Faith, the Key to Every Next Moment

[HKHaugan]

Faith, the Key to Every Next Moment (Romans 3:21ff)

Paul's appeal in Chapter 1 is to consider Creation as a revelation of the spiritual reality that lies behind everything we see in physical reality. I don’t think most people have a problem with Creation and a Creator. Creation has to start somewhere and a natural conclusion is to see someone behind it. The problem comes when the invisible personal and relational nature of the Creator comes into play. There is a ‘disconnect’ when we move into anything that we can’t see and attempt to explain it on the basis of what we can see, i.e. the mind, heart and spirit of the Creator. Human beings have an innate sense of the need to be in control of what they can't see because of fear, the fear of not being in control of their own lives and how they perceive their existence. This need to be in control points to our deepest need from which all others follow and that is the need to be right; to feel right inside, to be right when I speak and to look right wherever I am.

Creation is easy to be a part of. We have bodies. We have the senses that allow us to move within what can be seen. We are relatively comfortable and know our boundaries within it. We love to feel the warmth of the sun in our face on a cold day. Then there are the refreshing breezes that caress our faces on warm days. Think again about the beauty we behold in the panorama of a mountain view or see the massive Milky Way in the night sky. We can’t wait for the first Summer dip in a cool lake and are literally touched by a morning sunrise. Isn’t it interesting in travel how we marvel when we see exotic sights in foreign places and believe we are enriched by what we contemplate with our minds? We could go on and on about the physical pleasures that our bodies provide when we survey the broad range of possibilities given us in our developing time on earth. We look for the opportunities to ‘go where no man has gone before.’ We deeply enjoy being physical material beings and let Creation drench us with its options.

Again we don’t have a problem until we have to try and explain the whole business of the invisible processes that go on within us. It's about the choices and decisions we make every day. This is when 'right' comes to the fore. And also when it comes to explaining the invisible reality within Creation. The hard time is when we have to explain to ourselves and others the ‘disconnect’ we sense in the personal and interpersonal dimension. Why do we have depression, dislike, suspicion, distrust, hate, anger, abuse and all kinds of other things that we call evil? We are uneasy, afraid, anxious, and insecure. We struggle with our aloneness. Why can’t what I feel in the visible dimension carry over into the invisible dimension? The peace that I sense seeing a sunset on the ocean horizon, why is it not the same when I find myself at work or at school or even at home? And here is the real question. Nothing is in its right place. Why can’t I feel right with others, the world and myself? Why do I feel the need to escape back into the physical, vacation in places that make me feel at one with the visible environment? At least for a while to sense again that peace that comes in the comfort of that vacation escape.

This is why Paul starts with Creation as the basis for understanding the unseen dimension that every person experiences within it. Paul contends that what we are looking for in the invisible is the same touch we feel in the visible. We allow ourselves to be touched by Creation and touch it and feel it’s right but when it comes to really allowing the One behind Creation, the Creator, to touch us, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ Delving into the personal dimension again brings a ‘disconnect.’ We can be touched by Creation and experience it physically but we are immediately aware somehow we are not right in the unseen, the invisible reality we know within. When we try and figure out what is behind Creation and understand how to live among other people in Creation we find ourselves alone and floundering.

Paul shows us that because we try and go it alone in the invisible we are governed only by the evil that has emerged in Creation through sin which is the problem Paul brings out in Ro.1:1-3:20. Sin keeps us from being right. Rom.3:20 says, “Therefore no one will be declared 'right'eous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”

The Law points out three things:

First, sin is the problem. It has caused the human heart to be spiritually, emotionally and physically isolated from God thus unholy by nature. Thus driven to self-centeredness it produces fear, pride, lonely isolation, suspicion, distrust and blame. Add to these, compromise, manipulation and exploitation. They are the media that govern the techniques we develop to negotiate our environment.

Second, God cannot change. He is Holy, pure, perfect, all-powerful, all knowing and cannot come near us. His holiness would incinerate us. He cannot sin. His nature rejects anything evil. God gave the Law to prepare the world for the coming of His Son by identifying the specifics of sin and evil and His role in saving us from them. It was given to show the sinful heart’s desperate need to be right and the consequent need for relational obedience to God.

Third, because we are spiritually alone we need revelation. We need not only our problem revealed but also we need an answer that can come only from outside, from the spiritual dimension. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me (Jn.8:28).”

The answer is faith in Jesus. We have to be lifted above our situation in order to see it. This is how God works. It is His nature to be faithful and so we are given a relationship with a person of pure faith to lift us above ourselves and our world in order to see the truth and reenter its reality. Unless we are lifted above the invisible through faith in Jesus we are vulnerable to the evil within it and the evil one who manipulates the world’s policies. It is a matter of who we can turn to, to breathe pure and healthy spiritual air. The mind believes in Jesus as revealed in the Word, the heart trusts Jesus as Lord of the invisible and the spirit has faith in Jesus to act in the visible.

Six words make up the pivotal and revolutionary spiritual means to bring the human heart back into balance: belief, faith, righteousness, justification, redemption, atonement. Each one plays a part as the Cross works Jesus' power within us. It is His power that accomplished the physical and spiritual work necessary to make us right again, right with God right with self and right with others. The passage that brings these words together follows the wrath warning is this one:

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Rom.3:21-26).”

Now we come to that brand new understanding or being right. It comes through faith. Up until this time in history every human transaction had to be done in a legal context. The Jewish concept of the Law is held up because it characterizes all human spiritual and relational issues. Every culture had a legal system about morality, spirituality and personal behavior. Religion is still alive in that sense. There is a right way and a wrong way to live. From teen age gangs to corporate systems you will find a legal system that governs the thought and behavior within them. Legalism is a universal issue. The Jewish legal system represents all similar systems thus it is the central theme in the Bible. It means the more we obey the legal demands in any system anywhere that is something, that as humans, we can control. In every age good and evil were codified by the do's and don'ts' of the culture. The more you worked at being 'good' according to the culture you fitted in. If the cultural standard is theft, be a good thief. If you are in a gang then be tough, be alert to who's the toughest and be like him. Who's the smartest, handsomest, prettiest, most talented, most admirable? Well, just follow them and be like them. If the corporate law is 'play the game' 'cut corners' 'play up to the boss' then do it. In the world you are justified by your works, by performance, by earning acceptance, then do the best you can. When Jesus comes He says and lives a new way. It is not a system but a personal response called faith. And that faith is centered in Him. He is the Right One who is never wrong and to follow Him in faith is to be perfected not by Law but by God Himself. It is not like the Law that is an outside object of reference that demands internal acceptance. Rather, Jesus is an internal personal experience of a living person whose motivation is always right and whose presence we are called to let happen through us. This is what make it so novel, so new. Jesus' claim on humanity is by faith in His presence internally and faith is the human response for our recovery. It means we are living personally instead of legally, interpersonally instead of selfishly, looking forward as to opposed to backward, acting expectantly for Him instead of fearfully playing it safe and where every next moment is seeing it in an eternal context instead of moment to moment worry and anxiety. Paul says it so simply, “Christ in you, the hope of glory (Co.1:27).”