Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

Deuteronomy is one long speech by Moses to Israel as they  prepare to enter the Promised Land, the point of which is: Be  faithful to God, who has been faithful to you. The great temptation  Israel will face is to worship other gods, which Moses addresses by  reminding Israel that the God whom they encountered in “the midst  of the fire” at Sinai has treated them exceptionally well in rescuing  them from Egypt. Two things flow from this. First, God’s mighty acts  have demonstrated that there is no other god than the all-powerful  God of Israel. Second, that God is consistently faithful and can be  counted on. Israel must reciprocate by being faithful to the God who  has done so much for them. 

In his letter to the Roman Christians, Paul has been outlining the  fundamental difference between their lives before and after baptism.  Before, they were subject to the law of sin and death, and they lived  entirely “in the flesh,” that is, in mindset and behavior at odds with  God. But in baptism they received the Holy Spirit, who delivered  them from the realm of sin, death, and the flesh, and made them  children of God through “adoption.” Thus it is the Spirit that allows  them to address God as “Father,” and this same Spirit unites them to  Christ as “co-heirs.” This means, however, that they must be willing  to share the sufferings of Christ so that they may also enjoy his glory. 

When Jesus appears to the Eleven in Galilee, they immediately  worship him, but the text notes that they “doubted,” which suggests  an incomplete comprehension of the reality and meaning of the  Resurrection. Having been given “all power,” or authority, Christ is  now the ruler in the reign of God, the scope of which he begins to  extend by sending his apostles to make more “disciples of all the  nations.” Although there is no developed trinitarian theology in  Matthew, the “formula” for baptism reflects an identity among the  Father, Son, and Spirit—as seen in the fact that Jesus tells the disciples  to baptize in “the name” of all three, rather than in three names.

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