Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (July 12, Fr. Roberts)

A few verses before our reading this morning, Paul described a man at war with himself. Willing the good, but doing the very thing he hates. His struggle bottoms out in a cry: "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" And he answers his own question: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That is where we pick up. Paul now shows us not only who saves us but how. How this body of death has been saved.

As Fr. Zach mentioned last week, there is no shortage of opportunities to reflect on sin in the Epistle to the Romans. And it can be difficult to hear about it week after week. After all, we know ourselves to be sinners. We know ourselves to be imperfect. And I am sure we can all resonate with Paul when he cries, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" But here is where we should take a moment this week. To clarify something here that is important for understanding Paul's argument. That is, the word "of."

You have likely heard "body of death" and thought of decay. A body that is dying. True, as far as it goes. But Paul means more. We can see it by looking at how he uses the word "of" throughout his letter. Slaves of sin. Slaves of righteousness. Slaves of the one whom you obey. For Paul, "of" names a master. It tells you whose you are. So a body of death is not merely a body that will die. It is a body that belongs. A body under dominion. Whose? We were sold as slaves to sin. Sin rules us as Pharaoh ruled Israel in Egypt. So completely that we cannot escape. And the wages of sin is death. Death is the wage sin pays, and the whip it holds. That is a body of death. Owned by sin. Owed to death. This is why we cry for rescue.

Now, what is this master? What is sin? It is the creature turning from God. Seeking our own will instead of his, and so distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation. It is disobedience. It is transgression. But it is never a thing of its own. Every sin is a real act of a real will, bent away from its end. It adds nothing to the world. It only takes away. Sin is to the soul what blindness is to the eye. Blindness is not a thing in the eye. It is the sight, gone. It is us looking away. But God does not look away. He holds us in being even as we flee him. The absence is not in God. It is in us. Augustine confessed it: "You were with me, but I was not with you." So it was in Egypt. Israel cried under the whip, and God answered from the bush: "I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cry. I have come down to deliver them."

This is precisely the rescue achieved in Christ Jesus. We stood condemned, and death was the sentence. Even the law could not help us. It could name the good, but it could not free the slave. Yet we are no longer condemned, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free. How? God has done what the law could not do. "Sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh." The condemnation did not disappear. The sentence over us fell on sin instead. And it fell in the flesh of Christ, on the cross. Israel did not walk out of Egypt because Pharaoh softened his heart. They walked out through the blood of a lamb. That night God did not only spare Israel. He judged Egypt. "On all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments," he said. God broke every power that held his people. Pharaoh would not let go. He took his chariots and came after his slaves. God drowned him in the sea. Israel walked through on dry ground. 

The army behind them went in and never came out. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. In his flesh, sin was condemned, and the master’s ownership was broken.

And God did not free them and leave them. He moved into the middle of the camp and walked the whole way with them. His plan since the foundation of the world has been to tabernacle with his people. Paul says: "If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you."

This is what the Spirit's indwelling does. It carries the verdict of the cross into you. Sin was condemned in the flesh of Christ so that it could be driven out of yours. And in you, it is driven out by presence. God upheld you even in Egypt. Now he comes nearer. He comes to dwell. Sin hollowed you out. The Spirit fills the hollow. When the sun rises, the darkness does not fight back. Where the light falls, the darkness is simply not there anymore. Where God dwells, sin cannot reign. Our master has been changed. From sin to Christ. From death to life. God has made a home within you, and among you. Here, in you, it has begun.

But it does not always feel like it, does it? Our bodies still die. We are still tempted to sin. We still fail each other. How is this possible? Because we are out of Egypt, but we are not yet home. Paul says, "sin shall not have dominion over you." Dominion. Pharaoh's rule is broken. But Egypt's training is not yet out of us. Israel crossed the sea in a night. Then spent forty years unlearning the old country. Grumbling for its food. Reaching for its gods. 

The same is true of us. We crossed our sea at the font. And the old master could not follow us through the water. He drowned behind us. But the body still carries the old master's habits. And his last mark, which is death itself. Paul says both things at once: the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Both are true. In the same baptized person. The sun is up, but it is early. The shadows have not yet fled.

Under the old master, it was impossible not to sin. That is what slavery means. In the wilderness, with God in the camp, it is possible not to sin. That is what grace means. The chain is off. But being unable to sin is a different thing. That has a name: resurrection. The promised land. And unfortunately the territory of the passage Fr. Zach will have the joy of preaching next week. But there is mercy in the wilderness. When you fall, you have not gone back to Egypt. The sea stands between you and the old master.

This means the war you feel is not evidence against what God has done in you. It is evidence of it. A corpse does not fight. You fight as a freed person. And even the struggle is the Spirit's life in you. Sin can still wound you. It can still shame you. But it can no longer condemn you. And nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. You were once a body of death. A body sin owned and death claimed. You are now a body of the Spirit. And the One who dwells in it has plans for it. "He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.