Paul to the Roman Christians (43): Firstfruit Life of Transformation (1)

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (43)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

 THE FIRSTFRUIT LIFE OF TRANSFORMATION (1)

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2018 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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Paul's letter to the Roman Christians - The "Firstfruit" Life of Transformation (1)
http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture43.MP3

"Why do we fail? Because we are fallen, unholy, broken, tarnished creatures. That's still true after conversion. The devil will try to tempt you to look at yourself and your past record. He will say, I know all about your past. You must say in return, Hey, that's nothing. I know all about your future!" -- Des Ford in Right With God Right Now (1999).

"They [the Christians] overcame him [haSatan] by the blood of the lamb" (Rev 12.11)

THE TEXT
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE OF CONSECRATION: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, in view of the aforementioned mercies of God, to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical Temple worship for you. In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of the present world system. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE OF HUMILITY: "For I am telling every single one of you, through the Grace that has been given to me, not to have exaggerated ideas about your own importance. Instead, develop a sober estimate of yourself based on the standard which God has given to each of you, namely, trust. For just as there are many parts that compose one body, but the parts don't all have the same function; so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others. But we have gifts that differ and which are meant to be used according to the Grace that has been given to us. If your gift is prophecy, use it to the extent of your trust; if it is serving, use it to serve; if you are a teacher, use your gift in teaching; if you are a counselor, use your gift to comfort and exhort; if you are someone who gives, do it simply and generously; if you are in a position of leadership, lead with diligence and zeal; if you are one who does acts of mercy, do them cheerfully.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE DISPLAYING LOVE: "Don't let love be a mere outward show. Recoil from what is evil, and cling to what is good. Love each other devotedly and with brotherly love; and set examples for each other in showing respect. Don't be lazy when hard work is needed, but serve the Lord with spiritual fervor. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in your troubles, and continue steadfastly in prayer. Share what you have with God's people, and practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you bless them, don't curse them! Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be sensitive to each other's needs -- don't think yourselves better than others, but make humble people your friends. Don't be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what everyone regards as good. If possible, and to the extent that it depends on you, live in peace with all people. Never seek revenge, my friends; instead, leave that to God's anger; for in the Scripture it is written, The Lord says, Vengeance is my responsibility; I will repay. [Deut 32.41] But, If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing this, you will heap fiery coals [of shame] on his head. [Prov 25.21-22] Stop being conquered by evil, but conquer evil by means of the good" (Romans 12 with suggestions from Stern's Complete Jewish Bible).

RELEVANT THOUGHTS FROM PREVIOUS ROMANS LECTURES
So, now we have arrived at Romans 12. And I am personally glad to have arrived finally at this place in the Letter of Paul to the Roman Christians. For those students who have been following my arguments throughout the past eleven chapters of Romans you will have reason to recall that at the conclusion of Romans 8, I readily enough acknowledged that Romans 12 would more logically flow directly on the heels of the last text of Romans 8. It would seem a smoother transition from Paul's preoccupation with the particulars of the doctrines involving salvation upon which he has been faithfully focused (Justification in Romans 1-5; sanctification in Romans 6-8; and glorification in Romans 8) to his labours explaining how once-saved believers in Yeshua ought to now live their lives (Romans 12). Before I ventured into Romans 9, and by means of picking up where we left off in Paul's thoughts about successful living as a believer, I wrote the following:

"Paul concludes Romans 8 with the following thoughts and comments. Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Messiah Yeshua, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Messiah? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all the universe, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Messiah Yeshua our Lord" (Romans 8).

Romans 12 flows straight on logically...

"I exhort you, therefore, brethren, in view of God's mercies, to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical, rational, intelligent Temple worship for you. In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of the present evil age fashioned after and adapted to its external and superficial customs. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed. For I am telling every single one of you, through the Grace that has been given to me, not to have exaggerated ideas about your own sense of self-importance. Instead, develop a sober estimate of yourself based on the standard which God has given to each of you, namely, trust. For just as there are many parts that compose one body, but the parts don't all have the same function; so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others.... etc" (Romans 12.1-3).

Alva McClain most certainly understands this noteworthy characteristic style of Paul's when he writes, in his lectures on Romans, "Paul has shown [in Romans 1-8] how God saves a sinner. And, as in every other epistle he has written, Paul follows the doctrinal portion with exhortation, as in Ephesians; I... beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called (Eph 4:1, ASV). Notice how nicely chapter 12 would follow. He has finished telling us about the mercies of God. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God -- that is, on the basis of the mercies as dealt with in the first eight chapters -- that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice. Then Paul tells them how they ought to live their lives" (Alva McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace, 1973, 172).

But it is precisely at this point -- with the start of the section of his letter which we refer to as Romans 9 -- that Paul begins to talk about Israel's rejection of Yeshua as their Messiah! Small wonder many expositors of the word of God believe Romans 9-11 is parenthetical.  

There are good arguments for and against parenthesis BUT what I have found entirely lacking amongst scholars is the recognition of Paul's psychological and/or personality makeup which I have stressed in past lectures bordered on a depressive illness, dissociative behaviour, and bi-polar disorder. Why do believers want to sidestep the patently obvious? In suggesting this abnormality in Paul I am not denigrating the great apostle. In no way is this the case. Rather, understanding Paul as he really was grants us an acute insight into the kind of people God uses to spread the Gospel. Paul himself writes that "not many of you are wise by human standards, not many come from noble birth, not many are wealthy or influential" (1 Corinthians 1.26) and he humbly views himself in much the same manner even though he himself came from a very powerful family dynasty. Knowing Paul's psychological profile is an encouragement to any of us who tend to feel less than ordinary, or even perhaps inwardly screaming to be ordinary. Paul helps us to accept ourselves as not only salvageable by Christ, but as saved COMPLETELY by Messiah.  So, what am I implying concerning the insertion of chapters 9, 10, 11 of Romans at such a juncture as this?

"I think some of us need to reflect on the very first lecture I gave in this series on Romans in which we read of Paul the Headstrong and to again labour the point of his self-will in opposition to the movement of the Ruach HaKodesh in his life and the testing of God's patience toward him in his decisions to go adamantly against God's commandments concerning outreach to others. Paul's headstrong and powerful will, noted by the rabbi's physician Luke in his composition known as Acts, overrode the freely urged promptings and instructions of the Spirit -- and he was prone to do this on other occasions as well. It is on record by Paul's own hand that he rejected an entire city God's Spirit had led him to evangelise, opting otherwise to search out his friend and spiritual brother Titus.

"Now when I went to Troas to preach the Gospel of Messiah and found that THE LORD HAD OPENED A DOOR FOR ME, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia" (2 Corinthians 2.12,13).

To consider that Paul found rejection of friends difficult to cope with, psychologically plunging headlong into manic fits of depression, would be somewhat of an understatement. He had no peace of mind by his own admission in missing his friend Titus, so he diverted his attention away from the city of Troas which the holy Spirit desired the rabbi to evangelise. This incident involved a rejection of an important populated city of myriads choosing instead to forsake those thousands of souls in order to find one lone individual.

In Lecture 31 of this series I analyse Paul's oftentimes serious plunge into despair and deep sadness immediately subsequent to his experience of being on an elevated emotional and/or intellectual high -- a symptom of a condition known as being bi-polar. And it is exactly to be anticipated that at the moment when Paul at the conclusion of Romans 8 expresses his intense JOY and personal SATISFACTION concerning his SAVED CONDITION and his mind-expansive awareness of the coming new creations [advancing aeons] of God stretching through eternity that he suddenly is reminded of his hostile Jewish brethren who had largely rejected Yeshua, and all claims of their need of salvation by Grace. As anticipated Paul PLUNGES into morbidity. Notice it now:

"I am speaking the truth as one who belongs to the Messiah, I do not lie; and also bearing joint-witness is my conscience, governed by the Ruach HaKodesh: my grief is so great it consumes me, the pain in my heart so constant, and not letting up, that I could wish myself to be actually accursed from Messiah -- cut off and banished on behalf of my brothers, my own flesh and blood, the people of Israel!" (Romans 9.1-4). [End of quotation.]

The Scriptures of God are entirely GOVERNED in their composition by the ever-creative Ruach HaKodesh -- the very holy Spirit of God. Paul's writings were looked upon by a few of the early apostles, particularly Peter despite the conflict that was ongoing between Paul and James the brother of the Lord as Scripture (2 Pet 3.16). And Paul's writings (many of which have been lost) were superintended by the creative power of Almighty God, even those writings which were penned from the hand of someone suffering, sometimes quite literally in the bondage of despair, from a precarious bi-polar disorder and depressive illness. We can all learn something of the love of God and the acceptance by God of frail humanity in this fact about Paul's life and writings. It ought to give us all a deep sense of firm hope and security.

And so for three chapters of Romans 9,10 and 11, Paul steers temporarily away from his original intention of exemplifying and articulating how Christians ought to normally behave as a consequence of their conversion to Yeshua, and concentrates with all his studious meticulous attention on the issue of a Christ-rejecting national Israel. How overwhelmingly gladdened ought we all to be in Paul's arguments and appraisals in these three chapters. For, Paul explains how God is going to save His Chosen People by changing their attitudes and mental hostility toward their own Messiah. Paul takes pains to explain the inexplicable. And what an awesome purpose of God unfolds in the Salvific Drama of the Ages in these three generally misunderstood chapters! There are four principal texts upon which I hope you will all meditate. They are these:

(1) "Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Just as it is written:
God has given them a spirit of stupor,
Eyes that they should not see
And ears that they should not hear,
To this very day" (Rom 11.7b,8 quoting from Deut 29.4 & Isa 29.10).

FACT: God is responsible for NOT calling the majority of the Jewish people to believe in Yeshua His Son because it has not been His intention to do so. It is God who blinded Israel so that the entire world would have the Gospel shared with them (Rom 11.11,12). There IS yet a day of salvation (Isa 49.8 Hebrew & 2 Cor 6.2 Gk) for Israel but it is not yet apparent. We cannot fully understand, grasp, and appreciate this fact unless we are well-versed in the doctrine of the Firstfruits of salvation.

(2) "And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
The Redeemer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins" (Rom 11.26,27 quoting from Isa 59.20,21).

FACT: Once again Paul stresses that salvation comes alone from God, and decidedly not from some free will choice any of us have made to be saved. Intriguingly, the 1611 version put an absurd emphasis on human freedom to decide for Christ in its translation of the above Isaiah text. The New King James Version corrected it from the 1611 version which read, "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, says the Lord"... to a better and more correct rendering as, "... out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob..." (NKJV).

The truth is that salvation begins and ends in GOD. "And I am certain that God, who BEGAN the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns" (Phil 1.6 New Living Translation).

Only the Firstfruits can come to Christ: "All that the Father gives me shall come to me"... (Jn 6.37). "No man can come to me, except the Father who has sent me draw him... Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father" (Jn 6.44). It is the work of the holy Spirit to choose, elect, call, convert, and save.

"And when the Gentiles heard this [the Gospel] they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were APPOINTED to eternal life believed" (Acts 13.48).

"We went aboard a boat at Troas, and sailed straight across to Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis, and finally reached Philippi, a Roman military outpost just inside the Macedonian border, and stayed there several days.On the Sabbath we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank where we understood some people met for prayer; and we taught the Scriptures to some women who came. One of them was Lydia, a saleswoman from Thyatira, a merchant of purple cloth. She was already a worshiper of God and as she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart to be attentive and to respond to all that Paul was saying. She was baptized along with all her household and asked us to be her guests. If you agree that I am faithful to the Lord, she said, come and stay at my home. And she urged us until we did" (Acts 16.11-15).

Please note that she was already a worshiper of Israel's God -- she was very religious -- but not converted. God opened her mind and caused her to respond to the power of the Spirit. It's not a matter of us choosing to follow Christ. God has chosen His Firstfruits from eternity and knows us all even by name. God even knows in advance the date, the place, and the circumstances in which the Spirit will open the mind and heart of that heavenly-targeted Firstfruit.

(3) "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom 11.29). Or, as clearer more modern translations put it, "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (RSVCE), "And when God chooses someone and graciously imparts gifts to him, they are never rescinded" (The Passion Translation), "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable [for He does not withdraw what He has given, nor does He change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call]" (AMP).
"For the gifts and calling of God are without regret" (Disciples Literal New Testament), "God never changes his mind about the people he calls and the things he gives them" (Expanded Bible), "For once they are made, God does not withdraw his gifts of his calling" (J.B. Phillips New Testament), "For the grace-effects and the calling of God... are void of regret and without change in purpose (or: unregretted; not to be regretted afterward; are not subject to recall; = are never taken back)" (Jonathan Mitchell, The New Testament, Expanded, Amplified, Multiple Renderings).[/i]

Check out these renderings of Scripture and compare them with SDA Replacement Theology arguments that attempt to annul the will of God.

(4) "For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out" (Rom 11.32).

FACT: Rest assured, as I have stated myriads of times over a 40+ year period in countless lectures, sermons, communion services, expositions, articles and personal letters, God is not the Local Village Idiot nor is God the Fast Fading Smile of a Cosmic Cheshire Cat.

A universal salvation was God's primary intention for the entirety of the human race and God will deliver the goods. It does not depend on human beings to see a fulfillment of God's intentions, purposes and plans in the outplaying and outworking of His Salvific will. In conflict with Ellen G. White's extraordinary fables, and the opinions of billions of Christians who have ever lived, and that includes Presbyterians and Anglicans and Roman Catholics and myriads of other sects, churches, denominations and cults who think God changes His mind in His Salvific intentions -- God's Salvific intentions and His acts are ONE and the same. They are identical. "God WILL have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth" wrote Paul in 1 Timothy 2.4 (Greek). Note that God does not wish, desire, want or hope for the salvation of all human beings. Oh, no. God couldn't "give a rats" for human opinion in this matter. And yes, I do call a spade a spade. Kindly note that in this same text of 1 Tim 2.4 FIRST God SAVES a person. And THEN AND ONLY THEN God reveals who saved them. That is salvation. THAT is ETERNAL SECURITY.

Those who hate Israel, and oppose Israel (especially with BDS sanctions -- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) and who promote or promulgate anti-Zionism, antisemitism and other similar attributions, will one day soon be on the outside looking in to what God will be sharing with the Chosen people of His special love, and as to the latter I am not talking about the Church which has been an idolatrous cesspool of decadency and debauchery, both physical and spiritual, as evidenced throughout history -- I am speaking about the Jews short and sweet. Ellen Gould White's fables on the one hand, and the psychological inner chaos of Calvin's self-righteous bigoted hatred of anyone and anything that opposed him in his articulation of the Institutes on the other hand, put them both into the category of idolaters as they vociferously promoted their own views above those of the sacred Scripture. Idolatry is not the use of images and statues in worship. Idolatry is confusing them with what they represent. In this respect mental images and lofty abstractions, and smug musings on the professed accumulation of biblical content especially if it is error can be more insidious than mere bronze idols. (And, no, I am not advocating the utilisation of statues or images in case any of my readers thought otherwise -- even pictures, paintings and portraits real or imagined of Yeshua in his bloody and brutalised Passion ought to be ostracised and we should be all the more vigilantly and vigorously iconoclastic.)

NOW, LET'S LEAP INTO ROMANS 12
Paul now launches into Romans 12 where he left off in Romans 8. And, as was expected, his entire mental direction is consumed with instructions on how to live out the Salvific life in Messiah. True to his Jewish roots and thoughtform, he immediately identifies the believer as a Temple of the living God. But you would not know this from your reading out of the KJV (AV). As it stands it reads:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

However, the Complete Jewish Bible (Stern) differs with its more proper Jewish grasp of the thoughtform that lies behind Paul's choice of language.

"I exhort you, therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer yourselves as a sacrifice, living and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical Temple worship for you" (Rom 12.1).  

The Phillip Goble Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) [2002] spells it out:

"I appeal to you, therefore, Achim b'Moshiach, through the rachamei Hashem (mercies of G-d), to present your geviyah all of your being as a korban chai (living sacrifice), kadosh (holy) and acceptable to Hashem, which is your spiritual avodas kodesh service."

There are innumerable revisions which modern translators of the Bible are having to deal with in respect of the 1611 AV, and they seem to be making some positive headway especially with modern Christian Jews who are aiding Gentile translators in a profitable way.

But I have read a number of academic articles, expositions and actual volumes on Romans penned by biblical critics and so-called "higher authorities" who lay the claim that there is no systematic logical organisational structure in Romans 12-16 and especially Romans 12. Alva McClain also took note of this fact. He writes the following in his lectures on Grace:

"Some scholars who do not have a very great regard for God's Word and have rather loose ideas about inspiration, have made a severe attack upon this chapter, declaring that it has neither head nor tail, no systematic arrangement, and that it is just a mass or collection of exhortations. Not only does this criticism show the unspirituality of these men but also their lack of ability to decide in literary matters. Most certainly there is a very beautiful and logical order in this chapter if men have eyes to see it" (205).

McClain continues: "Here are the three main ideas in this chapter: (1) consecration (v.1), (2) humility (v.3), and (3) love (v.9)... First of all, the Christian life should be a life of consecration (vv.1-2). Second, the Christian life should be a life of humility (vv.3-8). Third, the Christian life should be a life of love (vv.9-21).

"Those three ideas in those three sections also present three different attitudes of the Christian. Consecration is the attitude of the Christian toward God. We are to present ourselves to God. Humility describes our attitude toward ourselves. Love describes our attitude to others" (ibid).

I find it intriguing that Paul begins Romans 12 with the words, "I beseech you." Yes, I beseech you. The Greek word used here for beseech is parakaleo. Or, I beg of you, please. In contrast the Torah would have said, I command you.

Now listen, please! We are now governed entirely by the Spirit, not the Torah. Not laws, rules, regulations, commandments, statutes, judgments, ordinances or any other thing. I am NOT saying (as some would like to believe to the contrary) that we ought not show absolutely respect and appreciation toward God by observing His loving laws, rules, regulations, commandments, statutes, judgments, ordinances... after all the New Covenant Torah has over 1050 of these judicial edicts by which we are learning to LIVE. But we are governed, governed, governed -- hear what I am saying, not what you think I am saying -- again I stress, we are governed by the holy Spirit. The Spirit of God must OCCUPY our THINKING PROCESSES, and indeed our ENTIRE MINDSCAPE -- WE CANNOT GROW INTO Christ's MINDSCAPE by being mentally preoccupied with a mind full of a host of laws, rules and regulations. That was a Sinai kindergarten level of thinking, or as the circular Letter to the Hebrews speaks of it, the first principles (Heb 6.1). We are expected to respond not to laws as such, but to the urgings and promptings of the Ruach HaKodesh who lives within us. We are not in any way shape or form under the law. Nor are we above the law. And, I might add, we are not outside the law either. We are operating and functioning WITHIN the law of God, the living Torah. In some respects this means that we should behave more righteously than even the scrupulous scribes and Pharisees because they had as their primary motivation egocentric vanity. Christ himself said that unless our righteousness exceeded the righteousness of these characters we would in no way enter the kingdom of God. Yeshua actually said that! (See Mt 5.20). It is not just our bodily presentation in worship and obedience that matters to God the FatherMother Anochi I-Source but our basic ATTITUDE and MOTIVATION.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS
Previously, Paul in Romans 8.11 enlightens us to the realisation that our mortal bodies have become vivified by the indwelling of the Ruach HaKodesh, and this implies that God is no longer pleased and satisfied with dead substitutes. Rather, God wants living, dedicated offerings to be brought before Him in worshipful service. Remember that Our Lord Yeshua stated clearly enough that to come before the creative, loving God one must worship Him in spirit and with right knowledge (Jn 4.23) for the sole reason being that "the Father seeks such to worship Him."

Now, for those who are reading and studying the new series of lectures entitled Them & Us we have reached a point where that series and this continuing one on Romans happen to coincide. I have emphasised in the former that we are being called out of this rotten, twisted, evil world and into the character-Image of God in Christ. God could not even begin to change us from within while we were ONE WITH THE WORLD surrounding us. God and Messiah want us to be ONE with them!

I teach that our purpose here below is to ensure that we expand in our (presently dualistic) consciousness into the ONENESS CONSCIOUSNESS of God that Yeshua spoke of in Jn 14.10-12 and in the real Lord's Prayer in Jn 17. Only to the degree that we detach from this present Satanic realm can we be properly reprogrammed to have new neural pathways created in our brains in order for our THINKING PROCESSES to transform us into THAT which is dwelling within us at the subconscious level Anochi-I, God Within.

As converted new creations in Messiah, our subconscious is PRESENTLY united with the DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS that permeates the entirety of the universe. Of course, everything is IN the consciousness of Deity. Of course it is. In God's consciousness "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17.23-29) -- all of us. But unlike them of the world WE possess (and are possessed by) God's very own holy SPIRIT (the Ruach HaKodesh). THAT alone separates us from everyone else.

THAT is what Paul is expressing in the opening statement of Romans 12. We are not only separated from the world, called out of the world, but we are the TEMPLE of God and we are living daily SACRIFICES to God. The sacrificial system still exists and we are IT. Our lives are denominated by the offerings of daily praise to the Lord -- sacrificial offerings of the bull calves of our lips as in the Hebrew of Hosea 14.2. The holy Spirit will not occupy a MIND DIVIDED between the Kingdom of God (the Mindscape of God) and the present satanic realm of the evil world-system that he has created.
Notice now how Paul hammers his point home!

"And BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD-SYSTEM" (Rom 12.2). There it is as plain as the nose on your face. The world-system contains and includes all that pertains to this age: hence some versions speak of the fashion of this age with its superficial values and customs.

"...but be you TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."

God wants us to ACT OUT -- to ACT AS IF -- putting God to the test for we know inwardly that IF we so act God will then automatically bring about the pathways into which He wants us to direct our pursuits. This is made a little clearer in the Kenneth Wuest translation.  

"Stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within you and is not representative of what you are in your inner being but is patterned after this age; but change your outward expression to one that comes from within and is representative of your inner being, by the renewing of your mind, resulting in your putting to the test what is the will of God, the good and well-pleasing and complete will, and having found that it meets specifications, place your approval upon it."

Listen! To realise that YOU are separated from the world and called into the service of Almighty God takes a great deal of HUMILITY. The Rebbetzin and I have known certain folk who, having come to what they perceived was an understanding of their calling and election, have prided themselves to have been "somewhat grand" in the eyes of God and have trotted around like so many little Napoleon's thinking erroneously that they are really something special. They become, frankly, dictatorial pontificating to all who will listen the enormous sum total of their valuable contribution of wisdom into your life. It's all quite ugly, really. They do not see themselves as others see them. They have oozed such a personal sense of high self-appraisal that they make absolute stupid fools of themselves. So Paul immediately knowing that this is precisely the way people might act, follows up in the next verse with a warning, red-lights flashing.

"For I am saying through the Grace which is given me, to everyone who is among you, not to be thinking more highly of himself, above that which the necessities in the nature of the case impose upon him to be thinking, but to be thinking with a view to a sensible appraisal of himself, according as to each one God divided a measure of faith" (Rom 12.3).

Most (if not all) commentators of Paul's writings have no comprehension of the mystical background of Rav Shaul's present theological presentation to the Christians in Rome of what thinking actually lurked behind the words of the great Jewish apostle to the Gentiles. But I have no doubt most Messianic disciples of Yeshua well-knew (or had heard persistent rumours) of the considered heterodox views that were emanating from Paul's circle of Christian Faith.

CONSIDER
Consider: Paul wrote his Letter to the Roman Christians in 57/58 CE from Corinth in Greece. But only about three years later (c.61/62 CE) -- and I want to bring this dating factor to your attention -- Paul was explaining the great need for believers in the city of Philippi to be filled with humility in the knowledge of the God Within which Paul was sharing with them. I will come to this in a moment.  

Suffice to say scholars declare Paul wrote his Letter to the Philippians from Rome itself. Paul was under house-arrest in Rome awaiting trial (as at the conclusion of the Lukan Acts) and then after two years he was released from this first imprisonment without any further charges brought against him. The internal evidence of the Letter to the Philippians indicates the apostle had intimate knowledge of believers to be located in Nero Caesar's household (Phil 4.22), and Paul relates that he was receiving visitors (Phil 2.25) as well as interacting with local Roman Christians (Phil 1.12-18). Paul also uses the word praitrion (Phil 1.13) translated erroneously as "palace" in the KJV/AV -- which was the elite Imperial guard that personally protected Caesar. The Gospel, Paul tells us, was known among them by virtue of his exposure "in bonds," i.e., Roman imprisonment (Rom 1.7,13). Josephus -- who was very much "in the know" during the period dominated by Paul shares with us the knowledge that Nero's Empress Poppaea was a worshiper of the one true God by which he possibly means that she was a Jewess (Josephus, Ant., xx,7). The Romans however thought of Christians as a Jewish sect, so Josephus may have been inferring that Poppaea was a Jewish Christian. This may seem at first unlikely but please recall from other lectures I have shared that Josephus was the younger brother of Nakdimon ben-Gurion (Nicodemus of the Gospels) and therefore my speculation may not be so far-fetched at all.

Whatever we wish to make of that latter recollection, Paul was to transmit to the Christians in the city of Philippi in Greece that they were very special indeed. He reminded them, to "let this mind be in you which was also in Yeshua the Messiah" and added the remarkable words, "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be EQUAL WITH GOD" (Phil 2.5,6).

Such mind-blowing knowledge would have rocked these Christians to their proverbial socks. In modern 21st century thinking we can say that Paul was stating the blatantly obvious. If Christians were made in the IMAGE of God and the holy Spirit indwelt them, then they carried the DNA of God (though admittedly Paul would never have known of DNA) and were born again (literally) by THAT SPIRIT and moreover these Christians had both Christ and God the Father dwelling in them as IN the Temple of God and had become enlightened into the gnosis of the God Within, even Anochi I-Source. (Please take some time to THINK about what we just read.)

Brethren, what was indeed TRUE in the first century CE is far more true TODAY as we watch The Day fast approaching. The once-stable Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilisation are fast being undermined and destroyed. The "peaceful" religion of Islam has proven to all that it is anything but. The mighty American empire is struggling to remain as the self-appointed Policeman of the World, and at every level of society powerful demonic forces are rising. How are any of us to cope with the sudden horrific changes that are occurring around us other than to turn to the sacred Scriptures and find a positive message that meets us and our circumstances at every turn. Romans 12 is very timely. It concentrates on our conduct in the world, our conduct toward God, our conduct toward our family, associates, friends, neighbours, worldly rivals.

One thing that stands out in Romans 12: and that is the Pauline concept that we are not of the world and therefore our conduct must at all times fail to reflect the world. We are to be as much UNLIKE the world as we can possibly be. That is a big challenge, a mighty goal in itself, particularly if we are so deeply caught in its web that we cannot extricate ourselves from it as much as we might like to do so... or think that we might like to do so.

But the more that we have contact with the awesome MIND OF GOD the more unlike the world we will be. The more we saturate ourselves with the THOUGHTS and REVELATIONS that originate in God's MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS the more we shall find ourselves being transformed by the renewing of our own minds.

In Part 3 of Them & Us I wrote the following. "The very word transformation has at its centre the word "form." It is preceded by "trans" which carries the meaning (if words still have any meaning at all) of going beyond FORM. So, we are expected by Anochi I-Source to create in our imagination where we want to go in the future, where we wish to be at present, and what we wish to accomplish in this our final evolutionary transaction from flesh to SPIRIT. This really tells us that without being obsessive we will not achieve our vision of reality. But it [all] STARTS IN THE MIND.

It was Michelangelo who stated: "The great danger is not that our hopes are too high and we fail to reach them, it's that they are too low, and we do." [End Quote]

The changes we ought to desire in our life are not initially and primarily changes in our circumstances and personal situation in life. No! The changes we ought to be wanting to see are the changes in us that we want to see in the world, to paraphrase the Mahatma Gandhi. Gotta be cautious about paraphrases, because what the Mahatma actually said was much deeper than this glib partial quote. What he said was...

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do" -- Indian Opinion, August 9, 1913; reprinted in: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.XIII, Ch.153, 241. (See also http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/mahatma-gandhi-collected-works-volume-13.pdf)

In our next lecture we shall look at the three "Therefore's" in this Letter to the Roman Christians and see the relevance for us today. Along with this next lecture we will satisfy our curiosity in relation to The Christian Life of Consecration and see what it really means.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 43