faith for faith

As long as there have been men on the earth, there have been fools who have believed in a simple god who acts more like a vending machine than he does a Great and Benevolent Judge. We find these scattered throughout the Scriptures in those like the friends of the afflicted, yet righteous Job who sought to discover Job’s sin so that they could validate his plight by their theology, and likewise in the question of the foolish disciples concerning the blind man at Siloam, asking, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Jn. 9:2). And these men with simple theologies have not ceased since that time, seen more recently in the “elucidating” commentaries of the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons concerning 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and, most recently, the great earthquake in Haiti. These view God as a cosmic vending machine who dispenses wrath when evil is put in and dispenses blessing when righteousness is put in.

Yet despite such claims, these fools have no answers as to why the righteous must suffer in this age (cf. Rm. 8:17-39) and why the wicked prosper. They have no answers for the affliction of the martyrs (chief of whom being Jesus Christ), and they have no answers for the prosperity of the Las Vegases and the San Franciscos. Nevertheless, these idiots come out like clockwork after every great disaster giving “inspired” commentary upon those disasters.

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For centuries, many Christians have used Romans 7 as an anesthetic to numb the pain of their perpetual sinning. In this unusual passage, we find the speaker (who many presume to be the apostle at the time of his writing), saying,

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing (Rm. 7:15-19)

Me, being the contrary person that I am, obstinately disagree with the popular and Reformed interpretation of this passage that says that this is the apostle speaking at the time of his writing, and this passage exists as a comfort to Christians who are in sin. I do so simply because of the context and because of the way the speaker introduces himself at the beginning of this section, namely as one who is of the flesh and a slave of sin (v. 7:14). For anyone who has even thought about reading Romans 6 and Romans 8 knows that the apostle goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Christ’s death and the salvation that it brought has freed every Christian from his slavery to sin (cf. vv. 6:6, 7) and that all who live according to the flesh cannot please God and will die (cf. v. 8:8, 13).

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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

Spiritual warfare–It is a often neglected reality, and it is a reality for which our post-Enlightenment minds are ill-prepared. It is a reality that encompasses us, and one in which we move incessantly, though we do not see it and do not acknowledge it. It is a reality that Martin Luther conversely knew all too well, as he hurled ink wells at his spiritual adversaries who sought to destroy him and the Gospel for which he stood. It is a reality that is as real today as it ever has been, whether we perceive it and choose to acknowledge it or not.

The Adversary on the one hand is an impotent foe, for he has no power of his own but only has that power which is granted to him and creates nothing but twists all things that God has spoken forth. On the other hand, since that which he twists is the very Word of God, his power is great indeed, for the power of the Word is great. It is with this power that he deceived our first parents, slithering about and twisting the Word of God so that both fell without much resistance. It is in this manner that he tempted our Lord in the wilderness, using various Scriptures and twisting them in malicious hope that the One who spoke them forth would not remember what he himself had spoken.

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