He Understands

Lately I have been slowly chewing over and digesting Romans chapters 6 - 8. It is amazing how much you miss or misunderstand when you don't read verses in context. For instance, Romans 7 1-3 is not a definitive passage on the unlawfulness/lawfulness of divorce. It isn't even addressing divorce, but some Christians use this passage as a prooftext that remarriage after divorce is unlawful because the woman is supposedly still under the law of her husband while he is still alive. This passage isn't even dealing with marriage and divorce, per se, it is using marriage as an illustration of how we are bound to the law until we die to it and are then united and joined to Christ. Just as it is impossible for a husband to govern his wife from the grave, so it is impossible that we are any longer under the law because we died to it. Christ is our new husband and we have a whole new relationship that governs our life.

That, however, is not my main point. As I have been working my way through this passage that has been obscure and puzzling to me for many years, a lot of the pieces have begun to fall into place. I am beginning to understand what this is all about. I am not yet at the point where I could explain this coherently to anyone else, but what I can say is this: He understands!

The struggles that we deal with while mortifying the deeds of the flesh, the desire to follow after God and yet constantly doing the opposite, these struggles are so beautifully described by the Apostle Paul in these passages. God understands that this life and these struggles are hard! He describes it so fully and completely. And even as we reach the inevitable cry of despair, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" we sigh with relief to realize that there is NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Oh what comfort that is!

As I have meditated on these truths, and gotten glimpses of the glory that awaits, glimpses of the unfathomable love and condescension of God, it sometimes becomes more than mortal flesh can bear. I close my Bible and weep and say "No more! I cannot bear it!" No wonder we will get glorified bodies. These clay pots we inhabit would crack and disintegrate if we could see the full weight of glory that salvation by God through Christ has wrought.