Inner Rebellion
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:6-8 NASB
Hostile – Paul is convinced and convincing. The way of the flesh is death! Setting our course based on this way is death! Those who follow it cannot please God. In fact, they simply aren’t capable of pleasing Him. They are hostile to God by their every act. Paul uses the Greek word echthros. TDNT comments: “The main LXX use is for Heb. ʾôyēḇ, which itself is almost always rendered echthrós. Yet while the Hebrew denotes both personal and national enemies, echthrós has a more personal reference a. to enemies in war or daily life, b. to enemy nations, the opponents of Israel or its king, c. to the enemies of the righteous, and d. to God’s enemies.”[1] In other words, Paul is telling us that following the way of the flesh is the same as making God your enemy.
What is the way of the flesh? Pay very close attention to the explanation Paul offers. The mind of the flesh (the way of living that follows this course) is not being subject to the law of God. The “Law” is not the way of the flesh. In fact, nomos, Paul’s Greek translation of Torah, is exactly the opposite of the way of the flesh. Torah is life! Torah is what pleases God! Torah is the way of peace! Not being subject to Torah is death. There is absolutely no justification for claiming that the “Law” is what causes us problems. There are no grounds for claiming that the “Law” no longer applies. Just the opposite is true. Without the Law we cannot please God. Without the Law, we are lost, wandering around trying to determine what is the way of truth and what is the way of the flesh. The Law tells us how to live so that God is our friend and we are at peace. And those who reject it are rejecting God Himself.
How else can you understand what Paul is saying? Put aside that false dichotomy between Law and grace and listen to Paul’s words. The law of God (Torah) is the pathway to peace and the code of behavior for pleasing the Most High. Anything else is foolishness. Anything else is echthros. Paul reiterates this idea in 1 Corinthians 15:25-26. Foolishness! Everything that follows a way not governed by Torah, including death itself, is echthros to God.
Once we read Paul’s words from the point of view of a first century Jewish rabbinic teacher (who also believed Yeshua was the promised Messiah), then we will have to reject Luther’s false dichotomy between law and grace. But even that isn’t quite enough. It’s one thing to put the theology back in order. It’s quite another to make it a daily practice. If Torah is life, then how do we make it our code of conduct in an environment that not only rejects Torah but also does everything possible to promote anti-Torah conditioning? Consider your emotional well-being for a moment. The anti-Torah culture teaches us in multiple ways to take care of our emotional needs. Yes, a certain level of humility is advocated, but not to the point where you deny yourself your basic “rights.” After all, you are important and you are no good to anyone else if you first don’t take care of yourself. Isn’t that what “love your neighbor as yourself” really means? So if you feel rejected or abandoned or misunderstood, you need to find someplace (or someone) who will comfort you, even if temporarily. You need balance. Just look at the cultural heroes and heroines. They take care of themselves and are happy. St. Francis of Assisi no longer walks the streets. He’s retired in Miami.
The way of Torah is extremely difficult in an environment that promotes self-actualization. Unless we have cultural protection, we will probably falter (and even then it takes real effort). We are surrounded by an alternative, a seductive, powerful alternative, just as the children of Israel were surrounded by the Egyptian alternative for hundreds of years. Is it any wonder that the first generation to leave Egypt failed to make the transition?
Topical Index: Law, nomos, hostile, echthros, Romans 8:6-8
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (285). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
Mind Your Mind
May 19, 2015 at 8:07am
~ For the mind set on the flesh is death, *BUT ~ the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace ~ (Romans 8.6-8)
I love Bible Buts!! Bible *buts are HUGE!! There cannot be enough emphasis upon this three letter word! “BUT God!! who is rich is mercy! But You are NOT in the flesh BUT in the Spirit! It is a relatively small word of only three letters, but of immense importance and clear contrast!
Notice please this word common to both ends of the spectrum.. – it is our mind! Oh, this mind of mine! What? What, tell me what.. does “occupy” my mind —all the day long? What thoughts are echoing about in the corners of this unseen, yet ever present, ever busy- piece of grey matter located within my skull? What wild imaginings I am capable of! – And yet.. ~ *What do the scriptures say? ~ is ever the anchor for my soul!
Friends, it is NOT (another HUGE word!) my thoughts- it is His thoughts that will guide, guard and gladden my soul. *Your word (say, – whose word is it anyway?) — Thy word have I hid in my heart! (why?) – that I might not sin against Thee!!..
“O how love I your law! — it is my meditation all the day!”
but (another big BUT!!) Whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on His law day and night? (Psalm 1:2)
What about this man? What is his future? What does God promise to him?
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:3)
~ Let this [very same] mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus..~ (Philippians 2.5)
~ Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls ~ (Matthew 11:29)
~ And those who know Your Name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You ~ (Psalm 9.10)
His Name?
~ He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His Name IS the Word of God! ~ (Revelation 19.13)
(Thank you, Carl! You sing to me most every day!)
“The anti-Torah culture teaches us us in multiple ways to take care of our emotional needs.”
First, I want to say I find that I don’t HAVE “emotional needs” when I am doing right! It is only when I have missed the mark that I end up in Deficit Alley! If I am attempting to “take care of (my) emotional needs”, then I am being a servant to them, and therefore in idolatry. At that point, all I am doing is perpetuating the problem.
I think I may have discovered something interesting. I think I have noticed that needs show up in places where love should have already been. Needs are my weak points, in fact. Emotional needs, then, have to do with places that leave me vulnerable – weak – to EVIL. Dangerous! I have found that when I try to project my weakness, I am asking to be creamed. My needs, then, are safe only with G-d. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a human around who (unless they are acting in the true hesed that comes from beyond them) is free to respond correctly to the needs in another. In the flesh, the needs of others are always going to look like opportunities to me!
I think we confuse needs with vulnerability, like, all the time! I have a personal theory that the devil has invented counterfeits, or at least perversions, of all that good creation. Here is no exception. I think he has trained us to view needs as vulnerabilities, and vice versa. They are NOT the same thing! Vulnerability is NOT weakness! It does not speak to evil; instead, I think it speaks to righteousness in others. Neither does vulnerability represent a NEED, per se. Vulnerability is simply where I am APPROACHABLE (which is a trust reality). A need is where I am already operating in a trust vacuum (relatively unapproachable), which is what I believe, anyway, has created it in the first place. I find I don’t end up with needs unless I am in a messed up place already. C.S. Lewis made an insightful observation. He pointed out that we tend to try to make excuses for our faults and failures: there are always extenuating circumstances and the blame is never just our own; but, give us success, and, oh boy! Those are ALWAYS to our credit! LOL! I try to hide from my needs (even though that is where I need G-d the most desperately), but I find I have no such aversion to my strengths!
The way of Torah is to not have to endure bondage and failure: in fact, we are promised overcoming and success if we follow in the Way, but it comes with a caveat. I have learned that I cannot establish ‘myself’ as an index either BEFORE my choices (something called My Way: my needs, my motives, my reasons, even my goals or my take on reality or righteousness), or AFTER, which is also to say that, at that point of success, it is not going to be my credit, either! To be meek is to be thoroughly bridled; to be a dead person walking, even. It should not matter to me what the reason may be, or even the outcome. But also, if it all comes from beyond me, that tremendous yoke called “My Own Destiny” does not show up either: either to try to establish a correct order of operations for my choices, or to attempt to garner credit after the fact. It must all be Him. At that point, my emotions can go back to do what they were created to do, which is to point out to me at any given point where exactly I am at in relationship. Emotions, and even the needs they can represent, are supposed to be merely gauges on my dashboard: they were never intended to be the driver!
Once again I refer you to the amazing speech of Brene Brown. TED talks. You can find it on the web under “Brene Brown vulnerability”
Thanks again for another thought provoking Word that goes totally against what I’ve been taught for so many years now. Skip, you stretch my mind and help me see Scripture in a way that is new to me. I’m reading through the Torah, once again, but this time I’m writing down all of the Law that applies to me and my family. In Genesis 17, I came across circumcision, something that happened to me many years ago. I’m not a Hebrew, as far as I know, so this doesn’t apply or does it? Where can I find a list? If I’m left to my own digging, I’m apt to get lost.
You can find the complete 613 mitzvot at Judaism 101/torah commands
From: The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill, pg 160-161.
One of the most remarkable features of the Torah narrative – and a feature evidenced in no other ancient literature – is a hypersensitivity to the decisive influence of environment and its ability to shape both conscience and consciousness. Neither Sumer nor Egypt is ever described; from the Bible alone we would know virtually nothing of the first, and of the second mainly that its king was a fool who thought he could withstand the Real God.. . . .. .It is no accident, therefore, that the great revelations of God’s own Name and of his Commandments occur in a mountainous desert, as far from civilization and its contents as possible.
If God — the Real God, the One God — was to speak to human beings and if there was any possibility of their hearing from him, it could happen only in a place stripped of all cultural reference points, where even nature. . . seemed absent.
Only under a sun without pity, on a mountain devoid of life, could the living God break through the cultural filters than normally protect us from him.
There can be no reasonable doubt that when the apostle Paul upholds ‘Law’, that he is upholding Torah. I am less certain however, about the suggestion that those who are not Torah observant are necessarily in rebellion or living according to the flesh.
Is it not true that YHWH is just and that he looks at the heart? In that light, is it not also true therefore, that He does not condemn those who do the best they can in light of what they know?
I have just returned home from a prayer meeting with Christian friends who have been taught all their Christian lives, according to the mainstream view that Law and Grace are antagonistic and that Grace supersedes Law.
Even so, I found nothing in their attitude of heart and willingness to humble themselves before YHWH, that they harboured any kind of spirit of rebellion or desire to do anything contrary to their understanding of what YHWH expects from them.
These people are not theological scholars nor even highly educated in general. They do not have the academic training or inclination that might allow them to make the theological distinctions that are appreciated by members of this forum. They also come out of a culture which promotes trust in their leaders and mentors.
In the natural therefore, there is no discernible way to see how they could come to any conclusions concerning the relationship between Law and Grace, other than the ones that are imbedded in their culture.
Is it not a fact also, that many of the religious leaders of Yeshua’s time who were unbelievably Torah observant, were nevertheless in rebellion and living according to the flesh all the same – because of their delight in social status and the recognition of men, over and above a heart that was contrite before YHWH?
For these reasons, I can not in good conscience, think of my pious Christian friends as ‘rebellious’ or ‘living according to the flesh’.
In fact, I would go even further and say that they are very much like you and me who are certainly wrong ourselves to one extent or another in our understanding of Scripture, but who do the best we can to act in good faith, according to whatever we perceive to be true and correct at the present time.
I met a woman in El Salvador. As you know El Salvador is largely Catholic with a smaller minority Protestant. This woman is completely Torah observant. I was so surprised. I asked her, “How did you come to live this kind of life in your country?” She said to me, “I read the Bible. This is what God says to do, so I do it.”
Is it really an excuse that “these people are not theological scholars nor even highly educated”?
I understand very, very well what you are saying. I do believe God looks on the heart. But what will we say to Him when He asks, “Didn’t you listen to what I told the prophets?”
Hi again Skip
I think we both know what the other is saying and there is no fundamental disagreement.
There is something that I would like to draw to the attention of those who might be following this discussion however.
The notion that one might simply read the Bible and discover the need to be Torah observant is completely correct as long as we believe that most people are linear thinkers who are competent in logical deduction.
There is a broader truth to consider however, and that is that most people form a view of the world and themselves at a very early age when their abilities in the area of logical deduction and critical analysis are rudimentary at best and in many cases nearly non-existent.
When one is programmed at early age to believe and think in a certain way, that ‘way’ becomes a filter in later life through which everything is interpreted and edited. None of us are immune to this. Information that is contrary to the internal mental construct that was previously established, is typically either rejected or interpreted differently to make it fit.
This is rarely done consciously or with intent. It is a function of human nature that operates unconsciously in the overwhelming majority of people.
How it is that some people eventually develop sufficient self-awareness that they are able to step outside this kind of bondage while others do not, is a complex subject, but it has little to do with deliberate rebellion against truth.
The lady in El Salvador is likely one of those incredible rarities who perhaps by virtue of a unique genetic inheritance, unusual intervention in her life or a bit of both, is an amazing exception to the rule.
The question; “Didn’t you listen to what I told the prophets?” is therefore a loaded question in my view.
Yes, the facts are there as long as one’s mentality and one’s world view has not been constrained and compromised by the kinds of social oppression and brainwashing that are rife all over the planet.
A more appropriate question therefore is; “Did you do what you knew to do in light of the revelation of that you honestly had about what Scripture says?”
Best wishes to you all
Richard
OK, so inside Torah is life (being human); being outside of Torah is an existence hostile to God, and is not life/being human. Death is hostile to God (i.e., “Everything that follows a way not governed by Torah, including death itself, is echthros to God.”) and so do I correctly understand that death is not governed by Torah? (That would explain why anything that reeks of death demands ritual cleansing before approaching God.)
Can we then say that existence outside of Torah obedience is not “being human”? I know we refer to homo sapiens as human beings, but those outside of Torah also call pork “food” and Sunday “the Sabbath”. Isn’t the correlation the same?
Does this relate to Paul’s use of the words sarx (flesh) and pneuma (spirit)? Might those words have been chosen as Greek “word-pictures” to help his Greek-thinking audience understand the Hebraic relationship of Life/being human to Torah? Or in a nutshell: would “in the flesh” (while still mechanically functional as designed, for example with procreation) mean existence outside of Torah, and “in the spirit” refer to Torah obedience? Or is my nutshell cracked?
“This woman is completely Torah observant.” from Skip’s comment above, is really amazing, yet it is not.
Isn’t the Bible read by us, some over many, many years, yet not coming to the knowledge of truth? Isn’t what is written in the Word still there all the same, except for the various alterations in the many translations?
Most of us here, have traveled the same route, have come to a better understanding for the reason that we are seeking for a better understanding of His ways, being dissatisfied with attitudes of ‘leaderships’, over the non-transformation of their characters, talking but not living the talk, seeking the cause of lack in discipline and discipleship in the systems.
We can accuse the ‘teachers’ of learning from men and imparting the same to their gatherings, but, IF we had spent time reading/studying the Bible, we will see that there are many portions we simply skip over. Are we instructed NOT to put our trust in man?
So, if such portions are irrelevant to our growth and seeking to understand, then those portions need to be taken off completely. Why are they still part of the Bible? Do we realize we are cutting off part and portions of YHWH’s Word to us? That is serious. Do we dare ignore even the very basic instructions of the Words of our Redeemer and King?
Our challenge to those folks not fully following Torah is- please read the Bible through from the beginning, slowly line by line, not presuming we know anything. Hopefully they will be asking questions and seeking answers from the right sources.
Shalom.
I understand that the thrust of this article is that living a Torah observant life is the opposite of living according to the flesh, but I think that there are some thoughts that must be added or at least considered.
Paul gave the contrast to the life in the flesh which was life in the Spirit. In fact, much of the first portion of Romans 8 is dedicated to the idea that the Christian life cannot be lived apart from the Spirit of God. While Paul is clearly acknowledging the righteousness of the Law, he is also making the case that we can’t keep the law in our own strength.
One could argue, rightly I believe, that a life led by the Spirit would be a life which obeys the Torah. But I think that one of my main disputes with this article and the subsequent comments is that it seems that an argument is being made that the Torah can be obeyed or fulfilled without the Spirit (i.e. “The way of Torah is extremely difficult in an environment that promotes self-actualization. Unless we have cultural protection, we will probably falter (and even then it takes real effort).” and “This woman is completely Torah observant”).
I think that is part of the situation Paul was speaking against at the end of Romans 7. Simply put, no matter how much I desire to do God’s Law, I cannot find within myself the ability to do so completely. Therefore, I must be regenerated and empowered by the Spirit. As I set my mind on the Spirit and further follow His leading in obedience, then I shall keep the Law. This never negates the need for the Law in our lives, nor does it mean that grace replaces the Law. I think it is possible that this means that grace is applied to my life by the Spirit so that I can live according to the Law as I follow Him.