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The Cathedral of the Faith: The Unique Ecclesiological and Theological Profile of the Church in Rome · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am really looking forward to this one.
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  We have a stack of sources here that I have been reading through
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  and honestly it feels a bit like standing at the base of a
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  mountain and looking up. It does, doesn't it?
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  We are tackling the Big 1 today, the text that has arguably
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  shaped the trajectory of the Western church more than any
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  other. We are talking about Paul's
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  epistle to the Romans. It is the Mount Everest of the
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  New Testament. You know, you can hike the
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  foothills in the Gospels and you can scramble around the rocky
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  terrain of Corinthians, but when you get to Romans, you need
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  oxygen gear. You really do.
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  It's the peak. It is.
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  And specifically, we're looking at this through the lens of two
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  sources, Rome among Paul's churches and the Cathedral of
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  the Faith. And right off the bat, I want to
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  talk about that second title, the Cathedral of the Faith.
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  It's a very a very high church image for a letter that talks so
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  much about grace. It is, but the analogy holds up,
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  I think, especially when you look at how it was built.
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  Well, let's get into that, because the sources make this
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  immediate comparison that I found really helpful, but also a
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  little bit funny. They compare Romans to a
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  cathedral, and then they compare Paul's other letters,
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  specifically First Corinthians and Galatians, to a fire
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  station. Right.
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  Or more accurately, the activity that happens at a fire station.
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  OK, so unpack that for me, because when I read Galatians, I
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  don't necessarily think fire truck, I think angry apostle.
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  Well, think about the psychology of a firefighter.
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  They're sitting around, maybe playing cards, polishing the
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  truck. Suddenly the alarm rings.
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  What happens? Adrenaline spikes.
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  They slide down the pole. They rush to the scene.
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  They aren't thinking about the long term structural integrity
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  of the neighborhood. They're thinking about putting
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  out that specific blaze before it burns the block down.
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  Oh, it's reactive. It is purely reactive.
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  And if you read First Corinthians, that is the vibe.
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  Paul is reacting to A4 alarm fire.
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  He's received reports from Chloe's people that there's
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  sexual immorality, there are lawsuits, people are getting
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  drunk at the Lord's Supper. I mean, the church is on fire.
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  So the letter is the water hose. Exactly.
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  It's a triage situation. He's shouting orders.
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  Stop doing that. Expel that man.
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  Fix the table. It's urgent, it's chaotic, and
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  the structure of the letter bounces around because the
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  problems are bouncing around. And Galatians is even worse.
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  Oh, Galatians is even more intense.
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  That isn't just a fire, that's a hostile takeover.
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  That's a heresy. Legalism trying to strangle the
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  gospel in its crib. Paul is furious in Galatians.
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  You can almost see the ink splattered on the page because
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  he's writing so fast. OK, so that sets the baseline
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  for normal Pauline letters. They are pastoral interventions,
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  crisis management. They are, but Romans is
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  different, completely different, and this is the first thing we
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  have to understand if we want to get what this book is about.
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  There is no fire in Rome, not in that sense, not in the sense of
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  a crisis that Paul is rushing to fix.
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  He isn't writing Romans because he heard they're all becoming
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  heretics. He isn't writing because there's
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  a massive scandal that needs immediate correction.
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  The atmosphere is well, it's calm.
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  So if he isn't fighting a fire, what is he doing?
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  He's drawing up blueprints. He's engaging in the
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  construction project. That is the cathedral analogy.
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  OK? When you build a cathedral, you
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  don't rush. You dig deep foundations, you
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  calculate the load bearing walls, you plan the Dome, you
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  bring in the stone and the glass.
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  It's systematic. It's intentional.
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  And that's Romans. That is Romans.
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  It's the only letter where Paul sits down, takes a deep breath
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  and says, OK, I'm going to explain the entire architecture
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  of the Christian faith, from the basement of total depravity to
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  the Spire of glorification. So it's a proactive document.
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  Proactive and systematic, it is, as the source material calls it,
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  a constitution of the faith. That distinction really changes
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  how you read it. If you go into Romans looking
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  for Paul screaming at someone, you are going to miss the slow,
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  deliberate build of the argument.
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  You'll miss the whole point. But this raises the big
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  question, doesn't it? Why?
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  Why I build a cathedral for a city you have never been to?
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  That is the $1,000,000 question. Why this letter for this church
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  at this time? And our sources break this down
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  into three main areas, or three differences that set Romans
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  apart. We have the sociological
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  difference, the occasion or historical difference, and then
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  the content itself. And I want to go through these
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  slowly because I think for a lot of us, especially those of us in
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  the Reformed camp who love the theology of Romans, we sometimes
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  skip the history to get to the golden chain of salvation.
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  Which is a mistake. You cannot understand the
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  theology if you don't understand the people he was writing to.
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  Context is king always. So let's start with the
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  sociology, the sociological anomaly, as the text calls it.
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  I mentioned earlier that Paul had never been to Rome, but it's
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  stranger than that. Paul is writing to a church that
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  he didn't plant. It's the only instance of this
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  in the New Testament as far as his major letters go.
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  I mean, think about the other cities, Corinth, Ephesus,
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  Philippi, Thessalonica. He was there.
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  Paul walked those streets. He was beating those
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  marketplaces. He baptized the first converts
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  in the local river. These are his spiritual
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  children. He plays that card in First
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  Corinthians, doesn't he? He says something like I became
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  your father. In Christ Jesus through the
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  Gospel, yes. First Corinthians 4.15 he
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  asserts paternal authority. A father can tell his kids to
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  shut up. A father can tell his kids, I am
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  disappointed in you. He has that standing.
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  But in Rome, In Rome he has 0 standing.
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  He's a stranger. He's just a name they've heard
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  about. So how does that change the tone
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  of the letter? Because Paul is not known for
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  being shy. He isn't, but he is known for
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  being adaptable. He's brilliant at it.
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  In Romans he cannot be the father, so he adopts the posture
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  of the brother, the fellow worker.
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  Give us an example from the text.
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  How does that play out? OK, look at the opening chapter,
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  Romans 1 verses 11 and 12. This is just a master class in
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  diplomacy. He starts by saying, I long to
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  see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to
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  strengthen you. Which sounds a bit like I, the
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  great apostle. I'm coming to bless you poor
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  people a little top down. It does start that way.
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  It sounds authoritative, but then watch the pivot.
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  He immediately interrupts himself.
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  He adds. That is, that we may be mutually
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  encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine now.
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  That is interesting. He walks it back.
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  He. Completely levels the playing
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  field, he is saying. I have something to give you,
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  but you know what? You also have something to give
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  me. I have something to learn from
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  you. Precisely.
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  He is signaling to them that he respects their standing.
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  He isn't coming to take over, he is coming to collaborate.
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  He has to win their trust because he cannot demand their
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  obedience. This leads to a historical
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  mystery that I think is really fascinating.
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  If Paul didn't plant the church, and we know the other apostles
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  were mostly in Jerusalem or scattered elsewhere, who planted
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  the church in Rome? This is one of the great untold
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  stories of the early Church. The Bible gives us no name.
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  There is no St. Founder of Rome.
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  But the church is there and it's thriving enough that Paul says
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  their faith is proclaimed in all the world.
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  I mean, it's a big deal. It's a huge deal and the best
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  historical deduction we have and what our sources point to takes
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  us back to Acts Chapter 2, the Day of Pentecost.
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  OK, set the scene for us. So Jerusalem, the Feast of
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  Weeks. The city is absolutely packed
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  with Jewish pilgrims from every corner of the Roman Empire.
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  Peter stands up. The Holy Spirit falls tons of
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  fire. He preaches that massive sermon.
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  3000 people are saved. And Acts lists the nations that
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  were there. Right.
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  It's a whole roll call. Parthians, Medes, Elamites.
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  And right in Acts 2, verse 10, it explicitly mentions visitors
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  from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.
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  I see where you are going. These visitors, maybe they were
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  merchants, maybe leather workers, maybe soldiers.
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  We don't know. They heard the Gospel, they were
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  baptized, and then the feast ended.
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  And what do they do? They went home.
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  They went back to Rome, they didn't take an apostle with
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  them, they didn't take a Bishop. They just took the message, they
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  took the good deposit and they started meeting in their homes
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  in the Jewish quarter in the Trustevere district.
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  So the church in the capital of the world, the most influential
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  church in the West, was started by the laity, just by regular
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  people. Completely bottom up.
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  It was organic. It was a movement of ordinary
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  believers testifying to their neighbors.
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  It's a stunning proof that you don't need a hierarchy to create
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  the Church. You know the Word and the
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  Spirit. Now, you mentioned hierarchy,
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  and I want to push on something here because our source material
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  is Reformed thinking and it takes a pretty sharp jab at a
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  specific opposing view. Here we have to talk about the
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  Roman Catholic claim. The elephant in the room,
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  always. The claim that Peter was the
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  first Bishop of Rome, that he's founded the Sea of Rome.
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  Correct. The Vatican claims an unbroken
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  line of succession going back to Peter sitting on the Episcopal
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  throne in Rome. That's the whole basis of papal
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  authority. But our expert source says
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  Romans proves that is impossible.
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  How is it just that Peter isn't mentioned?
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  That feels a little thin. It is the argument from silence,
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  but you have to understand how loud that silence is.
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  We are looking at Romans 16. This is the chapter where Paul
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  sends his greetings, and it isn't just hi to everyone, it's
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  a laundry list. It's huge.
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  I counted them. He greets 26 specific people by
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  name. 26 people. He greets Prisca and Aquila.
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  He greets empanadas. He greets Mary.
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  He greets slaves. He greets aristocrats.
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  He greets the family of Narcissus.
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  He knows the internal network of this church intimately, probably
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  from meeting them as they travel through Corinth and Ephesus.
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  And no Peter. No, Peter.
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  Now play this out. Let's just grab the premise for
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  a second. Imagine Peter is the Bishop of
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  Rome. He's the vicar of Christ on
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  earth, leading the specific local church.
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  Paul write a letter to this church, a letter that defines
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  the gospel itself, and he sends greetings to the janitor, the
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  mid level managers, the women serving the tables.
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  But he completely ignores the Bishop.
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  It would be incredibly rude. It would be a gross insult, a
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  deliberate public snub. It would be a slap in the face.
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  Paul is a diplomatic writer, as we just saw.
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  He's bending over backwards to be polite.
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  There's zero chance he would snub Peter if Peter were there.
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  So the only logical conclusion is that Peter wasn't there.
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  He wasn't there, he hadn't founded it, and he wasn't
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  leading it. In 8057, when Romans was
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  written, Rome was a church without an apostle.
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  Which really supports the Reformed view of ecclesiology.
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  The church isn't built on a man or an office.
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  It's built on the confession, on the gospel itself.
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  That's the foundation. OK, so we have this unique
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  sociological setup, a church without a father, run by lay
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  people in the belly of the beast.
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  But it wasn't just a peaceful little club.
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  The source material calls the context of Romans a historical
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  pressure cooker. Yes, and this is the second key,
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  the occasion to understand why Romans reads the way it does,
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  you have to understand what happened in the city of Rome
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  about 8 years before the letter was written.
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  You are talking about the Edict of Claudius.
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  Edict of Claudius around 8049. Give us the history.
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  What triggered this? So we have the Roman historian
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  Suetonius. He's not a Christian, he's just
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  a regular Roman historian. He writes a biography of the
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  Emperor Claudius, and he has this one sentence that has
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  fascinated historians for centuries.
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  He says that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because they
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  were constantly making disturbances at the instigation
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  of Christus. Christus, which sounds a lot
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  like. Christus Christ, most historians
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  agree. So a Tonius misunderstood the
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  name. He thought Christus was some
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  living agitator in Rome causing trouble.
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  But what was actually happening? The gospel had arrived in the
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  synagogues. And as we know from the book of
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  Acts, whenever the gospel hits the synagogue, things get
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  heated. Right, it's explosive.
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  You have some Jews saying Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment
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  of the Torah. You have others saying this is
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  blasphemy. Arguments break out.
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  Families are divided. In Rome, it apparently spilled
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  out into the streets. There were riots, public
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  disturbances. And Claudius is an emperor who
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  likes law and order. He doesn't care about Jewish
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  theology one bit. He just hears noise.
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  He sees broken windows, so he drops the hammer.
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  He issues an edict. All Jews must leave the city of
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  Rome. All of them, The whole
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  community. Estimates are 40 to 50,000
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  people. Imagine the scene.
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  Families packing carts, businesses abandoned, crying
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  children. It was a trauma.
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  And this included the Jewish Christians.
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  Of course, to the Romans they were just another Jewish sect.
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  This is why we find Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth in Acts
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  18. The Bible says they had recently
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  come from Italy because Claudius had commanded all Jews to leave
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  Rome. They were refugees from this
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  edict. So the Jewish Christians are
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  gone. Who is left in the Church in
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  Rome? The Gentiles, the Roman
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  converts, the non Jewish believers.
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  And this lasts for how long? About five years.
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  Claudius dies in 8054, and the edict seems to have lapsed with
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  his death. So for five years, the Church in
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  Rome is exclusively Gentile. That is a long time in the life
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  of a young church. That's enough time to develop a
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  whole new culture. Precisely.
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  Think about it. When the Jewish believers were
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  there, the founders, the church probably looked very Jewish.
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  They probably kept kosher. They observed the Sabbath, they
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  read the Torah. They were Messianic Jews.
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  But once mom and dad are kicked. Out the gentile kids are in
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  charge, and the gentiles don't care about kosher.
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  They love ham. They love ham.
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  They work on Saturdays. They lean into their liberty in
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  Christ. They develop a theology that
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  says the law is dead, we are free.
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  They become very, well, very Roman.
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  And then Claudius dies. The edict lapses.
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  And the Jews come back. Boy, I can see the conflict
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  coming a mile away. It is the classic re entry
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  problem. The Jewish Christians returned
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  from exile scarred, holding on to their traditions for comfort
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  and identity. They walk back into their old
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  house churches expecting to lead again.
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  And what do they find? They find a church they don't
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  recognize. They find Gentiles eating pork
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  at the Agape feast. They find a total disregard for
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  the holy days and the friction starts.
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  This is the pressure cooker. And we need to be clear here,
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  this isn't a heresy, is it? It's not like the Gentiles were
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  denying the resurrection or something, no.
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  That's the nuance. That's why this is so tricky.
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  It isn't a doctrinal heresy. It is a clash of conscience and
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  culture. Paul uses 2 specific labels for
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  these groups in the letter. He calls them the weak and the
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  strong. Now, in our modern context, we
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  might guess that the weak are the new believers and the strong
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  are the veterans, but Paul flips that.
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  He does. The weak are the Jewish
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  believers. Why?
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  Because their conscience is weak.
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  It's easily wounded by violating the Mosaic Law.
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  They feel like they are sinning if they eat unclean food or work
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  on the Sabbath, even if they know Jesus is the Messiah.
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  And the strong? The strong are the Gentiles who
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  realize that Christ has fulfilled the dietary laws in
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  the ceremonial calendar. They are strong in their
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  understanding of Christian liberty.
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  But they aren't treating each other well.
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  The dynamic is toxic. Paul uses 2 specific verbs, the
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  weak. The Jews judged the strong.
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  They looked at the Gentiles and said you are profane, you are
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  compromising with the world, you are lawless.
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  And the strong? The strong, the Gentiles despise
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  the weak. They looked at the Jews and
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  said, you are backward, you were superstitious, why can't you get
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  with the program? Christ has set us free.
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  Judgement versus contempt, That is a deadly mix for a church.
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  It is, and that is the mess Paul's writing into.
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  He has to take these two rivers, the Jewish stream of redemptive
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  history and the Gentile stream, and force them to merge into one
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  river without bursting the banks.
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  This brings us to the third difference, which really
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  explains why he takes the time to write a cathedral sized
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  letter. The strategic purpose.
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  Why does Paul care so much about fixing this specific squabble in
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  a city he's never visited? Because he's looking at the map.
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  Paul was a strategist, a brilliant 1.
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  He tells us in Romans 15 that he has no longer any room in the
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  East. He has planted gospel hubs from
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  Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, which is modern day
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  Albania. Which is just an astounding
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  statement. He considers the job done in the
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  Eastern Medituanean. He does, so he turns W.
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  He wants to go to Spain. Why Spain?
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  What's in Spain? In the 1st century geography,
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  Spain was the ends of the earth. It was the Pillars of Hercules.
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  It was the wildest, furthest, most unreached province of the
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  empire. If you want to take the Gospel
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  to the limit, you go to Spain. But you can't launch a mission
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  to Spain from Antioch. It is way too far.
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  Logistics, you got it. He needs a new base of
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  operations. He needs a forward operating
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  base in the West. That base has to be wrong.
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  So he needs the Roman Church to be his partners, his sponsors.
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  He needs money. Let's be practical.
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  He needs them to fund the trip. He needs translators.
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  Paul probably didn't speak the local Celtiberian dialects of
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  Spain. He needs prayer.
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  He needs a place to rest and refit.
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  He needs them to be ascending church.
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  But they don't know him, and worse, they are at each other's
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  throats. Right.
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  A divided church cannot support a mission.
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  If they are busy judging and despising each other over
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  dinner, they aren't going to care about the lost souls in
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  Spain. And there's another problem.
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  On top of that, Paul has a reputation problem.
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  The Jewish believers have probably heard rumors that Paul
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  is a traitor to Moses, that he tells Jews to abandon the law.
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  The Gentile believers might have heard he's a legalistic killjoy.
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  He's a controversial figure. He cannot just show up and say
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  hi, I'm Paul, give me money. So Romans is his credentials.
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  It's his theological resume. It's his doctrinal statement.
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  He writes this massive treatise to prove to them that his gospel
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  is the true Apostolic gospel. He has to show the Jews I am not
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  an antinomian. I believe in the laws,
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  fulfillment in Christ. He has to show the Gentiles.
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  I believe in grace, but not cheap grace that leads to
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  lawlessness. This explains the density of the
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  letter. He's covering all his bases, and
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  it also explains the style. The source mentions a specific
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  rhetorical device Paul uses called the diatribe.
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  Yes, the diatribe. Yeah, this is a common teaching
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  method in the Greek philosophical schools.
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  It basically means teaching by debating an imaginary Heckler in
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  your head. How does that work in the text?
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  You see it everywhere in Romans. Paul will state the truth, and
• 18:04
  then he immediately asked the question that a critic would
• 18:07
  scream from the back of the. Room like in chapter 6 after he
• 18:10
  talks about grace abounding. Exactly, Paul says.
• 18:13
  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
• 18:16
  And then he immediately asks, What shall we say then?
• 18:19
  Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound?
• 18:22
  That's a Heckler. Oh, so we can just sin as much
• 18:24
  as we want? Great, right?
• 18:26
  And Paul answers, by no means, how can we who died to sin still
• 18:30
  live in it? He engages the objection head
• 18:32
  on. This is preventative theological
• 18:34
  medicine. He is inoculating the Roman
• 18:36
  church against the arguments that could divide them.
• 18:39
  He's answering the Jews fears and the Gentiles arrogance
• 18:43
  before he even steps foot in the city.
• 18:45
  It is brilliant strategy. He is clearing the minefield so
• 18:48
  that when he arrives, they are united and ready to mobilize for
• 18:51
  Spain. Precisely.
• 18:53
  That's the goal. So we have the sociology, he's a
• 18:56
  brother, not a father. We have the context, the post
• 18:58
  Claudius, Jew, Gentile tension. We have the strategy, the
• 19:01
  mission to Spain. Now we have to open the doors of
• 19:04
  the cathedral itself. We have to look at the content.
• 19:07
  This is the meat. This is where we see the
• 19:09
  architect of the argument, and I want to stress, it is
• 19:11
  architecture. It isn't a stream of
• 19:13
  consciousness. It is built block by block,
• 19:16
  logically and systematically. So let's walk through the floor
• 19:18
  plan. It starts in the dark.
• 19:19
  Chapters one through 3. The bad news?
• 19:22
  Universal condemnation. Paul starts by dragging all of
• 19:26
  humanity into court. In chapter 1, he indicts the
• 19:29
  Pagan gentile world. He listed their sins, idolatry,
• 19:32
  sexual perversion, malice, greed, and you can just imagine
• 19:37
  the Jewish readers in the Roman church nodding along saying Amen
• 19:40
  Paul, get those Pagan sinners. But then he turns the swivel
• 19:43
  chair. He does in chapter 2.
• 19:46
  He looks squarely at the moralist and the Jew.
• 19:48
  He says therefore you have no excuse.
• 19:51
  O man, everyone of you who judges.
• 19:53
  He completely dismantles the idea that having the law makes
• 19:56
  you safe. He argues that having the law
• 19:58
  and breaking it is actually worse than not having it at all.
• 20:01
  It increases your culpability. And the verdict drops in Chapter
• 20:04
  3. The hammer comes down.
• 20:06
  None is righteous. No, not one.
• 20:10
  He quotes the Old Testament to prove his point.
• 20:12
  He flattens the distinction between Jew and Gentile.
• 20:15
  He puts everyone in the same prison cell of sin.
• 20:18
  Which is the necessary setup for the good news?
• 20:20
  If we are all in the same prison, we all need the same
• 20:23
  key. There's no special exit for
• 20:25
  certain. Groups and that key is
• 20:26
  justification by faith. The chapters 3 through 5.
• 20:30
  Now I want to pause here. We use the word justification a
• 20:33
  lot in reformed circles. It's part of our lingo.
• 20:36
  What is the mechanism here? Why does the source emphasize
• 20:40
  that it is forensic? What does that mean?
• 20:42
  This is crucial. This is the heart of the
• 20:43
  Reformation. Forensic means legal.
• 20:46
  It is courtroom language. When Paul speaks of
• 20:48
  justification, he isn't using a medical metaphor like the Sinner
• 20:51
  is infused with goodness until he becomes healthy.
• 20:54
  Which is more of a Roman Catholic view?
• 20:56
  Right. Paul's using a legal metaphor.
• 20:59
  The Sinner stands before the judge God, and he's guilty as
• 21:02
  charged. The evidence is overwhelming,
• 21:05
  but because of Christ's perfect life and substitutionary death,
• 21:09
  the judge bangs the gavel and declares righteous.
• 21:13
  Not getting better, not forgiven for now, but declared legally
• 21:16
  righteous in that moment. So it is a status change, not an
• 21:19
  internal change at that moment at least.
• 21:21
  Right. It is an alien righteousness.
• 21:24
  It is Christ's righteousness credited to our account.
• 21:27
  This is the only way Paul can solve the Jew Gentile problem.
• 21:31
  If salvation was based on how good you were or how much
• 21:33
  progress you've made, the Jews might argue they had a head
• 21:36
  start with the Law. But if it's a free gift given to
• 21:38
  the ungodly, then the Jew and the Gentile are on equal
• 21:41
  footing. They're both beggars receiving a
• 21:43
  royal pardon. Then we move to chapter 6
• 21:45
  through 8. Sanctification.
• 21:47
  This answers the license to sin objection that he raised
• 21:49
  earlier. Paul explains union with Christ.
• 21:52
  We didn't just get a not guilty verdict from a distant judge.
• 21:55
  We actually died and rose with Jesus.
• 21:58
  Our very nature changes sins. Dominion is broken.
• 22:01
  And chapter 8 is the peak of that section.
• 22:03
  It's the Mount Everest of the Mount Everest.
• 22:06
  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are
• 22:09
  in Christ Jesus, the Golden chain for known, predestined,
• 22:14
  called, justified, glorified. It ends with that soaring hymn
• 22:19
  that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God
• 22:22
  in Christ. Now usually this is where people
• 22:24
  stop. They love chapters one through
• 22:26
  8, then they sort of skip the boring stuff in the middle to
• 22:29
  get to the practical stuff in chapter 12.
• 22:31
  A huge mistake. But our sources are adamant.
• 22:34
  Romans 910 and 11 are not a sidebar.
• 22:36
  They are not a detour. They are the climax of the
• 22:39
  doctrinal argument. They are the Israel question and
• 22:42
  for a Reformed audience, this is where the rubber meets the road
• 22:45
  on the doctrine of election and God's sovereignty.
• 22:48
  So why is this section here? What problem is Paul solving by
• 22:51
  putting these three dense chapters right in the middle of
• 22:54
  the letter? He is solving the problem of
• 22:56
  God's reliability. Think about it.
• 22:58
  Paul has just been 8 chapters saying God keeps his promises,
• 23:02
  His plan cannot fail. Nothing can separate us.
• 23:06
  But there's a glaring counter evidence standing right in front
• 23:08
  of them, especially the Jewish Christians.
• 23:10
  What the Jews? God made covenants and promises
• 23:13
  to Israel for 2000 years. You are my people.
• 23:17
  The Messiah will come from you. But now the Messiah has come,
• 23:21
  and the vast majority of Jews have rejected him.
• 23:24
  They are, for the moment, outside the covenant of grace.
• 23:27
  So the logical question is, did God's Word fail?
• 23:30
  That is a terrifying question because if God's word failed
• 23:33
  Israel, it can fail me. Exactly.
• 23:35
  If God can break his promise to the Jews, he can break his
• 23:38
  promise to the Roman Christians. The whole gospel edifice
• 23:40
  crumbles if God is unfaithful, so Paul has to prove that God
• 23:44
  has not failed. How does he do it?
• 23:47
  Because on the surface, it looks like he failed.
• 23:49
  He goes deep into the doctrine of election.
• 23:51
  He argues that not all who are descended from Israel belong to
• 23:54
  Israel. He distinguishes between the
• 23:56
  physical nation and the spiritual remnant chosen by
• 23:59
  grace. So the promise was only to the
• 24:01
  Remnant all along. That is part of the argument.
• 24:03
  God has always sovereignly chosen a people within the
• 24:06
  people. It was Isaac, not Ishmael.
• 24:08
  It was Jacob, not Esau. He argues that God is sovereign
• 24:11
  in mercy. I will have mercy on who I have
• 24:13
  have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I has
• 24:15
  compassion. It's not based on human will or
• 24:18
  exertion. But does he leave the rest of
• 24:20
  Israel hopeless? The source material mentions
• 24:22
  replacement theology, the idea that the church has simply
• 24:25
  replaced Israel and God is done with the Jewish people as a
• 24:28
  nation. Does Paul teach that?
• 24:30
  Our sources say absolutely not, and Paul himself asked the
• 24:34
  question explicitly in Chapter 11.
• 24:36
  Has God rejected his people and he answers with his strongest
• 24:39
  possible negative? By no means.
• 24:42
  So what is the plan for national Israel?
• 24:44
  Paul reveals a mystery, something not previously
• 24:47
  understood. He says a partial hardening has
• 24:49
  come upon Israel. Why?
• 24:51
  Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come.
• 24:52
  In the time of Israel's unbelief is the very window of
• 24:55
  opportunity for the Gentile mission.
• 24:58
  It's a timing issue. It serves a larger purpose.
• 25:00
  A redemptive historical purpose. And he uses the olive tree
• 25:03
  analogy. This is the most important image
• 25:05
  for the Gentile listeners in Rome.
• 25:08
  He says Israel is the cultivated olive tree with a holy root.
• 25:12
  Some branches were broken off because of unbelief.
• 25:14
  You Gentiles, he says, are wild olive shoots from the
• 25:17
  wilderness. You've been grafted in contrary
• 25:20
  to nature. Grafted in meaning we are
• 25:22
  guests, we don't own the tree. You are feeding on a root that
• 25:26
  isn't yours, and Paul gives a stern warning to the strong
• 25:29
  Gentiles in Rome. Do not be arrogant toward the
• 25:32
  branches. If God did not spare the natural
• 25:35
  branches, neither will He spare you.
• 25:36
  That destroys gentile pride. That cuts the legs out from
• 25:39
  under their contempt. It absolutely crushes it.
• 25:42
  And then he creates hope for the Jewish believers.
• 25:45
  He says that God has the power to graft the natural branches
• 25:48
  back in. And he ends with that amazing
• 25:49
  prophecy. And in this way, all Israel will
• 25:52
  be saved, he says. The gifts and calling of God are
• 25:55
  irrevocable. That really reframes the whole
• 25:57
  conflict in the Roman church. If I am a Gentile believer
• 26:00
  sitting in that house church listening to this letter, and
• 26:03
  I've been looking down my nose at the Jewish believers,
• 26:06
  suddenly I feel very small. You realize you are a charity
• 26:09
  case. You are a wild shoot, kept alive
• 26:12
  by a grace that was first promised to someone else.
• 26:15
  And if I am a Jewish believer, feeling judged and left behind.
• 26:19
  You are reassured that your history wasn't a waste.
• 26:21
  God hasn't abandoned your people.
• 26:23
  There is a future and a hope. It brings both sides to a place
• 26:26
  of humility, and humility is the only soil where unity can grow.
• 26:30
  This brings us to the famous pivot, the great.
• 26:33
  Therefore Romans 12.1 I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by
• 26:38
  the mercies of God. This is where we move from the
• 26:40
  indicative, what God has done in chapters 111, to the imperative,
• 26:44
  what we must do in response. In Reformed Theology, we talk
• 26:47
  about the distinction between law and gospel, but we also talk
• 26:50
  about the third use of the law. Can you define that for our
• 26:53
  listeners? I know we have the first use
• 26:55
  which is to convict us of sin like a mirror, and the second
• 26:58
  used to restrain evil in society.
• 27:00
  The third used is the guide for the Believer.
• 27:03
  We aren't saved by keeping the law, but because we are saved by
• 27:06
  grace, we now delight in the law.
• 27:09
  It shows us how to please the God who bought us.
• 27:11
  Romans 12 through 16 is the third use in glorious action.
• 27:15
  It is the ethics of gratitude and.
• 27:17
  What does that look like in Rome?
• 27:18
  It isn't just generic. Be nice, it gets very specific
• 27:21
  about Idiaphora. In different things, that's what
• 27:23
  the word means, things that are not in themselves essential to
• 27:27
  salvation. In Rome, the battleground was
• 27:29
  the menu and the calendar meet and days.
• 27:33
  Make us feel the tension here, because to us, arguing about
• 27:36
  pork sounds silly. It wasn't silly to them.
• 27:39
  Imagine a Jewish believer named Levi.
• 27:41
  He's been raised from birth to believe that eating pork is an
• 27:44
  abomination. It is physically repulsing to
• 27:46
  him, is a betrayal of his ancestors, of his identity.
• 27:49
  He believes in Jesus, but he cannot bring himself to eat a
• 27:52
  ham sandwich. It feels like sin.
• 27:54
  And then you have a Gentile named Marcus.
• 27:56
  Marcus was a Pagan. He used to worship Jupiter.
• 27:58
  Now he worships Jesus. He knows idols are nothing.
• 28:01
  He knows all food is clean because Christ declared it so.
• 28:03
  He sees Levi refusing the pork and thinks Levi is rejecting the
• 28:07
  finished work of Christ. Levi is acting like we are still
• 28:10
  under Moses. I need to correct him.
• 28:11
  I need to show him he's free. So Marcus eats the pork in front
• 28:14
  of Levi to make a point. Exactly.
• 28:16
  He flaunts his liberty and Paul steps into this and says stop
• 28:21
  it, both of you. But wait.
• 28:23
  Theologically, Marcus is right. Paul would agree with him.
• 28:26
  He is, and Paul says so in chapter 14.
• 28:29
  He says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing
• 28:33
  is unclean in itself. Paul is on the side of the
• 28:36
  strong. He agrees with their theology.
• 28:38
  So why does he tell the strong to back down?
• 28:40
  To give up their right to eat meat.
• 28:42
  Because being theologically right isn't the highest goal.
• 28:45
  Love is, Paul tells the strong, Do not destroy the one for whom
• 28:49
  Christ died with your food. He says.
• 28:51
  If your liberty causes your brother to stumble, to violate
• 28:54
  his own conscience, even if it's a weak conscience, then you are
• 28:57
  sinning against Christ. That is a hard pill for a
• 29:00
  reformed thinker to swallow. We love being right.
• 29:03
  We love our theological precision.
• 29:05
  We do, but Paul says if your precision destroys fellowship,
• 29:09
  it is worthless. He tells the strong to bear with
• 29:12
  the failings of the weak, not to please themselves.
• 29:15
  And what does he tell the weak? Levi.
• 29:17
  He tells them to stop judging. Who are you to pass judgement on
• 29:21
  the servant of another? He reminds Levi that Marcus
• 29:24
  belongs to God, not to him. God is his master and God is
• 29:28
  able to make him stand. It is Christ centered ethics
• 29:31
  through and through. It is the standard isn't what am
• 29:34
  I allowed to do. The standard is what builds up
• 29:36
  the body. Paul quotes Psalm 69 regarding
• 29:39
  Jesus Christ did not please himself.
• 29:42
  That is the standard. If the Lord of glory gave up His
• 29:44
  rights, His comfort and His life to save us, surely we can give
• 29:48
  up a piece of meat to save a friendship and preserve the
• 29:50
  unity of the Church. And he commands them to welcome
• 29:52
  one another as Christ has welcomed you.
• 29:54
  Imagine what that looked like in practice.
• 29:56
  We're talking about a society that was strictly stratified.
• 29:59
  Aristocrats did not eat with slaves.
• 30:01
  Jews did not eat with gentiles. Men didn't mix socially with
• 30:04
  women. But in the Roman church.
• 30:07
  In the Roman church, you had Erastus, the city treasurer, a
• 30:10
  high-ranking official sitting next to a a slave from Caesar's
• 30:13
  household. You had Jews and Greeks, and
• 30:16
  Paul tells them to greet one another with a holy kiss.
• 30:20
  That is radical social integration.
• 30:22
  That is the Gospel made visible. It is, and it brings us back to
• 30:25
  the strategy. Why all this focus on unity?
• 30:28
  Yeah, so that they can be a healthy, functioning base for
• 30:32
  the mission to Spain. A fractured base cannot launch a
• 30:35
  mission. They had to be 1 body with one
• 30:37
  voice. We have covered a massive amount
• 30:40
  of ground, the unique sociology of a church without a founder,
• 30:43
  the pressure cooker of the expulsion in return, the
• 30:45
  strategy for Spain, the cathedral of theology.
• 30:48
  It really is a masterpiece. It's breathtaking when you see
• 30:51
  how all the pieces fit together. As we wrap up, I want to leave
• 30:54
  our listeners with one final thought from the source
• 30:56
  material. It says that doctrine is
• 30:58
  doxology. That is the ultimate take away.
• 31:00
  You know, sometimes people criticize Reformed theology as
• 31:03
  being heady or cold, intellectually rigorous, but
• 31:06
  spiritually dry. Romans proves that is a false
• 31:09
  dichotomy because Paul is the greatest theologian, whoever
• 31:12
  lived. He writes the most complex,
• 31:14
  rigorous intellectual arguments in history.
• 31:17
  But where does it lead him? It doesn't lead him to a dry
• 31:20
  academic conclusion. It leads him to worship.
• 31:23
  Romans 11.33. Right after tracing the
• 31:26
  agonizing path of election and Israel and hardening and mercy,
• 31:30
  he doesn't say QED. My argument is proven.
• 31:33
  He explodes oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge
• 31:37
  of God. How unsearchable are His
• 31:39
  judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
• 31:41
  His theology terminates in awe. And the goal of the letter, and
• 31:45
  really the goal of the church, is found in that prayer in
• 31:48
  Romans 15. That together you may with one
• 31:51
  voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 31:55
  That is the mission. Not just to be right, not just
• 31:58
  to understand the mechanics of justification, but to be a
• 32:00
  unified choir, Jew and Gentile, weak and strong, all of us
• 32:05
  singing the same song to the same Savior.
• 32:07
  The cathedral is built for worship.
• 32:08
  Amen. That's what it's for.
• 32:10
  Well, thank you for guiding us through the cathedral today.
• 32:12
  My brain is full, but my heart is pretty full too.
• 32:14
  It is always a good day when we spend it in Romans.
• 32:17
  And to our listeners, thank you for joining us on this deep dive
• 32:20
  into Reformed thinking. We hope you are walking away
• 32:23
  with a bigger view of the gospel and maybe, just maybe, a little
• 32:26
  more patience for the weak or the strong in your own life.
• 32:29
  Until next time, keep thinking.