Romans 29: He Died FOR Me -- I Died WITH Him

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (29)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

HE DIED FOR ME -- I DIED WITH HIM

Copyright © BRI 2017 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance. Austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time" -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The fall of dropping water wears away the stone" -- Lucretius

"Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair" -- Edmund Burke, British statesman

There is an answer to sin and the "besetting sin." "Besetting sins" can include drugs, alcoholism, temper tantrums, a spirit of control or any other addiction. Paul spells it out in a crystal clear, candid way. It is in fact THE ONLY ANSWER to sin. Few Christians are aware of the impact of a threefold strategy that eliminates sin, albeit gradually.

What is the answer to sin in the Christian life?

Some religious simpletons trying to be pseudo-intellectuals have said "The answer to sin is STOP. DON'T sin!" But how do we apply such a suggestion? Especially when some sins are troublesome compulsive transgressions? All of us have to come to a realisation that none of us who name the Name of Christ are in any way, shape or form "without sin." And none of us are really "dead to sin." To think otherwise is the height (or perhaps the depth) of a personal delusion. Romans 6.2 in the AV states that we Christians are "dead to sin." This is the direct opposite to that which appears in the Greek original. We have found that it is a woeful mistranslation as well as an espousal that is a theological vagrancy.

We have rather established that we have "died to sin" when we were crucified with Christ on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth 2000 years ago in an orchard on the Mount Olivet. How appropriate that our physical Federal Head of the human race, Adam, fell into transgression and death in a garden by embracing a forbidden tree finding himself lost in a new world of duality, of opposites -- and Yeshua brought into existence a new aeon of salvation and everlasting Life nailed to a tree which embraced him in another garden setting. We died with the Messiah and in his resurrection we discovered God's Salvific will impressed on, and in, each of us.

What do we know about sin? We know that sin involves at least two cardinal points. One has to do with the breaking of any of the commandments of the living God scarring our lives in ill repute as far as God's expectations of us are regarded (1 Jn 3.4) and the other has to do with a deficiency of faith which leads to a mammoth lack of even normal confidence and ushers in one tragic event following in the wake of another (Rom 14.21-23; Heb 11.6). Our days are then largely dominated by aggravating tensions, and we find ourselves victimised by uptightness.

THE HIDDEN REALITY BEHIND THE 23RD PSALM OF DAVID
The human condition is such a gruesome earthy reality that we need to become awash with the living sentiments of the 23rd Psalm of David. We need to reprogram our intellects and to construct new neural pathways in our brain by whatever tools we have at our disposal to accomplish this goal. Yes, even to utilise the principles of auto-suggestion if necessary in order to refurnish our minds with the natural and supernatural thoughts of Yeshua the Messiah, Our Lord and Saviour.

And isn't this precisely on what Paul the Jewish Christian Rabbi insisted? He had written,

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Messiah Yeshua" (Phil 2.5).

Again, "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2.16).

And again, "Finally brethren, focus your thoughts on whatever is true and good and right. Yes, focus -- think on and meditate about those issues that are pure and lovely, and dwell upon the acceptable, the beautiful and the good things in others. Give thought only concerning those things for which you can praise God and about which we can all be positive" (Phil 4.8 Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

Further, "Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph 4.24).

Moreover, "(You Colossian Christians) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Col 3.10).

Paul taught, truthfully, that genuine spiritual conversion involves a radical change in our lifestyles -- and in our thinking patterns -- with our hands no longer doing what we used to do, and our feet no longer walking where we wanted to walk, and our tongues no longer speaking those things that we ought never to have thought about in the first place. Indeed, Paul made it abundantly clear that we all need to reassess our attitudes toward sin. There has to have been a primary shift in the inner motivations of the human heart.

All humankind is to be judged by the living, loving God. God first judges US in this our last life on earth if we are a part of those who constitute "firstfruits." Peter made it clear as well. "Judgment must begin at the House of God" he said (1 Pet 4.17).

And HOW does God judge us? Does He look at our actions and judge us for them, as do our fellow human beings who are quick to point out our considerable miserable failings and sins, faults, emotional inconsistencies and apparent transgressions?

No, decidedly not.

It is written in 1 Samuel 16.7 that "man looks at the outward appearance -- but the LORD looks at the heart." From heaven's testimony God makes His judgments based firmly (and lovingly as well) on the INNER motives, desires, subconscious and even unconscious yetzer hara.

Concerning the God who became Man Matthew Levi has written "And knowing their thoughts, Yeshua said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?..." (Mt 9.4).

Consider these biblical axioms:

"Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD. How much more the hearts of men?" (Prov 15.11 Incidentally, Abaddon (avad'don) is the realm of destruction as a lower compartment of Sheol (some rabbis would argue for a deep level of Gehenna). The JW's speak of Christ as Abaddon which reveals an utterly perverted understanding of biblical matters.

"And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the holy Spirit, just as He also did to us" (Acts 15.8).

"But he knew their thoughts and said to them...." (Lk 11.17).

Luke adds "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God" (Lk 16.15).

"Yet, O Master of Legions, You who test the righteous, Who see the mind and the heart; Let me see Your vengeance on them; For to You I have set forth my cause" (Jer 20.12).

"Immediately Yeshua, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?" (Mk 2.8).

In order to be blessed by heaven with the Mind of the Mashiach one must first (of course) be converted by the Ruach HaKodesh. Justification by the Faith of Christ is the first step in that conversion process. We then activate that Faith and God's Spirit consequently begets us. But this is all based on knowledge. This is principally what we covered in our last lecture. I noted, quoting lecturer Alva McClain:

KNOW
"First, WE MUST KNOW. "Know you not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death" (6:3-4). The article the is before the word death in the original Greek. It is "the death," not a death of our own. It is the death of the Son of God. "That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted [bodily united] together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection" (6:4-5).

"If we are to know victory over sin in our lives, we must first of all know that we died with Christ on the cross. When he died, we died; when he was buried, we were buried (in the mind of God). This passage does not discuss water baptism... Paul is talking about the spiritual reality: when Christ died, we died; and when we believe, he baptises us by the operation of the Spirit of God immersing us into the body of Christ."

But then we must program our minds to accept the fact that we must "RECKON." Unless we learn to "reckon" or "consider" as Paul states, we cannot (in such a process) be led to "YIELD" to the leading of the holy Spirit (Eph 4.30) granting to that Spirit of God (in our newly found free will which has come to us by uniting with the Ruach HaKodesh) an allowance to be transformed in the renewal of our mind (Rom 12.1,2).

A TRAUMATIC INCIDENT
When I was about fifteen, I came home from High School at the usual time only to find two of my older sisters weeping in grief. They immediately transferred their negativity on me attempting to "calm" me down -- but I was calm, even in viewing their distress. I was simply stunned with a profound sense of dissociation. I felt nothing at all. It was always my way of coping with discomfort and impending negative situations. And, in any case, nobody had communicated anything about what had transpired to bring on such crying and upset. Then they told me.

Dad had been electrocuted at work with 11,000 volts of electricity! A live wire had hit the jib of his nearby crane and Dad was outside his cabin -- he was a highly proficient crane driver and was often to be located atop massive building complexes and always on standby for peculiar and difficult assignments. In his life he had held 14 tickets of qualification in the building industry. Now I learned that his body had been thrown up into the sky about 90 feet and had landed approximately 120 feet west onto a large pile of timber breaking his fall and cracking open a great crevice in that hold of timber. He was burnt to a crisp, his entire body blackened and smoking. An extensive area of three suburbs -- much of Bexley North, Kingsgrove and part of Beverly Hills -- had succumbed to the consequential electricity blackout and ambulance attendees gave him little chance of survival. The only adornment left on his body were the rubber soles of his tennis shoes that were melted into his feet.

We were at his hospital bedside when the doctor on duty became alerted to the fact that he was trying to speak. He leaned over my father, his ear near to his burnt lips and listened intently. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "He's reciting the 23rd Psalm!" But Dad, he hurriedly assured us, was unconscious. I realised at that time the power of the spirit in man. Dad's formidable will had used his crushed mouth as its instrument revealing through his agnosticism a very deep-seated heart of faith. That was way back in (I think around) 1959 or 1960... (thereabouts anyway) and Dad lived well into his early 80s. He never thereafter had to resort to winding his watch. It worked well by itself feeding in some way off his own electrical circuits until he died, when it abruptly stopped when his heart finally gave out. I still have that watch and the recorded time of his death.

I would like to share with my students and others of faith a different translation of the 23rd Psalm because from my point of view it is so important to inculcate the THOUGHTS expressed in this particular version of it.

Putting the mind firstly at rest brings about a conducive mental environment in which proper thoughts can be induced to both germinate and flow. In such a meditative "rest" -- this perfect "Sabbath" of Stillness of the first creation account (Genesis 1.1-2.4) in which ALL was complete and perfect -- we occasion Silence: and this Silence contains ALLNESS in which enmity and opposition (located in the illusory realm of dualism) dissolve. It was Thomas Carlyle who said, "Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together." He might well have been paraphrasing Romans 8.28.

"The Lord is my Pace-setter, I shall not rush;
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals,
He provides me with images of stillness,
which restore my serenity.
He leads me in the ways of efficiency through
calmness of mind,
And His guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things
to accomplish each day,
I will not fret for His presence is here,
His timelessness, His all importance, will
keep me in balance.
He prepares refreshment and renewal in
the midst of my activity
By anointing my mind with His oils of tranquillity.
My cup of joyous energy overflows,
Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be
the fruits of my hours,
For I shall walk, in the pace of my Lord
and dwell in His house forever."

- A translation of the Japanese version by Toki Miyashina from Psalm 23: Several Versions Collected by K.H. Strange (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press).

Now I must ask a question. Having read that version of David, the Shepherd King's Psalm 23, how do you measure up against its sentiments? I cannot speak for you, but I fall extremely short of its inherent expectations and standards of right thinking. In other words, I have seen evidence of my stark arrant sinfulness staring me aggressively in the face.

WHEN THE RUACH HAKODESH ENTERS
There is something that occurs at our conversion which creates a sudden shift in the electromagnetic field in which we live and love and move and have our being. When the SPIRIT of God unites with the spirit in our human field of radiating consciousness -- in other words in our Spirit Man Within -- the MIND OF GOD (to whatever degree) MERGES with who and what we are at that time and we become a "new creature" and a "new creation." We become a literal Child of the living God, a new man, a new woman, in whom old things have passed away, all things have become new and vital. We inherit God's characteristics in miniscule form and vibrant creative vibrational protential.

Recall that the proclivities or fruits of the holy Spirit of God are GOD'S ATTRIBUTES (Gal 5.22,23) -- properties of God's very own NATURE --  which Deity then shares with us in order for us as converted individuals, newly begotten fetuses, to engage in a process of transformation and we slowly, definitively, and progressively grow into GODHEAD, into DEITY. And, I might also add, we continue that ongoing process throughout our lives until we finally and ultimately glow with the GLORY OF THE LORD (2 Cor 3.18).

From conversion to our ultimate "change" we grow into GOD'S VERY OWN CONSCIOUSNESS and form as one Being, ONE BODY, with His Divine Consciousness. That my students is what constitutes God's SALVATION.

But usually upon conversion our sensual, animal nature then rebels -- it resists and attempts to jettison this new SPIRIT which is merging with our own spirit. Just as Israel was liberated from Egypt and was immediately pursued by the armed might of the Egyptians, so it is that when we are first converted we are chased by the demonic realm in hot pursuit and those powerful forces of evil will titillate our weaknesses or encourage our carnal, lower, lustful, narcissistic OPPOSER lurking deep within our subconscious mind to rise up in CONFLICT. Else they will gather outside forces, family, friends or associates to try to get us OFF The Way by "hook or by crook."

Make no mistake! The Dark Lord wants us dead!

RECKON, CONSIDER
We saw in our last lecture that our old self was crucified with Our Lord Yeshua on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth. When he died, we died. When? Back then, in 30 CE. And when he was resurrected we were resurrected to ETERNAL LIFE with Him (Rom 6.4). This is why Yeshua promised that for those who believe in him, they would never see death (Jn 8.51; 5.24).

Paul has written, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must reckon yourselves [or, better, consider yourselves] dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Messiah Yeshua" (Rom 6.6-11).

Alva McClain writes, "We are to know this truth and then continually, second by second, moment by moment, hour after hour, day after day, we are to reckon it to be so! Don't ever lose sight of it. Don't doubt it! Don't let the devil say, 'You did not die back there.' You did die -- you were buried with Him, raised with Him. That is the secret of a holy life. God declares it so, now reckon it to be so" (Romans, op.cit., 145 emphasis mine).

Dr Des Ford would say (and did say) "God counts that your old nature died with Jesus Christ at Calvary. You are to count as God counts. You are to reckon as God reckons. You are to impute as God imputes. Remember whatever gets your attention, gets you" (Right With God Right Now, 1999, 96).

Ford adds, "If what gets your attention is that you indeed died with Jesus Christ, when the devil comes and says, 'Do this,' you say, 'Sorry I can't. I'm dead.' You don't kick a dead dog. Even the devil will go away eventually. When temptation comes, you must do what God does. God reckons you dead, so you reckon you're dead.

"You say, 'Yes, there was a time when I loved to do that. But I died with Jesus. When I was [first converted], I signified that I accept my incorporation with him on the cross (Romans 6:4-5). The hands that did those things have been crucified. The feet that walked to those places have been nailed to the cross. The head that thought those thoughts has received the crown of thorns. I reckon myself dead unto all that. It is so if you will believe it" (ibid, 96,97 emphasis Ford's).

Yes, it is so IF we will but believe it. Belief is an extraordinarily powerful force. Norman Vincent Peale has always said that if we send out positive mental belief thoughts they will strongly tend to bring back belief results.

And if we find we cannot come to terms with Paul's assessment that we died 2000 years in the past with the Messiah, and therefore have died to sin? What then? My view is to go to God and pray about the state of our carnal mind. And, what is prayer but a form of THOUGHT TRANSMISSION -- a direct line for our consciousness to link into the divine Consciousness of Infinite Intelligence. When we do this EXPECT GOD TO ANSWER. God has always delighted in HisHer children seeking out Deity and talking to the Creator. Ever since the first humans walked on earth God has desired communication with us. The holy Bible is a source book of little more than a historical record of the communication of God to humankind, yet very few people on this planet seek to know this loving understanding God.

The 23rd Psalm of David has immense therapeutic value when it is memorised, just as my own father found out. It was on his unconscious mind when he lay dying in that hospital bed. Months later he had his skin back and his hair had grown once more and he looked very normal indeed. One author has written, concerning the committal to memory of this particular Psalm, "I believe that anyone who will commit it to memory and say it over and over again until it sinks into his deep unconscious can, in due course, find effective healing of any... condition. This is a remarkable therapy in words, especially in such words (as those expressed by King David). With this certain cure available, it is little less than pathetic to permit ourselves to be dominated by tension (and illness)."

This remains absolute when we commit to memory Scriptures that inform us that we have "died to sin" and that we have been "crucified with Christ." Furthermore, that we have a new Master --  the resurrected LORD Yeshua. We are swept away no longer according to the dictates of the carnal mind or "after the flesh," but "after the Spirit." And moreover, that we now are entirely activated "in newness of (resurrection) life."

We must recollect that we "died to sin" way back when Christ died. FIRSTLY we must know the forgiveness of the Gospel. Then SECONDLY we need to reckon or consider ourselves crucified back there in 30 CE with Yeshua the Messiah nailed to that tree with him. And we have to believe it for a fact. We have to accept it as a fact. We have to acknowledge it as a fact. We have to literally stop in ourselves -- STOP TRYING AND STRUGGLING TO BE "DEAD TO SIN," which is a blasphemy denying that we died in Christ back in 30 CE -- and in meditative Silence allow this Spirit-inspired thought to wash over and in us and to take deep root inwardly, in our subconscious and, if it wishes, to allow it surgical penetration even deeper into our unconscious. It would be well to remember, too, that our unconscious is not positioned in a state of individuation but it is indeed one with humankind's collective unconscious. You see, thoughts do have wings and the existence of the collective unconscious is evidence for this phenomenon.

This is why we can transfer our thoughts to someone close to us, and we can also receive a reciprocal acknowledgment without even first uttering an actual word to them. A few years ago I got the urge to phone a friend at an odd time at night. She responded with "Oh, thank you Les! I was wanting to contact you urgently and couldn't find your number and then the phone rang and it was you!!"

One of antisemitic Henry Ford's biographers Garet Garrett has written an article in Reader's Digest 50th Anniversary Treasury (1972) speaking of Ford's provocative genius and discussing his philosophical thoughts. He says, "I once asked Ford where ideas come from. There was something like a saucer on the desk in front of him. He flipped it upside down, tapped the bottom with his fingers and said: 'You know that atmospheric pressure is hitting this object at fourteen pounds per square inch. You can't see it or feel it, but you know it's happening. It's that way with ideas. The air is full of them. They are knocking you on the head. You only have to know what you want, then forget it and go about your business. Suddenly the idea you want will come through. It was there all the time.'"

I readily do admit, and this from painful experience, this imperative activity might take a considerable effort in the reprogramming of the mind through a systematic application of auto-suggestive memorisation to retrain the MIND before we can honestly confess to actually, finally believing it and speaking of the event as a VALID, TRUE and AUTHENTIC personal experience. It might depend upon long practice and determined cultivation. In other words, proficiency in this venture may not and usually cannot be arrived at easily, but it DOES come if subjected to perseverance or "stick-to-it-ive-ness."

We all ought to be encouraged by the fact that any human being can develop any desired thought pattern if he or she strongly wills it to be so and assiduously cultivates it.

But this is not all that was more than suggested by Paul the apostle when it comes to walking in newness of life, and recognising that we had "died to sin" with Christ (and remember too, that Yeshua also died to his sinful flesh. He was pure in all things, that is quite true. But he was born with a "body of sin" -- a sin-seeking flesh. How else could he be tempted as we are yet without sin? He wasn't acting when he was tempted of the devil. He wasn't pretending to be tempted, to be led off the path God had chosen for him. Yeshua was not a hypocrite. When he was tempted HE FELT IT DEEPLY and had to exert immense MENTAL and physical pressure to stay true to the expectations of God his Father.

Paul stated we have to do three things as converted human beings. ONE, we had to have knowledge... we had to KNOW. Then TWO, we had to RECKON or seriously CONSIDER our actual situation. Moving on we had to THREE, YIELD.

In what way are we to yield?

YIELD
When we were travelling through the south of Ireland, we had a hearty laugh at the traffic signposts on Irish intersections that were very different to those in Australia which stated "STOP" or "GIVE WAY." When I was much younger we "Strayans" had a sign at intersections that simple read "HALT." Because of the various ways we could translate the idea of "halt" or halting (and after a series of court cases challenging the definition) the Federal Government finally gave in to our more intelligent masses and surrendered the "HALT" signs completely. They were gone forever and replaced with a more forceful and abrupt sign that reads "STOP." But in Ireland we were confronted by -- to Glenys and I -- a humorous signpost demanding: "YIELD."

So taken in were we by this sign, Glenys got out of the hire-car and I photographed her laughing and pointing up to the sign with a hilarious grin across her lovely genetically Irish face.

Yield. What was Paul talking about in this instance? The Rabbi wrote,

"Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin" (Rom 6.13). But he also wrote, in the same breath: "Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (same verse).

This term translated as "instruments" is really a military term. It means "weapons."

What are these weapons that we possess and for which Paul gives us strict instructions concerning their utilisation and deployment?

Our weapons are our "members" -- our body parts that can be easily coerced by the inner carnal will to do wrong, inauspicious, inappropriate, and evil things to others (and to ourselves). I speak of our hands, feet, tongues, sexual organs. Writes McClain:

"'Now,' Paul says, 'don't take your weapons and give them to the enemy.' It would be foolish if a man should hand over his arms to his enemy. But that is exactly what happens... when a person takes the tongue, which ought to be used as a weapon of righteousness, and uses it to wound somebody.

"From the original Greek a thought unfolds out of this passage. It starts out with the words, "Neither yield," and the idea is a continuous yielding. "Do not yield all the time your members -- day after day, hour after hour -- giving up your weapons to sin, your enemy."

"The thought goes on to imply once for all yield; here it is a different sense. At one great crisis point in your life, once for all yield to God. The Christian ought to come to this place where he says, 'Lord, I yield once for all.'"

"And then he closes with a promise (Ro 6:14). If we know these things -- if we reckon these things to be so -- if we yield our members unto God -- then remember this: "Sin shall not have dominion over you" (Romans, op.cit., 146).

As Paul exerts himself in leading us from justification through to sanctification, being careful and cautious to differentiate them, in Romans 6 he stresses the fact that the law cannot break the power of sin. There is no power at all in the law, in the Torah of Moses. None. Zilch. Zero. ONLY THE GRACE OF GOD can break the power of sin. Only the GRACE OF GOD can enthuse and motivate us to invigorate our wills to direct them and enforce from them the desire to reject even "besetting sins." But we can only do this, achieve this, attain this, have success in this, IF WE STOP MENTALLY RESISTING -- being preoccupied with those sins.

Sin begins in the mind of man. Sin begins with thoughts.

You see, the more we focus on sin and whatever especial sin which continually wreaks havoc in our lives (and the lives of others affected by us), the STRONGER and more POWERFUL that sin becomes in our mind. The stronger it becomes the more we resist it. What we resist persists. It becomes HUGE, ENLARGED, impossible to overcome. It's stronger than we think at first because we have inadvertently given it the power it now possesses. Our Lord Yeshua made this entirely clear in his New Torah: "Resist not evil," he said (Mt 5.39).  

That is what modern psychiatrists are informing their patients: (1) stay in the moment, (2) breathe deeply, and (3) do not try to resist mental demands which afflict us. Rather crowd them out with better thoughts by concentrating on their inculcation. It's entirely about our focus.

The eastern church has a sustained view of the world which is that the universe is unfolding as it should. But the western church has emphasised the evil that exists around us -- with the expectation of spontaneous resistance -- and this concept has burrowed itself deep into our spiritual mindset in respect of human nature. Hence, the more we fight against life, the more life becomes difficult. We are living with daily abruptness and futility, in contrast to other religions (like Buddhism) in which people more than likely normally flow with life and the extremes it offers.

Paul is sharing with us in first century Jewish terminology both the need for personal awareness and personal acceptance of a great event that came to pass at Golgoleth when the Saviour was crucified. Paul expects us today to ACCEPT -- to YIELD -- to all that is summed up in the great statement of the Gospel i.e., "we are crucified with Christ" and that consequently we have risen to new resurrection life and we have a new master to whom we must yield in our faithful, appreciative, obedience. It is not an obedience focused on legislation at various levels, but rather a newly found richly alive faith-obedience.

As the late Jackie Kosednar (publisher of Alaska Wellness Magazine) has noted, concerning awareness and acceptance:

"Awareness and acceptance are the first key. Certainly, understanding the dynamic in the first place helps us to avoid struggle and frustration. When we're prepared to take on something new, with all its challenges, it will be much easier to handle. Expecting the backlash and jumping over the wave is easier than hitting it head on. We take two steps forward happily and when the one-step-back occurs, we accept it as the way things are and hold true to our course.

"Another key is to make sure we really want to do something. Desire is strong energy and can cut through resistance like a sharp knife. Motivation is everything in life. You can't even get out of bed without it! How much more motivated are we to get up in the morning when we know we're going to have a great day with something special about to happen? If we don't want to do something, however, our decision is weak. We may avoid it and put it off forever.

"When we really want a certain outcome, the Universe tends to honour our intention and get behind us. Making a firm decision does much to carry us forward. Just the act of choosing puts energy into forward motion. The stronger the decision, the more the Universe supports us and the less we experience that backlash. Conversely, the less certain you are, the greater the resistance will be" (quoted from The Law of Reverse Effect: The Harder You Try, The More Difficult Everything Becomes. https://www.themindfulword.org/2013/law-of-reverse-effect/).

Now of course, Ms Kosednar was not writing about the contents of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians but the principles she espoused in the above quotation apply very much to the content matter of Romans.

"Faith," I might finally remind our students, "comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God."  

I have written in other lectures that there are times when we need to simply SPEAK ALOUD from the mouth the requirements of God (and to do so often enough) to ensure a reprogramming or rewiring of our brains. From mouth eventually to heart, you see.

Our decision (and the expectation of God) to see ourselves transformed in character as the first step into a transformed physicality to SPIRIT requires at the least a transformational vocabulary that will by the decree of nature reconstruct brain patterns and bring about new neural pathways. Our very thoughts will be creating new brain cells, our genes will switch on and off and alter our brain anatomy. We will literally change our DNA.

We are getting ahead of ourselves a little. Paul in Romans 6 is shifting further from his doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone into the huge area of Christian living, into the realm of sanctification. Sanctification and justification are two sides of the one coin as I have taken pains in past lectures in this series to explain.

To conclude this particular lecture, I must quote Desmond Ford again. He sums up justification and sanctification beautifully.

Ford explains: "He died for me, that's justification. I died with him, that's what brings sanctification."

Easy, simple, straight forward, and CORRECT grasp of the biblical revelation.

In our following lecture we shall bring Romans 6 to a conclusion and reach into the next chapter which spells out in a drastic way the internal issues Paul faced in the admission of his psychological profile. These open confessions establish with a finality that we are not at this time "dead to sin" even though we do "walk in newness of life."

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 29

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