Romans Response

It is very common for Christians to regard God as their friend.  While this may be true, it makes me very uncomfortable.  Through reading the book of Romans this week, I was reminded of the relationship between God and man.  While the denotation of the word “friend” can apply to one’s relationship with God, the connotation given to the word by our culture cannot.  The word “friend” seems to suggest that man is on the same level as God, that they are equals.  Paul, the author of Romans, would say otherwise.

While explaining that all people sin, Paul writes that “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18).  No one can understand the power of God on their own, and I feel like this fact gives us a better understanding of His power, but we are still only scratching the surface.  The point is that God’s power is unfathomable, and we are to fear Him for it.  In the beginning of the book, Paul refers to himself as “a servant of Christ Jesus” (Romans 1:1) and he later tells the reader that “you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Romans 6:16b).  So, as Christians, we are called to be servants and slaves to Jesus and God’s commands.  This is drastically different from the connotation of the word “friend”. 

Not only is God omnipotent, but He has also done so much for his creation.  Considering all that He has done for us also helps to shape our perception of the relationship that we have.  Christians “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).  We are redeemed from our sin that sentences us to eternity in Hell, so that we may be in the presence of the almighty God.  God had and has no obligation to save us from our wicked ways and there is nothing that we can do to earn this salvation.  Because of this, we should not only fear God but also come before him with an attitude of thanksgiving and adoration. 

            So, what are we to do in light of the relationship between God and man?  Paul is rather straightforward with what we as Christians are to do.  He tells us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1b).  We are to worship God in all that we do in our lives.  This is no easy task though, and I believe that Tyler Joseph, the singer and lyricist for the band twenty one pilots, explains that in the song Ride.  He raps, “"I'd live for you, " and that's hard to do / Even harder to say when you know it's not true”.  We can say that we will live for God, but if we’re honest, we know that we will fail in doing so at some point.  This is where God’s grace comes in to save us yet again and we can praise Him even more for His mercy.  But “are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2b).  If one is a slave to obedience to God, then they are no longer a slave to their sin and this is how it should be.  We ought to live in fear and adoration of God for all that He is and has done.

Extra Note:  This is unrelated to the rest of the blog post, but I wanted to bring attention to a verse that reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend.  Paul writes, “Let love be genuine.  Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9).  This is the mark of a Christian.  My friend reminded me of what it looks like for love to be genuine.  To that person: I hope you know who you are and thank you.