Romans 8:12-25 - Not Debtors but First Born Sons

Romans 8:12-25

Paul wants us to know that our new lives in Christ are not in any way indebted to our old lives. We do not owe sin or sins power over our lives anything. That way of life may have seemed to work for us for a while but now we can leave all that behind and never look back. We are free to forget, free to simply walk away, wash our hands of that way of life and move on the greater things, which God has in store for us. We owe nothing to the lives we lived in to our former life; the life we lived apart from God, to who we were when we were living in ways contrary to which we were created to be and how we were created to live. We owe nothing to our former way of life. We are not in debt to the life that we once led or the life we would have led if we had not come to know Christ. We owe nothing to sin. It holds nothing over us. There is nothing in us that belongs to sin. We owe nothing to it, and therefore should not let it have a say or place in our lives.

At this particular time in history if a person was hard up. If they could simply not make ends meet, or if they had some how accrued debts they could not pay, a person had the option of selling themselves into slavery. They would form a contract with the person with whom they would serve as a slave, which would mark out the amount of time that the person would be enslaved and the amount of money that would be given to the person for serving as a slave. The money was given to you; you could pay off your debts or do whatever you needed to do with it and then you would work off that money by serving as a slave for the allotted amount of time. Now someone could come and buy you out of slavery; that is pay your master the amount of money of the time you still had remaining on your contract.

One of the metaphors which Paul likes to use is the metaphor of being enslaved to sin. We had a contract to be enslaved to sin and Christ came and paid off our contract. He paid whatever needed to be paid so that we could be free, so that we would no long owe our sin master anything. When Christ “bought” us out of slavery he did not leave any debt behind for us to pay off. There is nothing that that part of our lives can cling to in us. No part of us continues to belong to it.
We owe nothing to sin. Paul wants to be perfectly clear we are free from our old master, sin. We are not in any way at all indebted to sin. We owe nothing to that way of life – it did not thing good for us. Sin was not a good or kind master. It did not bring us joy or happiness. It did not help us to be better people. It did not thing that bettered us in this world. It was a way that lead to nothing but death and destruction. We owe it nothing, it did nothing to help us or improve us. In fact all it did was enslave us and bind us to live half-lives, shadow live, less-than live. Lives that were so much less than they could be or should be. It robbed us of living the way that we were created to live. It took everything and gave back nothing. We owe nothing to that way of life.

The Spirit lives within us; this is what we were talking about last week. The Spirit has swept out the “deep dwelling sin,” no part of it is left; nothing in us belongs to it any longer. It has no place in our lives and in our lives there is no place for it. The Spirit has come and taken up house and dwells deep within us; cleansing us from the inside out; remaking us into Christ image from within. It is because of the Spirit’s presence in our lives that we know that we are God’s children. Not only has the Spirit come in and taken up residence within us but in doing so we have been marked as God’s children.

The inhabitation of the Spirit is what makes us not only God’s own, slaves of a new, master but more than mere slaves, so much more. We are children. God has adopted us as God’s own. God has given us God’s name. God has made us children. We are adopted children that have all the rights and privileges of birthed children. Adopted Children are to be treated just like birthed Children. Once adopted a child is just as much a child in the family as any other child in that family and unless the family makes it known, no one from the outside would even know that the child was once, not a child. They are true children in every sense of the word!
Look at this picture. This is a picture of a family with both adopted and biological children, but you would not know it by looking at the picture. I am actually friends with this family and I can tell you that when you see them interact with their four children you would not know which ones are biological and which ones are adopted. They love all their children equally and they treat all their children with the same love and respect. It is as if all the children were biological children, but it is more than that, they are simply all their children, loved cared for, nurtured and disciplined. This is what it is like to be adopted into God’s family. Although we are adopted into God’s family we are true children nothing more nothing less.
We are true children of God. Belonging to God and belonging to God’s family. Not just slaves, not just servants, or unwanted distant relatives, but children, true legitimate children of the most high God. But not just merely children, not just merely sons and daughters, we are all first born sons.

In the ancient world not all children were seen as equal. First born sons held the position of honor. They inherited a double portion of everything that the family owned. They also became head of the family when the father passed on. Second and other sons did not get as much; the younger sons would always be under the rule and authority of the oldest son. They would always be second (or third or fourth best) when it came to the family hierarchy. And daughters, well, all they were good for was marrying off and making alliances with other clans and families. They were little more than property to be bartered and traded to make peace with the neighbors. We are not just merely second sons and daughters, but we are all first born sons! We are Co-heirs with Christ we inherit what the first born son inherits. We hold the place of honor in the family, we are not second or third, we all are number one!
We are children, and such children we are able to call God, “Abba Father.” The cry of “abba Father” means something to the affect of Daddy. It was a loving term. It was something you only called your Father if you were really close to him. It is a term of endearment that a dearly loved child calls their Father. Early Christians would begin their prayers and petitions to God with theses words, naming God as their dearly beloved father before they began. Even before Paul penned these words, the church was already acknowledging the place that they held as God’s children and the place that he held as their Father. The glory of being able to cry "Abba Father," to call God our dear Daddy, is that God is all that a father (or parent) should be. God is kind, caring, loving, just, and merciful in all aspects of our lives. God nurtures us, guides us and teaches us along life’s journey. God raises us as a loving father raising his children with kind nurture and love. God raises us up to be the strong people that God created us to be. God raises up to be the people that God knows we CAN be. God raises us up in the ways that we should go, by guiding us, directing us, teaching us and speaking kindly to us even when we are choosing to go in ways contrary to those God would have us go.

The Father metaphor we find here and in most of the New Testament is an echo of the Mother of the Old Testament. Where the New Testament uses mainly fatherly metaphors when speaking of God, the Old Testament mainly uses Mother metaphors. In the Old Testament it is God who protects and shelters, just as a mother bird protects her young under her wings. God nurtures us and feeds us, helping us grow strong just as a mother feeds her children and nurturing them and drawing them to her bosom. God comforts us, just a mother comforts her small children in her loving arms, drawing them close, wiping away the tears of fear or sadness. God is the ultimate parent.a
The Bible makes clear that that the God the “Father” is everything that an earthly parent should be and is everything that too many earthly parents are not. God our father is every girl's dream, the one who holds her, protects her, walks her down the isle with a tear in his eye because he is proud of who she is and who she is becoming. God the father is every young man's "idol," he is the strength in the tough times that hold him up, is guiding and leading when advice is needed, he knows all the answers to all the tough questions about girls and proudly hugs him and tells him how proud He is of the man that he is has become.

We are sons are sons and daughters. And all are treated as first born sons! Hallelujah! We are joint heirs with Christ. Not second sons, not "mere girls" but all first born sons, with the rights and privileges to inherit all that our Father has for us. This means we don’t get hand-me downs. We don’t get the leftovers, we all inherit it all. This sounds impossible. The inheritance of God is an inheritance that can't be divided up, split, or parceled out. It is an inheritance that must be received in it fullness and completeness. We all inherit the fullness of God’s inheritance!

But the question then is, “What do we inherit?” We inherit full life, right life, life the way is should be. Life the way that it truly could be. A hope for a not only a life that could be but a world that could be. We get everything that God has to offer, everything God hoped for us when God brought us into existence. We get a relationship with the one who made us, who made all that is. We get to be loved; we get to live up to our full potential. We get to live life as it should be lived, as it was meant to be lived, as we were created to live it. We get to live now and all eternity in Holy Communion, perfect relationship with God. Folks I don’t know if it gets much better that!