“All One In Christ Jesus”
“ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS”
ROMANS 1:5-8
Paul begins to unpack big words: obedience, faith, grace, peace …
Grace, the free unmerited favor of God, was the gift to all Christians. Apostleship was limited to those fitted for a special task. This clear distinction should be observed. In writing to the Corinthians Paul devotes a whole chapter to the division of labor and variety of vocation in the church (1 Corinthians 12). Intrusion into another’s sphere of service breeds frustration and ineffectiveness, and at the same time leaves the proper task undone.
Paul’s task was to summon people to “the obedience of faith.” The phrase “of faith” shows that obedience consists in faith (Acts 6:7). To believe, and to commit the life to that belief, is to obey. God asks no more, no less, and in the act is involved both trust and the disciplined living which demonstrates the trust.
Now comes (1:7) the salvation, warm in its wording. “Called to be saints” means saints because of his calling. This fact is no warrant for the tactless claim to sainthood which a watching and listening world will interpret in other than biblical terms. The coinage of speech can become debased, and the term “saint” cannot be presumptuously used by any Christian, true though it is that God in his grace calls Christians this.
“Grace and peace,” the second the fruit in mind and heart of a proper understanding of the former, sum up Paul’s wish for the Christians of Rome. In the words are combined an echo of the common greeting of Greek to Greek, and the still common greeting of Israeli to Israeli—“Shalom”—“Peace.” Paul moves into his wider sphere of witness in his very salutation.
And Jesus Christ—Jesus the Messiah—finds its fifth mention in eight verses. There is no Christianity without the Christ of the New Testament, no deluded and defeated dreams from Galilee, put viciously to death by collaborating priests and occupying authorities, but the risen Son of God, from all time envisaged.
Meditation John 1:l4-l8.