by Elizabeth | Jan 20, 2010 | Learning Story
“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Romans 8:10
The verse got my attention. But what really got my attention was Martin Lloyd-Jones’ commentary on the verse, quoted in Stott’s commentary on Romans:
“The moment we enter into this world and begin to live, we also begin to die. Your first breath is one of the last you will ever take!…the principle of decay, leading to death, is in every one of us.”
Now, wait a minute. Don’t pick up the phone and call that mom or dad of a newborn and say something like, “You know your baby is dying. You know that great first breath she took — it’s one of her last!” That’s not quite M.Lloyd-Jones’ point. The point is that because of Adam’s sin, our bodies are mortal. But the greater point of verse 10 is that we who are in Christ are ALIVE because of righteousness. We are so alive. So very alive.
And the other good news — our dying and decaying bodies are destined for glory — for resurrection! Stott says, “This does not mean that our dead bodies will be revivified or resuscitated, and so restored to their present material existence, only to die again. No, resurrection includes transformation, the raising and chaning of our body into a new and glorious vehicle of our personality, and its liberation from all frailty, disease, pain, decay, and death. It is ‘not that the spirit is to be freed from the body — as many, under the influence of the Greek way of thinking, have held — but rather the Spirit will give life to the body.”
For further consideration:
What difference does it make to know that while your body is dying, you are made alive by the Spirit?
What difference does it make to know that your body is destined for resurrection, to be “a new and glorious vehicle of our personality’?
by Elizabeth | Jul 23, 2009 | Learning Story
July 23, 2009
John Stott: The Contemporary Christian
On Vocation
“The whole of our life belongs to God and is part of his calling, both before conversion and outside religion. We must not imagine that God first became interested in us when we were converted, or that now he is interested only in the religious bits of our lives.”
“God’s sovereignty extends over both halves of our life. He did not begin to work in and for us at our conversion, but at our birth, even before our birth in our genetic inheritance, as later in our temperament, personality, education and skills. And what God made us and gave us before we became Christians, he redeems, sanctifies, and transforms afterwards. There is a vital continuity between our pre-and post-conversion life. For although we are a new person in Christ, we are still the same person we were by creation, whom Christ has made new.”
on Ministry
“It seems to me fully compatible with our Christian doctrines of creation and redemption that we should talk to ourselves somewhat as follows: ‘I am a unique person. (That is not conceit. It is a fact….My uniqueness is due to my genetic endowment, my inherited personality and talents, inclinations and interests, my new birth and spiritual gifts. By the grace of God I am who I am. How then can I, as the unique person God has made me, be stretched in the service of Christ and of people, so that nothing he has given me is wasted, and everything he has given me is used?”
To ponder: What are your genetic inheritance, temperament, personality, education, and skills? Think about the “vital continuity” between your pre- and post- conversion life? Into what cultural spheres does that take you? How can you live as a “redeemed redeemer” in that sphere, using all that God created and redeemed you to be?
