Category Archives: Romans

Posted on

Living out our new identity in Christ

When Christians do not live out the character of God’s Spirit  living in them (cf. the “fruit  of the Spirit”  in Gal 5:22-23), we fail to take saving faith to its logical conclusion. We do not do righteousness to get God’s gift; rather, righteousness is God’s gift in Christ, and we demonstrate active faith in Christ as we live accordingly. We do not stop sinning in order to be “saved”; rather, we are “saved” from sin through faith. To the extent that we really believe, however, we should live accordingly.

While Paul usually presents this  ideal in terms of two contrasting options (e.g., Spirit  versus flesh, Romans 8:3-11),  the life of Abraham shows that the faith through which he was initially  reckoned righteous (Genesis 15:6) was imperfect (e.g., 16:2). Nevertheless, over the years it grew to the place where he could offer up the promised seed in obedience to the God he trusted (22:10-12). Initial  justification  and transformation is obviously crucial,  but  it  is only the beginning of God’s plan to display his righteousness in those who depend on him.

Zeal in itself  is no guarantee of pleasing God (cf. 8:8;  10:2-3). Even actions offered by one generation or person in sincere devotion to God can become for another routine legalism once severed from the motivation of the Spirit. That is why churches born out of passion for God can become legalistic or complacent in the next generation when they continue their forebears’ behavior without cultivating their relationship with God.

Church history reveals that the church, at least on a large-scale political  level, has often lived no differently than nonbelievers (and in some cases worse). But then, Paul’s theology may have been largely untested because it has been largely untaught; emphasizing either moralism or justification  without transformation truncates Paul’s message of unity with Christ.

Western Christendom today has imbibed the radical Enlightenment’s skepticism of the supernatural, suspicious of miracles and other divine  interventions. For Paul, however, the genuine Christian  life  is “supernatural”  (divinely empowered) from start to finish, a life by God’s own Spirit. Apart from acknowledging and embracing the Spirit, the best imitations of Pauline religion are just “flesh.”

(Adapted from Romans: A New Covenant Commentary, published by Cascade Books. Buy the book here.)

 

 

Posted on

Separation of church and state — Romans 13

In Romans 13  Paul depicts relations with  the state within a particular kind of situation. What happens, however, when a state, far from avenging wrongdoing, is itself the persecutor? Paul wrote early in Nero’s reign, before he began persecuting Christians.  Nevertheless, as a Jew who had faced Roman rods (2 Cor 11:25) and lived in Judea, Paul was well aware that the empire already oppressed peoples and that injustices often occurred under its auspices.  Injustice notwithstanding, he does not side with the Judean nationalist ethos already building when he was writing (ct. Rom 15:31), which would soon climax in open war with Rome.

Many historically used this passage (among others) to support the divine right of kings.  But if Paul follows Jesus’s  teaching on giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s (13:6-7;  Mark 12:17), he presumably also agreed with his caveat that some things belonged only to God (Mark 12:17).  For example, Paul surely would not, out of allegiance to the state, sanction participation in the popular imperial cult (ct. 1 Cor 10:20-21). Further, submission was a temporary expedient; Paul did not expect Rome or other worldly empires to continue for long (ct. Rom 2:5; 8:21-23; 9:22; 11:26-27; 12:19; 13:12).

Nor did Paul have reason to envision modern democracies, in which Christians as citizens would in a sense constitute part of the government, and hence need to evaluate and critique government activities.  Finally, Paul lacked reason to envision this minority movement ending up in a situation of significant influence over the political  process and so being able to address large-scale injustices  like slavery (despite Paul’s personal concerns, ct. Phlm 16-21). Opposed to ideologies behind the Judean revolt, Paul was likely in practice a pacifist. But what do personal pacifists do in extreme cases, when their influence affects whether genocide may be forcibly stopped? German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pacifist, ultimately participated in a plot against Hitler because of the magnitude of evil involved.

While few would support the divine right of kings today, the subservience of the leaders of the German state church to Hitler’s Third Reich, based on this  passage, raised anew the issue of its application, and Christian cooperation with the apartheid government in South Africa had the same effect. Abolitionists and liberation theologians have long grappled with these issues. Most likely, Paul would have applied 13:1-7 as the norm where possible, living in a respectable manner in society but allowing dissent where necessary and political participation for justice when possible.

For example, he would presumably urge Christians in China (given the normal situation there at the time I am writing  this) to be model Chinese citizens, yet without  imbibing atheism.  In cases of wholesale massacres of Christians or their  neighbors, such as have happened at various times in northern Nigeria, the Indian state of Orissa, parts of Indonesia, and so forth, conclusions are harder to come by (though these were not sponsored by national governments, a situation closer to, e.g., the Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915).  I am inclined to think that Paul would not endorse armed resistance in such cases, but it is admittedly easy for me to pontificate from a currently safe location. I know of other settings where suppression and the killings of individuals led to armed uprisings, which most often led to more suffering without decisive liberation; but other solutions seemed hard to come by. Once we recognize that Paul’s words addressed a particular historical situation, translating the message into new situations becomes more problematic.

Respect for one’s government and the expected obligations of citizenship have limits (though as a modern Western reader I am probably overly inclined to emphasize this qualification). Paul cooperated with the Jerusalem church’s identification with their culture (which was also his culture, Acts 21:20-26), but  not to the extent of honoring such nationalism  above his commitment to the Gentile mission (Acts 22:21-22). When Christians are more loyal to our ethnicity  or nation than to Christ’s body, when nationalism or racism corrupts our love for fellow believers, we have gone beyond giving Caesar what is Caesar’s to giving Caesar what is God’s. On many other points, however, Christian ethicists debate the boundaries between those two spheres.

(Adapted from Romans: A New Covenant Commentary, published by Cascade Books. Buy the book here.)

 

Posted on

Paul’s perspective on the flesh in the book of Romans

Neoplatonic and gnostic dualism absorbed by later Christianity denied that the body was good, and many scholars today, reacting against this conception, argue that Paul’s use of sarx bears little  relation to soma, “body.” Some translations (such as the NIV)  even poorly translate sarx simply as “sinful  nature” (which for some Christian traditions also evokes a dualism of two natures struggling within the believer).

Paul certainly believes that the body can be used for good (Romans 12:1) – but also for evil (6:13).  The body as such is not evil, but if the body’s desires rather than God’s Spirit  dominates one’s existence, one readily comes into the power of sin.   Paul speaks of the “passions” (1:24; 6:12;  13:14)  and “desiring” what is not one’s own (7:7-8; 13:9). Impure hearts lead to defiling bodies sexually (1:24); the old life in Adam involves the “body of sin” (6:6); one should avoid obeying the desires of the mortal body (6:12);  the existence of moral defeat is characterized by the “body of death” (7:24; cf. 8:10-13).

Paul connects the term “flesh” with the body. Ultimately this is not an anthropological dualism between two parts within a person (in 7:23, the mind remains subject  to the flesh), but  humanity as sarx contrasted with  God’s Spirit (8:4-9; Gen 6:3). The Old Testament employed the equivalent Hebrew term basar for humans (or other animals) in their limited creatureliness, including  their mortality.  By Paul’s day, some Jews employed the term for human weakness in  its susceptibility  to sin.  Basar and its Greek translation sarx were not inherently evil, but as “human weakness” were susceptible to sin. Flesh was not meant to lead human life, but to be the arena in which life should be lived in obedience to God. Paul could use “flesh”  also for the outward existence (Rom 1:3; 2:28; 4:1; 9:3, 5, 8; 11:14), again what is merely human (though not intrinsically  evil) rather than empowered by God (he sometimes contrasts flesh with the Spirit or the promise). Despite these observations, flesh had an inescapable bodily dimension.

Contrary to the views of a large proportion of New Testament scholars, mostly following secondary sources, Diaspora Jews by Paul’s day commonly did  distinguish soul and body, often expecting immortality  for the former even when affirming resurrection for the latter.   In 7:5, sinful passions working in the body’s members characterize being “in the flesh.” In 8:13 one is either destined for death in the flesh or resurrection by putting to death the body’s deeds. Flesh is also linked with the body in 6:19; it contrasts with the mind in 7:25; the law working in one’s bodily members (7:23) is the law of the flesh (7:25).

The conflict  between the law of sin in the members and the law in the mind in 7:25 was not the basis for the verdict of “no condemnation” in 8:1, as if God would overlook physical sin provided one’s mind harbored good motives. Far from it: 8:1-13 contrasts those who serve the flesh with those who serve God by the Spirit! Paul’s goal is a way of thinking dominated not by the flesh (hence by one’s physical desires, which have a legitimate place, but not in ruling life), but a way of thinking dominated by the Spirit (8:5-9).

This new way of thinking  involves a renewed mind (12:2). This renewed mind teaches believers how to present their bodies in the service of the larger body-the body of Christ (12:1, 4-5). Such a mind is no longer self-centered, but Christ­ centered; no longer seeking full autonomy, it now submits gladly to the greater good of God’s purposes. “Flesh” is the localized self in contrast both to depen­ dence on God (through the Spirit) and the corporate interests of Christ’s body. Life ruled by the flesh is, at root, human selfishness and self-centeredness (or sometimes centered in one’s group), rather than genuinely altruistically  sharing God’s interests. Paul’s goal is not to annihilate self, as in some religions, but to connect it to the service of a greater purpose (ct. 12:1-8; Matt 6:33). Paul was no gnostic, but neither was he a hedonistic  Western individualist who keeps religion in its subjective place.

(Adapted from Romans: A New Covenant Commentary, published by Cascade Books. Buy the book here.)

 

Posted on

Paul’s approach to suffering in the book of Romans

Paul’s theological approach to suffering would encourage his Roman audi­ence. They had faced the trauma of many of their  number being expelled (49 CE), a situation that had ended perhaps less than five years earlier (54 CE), and would soon face deadly persecution (c. 64 CE). These believers also shared broader human experiences like grief for loved ones.

Suffering recalls our attention to God’s faithfulness  and promises. Believers in many parts of the world experience suffering on a dramatic level. Many have faced deadly persecution, such as (among many other possible examples) in northern Nigeria, Iran, and the Indian state of Orissa. Others have suffered  from genocide and horrific  ethnic  conflicts,  such as in  the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Even in the face of such intense suf­fering, though, believers have often learned to cling deeply to God for hope (cf. 5:3-5).  My wife was for eighteen months a refugee during war in Congo­ Brazzaville, and her journal records her experiences of hope in God that gave her strength to face the anguish.

Moreover, the possibility of chaos is not far from any society. For example, an infrastructure collapse would threaten massive death in heavily urbanized, economically interdependent societies. Yet even without such large-scale catastrophes, all believers face suffering-the death of a family member, struggles with a severely autistic child, miscarriages, and so on.

Counselors warn against giving a glib assertion that “all things work for good” to a person who is suffering. Instead, we should begin to learn to trust Paul’s message of God’s sovereign care and destiny for us before we suffer. At times we may be content learning such ideas without incorporating them in our lives; when we face suffering, however, with only God to cling to, the genuineness of our faith is tested. Then, with God’s help, we have opportunity to show our faith, to further develop an intellectual  affirmation  into a life of deeper trust.

(Adapted from Romans: A New Covenant Commentary, published by Cascade Books. Buy the book here.)

 

Posted on

Paul’s crafting of the book of Romans – the $2275 letter!

In the past, some scholars made much of the difference between “letters” and “epistles:” placing Paul’s in the former category to show their proximity to most surviving ancient letters (from Egyptian papyri) rather than literary letters.

While Paul did not belong to the elite circles of leisured letter writers like Cicero or Pliny, he did not simply compose his major letters, like Romans, off the top of his head. Given the time necessary to take normal dictation in antiquity (shorthand being unavailable), Paul may have taken over eleven hours to dictate this letter to Tertius, its scribe (Rom 16:22).

Since such a major undertaking probably involved more than one draft (and Paul could draw on his preaching experience), the final draft may have taken less than this estimate, but the total time invested in the letter was probably greater. Given the cost of papyrus and of the labor required (though Tertius, a believer, might have donated his services), one scholar estimates the cost of Romans at 20.68 denarii, which he calculates as roughly $2275 in recent US currency. In other words, Paul did not simply offer this project as an afterthought; Romans is a carefully premeditated work.

As we shall note below, Romans is no ordinary letter; it is a sophisticated argument. The average ancient papyrus letter was 87 words; the orator Cicero was more long-winded, averaging 295 words (with as many as 2530 words); and the philosopher Seneca averaged 995 words (with as many as 4134). The extant letters attributed to Paul average 2495 words, while Romans, his longest, has 7114 words.

One characteristic of letters that is surely relevant here is that authors expected the specified audience of their letters to understand them. Whether authors always communicated adequately or readers always understood adequately is another question, but most authors at least tried to communicate so as to be clearly understood. Paul thus writes to his audience in Greek. (Greek was the first language of many non-Italians in Rome, including the majority of Jews and of Christian ministers who had come from the east; only in the second century is it clear that many lower-class, Latin-speaking Romans joined the church.)

Paul also apparently writes with what he assumes will be shared cultural assumptions regarding language and concepts that he uses without detailed explanation. Informing ourselves about these shared cultural assumptions helps us understand his language.

(Adapted from Romans: A New Covenant Commentary, published by Cascade Books. Buy the book here.)

 

Posted on

Not under the law but still in the flesh — Romans 7

The whole-book context of Romans teaches us about ethnic reconciliation.  In this context, the specific function of Romans 7 is significant: Paul notes that believers are no longer “under the law” (7:1-6).  But he also notes that the problem is not with the law itself (7:7, 12, 14), but with humans as creatures of “flesh.”  Many people take this chapter as also depicting Paul’s present enslavement to sin, and some even use it to justify living sinfully, saying, “If Paul could not keep from living in sin, how can we?”  Is that really Paul’s point?

In 7:14, Paul declares that he is “fleshly, sold into slavery to sin.”  In surrounding chapters, however, he declares that all believers in Jesus have been freed from sin and made slaves to God and righteousness (6:18-22).  In 7:18, Paul complains that “nothing good dwells” in him, but in 8:9 he explains that the Spirit of Christ dwells in all true believers.  In 7:25 he confesses that he serves with his body the “law of sin”; but in 8:2 he declares that Jesus has freed believers from “the law of sin and death.”

Why this apparent confusion?  Probably only because we have missed the primary issue.  Although Paul speaks graphically about life under the law in Romans 7, he is not implying that this is his typical daily Christian life.  He says that when believers “were” in the flesh (probably meaning, ruled by their own desires), their sinful passions stirred by the law were producing death in them.  By contrast, Paul says, “But now” believers have been “freed from the law,” serving instead by the Spirit (7:5-6).  That is, most of Romans 7 depicts the frustration of trying to achieve righteousness by the works of the law, that is, by human effort (Rom 7 speaks of “I,” “me,” “my” and “mine” over forty times).  When we accept the righteousness of God as a free gift in Jesus Christ, however, we become able to walk in newness of life, and the rest of the Christian life is daring to trust the finished work of Christ enough to live like it is so (6:11).  To the extent that our lives resemble Romans 7 at all, it is because we are trying to make ourselves good enough for God instead of accepting His gracious love for us.

Posted on

Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart — Romans 10:9

We often urge people to be converted by believing in Jesus’ resurrection with their heart and confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord.  This summary of how to respond to the gospel is based on Romans 10:9-10, which does in fact discuss salvation.  But it is helpful to examine why Paul specifically mentions the mouth and heart here (rather than in some other passages which emphasize different aspects of salvation).  Certainly Paul would not deny that a deaf mute could be saved simply because they could not confess with their mouth.  He chooses the particular words “heart” and “mouth” for specific reasons evident in the context.

We look first at the immediate context.  Paul believes that we are saved by God’s grace, not by our works.  Contrary to the means of justification proposed by Paul’s opponents (Rom. 10:1-5), Paul demonstrates from the law of Moses itself that the message of faith is the saving word (10:6-7).  As Moses said, “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (10:8); Moses was referring to the law (Deut 30:10-11, 14), but the principle was also applicable to the gospel, which was also God’s word.  In Moses’ day one could not ascend to heaven to bring the law down from above; God in his mercy already gave it to Israel on Mount Sinai (30:12).  Nor was it necessary to descend again into the sea (30:13); God had already redeemed his people and brought them through the sea.  They could not save themselves; they had to depend on God’s mighty grace (cf. Ex 20:2).  In the same way, Paul says, we don’t bring Christ up from the dead, or send him down from the Father; like the law and Israel’s redemption, Christ’s salvation is God’s gift to us (Rom 10:6-7).  Moses declared that this message was “in your mouth and in your heart” (Deut 30:14), i.e., already given to Israel by God’s grace.  Paul explains that likewise God’s message was in your mouth when you confessed Christ with your mouth and in your heart when you believed in Him in your heart (Rom 10:9-10).  Faith could come only from hearing this word, the gospel of Christ (10:17), as we noted above.

The immediate context explains why Paul mentions the “mouth” and the “heart” in this specific passage, but it also raises a new question.  Why did Paul have to make an argument from the Old Testament that salvation was by grace through faith?  Was there anyone who doubted this?  Reading Romans as an entire book explains the reason for each passage within that book.  Paul is addressing a controversy between Jewish and Gentile Christians.

Paul begins Romans by emphasizing that the Gentiles are lost (Rom 1:18-32); just as the Jewish Christian readers are applauding, Paul points out that religious people are also lost (Rom 2), and summarizes that everyone is lost (Rom 3).  Paul establishes that all humanity is equally lost to remind us that all of us have to come to God on the same terms; none of us can boast against others.

But most Jewish people believed that they were chosen for salvation in Abraham; therefore Paul reminds his fellow Jewish Christians that it is spiritual rather than ethnic descent from Abraham that matters for salvation (Rom 4).  Lest any of his Jewish readers continue to stress their genetic descent, he reminds them that all people–including themselves–descend from sinful Adam (5:12-21).  Jewish people believed that most Jews kept all 613 commandments in the law (at least most of the time), whereas most Gentiles did not even keep the seven commandments many Jews believed God gave to Noah.  So Paul argues that while the law is good, it never saved its practitioners, including Paul (Rom 7); only Jesus Christ could do that!  And lest the Jewish Christians continue to insist on their chosenness in Abraham, Paul reminds them that not all Abraham’s physical descendants were chosen, even in the first two generations (Rom 9:6-13).  God was so sovereign, he was not bound to choosing people on the basis of their ethnicity (9:18-24); he could choose people on the basis of their faith in Christ.

But lest the Gentile Christians look down on the Jewish Christians, Paul also reminds them that the heritage into which they had been grafted was, after all, Israel’s (Rom 11).  God had a Jewish remnant, and would one day turn the majority of Jewish people to faith in Christ (11:25-26).  And at this point Paul gets very practical.  Christians must serve one another (Rom 12); the heart of God’s law is actually loving one another (13:8-10).  Ancient literature shows that Roman Gentiles made fun of Roman Jews especially for their food laws and holy days; Paul argues that we should not look down on one another because of such minor differences of practice (Rom 14).  He then provides examples of ethnic reconciliation: Jesus though Jewish ministered to the Gentiles (15:7-12) and Paul was bringing an offering from Gentile churches for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (15:25-31).  In the midst of his closing greetings, he offers one final exhortation: Beware of those who cause division (16:17).

Getting the whole picture of Romans provides us a clearer understanding of the function of each particular passage in the work as a whole.  It also suggests the sort of situation which the letter addresses.  What we know of the “background” sheds more light on this situation: Rome earlier expelled the Jewish Christians (Acts 18:1-3), but now they have returned (Rom 16:3).  This means that the Roman house churches, which had consisted completely of Gentiles for many years, now face conflict with Jewish Christians who had different cultural ways of doing things.  Paul’s letter to the Romans summons Christians to ethnic, cultural, tribal reconciliation with one another by reminding us that all of us came to God on the same terms, through Jesus Christ alone.

Posted on

Faith comes by hearing — Romans 10:17

Some people quote Romans 10:17 to support repeating Bible verses to ourselves aloud: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Of course, repeating the Bible to ourselves is important (if we understand it in context). But those who think that is the point of this particular verse should reexamine the context of Romans 10:17.

Paul argues that no one could be saved unless they heard this word, which is the message of Christ (10:14-15), the “report” of the witnesses (10:16). This is also the “word” in their mouths and hearts through which they are saved (10:8-10). Faith could only come from hearing this word, the gospel of Christ (10:17). In contrast to Hebrews 11:1, where “faith” in context means persevering faith, this passage refers to saving faith. One cannot be saved until one hears the truth about Jesus.