"How, then, is it possible...."

I am going to tell you a "secret" that few people -- even church-going people -- know, a secret I myself did not know for years and years, even though I had heard the Gospel preached since childhood.  Though there are those who have never understood St. Paul and who resent what little they do know of him, it was his writings that drew out the implications of Christ's death and resurrection.  It took someone well versed in Old Testament Law and Scripture to fully delineate the meanings of Jesus' life and death.

In the past, God called prophets to live out His meanings -- as 'visual aids,' so to speak, of things that words could not fully explain.  So Hosea, for example, was called to espouse and to marry an unfaithful harlot, who left him again and again to follow other men.  He had to go 'buy her back' (redeem her) once she discovered that her lovers were not really lovers after all.  Hosea's life was a living testimony to God's love for Israel.  In the same way, though the Gospels give us the words and teachings of Jesus Christ, they all stop with the account of His death and resurrection and the 40 days between the two events. 

It took 40 years, more or less, of Paul's writing to the newly-established churches, reflecting on the young Christians trying to apply the teachings of Christ, and running into difficulties, to fully explicate the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection.  Unless we read and study his letters, we will fail to grasp the 'mystery' of the cross.

So many people believe that Jesus came to "teach us" or "show us" how to live according to God's plan.  Of course, that is fully true, but if our understanding stops at that point, we are truly no better off than the Jews who had the 10 Commandments and the teachings of the prophets -- but who found themselves unable to keep the law.  That is the problem; it is not that we don't KNOW the Law -- it is that we just find ourselves unable to OBEY the law. 

As Paul said in Romans 7:  ...in my mind, I agree with the Law of God....the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.....but we are controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions at work in our bodies....the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.....for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out....now if I do not do what I want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me that does it.....I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me...What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Instead of the 613 "laws" of the Old Covenant, Jesus gave us very few "commandments."  We are to love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength (spirit, mind, and body), and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Ummm, have you actually tried to do that?   And we are to love our enemy, do good to those who persecute us, bless those who curse us --- how many of us have actually tried to overcome our natural reluctance to "love our enemy"? 

I remember once asking a Hari Krishna who was teaching a class I attended:  "Where does this power to 'love your enemy' come from?  It certainly does not come from within me!!!"  (That was years and years before I read and understood Romans 7 and 8.)  I had read about Corrie Ten Boom, who forgave the prison guard who beat her elderly sister to death right in front of Corrie's eyes -- and I thought about how much I would have hated that man!  Where does that kind of forgiveness originate?

How on earth do we have the power to actually carry out and live the teachings of Jesus Christ?  We cannot do it, any more than the Jewish people had the ability/ power to 'not covet their neighbor's goods,' for example, or not worship fertility idols when they wanted children or good crops.

Thank God that He sent Paul to explain to us HOW it could possibly happen that we CAN live the Christian life from within, not just externally, by 'following the rules.'  Christianity is NOT us 'following the rules,' being obedient, being good little children, and earning our way to our heavenly reward!  Not at all!  Who of us has never broken the law of Christ?  Who among us has never 'lusted in our hearts'?  or called our brother a 'fool'?  or 'hated' our neighbor? or passed by someone who needed our help?  Who among us has been obedient unto death, as did Jesus Christ?  or kept silent under accusation?  As the psalmist wrote:  There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away...there is no one who does good, not even one (Ps. 14, Ps. 53, Ecc. 7).

If this is the case, are we to conclude the Christian life an impossible dream?  Are we supposed to "do the best we can" and hope for the best?  Are we to write off the words of Jesus to "be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect" as the words of a dreamer, as poetic license?

Tomorrow, the answer to the dilemma.