St. Paul on the difficulty of becoming a Christian

When I say in the title that this post is on the difficulty of becoming a Christian, I am not talking about the initial acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Evangelicals are correct in stating that this initial step is not an apparently difficult step to take. No, I am talking about the difficulty of becoming a Christian in your behavior and demeanor. That is a much more difficult task. To better understand how difficult it is, let us briefly examine some statements of St. Paul. But before I do that brief look at St. Paul, let me add some thoughts.

This post is written because of the many Confessions that I have heard. I have been hearing Confessions for thirty-some years now. I understand now various comments made by authors such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien that evil is not creative but repetitive. Certainly, by now, I can almost anticipate what someone will say to me in Confession based simply on the first words they speak. It has been a while since I have heard a truly new Confession.

“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.”¹

“The truth is that evil is not a real thing at all, like God. It is simply good spoiled. That is why I say there can be good without evil, but no evil without good… Evil is a parasite. It is there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse.”²

“When, however, a thing is corrupted, its corruption is an evil because it is, by just so much, a privation of the good. Where there is no privation of the good, there is no evil. Where there is evil, there is a corresponding diminution of the good.”³

As the three writers just cited point out, evil is not creative but corrosive and repetitive. But, enough rabbit-tracking. The repetitiveness and non-imaginativeness of sin provide the background to the repetitive Confessions I hear. Even in myself, I see the same habits of sin over and over. I realize that there is a psychological component since once a habit is established, it becomes hard to break it. Of course, the same is true in reverse. Once a Christian establishes a healthy habit, it also becomes hard for Satan to break that habit.

However, confession is also repetitive because it takes time to heal the damage of sin. And, as any psychologist will tell you, habits are hard to break. The damage of sin and the psychological strength of a habit form an unholy duet that makes it particularly difficult to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”⁴ (Yes, I realize that there is a particularly strong stream of Evangelicalism/ Protestantism in the USA that interprets that verse in such a way that it becomes null and void. But that is a theme for another time.) And, now we get back to St. Paul and to a simple point that I wished to make.

First, let’s review a little of St. Paul’s personal timeline. As best we can tell, St. Paul became a Christian sometime around 33 AD. He made his first missionary journey around 47 AD. His second missionary journey took place around 49 AD. His third missionary journey took place sometime around 53 to 58 AD. During this third missionary journey, he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, probably around 57 AD, from the City of Corinth. By the time he wrote to the Romans, he had been a Christian for a quarter of a century, was an experienced missionary, was recognized as an Apostle, and had become the most prolific author in the New Testament.

So, what does this experienced Christian, missionary, and Apostle write of his experience of growing in Christ?

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. … For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. … But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!⁵

Yes, I know the various interpretations of Romans 7 and what comes next in Romans 8. Romans 8 continues the theme of the war that is being waged, internally and externally, with the help of the Holy Spirit. However, that is not what I wish to bring up now. I started with the many Confessions that I have heard. I have seen that too many new Christians and even various long-term Christians are expecting that the change they expect will somehow take place either in an almost immediate fashion or at the end of a short-term struggle. There is little thought that while there is life, there is a spiritual struggle.

Our current life is pictured as an unending struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. “Tria autem sunt quae nos tentant, caro, mundus, diabolus (“There are three things which tempt us, the flesh, the world, and the devil”)”⁶ Tertullian was one of the early writers who incorporated this concept in his treatise, De Mundo, Carne, et Diabolo.

What I see in many new Orthodox is the tendency to assume that now that they are Orthodox, the battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil will become significantly easier. That is not necessarily so. But, we are promised the help of the Holy Spirit and an increased ability to resist. That is the whole point of Romans 8. Even so, one can read in the Desert Fathers a continual and continuing awareness of how deep sin has dug into us and how difficult it is to regain control over ourselves.

“When people honor you, humble yourself all the more at that moment, and say in your mind: ‘If they truly knew who I were, they would show me no regard at all.’ In this way, you will not cause injury to your soul,” a wise elder said.⁷

To even assume that you are making significant progress is to open oneself up to pride and to being tripped by the world, the flesh, or the devil. It is, therefore, not surprising that I receive so many Confessions from people who refer to themselves as failures who doubt that there is any hope of progress. The idea of significant and quick progress is so well-entrenched in our psyche that we are able to read the Desert Fathers yet reach the conclusion that we can accomplish in a couple of years what they accomplished in a lifetime.

I have yet to find a way to communicate to those who come to Confession that they need to come to Confession, that they need to repent of their sins, and that they need not lose hope. I need to break all too many of the ideas that, with some simple techniques, they can change their lives in ways that took the Desert Fathers decades to accomplish. They can, indeed, change their lives. But, it is a slow process. And, at the end of their lives, they still need to pray, “Lord, have mercy!” Part of working out our salvation in fear and trembling is the understanding that we will never be able to go before the Lord with the assurance that we have done all we can to change. But, we can go before the Lord with a certain hope, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”⁸

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 3rd ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), p. 893 [↩]
2. Lewis, Clive Staples, Letter to Arthur Greeves, 1933 [↩]
3. St. Augustine of Hippo [↩]
4. Philippians 2:12 [↩]
5. Romans 7:14-24 [↩]
6. Abelard, Peter. Exposiciones. Edited by L.M. de Rijk. Leiden: Brill, 1996. [↩]
7. https://www.goarch.org/-/the-ancient-fathers-of-the-desert-section-4 [↩]
8. Romans 8:28-29 [↩]