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Paul started out in Romans 1 describing one group who openly turn away from God resulting in deeper and grosser open sin being demonstrated in their lives as a result. Then he goes on to describe the second group in Romans 2 who look down their noses at the open sinners and judge them as worthy of God's wrath and punishment while they work very hard to be righteous and good. Paul does not cut them any slack but exposes them as just as much trapped in sin as the ones they piously look down upon. Instead of condoning and giving credit to them for being better people than the open sinners, God magnifies His law and the impossibly stringent requirements to become perfect like Him. In so doing, the awareness of our sinful condition becomes even more obvious. “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase...”
Paul destroys all illusions of being saved by trying to be a good person and comparing ourselves with worse sinners to see how we are making progress. The main difference between the two groups internally is that the first group knows they are sinners and don't even try to get out of their situation while the second group desperately work to please or appease God and make strenuous attempts to force themselves to keep the requirements of God. These are the only two possibilities that exist for any human being born on this planet due to the condition brought about by Adam and Eve's choice in the Garden.
When God shows up in Jesus He does not compliment anyone on their achievements as the second group is hoping for but He magnifies their hopeless condition in order to get them to despair and give up on their own plan for improving their condition. He applies shock treatment to their situation to get them to realize that in reality they are no closer to really being righteous than the open, flagrant sinners that they judge and condemn. He does this so that everyone from both groups will come to see the incredible solution He has provided in Jesus Christ as our new ancestor Who brings a new element of grace into the situation. He introduces the life-changing power of overwhelming grace, a word that describes the mysterious feeling in our heart when we begin to comprehend that almost everything we thought about God has been a lie and that God is exponentially better than we ever dared to hope or believe.
That realization brings us to a crisis of identity. Since all of us have perceived our value based on our performance or the value (or devaluing) messages received from those around us all of our life, we usually find it very difficult to accept God's communications about what He really thinks of us. Satan has accomplished a very effective work of thoroughly saturating us with lies, both about ourselves and about God, that has left us hopelessly incapable of living in the fiery presence of a God of infinite love, passion, full of absolute purity and justice. We are infected with a very real “demonic organism” that Paul sometimes refers to as “the flesh” or “our old self” etc. that hijacks our bodies and minds and keeps us enslaved. The only way out of our predicament is to die to the very thing that has defined our identity all of our life – a very terrifying proposition at the least.
The whole book of Romans is addressing this very situation using various angles and metaphors and stories to illustrate what needs to happen in our hearts and minds to bring us into proper relationship with God so we can live in His presence as we were originally designed and intended to do. It really doesn't matter whether we are coming from one group or the other, we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – the very thing that brought Jesus back from the dead. So what are the incentives H uses to get us to move in that direction?
Well, since many of us have grown up only knowing fear as the mainspring of our existence and are mostly unacquainted with love, God has to resort to using that language of fear to get us started moving in His direction for awhile. He does this, not because He wants us to live in fear all of our lives or serve Him from fear, but because at first it is the only language that we can understand and the only message we will respond to. God has to use what we can relate to to lead us to a place where we will adopt the only really effective motivation in relationship with Him – love. In fact, as long as we hang on to fear as a motivation for serving God we are still unfit to safely be exposed to His overwhelming passionate love in His undiluted glory. But at first He does use messages of warning and fear to get us to realize our danger of continuing on in our present condition, either in open rebellion and sin or as deceived religious people trying to impress God enough to save us.
The most difficult transition point between living in our original condition and living a life in Christ is this requirement of death. We are naturally afraid of death in all of its aspects to some degree or another. Death is not just the loss of our physical body's life, it is losing our identity, our control over ourself and our existence and surroundings. It is losing control of our rights and privileges and advantages. Death is an end to life as we know it to be with little assurance outside our intellectual beliefs that there is anything else. Death is the ultimate weapon and threat used by fear to dominate, control and manipulate all of our lives. And yet Paul calls us to come and die if we ever want to experience the power of the resurrection of Christ in our life. It feels insane but there is no other alternative if we believe the Word of God.
To make things seem even worse, Paul says that we end up dying over and over again. He talks a great deal in Romans and his other letters about this issue of dying to sin and to ourself if we want to experience the power of God in our life. It is not a one-time choice that we can get through and then move on to a wonderful life; it is a continual fight that feels like we are fighting in the wrong direction – against ourselves instead of defending ourselves.
But die we must if we are ever to experience with Christ the resurrection-power of the glory of the Father. In fact, everyone must die sooner or later – there is no other alternative. Those who try to hang on to life now will be unprepared for the final exposition of the unveiled glory of God in the day of Judgment (Revealing). Those who surrender to die now as painful as that may be, will become literally part of the body of Christ which fits and empowers them to not just survive in the presence of the Almighty but will literally participate in the display of His glory before all of the amazed universe.
It is now that we live in the most critical time of our lives, the time called probation when, protected by a shield of grace, we are allowed to choose which way we will decide before our destiny is forever sealed and we are locked forever in the results of our present choices. We seldom think about our current life in these terms but it makes it no less true just because we fail to remain aware of the intensity of the time in which we live. “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)
God, I am far too resistant and fearful of Your call for me to come and die. I ask You to transform my life through the renewing of my mind and heart and draw me to Yourself, remove my fear and fill me with real truth about You to melt away all my reservations. Implant in me a daily willingness to die so that Jesus can be resurrected in my life and that my spirit may come alive and display Your glory. I am still learning about these things but I want to experience them as well as learn them. Help me to fully identify with the death of Jesus my Savior so that Your glory will cause me to also fully be identified with His resurrection life. All of this is only so that Your glory can be more fully displayed and Your name more fully honored.
