Notes on Romans 8 - Part 2

In this world, we become heirs when someone else dies, but while we're still alive.  In the kingdom of God, we have to die before we can become heirs; the old man of the flesh dies, and we are born again in Christ.  Although our inheritance begins then, it is not fully realized until our physical bodies die.  Between the point of our salvation and our physical death, scripture says we must endure suffering.  Why this should be so we may not fully understand, but when we share the inheritance of Christ, that means sharing in both the good and the bad.  When our only reference point is our short physical lives, it seems sometimes that the suffering is beyond our capacity to endure, and that the pain outweighs the benefits.  From the perspective of eternity, though, the period of our suffering hardly matters at all, and the rewards it brings vastly outweigh the costs.

Our spirits are redeemed at the moment of rebirth, but we wait also, Paul says, for the redemption of our bodies.  The process of our adoption as children of God is not complete until then.  Death, then, is not something to anticipate with great dread and terror, with joy and longing.  The freedom we know in Christ is always limited by the weakness of our flesh.  We are still subject to disease, hunger, thirst, and the urges of lust.  Salvations frees our souls, our minds and personalities, from the bondage of death, but the body is still subject to it.  Christ himself received a glorified body when he was resurrected, and that is part of our inheritance as well.

Just as our souls and spirits are given the gift of eternal life at our salvation, so are our bodies, but that hope is not yet realized.  In the biblical sense, hope is not equivalent to a wish, something we want to happen that may not come about.  Instead, it represents something as certain as our hope that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that the laws of gravity will not desert us when we take our next step on level ground.  Our hope of eternal life is as certain as the laws of the universe, because God has said it is so.  Just as we wait for the sun to rise the next day for as long as we have life, we must wait just as confidently for the redemption of our bodies once that life comes to an end.

Our prayers are limited by our understanding, but our faith should not be.  We may not know how God will accomplish an answer to our prayers, but so long as he assures it is so, that doesn't matter.  The Spirit not only brings our prayers to the Father, but he expresses what we cannot express, in ways we cannot possibly comprehend.  We may not always pray according to the will of God, but the Spirit does.  That's why the answers sometimes come as "No" or "Wait"; even when we utter them, the Spirit expresses them according to God's will.  Christ's model prayer contains the words "thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven."  That's not a conditional prayer; it's a statement of fact.  It is true that, by the choices we make, we can interfere with God's perfect will for us, or even frustrate his will that all be saved.  Nonetheless, within the limits that God has set for himself, and in accordance with the laws that govern mankind and the universe, his will is always done.

So, no matter what our circumstances are, and no matter the answers to our specific prayers, God's will is that all things in our lives, if we belong to him, would work for our good.  Every triumph and defeat, every success and failure, every good fortune and disaster, all ultimately lead to what is best for us, if we truly have his love in us.  As to being called, all of us who accept Christ are called.  Our calling, in this sense, is to become like Christ, a process that begins in this life, and is completed in the life to come.  Becoming like Christ means we are declared innocent from the guilt of sin, or that we are justified.  That is our standing as God's children, because we can only be his children if we are freed and cleansed from sin.  We are glorified when our bodies are like that of Christ, and that happens only at the resurrection, or by the transformation at the rapture of the church if Christ returns before we did.  That is our sure and certain hope, and it is in the prospect of that promise that the Spirit continues to intercede for us as we pray.  No prayer that we make will be answered in a way that will violate God's purpose, and his assurance that everything that happens to us works for us, not against us.

Everyone around us can be our enemies.  We may face the loss of all we've gained, even our health and our very lives.  No one may step forward to defend us.  As long as God is on our side, and we are confident in that fact, it doesn't matter who is lined up on the other side, even if our opponents include our own families and friends.  That's not to minimize the hurt; we will still suffer from the pain of betrayal, or loss, or the punishment of our bodies.  So long as God remains with us, though, we will never be alone, and never be bereft of hope.  God may not bring us out of painful circumstances, and may not always assure that we receive justice at the hands of men.  After all, Jesus himself was falsely accused, condemned, and murdered.  What we do know, though, is that God does not condemn us, because that's one of his promises to us.  Human courts may find us guilty of crimes, justly or unjustly, but in God's eyes we are innocent, and always will be.

How can we be "more than conquerors"?  It is true that we have the promise of ultimate victory over sin and death, but our rewards are not just those of conquest.  An ancient general received the spoils of the defeat of his enemies; our reward is not just the defeat of the world, the flesh, and the devil, but the rewards that come with being God's heirs with Christ.  The conquest of our enemies brings a temporary reward and satisfaction; our reward as God's adopted children are eternal.  All the demons of Hell can be arrayed against us; we can suffer physical pain and deprivation, war, persecution, or utter chaos.  Wherever we are, though, and whatever our circumstances, God never deserts us.  No matter where we go in this world or beyond, he is always there.  In the depths of the ocean or the heights of the mountains, in utter darkness or unbearable light, we can't be or go anywhere where he will leave us behind.  No man or angel, not the Devil himself, can ever change that.  We have "eternal security" because that's what God himself, who cannot lie, has promised us.