The curious case of Romans 7: 9

We all know spiritual death happened after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in Eden. We do all know too that the Law of Moses was given later, in the era of Ramses. And, nobody can claim that the children of Jacob in time exodus were spiritually alive. Yet Romans 7: 9 says “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Knowing that the reason why the Lord decided to replace the Canaanites with children of Jacob is not that the children of Jacob were holly; but because the Canaanites were very sinful. So, we do also know that there was sin before the Law of Moses, otherwise how can the Lord judge the Canaanites for their sin?

 

Now consider the truth preached by Paul, in Romans 2:12, which says “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” This is a clear indication that not having law does not free you from the judgment of God and you will be judged anyhow, as the law is also written in your spirit and you can discover it through reasoning. The problem is that this seems to contradict Roman 7:9, which claims that we were alive before the law.

 

The contradiction, however, is apparent, not a real one. This is because there were, at least, four phases of law given to man. The first law is given to Adam and Eve with the first covenant; the second law is given to Noah with the second covenant; the third law is given to Moses with Abraham's covenant; and the last one is given by Jesus with the last covenant. The law that caused spiritual death is the law of God which forbids Adam and Eve from eating from the forbidden fruit. Before this law, Adam was alive and Eve was not created by then. After this law, however, sin worked through the desire of Adam and Eve for their death. Their sin is their body's drive to be selfish and egocentric and the second sin which works through their flesh is the devil itself.

When Paul says sin, in this text, one side of sin is about the sin of the body, which is an earthly desire which contradicts the will of God like selfishness. This is the sin or devil context used by Jesus when Jesus calls Peter “devil”. The human will of Peter was against the will of the heavenly Father and that is the devil, because anything that contradicts the ultimate truth, God, is a lie or a devil. In the Romans in particular and the New Testament in general, sin is also associated with the devil as it is often associated with the body. When Paul says “sin” sometimes, he is speaking about the devil, and in another line, he is speaking about a sinful body.

 

Now going to the main message, the devil by working through their body's weakness, to be selfish and ego-centric, leads them toward sin. See Adam was alive before this law, but the good law working through sin made them dead. It is not the law that is the problem but there is sin in their body which makes them selfish and there is sin in the form of the devil which pushes them toward sin. Why is this law put in its place? It is put there so sin can be seen to be sin. The law gives a target to the devil and the devil knows what it has to do, thinking he is smart. Yet, the lord is showing the devil is the devil, not to Adam and Eve but to his Angels in heaven.

 

Why? This will take us to the idea that I have to explain about the fall. Our creation is built to mimic the fall that happen in heaven. The devil becomes the first devil when it starts to question the authority of the Lord in his mind. Yet the Lord did not cast him out to fire at that point. This will create confusion and contradiction in heaven, which could destabilize the entire heaven. To save the majority, what the lord has to do is let the devil run its full course and let him deceive some poor angels, the fallen ones. What the devil did is trade favors with low-ranking angels and try to organize a personal army that is loyal to itself. The majority of Angles stood their ground but some ended up being deceived. In simple words, those fallen angels face the same lie that Adam and Eve face in the hands of this most complex deceiver.

The only difference is that Adam and Eve were high ranking and trading favors could not work this time. So, the devil has to use pure lie and all Angels have to see that. The sin (the devil) is shown to be sin. Our creation does not center on us, it centers in heaven of Angels. We are created for the sake of Angels. The lord hoped that we would be like those angels who stood their ground but Adam and Eve fall like the fallen Angels. Yet Adam and Eve are sorry but not the fallen Angels, this is the big difference. Humans are very wise in their way on this earth and they know when they have to save themselves, devils are arrogant and stupid for that. Don’t take my word for this; this is word of Jesus, himself.

 

After the fall of Adam and Eve, the lord did not give any additional law, except to curse them and to curse the land for their sake. Yet human beings, coupled with devils and the fallen children of light (the new-fallen Angels), multiplied sin and the lord destroyed all life except Noah and his family for that. It is clear at this point that sin has to be minimized. This is why the lord made second law and second covenant with Noah and all earth. The law is blood for blood. The direct interpretation of this is if you kill, you will be killed. Yet Jesus makes it clear, if you insult your brother, you kill him or you sin. The general implication of this law, as a result, is that all sin will be paid by equal punishment, eye for eye and teeth for teeth. What goes around comes around, as it is written.

 

This is made more precise and explained in greater detail in the Law of Moses when the covenant of Abraham is supported by the Law of Moses. The problem of the Law of Moses is that the devil knows what it has to do. Have you wondered why all people stick with their gods, which are not even real, but not the children of Jacob? The devil knows who the God of the children of Jacob’ is. It is the God that the devil hates the most, not another worthless idol. And when the devil knows the law of God is in operation, the target is marked and what the devil has to do is move them far from the law. Now the devil cannot trade favor as it has nothing worth treading, cannot play friendly as nobody is a friend of the devil, but can lead people from inside of their body. So people do not what they want but what they don’t want. It is not them who sins but the sin which is inside of them. Who could save them from this sinful body?

 

Since the children of Jacob of the Old Testament are earthly people, the devil through their earthly desire works them toward contradicting the law of Moses. Imagine people worship stone and wood, while the children of Jacob have a real God. Their good showed them his mighty power by splitting the Red Sea in their eye. What is surprising is that stone worshipers did not become worshipers of God of Israel, children of Jacob became stone worshipers. Two sins were working in this process. First, they are very earthly people and what they desire is not the kingdom of God but earthly glory, happiness, joy, and dominance. Those are a shadow of the Kingdom of heaven that follows us but which we ignore as unimportant, we worship the lord and we see them as nothing as our shadow is to us. Only fools run after the shadows of their body away from the light. The funny fact is that human beings who know God tend to do that and the children of Jacob are no different if not worse.

 

The problem becomes much worse when the devil uses those earthly desires to make them far from God and to make them worship stone and wood. Look to the North, you have mighty Babylon and Assyria, to South the glory of Egypt, North West we have wealthy Phoenicians and their trade, and you have earthly children of Jacob in the hand of the devil. It is not hard to worship stone and wood if your mind and heart are not about the kingdom of God. The main targets of the law of Moses are about first and second laws, the love of God, and the love of fellow faithful, and the devil has to make sure they are broken. Law becomes the mark of sin and the devil knows where to shoot them for kill. This is the dominant message of almost all prophets that people of God are neither faithful to their God nor good to their fellow faithful. The children of Jacob were supposed to be the ideal society in their worship of God and their manners and ways, yet they were the worst in both. They worship idols of all kinds and worst they were unethical, immoral, unjust, and inhumane in their ways. All prophets spoke about those issues in great detail.

 

Then they followed their historical judgment to Babylon and they started worshiping God only but they had idols other than stones and wood in their heart. They are not just, they are not merciful, they are not holy people and they do not have all the desired quality that can reflect the standard of God, like Jesus do. God was planning to make them his priests to evangelize the whole world with the God of Israel. Yet they are not the right quality standard and lord wants to change the covenant. Now lord has to reverse the game. The stick of unity and the stick of beauty are broken by the will of God as the lord needs and demands a new covenant.

 

What is changed in the new covenant? The Devil works in our body to make us sin. So Jesus has to cast the devil out and has to send his Holy Spirit into our hearts to guide us in spirit. First, stimulating the spirit of human beings will make it dominant over flesh and its desires, so people can do what is written in their spirit. Second, the Lord will lead them to all truth by networking with their spirit. Their flesh is dead (dormant) and they are led by their spirit which is active and alive if they are born again. Yet the Holy Spirit is God and God cannot live in sinful temples, as there is no unity between light and darkness, that is why the temple has to be holy and this is made by the blood of Jesus Christ. For all blood, the best of all blood, the blood of God himself, is paid as it is required in the law of Noah. Once human beings are made holy by the blood of the lord, the Holy Spirit can use them as a temple and Jesus can lead them to all truth through the Holy Spirit. 

 

Now the question is why is all this tango? Why does God have to go all this dance, than do it just like that? This will lead us to my understanding of the Trinity. This is how I understand the Trinity. Note that it is just my understanding or my theory, not necessarily the truth. We should notice that the devil was challenging Jesus and wanted to be the most high, the prince, or equal to Jesus Christ. Besides, the devils are identified not as enemies of the Father but as enemies of Jesus. After all, it is written until I put all your enemies under your foot, set in my right side. And considering many texts of the bible and what is stated above, my theory about the Trinity is the following.

 

Father is part of God which lives in eternal light that nobody can live in, except God himself who is Son, Father, and Holy Spirit. Nobody in heaven or on earth had seen the Father except Jesus who is from the above. Nobody comes down from above except Jesus who is from above. This above is not heaven of Angels but heaven of the heavenly Father. We do know angels do come and go from heaven to earth all the time. In the heaven of the heavenly Father, the heavenly Father works with the full powers of his eternal nature. Like Eve is from Adam, Jesus is part of the Father which is sent to heaven of Angels to build it and to lead it. Since Jesus was with his Father and was conscious of his existence, unlike Eve which was just bone, all anatomy of God is God and conscious.  What Lord the Father did is let his son, who is part of his body, have an independent existence in the form of Jesus, the angel first and Jesus the man next. As it is written, as the Father has an independent existence, it gave the son the right to have his independent existence.

 

The third anatomy of God is made of the Holy Spirit which units the Father and the son, in everything under one spirit. Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth which unites them into one being. The main body of God is in the heaven of the heavenly Father, the secondary body of God is in the heaven of Angels in form of Jesus and Holy Spirit is the spirit which unit them into one being. If Jesus is one hand of God and if the Holy Spirit is the other hand of God, the heavenly Father is the rest of the body, the larger body of the one God. My understanding is that the concept of the Trinity is a simple anatomy of one God. 

So like Jesus is the perfect man and perfect God, who is born as man, first Jesus was the perfect God and perfect Angel in heaven. He is worshiped like God but also he is a perfect angel which shows all angels how the heavenly Father is worshiped. Holy Spirit which units the Father and the son, will also unit angels through Jesus to the heavenly Father. This is why in Jobs Angels are called children of God and they are also called children of light by the lord in the New Testament. This is also why after winning all things, Jesus himself has to bow toward the heavenly Father, as he is the perfect man, perfect angel and perfect God. After Jesus is affirmed as the perfect God against all enemies, then Jesus will behave as the perfect Angel and perfect man to show us how to worship God. Jesus is the perfect example who shows us, how to be children of God. He is our idol of God, God looks like him. He is God. He is also a perfect son, who shows us how to worship God.

 

So when the devil rose, they rose against Jesus who claims to them he is God. Devils reject he is God but just a superior angel like the main devil claims to be. This is why our faith is conditioned on the claim that Jesus is lord. You have to believe that because no devil from its depth of heart believes Jesus is lord. No devil can say Jesus is lord without lying about it. Yet heavenly Father through Jesus was guiding them using the Holy Spirit to all truth and when they reject Jesus they have to reject the spirit of truth as a lie too. Leading angels by holly spirit, therefore, have to be proven as holly, as Jesus has to be proven to be lord.

 

What Jesus did in biblical history was to show to his angels that his original plan was the perfect plan and his way was the perfect way. This is done by demonstrating all alternatives are lies and we human beings live those lies because Adam and Eve sinned. To those who stand by faith with him, the children of light in heaven, proof is given to build their faith on a solid ground, and to those who challenge the lord without faith proof is given by their damnation and fall. What we are given, through Jesus Christ, in this process is what is given to Angels by birthright in heaven. What we are given is the right to be like Angels in heaven, that is if we believe Jesus is lord and we have obedience to the will of the heavenly Father through faith.

 

In this process, the law is rejected because we are not capable of fulfilling the law. Because the law says: “practice me or death”, Jesus says “let me train you to be law-abiding”. Jesus will guide us to all truth though the Holy Spirit means sin is part of our life all the time because we will never attain the full truth which is possible to God only. That is why to judge a man by sin is like judging a fish because he cannot live in dry land, as it is not its nature. That is why Jesus replaced it with obedience through faith. You are free of all sin through faith in the lord ship of Jesus Christ and then the spirit of truth will guide you to all truth and holy life. Law condemns you for what you cannot attain, Jesus trains you how to attain it. Through Jesus, the hardest law of Jesus will be attained by human beings, not by commandment but through training and guidance of the Holy Spirit. This is the difference between grace and the law.

 

Now what is the fate of the world? They will be judged by their work on judgment day. The Jew and the rest of the world, all, will be judged by the law. Even those who have no law will be judged by the law, as the law is written in their spirit. Their spirit is looking to the day the children of God are revealed and this is true to all creation. Yet their spirit is often dormant and sin though their desire is leading them to all kinds of sin.

 

Fortunately, there is a way to escape this judgment by grace and that is by faith in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those who believe in Jesus Christ and who are also obedient to the will of the heavenly Father are not judged but are saved as they are not under the law but under grace. They are given the same rights that angels have and remember angels do also make mistakes but they are under grace not the law. As long as Angels believe Jesus is lord, that they do, and are obedient to the will of the heavenly Father, that they always do, they face no judgment for their mistakes. This is the right that we are given to be like Angels in heaven through faith in the lordship of Jesus Christ and obedience to the will of the heavenly Father which guides us through the Holy Spirit.

 

Remember, I could be wrong. I am not Jesus to claim I am the truth and Holy Spirit is not guiding me to write those things either. Those are ideas that help me organize my thoughts when I read the bible. If you can explain those apparent contradictions better, it would be beautiful if you could help me correct my mistakes.