Before moving forward with this series I'd like to take a moment to go back and tie up some loose ends about the relationships between sarx ("flesh"), sin and the Law. Getting clear about this dynamic will reinforce what we've learned about the Orthodox view of salvation and should offer a radically different take on the Protestant fetish regarding "works-based righteousness." That should be worth the price of admission.In Paul's discussions in Romans 1-8 he describes the complicated relationships between sarx, sin, death, and the Law. We've mainly been talking about the sarx/sin/death dynamic. To clean up our understanding of Paul let's add on the last bit: Law.
The New Testament is clear that Christians are to follow the Torah, the Law. But what does this mean? Well, as Christians we follow Jesus' interpretation/embodiment of the Torah. In summary form, Jesus describes his interpretation of the Law:
Matthew 22.36-40In compressed form, Jesus identifies the Law with love. Thus, Jesus-followers understand Torah obedience to be the commandment to "love one another."
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
John 13.34-35Love, according to Jesus, is how our righteousness will surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Matthew 5.17-20This understanding is underlined in the epistles where love is understood to be the fulfillment of the Law:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Romans 13.8-10What you see in all this, Romans 13 in particular, is how the New Testament authors (e.g., Paul and James) understood Matthew 5 perfectly well: Love is the fulfillment of the Law and all Christians are to obey the Law. If you are a Christian, you can't opt out. Torah obedience--keeping the royal law of love--is required.
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Galatians 5.13-14
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
James 2.8-10
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
This understanding will help us going forward as we examine Paul's discussion of sin, sarx and the Law in Romans 7-8. Specifically, we're positioned to understand Paul's fundamental claim: The Law is holy and good.
Romans 7.12This is a very important point to get across. The Law is good and must be obeyed. Read Psalm 119 and other Torah psalms for more along these lines.
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
That said, there is a problem with the Law. What's that problem? According to Paul the problem is this. Separated from the Spirit of God humanity became sarx, "flesh." To help guide sarx God gave us the Law. This was a good thing as humans needed and required moral guidance (hence the psalms thanking God for the Torah). The trouble here was the fact that humans were sarx/flesh and the Law was spiritual. Giving the Law to sarx was like asking a dog to show good manners at high tea. There was an ontological disjoint between humanity and the Law. As mortal sarx humans couldn't keep the Law, couldn't love (cf. 1 John 3.14). Worse, the Law makes the cravings or sarx even more acute, like a parent prohibiting something from a child.
Romans 7.5So while the Law was good, holy, spiritual and righteous it was too high a bar for sarx to clear. So the Law, though good, made the situation even worse.
For when we were in the realm of the flesh [sarx], the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.
Romans 7.7b-11All this would make you believe that the giving of the Law to sarx was a pretty bad idea on God's part. It did seem to make matters worse. So Paul is keen to address the following criticisms of God:
I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
Romans 7.7aPaul answers in both cases "No!" Again, we have to go back to the key insight: The Law is good.
What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful?
Romans 7.13a
Did that which is good, then, become death to me?
So what's the problem? The problem is sarx. The problem is the ontological disjoint, the mismatch between sarx and the Law. Constitutionally speaking, sarx can't keep the Law. Enslaved to the fear of death sarx is easily pulled into sin and law-breaking. Worse, the Law makes sarx crave and sin all the more. Paul sums up the ontological disjoint well:
Romans 7.14The problem, then, isn't with the Law, legalism, or law-keeping. The problem is the ontological incapacity of sarx, the fact that sarx is a slave to sin and death. Thus the Law, intended for our salvation, becomes just another tool for Satan to keep us in bondage. Hence Paul's famous lament:
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
Romans 7.24Sarx, being subject to death and enslaved by the fear of death (Heb. 2.14-15), can't escape sin. And the Law makes this situation even worse.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
So the problem with the Law has nothing to do with legalism or works-based righteousness. The problem isn't really with the Law at all. Again, the Law is good. The problem is with the mortal nature of sarx which renders us incapable of fulfilling the royal law of love. Given this situation, what we need is rescue from sarx and death: "Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"
Salvation comes to us from Christ defeating death and reconnecting us to the Spirit of God. The result of this rescue is that we are no longer sarx, we are filled with the Spirit. This enables us to keep and fulfill the law of love. Again, the Law is spiritual but we were unspiritual. But now, filled with the Spirit, there is no longer an ontological disjoint between ourselves and the Law. A Spirit-filled people can fulfill the Spirit-filled law of love. We've been set free from the body of sin and death to live according to the Spirit and the law of love.
Romans 8.1-13You really can't say it much better than that. The Law was powerless to make us holy because it was weakened by our flesh. Sarx couldn't lift that load. Given our powerlessness, Christ rescues us from the body of sin and death to connect us with his Spirit. Connected with the Spirit we are now able to fully met the requirement of the law in our lives. We're able to do this because death has been defeated in our mortal bodies: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." As a "new creation"--given a new ontological status--we are now able to fulfill the obligations of the Law: "if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
I encourage you to read all of Romans 7-8 so you can fully absorb Paul's logic and argument.
To conclude, Paul's worry about the Law isn't the classic Protestant fetish about "legalism" or "works-based righteousness." Paul expects, as Jesus and every Old Testament and New Testament writer expected, that we are to fulfill the law of love. Jesus' criterion of perfection--"Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect"--is 100% in force. Perfection is the endpoint, the goal we are heading toward, what the Orthodox call theosis. So the problem isn't the Law, or works, or perfection. The problem is the incapacity of sarx--the body's enslavement to sin and death making us unable to fulfill the Law. This problem was overcome by Christ defeating death, sin and the devil, thus allowing the Spirit to be poured out on flesh/sarx (see: Pentecost). And with the Spirit we are now able to fulfill the law of love.
Rescued from death by the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead we are now free to become perfected in love.
And that's the gospel in a nutshell, that's the Good News. We were enslaved to sin, death and the devil. But Christ rescued us from the "body that is subject to death" by pouring out his Spirit upon us and setting us free to love.
1 John 3.14
We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.
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