Articles
Background Thoughts on Romans 8
Here are some background thoughts concerning the reading of Romans 8.
The problem of reading this text does, in fact, hinge upon some preconceived concepts. IF we start out with a mistaken idea of God’s sovereignty meaning ‘causation’ (i.e., that the way God is sovereign and rules the universe is by being the CAUSE of everything thing that happens), with the idea of inherited total depravity, with the idea that being ‘dead in sin’ means that WE are unable to even respond to God at any level, THEN we will read into this passage that such ‘in the flesh’ people are totally unable in any way to ever be pleasing to God -- UNLESS and until God miraculously changes them from ‘in the flesh’ to ‘in the spirit’. Such is the thinking of a lot of denominational people.
Remember, the Corinthians were such ‘in the flesh’ people. Paul came and preached the gospel unto them. Many of the Corinthians, hear, believed the gospel and were baptized (cp. Acts 18:8).
Notice what Paul says happens when one does this:
10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, (Colossians 2:10-13).
While it wasn’t BAPTISM itself that did this, it was IN BEING BAPTIZED that these things were accomplished. They were accomplished BY GOD. God made them complete, God circumcised their hearts, God made them alive, God raised them up, and God forgave them all their transgressions. Paul could say of the Corinthians concerning their being ‘in the flesh’: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Of the Romans he wrote: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).
Hugh DeLong
