter the literary question.
Speaker 4:Those who eventually listen to it, might be able to encounter the literary question. They may be able to be inspired by the fact that the Spirit of God now lives within them. They may be able to move with power and to be able to bring new glory to what you do in the future. So God is coming to save you, right?
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, amen. So it's such a privilege to be with Dr Joey Dodson, author of the book Conquers, not Captives, and we are excited about this conversation because we're so passionate about Romans 7. Dr Joey Dodson, thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, guys for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Listen. I mean, we're just going to dive right in, if that's all right, All right. And we just want to ask why this book? Why this book?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So I grew up in a missionary Baptist background that loved the Bible the B-I-B-L-E as that's the book would be, yeah and, but always went to Romans 7 as a way to excuse our sin. Of course, Romans 7 is the passage where the things I want to do I do not do. The things that I don't want to do is what if I'm stuck doing? Oh, what a wretch I am. Who's rescued me from this body?
Speaker 3:And it was just interesting because the tradition that taught me to enjoy the Bible also kind of taught this, and I thought this was the only interpretation of this passage.
Speaker 3:And then I went to seminary, and in seminary we're reading through Douglas Moo his commentary on Romans, and it was assignment. And when I went to Romans 7, it was one of the record scratches, you know, mustard. I had no idea that this was an option. And not only was it another option, but it was the one that was preferred by scholars, and so it really turned my world upside down. I was like wow. And once I put it in context, I realized that really the other interpretations of Romans 7 make so much more sense, and so it's been a passion that's been germinating in my heart way back since 1990-something, and what this book is doing is taking what is kind of standard in the ivory tower among Pauline scholars, New Testament scholars and also, as I mentioned in the book, was a major interpretation from our first interpreters of Romans 7 and trying to bring that down to everybody so that they can have that same. Like what?
Speaker 3:And just realize even if they don't end up where I end up with respect to interpretation, to know that there are other interpretations out there.
Speaker 2:Well, you highlight something about the history interpretation right here that there seems to be a long history of interpreting the passage, contra to how we commonly relate to the passage right now.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm reminded of this quote, this anecdote of Wittgenstein I don't know if you've heard this one where his, one of his students is like, oh, it's so easily to understand why people thought that the sun went around the earth. And wittgenstein asked well, why do they think that? And I think it's his, his student says, well, it looks that way. And then wittgenstein replies and he's like well, what would it look like if the earth went around the sun? Right when, it would look exactly the same, but it's perspective Right and so Right the history of interpretation. Can you tell us a little bit about the earliest, maybe, interpretation of Romans 7 and what the beef is in light of current or common Sure?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Origen is the first extant interpreter that we have in this passage. And Origen, who is an original Greek speaker, so he's reading the Greek right there. He said it was obvious that Paul is doing an impersonation. The Greek word is prosopopoia put on a face. And so he's reading it and for him it's just obvious that this is not Paul talking about himself as a post-conversion experience. This is not Paul after God knocked him off his donkey on the road to Damascus, but instead that Paul is impersonating someone who's living under the law rather than walking in the spirit. And then we have Augustine, who is the one who kind of rings the bell, but for most of his life he also believed that this was no way, that this is post-conversion Paul.
Speaker 3:But Augustine is the one who ends up changing his mind later on. And he changes his mind because, kind of in his rhetorical fisticuffs with his opponents who believe that Christians could be perfect, augustine's like no, no, no, no. And so he goes to Romans 7, not really doing exegesis as much as apologetics to say that we as believers can't be perfect, perfect, perfect. And so here he begins to say that this is Paul as opposed to conversion. But even then Augustine's using the Latin Vulgate rather than the Greek text, and in the Latin Vulgate it actually has this word like perfect, perfectly. And so what he ends up saying is that Paul's not saying that he can't live a holy life, he just says he can't live a perfect holy life, that he's not being perfect, and I agree with that sentiment. But that's just not what Romans 7 is talking about. And once Augustine rang that bell, it continued to resound in the Reformation. So Luther, of course, with all of his hand-wringing you know, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner, oh, I'm a wretch, I'm a wretch, I'm a wretch. This idea becomes buttressed in Luther and then Calvin. This idea becomes a buttress in Luther and then Calvin.
Speaker 3:It's not really until Wesley that we have someone who's like all right, stop, collaborate and listen. Let's put this in context and let me just kind of back up and say this real quickly that even like Luther and Calvin don't interpret it totally like we interpret it. It's like well, it's not that Paul's actually doing these things, but he has the desire to do those things, and so he's frustrated with the desires. But these things, but he has the desire to do those things, and so he's frustrated with the desires, but it's not that he's really impotent to do these things. And so even our most popular interpretation that's in our pulpits and people's minds today don't actually fully accord with what Luther and Calvin is talking about. But of course Luther and Calvin, with the Reformation tradition, is going to focus on the total depravity rather than and that ends up finding more of our identity in the old Adam rather than the person of Jesus Christ. But then you know, jt, to borrow from JT, I'm bringing Wesley back.
Speaker 3:John Wesley comes and is like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's put this in context and to go back to your testimony that you said before we started recording, it's like, wait, we need to read Romans seven, seven and following, in light of Romans seven, one and following. And so Paul begins by saying all right, now I'm talking to those of you who know the law. And so John Wesley realizes wait, a second. Paul's doing some intramural discussion here. Paul is kind of talking inside baseball, go. Paul is kind of talking inside baseball, go Yankees.
Speaker 3:And this is really more about what happens with the Jewish law. And so Wesley almost says you know, we're so vain, we probably thought this verse was about us, but it's really about those who are struggling with the Jewish law. And eventually this becomes really popular among scholarship to say that actually this is not. Paul's not talking about the Christian relationship with temptation and sin. He does talk about that. That is a struggle, but here it's really about the law and Paul kind of coming to the defense of the law because he's kind of said some nasty things, seemingly nasty things, about the law, but now he's got to explain why did God give a law that didn't save? And so that's really what Romans 7 is about what happens when one lives under the law rather than walking according to the Holy Spirit? Because there ain't no potty like Holy Ghost potty. There ain't no potty. There's no Holy Ghost potty. Don't stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it seems as though you just walked us through this great sort of historical kind of just hopscotch like just let me jump jump, which is good. Let historical kind of just hopscotch like, just because I mean jump jump, which is good. Uh, let me see. You start with origin and origin. He's reading the greek and he knows the greek way better than we do, and he's like no, no, this isn't about paul's introspective eye, right, there's something else going on here.
Speaker 2:And then you made reference to this idea of prosopopeia, right, which is, uh, we'll get to that the in-speech character where you put the mask on and you're talking like somebody else, right, right but then you get to augustine, and augustine you're telling us that early on he held origins view correct yeah, and, and from my, from my understanding help me if I'm wrong here is that then he switches his view for, uh, you said apologetic reasons? I've been told that it's for sometimes political reasons. Would that be fair?
Speaker 3:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Right so.
Speaker 3:I'm not an Augustine expert, but yeah, I do know that he's defending the gospel against those who think that we could be perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is his whole Pelagius controversy.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right, and so then? So it seems like at Augustine would it be fair to say that at Augustine, that there is a shift, so that when you fast forward to Luther, who's an Augustinian monk, correct, he's reading Romans seven and it just feels so close to home because he's so in himself, right?
Speaker 3:Yes, right, exactly yeah. So Luther puts himself kind of reads his own struggle into Paul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the quote quote Pulitzer Prize winner. You know, it's like he sees this inside his DNA, Right, and it's like no, no, no, that's not royalty inside his dna, he's not and not royalty inside dna right, he's seeing the wrong in dna, that's right yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like luther, back up, be humble, it might not be the right reading, right yeah?
Speaker 3:yeah, well to, to switch uh genres. Uh, he's being too loud, he needs to calm down. Yeah yeah, but yeah, so he has this idea of kind of anachronism and eisegesis. He reads his own struggle back onto this character in Romans 7, and maybe not eisegesis but narcegesis. He's like narcissistic and kind of sees himself and takes that in context. But even Luther still is kind of doing it apologetically against those opponents that he has.
Speaker 2:And so then you can move forward to Wesley and Wesley's, the one that tells us like, hold on pause, pause, pause. It might not be that this passage is about our internal experience and he's hearkening back to origin in meaningful ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure how much Wesley read origin, but Wesley taught himself Greek and is reading the Greek text and going through it and of course Wesley ends up establishing through this the Methodist. You know the methodology that actually led people to be spiritually reformed and free and really turns the topsy-turvy UK at that time church back towards sanctification and holiness.
Speaker 2:So why do we hold on to the common reading of Romans 7? And by common I mean the most popular one, where we so deeply identify with our own struggles?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think one is because it's what we've always been taught. Again, there's so many people that don't even realize that there are other interpretations for who this I is in Romans 7. And then, too, because we do identify with it. We're like, hey, this does look like me. And so there's that tendency to find solace, like hey, even Paul struggled with this.
Speaker 3:But, as we know, the first rule of biblical interpretation is context, context, context. And so you quoted Wittgenstein. I love to quote Karl Barth, when the Nazis came and drug him out of his classroom and he thought it was to assure death and he was leaving his students with the last words to guide them and to change, to be a light in the darkness. As he's being drug out, he cries out and finally students exit Jesus-Jesus, exe-jesus, jesus, exe-jesus. And so, yeah, I think there's a tendency in parts of the American church especially, and in the revivalist tradition, that we ask not what does this verse mean, but what does it mean to me? And so, and we also take verses out of context and we use them as a pretext for a proof text. And so we, we, we take Romans seven out of context, we don't look at Romans six, we don't look at Romans eight and we have that own struggle. That's there. It's what we've always been taught, and it becomes becomes a perfect storm, to the point that when I ever tell people that there's an other interpretation, they can get angry with me and frustrated with me. That this is you don't say, and I'm like man, no, this is, this is good news, this is good news. Now you actually can say heck to the no, no to the no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're taught from the very beginning that you're going to sin every day. You're going to sin every day. You're going to sin every day. And we wake up thinking that then guess what, we're probably going to sin every day. No-transcript, going wild man. That's crazy. If anybody, he wants to come and call sinners, but he even calls them saints. And so I think we have a tendency and this may be part of the Enlightenment period as well and the Reformation tradition that we wake up thinking you know, I am nothing but a wretch, I am nothing but a sinner, but that's not who God sees us, as God looks at us and he sees Jesus Christ. Our life is hidden in Christ. We don't know where to live, but Christ lives within us. If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creation. The old is gone.
Speaker 3:And so when we were talking about Queens and Astoria and hopefully this guy won't be listening to your podcast but we had a young man that came in to Queens and he was in college and never got a tattoo, and while he was in New York he wanted to get his first tattoo and he wanted to get a Hebrew tattoo, and so he wanted to get Jehovah Jireh in Hebrew. And so he comes back and he shows it to me and it's misspelled Instead of Jehovah Jireh, it's Jehovah Jer. No regrets, yeah, exactly no regrets. And so, yeah, so the next year he came back up and we're like he wants to get another tattoo and we're like you know what? That's OK, you know, with with misspelling of Hebrew, a lot of people won't realize it. But before you get the next tattoo, get it. Run it by us, ok. And so this guy, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 3:And so he brings the passage from John that says not that we first loved him, but that he first loved us, and he wants to get it on his forearm. We're like man, that's a great verse. Yeah, we think that'd be great, uh, you, you have our approval. And so he comes back and, uh, he shows it to us so excited it says, not that me first loved him, but that he first loved me, and it like it's right on his forearm. We're like, oh man, that's not right. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I wanted to make it personal, and so, rather than rather, not I first loved him, but that he first loved me, but not that me first loved him. But you know, that's what we should be waking up to every morning, grammatically correct or not, not? Oh, I'm a nothing but a sinner, I'm nothing but a worm. Instead, the first thought that comes to our mind is that I am loved.
Speaker 2:I am loved. I'm a son, I'm adopted. Yeah, I'm a son not a sinner.
Speaker 3:And so not that I first loved him, but that he first loved me, and that's who I am, and so I think that tendency, I want that version.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start preaching that version. That's right that he first loved him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that Jehovah first loved me instead instead.
Speaker 2:yeah I love the idea that you guys have a theological department for tattoo reviews. We'd like to see that normalized across the country right in different ways. No, but this is so good because the the passage itself, romans 7. We so clearly see ourselves in it so that we overlay our experience first, and then the history of interpretation comes out of my struggle. Instead of the received revelation in the spirit through the apostle Paul, yeah, and so it becomes, to quote a famed theologian, uh, it becomes a persnickety passage. Is what? What a famed theologian. I love that. You wrote that in the in the book you called it a persnickety passage, and so one of the things about persnickety is that we see ourselves in it, but you're highlighting that maybe it's not so much about us but it's about the law, right, and maybe, before we get right into the text, can you give us just a quick overview of what is the present scholarly, if there is a consensus around what's actually going on in Romans 7?
Speaker 3:Sure so the growing consensus. You know, every time you use consensus in scholarship, you have to put finger quotes, air quotes on it.
Speaker 3:But the majority of scholars think that here Paul is impersonating someone else. So because we see in Philippians, when Paul does kind of give his highlight reel, paul's like man according to the law, I was blameless according to the law, I have a swagger according to the law, man I killed. You know the law, I was fully blameless according to that. So what we see in Romans 7 seems to contradict what we see Paul's experience before Damascus with respect to the law.
Speaker 2:And what you're highlighting is in Philippians 3, for our listeners that when Paul is talking about his life prior to Christ in Philippians 3, he is all about hey, before the law was blameless. I was advancing in so many ways and I was absolutely killing it. Also, just to recap for our listeners that you're alluding to Philippians 3, where Paul, as he's given a sort of history, quick history, a bio of his life before Christ, he's like, basically I was the man and before the law, like in light of the law, I thought I was pretty perfect. So that doesn't really agree with the way he sees himself in Romans 7. But then we make him schizophrenic. But it seems as though maybe there's a different interpretation of Romans 7 that's available to us and what I'm hearing you say is that there's a growing air quote consensus that Paul is not talking about himself in Romans 7?.
Speaker 3:That's correct. Yeah, that's the majority view, from what I understand.
Speaker 2:Can you maybe walk us through what are some of the features of the text that indicate to us like, hey, this isn't Paul talking about himself.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I don't want to get too deep in the Greek weeds, but Paul uses this ego, this word I, in ways that he doesn't usually use it. For many people they're going to say that actually to understand that Paul has this imaginary frenemy that he's impersonating goes all the way back to Romans 2. If you remember, in Romans 2, romans 1, paul setting up it's a trap to this guy in Romans 2. He points to him and is like but what about you?
Speaker 3:oh man, don't you know? It's the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. That Paul is using, again scholarly word is diatribe. So Paul really gets his philosopher on in Romans and he uses these philosophical rhetorical devices that he doesn't use elsewhere, and one is like this diatribe where he has up this hater that he brings up and he's having this conversation that goes throughout. And so Paul will ask these rhetorical questions, and some scholars believe that when Paul asks these rhetorical questions, it's not Paul pondering these questions himself, but instead doing this impersonation. Well, shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? And again, paul's like hector non auton, mega noita. That's there.
Speaker 3:But one thing that Paul does here is that he seems to give us an echo, an illusion. So when he says I was a lie before the law came, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, when was Paul a lie before the law came? Now, you mentioned Ephesians and Galatians the other day. Paul seems that we were dead in our transgressions, we were dead in our sins, and so I was dead before the law came, but when the commandment was given sorry, I was alive before the law came, but when the commandment was given to me, then sin sprang to life and it deceived me and I died, and so it sounds like Paul is echoing someone else who was alive before the law came and when was the commandment given? And someone was deceived and then death came. So it sounds like Adam and Eve. So if I were to say to Justin here, justin, it's me, I'm the problem, it's me because I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, but yeah, so I'm using I, I, I, but I'm making some obvious references, justin does not know the reference, but I'll tell him later.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, yeah, yeah, so my youngest loves Taylor Swift, but yeah, so I'm bringing Taylor Swift in using I, I, I. And so as obvious as that was to any of your listeners that listen to Taylor Swift, that's how obvious it would be that Paul here is taking us back to Adam and Eve and it sounds like ah, dotson, you're stretching, your much learning has driven you mad. Actually, paul has already been talking about Adam In Romans 5, 12,. He brings in the story of Adam and sin that he's going to talk about in Romans 7, and the law and the law sneaking in the back door. To do what? To do? What? To do what? To increase trespasses? So that Paul asked that rhetorical question, possibly by this diatribe, this interlocutors the fancy word for it what shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? And Paul's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't even let it cross your mind.
Speaker 3:So some scholars believe that here Paul is giving us the experience of Adam underneath the law, waiting, hoping for that promise for the last Adam when Jesus Christ would come and do what the law was powerless to do, and that it was weakened by the flesh and finally Jesus came and dunked on sin in the flesh, so that now we are no longer have to experience what Adam experienced. Amen, yeah, some of you are going to say yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, right, right, right, adam. But Paul also brings in Israel, because Paul is trying to explain what the law is right. So is the law sin, which again could be this hater, this imaginary opponent that Paul's bringing up and Paul's like no, no, no, I wouldn't even know what sin was, was it not for the law saying do not covet, and do not covet was often kind of a shorthand for the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. So some think that this is not Adam, as much as it's the story of Israel and Israel's birthday. Because you remember, on her birthday, when Moses is giving the law right, that's when she's having fun under the golden calf, getting the revelry on, and so that this is the experience of Israel under the law. You'll remember, even when Moses comes in Deuteronomy to do the law remix, he was like you know what? You're going to have this law, it's not that hard, but you're still not going to obey it. And I'm going to teach you this song, and you know this song is going to get stuck inside your head. This song is going to get stuck inside your head. I want you to sing it, and heavens and earth are going to testify that you're not going to come and speak the very words of God. And so you have this promise of the second Moses. That's there.
Speaker 3:So some believe that here Paul is kind of impersonating Israel. But this doesn't mean that Paul is separating himself from Adam and Israel. As a good Jewish person, Paul's going to see himself in solidarity. Adam and Israel is part of his past. It is connected. And remember what Paul's going to come and say in Romans, chapter nine these are my people according to the flesh and his heart for those. And so even though Paul's doing an impersonation of Adam and Israel doesn't mean that Paul's not part of that tradition as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again you do this fabulous job, like you did earlier historically, when you hit us with origin Augustine, uh, luther, uh calvin, all the way to wesley. The same is being done here with romans. So you get romans one, two, all the way, maybe up to like 321, where paul enters the arena with a opponent and is having this theological fisticuffs back and forth like and the opponent might be advocating for some relationship to the Jewish law. Oh, so you think the law is actually going to do you a favor, it's going to bring you life. But what about you, old man? And then his interlocutor on the other side, paul's, also impersonating his argument. Well, da-da-da-da-da right.
Speaker 2:And where he gets and he convicts everybody by Romans three, he's like hey, we've all sinned, fallen short of the glory of God. The only hope that we have is if God actually brings us back to life, and he's actually done it through this last Adam. Then he comes into Romans five through eight, to this duality this first Adam, last Adam. And what we see in Romans six is we're free through the death, burial and resurrection of the last Adam. But our condition was like in Romans 7, that this is what the condition of probably the first Adam, that's one interpretation, or Israel, right, and then okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 3:Just real quickly. A guy who brings those together in a beautiful crescendo is Tom Wright. Nt Wright, he goes through Second Temple Jewish literature. So between Malachi and Matthew the Jewish works to show how Israel was considered a second Adam. So you know, and so even the experience of Exodus 32, the golden calf echoes what happens in Genesis, chapter three. So here he actually shows that this is a false dichotomy to say that it's Adam, the eye is Adam or the eye is Israel, because Israel is the second Adam leading up to the last Adam, who his one work of obedience outdid what had happened with Israel's disobedience and Adam's disobedience.
Speaker 2:And this. So what I'm hearing is that this dovetails nicely with the idea that, if the context of Romans 7 has something to do with either the Adam condition the first Adam condition and as it relates to being expressed in Israel, well then, when the law emerges, the law is what is being the relationship to humanity, and the law is what's being highlighted in Romans 7, right.
Speaker 3:Totally yeah. So some think that this imaginary opponent doesn't even have a face, that here he uses this imaginary opponent the eye just as a vehicle to talk about sin and the law. That it's not even about a person. It's about how the law has been co-opted by sin and then eventually there's going to be a twist. I don't know if you're a Harry Potter fan or not, but the law basically is like Snape and you think he's on Voldemort's side. You think he's on Voldemort's side, but really the law is kind of a double agent, a secret agent man that ends up turning on the law, turning on sin, to show how nasty and dirty it is, in a sense to bring sin to the surface so that it could tag team with Christ to take it out. But so some believe that this is not about a person. This is about the exoneration of the law.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I love this imagery because what we're talking about here is that as the law emerges in Romans seven, the law emerges within the realm of sin. Right, it's a realm that sin dominates and the law sort of emerges and you, as the person, you think, man, the law is against me because it's bringing out my condition, and so then there's antagonism between you and the law. All the while the law is actually doing this work to undermine sin. Right, yeah, that's what I'm hearing you say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's my reading of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Listen, I think that that's a fair and powerful reading. So then, could you tell us, as the law actually does, that in Romans 7, right, because? Could you tell us, as the law actually does that in Romans 7, right, because the law, what is it that Romans 7, 5 says? That the law animates sin? Would that be the verbiage?
Speaker 3:That's right, yeah, I think 7, 5, and 6 are critical for understanding what's going to come next. Because in verse 5, it's the law leads to sin and leads to death, and so that's what Paul is going to spell out and delineate to show off in Romans 7. But now we don't live according to that old written way of the law, which is sin, sin, sin, death, death, bondage, bondage, bondage. But now we live according to the newness of the spirit, which is what Paul is going to unpack in Romans 8. So verse 5 seems to be the umbrella of the rest of chapter 7. And then verse 6, 7, 6, seems to be saying wait for it, wait for it, wait for it and we get. Therefore, now there's no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit and life in Christ Jesus has set me free. Are you singular? Free from the law of sin and death. But just another key point for understanding who this imaginary I is the ego.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the imagery that I'm having as we're having this discussion that probably never quite hit me is to think of the nation of Israel on a plane, as it were, and then the law and the person of Moses is literally marching down the mountain. But the children that are on the plane, they have the golden calf in their midst and they're giving themselves over to revelry. So they're actually under the dominion of sin and the law marches down and just like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, moses is like. I'm tired of all the idolatry on the plane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, as the law comes out, it just even heightens the condition that they're in, because the law speaks to them like, oh, we are in sin and oh, we're so in trouble, right, and so that's like kind of what's going on. Then I have this question in this whole dynamic of Romans seven, what then is the nature of sin, that it ought, that it does this thing in us, that it produces right, that it's it's passions in relationship to the law, but also, in light of Romans six, that we're somehow, in Christ, free from it? What is sin itself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Good, Let me borrow your picture of the plane and compliment it before going into that, and I'll use that as a segue In the Pilgrim's Progress. If you remember John Bunyan not Paul Bunyan, but John Bunyan he has a story where a pilgrim comes up to this cabin and looks inside the window of the cabin and then a woman comes up and she has a broom and she begins to sweep. And as she begins to sweep, all of a sudden the dust just kind of comes up, but the dust is just like in the air. And then she leaves and the dust begins to settle. And then someone comes in with a wash bucket and begins to clean and Pilgrim is like, oh, what's happening here?
Speaker 3:And he says well, the dust is like sin and the broom is like the law. And the law comes and stirs it up so that we can see the sin for what it is. But even though the law stirs it up so that we can see sin for what it is, the law still doesn't have the power to take it away. And so the law, as a broom, comes and sweeps it up so that you can see, but it's the wash bucket. The Holy Spirit that comes and actually gets away, takes the sin away, and I think that's a great picture of what Paul is doing with respect to the law and relationship to the Holy Spirit. The law was preparing the way for the Holy Spirit. It's the broom, but Christ came with the wash bucket.
Speaker 2:And so the relationship that, while he's doing this cleansing work and cleaning and taking away maybe even more correctly taking away he takes away our, the dominion of sin over our lives, while we're in the flesh Right, and we know that by Romans eight nine, paul highlights. Like you, however, you're not in the flesh Now. I'm a, I'm a reader of Beverly Gaventa and I like the idea of sin man. What's that great book? Cosmic Tyrant. Cosmic Tyrant, right, matthew? I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but sin is a cosmic tyrant. Would you mind be able to speak to that lens of sin in Romans 5-8?
Speaker 3:to speak to that lens of sin in Romans 5 through 8? Yeah, yeah, very good so often, because it's not just Romans 7 that we read through Reformation lenses, it's all of Romans that we read through the Reformation lenses and the Reformation like Luther and company are going to say that really the heart of Romans is Romans 1 through 4. It's about justification by faith, and so in this case, sin is highlighted more as a misdeed, as a little sin, an action that we do, a wrong action, and the law is there to say you're GUI? Lty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You are a culprit, you are a criminal and what you need is justification. Well, another group and Beverly Gaventa is one of the leading apocalyptic scholars says actually, romans 1-4 is not the heartbeat of Romans or Pauline theology. We don't see Paul talking about justification by faith very much outside of Romans and Galatians, a little bit in Ephesians and it's not even all throughout Romans. It's mainly through Romans 1-4. And really, when we look at Acts, when Paul goes to these churches, this is not the message that he's preaching justification by faith alone. It's true, don't get me wrong. It's important.
Speaker 3:And so the apocalyptic people, most of them, would come and say yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, right, right, right. Sin, guilt, the law, but they say that that's really not Paul's heart. They say that that's really not Paul's heart. Paul only talks about justification by faith and sin as a little deed that we do when it's talking about the relationship of the Mosaic law. But when Paul doesn't have those constraints, what he really wants to talk about and he kind of does the heavy lifting one through four, because his main go-to in Romans and elsewhere is this idea of redemption rather than reconciliation. It's the idea of being set free rather than just being forgiven, and it's not freedom from. And so it's not so much that we're guilty although that's part of it, as we see in 5.12, but that we are just as much, if not more so, victims of these cosmological powers.
Speaker 3:And so, almost to Christus Victor if your audience is familiar with that, emphasizing that Christ didn't just come to forgive us of our sins, he came to set us free from the ruling power of sin and death. And so in the Reformation Trail, the emphasis is going to be the righteousness of God, is the status that he takes and gives to us, and so that we have forgiveness For the Apocalyptic Trail, it's not God's just righteous status to say you once were criminals, you once were guilty, now you're justified. But the righteousness of God is that which comes to deliver us from the powers of darkness so that now that we're free and it's not just in Romans, it's the keynote of Galatians, right, galatians? Paul wrote it before Romans. It's probably the first letter that Paul wrote, and what's the first note that he sounds in Galatians? Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins. Why? Why? To forgive us of our sins? No, but again, that's part and parcel so that one day we can go to heaven far, far away. No, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to set us free from this present evil age.
Speaker 3:And so for Paul in Galatians he's screaming, he's begging, he's pleading for our sympathy that the heart of the gospel is for freedom, that we have been set free, freedom from self-righteousness underneath the law, the stoic, on the one hand, and also freedom from our lust and the bondage of sin, on the other. And so we don't use the freedom that we have in Christ as an opportunity to indulge our flesh. And so, yeah, the apocalyptic is going to say not little bitty sin, not little bitty death, although that's part of it. But the emphasis and we want to put the right emphasis on the right syllable is that there's the power of sin and death that we once were in bondage to, but the last Adam, jesus Christ, came to set us free. And so we not only have been set free from the penalty of sin, but we've also been set free from the power of sin, as long as we walk according to the Spirit Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, before you guys move forward, don't skip this. I want to read something that's going to be super encouraging. We just got this message. Hey, I don't think we've met, but the Adventist world is pretty small, so I wouldn't be surprised. I heard about love reality and didn't really pay it any mind until I heard the move podcast in 2022. I listened to seasons one, three and four and during that I heard, I think, jonathan Jonathan suggesting the book no longer I by Jacob Hotchkiss. That book opened my eye to the gospel and the Bible. After that, I listened to a lot of love reality stuff and have been very, very blessed by it.
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Speaker 2:Can you speak a little bit to the pastoral, maybe note of these. I know that there are a couple of things that you have said that just my little heart flutters. First, you speak passionately and I concur. I concur about the identity of us, first and foremost as sons and daughters. Right, that's the identity that Paul speaks to.
Speaker 3:Not that me first loved him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not that me. First loved him right, and then number two. Because we're sons and daughters, we have been liberated from the dominion of sin. What does that look like? Maybe communicated pastorally and received in the life?
Speaker 3:Good, good, well in the book, and every time I talk about this, I also want to underline that this does not mean that we don't struggle with sin. Scripture is clear that the flesh goes against the spirit. There's a battle, as Peter says, as aliens and strangers in this world world, abstain from the sin that wages war against your soul. And so there is a battle. And I, to borrow again from Philippians three, I'm so far away from attaining the goal which Christ has attained for me, and so I don't want to give this impression that I got it all together and that we shouldn't struggle with sin. If you struggle with sin, then you're a bad person. In fact, probably the more we resist sin, the more we're going to struggle with that.
Speaker 3:Lewis is going to talk about the power of temptation. You don't really know the power of temptation because we keep giving into it over and over again. You know it's a. It's a guy who continues to say no to the piece of cake, uh, uh, rather than the guy who just continues to eat it every time. That really knows the power of it. And so I would say pastorally that you know, understand that there is a struggle with sin, but what we have in Romans 7 is not a struggle with sin. This dude is totally defeated by sin. He is impotent to say anything else. And it's not him, but it's sin dwelling inside of him. And I don't know and I've voiced this many times of anywhere in Scripture or in early church history where it has this idea that sin continues to dwell inside of us. I'm not sure that's a biblical idea. Is it like the Holy Spirit shacking up with the power of sin inside of us? And so it's yeah. So even that may be an idea that we've kind of read back into this text.
Speaker 3:Also, this guy says that I am a slave to the law on the one hand, but a slave to sin on the other. I also don't know where Paul would ever say anyone is a slave to anything but Jesus Christ, and so to me that may be another key that Paul's not talking about a believer. The only law that we're a slave to is the law of Christ, which is to love one another. We're slaves of God rather than slaves to the Mosaic law, because Christ is the end of that, and so I think that's another key that goes back to it Pastorally. So I would say you know this not means that you can be perfect. The struggle is still there.
Speaker 3:But also, pastorally, one thing that we see with two things that we see with the Roman seven guy, is that it's I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. And as long as it's Jonathan, jonathan, jonathan, fighting with sin, jonathan's going to lose by yourself. And Paul doesn't. He doesn't talk about spiritual formation as I, I, I. He talks about as us, us, us, we, we, we. And so the guy in Romans seven seems to be isolated, it's only him that's struggling with it, and so, but Paul's going to come in when he talks about spiritual victory over this, it's, it's, it's, it's a community.
Speaker 3:And so I think for many of us, the reason we identify so much with Romans 7, as our experience, is because we also are isolated. We don't really confess our sins to our brothers and sisters. We're like, oh yeah, well, priesthood of believers, I can just confess it to God, yeah, but you know what? It's a lot harder for me to confess it to Justin than it is to God, because Justin is a mediator, a minister of God to me, and so the fact that we don't have confession keeps that sin, that struggle, that addiction, in the darkness.
Speaker 3:And so that's why Romans 7 is is because it's I, I, I and God. I don't think we can do this on our own. God not only gave us his grace and the blood of Jesus Christ, but he gave us the body of Christ to help us put to death the misdeeds of our body. And then this goes back to what you said before. I think we hit the recording. There's no mention of the Holy spirit. It's just me against, sin me the law and sin me the law and sin me the law of.
Speaker 2:We get the Holy Spirit that comes in, and so I only mentioned that because you mentioned it while I was listening to you in Preston. You highlight like the person in Romans 7 is not struggling with sin. You noted that the person in Romans 7 is absolutely dominated by sin and the spirit is absolutely absent in the whole passage.
Speaker 3:And when you said that, I was like right, well, I'll be right. Yeah, that's right. So I mean that sin is doing to the law what Michael Jordan would do to LeBron James in the game of one on one it would just absolutely dominate. Lebron wouldn't have anything to do. You know, it's so.
Speaker 2:It's doing with his hot takes.
Speaker 3:That also goes back to the beginning conversation. But yeah, so, yeah, so I think that a lot of people have the right theology but they're reading, but they have the wrong passage. So the right theology is yeah, we struggle with sin and without the Holy Spirit. But again, the guy in Romans 7 doesn't fit that. He is one who has no mention of the Holy Spirit, no mention of the church, and it's all. He's just kind of all alone and dominated.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for that. So then, if you're introducing these hot takes, um, right, where you know, uh, yeah, lebron would bench press Michael Jordan, by the way, uh, and I'm not saying I'm not saying he's better than Mike, but I'm just saying you know, we're talking about six, eight, almost 300 pounds, or at least you know 280. Right, yeah, let's talk hot takes real quick. Let's take a little theological excursus, maybe over to ideas of sin nature and total depravity.
Speaker 2:I know that there's a blog post that I always appeal to, where Jason Staples right, who wrote this great book on the resurrection of Israel, which Rome is not through. That's fascinating. Maybe that's for another time, but he highlights that sin nature is something that has been imported into the text all too often, to the point where, after 2011, the NIV changed its tune on places it interprets Paul as saying sin nature, where Paul is really referring to flesh. Would you be able to flesh out a little bit for us? Thank you, thank you. Thank you If you'd be able to flesh out a little bit for us. Yeah, just our, our conception of sin nature and how maybe we need to refashion it, and how it actually plays into the interpretation of Roman seven.
Speaker 3:That's right. So go back to Gaventa to refashion it and how it actually plays into the interpretation of Romans 7? That's right. So go back to Govinda and the apocalyptic reading. They don't see sarka, sarks as sinful nature. But sarks is the big F flesh, that it's a power like sin and like death, and so similar to that Jewish conception of this power, yetzerah, that's coming against us, that's an impulse, and so the idea of it being a sinful nature is probably I would agree with Jason that that's an anachronistic understanding of it.
Speaker 3:For Paul, it doesn't seem to have this yeah, we're still in the body, flesh is still there. To have this like yeah, we're still in the body, flesh is still there. But whatever sin nature that we have, it doesn't trump the new nature that we have in Christ. And so we still have to fight against the flesh, but to make this as a sinful nature idea rather than this cosmological power that Christ has set us free from. And so if it's sinful nature, then it's kind of like the neighborhood that we live in, right, but through Jesus Christ we're moving on up to the freedom side. So, again, this is maybe an idea of the justification problem, where justification is almost like we just have this status. But it's almost like for Paul. It's like in the past we lived under sin, sin, sin, death, death, death, flesh, flesh, law, law, law. But now that we have participated in the death of Christ, that's no longer our neighborhood. Now we move to a new world, a whole new world that's full of life, life, life, freedom, freedom, freedom, love, love, love.
Speaker 3:And so this idea of the flesh is how we used to walk, and this is what Paul is going to unpack in Romans 8, right. He's going to unpack in Romans 8, right, he's going to flesh out, to borrow from you Amen. We no longer walk, kata sarka, according to the flesh. Now we are in the Spirit, and so if we do walk according to the flesh, it's because we choose to go back there or because maybe we're relying on the law rather than walking according to the Spirit. But Paul says hey, if you continue to walk according to the flesh, if you continue to live back in that neighborhood, then you're going to die, for the wages of sin is death. That's not a verse that Paul is weighing against non-believers. You know. He's not at the front of Bourbon Street saying the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death the wages of sin is death.
Speaker 3:He's talking to Christians Like hey, if you have this freedom but you continue to live in the flesh so that grace may abound, and the wages of that is death. And so Romans 3.23 is meant to answer that question of what happens if we continue to remain in sin so that grace may abound. Even though now sin is no longer the boss of me, christ is the boss of us. Sorry, my ADHD, I just kind of lost it?
Speaker 2:No, this is beautiful. I actually want to get your thoughts on sort of maybe a model that I might want to use now. Is that, using this neighborhood idea, right, you have the neighborhood, but then you have the people in the neighborhood and the neighborhood informs the culture of the people that live in the neighborhood? Right, and so that the neighborhood itself is Sark's flesh right Big F, like you highlighted and that big F plays upon our corrupted bodies. Correct? Right, and that, when you're freed from the neighborhood, we still live, even though now, in the spirit, we're still in corrupted bodies. Right, because we're still in mortal bodies, but we're no longer in the flesh neighborhood.
Speaker 3:Right, what do you think about that? I think it's great, yeah. And and because of those old habits, because of flesh is still knocking on our door, it's still begging and pleading and trying to get us come on back, come on back, move back in you know so, and to borrow from the hymn, you know my heart is prone to wonder, lord, I feel it prone to leave God I love.
Speaker 3:And so there is that draw that, there's that tension that comes. We want to go back, but Paul says no, no, no, that's who you used to be, but now you're a new creation and you should walk according to the spirit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, praise the Lord. And what's what then, in that illustration that I offer is what's not? There is precisely the language of sin nature, which is one of the things that I think in Jason's post that I refer to so often was really helpful to introduce me and deepen me in the idea that maybe it might be more helpful. This is what I'll offer. I'd love to get your feedback. That is really helpful to talk about a corrupted nature, right, or a corrupted like, because we're still in these mortal bodies. Paul talks about living in this tent until we put on our eternal building, right, but that what we're not is that we don't come from the hand of our creator with a naturalized leaning towards sin, so that when we talk about sin nature, that might not be the best verbiage because it communicates this idea that what we are materially, ontologically and maybe even naturally is first and foremost contra God, when the truth is that, first and foremost, we are in relationship with God. It is an enemy that has made us contra God.
Speaker 3:That's right, yeah, and you're the PhD in systematic theology.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I dropped out bro.
Speaker 3:You study systematic more than I have. But yeah, so I'm a Pauline guy, so this gets us into anthropology. But it seems like for Paul, ontologically, christ is our life. Our life is hidden, and we often take Jesus as metaphorical. I've been crucified with Christ. The old is gone, the new has come. We take those as metaphorical, but I think those are an ontological reality.
Speaker 3:The illustration I use in the book and I think I relegate it to footnote because it gets really nerdy, but I love the book Dracula and in the story Van Helsing talks about how Dracula can never come into your house unless you're invited, and so everyone who listens probably knows that vampire lore. But Van Helsing says that. But if there is a cross in the house that even when the monster is there it still cowers in the corner. Come on, so it still doesn't have that.
Speaker 3:And so I think that I don't think sin continues to dwell inside of our bodies as believers unless we open the door for it. Even then, when it comes in, it still doesn't have the power of the Holy Spirit unless we give it into him. And so I know that when I have a Roman 7 experience and I sin, it's not because I don't want to sin, it's because I do want to sin. I know I have the power to say no, but I give into it anyway and so, in contrast to that person, but yeah, so I think if we do live according to sinful nature, it's not because we have to, it's because we choose to go back to that. And Paul's encouraging, begging, adjuring his audience no longer to choose to offer their bodies as instruments to sin, because now their bodies belong to God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ironic thing is that if you follow the logic of what you've just said, you know Paul is adjuring us like, like, do not offer your bodies up to sin, precisely because in Romans six you've been freed from sin and you don't want to return to the slavery of what Romans seven looks like.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, which is right, inverting it like it's not. It's not that Roman seven is what the life looks like after six. It's that Roman seven looks like the life before 6. So don't go back to that, because now we're actually Romans 8.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:What's her name? The great hero in the Civil War who was the Underground Railroad.
Speaker 2:Harriet.
Speaker 3:Tubman, harriet Tubman. There's a story about how often she would go down to the south and free these slaves to bring them up to the north. There were many of them that would get scared and want to go back, and they would get ready to turn back, to go back to that slavery. And Harriet would pull out a pistol and put it to their head and say, no, dead men, don't go back. Dead men, don't go back. That's who you used to be. You don't go back there. And so you're not going back. You're dead men. And so it's almost like Paul is saying, no, we died with Christ, we've risen with Christ. Dead men, don't go back to that slavery. Why would you go back to that? And so, yeah, I think that in some sense, this is what Paul is doing.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, listen for the sake of time, and where we're at, that's probably as good a place as any, can I?
Speaker 3:say one more thing to connect, Say more please. I think that to bring in systematic theology, we often look at sanctification as a process, but I don't think that's, I don't think that's come on, hold on, maybe we won't end.
Speaker 2:Maybe we won't end, yeah.
Speaker 3:Hit it. I think sanctification is something that Christ has already done in our life as well, and so us becoming sanctified is not becoming someone that we're not Like I'm a wretch and I'm trying to reach for holiness but sanctification is becoming who we already are in Christ, come on. And so I think that's what Romans 8 is saying, romans 6 and Romans 8.
Speaker 2:This is who we are, and so we're putting these things because we're grabbing a hold of that which Christ has already grabbed a hold of us, and so we have already been sanctified not that we're hoping to be sanctified one day, amen, amen, yeah, first, I mean, I think of 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, you know, we have been washed, we have been sanctified, that's right, you were these things, but now you're not. We have been sanctified, baby, that's right, you, you were these things, but now you're not. With the price, that's right. Which, okay, so we won't finish, let's, let's take one more deviation, is that all right? Okay, listen. So then, way too much fun, way too much fun. Let's talk a little bit about first timothy one, right, because then we'll make that appeal to first timothy one. Well, like, well, no, paul is absolutely the chief of sinners. And I remember John Barclay, of course, the famed author of what is Paul and the gift. Just a seminal book, right, barclay?
Speaker 3:faith is the first one I read of his and it actually leads. It harmonizes very well with my reading Romans 7, so obedience of faith.
Speaker 2:I have not.
Speaker 3:John Barclay. He is the goat today when it comes to New Testament studies. And yeah, but Paul and the gift.
Speaker 2:He's in a it's a presentation he's doing in Italy, I think, and he's talking about the like. He talks about the shape and grammar of grace, right, I love this idea how he talks about it and he goes you know, it's an interesting thing that it doesn't seem to come from Paul that he is simultaneously just and sinner. That isn't a Pauline idea, right? Simulet peccator, that seems to be a Luther idea. Paul's idea seems to be that simultaneously dead and alive, because he's in a dead, corrupted body but alive in the spirit. And so, in light of that, how do we look at 1 Timothy 1, where he's like I am the chief of sinners. What would you say to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think when Paul says he's the chief of sinners is because he persecuted the church. I think Paul thinks back. When he says the chief of sinners, he thinks back to giving approval of Stephen's death, arresting people and dragging them as a persecutor of the church, and so I think that that's one thing that comes into it. This is not Paul going to the brothel, you know. He's not going up to Aphrodite's temple and living those things. And so, if you put it within its context, especially in the pastorals, paul continues to place his holiness over against the ungodliness of the opponents that he's facing.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I think, to borrow from Barclay, because it's always good to borrow from John not only are we simultaneously dead but alive, but we're becoming increasingly more alive. And so the old is passing away, the day of our redemption is closer now than when we first believed. And so, uh, the, the and you mentioned it again before we started recording but, uh, inwardly, uh, outwardly, we're wasting away, but inwardly, we're being renewed daily, and that that's the accent, um, that's what's being underlined, but also I would say that, uh, when it comes to sanctification and holiness, however, we whatever word we want to use um, whatever word we want to use, it's already not fully. So we're already sanctified. But we're not fully sanctified. But by the day, through community of brothers and sisters, through worship, through being filled with the Spirit, we're becoming increasingly closer and moving away from that.
Speaker 3:Joy.
Speaker 2:I am indebted to you for this phrase because I got it from you and I share it and I try to give you credit every time.
Speaker 3:I stole it from Pravin Vong so did you get this? Stole it in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, because the, the retreat to Roman seven and to justify the Roman seven experiences, that of the Christian, is that. Well, you know, it's the already not yet. So we live in the tension, right, and like you said, yeah. But when we say already not yet, what we really mean is already, but not really Exactly Right when where the I think the better offer, if you can unpack, the better offer. I'll let you offer already, but not fully. So therefore no. Longer.
Speaker 3:That's right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so then can you just make maybe a little more? Um more when we think about oh wait, hold on Just another passage, another passage that was just coming to me the already, not yet. No, the already, but not fully. So therefore no longer. We'll retreat to First Corinthians 15. Ok, right, but I have to die daily. I have to die daily. You know, Romans 7 is at work, I die daily. Can you speak a little bit to that in light of these phrases and this heuristic Sure?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, since we're sticking with John Barclay, this idea of grace, paul comes and says I am ecthroma, abnormally born, miscarried, you know. But then there's a big but, and we cannot lie, and you systematic brothers can't deny that when grace comes in with a little bit of but, but. But, by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace to me is not without effect. And by the grace of God, I worked harder and did all those good deeds, so much more than that, Not me, but the grace of God that's within me. And so, yeah, I think, and you're going to see, that Paul's going to connect grace and the Spirit in Romans as well.
Speaker 3:And so, again, grace is not that which just forgives us of our sins, it's that which frees us of our sins. So grace is this power that helps us. And to bring Titus into it, paul says that the grace of God showed up. It's like I'll show up, I'll show up, I'll show up, and the grace of God shows up. And what does it show up to do? It shows up to teach us. What does it teach us? It teaches us to say no, no, no, no, no to sin and ungodliness and, ah, yeah, to righteousness and self-control. Because we are free, we are right.
Speaker 3:And so the fruit of the Spirit is self-control and, as we know, as we look at these things in Scripture, the first century list, what's first and what's last, is often the emphasis here, and this brings us into modern-day psychology the recency versus the primary in fact, these are the two.
Speaker 3:And so we often think well, self-control is the last on the list of the fruit of the Spirit. No, no, that's emphatic, especially in light of what we see in Galatians five. And so the guy in Romans seven doesn't have any self-control. Uh, but as we grow in Christ, um, yeah, we don't fully have self-control, but by the grace of God, uh, we're growing in that self-control, and by the day, uh, we can say no to those desires that once ruled us. Uh, in the book I talk about how, um, one of the problems, that we often measure our sanctification, our spiritual growth, in days rather than decades, and so we need to look at the long game, because I still have a long way to go, jonathan, but I've come a long way since 10 years, not even the
Speaker 1:grace of God.
Speaker 3:And so I think that sometimes we get frustrated because we're looking at by the minute or the day, the moment, rather than what God has been doing over the arc of our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have a long way to go in Christ. Not, there is no way to go, like we're not going towards Christ. Like he came towards us, included us in himself and now our growth and sanctification is in him. So we have, we have a whole eternity to go, don't we? But praise the Lord that we're in him? Yeah, so then, last last question is going to be a personal one, maybe penultimate question, maybe the last question on the content, like theological and what we're talking about. Right, what do you do when you're accused of and I'm just assuming that maybe this accusation comes your way, because it comes my way, because it seems as though your view and what you're presenting is just this, like, yeah, it's so simpatico, it's just the way I see it as well, and I'm so thankful for your contribution via your book and teachings um, what do you do when you're accused of being pelagious, a pelagian? Like well, this just sounds like like moral effort so that you can be perfect and that you can actually quit sinning one day.
Speaker 3:Like moral effort so that you can be perfect and that you can actually quit sinning one day. Yeah, I just continue to appeal to the grace of God. You know it's, it's, and I do this over and over again, not not that the struggle is not there. And, uh, I would go to say, well, you know, we need to make sure that we read Romans seven in light of first Corinthians, chapter 10, uh, that when you think you stand, watch out, because that's where you fall.
Speaker 3:But you need to know that no temptation has seized you except what is common and I'm like I want to tell this to the eye in Romans 7. No temptation has seized you. What is common, and guess what? God is faithful and he will provide the way of escape.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I think we see this elsewhere with Paul, and so I'm not Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, because it's not human effort. This is not me picking myself up by my own, but it's done by the grace of God in the community of God. And Paul talks about perfecting holiness out of reverence for God, and we often wrongly say that perfection and holiness is the same thing. But Paul is perfecting holiness, and so just because we're holy in Christ doesn't mean we're perfect in Christ, until that day of glorification when till we have faces, to borrow from Lewis.
Speaker 2:Oh, joey, listen man, there's so many more things, so many more rabbit holes that I'd love to go down, because you've just opened so many but I never come to Hawaii to hang out with you and Justin so bro have this conversation on the beach.
Speaker 2:Oh, we'd love to, we'd love to do that. Listen, just as from our community to you, we just want to say a deep, deep thank you A mahalo, like we say here on the island of just sharing your insights, your scholarly blessing with us and just unpacking so many beautiful things that, for us, we're going to actually be discussing for weeks in our community. So thank you so much for being with us and thank you so much for your contribution, brother.
Speaker 4:Thank you.