Two life principles

As our bishops said in their recent pastoral letter on the Pauline Year: "In front of a pagan culture, Paul had to be radical, and because he was radical, he was controversial... But Paul was never shy, never afraid, never weak, never hesitant, non evasive... he never compromised on matters of principles... he can guide us these days through the mist of our times."

Two millennia ago, St Paul drew a contrast between two kinds of life, or what he termed the 'two principles of life', that were fighting against each other during the days of the Romans just as in our times:

"The unspiritual are interested only in what is unspiritual, but the spiritual are interested in spiritual things... People who are interested only in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God. Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made His home in you." (Romans 8, 5-9)

As Dr William Barclay says in his biblical commentaries, in the life dominated by sinful nature, man's focus and centre is self; whose only life is its own desires; which takes what it likes where it likes. He explains: "It may be passion-controlled, or lust-controlled, or ambition-controlled. Its characteristic is its absorption in the things that human nature without Christ sets its heart upon."

On the contrary, in the life that is dominated by the Spirit of God, man lives in Christ, never separated from him. Practically, he has no mind of his own; Christ is his mind, and the will of Christ is his only law. "He is Spirit-controlled, Christ-controlled, God-focused," says Barclay.