Scripture Notes: Conquerors (Romans 8)

In his letter to the Romans, Paul asks a critical question, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Rom 8:35). His answer? Nothing! These sufferings, as painful and miserable as they may be, will not separate us from the love of Christ. 

“No,” Paul continues, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:37-39). In and through and in the midst of our sufferings, we can find victory in God’s love. God loves us no matter what, and our sufferings can even be an expression of that love, for God allows them when, for some reason, we need them, when they can be of use to us or to other people. 

Just reflect on that for a while. God loves us that much. Nothing can get in between His love and us except for one thing: us. We can choose to reject His love. He loves us anyway, of course, but we can say no to it. We do that when we sin, especially when we sin seriously. So, with the help of God’s grace, we must above all conquer our sin and immerse ourselves in the constant, infinite love of God.

Scripture Notes: Light and Darkness (John 3)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). These are arguably the most famous words in the whole Bible, and rightly so, because they reveal to us God’s great love. The Father did not send the Son to condemn the world, John continues, but to save the world. Then we read, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). 

It seems to simple, doesn’t it? God loves us so much that He came to save us, to give us eternal life with Him. What do we have to do? Believe. Have faith. Not just intellectual faith that assents to a proposition but real faith that shines and blossoms out in love and obedience. 

So why don’t we do that? The Gospel explains, “the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). We human beings have chosen sin, have chosen evil, have chosen darkness. The Light that comes into the world shines right into that darkness and illuminates everything there. It is not a pretty picture. In fact, it is horribly ugly. Human beings have made a monstrous mess of themselves. 

Yet we need the Light. We need to recognize our sins so that we can repent, confess, and be embraced by God’s mercy. We need to walk into the Light and let it shine into the deepest parts of us. Will it be uncomfortable? Yes. Will it show us things we would rather not see? Yes. And that is the point. But that Light will also, John concludes, show us something remarkable, namely, that the good things we do are God working in us. The Light also illuminates His grace and His gifts and His love. 

Indeed, God is love through and through, and that is why He has to show us the truth about ourselves. He wants us with Him forever in Heaven. He wants to give us eternal life. But we, as free, rational creatures, need to say yes through our own God-graced faith and love.

Scripture Notes: Fight the Good Fight (1 Timothy 6)

“[A]im at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life...” (1 Tim 6:11-12). St. Paul offers Timothy and us some practical yet deeply spiritual advice in these two verses. 

He begins with a goal. The verb translated here as “aim” carries overtones of haste, running, pressing on, moving rapidly and decisively, striving for, seeking after, and intense pursuit. And what do we pursue? First, righteousness, in Greek dikaiosunē, being right with God. We cannot attain to this righteousness on our own, though, so part of aiming toward righteousness involves opening ourselves to God’s grace, accepting it, and cooperating with it. 

We are also to pursue godliness, eusebia, piety, respect and devotion to God; in other words, we recognize that God is God and we are not and live accordingly. We press on to faith and love, too, seeking to grow in our trust and fidelity toward God and in our love of God and other people. The word for love here agapē, and it indicates a self-giving kind of love, a kind of love that pours itself out and, in doing so, enters into divine love. 

We must seek steadfastness, hupomenē, patience, endurance, perseverance, holding the course when everything seems to be falling apart. And then there is gentleness, praupathia, meekness, which is not weakness but rather strength under control. None of these come from within us. They are gifts from God, but we have to cooperate with them and strive to live them. Our choices and our efforts are important, are critical.

In fact, Paul continues, we have to fight the good fight of the faith. Both the verb “fight” and the noun “fight” come from a Greek root that gives us our English word “agony.” The Christian life is not a proverbial walk in the park; it’s a struggle, a fight, every day, against the fallen world, against temptations, against our own fallen natures. In the midst of it all, we have to reach out and take hold of eternal life. The verb here is epilambanomai, and it can mean to grasp or catch or take hold of something to make it one’s own or even to pounce on something. It is a vivid, active word that tells us that we cannot just sit back and wait for eternal life to come to us. Eternal life is a gift, but we have to strive for it, to grasp it, and to make it our own all with the help of God’s grace.