Cut out of the Will

Text:  Romans 8:14-17

            It’s the stuff of movies.  The family is gathered round waiting for the will to be read.  The tension is high as everyone waits to see what they will get from the estate.  A bombshell explodes when the will reveals that once expenses have been paid, all the remaining assets of the estate will be sold and the money is to be given to the local cat rescue society!  Not a penny is to go to the nearest and dearest.  We imagine the deceased is looking down on the proceedings savouring revenge.

            It’s often said in jest, “I’ll have to be careful or I’ll be cut out of your will.”  Financial benefit is the carrot that motivates people to do things they wouldn’t normally do.  Being cut out of the will is the fate of wayward children who didn’t visit enough, do enough, care enough. 

The family is gathered.  The children of God wait for the reading of his will.  This is a will with a difference.  God isn’t dead.  He isn’t dividing up his estate.  This is a living will in which all the children in his family inherit.

Who belongs to the family of God?  Who are his children?  They are the Spirit led.  But what does ‘Spirit led’ mean?  We need to go back to the beginning of Paul’s telling of the gospel story.  There are several takes on the letter to the Romans and we’ll pursue one way of looking at things.

            Paul wrote his letter to followers of Jesus who lived in Rome.  As much as he’d wanted to visit them he’d never had a chance.  He was desperate to see them but for now a letter would have to suffice.  Hints in the letter suggest that the non-Jews (Gentiles) were in the majority and that they were looking down their noses at the Jews.  Paul is keen to remind them that salvation came to the Jew first and then the Gentile.  Faith in Christ binds them together and any superior attitudes should be replaced by love.

The gospel story is this:  God created human beings to honour him but instead we honoured idols (1:18-23).  All people, Jews and Gentiles - with or without the Law - all have sinned (1:18-3:31).  All sinners are ‘in Adam’ living according to the flesh, choosing to disobey God (5:12-21).  Being ‘in Adam’ and ‘in the sinful flesh’ is not about the body.  It’s way of being.  It is worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.  Life in Adam – or life lived according to the flesh - brings death.

There’s another way of being.  Instead of being ‘in Adam’ and living in the flesh, we can be ‘in Christ’ and led by the Spirit.  As all became sinners in Adam through his disobedience so all sinners are made right with God through Jesus’ obedience (5:19).  As those in Adam experienced sin and death so all who are ‘in Christ’ have life and peace.    

Faith is the way to be ‘in Christ’ and to be led by the Spirit.  As faith made Abraham right with God before his circumcision so faith in Christ makes people right with God (4).  Jews and Gentiles, with the Law or without the Law, are ‘in Christ’ through faith.  Those who are in Christ Jesus have been set free from the law of sin and death through a new law:  the law of the Spirit of life. 

The Spirit led are those who are ‘in Christ’; free from sin and death.  The Spirit led have life and peace because they choose to honour God’s law of love (13:8-10).  The Spirit led are children of God, part of his family.  Being Spirit led is the complete opposite of the spirit of slavery to the flesh.  Slavery to sin and death brought fear of destruction.  By contrast the Spirit led receive a spirit of adoption. 

            Adoption in the ancient near East was enacted before witnesses.  The adopter declared, “You are my child,” to which they responded, “You are my father/mother.”  Similarly they could be disinherited through a similar negative declaration.  Adoptee parents were expected to give their adopted children skills for a trade.  Adopted children had a right to be full recipients of the inheritance.  Those children who were adopted out of slavery were treated as a child and, if they were disobedient could be disowned and sold back into slavery.

            The people of Israel were portrayed as God’s adopted child (Exodus 6:6b-7; Romans 9:4).  This is most clear in Hosea.  God calls Israel out of Egypt and declares Israel his child.  Yet Israel refuses the embrace and repudiates their adoption[i]. 

            The Spirit led have been taken out of slavery to sin and death – the flesh – and adopted as God’s children.  As an adopted child would respond to their father and mother with ‘You are my father/mother’ so children of God cry out ‘Abba!  Father!’  God proved his love for us by sending Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners.  As Jesus prayed with the intimate Aramaic word ‘Abba’ so we pray ‘Abba’.  As he cried out ‘Father’ so he taught us to pray ‘Our Father’.  It is the intimate address of a child:  daddy/papa.  The Spirit is witness to the Father’s love for us (you are my child) and our response of love towards him (Abba).  

            When the first assembly of the CWM was held in Ayr in 2003, we were privileged to host a member of the conference.  Etty was a Samoan woman now living in New Zealand.  Etty told us that her biological parents had been approached by a minister who wished to adopt her because he had all boys in his family.  Her parents gave her to the minister and his wife after she was born.  With tears in her eyes she spoke of how her adopted father would take her into his arms and tell her, “You’re so special.  We chose you.”

The living will is read before the children of God.  Those who are Spirit led have no fear of being cut out of the will.  We have been chosen.  As adopted children we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. 

            What is our inheritance with Christ?  It’s certainly not coming into a lot of money.  It’s not coming in to a life of ease free from troubles.  Our inheritance is sharing his suffering so that we are able to share his glory.  This isn’t your typical will.  Getting a slice of the wealth?  Yes.  But this is the wealth of selfless service, costly love, and suffering for the sake of others?

            A crucial part of Paul’s telling of the gospel is that the Spirit led have been adopted out of slavery – of being ‘in Adam’ and the flesh – there is greater glory to come.  Our sufferings now are hopeful.  We are waiting for the creation to be set free from decay.  We are waiting for our bodies to be made whole, redeemed from the certain reality of death. 

Those who are in Christ continue to have to make a choice to be led by the Spirit.  We have to choose life instead of death.  We have to choose to put to death deeds of our sinful life that we had ‘in Adam’.  Being Spirit led is to choose God instead of sin.  It is choosing to honour God rather than worship the creation.  Making this choice is through the Spirit.  It is the Spirit who sets us free.  It is the Spirit who witnesses to the fact that we are God’s children.  It is the Spirit who gives us strength to share in the sufferings of Christ in the hope of his coming glory.  It is the Spirit who helps us in our weakness (8:26).

In the book The Jungle Is Neutral, Fred Spencer tells the story of the fall of Singapore during World War II.  The British relied on the jungle as an impenetrable defence and thus focused on an attack from the sea.  The Japanese did the impossible moving their army through the jungle and attacking Singapore from the north.  The city fell without a fight. 

Spencer managed to escape and lived in the jungle for nine months.  He had been told two stories about the jungle.  One was that the jungle was a deadly place.  Snakes and insects, poisonous fruit, and predatory animals meant that a person didn’t stand a chance of survival.  The other story about the jungle was that it was an oasis with plenty of fresh water and delectable fruit.  Spencer concluded that neither account was true.  The jungle was not innately programmed to kill him nor would it hand life to him on a plate.  His conclusion was that the jungle was neutral.  What mattered was how much effort he put into his survival.[ii]

God created the world good and made us to honour him and to love one another.  Sin has marred creation with death.  This sin scarred world is ‘in Adam’.  The death of Christ is an expression of God’s love and has inaugurated the re-creation of the world.  The Spirit has been given to us to set us free from being ‘in Adam’ - slaves to sin - to be children of God.  ‘In Christ’ we participate in a world being made new.  We have to choose which story we will believe in and live out.  Will we be ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’?  Will we live according to the flesh or be led by the Spirit?  Will choose sin and death or life and peace?  Will we allow the Spirit to set us free...to be witness to our spirit that we are God’s children?  Will we allow the Spirit to strengthen us...to intercede for us (8:26-27)?  You are a child of God.  You are his heir and a co-heir with Christ.  Share his sufferings.  Hope for his glory.