Prepositional Salvation and Imitative Growth

As I read through Romans 5 and 6 the thought occurs to me that maybe Paul's presentation of salvation here could be called “prepositional salvation”, because the way he presents it is so linked to the preposition “through”. The word “through” denotes movement. I think of the analogy taught us in grade school to understand what constituted a preposition – anything a plane can do to a cloud. Our lives are in constant movement – that is implicit in the very idea of being alive. Our cells are growing, our heart is beating and circulating blood, our thoughts are active, our spirit is stirring and our emotions move from one to another.

In all of this movement the decisions that are made, the choices as to where we will move next in every arena of our life determine the shape of our future character and personality and the identity that we are taking upon ourselves. We cannot escape the beginning fact that we have unavoidably been shaped through our history, both in being a part of humanity and in our own personal history, by sin and its death-producing effects on us. But while we cannot literally change the facts of our history, we can become free from the strangling, controlling effects of it by allowing God to bring healing and truth and new perspective to our interpretations of it at our heart level.

Sin by definition is transgression of the law (the likeness of God Who is the model we were designed after). That means that we are moving crosswise to what God is like and to our original design, cutting across the principles of reality, contrary to how we were designed to live which produces resistance to God's Spirit and conflict in all areas of our life.

• Sin entered the world through one man, Adam. (5:12)

• Through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners. (5:19)

• Death entered through sin and spread to all humanity, regardless of whether their sin was just like Adam's or not. (5:12)

• Judgment arose through the one who sinned and resulted in condemnation which all of us experience as a consequence of sin. (5:16)

• Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. (5:18)

• Death reigned (and all of its related emotions) through the one. (5:17)

So far we have a hopelessly bleak picture of our situation with no promise of improvement or help. But God, who is rich in mercy and love, will not allow us to remain trapped under our slavery to the cruel slavemaster of death. So He brought His own Son to the situation through whom He created this “prepositional salvation” to bring us hope and deliverance and life.

• While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. (5:10,11)

• Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. (5:9)

• Through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. (5:18)

• Through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (5:19)

• We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (5:1)

• We have obtained our introduction by faith through Jesus Christ into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.

• The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (5:5)

• We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (5:11)

• The free gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. (5:16,17)

• Grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (5:21)

These are the two options that we have in the movement of our life. The direction of our movement is decided by our power of choice and determines which end we experience, eternal death or eternal, abundant life. These chapters (Romans 5 & 6) also describe the activity of this power of choice and how we can relate to the redemption provided for us by God. We can choose to accept or reject the salvation provided for us.

These are the elements that we have the option to choose if we want life:

• If we choose to accept having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. (5:9)

• God has provided the reconciliation, but we must choose to accept it. When we do, we have been reconciled and shall be saved by His life. (5:10)

• When we choose to accept this free gift from God we will choose to be baptized into Jesus' death – we have been buried with Him through baptism into death. (6:4)

• Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (6:6,7)

• As Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (6:4)

• If we have chosen to become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, (6:5)

• Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (6:11)

Paul then gets to the core of the issue of choice. He explains the unavoidable principle of ownership under which we all live whether we want to believe it or not. We cannot escape our condition of being owned as slaves – we can blame Adam for that, but in redemption God has provided an amazing option for us – we can choose to become “slaves” of the Author of freedom. By willingly becoming a slave Himself and receiving the consequences of sin that we should experience, He has provided an option for us to become slaves of God, the very Source of love and freedom and the original Model upon which we were designed.

The way that I choose which owner will control my life and my destiny is by the act and choice of presenting myself to that owner/power. “When you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.” (6:16) There simply is no other option. I will choose to do one or the other every day and the results will become evident in my life – that is inherent in the condition of being a human being.

This choice is much more than simply an intellectual assent to an idea or a subscription to a set of beliefs or a creed. Those are not the choices Paul is talking about at all here. That is from the distorted teachings of “religion” and the ideas of man-made spirituality. Paul is talking about the choices we make from our deepest soul at the heart level. He is talking about obedience from the heart. (6:17)

This brought me to a verse that I have had marked with a question mark for some time now and this morning I decided to investigate it more thoroughly to uncover the real meaning that has been eluding me for so long. The verse says “you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed...” I have heard some expostulations on this phrase “form of teaching”, but I was not at all comfortable with the ideas that were being reinforced by their arguments. It seemed to me more of an excuse for supporting one style of belief or one denomination or ministry in opposition to another. But these ideas do not seem consistent with the flavor of the gospel that I have been tasting through my study of these passages. So I decided to check out the original words and see what the real meaning was behind them to see if that might shed light on what Paul was really trying to convey instead of just looking at the surface meaning of the English words chosen by some translators.

What I found confirmed my suspicions and brought me encouragement and enlightenment. It also resonated with what I have been learning about how the brain works and especially how our right brain learns.

I have come to believe that our right brain is the primary seat of what the Bible refers to as our heart (although new research is finding that our literal, physical heart also may be very involved in these feelings, emotions and thoughts more than we ever thought possible). Our right brain does not learn from language and words but primarily by imitation, by observing others behavior and spirit in various circumstances and then copying that when we find ourselves in similar circumstances. This is almost exclusively how very young children learn about life and perceive their identity.

The original words translated as “form of teaching” or “doctrine” convey the idea of imitating a model, a demonstration of what someone “looks like”. The word “form” in the Greek is “tupos” which has the following definition from Strong's dictionary: “a die (as struck), i.e. (by implication) a stamp or scar; by analogy, a shape, i.e. a statue, (figuratively) style or resemblance; specially, a sampler ("type"), i.e. a model (for imitation) or instance (for warning):--en-(ex-)ample, fashion, figure, form, manner, pattern, print.” The root word behind this word injects the idea of repetition as well.

The Greek word translated into “teaching” or “doctrine” is the word “didache” which means “instruction (the act or the matter)”. Because Paul specifically is talking about obedience from the “heart”, the primary focus and method of this teaching would be necessarily that of example more than just intellectual instruction since the right brain cannot comprehend language-based information. Example for imitation is the only method that is truly effective in maturing people in real growth. It happens when they learn truth not just verbally, but primarily watch it lived out in the life of others who demonstrate in daily life and sometimes under intense circumstances what it looks like to live as a mature person who is truly alive and thriving. The obedience based on grace and from the heart is something we must learn by imitation much more than by instruction.

So what I see as a better interpretation of this phrase is, “you became obedient from the heart by choosing to imitate what was repeatedly modeled to you in our lives that correlated to the things we were teaching you.” That, to me, is a much more consistent understanding of this verse that fits perfectly with the context of everything else that I am finding through the intense study of these chapters that I have been enjoying over the past few months. It also highlights the great need we have for real community where those who want to grow in truth and grace have access to observe and live in close connection with those who are more mature and know how to really live from their hearts with joy. I know I certainly need that kind of mentoring and have desired it for many years. I am still praying for God to assemble more of these kind of relationships in my life.

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