10 October 1999
Mike Tueller
1. Introduction: how to read Romans.
It may be a surprise that I have titled this lesson "the Gospel of Paul." In so titling it, I am making a claim that Romans is, in a sense, Paul's "gospel." How is this a surprise? Well, first of all, we associate the word "gospel" with two things: doctrine, and a book about Jesus's life. I certainly don't mean that this is a book about Jesus's life, so it must be Paul's doctrine. But in what way is this letter any more Paul's doctrine than any other?
Well, the difference is what Paul is doing in this letter. Romans and Colossians are the only Pauline letters written to congregations Paul did not convert. Colossians, however, is often considered by scholars not to be by Paul. Furthermore, even if it is by Paul, it is addressed to a congregation converted by a friend of Paul's (Epaphras), and its goal, to deflect the congregation from false teaching, is quite similar to that of other Pauline letters.
But in Romans Paul is not writing to deter false teachers: in fact, he is not writing in response to any kind of specific problem or need. So why is he writing to the Romans at all, if he doesn't know them very well, and has no specific message? Paul provides the answer:
Read Romans 15:24.
So Paul is hoping to visit Rome soon, on his way to Spain, and he needs their help in his long journey. While Paul usually worked to support himself in the cities where he preached, he did accept money from other, more established congregations in order to support himself on his journey (see, for example, 2 Cor. 1:7-9). Since he is planning his most ambitious journey yet, all the way to Spain (legend has it that James got there first), he is going to need a lot of help on the way. Paul knows very well that it will not be enough to simply show up in Rome and announce, "I'm a missionary; support me": there have been plenty of missionaries going around, many of them preaching wildly different doctrines. How can the Romans be sure that Paul is not a fraud?
The best way to solve this dilemma would be to get a letter of recommendation from someone known to the Romans. We can't be certain why Paul didn't do this: Maybe he just didn't know the missionary who converted the Romans; or maybe that missionary had died. Perhaps the Roman saints were converted elsewhere and then moved to Rome, and so there was no one missionary who converted them. Or perhaps Paul just couldn't get any influential people to write on his behalf: he seems to have had a tendency to burn his bridges. Of course, on the other hand, maybe someone did write a letter of recommendation for him, and it is now lost.
Anyway, Paul's goal in this letter seems to have been to write a letter of recommendation for himself. He wants to show the Romans that he is a good and acceptable preacher of true Christian doctrine, so he has to lay out for them what he preaches. Since the Romans haven't heard his preaching before, he's going to have to start from the beginning. He needn't necessarily go all the way to the end, but he must at least go far enough to hit upon any points where they may have heard falsehoods about him. (For instance, it seems clear that some Romans thought that his rejection of the Law implied rejection of all law, i.e., total lawlessness and hedonism: he denies this in Romans 3:7-31 and chapter 6.) In all of Paul's previous letters, he hasn't started at the beginning--the recipients of the letters already heard that part while Paul was with them--he's only covered the parts about which there is concern. So Romans gives us our first really broad look at Paul's doctrine.
Does this bother you? It might. After all, if Romans is so complete and authoritative, it should be disturbing that it has been the source of two doctrines that are very widely rejected by church members today: the idea that God capriciously saves whomever He will, and our own choice has no effect on our salvation (see, for example, Romans 9:14-20); and the idea that a simple confession of acceptance of, and faith in, Christ as one's Savior is all that is necessary to be irrevocably saved (see, for example, Romans 10:9-13).
How can we deal with this? The typical way that missionaries deal with these scriptures today is by citing other scriptures--a number can be found just in Romans--that show the opposite. But this is not enough. We have to see why Paul said the things he did, and try to put them in a context where both sides of his apparently contradictory statements can be understood together. I'll tell you right now where we'll end up. If you have friends who believe the doctrines I've mentioned above, it's highly unlikely that they'll be convinced by the way we're going to look at Romans today. However, I think that, for an unbiased reader who is given a little dose of context, a more complete and true meaning can come out of this letter.
We're going to skip pretty quickly over the first four chapters because, for the most part, these review material already covered pretty well in our lesson on Galatians. I do want to linger just for a moment on chapter 3.
What does Paul claim this chapter is about? You might be surprised:
Read Romans 3:7-8.
So Paul is saying that he is going to refute what people have said about him: that he preaches that sin is good. His real refutation of this waits for chapter 6, but in this chapter he's going to introduce some important elements in his argument. First, Paul quotes approvingly words which appear twice in the Psalms (14:1-3; 53:1-3):
Read Romans 3:10-12.
We should note that the context of the psalms here is God disapproving of the current behavior of His people. But Paul says these verses are of much broader application: no-one has ever achieved complete righteousness. How does this, in part, refute the accusation made against Paul in verse 8? (Paul shows that he doesn't believe sin is good: he simply believes that it is inevitable.)
Let's think about the impact of this idea on these next verses:
Read Romans 3:23-24.
Now, if you believe that sin is not inevitable, then verse 24 appears to be an invitation to sin, and accept redemption later. However, if sin is inevitable anyway--it is just a part of the landscape--then verse 24 offers you a chance to escape something that otherwise would hold you captive forever.
A lot of times in the church today, we get so stuck on the principle of obedience--of not sinning--that we forget that none of us has so far completely succeeded in following this principle. In our focus on this idea, we exclude Jesus from our view, and forget that the purpose of His coming to earth really had very little to do with obedience (after all, wasn't the point that we must obey made clearly enough on Mount Sinai?), and a lot more to do with forgiveness.
Now that Paul has arrived at this point, we must say, so far so good, but still not a complete refutation of the charge against him. He will get to that. Let's just pick up one more element from chapter 3:
Read Romans 3:27-28.
In these verses we see Paul use the word "law" in two different senses right next to one another. Verse 28 has his traditional sense: "the Law" is the Jewish Law. But in verse 27 Paul admits that there is another law: he calls it "the law of faith." What is this law? He'll tell you, but we're going to have to wait another eleven chapters.
3. Two views of how the atonement works.
(I am indebted to Bart Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], chapter 20, for many of the insights in this section.)
We can't deny the centrality of the atonement in the gospel. However, we must admit that we really can't explain the precise mechanism by which it works. Most people who discuss this in the church nowadays use Boyd K. Packer's analogy to a debtor, a creditor, and a person who bails out the debtor. This is a pretty good story, but we must remember that it's only an analogy. It's a good analogy because it includes a lot of elements that we understand: money and debts. But it still doesn't tell us exactly how one would pay for someone else's sins--or why sins have a particular price attached to them.
Like I said, that's a good analogy for us. But the Romans weren't the same as us. What analogies work for them, in their time? And what works for Paul? Paul has two analogies, neither of which completely work for him (after all, every analogy breaks down at some point), and only one of which we usually understand very well today. The confusing part is that Paul tended to mix these analogies together, and sometimes even to mix them with other things. So the picture can get pretty confused. Let's start with the analogy that is easiest to understand:
Read Rom. 5:18.
The words we're using here are things like "judgement," "condemnation," and "justification." If you forget about the religious context, in what sort of context would you expect to hear these words? (Judicial.)
We tend to be fairly comfortable thinking about the atonement in terms of judicial proceedings. In these terms, sin is a violation of the law for which a person is responsible. For this sin there is a penalty, and the responsible person must pay the penalty unless an intercessor (here Christ) steps in and pays the penalty on his behalf.
Like I said, we're pretty used to understanding the atonement in this way. However, this is the interpretation that is problematic. Consider: if Christ has relieved us from the necessity of paying the penalty, then the law doesn't really apply to us, does it? And what's more, we didn't really do anything to deserve this intercession, so it seems that, again, there is nothing we really need to--or even can--do. Now, we're used to replying to these ideas today: we say that Christ binds us under a new law. That's OK, but it's not the reply that Paul used. Instead, Paul switches analogies. This switch is easiest to see when we look at how the word "sin" is used. You remember that, under the earlier analogy, sin was the violation of the law. Look at how sin is used in this verse:
Read Rom. 6:12.
Sin is not really an act here. What is it? (It sounds like some kind of a force.)
Under this analogy, sin is a force that we must escape, and Christ's atonement is what provides this escape. Let's read a fairly complete summation of how this works:
Read Rom. 6:1-10.
One commentator I've read (Bart Ehrman) calls this the "participationist model." The idea is that, in our baptism, we symbolize that we partake of the death and resurrection of Christ. And, just like Christ's old body died and His new body was glorious and eternal, so our old life and its worldly ways must be over and our new life must be pure and permanent.
I love this imagery. But do notice that Paul doesn't put our new life in terms of a "law," like we often do. Even as the rest of chapter 6 develops, the idea of being under a new "law" doesn't come up. Here is his final summary of what we must do in order to complete our participation in Christ's resurrection:
Read Rom. 6:22-23.
This last verse needs to be read very closely. We see the contrast between death and eternal life, but the contrast is more complete: Sin is something we serve, and it pays us in return: just like wages. But what Jesus gives is a gift, something we did not earn. We can see by this verse (among others) that, even though Paul admits that we have a new obedience that we practice as Christians, Paul is not very comfortable with describing this obedience as subjection to a "law," unlike what we might say today. Now, this is pretty strange. How can we be obedient without a law? Keep that in mind, because the answer is coming up later.
Members of the church tend to have a love/hate relationship with Romans. Most dislike chapter 5 (Jesus just saves sinners; there's nothing you can do), then love chapter 6, on what we do. Then they dislike 7, like 8 (well, part of it), and dislike 9 and 10. I'd like to talk about chapters 7-10 for the next few minutes, because I think a little ancient context will go a long way in making these chapters more intelligible and acceptable.
Chapter 7 starts off with an interesting idea:
Read Rom. 7:7-8.
According to these verses, what causes sin? (The Law.)
Now, Paul isn't just saying that sin only counts if you know the Law: he's saying that the Law teaches us to sin. There is at least some truth in this. If you are an innocent person, with no tendency to do wrong, and then you are taught specific things that you should not do, you suddenly become alive to your own potential for evil, and may even become curious about how evil you could really be. In this way, teaching the Law can be a real disadvantage.
Paul admits later on that the Law is good, but says that it tended to make him worse, to make him sin. The way he explains this is, to the modern mind, bizarre. Let's take a look:
Read Rom. 7:14-18.
The problem with these verses is that it seems Paul disclaims all personal responsibility for sin. If one sins, one should simply say, "The devil made me do it," because sin just takes possession of us, regardless of what we want.
The problem here is the ancient conception of the will. Let's consider an example for a moment. Suppose you went to see the movie Titanic, and cried and cried. Now, were your tears the product of your own will? We would say they were, because your own will has operated in your choosing to feel some sort of emotional sympathy toward certain situations, and, what's more, in choosing to view fictional depictions as if they were real. The ancient answer, however, would be "no." This is because the ancient idea of the "will" was much narrower than ours: one willed what one planned and considered. Decisions made on the spur of the moment, like crying in a movie, or like suddenly deciding to lie in a difficult situation, were not really the product of your will, because if you had sat down and thought about them, you would have chosen something different. (Now, I must admit: my specialty isn't ancient philosophy, and I've only taken enough of it to get by, but the basic idea here is right.)
So now look at what Paul said again. What he's saying is actually something very familiar to us, not strange at all. He's saying that we all want to be good people. In our sane and calm moments, we plot our future along a righteous path. But then, on the spur of the moment, we do things we know we shouldn't. What is that? Is that our will? No, it is sin, ruling our actions. We've all had this experience. Paul is just using it, not to show that our wills are weak, but to show us how hard it is to serve God constantly. That is the problem with the Law: we all trip up, because life is lived at such a high speed. That is why we need Christ. Of course, Paul said this much better:
Read Rom. 7:24-25.
Chapter 8 is one that church members tend to like. It contains a lot about adoption, which we discussed already in the lesson on Galatians. Let's just read a couple verses that are a little better than what we saw in Galatians, and then move on to the harder parts. After telling us that we are adopted, Paul says this:
Read Rom. 8:16-17.
I should just point out that the New Testament is remarkably consistent in using Christ as the example for the salvation of the saints. Christ is often spoken of as resurrecting, being glorified, and inheriting a glory and a kingdom. The saints are spoken of in terms that are no different. Modern theologians have tended to obscure this second fact, but, when you do a word-by-word study of the New Testament, it's remarkable and unavoidable.
Just one more stop in chapter 8:
Read Rom. 8:28-30.
I'm going to answer one of the difficulties with this verse now, and save the other one for chapter 9, where it gets worse. The one I'll look at is the word "predestinate." Footnote 29c gives you some help here. Let me tell you, even that footnote doesn't go quite far enough. The word here, proôrizô, is better translated "set apart in advance." It's fairly easy to see that such a "setting apart" need not imply that it is set in stone.
The other problem, though, is that, as the verse goes on, it seems like God just picks capriciously the people He will save. Chapter 9 goes even farther:
Read Rom. 9:18.
Paul anticipates the objection:
Read Rom. 9:19.
But look at Paul's answer:
Read Rom. 9:20.
Now, that's not an answer that we're likely to be happy with today. People accuse God of being unfair because He chooses whomever he wants to be saved, and Paul just says: you can't accuse Him; He's God! The difficulty is only partially reconciled at the end of the chapter, when Paul admits that the Jews ceased to be chosen because they preferred the Law to Christ (vv. 32-33).
Again, the problem here is context. How can you tell if a choice is fair today? We tend to look at the results: who was chosen. Now, if people were being selected for church office, and only the rich or only the politically powerful or only the well-connected were chosen, we'd probably say there was a problem. Why? Because we think God should see past these things, which are not central to a person's character. We tend to think something is fair if it does not discriminate on the basis of wealth, etc. We think this way because of our modern American (and democratic) value in social mobility--the idea that, if the system is fair, anyone can be a millionaire. But, anciently, if anyone could make it, the system would be considered unfair. It was more commonly believed that the aristocrats really were the best people, so if they were chosen for, say, religious positions as well as economic wealth and political power, that showed that God had made a good choice. Social mobility, instead of being seen as a sign of social strength, was seen as a sign of social breakdown.
Looking at the selection of the Gentiles from this point of view, we can see that the objection is not that some are chosen and others not--that much was expected--but that the choice had changed from Jews to Gentiles. Paul's answer to this objection makes sense: God has the power to change His choice, and does so on the basis of how well the people He chooses are keeping up with His doctrine. To just skip ahead a little later, Paul gives another reason why the Jews have been dispossessed:
Read Rom. 11:1, 10:19.
The key here is the phrase "provoke you to jealousy." The verb here is parazêloô. The idea of "jealousy" is closely related to the ideas of zeal and of wanting something. What Paul is saying here is that God intends to do to Israel is to "egg them on." By showing them the example of the Gentiles, He hopes to make them want the same happiness and salvation. Without an example, it would be hard to encourage them to want what God has to offer. You may have done this with your children at home, selectively rewarding those who make the right choices in order to encourage the others to do the same.
Let's look at the final difficulty here:
Read Rom. 10:9-10.
This scripture is often used by those who argue against the necessity of baptism or other ordinances. Two things on this point. First, we are back in the "judicial" model again. The idea of confession, by which we are rescued from a penalty, clearly fits there. But Paul doesn't say we don't need baptism. And, in fact, if you remember the "participationist" model, baptism is absolutely necessary for that model to work.
Second, Paul says "with the mouth confession is made," but you'll notice that he never says that "with the ears hearing is done." This may seem like a small point, but it should make you ask: in the very process of hearing, did Paul mean more than just what we do with our ears? Did he, perhaps, also imply obedience? In fact, the Greek word for "obedience," hypokoê, derives from the word for "hearing," akoê. To some extent, the idea of obedience is implicit here.
I've been keeping you hanging all lesson on what it is the saints must now do. If Paul isn't comfortable with the idea of us being subject to a new "law," what is it that we must obey--it must be something, he's made that much clear. We'll look at a couple places.
Read Rom. 13:9-10.
What is Paul saying here? (The Law is fulfilled in this one commandment: it comprehends all the ideas behind the Law.)
What's more, the commandment to love our neighbor does not have the disadvantages Paul brought up before, of teaching us to do wrong at the same time that it warns us against doing wrong.
Now for another scripture. But first, if you remember our lesson on Galatians, you know that in contrast to the Law was faith. So, you would expect that Paul would say that, instead of being obedient to the Law, we must be obedient to faith. You can see that that is almost exactly what he says in Rom. 14:23. But what does that mean? Let's back up a little bit.
Read Rom. 14:15-18.
We're back in 1st Corinthians now. Again, there's the question of what one may or may not eat. This is a great example to use, because, really, it doesn't matter: there is no law that applies. But Paul shows that sin is still possible, even when no law applies. How? Let's see:
Read Rom. 15:20-21.
Here we see something higher than the Law. No law really forbids eating these foods, but love of our neighbor might forbid it, after some consideration on our part.
Now, here's the question: what if you believe that eating sacrificial meat is wrong, but all your fellow Christians say (rightly, it so happens) that it is OK. Should you go ahead and eat? Is it sin to partake? (Discussion would be good.)
If we violate anything when we eat, it would not be the Law: it would just be what we believe, right? Well, it so happens that the word "belief" is the same as the word "faith." Paul answers our question:
Read Rom. 14:23.
So, if you're uncertain, but you go ahead and do it, even though no law applies, you are still damned, because you have acted against the faith in your heart. So, in other words, instead of being obedient to the law, we must be obedient to faith, the revelation that each of us has received and understands in our hearts about what is true.
Last update: 12 September 1999
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