Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 2011 preparation, part two

The Romans passage — read long, with two pericopes (passages) from the Free Church and Universalist lectionaries I mentioned — draws me. You can read it here.

I’m gleaned a couple of interpretive passages from the tradition for further meditation.

As appears from Phil. ii. 9. 10, 12. All things were made for him, that as a Son, he might have an inheritance, as a king, he might have a kingdom, as a bridegroom, he might have a bride, and as a head, he might have a body consisting of many members. And, that he might be the Saviour of that body, was man created in a mutable state. “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,” Rom. viii, 20. That the creature being deceived through sin, and lost in the bondage of corruption, Jesus might have an opportunity of exerting his grace, his wisdom, power and love, in the redemption of their soul by his blood; and in saving them in himself, with an everlasting salvation.

James Relly, Union

Reconciliation is a renewal of love, and love is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, of which St. Paul speaks in Rom. viii. 2, by which he was made free from the law of sin. The soul, when governed by the law of sin which is in the members, of which St. Paul speaks in Rom. vii. 23, is in a state of unreconciliation to the law of the Spirit. And it is by the force and power of the law of love in Christ that the soul is delivered from the government of the law of sin; the process of this deliverance is the work of atonement, or reconciliation.

Hosea Ballou, Treatise on Atonement, chapter 4, ¶ 122.