A Short Synopsis of Romans 3:21-4:25

Whether Jew or Gentile, Romans 3:21-4:25 is a very challenging piece of Scripture to wrap your mind around. Modern society has tried to make God out to be some evil sorcerer in the sky who wants to make our lives miserable unless we attempt to appease him with sacrifice. However, if you’re a Christian, Paul tells us he has already been appeased because of the atoning and sacrificial atoning death of Jesus Christ (3:25).

Paul starts off his explanation of it all with verse twenty-one “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it^[1]” The righteousness of God is Jesus Christ himself, and He is the only true righteousness of God. You can do nothing to earn this righteousness, and the Law and the Prophets have been pointing to this time for years. The very next thing Paul tells us is that the righteousness of God is attainable by faith for all who believe in Jesus Christ (my paraphrase). He spends the rest of chapter three explaining how we are justified by faith alone and then in chapter four gives us the example of Abraham’s faith.

In continuing to expound upon our own unrighteousness, Paul adds verse 23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ^[2]” proving that we are not worthy to be in the presence of God. Leon Morris says, “This clear statement of universal sinfulness is basic to Paul’s understanding of the human predicament and also of the salvation Christ brought. Were it not for our sin there would have been no need for Christ’s redemptive activity; because of our sin there is no possibility of achieving salvation by our own efforts.”[3] Paul goes on to strengthen his argument in verses twenty-eight thru thirty. He is telling his readers yet again that only faith apart from the Law will justify them, no matter if they are Jew or Gentile, since God is one he justifies all by their faith. “For if, as Jews proudly confess, there is only one God, then this God must be equally God of Gentiles as well as Jews. Rightly understood, this demolishes any ultimate difference between Jew and Gentile before the Lord.”[4]

Paul begins to conclude his argument by using Abraham as the greatest example of justification by faith. Chapter four lays out how Abraham trusted the Lord and in doing so showed his faithfulness and it was credited to him as righteousness. But in doing so, many people will say that there is a contradiction in the Bible, because Paul says that justification is from faith alone while James say that faith without works is dead. How can this be? R.C. Sproul explains that when James is referencing Abraham he is quoting from Genesis 22 and Paul is referring to Genesis 15.[5] They are both arguing for justification, and they are each referring to different aspects. Wayne Grudem explains, “Here we must realize that James is using the word justified in a different sense from the way Paul uses it. In the beginning of this chapter we noted that the word justify has a range of meanings, and that one significant sense was “declare to be righteous,” but we should also notice that the Greek word δικαιόω (G1467) can also mean “demonstrate or show to be righteous.”^[6]

Understanding these things should allow us to live out our faith with a greater enjoyment knowing that there is nothing we can do to merit our justification.

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^[1] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ro 3:21.

^[2] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ro 3:23.

[3] Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans. (Grand Rapids: Edermans, 1988), 177.

[4] Moo, Douglas J. The NIV Application Commentary- Romans. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 139.

[5] Sproul, R.C. St. Andrew's Expositional Commentary-Romans. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009),111.

^[6] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology : An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), 731.

Anthropology: Marriage and Divorce

Its funny how in our society marriage has become a hot button issue or a so called “touchy subject”. Just a few generations ago you knew what a married couple looked like; it was one man and one woman. Did you know that in pre-exilic times a man could marry his half sister on his father’s side according to Genesis 20:12?[1] Also in ancient Israel girls could be betrothed from around the ages of twelve to seventeen and boys around the ages of fourteen to eighteen. According to Elwell, “Betrothal” (Exod. 22:16; Deut. 20:7) was a legally binding contract between the parents of the bride and groom. It had the legal status of marriage (Deut. 28:30; 2 Sam 3:14)…”[2] Marriage was based on a husband and wife, the husband would provide financially for his family and security and the wife would take care of the home and family (this consisted of getting water, gathering straw, preparing meals, etc.). The husband took care of the finances and assumed responsibility of teaching the boys around five years of age.

Did you know that there are some people who believe that the first person you ever had sex with you are married to? They base their belief off of 1 Cor. 6:16. While some believe, “… marriage is brought about as the result of a declaration of desire to be married, accompanied by the expression of mutual intentions of sole and enduring fidelity and responsibility toward the other, preferably undergirded by self-giving love, in the presence of accredited witnesses.”[3] The first view of marriage is especially denounced by our culture nowadays, with promiscuity running rampant and no one caring who they have sex with. The second view is closer to what we see in marriage practices currently (at least for the most part in the USA). However, in the Bible a couple had to live together for a week after their wedding ceremony then they would be considered a legitimate married couple (Gen 29:27). One of the most often used verses for the sanctity of marriage is Genesis 2:24, a paraphrase is “a man should leave his parents, cling to his wife and become one flesh.” The idea of one flesh shows the unity of the couple and the way they are to complete each other.

In our current society divorce has hit epidemic proportions. People getting divorces left and right because they no longer feel a certain way about their spouse or other trivial grounds. The Bible would allow a man to get divorced in the Old Testament if his wife cheated on him, he would be allowed to issue her a “bill of divorce”. “The word “divorce” in the phrase “bill of divorcement” is related to the word for hewing down trees, even cutting off heads. It indicates the severing of what was once a living union.”[4] By the time of Jesus the nation of Israel had perverted the right of divorce; it was beginning to look like our society, and the Pharisees asked him if it were permissible to divorce over anything? Jesus in Matt. 19:9 gives the ground for which a person may get a divorce which is sexual immorality, any other reason is unacceptable. Later in some of Paul’s writings he does come to include if your spouse abandons you after a certain period of time you may get a writ of divorce.

There of course may be some times divorce is inevitable because of hardness of heart and an unwillingness to repent. Divorce however should always be a last resort; there should possibly be some marital separation, along with counseling before divorce is ever considered. I and others use 1 Cor. 7:10-11 as a proof text for separation before divorce. Something that often goes hand-in-hand with divorce is remarriage, and whether or not Christians can remarry. I believe that they may remarry as long as the grounds of the separation from their spouse are death, adultery, or desertion. And should a person choose to remarry let there be some confession made by the couple to their sin (at least the party who is divorced outside of the previous stated grounds) showing their repentance and attempts to keep the covenant better.

If you divorce or attempt to remarry outside of the points listed above you are making a mockery of God. Divorce is dangerous to more than just the couple involved; it affects the family, community and the church. Divorce will always be ugly because marriage is the greatest image of the triune God we can have in flesh outside of Jesus. So when people see Christians divorcing they see God as weak and not whole.

So as a body of believers we should attempt to comfort those are in any stage of divorce and make sure we demonstrate God’s grace to the best of our abilities. If you believe God can fix anything then choose today to trust him to fix the problems you are facing (Rom 8:28).

Word Count: 849

Bibliography

Elwell, Water A., ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids,MI: BakerAcademic, ,2001.

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[1] Elwell, Water A., ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. [Grand Rapids,MI: BakerAcademic, ,2001],740.

[2] Ibid, 741

[3] Ibid, 744

[4] Ibid, 346

Paradigms for reading Romans

How do you read your Bible? Did you know you could get so much more from it depending on how you read it? The same is especially true about the Book of Romans, the perspective you choose will dictate how much you get out of it. There are two major schools of thought when it comes to reading the Book of Romans, first there is the Reformation point of view, and the newer New Perspective.

The oldest and most widely adhered to point of view is the Reformation perspective. So coming from the reformation you can hear the battle cries of sola fide and sola gratia (by faith alone and by grace alone). This point of view believes that Paul was arguing against the legalism that had taken root in the nation of Israel, saying that justification is by faith alone. Carson and Moo elaborate by saying, “Against this legalism, Paul proclaimed that justification before God could be attained only by faith in the completed work of Christ, a faith that excluded, by its very nature, any deeds of obedience of any kind.”[1] Another point the Reformers took was that Paul was referring to the individual and not only the corporate understanding. One of the greatest strengths of this point of view is it shows us that there is nothing that we can do of our own merit to earn favor with God. On the other hand however, for some people knowing that there is nothing they can do to earn their justification they tend to do nothing at all. Please keep in mind that this is a brief overview of one of the things the reformation perspective comments on.

The newest point of view has been deemed the New Perspective on Paul. This new point of view has taken hold in several circles, but is denied in some of the more conservative congregations. One of the major ideas to this view is commonly referred to as “covenant nomism”- Moo defines it as, “Thus, Jews were “saved” by God’s grace in the Jewish covenant. To be sure, they understood that they had to obey the law God had given them. But they did not obey it to “get saved”; they obeyed to maintain the salvation God had already given them.”[2] This view also begins to focus on more toward a corporate understanding of Paul’s writings and less individualistic. One strength of this view is that it makes us consider the fact that Jews of ancient Israel may not have been as legalistic as we once considered. But one of its greatest weaknesses is stated by Carson and Moo, “But on Sanders’s own showing, it is also believed that if one “got in” by grace, one “stayed in” by obedience.”[3]

While Moo in his commentary has no explicit section titled the best way to read Romans he does say the way we have read Paul’s works is not far off the mark, and while it may need some adjustments they don’t need to be as extreme as those proposed by N.T. Wright and others of the New Perspective.[4]

I generally hold tightly to the Reformation perspective and still hold to it, but after studying the understanding behind convent nomism I have become a little (tiny bit) more open to understanding that Jews may not have been so legalistic. However we need to take each section of scripture and examine it as the Bereans did to find out what context we should view it in. It is my hope that after reading this you would get more out of your time in Romans and your Bible over all.

Bibliography

Carson, D. A., and Douglas J Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids,, MI: Zondervan, 2005.

Moo, Douglas J. The NIV Application Commentary- Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

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[1] Carson, D. A., and Douglas J Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament. [Grand Rapids,, MI: Zondervan, 2005], 375.

[2] Moo, Douglas J. The NIV Application Commentary- Romans. [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000], 119.

[3] Carson and Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament, 383.

[4] Moo, The NIV Application Commentary- Romans, 121.

The Problem of Evil

Admittedly one of the toughest things in the world for anyone to fathom is a God who is omniscient and omnipotent to be seemingly incapable of stopping the evil that plagues our world on a daily basis. However, this is a reality that we are confronted with on a regular basis from non believers. So in order to formulate a solution you must first understand the problem and the nature behind it. If you were to look up the nature of the problem of evil in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology it would state, “The first mistake is thinking there is only one problem, of evil confronting all theistic positions.” (Elwell 1984,2001, 414)

In order to get a better understanding of the nature of the problem with evil we need to look at it from the religious side first and then the theological/philosophical side. While looking at this from the religious point of view we notice that someone actually experiences some form of evil. Elwell states, “In view of the experienced affliction, the individual’s personal relationship with God is strained. Someone caught in the throes of this problem asks such questions as “Why is God allowing this to happen to me?” and “Can I continue to worship a God who does not remove the evil that is now besetting me?” (Elwell 1984,2001, 414)The evil this person is experiencing could be anything from persecution for their faith, attacks on their character to even physical ailments.

Then we have the theological/philosophical side which breaks down into two subgroups, moral evil and natural evil. Mark Driscoll in his book Doctrine defines them this way, “Moral evil is the result of a responsible agent, whether intentional or negligent. Natural evil is suffering that occurs without a moral agent involved (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes). Humans make no (or very few) actions causing natural evils.” (Driscoll and Breshears 2010, 153) While Driscoll gives us several examples of what natural evil can look like we are left to ponder moral evil. Moral evil are those things that a person does that are evil (rape, theft, and murder are just a few extreme examples).

As we continue trying to solve the problem of evil we must look at a few additional factors which are internal consistency and the way God is perceived. When I speak of internal consistency, I mean that the position that has been taken has no contradictions in it. Elwell expresses it in this manner, “For the theist, the implication is that he or she muse so structure his or her theology as to contain views of God, evil, and human freedom, which, when put together do not result in a contradictory system. In particular, he or she must be careful to avoid a system in which God is said to be both good and able to remove evil, despite the system’s admission of the existence of evil.” (Elwell 1984,2001, 414) We should also understand that there are many different systems to resolve the problems of evil. The way we perceive God to be makes a huge impact on the way we view evil and its place in the world. If you were to take the theistic view that God created the world and just left us to our own devices and he doesn’t care we do not need to resolve to problem of evil in the world. However, we believe in a loving God who is redeeming the world and has a plan.

Bad things happen to people. If we are to believe that scripture is true and we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) then none of us are technically good people. When the Lord created the world he created perfect and free from sin. He tells us this in Genesis 1:31, that everything “was very good.” Since God in incapable of being in the presence of sin and evil without payment we can see how the world was free from sin. So when Adam and Eve sinned they were cursed and their nature and the nature of all subsequent generations were made with sin. Not only were they cursed but the Lord also cursed the ground, referring to the earth which is why we have the reactions of natural evil in the world.

There are more than several different theodicies out there, such as Leibniz’s theodicy, the soul building theodicy, and the free will theodicy. Leibniz’s theodicy believes that there are reasons he chooses to do what he does and in fact they are laws, and God would not do anything without sufficient reason. Leibniz’s theodicy is overly rational. The soul building theodicy shapes itself around the fact that there is a need for moral and spiritual development. So by having evil and having to either turn to God or from him are our options thus the need for evil, to help us grow in our relationship to God. You could almost argue against the soul-building theodicy the same way Paul did in Romans 6 referring to sinning more to receive more grace. I am personally growing closer to the free will type of theodicy. Basically, the free will theodicy says that God gave man free will which he was right to do and man abused what was given to him. So by man abusing his free will God is not responsible for evil while men are. Elwell points out, “In other words, God cannot create significantly free beings and make it the case that they always do good.” (Elwell 1984,2001, 1186)

May you be blessed in growing closer to your understanding of God and your own theodicy.

Word Count: 934

Driscoll, Mark, and Gerry Breshears. Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010.

Elwell, Water A., ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids,MI: BakerAcademic, 1984,2001.

Introduction to Romans

Through all of my different readings not one commentator has denied the importance of the Book of Romans to our Christian life. As a matter of fact they all indicate that without the Book of Romans we would not have all the doctrinal influence that we have today. While there has always been speculation that Peter founded the church in Rome there has never been any concrete evidence provided to support that theory. Moo suggests, “But Luke does tell us that Jews from Rome were among those who saw the pouring out of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (2:10). We may surmise that some of them were among the three thousand converted on that day (2:41) and that they brought their new belief in Jesus as Messiah back with them to Rome.” (Moo 2000, 17)

At the time Paul was writing Romans, it was shortly after Jewish Christians were being allowed back into Rome after Emperor Claudius expelled them from the city around 49 AD. While we do not have an exact date of completion of the letter, Harrison points this out, “When he wrote Romans the fund for the Jerusalem church seems to have been finally completed (Rom 15:26ff.). This may indicate a date in early 57 rather than late 56 for the writing of the letter.” (Harrison 1981, 4) Even though the Jewish Christians were migrating back into the city it is believed that, “… we conclude that Paul’s audience in Romans includes both Gentile and Jewish Christians, with Gentile Christians in the majority.” (Moo 2000, 21)

Technically Paul is the author of the Book of Romans, the ideas that are expressed are his, but did he use his own hand to write the letter? The answer is no. He used a scribe by the name of Tertius (16:22). Why write a letter like Romans? Was there some grim sin or major doctrinal error occurring in the church and they needed to be rebuked, John MacArthur doesn’t think so. He says, “Unlike some of Paul’s other epistles (e.g., 1 and 2 Cor., Gal.) his purpose is not to correct aberrant theology or rebuke ungodly living. The Roman church was doctrinally sound, but, like all churches it was in need of the rich doctrinal and practical instruction this letter provides.” (MacArthur 2005, 1500) Isn’t it amazing that Paul can write such a theologically rich book (Romans) from an area he had to write to twice (Corinth)? There are several key factors that help us know his is in Corinth but the largest is his mention of Phoebe in 16:1.

I hope that as we understand the background behind the Book of Romans we can begin to appreciate all the richness that dwells within its pages and make it more applicable to our lives.

Bibliography

Harrison, Everett F. The Expositor's Bible Commentary-Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981.

MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Bible Commentary. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2005.

Moo, Douglas J. The NIV Application Commentary- Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

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