Romans 18: PAUL'S FOURTEEN INDICTMENTS

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS [18]

Analytical Commentary on Romans

PAUL'S FOURTEEN INDICTMENTS

Copyright © BRI 2016 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"Transmogrify... to change in a surprising or magical manner. Example of transmogrification: caterpillar becomes a butterfly" -- Dictionary definition.

"The indwelling Glory of God embraces all worlds, all creatures, good and evil. And it is the true unity. How can it then bear in itself the opposites of good and evil? But in truth there is no opposite, for evil is the Throne of good" (Baal Shem Tov, [Martin Buber, trans.], Instructions in Intercourse with God, in Hasidism and Modern Man, 208)."

"I am reminded of the story of a dinner-table conversation in an English country house, where the guests were discussing their ideas of what would happen to them after death. Among those present was an elderly and somewhat stuffy gentleman, who happened to be a prominent layman in the Church. He had been silent throughout the conversation, and at last the hostess turned to him and said, 'Well, Sir Roderick, what do you think will happen to you after death?' 'I am probably certain,' he replied, 'that I shall go to heaven and enjoy everlasting bliss, but I wish you wouldn't discuss such a depressing subject" -- Alan Watts

My opening text today is 2 Corinthians 5.21: "For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

The world races toward its self-destruction and nothing can stop it. The fascinating diversity and delicate balance of this blue planet we all call home is being severely threatened by humankind as we continue to rape the earth of its forests and pollute the oceans and seas with our oil-spills, non-degradable plastics, poisonous chemicals, refuse and detritus. Politically, humankind has sharply turned "right" of centre. We are watching with an immense sense of gravity as Islam conquers Europe from within. We are more than apprehensive over the rapid moral (and morale) decline of the West. Militarily, we are heading for disaster on a mammoth scale as we race each year to keep abreast of the menacing spread of global nuclear expansionism as our people suffer economically and homelessness spins out of control. With global warming and the melting of the polar ice-caps resulting in the rise of water levels, within two decades populations located in major cities that are located on the edges of oceans and seas will find themselves facing a new territorial and/or continental outline. The accuracy of this prediction and reality stares us daily in the face despite delusional antagonism toward any mention of "global warming." Economically, though, we are overdue for a respite as the present Axial Age offers new technological advancements in science and medicine and in relation to alternative forms of fuel. Our gains will be short-lived. But one thing remains glaringly constant.
                                                                                                                                          
Basic human nature never changes. "It is of the spirit," articulated General Douglas MacArthur, "if we are to save the flesh." John the Seer was in total agreement with MacArthur. He records the applaud of angels announcing with ecstatic glee that Messiah Yeshua is determined "to destroy them that destroy the earth" (Rev 11.18).

The answer to the human problem is Our Lord Yeshua. Yeshua the Mashiach is not unaware nor unconscious relative to our human condition. He has already not only paid the penalty for our sins and transgressions but he has understood perfectly the depth of man's spiritual agony.

But here at this point we come to an impasse in Christian dogma. Christians are divided in the matter of the question of that which Yeshua the Messiah underwent in the cross event.

Understand! Some say that God imputed to Christ the sins of the world and that he bore them externally on his shoulders as he went through the final crisis of mental, spiritual and physical agony of crucifixion. They thus translate what Paul wrote in 2 Cor 5.21 to be a "sin offering" rather than "sin" itself (See Stern's Complete Jewish Bible; New Living Translation; Mounce's Reverse Interlinear New Testament; Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB); Tree of Life Version; Concordant Literal New Testament; Jonathan Mitchell's The New Testament and others. Furthermore, the Amplified Bible Classic Edition translates harmartia as "(virtually) to be sin."

For the reasons I gave in the last lecture, in this aberrant theology such a transmogrification could not have occurred in the case of the always perfect and sinless Son of God.

But, nevertheless, the Greek states "SIN" (Gk., hamartia). The great Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest sadly does a soft-shoe qualification in this case for obvious reasons and translates it as "He who did not know sin in an experiential way, on behalf of us and instead of us, was made [the representative of] sin..." as he follows Marvin Vincent who notes "Made to be sin... Not a sin-offering, nor a sinner, but the representative of sin. On Him, representatively, fell the collective consequence of sin, in His enduring 'the contradiction of sinners against Himself' (Heb.xii.3)..." (Marvin Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, Vol.111, 321).

Unashamedly, The Living Bible has the courage to render this portion of 2 Cor 5.21 as "For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins" (emphasis mine).

Therefore another view claims (and we are presently amongst those who hold to this notion) that Christ actually underwent a transmogrification in that he took within himself the sins of the world and became actual sin itself as Rav Shaul seems to say explicitly.

YESHUA THE PRODIGAL SON
When Yeshua shared his parable of the "Prodigal Son" in Luke 15.11-32 his disciples finally grasped the general meaning of the story. But there is, upon refection, an even deeper understanding that we need to realise and appreciate. In the final analysis we have the story of Christ himself coming to earth, far away (in effect) from his Father and the heavenlies and becoming reprobate by experiencing what it is really like to be an actual fallen human being. This is why so often Our Lord Yeshua gave a preference to his self-styled title of "Son of Man" or "(ordinary) human being." In himself he saw no goodness in comparison to the goodness of the invisible SPIRIT, God the Father (cf Lk 18.19). If people had properly come to terms with this parable they would have had no reservations or conflict in themselves about the transmogrification which occurred in Our Lord for us and the entirety of the universe as he defiled that which was pure and at the same time purified that which was defiled. In Christ we locate the ultimate Reprobate Man (substituting and representing each of us) and the ultimate Cosmic Man.

The bottom line is simply this: can we have faith in a Saviour who only ever understood our need of salvation from sin through a technical judicial "imputation" of our sins or did Yeshua as the "Son of Man" gain the capacity to understand and grasp FULLY what it really is like for a lost humankind to EXPERIENCE the horror of sin and the agony of possessing the yetzer ra (or, yetzer ha'ra) , for THAT IS THE REAL QUESTION.

On the subject of justification Karl Barth has somewhat to say. Of course, Karl Barth , for anyone who has not read Barth on anything he has written , always has a great deal to say and what he writes is always valuable to contemplate. In his Church Dogmatics Barth states concerning a Biblical justice (or, righteousness), judgment, and justification that these terms can only be understood when they are seen as what happens in Yeshua the Messiah. Breaking into a thought on righteousness, Barth notes:-

"But this righteousness, this judgment of God, this justification by God which comes to man, is something which has taken place concretely in Jesus Christ. It had to take place in Him because in His person as the Son of the Father He is Himself both very God electing and creating man and very man elected by God and as such ordained from all eternity to fulfill all the righteousness of God. It could take place in Him, because as very God and very man He was competent and qualified to accomplish and suffer the contest between God and man, to be both the Judge and the judged in this conflict. It could take place only in Him, because only He as this one person could be both subject and object in this history, UNITING THE ANTITHESIS OF IT IN HIMSELF: Himself the full end which is made in it; and Himself also the new beginning which is made in it; and both in the place and therefore in the name of all other men, for them and in their favour. It took place in Him in that He as the true Son of God became true man, and in this unity of His person became the Judge of all other men: their Judge as the one who was judged in their place , delivered up in His death, and reinstated in His resurrection from the dead. As it has taken place in Jesus Christ this is the justification of sinful man" (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/I, 550; cf II/I, 396-399; II/2, 758-763).

Writes Catholic theologian Hans Kung. "What happens in justification is that God powerfully puts Himself in jeopardy. The sinner is, of course, in no way fit for the inescapable conflict with the holy, neither as active nor as passive co-operator, neither as subject nor as object, since in this judgment it is a matter of the death of man and of his life out of this death. In this judgment man emerges holy and alive, only because God Himself puts Himself in his place, because God jeopardises Himself in a death where God, the Lord, Judge, and Helper, is simultaneously man, servant, judged, and helpless. This is how man can, and does become, actively and passively, a partner."

The brilliant mind of Kung adds an associated thought, and what he has to share is awesome: "The justification of the sinner as God's putting Himself in jeopardy in Jesus Christ means first of all the turning away from injustice... that is, the annihilation of human injustice and the elimination of man as wrongdoer. This did not happen in us, because we certainly do not cease to be the sinful men of yesterday. This turning away is not discernible in any experience of our lives. It has come about through Jesus Christ. In Him our injustice is truly and finally wiped out and has become a thing of yesterday as we as wrong doers are killed and buried, and become ourselves a thing of yesterday..." (Hans Kung, Justification, 1964, 58f).

Truly, God in Christ takes into himself our sins , he does not merely "bear" them on his spiritual shoulders , by becoming each human tragedy since the dawn of time itself authentically experiencing what it actually is and what it actually means to be a human being.

What Yeshua actually accomplished on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth, by taking into himself the sins of the world, was an actual transformation of unholiness into holiness. To ensure that humanity could be declared righteous by God (it was not only our unholiness that was dealt with in this event but humankind's unrighteousness as well) Christ transformed our unrighteousness , by taking it individually and collectively into himself as God's pure, righteous Elect Man. After all, the One who brought into an existence both good and evil (Isa 45.7) originally did so for THE SALVATION of His own MIRRORED IMAGE. This was the ultimate purpose of creation! Humankind was to be transformed from a physical image of creatureliness into the SPIRITUAL IMAGE of God's very own character and Nature in a massive Salvific Intention. God's only plan for the human race is a plan of salvation. To be saved one first has to be "lost." To experience good one first has to be confronted by that which is not good , evil. And so, in effect, the Gospel message involves a redemption through sin.

My expression "redemption through sin" may at first startle most of my students but I intend no heresy on my part.

The Baal Shem Tov, whom I have quoted in our previous lecture and in the introduction to this present address has told us: "The evil thoughts come to man even in the midst of prayer. And they come to him as to their redemption. When an evil or alien thought arises in a man, it comes to him in order that he may redeem it, and let it ascend." Again, the Baal Shem Tov stated, "The indwelling Glory of God embraces all worlds, all creatures, good and evil. And it is the true unity. How can it then bear in itself the opposites of good and evil? But in truth there is no opposite, for evil is the Throne of good" (Martin Buber [trans], Instructions in Intercourse with God, in Hasidism and Modern Man, 208)."

This conception spreads itself out as in a broadsheet in the revelation which God gave to us via the prophet Isaiah in his Isa 45.7 text (already mentioned) which states: "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and I create evil. I the LORD do all these things."

In our inherited western culture its sometimes difficult to form new ideas and concepts , even truth itself , unless we take the step of experiencing a proper focus to create new neural pathways by our thoughts and thus to inculcate Jewish thoughtform (this thoughtform is actually eastern not western) which God utilised by the Ruach HaKodesh to inspire the writings of both the Hebrew and Messianic Scriptures.

Example of a new way of thinking? How often do we visit a zoo and consider that it is not the bars of a cage that keep us safe from otherwise wild and ferocious creatures but the space between the bars which is really the issue for our welfare. Its all a matter of perspective.  Again, consider the ram's horn, the shofar. We are informed in the Talmud that as impressive as it is in the rites and rituals of Judaism, it is actually so profane that it can be used as a funnel for feeding a baby. We are in fact attracted not to the shofar (as we think we are!) but rather to the blast , the sound , that issues from it. One of my rabbinic mentors has penned, "We follow the sound, not the horn of a dead creature that makes it." He's right (again).

As we open our Bibles and expand the parameters of our ignorance and as we read the inspired Scriptures of GOD we all need to become acutely conscious of the fact that these words are SPIRIT and they are LIFE ITSELF (Jn 6.63). In the crucified Messiah we find the UNITY of OPPOSITES: The HOLY becoming UNHOLY to take the place of sinners. The RIGHTEOUS becoming UNRIGHTEOUS to substitute for sinners. Christ REPRESENTING sinners to God and REPRESENTING God to sinners. This is what GRACIOUSLY grants to us sinners, SALVATION.

REMEMBER THE RED HEIFER?
The biblical requirements of the sacrificial rites of the Red Heifer grant us a spectacular example of the union or unity of opposites in the methods of God. This can be ascertained when carefully reading the laws regulating the slaughter of the Red Heifer in Numbers 19.1-10. The red heifer had to be purely bred and purely red, with a total absence of white, black or gray hairs anywhere on its body. It had to be entirely "without blemish." When it was selected for the Yom Kippurim sacrifice it was led out of the city of Jerusalem (in Herodian times it was led through the eastern Gate and across the Kedron [alt., Kidron] Valley via a double tiered arch bridge and up to the heights of Mt Olivet) where the Miphkad Altar was located and there it was killed and its corpse burnt to ashes. The ashes were then taken up and spread out onto the flowing spring waters at the base of the Altar. The ashes would then descend through a conduit water system into the Kedron Valley below. All the inhabitants of Jerusalem would drink of that water containing the ashes of the burnt heifer.

Intriguingly, on the Day of Atonements (Lev 16.27ff) ALL animals sacrificed had to be slaughtered in the Jerusalem Temple at the Altar of Burnt Offering and then their corpses were taken out of the eastern gate to the Miphkad Altar on Mt Olivet and there burnt to ashes (see Lev 4). The Red Heifer was the exception to the rule. It had to be slaughtered "outside the camp" where criminals would be executed by stoning.

In analysing the Torah requirements involving the sacrifice of a suitable red heifer there is an amazing paradox. Those who are involved in the preparation of the ashes of the heifer become ritually impure while the sprinkling of water with those same ashes removes contamination! In other words, the ashes of the red heifer defile that which is pure, and purify that which is defiled. Recall the great truth that if it were not for sin there would be a complete absence of salvation. Yeshua IS our Red Heifer.

Yeshua is our Atonement and he fulfilled the ceremonies that were kept on this day to the exact letter, including being led like the red heifer across the Kedron and up to the Mount of Olives where he, again like the red heifer, was sacrificed (Heb 13.10-13). Recall, too, that when he was being tortured the Romans wrapped Yeshua in a cloak of scarlet and he probably was wearing this cloak or tunic on his way to the Miphkad Altar.

Furthermore, the Rabbinic sage Maimonides expressly stated that there have been only nine red heifers used in sacrificial ceremonies at the Miphkad Altar on the Mount of Olives on Yom Kippurim since the beginning of the Tabernacle up until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. When the tenth red heifer arrives the Messiah will come. The countdown to that event is well and truly on.

But the point I am making here is essentially that God uses the red heifer to illustrate or demonstrate the idea of transmogrification , to be transformed in a remarkably surprising or magical manner.

ROMANS 3: THE INDICTMENT
There are 14 counts in this indictment.

1.   "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom 3.10)

2.   "There is none that understands" (Rom 3.11)

3.   "There is none that seeks after God" (Rom 3.11)

4.   "They are all gone out of the way" (Rom 3.12)

5.   "They are together become unprofitable" (3.12). I must comment here for the Greek intends "to make useless, to render unserviceable." Taken back into Hebrew and thence into English we have "to go bad, like sour milk."

6.   "There is none that does good, no, not one" (3.12). "Good" here is chrestotes ,  "moral goodness, integrity, benignity, habitual kindness."

7.   "Their throat is an open sepulchre" (3.13). The sepulchre or grave is open. An exhumation is taking place with the result that the very air is filled with the worst odor of decay and rotting flesh. The full import of this, says Wuest, "can only be appreciated in hot climates like the Middle East."

8.   "With their tongues they have used deceit" (3.13)

9.   "The poison of asps is under their lips" (3.13). The asp here is the Egyptian cobra which possesses its deadly poison in a bag under its lips. Scholar Denney notes, "Wherever they go, you can trace them by the ruin and distress they leave behind" them. He adds, "It does not mean [that] they have failed to discover the way of salvation, but they tread continually in paths of violence."

10. "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness" (3.14)

11. "Their feet are swift to shed blood" (3.15)

12. "Destruction and misery are in their ways" (3.16)

13. "The way of peace they have not known" (3.17)

14. "There is no fear of God before their eyes (3.18).

Here we have a list of the perverse self-serving issues that predominate humanity, and brethren it predominates in Christian (Messianic) communities. All of these descriptions can be denominated in all our hearts at one time or another. Without Messiah we are well and truly lost. These aspects of carnal human nature as Paul has delineated and designated as 14 legal courtroom indictments were absorbed by Yeshua the Messiah, in dying for the sins of the world, as he took upon (and into) Himself on that terrible bloodied tree of Golgoleth all universal discordance. He did so to purify a rebellious humanity and to obtain a LEGAL JUSTIFICATION enabling humankind to stand RIGHT before the throne of God. But that Throne, while it is the Throne of JUDGMENT is very much the Throne of GRACE.

WE AND OUR SIN HAVE PERISHED
Let Barth and Kenneth Wuest conclude this lecture.

Wuest: "Our Lord cried... 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' The Greek word "forsaken' is a composite of three words, "to leave," "down," and "in." The first has the idea of forsaking one. The second suggests rejection, defeat, helplessness. The third refers to some place, or circumstance. The total meaning of the word is that of forsaking someone in a state of defeat or helplessness in the midst of hostile circumstances. The word means "to abandon, desert, to leave in straits, to leave helpless, to leave destitute, to leave in the lurch, to let one down." All these meanings were included in that awful cry that came from the lips of the Son of God as He was about to die for lost humanity... He was abandoned and deserted by God the Father, and for the reason that God "appointed Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor 5:21) [N.B., not merely "on" him]. A fellowship had been broken that had always existed, a fellowship that had continued all during our Lord's earthly life. But now the Father's smiling face was turned away. Understand the "how" of it we cannot. Feel the awfulness of it, we may not. Believe the fact of it, we must. Our Lord said His God had abandoned Him, deserted Him.

"No words came from the skies in answer to the prayer of our Lord. He answers it Himself in Psalm 22:3 when He says that God abandoned Him because He was holy, whereas the Son was laden with the sin of mankind. This unanswered prayer of our Lord was predicted in type in Leviticus 5:11, where an offerer too poor to bring two turtledoves or two pigeons for a sin-offering, could bring the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, just enough to bake one day's supply of bread, the giving up of the flour typifying the giving up of life, thus pointing to our Lord's death. But he was forbidden to include frankincense with the flour. Frankincense is a type of answered prayer. Flour without incense speaks of our Lord's death and His unanswered prayer... when He needed the help of the Holy Spirit most, in the moment of His direst need, the Holy Spirit left Him helpless, destitute. He left Him in the lurch. He let Him down in a set of circumstances that were antagonistic, frightful, terrible. He was abandoned by Heaven, spurned by earth, laden with man's sin, suffering the excruciating agony of crucifixion. He suffered all alone. The same sin offering that forbade the inclusion of frankincense, forbade the provision of oil. Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit. No oil in the flour, speaks of the withdrawal of the holy Spirit's sustaining presence at the cross. The Holy Spirit left our Lord. This fact will help us understand 1 Peter 3:18, where our Lord is spoken of as being put to death with respect to the flesh, but quickened or made alive with respect to the spirit, His human spirit, from which the Holy Spirit had departed when He left our Lord helpless on the cross. That is, our Lord died with respect to His human body, but in His human spirit, made alive again by the Holy Spirit after He had abandoned our Lord...

"Not only did God the Father... and the Holy Spirit abandon the Man Christ Jesus... but the Son now turns against Himself. It was as if a man of high ideals who had lived an exemplary life, should at its close be guilty of a loathsome deed. From the exalted position of his high idealism, he looks down upon himself, loathes and repudiates himself. Our Lord as the Son of God, holy, spotless, repudiated His own humanity now laden with sin not His own. "The moral sense of His own deity revolted against His own humanity as the representative of sin." Hear His own words, "But I am a worm" (Psalm 22:6). "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart fails me" (Psalm 40:12). In Him as He hung on the cross, was the fullness of Deity. That is the meaning of that terrible cry, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies From the Greek New Testament, Vol.3., 87-91).

Barth: "In Him our sin and we ourselves have perished. In Him we all start at the divine No which has been spoken with such power and carried through with such effect; it the liberation which is an accomplished fact in this No because it is spoken and carried through in Jesus Christ. This liberation which has taken place in Him is the presupposition of our future. And the freedom given to us by this No is our present. In Him our wrong and we ourselves as the doers of it are behind us. He has taken it away from us. He has taken us away from it. He has set aside and cancelled our existence as the doers of it... In Jesus Christ, the very man which as such is the eternal Son of the eternal Father, this future man, the new and righteous man, lives in an unassailable reality. In Him I am already the one who will be this righteous man and live as such, just as in Him I am still only the unrighteous man, to the extent that I was once this man.  In this positive sense, Jesus Christ lives in our place, for us, in our name. As our wrong and death are our past in His name, in Him, so our righteousness and life are our future" (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/I, 553f; 555).

Christ has become us and we have become , in Him , Christ.

We are now prepared for our next step of enlightenment on this journey of progress through Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 18

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