Abstract
The minute we take our first breath, we begin a journey that moves from life to death. This passage from Romans reverses the order and describes a journey from death to life. It is easy to misread these verses as a description purely of what happens to us at the point of death: that is, a transition from physical death to eternal life. Yet it is clear from the larger context that Paul views this journey as initiated with our baptism, in which we die and rise with Christ (see 5:5; 6:4; 8:11). This means that our movement from death to life begins while we are very much alive in this world and has implications for how we live.
We normally experience life in this world in terms of chronos: that is, as a series of events marked out by hours and minutes that pass too slowly when we are young and too quickly as we age. In this passage, time is marked out in relation to two major events. The first is described as a kairos moment: “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6). The second is the “wrath” that will be released at the end of time. Both of these words belong to the thought-world of apocalypticism. The kairos moment in which Christ died signals God’s intervention in a world that is bent on self-destruction. Note that Paul says nothing about Christ’s life prior to his death. The focus is completely on the movement from his death to life. The end of time is marked by the wrath, when those responsible for the evil that is consuming the world will face judgment. For Paul, we live in the in-between time: the already, but not yet; a time that requires vigilance even as we hold fast to the hope that we have been offered.
Whether we subscribe to an apocalyptic scenario or not, we can perhaps identify with the longing that is at the heart of apocalyptic thought. It is the gut-wrenching “why?” of parents whose children have been gunned down in schools. It is the anguished “how long?” of those whose unemployment checks ran out long ago. It is the persistent “when?” of those who have been waiting too many years for justice to be done. Apocalyptic thought revolves around the burning hope that God’s justice will prevail despite all signs to the contrary. For Paul this is not about personal justice; it is about the whole of creation waiting to be “set free from its bondage to decay” (8:21–23).
The singular focus on Christ who “died for us” is the heart of faith for many, but troubling to others. In the ancient world, the shame associated with death by crucifixion made the cross appear as foolishness, a stumbling block to faith (1 Cor 1:23). Today the cross can be a stumbling block because it suggests an angry God who is appeased only by sending God’s own son to be killed (3:25). Is this an act of love or the act of an abusive parent? Recognizing that Paul is drawing on the language of sacrifice may be helpful, if counter-cultural: i.e., giving something up, even a life, for the benefit of another. Paul’s interlude concerning for whom one might or might not be willing to die suggests that when Christ died for us, it was a conscious, deliberate choice. This notion of voluntary sacrifice can be powerful, particularly if one sees in the death of Christ God’s own sacrifice, not of a son, but of God’s very self. Yet those who have found themselves sacrificed not by their own choosing may find this far from liberating. Still another interpretation is possible, in which Jesus dies on the cross not to appease God, but because it is the outcome of his life lived in faith (i.e., the faith of Christ). However one chooses to approach these verses, they require some care and sensitivity to the claims we unconsciously may be making about the nature of God.
Although the passage makes repeated reference to the death of Christ, the primary actor in these verses is not Jesus, but God: “But God proves [God’s] love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (v. 8). The word “prove” can sound legalistic: for example, proving a case in a court of law, or winning a point in a debate. However, the word employed here (sunistēmi) belongs to a different semantic field that has at its root the idea of bringing things together. In this context, the proof is the demonstration of God’s character. What is brought together is God’s character and God’s actions in a way that is consistent. What God’s action reveals is God’s overwhelming desire to restore the relationship between creation and the Creator.
In a typical apocalyptic scenario, the evil at work is exercised by outside forces upon the innocent (one thinks, for example, of the beast in Revelation, or the lawless one of 2 Thessalonians). There are no outside forces in view here. Rather, it comes down to us. Woven through the passage are references to our existential condition: we are weak (v. 6), ungodly (v. 6), sinners (v. 8), even enemies (v. 10). Each new word escalates the degree to which we have become separated from the one in whose image we were created until we become enemies who stand in opposition to God our Creator. The tragedy is that as we move away from God, we not only move away from the generative source of our individual and collective wellbeing, we also, ultimately, move away from our own, life-giving capacity.
Our movement away from God is understood by Paul as a movement towards death; not just our own physical death, but the destruction of the whole created order. Suggests Paul, in this passage, this movement takes root in our weakness of character—the causal factor in the plot for so many cinematic and literary stories where desire allows us to see no need but our own, fear leads to our failure to act, and injury drives us to seek retaliation disguised as justice. This weakness of character leads to actions that fall short of the mark (sin) and, unchecked, finds us working in opposition to God, the author and sustainer of life. (For Paul’s understanding of sin as a structural power impacting individuals beyond their volition and even impacting the originally good purpose of the Torah, see Romans 7:7–13.)
Paul does not frame this movement towards death so much in terms of day-to-day actions (the laundry list of deeds we sometimes envision being collected in a book). Not that the day-to-day actions aren’t important. They reveal our character much in the same way that God’s action is revelatory of God’s character. But in these verses, Paul seems more concerned with our disposition—our way of being in the world. Graham Greene illustrates this distinction in a chance encounter between two characters in his novel Monsignor Quixote ([New York: Penguin Classics, 2008], 97–99), which was made into a film with Leo McKern and Alec Guinness, available on YouTube [see episode 4]). The protagonist, Monsignor Quixote, has been cornered in a public lavatory by a man who is desperate to have the Monsignor hear his confession. The man, who is an undertaker and to all appearances a model of uprightness, is overcome with guilt for removing the brass handles from the casket in which he has just buried the parish priest, thus saving himself money. When, under questioning, the undertaker confesses that the priest had no heirs to whom restitution could be made, and that he himself contributed to the cost of the brass handles, Monsignor Quixote observes that he has cheated only himself. More to the point, he proposes that the undertaker’s disproportionate sense of guilt over an act which has led to no real harm has, in fact, led to a greater sin: an over-inflated sense of self-importance. “Do you think God cares so much about a small thing like that?” he asks (99).
Paul isn’t worried about brass handles. He is much more concerned about death—and life. The fact that Christ died means little if we forget that his dying gives way to life. When we participate in Christ’s death and resurrection, we become less obsessed with brass handles and begin to participate in God’s act of love for the whole of creation. This begins with a kind of dying that opens up the possibilities for reconciliation, the re-establishment of relationships wherever they have been broken.