Scripture Reflections

“Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Romans 7:16-20

These words from Paul to the church in Rome, describing our condition apart from the work of Christ, ring true to us: this is our experience. But Christ has now saved us from our bodies of death, thanks be to God!

In the book of Joshua the Israelites enter the Promised Land, Canaan, returning from generations of slavery to the land where their fathers had lived and received God’s promise. Jacob’s family had gone down to Egypt as seventy people (Gen. 46:27), and the Lord brought them out again 430 years later “by their hosts” (Ex. 12:51). As the book of Joshua begins, these hosts of Israel (after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness) cross the river Jordan on dry ground even as their fathers had been brought out of Egypt through the Red Sea. There in Canaan the Lord fights for Israel, defeating kings and hosts of armies before them in amazing ways—throwing hail stones on them, keeping the sun from setting that they might not flee into darkness, causing them to kill one another in their terror. But when Joshua is old the Lord says to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess” (Josh. 13:1). The Lord names all the land and their yet-undefeated inhabitants, and promises his help to the following generations: “I myself will drive them out from before the people of Israel.”

Our hearts resemble the land of Canaan, don’t they? Our God has broken the power of sin and death—not only in this world but in my heart, in yours! He has buried us with Christ in our baptism that he might also raise us with him “through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). Our enemies are defeated; like the tribes living in Canaan they cower before our God. The powers and principalities of this world know that their Conqueror has come. And yet, there remains “very much more land to possess.” Bringing our hearts more and more fully into submission to our King is our daily task, made possible only by looking to our Lord and asking him to fight for us—the very thing he is eager to do! As Paul reminds us a little earlier in Romans (6:4), “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” We have been set free by Christ’s work on our behalf to walk in new ways! The old ways have power over us only as we give it to them, paying allegiance to sin rather than to our King. Against the evil inclinations of our hearts we wield “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:17-18).

Moment by moment, as required by people who are still inclined to live as if we were dead, who still have darkness lingering in our hearts, let us remind and charge ourselves with Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Our God, like a refiner’s fire, will burn away the death in us; Our Lord and Savior, like the noonday sun, will scatter away all the darkness in us. We have only to lift our heads and open our hands. And being inclined to turn away, we must lift our heads and open our hands again, and again, and again. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!