Read: Romans 8:1-11 - STEP Bible, Bible Gateway
It’s crucial to realize how much St Paul thinks the Holy Spirit is the key to living life well. The ancient Jews had the Law; but those of us who follow Christ now have his very spirit living within us and directing us. The ancient Jews had to learn how to live according to a code of ethics; those who follow Christ have the Holy Spirit within them, acting as internal barometer and guide.
The centrality of the Holy Spirit to everything that Paul counsels is often overlooked by people who disparage his theology. Many people seem to think that Paul is a cheerless, rule-inventing authoritarian; but nothing could be further from the truth. The whole point of being ‘alive in Christ’ through faith is that there is no longer a ‘rulebook’ for those who follow him – instead, there is the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us, guiding us in each and every situation, to do precisely what Christ himself would do.
That is incredibly freeing. But it also changes how we think of our responsibility as Christians. Our responsibility is not to behave in certain ways according to rules or laws. Our responsibility is to behave in certain ways according to the will of Christ who dwells within us by his Spirit. We are consequently not a religion of ‘thou shalt nots’, but a religion of ‘do this, for my sake!’ And that, in turn, means that if we want to be holier for God this Lent, we won’t be able to do it by writing down lists of how we ought to behave, like a new rulebook. We’ll only be able to do it by getting to know God better through Christ, and asking him to align our will with his.
These devotions were originally written for the parish of All Saints, Ascot and we are grateful for permission to republish them on Fulcrum.
Patrick is curate of All Saints’, Ascot in Berkshire. A musicologist by training, he is married to Lydia, a university lecturer, and dad to Madeleine. He writes (sporadically) at benedixisti.wordpress.com and tweets (even more sporadically) as @patrickgilday.
Even better than Strong’s, Phil, is the word study feature of the STEP Bible linked just under the byline above. If you click that, you will find a Greek text of the passage– this one is Michael Holmes’s edition for the Society of Biblical Literature– in the right column. Just to the left of that is a column with the ESV translation. If you then click *condemnation* in that column, a box will open on your right that enables you to explore the Greek word behind the English one, *katakrima*. Also supplied are links to every occurrence of the word in the NT, to the LSJ definitions (Liddell, Scott, Jones; more authoritative than Strong’s), and to several related words. For the sort of discussion that you like, I think that you will find these tools are more useful and reliable than Strong’s..