Latest / Reformed Thinking / Entering Paul’s Letter to Rome: Purpose and Message | Colin G. Kruse

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Entering Paul’s Letter to Rome: Purpose and Message | Colin G. Kruse · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. In this deep dive, we are
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focusing on one of the most significant documents in
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Scripture, Paul's letter to the Romans.
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We're working from a scholarly introduction to the letter, and
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our mission here is to really get under the surface.
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We want to unpack the historical situation in Rome, understand
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Paul's own motivations and plans, and then map out the
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letters incredible theological structure.
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And of course, we have to get into the major scholarly debates
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that surround this text, especially the new perspective
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on Paul. Romans really does stand in a
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category of its own. Most of Paul's letters are, you
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know, written to churches he founded to fix very specific
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problems. But this one is different.
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It's more of a a theological treatise.
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It's Paul laying out his comprehensive understanding of
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the gospel and really get the weight of his arguments.
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You first have to understand the specific and pretty volatile
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world of 1st century Rome. Absolutely.
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We're looking for the why behind the what.
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OK? The central idea Paul puts
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forward is that the gospel is God's power for salvation for
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everyone who believes, because in it God's own righteousness is
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revealed. That one statement is our guide.
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So we need to cover the setup, the logic, and the controversies
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around that claim, starting with the Roman stage itself.
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OK, so let's dig into this historical context.
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Paul's writing around 8057, maybe 58.
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Who is in charge in Rome at that moment and what is the city
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actually feel like? The emperor is Nero, Nero,
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Claudius Caesar. But it's really helpful to make
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the distinction that this is early Nero.
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This is before the great fire of Rome, before his descent into
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the, you know, the tyranny he's famous for.
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So the situation is relatively stable, politically speaking.
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And Rome itself is just this massive, sprawling imperial
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capital. The population estimates for
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citizens are around 400,000, but when you add in everyone else,
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slaves, freed persons, foreigners, the total number is
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probably closer to 1,000,000 people all packed together.
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And that social structure is nothing like what we might
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imagine today. It's deeply stratified.
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And that reality would have shaped the daily life of every
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single believer Paul was writing to.
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It's fundamental. The numbers we have are pretty
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revealing. About 30% of the population were
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slaves. Another 30% were freed persons,
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people who had been slaves but gained their freedom, and only
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about 40% were actually freeborn citizens.
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So a huge portion of the society that Paul is addressing is
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made-up of the poor, the formerly enslaved, the people on
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the margins. And within that mix, you have a
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very significant Jewish community, maybe 10% of the
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entire city. And that Jewish community is the
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key to understanding the church in Rome.
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Their presence, or sometimes their absence, is what shaped
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the congregation. Which brings us to a huge
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political event, the Claudius Edict.
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It really is a turning point. Initially, the Emperor Claudius
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was, you could say, somewhat favorable to the Jewish
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population when he took power in AD 41.
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But later we get accounts from Roman historians like Suetonius,
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who mentions constant disturbances among the Jews
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instigated by someone he calls Christus.
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Which is almost certainly a misspelling of Christos or
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Christ. Almost certainly.
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It's a fascinating glinks into how the Roman saw things.
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They didn't understand the theological debate.
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They didn't distinguish between Jews who believed in Jesus and
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Jews who didn't. All they saw was a single
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community causing riots and civil disorder.
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And for a Roman emperor, civil disorder is the one thing you
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can't tolerate. Precisely the arguments
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happening inside the synagogues about whether Jesus was the
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Messiah spilled out into the streets.
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So around 1849, Claudius brings the hammer down.
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He issues an edict expelling all Jews from the city of Rome.
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We even see this confirmed in the book of Acts, where
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Priscilla and Aquila have to leave Italy because of that very
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edict. So the Jewish Christians who
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were likely the founding members of the church in Rome are
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suddenly gone, kicked out. Yes, and This is why analyzing
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the audience for this letter is so critical.
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Before 8049, the church in Rome was probably a group that grew
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out of the local synagogues. It would have been largely
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Jewish in its character and leadership.
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Then overnight, they're expelled.
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The Christians who are left behind are the Gentiles.
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Suddenly this Gentile group becomes the majority and the
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leadership of the Roman Church. And how long did that situation
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last? When did things start to change
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again? The edict effectively ended when
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Claudius died in 1854. By the time Paul writes his
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letter four or five years later, many of those Jewish believers
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that had started to trickle back into the city, people like
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Priscilla and Akilah, Paul, Greece by name in Chapter 16,
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are back. So the church Paul is writing to
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is this, this newly mixed group. You've got a Gentile majority
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that's been in charge for almost a decade, and now they're trying
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to reintegrate a returning Jewish minority that probably
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has a very different memory of how the church started and how
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it should operate. I see the connection now.
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That dynamic provides the perfect backdrop for all the
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practical advice in chapters 14 and 15, the arguments about
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eating certain foods or observing certain days.
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It's not theoretical. It's not abstract at all.
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It's about real tensions. Who's in charge now?
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Whose traditions matter more? This is the context for Paul's
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appeal for the strong to bear with the weak, and it also fuels
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the bigger theological questions he has to tackle about the role
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of the law and the place of Israel in God's plan in chapters
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9 through 11. Let's talk more about the actual
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living conditions for these Roman Christians.
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We know many were poor or of slave origin.
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Where were they living? For the most part, they lived in
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the poorest neighborhoods of the city, places like the Trans
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Siberian District we call Tres de Vera today, across the Tiber
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River or along the Appian Way. And their housing was, well,
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awful. They live in these apartment
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blocks known as Insuli. The insuli.
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Can you describe what daily life would have been like in one of
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those? They were the exact opposite of
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the spacious Roman villas you see in movies.
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These were flimsy, poorly built, multi story tenements, often
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made with wood and cheap materials.
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They were incredibly overcrowded, they were known to
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just collapse, and there were notorious fire traps.
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There was no proper sanitation, no running water above the
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ground floor. This means the majority of the
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Roman Christians were not only poor and socially marginalized,
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they were living in physically dangerous and vulnerable
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conditions every single day. The source materials suggest
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something like 60% of them were either slaves or freed persons.
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This is a very different demographic from a church like
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Corinth, which had a wider social mix.
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That context just changes everything to think that this
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letter, which is the foundation for so much systematic theology,
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was written to people whose main concern was whether their
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building would collapse overnight.
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It really should. That vulnerability makes Paul's
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instructions at the end of the letter so much more powerful.
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When he says in chapter 12, Bless those who persecute you or
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do not repay anyone evil for evil, he's not talking to
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comfortable people with theoretical problems.
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He's talking to people facing real hostility in a cutthroat
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city where they were viewed with suspicion.
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Their humility wasn't just a virtue, it was a survival
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strategy. OK, let's shift from the
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audience to the author. Let's talk about Paul's own
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situation. He's writing from Corinth.
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He's near the end of his work in the aging What was his driving
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ambition at this point? Paul's whole life, his whole
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identity, was reshaped by his encounter with the risen Christ
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on the road to Damascus. It wasn't just a personal
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conversion. It came with a specific
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corporate calling to be the apostle to the Gentiles, That
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mission to find everything he did.
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His main motivation was to please God by fulfilling that
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call. And part of that was his
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strategy, which he mentions in Romans 15, to preach the gospel
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where Christ hadn't been named yet.
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So he wasn't building on someone else's foundation.
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That he'd wanted to go further W for a long time.
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What was holding him up? What kept him in the eastern
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Mediterranean? It was his pastoral
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responsibilities. He couldn't just plant churches
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and walk away. You see it so clearly in his
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other letters, like 2 Corinthians.
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He's dealing with immense struggles, internal divisions,
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false teachers, all sorts of problems.
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He felt he had to make sure those existing churches were
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doctrinally sound and stable before he could, you know, hand
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them off and move on to a new mission field.
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Which sets the stage for the three-step plan he lays out in
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Romans. This really explains the timing
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of the letter. Right, so Step 1.
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He felt this deep sense of obligation to the believers in
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Rome. He says he'd tried to visit many
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times but was prevented. He wanted to minister to them,
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to impart some spiritual gift. Step 2 was the immediate task at
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hand, the delivery of the collection.
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The collection. This was the money he had
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gathered from all the Gentile churches in places like Galatia
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and Macedonia. Why was this so important that
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it had to happen before he could even go to Rome?
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Because it was so much more than just a financial gift.
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The money was for the poor Saints back in Jerusalem, the
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Jewish believers. Paul saw this as a massive
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theological statement. It was the Gentile churches
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acknowledging their debt to the Jewish church from whom the
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gospel first came. It was a tangible symbol of the
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unity between Jew and Gentile and the one body of Christ.
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Getting that gift to Jerusalem successfully was absolutely
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essential, even though he knew he was risking his life to do
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it. He certainly did.
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He asks the Romans to pray for his safety on that trip, and
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step three of his plan depended on him surviving that journey.
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Exactly. If he successfully delivered the
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collection in Jerusalem, his plan was to finally visit Rome.
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But the visit wasn't the final goal.
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It was strategic. He wanted the minister there,
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yes, but he also needed to secure their support, both
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financial and logistical, for his ultimate ambition, a mission
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to Spain. Rome was the launching pad for
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the western Mediterranean, and he needed a strong, unified and
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theologically sound church there to be his base of operations.
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And here we get to the big question.
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If his stated purpose was basically, I'm coming to see you
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on my way to Spain after I drop off this money, then why write
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this enormous, dense theological work that goes from Chapter 1
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all the way to Chapter 15? The travel plans just don't seem
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to justify the sheer scale of the letter.
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That's the heart of the puzzle. A letter just asking for prayer
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and support would have been much, much shorter.
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The length and the incredible detail of the argument in Romans
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suggests there's a much deeper purpose at play.
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He's not just telling them his itinerary, he's given them a
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full orbed presentation of the gospel that drives that
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itinerary. So the working hypothesis has to
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connect his mission plans with the letters content.
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I think the consensus view is that Paul knew his trip was
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delayed, but he didn't want the Roman Christians to be without
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Apostolic teaching in the meantime.
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So he writes this letter to perform an Apostolic ministry by
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text. Before he can get there in
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person, he's laying out the very gospel he's about to risk his
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life for in Jerusalem and the very gospel he intends to take
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to Spain. So it's a kind of doctrinal
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preparation for them. He needs to make sure the church
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that's going to support his future mission actually
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understands and agrees with his message.
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Yes, and he states his purpose very clearly in chapter 15,
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verses 15 and 16. He says he wrote boldly to
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remind them because of the grace given to him to be a minister of
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Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. His goal, he says, is that the
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offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the
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Holy Spirit. If his aim is their
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sanctification and their presentation is a holy offering
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to God, it makes perfect sense that you would first give them a
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complete defense of the gospel. That is the only source of true
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holiness, the doctrine of justification by faith.
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All right, let's get into that main argument.
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Paul kicks off this massive section with his thesis
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statement in Romans 1, verses 16 and 17.
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This is the foundation for everything that follows.
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The gospel is God's power for salvation to everyone who
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believes. Jew 1st and also the Greek.
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Why? Because in it a righteousness
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from God is revealed, A righteousness that is by faith
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from first to last. That concept, the saving
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righteousness of God, is what He will spend the next 11 chapters
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unpacking. And he immediately begins by
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showing why this gospel is so desperately needed.
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Step one of his argument from 1.18 to 3.20 is about universal
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sin. He starts with the bad news.
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All of humanity stands exposed to the just wrath of God.
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He begins with the Gentiles. He argues there without excuse
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because God's eternal power and divine nature have been clearly
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revealed in creation itself. But they suppress that truth.
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They exchange God's glory for idols and as a result, God gave
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them over to moral and spiritual corruption.
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And just when a Jewish reader might be nodding along, feeling
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superior, Paul turns the tables in Chapter 2.
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He does. He basically asks you who judge
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others, do you do the same things?
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He argues that possessing the Law of Moses or being
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circumcised means nothing if you don't actually obey the law.
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In fact, he shows that the law itself, which was supposed to be
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their guide, ends up being the very thing that highlights their
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sinfulness. He drives this point home until
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he reaches his crushing conclusion in chapter 3.
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Everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is under the power of sin.
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The whole world is accountable to God.
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So with that universal problem established, he then introduces
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the solution. Step 2 from chapter 3 verse 21
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through chapter 5 is about justification through atonement.
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This is the great but now of the letter.
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But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has
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been made known. God provides the way of
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acquittal that humanity could never achieve faith in Jesus
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Christ. He presented Christ as a
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sacrifice of atonement. The hell historian to
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demonstrate his own justice. And through this act, God can be
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both just and the one who justifies those who have faith
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in Jesus. This is the heart of Reformed
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theology. Justification is by faith alone,
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apart from any works of the law. And he uses the example of
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Abraham in chapter 4 to prove this isn't some new idea.
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It's a brilliant argument. He shows that Abraham, the
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father of the Jewish nation, was counted as righteous because of
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his faith before he was circumcised.
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This proves that righteousness is a gift.
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God credits it to our account based on our belief in His
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promise. It's an act of imputation.
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This completely removes any grounds for human boasting.
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The result of this gift is peace with God and reconciliation,
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which he details in the first part of chapter 5.
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Then he zooms out to this grand cosmic scale with the contrast
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between Adam and Christ, right? This shows the scope of what God
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has done. Through the one trespass of
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Adam, sin and death enter the world and spread to all people.
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But through the one righteous act of Christ, His life of
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perfect obedience and His death on the cross, the free gift of
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grace and life abounds to all who believe.
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Where sin reigned in death, grace now reigns through
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righteousness to bring eternal life.
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Which naturally leads to a question and objection he
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anticipates. Step 3, Chapter 6 through 8
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deals with justification and life in the Spirit.
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If grace covers sin, shouldn't we just sin more so that grace
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can increase? And Paul's answer is an emphatic
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by no means or God forbid, grace isn't a license to sin.
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He argues that believers have been united with Christ in his
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death. When Christ died, we died to
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sins power to its rule over us. Therefore, we are now alive to
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God in Christ Jesus and are called to live that new life.
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Sin is no longer our Master. So what role does the Law of
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Moses play in this new life for the believer?
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Paul is very clear the law itself is holy, righteous and
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good. The problem was never the law.
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The problem was our sinful nature, what he calls the flesh.
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The flesh made the law a tool that exposed sin but couldn't
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fix it. But now believers have been
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released from the law as a system of earning righteousness
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because through Christ we died to it.
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He uses a marriage analogy in Chapter 7.
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We were bound to our first husband, the law, but through
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death we are now free to be married to another, to Christ.
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So the power to live righteously comes from a different source
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entirely. It does.
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That's chapter 8, Life by the Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit now empowers believers to fulfill the
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righteous requirement of the law.
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The Spirit achieves what the law, weakened by the flesh,
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could not do. The Spirit is the mark of our
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adoption as God's children, the guarantee of our future glory,
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and the source of our assurance, which leads to that incredible
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conclusion at the end of chapter 8.
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Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God
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that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Then we get to Step 4, which is a massive pivot.
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Chapters 910 and 11 address the painful question of Israel.
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If the gospel is true, has God's Word to his chosen people failed
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since most of them have rejected it?
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You could feel Paul's personal anguish here.
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He's a Jew who loves his people. He makes 2 main arguments to
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show that God has remained faithful, even the face of
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Israel's widespread unbelief. And the first one is perhaps the
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most challenging for many of us today, the doctrine of God's
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absolute sovereignty. Yes, Paul argues that God's
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promises haven't failed because salvation has never been based
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on physical descent, but always on God's sovereign electing
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choice. Not all who are descended from
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Israel are Israel. God always preserves A remnant
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for himself by grace, and Paul sees himself as part of that
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remnant. He uses the examples of Jacob
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and Esau and the Pharaoh to show that God has the sovereign right
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as Creator to show mercy on whom he will show mercy and to harden
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whom he will harden. The Potter and the clay analogy
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confirms this. God has the right to shape
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vessels for different purposes, some for mercy and some for
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wrath, drawing His people from both Jews and Gentiles.
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But he doesn't leave it there. He also emphasizes human
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responsibility. So you can't just say God is to
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blame for Israel's unbelief. Right.
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The unbelieving Israelites are responsible for their own
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rejection of the Messiah. Why?
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Because they pursued A righteousness based on their own
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works on keeping the law, instead of submitting to the
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righteousness that God provides by faith, they tried to
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establish their own righteousness and in doing so
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they stumbled over the stumbling zone, which is Christ.
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But this isn't the end of the story for Israel.
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There's a future hope. There is, Paul reveals what he
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calls a mystery. This hardening of Israel is only
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partial, and it's temporary. It'll last until the full number
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of the Gentiles has come in, and after that, he says, all Israel
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will be saved. This is generally understood to
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mean the full number of the elect from Israel throughout
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history will be brought in. The purpose here is to humble
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the Gentile believers, to keep them from becoming arrogant, and
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to magnify the ultimate faithfulness of God to His
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promises. And from that incredible,
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sweeping view of history, he pivots to the practicalities of
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daily life in chapters 12 to 15. It's the great.
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Therefore, in view of all this mercy, this is how you should
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live. You present your bodies as
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living sacrifices. All that high theology has
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direct, concrete behavioral implications.
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How to love one another in the church, how to submit to
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governing authorities and, coming full circle, how to
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handle the disagreements over food and special days between
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the Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome.
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The theology and the ethics are inseparable.
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OK, we absolutely have to spend some time on the new perspective
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on Paul, the NPP. This has been without a doubt
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the biggest scholarly debate about Paul in the last half
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century, and it challenged centuries of Protestant
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interpretation of Romans. That's right, the name was
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coined by James Dunn, but the real catalyst was the work of EP
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Sanders. Sanders went back and studied
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1st century Judaism on its own terms, using Jewish sources from
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that period, not just reading it through the filter of Christian
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theology. And the traditional Reformation
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reading, coming from Luther's own spiritual struggles, had
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often portrayed Judaism as a very legalistic, merit based
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religion, a work salvation system.
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Sanders really took issue with that.
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He did. He argue that 1st century
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Judaism is better understood as covenantal, two-part framework.
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First election. God chooses Israel by grace.
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That's how you get into the covenant people.
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Second obligation, the law, the Torah tells you how to live in
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order to stay in that covenant relationship.
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And if you send the system had built in means of atonement,
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sacrifice of repentance to restore you.
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So salvation was always seen as being rooted in God's mercy, in
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his covenant love. That's a fundamental shift.
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If Judaism wasn't about earning salvation by good works, then
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what was Paul arguing against? Exactly.
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It changes the entire nature of Paul's critique.
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Now, critics of Sanders would say that in practice it was
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still a very synergistic system, but he successfully showed that
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grace was not a foreign concept to Judaism.
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So Sanders then turned to Paul's theology.
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He described it as participationist eschatology,
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all about being in Christ. How did that affect the way he
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understood a term like justification?
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It led him to see it differently.
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In Judaism, being righteous was about maintaining your status
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within the covenant. Sanders argued that for Paul,
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being justified is a transfer term.
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It's the word that describes how you move from being outside the
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people of God in Adam to being inside the people of God in
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Christ. It's about getting in, not
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staying in. So if Paul isn't fighting
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against legalism, what's the problem with Judaism?
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Sanders The famous conclusion was simply that it is not
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Christianity. They argue the problem with
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Judaism is that it's not the vehicle of salvation.
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God is now provided through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
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This focus on participation, on being in Christ, tended to push
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the idea of individual forgiveness for sin to the side.
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And this led to a huge debate over the phrase works of the
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law. James Dunn, one of the key NPP
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figures, initially made a very specific argument about that.
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Dunn's early argument was that works of the law didn't refer to
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trying to earn salvation by being a good person.
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He said it referred specifically to the Jewish identity markers.
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Circumcision, Sabbath keeping, food laws.
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These were the things that functioned as boundary markers
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to keep Gentiles out of the people of God unless they became
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fully Jewish. So Paul, in his view, was
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attacking Jewish ethnic exclusivism.
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That argument got a lot of pushback from more traditional
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scholars. What were their main objections?
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2 main things first, Jewish sources from the period seem to
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use the phrase works of the law to mean all the commandments,
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not just a select few. But more importantly, when you
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look at Romans 3 point 20, Paul says by works of the law no
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human being will be justified, since through the law comes
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knowledge of sin. Paul's argument there seems to
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be about universal moral failure, not just about social
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boundary markers. So his critique is much broader
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than just social exclusion. Seems to be Dunn and others
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later modified their view. They came to agree that works of
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the Law refers to the whole Torah, but they still argue that
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its primary function in Paul's argument is social.
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Paul is critiquing the Law because it created a sense of
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national pride and exclusivism that stood in the way of the
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Gospel, which creates a new unified family of Jew and
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Gentile together. So the real tension between the
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new perspective and the traditional Reformed view comes
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down to the meaning of justification itself.
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Is it primarily about salvation or about church membership?
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That's the nub of it. NTP advocates would say
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justification is primarily ecclesiological.
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It's God's declaration about who belongs to his covenant family.
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His main purpose is to define the boundaries of the true
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people of God. From a Reform standpoint, which
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emphasizes God's holiness and our guilt, what's missing from
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that view? The main critique is that it
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tends to downplay the human predicament that Paul lays out
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in Romans 1.18, that all people are under the just wrath of God
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because of their sin. If justification is just about
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group identity, it can diminish the forensic or legal nature of
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the ACT. The fact that justification
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means a guilty Sinner is pardoned, acquitted and declared
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righteous in God's sight. It pushes the forgiveness of
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sins to the background. To put it plainly, is God's
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declaration you're in my family, or is it you are acquitted?
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That's the crucial distinction. The source we're using concludes
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that while justification certainly has ecclesiological
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implications, those who are justified make up the Church.
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It is first and foremost soteriological and forensic.
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It is God's legal verdict as judge declaring a guilty Sinner
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righteous because of Christ. It is that acquittal that then
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brings you into the family. Membership is the result of
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justification, not the definition of it.
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Let's move now to what our source calls the central
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theological pillars of Romans, starting with the very top God's
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sovereignty and will. The letter is profoundly
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theocentric. God is the main actor on every
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page, and Paul asserts God's divine prerogative in the most
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uncompromising terms, especially in Chapter 9.
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This is where he talks about God's right to show mercy or to
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harden. Correct.
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Paul argues in 9.1118 that salvation doesn't depend on
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human will or exertion, but entirely on God who shows mercy.
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He has the absolute freedom to show mercy to whom he chooses
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and to harden whom he chooses. This is what guarantees that
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God's promises will succeed. They depend on Him alone, not on
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us. And the Potter in the clay
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analogy really drives that point home.
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It does. It's meant to silence our
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objections. As the Creator, God has the
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right to make from the same lump of clay different vessels for
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different purposes. Some, he says, are vessels of
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wrath prepared for destruction, which he endures with patience.
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Others are vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory.
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This sovereign will is what guides history, including the
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hardening of Israel, and it's what ensures that those who are
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called according to his purpose will be saved.
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OK, the second pillar, the righteousness of God.
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The source lays out five different ways this idea is used
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in Romans. That's right.
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First, there's distributive justice, God justly judging
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people according to their deeds, which we see in chapter 2.
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Second is his covenant faithfulness, God proving true
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to his promises, especially to Israel. 3rd is his saving action
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God actively intervening in history to save his people.
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And the last two are really at the heart of the gospel message
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itself. They are 4th is the gift of
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righteousness. This is the actual status of
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being declared righteous, of being justified, that is
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credited to the believer, and 5th is the righteousness of
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life, the actual moral righteous living that flows from being
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justified. So of those five, when Paul
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introduces his theme in chapter 1, which aspect is he focused
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on? The primary focus is on God's
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saving action, which results in the gift of righteousness.
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It's about how God, through Christ, brings sinful people
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into a right relationship with himself by faith.
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This righteousness that comes from God, not from us, is the
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central revelation of the gospel.
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Pillar 3, the atonement and justification, gets into the
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mechanics of how God does this. Let's look at that key text in
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Romans 3.2426. Paul says we are justified
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freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
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Jesus, whom God put forward as a hill historian.
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That Greek word is packed with theological meaning.
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It pulls together a couple of huge Old Testament ideas.
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On one hand it refers to expiation, which is the removal
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or cleansing of sin. It's also the word used for the
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Mercy seat, the lid on the Ark of the Covenant where the
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atoning blood was sprinkled. But crucially, it also carries
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the meaning of propitiation, which is the turning away of
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wrath. And that's vital because Paul
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started his whole argument with the reality of God's wrath
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against sin. So the atonement is the answer
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to that wrath. It is, and the amazing thing is
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that God, who is justly wrathful, provides the means of
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propitiation himself. He sets forth his own Son as the
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sacrifice. Christ absorbs the penalty,
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satisfying God's justice. This is how God can be both just
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and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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It's a perfect resolution of his justice and his mercy.
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Which leads us back to justification.
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We've established its forensic or legal character.
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What does that mean practically for the believer?
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It means the justification is a verdict from a judge.
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It's God's official legal declaration that a Sinner who
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believes is acquitted. It's not a process of making
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someone inwardly holy. That's sanctification.
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It's the conferring of a status righteous in His sight.
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This acquittal is effective now, giving us peace with God, and it
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is the basis for our confidence that we will be saved from wrath
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on the final day. The fourth pillar is faith,
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which is the human response to all of this, right?
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Paul says his whole Apostolic mission is to bring about the
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obedience of faith. That saving righteousness from
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God is received through faith and faith alone.
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And what does he say Faith actually is using Abraham as the
27:38
model. Abraham's faith wasn't just a
27:40
general hopefulness. He was being fully convinced
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that God was able to do what he had promised.
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Paul emphasizes that Abraham didn't waver in unbelief, but
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grew strong in his faith, giving glory to God.
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So faith isn't a meritorious work.
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It's the empty hand that receives God's gift.
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It's a radical trust in the character and promises of God.
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And finally, pillar 5, the Mosaic Law.
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Paul seems to describe its function in several different,
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almost competing ways. He does. 1st.
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The law was a great privilege for Israel.
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It was their guide, their wisdom, the embodiment of truth.
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But because of sin, it also had another function to increase the
28:15
trespass. Paul says in chapter 5 that the
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law came in so that the trespass might increase.
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It defines sin clearly, turning general wrongdoing into specific
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violations of God's revealed will and thereby showing just
28:27
how sinful we really are. So what is the law's status now
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for a believer who is united to Christ?
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As a system for earning righteousness, its role is over.
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We have been released from the law because we died with Christ.
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As Paul says in Chapter 7, we now serve in the new way of the
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Spirit, not in the old way of the written code.
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But does that mean the Old Testament is no longer scripture
28:49
for Christians? Not at all.
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Even though it's not our covenant, in the same way, the
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Old Testament still functions as God's word for us.
28:56
It testifies to the gospel. Paul is constantly quoting it to
28:59
prove his points, and when read through the lens of Christ, it
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continues to provide wisdom, guidance, and moral instruction
29:05
for the Christian life. So with all these massive
29:08
theological themes, sovereignty, justification, the law, what
29:12
does the source conclude? Is the organizing principle the
29:15
center of Romans? People have suggested different
29:17
things over the years. Justification by faith, union
29:20
with Christ, salvation, history. But the structure of the letter
29:24
itself, which is so focused on God's actions, points away from
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a single doctrine to a single person.
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To God himself. Indeed, the center, the heart,
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the organizing principle of Romans, is the sovereign action
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of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ to deal
29:40
with the problem of human sin in all its dimensions, individual,
29:44
corporate, and even cosmic. In short, the center is the
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gospel of God in its fullest possible expression.
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So this deep dive has taken us from the gritty reality of life
29:53
for Christians in the overcrowded tenements of 1st
29:56
century Rome all the way to the grandest scale of God's saving
29:59
purposes in history. And the genius of Paul's letter
30:02
is how he connects the two. He uses the profound forensic
30:06
truth of justification, God's gracious acquittal of guilty
30:10
sinners, to solve real world problems.
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The theology wasn't an abstract exercise.
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It was the tool he used to bring unity between Jewish and Gentile
30:19
believers and drive them toward holiness.
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And as we close, we've established that God's
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faithfulness to His promises is absolute.
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Our source reminds us of that powerful statement Paul makes in
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Romans 11.29. For the gifts and the calling of
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God are irrevocable. And when you think about the
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whole theological arc of the letter, which defends God's
30:39
absolute sovereignty but also promises a future salvation for
30:42
all Israel, that leaves us with a provocative thought to
30:44
consider. If God gifts in calling to
30:47
national Israel are truly irrevocable, what does that
30:49
imply about their future, both spiritually and physically?
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And how does God's unwavering faithfulness to them challenge
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our own understanding of how He works in human history?