P A U L ' S L E T T E R T O T H E R O M A N S A New Relationship With God I. The State of Human Life Today 1. Humanity has wandered far from God. The good news about Jesus Christ is a seamless message, continuous from the words of the prophets through Paul's letters, including this one to Rome. The good news is a message to all people, for it says that everyone can be seen as righteous, if only they believe: That includes the Jews to whom the prophets were sent, of course, but equally it includes the Hellenistic peoples. The message about Jesus Christ is eternally new and unexpected, yet it is also a continuation of what God has revealed from the beginning of the universe. Creation is an expression of God's word, reason, and power. [Tertullian, xvii.1.] The conscience, which is given to all people, is an expression of God's natural presence within us. Scripture is given to us so that we can better and more fully understand the thoughts and will of this God whom we really can't help but know [Tertullian, viii.1 and xvii]. Finally, Christ came to reveal God to us fully. TODAY WE SEE THAT PEOPLE ARE FAR FROM GOD. It is not that people do not know God at all. God is clearly evident in the created universe. Rather, people ignore the plain evidence, and the creator it points to. They turn their minds to foolish ideas of their own. In this way they make idols out of nonsense. How could God be the creator and yet creation not express something of who God is? If we ignore all that is revealed in favor of our own limited ideas, then we put a lie in the place of the unfathomable God. This indeed is nonsense. God punishes such people by letting them walk away. The "pleasures" which people devise in the confusion of their minds are just punishment for their apostasy. People who practice envy, murder, and insolence end up with isolation, death, and loneliness. "Separation, which is the very essence of judgement" [Tertullian, xli.3] will not be complete until God's final judgement. Yet sinners, ourselves included, are busily trying to create our own condemnation by separating ourselves from God. 2. God will judge the secrets of the heart. God judges all people equally. God has the right to judge, not only because as creator and lord but also because God's concern for us is evident. We might suppose that we would rather be our own judges, but in fact we condemn ourselves. God will judge more equitably. Those who strive for life by doing fitting things will be rewarded, while the selfish will receive pain. We have such high opinions of our ability to judge that we think we can even judge more than fairly, even giving ourselves leniency. Actually we judge our own sins, which we find reflected in in our neighbors' lives. It doesn't matter whether the person grew up in a religious family and community; it matters what you do. JUDGEMENT IS NOT BY THE LAW BUT BY THE HEART. Hearing the scripture all your life means nothing at all; you must put the word into practice. On the other hand, anyone who is able to discern the right thing to do without hearing the scripture is seen to already have God's law inside. The good news is that God's judgement is not based on whether we follow the rules but on how we live our lives. So far, the message is phrased in terms of action; one might still suppose that there are lists of good and evil deeds which are being chalked up for the final accounting at the end of time. Paul does not say this. He says that God will judge by the secrets of the heart. So we see that the obedient person may be more faithful than the one who appears to be religious. The Jews of Paul's time, and Christians of our time, boast about knowing God and God's laws and yet their actions make a mockery of the very words they boast about. The rite of circumcism is made valuable by obedience; it was set up to be a sign of obedience [Genesis 17]. The true signs of obedience are hidden inside a person where they can't be seen clearly, except by God. 3. True relations with God are based on God's gift. There is value to the scripture. The Jews have the advantage of being the people to whom God gave the law. God is faithful to the promise made to the Jews even if some Jews break faith. God may even bring good from their failures. God remains the only judge and, in fact, the very measure of right. So the Jews have the advantage of having the scripture, and yet are not in any better condition. The fact is that we have all failed. THE LAW MAKES OUR SINS CLEAR AND ENDS OUR EXCUSES. WE ARE MADE RIGHT BY FAITH IN CHRIST, AS A GIFT FROM GOD. All have sinned alike, and all are saved alike. This method demonstrates God's righteousness and allows God to exhibit mercy without denying the seriousness of sin. The sin is not overlooked but we are given a gift. The law makes clear that there is sin and guilt, that we have responsibilities that we do not meet. This is not our doing at all; we only have faith. (If we were saved by following the specific prescriptions of the law, salvation would be available only to those who posses the rules.) The law is placed on a firmer footing by better understanding of its true place. As the angel said to Zerubbabel, "You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit" [Zechariah 4:6]. The same God chose Moses, an absconded felon with low self-esteem, to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt [Exodus 2-4]. God also gave an army to an angry young farmer with no social standing but wouldn't let Gideon take more than 300 of them to defeat Midianite oppression - lest they think that victory came from their own strength rather than from God [Judges 6-7]. 4. Abraham's legacy is for all believers Abraham is the prototype of being made right through faith. Abraham's experience was that he was counted as righteous because of his faith. This accounting wasn't something earned, like a wage, but was given as a gift. God does not keep account in the usual way, but has a different kind of accounting which declares the guilty to be innocent. ABRAHAM IS THE FATHER OF ALL WHO BELIEVE. He was declared righteous before he was circumcised and so is the spiritual ancestor of everyone who has faith without the ritual signs. Abraham was the ancestor of the Jews and the Arabs in the line of physical descent, but as a recipient of God's gift of spiritual health, Abraham is a model who helps all of us can understand our own relationship with God. How is this promise to be realized? Obviously, if it were to be based on obeying the law then faith would be irrelevant. (Not to mention that it would only be applicable to the Jews, who had the law.) But the promise is based on faith and its fulfilment is available to everyone. Just as Abraham was completely confident that God would keep the promise, and so was accepted as righteous, we also believe in the God who raised Christ, and we also can be accepted. II. What God Has Done 5. God has given the gift of uprightness. We experience peace and friendship with God as God's gift to us. We also have the hope of sharing the glory of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. All this came to us through Christ's death when we were completely unable to do anything to deserve it. Now we are God's friends and Christ is alive, there is nothing we might not receive from God. Life is better than death, and we rightly expect more from life and friendship than from death and emnity. Sin originated with Adam's disobedience and death followed as a natural consequence. (Even before the law was revealed, when sinfulness was not subject to accounting, death still ruled as the consequence of sin.) Well, sin results in condemnation naturally enough, but now something greater has come. OUT OF ALL THE WRONGS, GOD IS ABLE TO GIVE A JUDGEMENT OF RIGHT. The good news is that the normal course of things is not the last word. The "new thing" which God has done is to add a new element to the sequence of cause and effect. Our inability to give God our total loyalty and obedience resulted in sin; our sinning implies our guiltiness; guilt gives rise to condemnation. All this is true enough, but God makes this logic incomplete by adding the gift of mercy. Adam was disobedient, and since then one failing has been piled on another, subjecting all of us to condemnation. But Christ was obedient, and the whole pile is thrown off. Even the guidance of the law only served to increase error, but God made the gift big enough to match all the error. "Therefore this iniquity and this sin were there, and yet they were not mine," Luther comments [Luther, page 141]; "I was conceived without my consent. But now they have become mine. For now I know that I do evil and violate the law." 6. We are dead to sin and alive to Christ. In Christ's death we have died to sin. We are baptized into Christ's death. In this way the demands of justice are fulfilled and so we are freed from the just demands of the law. Christ's death is not explained as a payment on our behalf. (To whom would it be paid? Our debt is to God, who already owned Christ's life.) Instead, the demand of the law is fulfilled in our lives by means of our participation in Christ's life. BECAUSE WE ARE JOINED WITH CHRIST IN DEATH, WE ARE FREE FROM THE LAW. BECAUSE WE ARE JOINED TO CHRIST IN NEW LIFE, WE ARE FREED FROM DEATH. If we were not joined to Christ, we would have to pay for our separation from God with our own deaths and that would be the end of the matter. Instead, we join our lives to Christ's and so participate in both the death and resurrection of Christ. This both fulfills the consequences of our sins and negates the effect of those consequences to us. We should not serve sinfulness, not even give sin a toehold by trying to split ourselves into parts. If you obey any master you turn yourself into a slave of that master. Being a slave of sin gives no benefit - we know this from our own experience. The better choice is to obey God and become God's slave. Each human life is a unity; every part of life is tied inextricably to the rest. If one part of my life is given over to sin, then the whole of my life is tainted by slavery to sin. 7. Sin remains as a part of life. The law is no longer binding on us. We are parts of the body of Christ; in terms of the law of God, Christ's death serves for all of us and releases from slavery to the law. The law itself is not sinful. Sin shows how terrible it is by finding an opening in the rules which were intended to guide us to life. If we look to the law for our spiritual health rather than to the God who gave the law, the law stands between us and God. Then we make God's law into an idol. This is not a natural condition of the law, any more than clay or wood are naturally idols, but we can make them so. Even now we are not completely free from our slavery to sin. The mortal body is not capable of living a fully spiritual life. This causes a perpetual conflict in human life - but THE VERY DISSONANCE IN OUR LIVES DEMONSTRATES OUR INNER OBEDIENCE. In the first place, the conflict demonstrates that we do not desire our sins, that we are not committed to them. This is Paul's point. In the second place, it is natural for conflict to become more apparent as we come nearer to harmony. An image of this may be heard when tuning two strings into harmony: The two tones beat against each other more insistently and disturbingly as harmony is approached until true tuning is achieved. The common experience of life is that we find ourselves trapped in situations in which we have no good options. So sin still holds onto us but, because of God's gift, sin can no longer enslave us. The nature of life is that we can not live in some pristine purity but must always be involved with a world in which good and evil are invariably inter- twined. God has not called us to be isolated from the world; we must eat and sleep, we must buy and sell, but these things do not have to consume us. III. CONDEMNATION IS NOW IMPOSSIBLE. 8. WE ARE ACCEPTED AS A PART OF THE UNIVERSAL FAMILY. Condemnation cannot exist for us. God has replaced the law under which we could be condemned with a new law. Sin is an inevitable part of our lives, and sin is condemned, but we have been invited to fulfil our obligation in the spirit rather than through specific actions we might do. Obedience to God is impossible for us acting in our own power. God's intent is that we should not pay attention to what we ourselves can do, but to what God makes possible for us. It is easy to see how limited we are in controlling our own lives and destinies. Every plan we make is subject to being changed or cancelled by a change in the weather, failed communications, failed memory, a strike, a bankruptcy, or any number of other events. The good news from God is that our limitations don't have to be failures, that we can participate in an enterprise which is much larger than us and whose success is not threatened by our inabilities. As Christians the Spirit is alive in us. This is the same spirit which raised Christ from death. It gives us life as well. Never mind that sin still lives in our bodies. Sinfulness is our mortality. The spirit kills the power that our mortality has over us. Our slavery to our dying bodies is ended, and with that ends our fear. Our obligation to God has a totally different character: It is in the nature of filial loyalty, unity of spirit, and sharing together as part of the family. So we do not gain our health by ourselves, but by being a part of the whole family. THIS FAMILY INTO WHICH WE HAVE BEEN ADOPTED IS THE WHOLE OF GOD'S CREATION. EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS SUBJECT TO DECAY; EVERYTHING IN THE END FAILS TO FULFILL ITS PURPOSE. YET THERE IS ALWAYS THE HOPE THAT EACH CREATED THING WILL BE FREE TO SHARE IN GOD'S FINAL SUCCESS. WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THIS FUTURE. Left alone, everything tends to become disorganized and useless. Plants die, iron rusts, fires burn out, orbits decay. Any plan which depends on technology or nature, even the motions of the stars, will not be able to continue forever. This is the heart of the gospel: We are not subject to judgement and separation, but insted we are joined together with all people, with every living being, with every created thing. We are joined in our inabilites, in our failure of will and failure of practice. The good news is that we are also joined in God's ultimate purpose. We and all people and all living beings and every created thing will come together in Christ Jesus to achieve success. Where we lack strength and vision, God's spirit makes up for our lack. God works side by side with us to accomplish what is good and helpful. This is how God fulfills the promise to us. Evil does not disappear, but God works with us to bring good out of everything. So then, where is the condemnation? No one can even hand up an indictment against us! The judge has already decided in our favor. The prosecutor is our defense attorney. We are invincible! Not because we are strong ourselves, but because we participate in God's triumph by being joined to Christ, and because there is no power which can divide us from from this strength. IV. What God Will Do Yet 9. God chooses the people God wants to choose. God's promise to the Jews did not fail. As a people, the Jews are the people of God, but not all the Jews belong to God. Paul himself is a Jew, Jesus was a Jew, but the choice of who is among God's people is God's choice alone. This is illustrated by the stories about Isaac and Jacob. God's choice is not bound by right of birth or by a person's deeds or by any other rule. "It is not because you are good and do what is right that the Lord is letting you take their land," Moses told the Hebrew people before they conquered Caanan [Deuteronmony 9:5]. The Hebrews were given the land God promised because of the promise and because it suited God's purposes. GOD IS ENTIRELY FREE TO CHOOSE. God defines justice. God is not bound by justice; justice is bound to God. God also has the power to make the choice: Pharoah was made stubborn as easily as we are made free. God, who is the creator, has the right to do anything at all with creation. God's opinion defines what is good. If God desires what I believe is evil, then I am wrong; it is truly good. This truth does not leave at the mercy of a willful and contradictory despot, but in the mercy of a consistent and loving God. We are all called, whether we were born among the Jews or among other peoples. Equally, we will all have to settle accounts with God. This will be under the new accounting; the people who put their faith in God find themselves in the right while those who try to find their own way find themselves in the wrong. 10. Spiritual health is for all who believe. Rather than submit to God's own way, the Jews tried to make their own way. They truly thought they were following God's way, but they didn't understand the method that God uses. This is why Christ ended the law entirely. Building our own way is the most typical failing of all religious people. We truly desire to be loyal and spiritual, and this becomes our idol. Being religious becomes our goal in place of God. Luther noted that there people who "willingly give up all goods at their left hand, namely, the temporal ones; but there are few who for the sake of Christ's righteousness regard as nothing the goods at their right hand, namely, spiritual goods and righteous works" [Luther, page 5]. "And yet without this," Luther adds, "no one can be saved." The real message from God is not mysterious or hidden; it is near at hand and simple to understand. IF YOU ADMIT THAT JESUS IS LORD AND IF YOU TRULY BELIEVE THAT GOD RAISED JESUS FROM DEATH, THEN YOU WILL BE SAVED. God saves us by means of our faith. Moses continued by saying, "You know it and can quote it" [Deuteronomy 30:14]. We want salvation to be difficult and mysterious. Perhaps that would give us an excuse for failing to embrace it. Since God is the Lord of everyone, the same rule applies to everyone. Yes, the message of salvation is given to the Jews; they are not excluded. The message was given to the Jews first, before Christ came, and it was also made available to other peoples. Similarly, spiritual health is not denied to bishops or popes or presiding elders or professors of theology merely because of their station, but it is available to them on the same basis as it is to the janitor, the waitress, the bank president, and all the rest of us. 11. God will not cut off the Jews forever. God has plans for the people whom he chose first. God has provided for a remnant to remain faithful; the others are blind and deaf to God's will. God is even able to use their stumbling about in the dark to bring salvation to other peoples. God chose the Jews to be root through which life comes to all people. Those not of Jewish descent are grafted onto the tree which God is growing. WE ARE NOW ALLOWED TO SHARE IN THE STRONG SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE JEWS. "O Sovereign Lord, from all the forests of the earth and from all its trees, you have chosen for yourself one vine, and from all the lands of the world you have chosen for yourself one land, and from all the flowers of the earth you have chosen for yourself one lily ..." [IV Ezra 5:23-37]. God did not choose the one vine in order to abandon the forest or the one land to abandon the rest of the earth. Rather, one was chosen for the sake of the health of the entire forest. All alike have disobeyed, and now all alike will be restored. Paul is certain that the Jews will share in God's salvation; God's choice is forever. Right now, the stubbornness of the Jewish people serves the larger purposes of God; later on, the faith of other peoples may open the door to faith among the Jews. God's decisions are beyond our attempts to explain them. We have seen that God brings about good things, and therefore we believe that seeming errors can be redeemed and made into benefits. How God accomplishes such wonders is not easy to understand. V. The task of Christian Living 12. Be transformed to the good. We should sacrifice our bodies to God, not to the current times. We should conform our plans to God's plans and our desires to the needs of Christ's body. This calls for modesty and a willingness to share whatever gifts we have. This mortal body, which Paul called a "body of death" [chapter 7] is not a permanent possession. God gives us the opportunity to give up this possession in a way that preserves life. That is, our mortal existence can be useful, pleasing, and directed toward the ultimate goal. What should we be doing, in light of our relation to God? Paul's selection of proverbs for the Christian echo the guidance of the old law. The difference from the old rules is not in the content but in the tone or (we should say) the spirit. The proverbs may be paraphrased into a decalogue: i. Love sincerely. ii. Send away the evil, hold on to the good. iii. Love and respect fellow Christians eagerly. iv. Work hard in the spirit of life. v. Keep steadfast in joy, hope, prayer. vi. Share whatever possessions you have. vii. Ask good for your persecutors. viii. Share others' happiness and sadness. ix. Be concerned equally for each person. x. Accept what seems to be a humble role. The key to understanding Paul's practical theology is the attitude which these proverbs call for. It is the sincerity, the eagerness, the steadfastness which distinguish this advice. Pay nothing evil back for any evil you receive, but make a good and useful response. So far as we can, we should be friends with everyone. We can leave judgement to God. By responding with good, we will defeat, not our enemies, but their evil. If the world were a balance between good and evil, one evil might need to be balanced by retaliation. If life were a fabric or a building, evil would be a rip or a crack which is not to be balanced but repaired. Paul rejects the dualistic concept of balance, and he goes beyond the static image of cloth or house; Paul sees life as a living body or a growing plant. Any evil is an injury which brings suffering to the whole body; evil must be healed for health to return. 13. True relations with others are based on love. Obey the authorities as a matter of conscience. The established authority could not exist without God's permission. The authorities serve God by punishing evil deeds. Therefore they deserve obedience, as a matter of conscience. The same applies not only to the criminal law, but to taxes and civil respect as well. Paul is not addressing people living under a madman such as Adolf Hitler. Specifically, he qualifies his remark by stating that the authorities are working for God when they fulfill their duties. Neither is Paul addressing people living under an enlightened and Christian democracy, but under a dictatorial and pagan emperor. Effective government is important for Christians as it is for all other people. God has provided for government and for civil order, and Christians need to help government carry out the functions it is given. LOVE IS OUR ONLY OBLIGATION. It is the sum of the religious law, and the secular law as well. If you act from love, there is no possibility that you will do evil and so you will fulfill the full intent of all the rules. The intent of the Torah is not to list out all the things which are required of the Jews or forbidden to them, but it is to provide a framework for living which makes a good and useful life possible. If we were to follow the spirit of the Torah we would be following the spirit of God, but the obligation is to the spirit and not to the specific rules through which that spirit is expressed. It is from the Torah, after all, that the commandments come that we should love God and each other. Jesus did not bring new content, but a corrected understanding of the message which God had already provided. It is time for us to act as if we were enlightened. The night of ignorance and misunderstanding is ending and the day of God's truth is dawning. The tools of retaliation and hatred need to be put aside and replaced with the tools of God's choice. "Weapons" and "tools" are the same thing; in Greek, it is the same word. The difference lies in the function they are given. If we live in God's light we will use our tools to fulfill our obligation to honor God and love those whom God loves. 14. God will judge his own servants. It is not for us to pass judgement on any of God's servants. If we meet some Christians whose theological concepts are naive (or which seem so to us), it isn't our place to try to argue them into accepting our views. The beef farmer needs to accept the vegetarian, and vice versa, because God has already accepted both. We who are not judged have no right to judge one of God's other servants. We were not accepted for our ideas about eating, drinking, and dancing, or for the metaphors we use to express our faith. Some of us may truly think more clearly (though one is never safe claiming that for oneself); even so, it isn't by correct theological categories that we are saved but by God's free gift. (Dr. Luther said, "Great scholars who read much and abound in many books are not the best Christians" [Luther, page 198].) So Paul states with certainty that the person I disagee with will surely succeed: Not because that person is more right than I, but because the success of either one of us depends only on God's acceptance of us. Everything we do as Christians is done for Christ. Those who eat and drink and those who abstain, if they are Christians, eat and drink and abstain in honor of Christ. Those who stay alive and those that die as martyrs live and die for Christ. Christ was born, lived, and died to be lord of everyone. CHRIST ALONE WILL JUDGE US ALL and it is to Christ alone that we must all give account. Those who celebrate Christmas celebrate Christ. Those who fast during Lent are hungry for Christ. The Christians who put on the potluck supper eat in honor of Christ. More: Christians who install telephones install them for Christ and those who sell cars sell them for Christ's glory. Being Christian covers all of life. Rather than passing judgement, we should be looking for ways to help each other. Eating itself is not sinful, but what a person believes about food can turn eating it into sin for that person. The reign of God is not about food, so rather than debate what to eat we should concentrate on what is important. Keep your beliefs about food between yourself and God. Paul, the missionary preacher, is hardly advocating a private Christianity, but one should not try to impose one's personal disciplines on the whole church. Well, then, should we eat meat or not? Perhaps not. Paul says that all food may be eaten - pork chops, beer, blood sausage - but not if you have doubts. If you eat your pork chop saying to yourself, "I wonder if God allows me to eat this," and yet you eat it anyway, then you have sinned. Why? Because you were willing to do something which you thought might be against God's plan for you. It is not the eating itself which is the sin, but the spirit in which the eating is done. All food is acceptable, provided that it is eaten for Christ's glory. 15. We are to travel with God. As members of Christ's body we should be trying to please each other and work for each other. Christ provided an example for us in his earthly life. Likewise, the teaching found in the scripture provides us with reason to hope. Our goal is to reach a common mind so that we can praise Christ together. God's message is one message. The revelation given in nature, in scripture, and in Jesus' life all agree in assuring us of God's goodwill and the certainty of God's promise to us. This gives us the confidence to travel the road God prepares for us. WE NEED TO ACCEPT EACH OTHER IN ORDER TO GIVE HONOR TO GOD. Christ's life was lived for his own Jewish people and for all peoples. The words of scripture have already told us that God intends to include all the nations. If God's plan is to include all peoples together in the kingdom, then we dishonor God whenever we exclude any group. Ethnic, racial, and gender prejudices are absolutely excluded. God's intent is to include every person; who am I, then, to exclude anyone? We will honor God by furthering the plans which God has made in whatever manner we have the opportunity. Paul found his opportunities in his preaching mission and his letters. Also Paul is helping the mission churches to serve by carrying their financial support to the Christians in Jerusalem. Those in Rome can support Paul by praying with him and, when he arrives there, by sharing their faith with him. Our opportunity is found in our present circumstances. Just as Paul found opportunities in his life to serve God, we can find ways in our lives. We don't have to be in Paul's situation to serve, but we need to share the same acceptance of the people around us and the same desire to honor God and to help with God's work. A p p e n d i x 16. Those who are with Paul send greetings to those at Rome. This forms a visible sign of the unity of the church. B i b l i o g r a p h y IV Ezra. Translated by B.M. Metzger. Circa 100. In Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (volume 1), edited by James Charlesworth; Doubleday, 1983. Good News Bible (Today's English Version). American Bible Society, 1976. Luther, Martin. Lectures on Romans. 1515-1516. Translated by Wilhelm Pauk; Westminster Press, 1961. New Testament. American Bible Society. 1984. (This is the third edition of the Greek text of the United Bible Societies.) Tertullian, [Quintus Septimius Florens]. Apologeticus. 197-198. Loeb Classic Library edition, edited by T.R. Glover; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1961. Peter Cardinal June, 1994