Latest / Reformed Thinking / Not Ashamed of the Gospel: God’s Power to Save (Romans 1) | David S. Dockery

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Not Ashamed of the Gospel: God’s Power to Save (Romans 1) | David S. Dockery · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about presenting credentials,
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there is this, this expectation of self promotion, right?
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Oh. Absolutely, yeah.
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It is a very natural human instinct.
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I mean, think of a modern courtroom.
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An expert witness takes the stand and before they say a
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single word about the case, the lawyer basically walks them
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through their resume. They want to know where you
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studied, what degrees you hold, all those things.
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Yeah, How many books you have published, that sort of thing.
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The whole goal is to establish authority through personal
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achievement, you know? Right.
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You build yourself up so the jury will actually listen to
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your testimony. We look for the accolades
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because we want the reassurance that the person speaking has the
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intellectual capital to back up their claims.
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Exactly. Wait, no, not exactly, but you
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know what I mean. We want to know they are
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qualified. Yeah, and in the ancient world,
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especially in Rome, this was even more pronounced.
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The Romans lived by a really strict social hierarchy.
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Honor status and public recognition were, well, they
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were the currency of the day. If you wanted a hearing, you had
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to project dominance and pedigree.
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But then you open up a letter written 2000 years ago,
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addressed to a group of Christians living right in the
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capital of that Roman Empire, and that entire expectation
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just, well, gets flipped on his head.
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It really does. We're looking at a credential
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presentation that is completely upside down by our standards.
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So welcome to reform thinking. We have a custom tailored deep
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dive ready for you today. And we are looking closely at
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David S Dockery's Home and Concise Bible commentary.
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Yes, specifically focusing on Romans chapter 1 alongside a
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huge overview of Pauline doctrines.
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So if you are listening to this, you are stepping into a massive
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analysis of the mechanics of salvation.
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We are going to analyze the vast scope of Paul's letters and the
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stark contrast between the human condition and divine
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intervention. Right.
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We are unpacking how a person goes from being completely
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condemned to having a right standing before God.
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And that entire theological weight begins by looking at the
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man bringing the message. Yeah, Paul.
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He introduces his identity right out of the gate in Romans
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chapter 1, verses one through 15.
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He calls himself a servant of God, an apostle, and someone who
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is set apart for the Gospel of God.
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So think back to that courtroom analogy.
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If Paul is on the stand establishing his right to speak
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to the Romans, he actually has a stellar resume he could use
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right. Oh, an incredible 1.
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He was educated under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel.
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He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had the.
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Ancient equivalent of an Ivy League theological doctorate.
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Right, but he leaves all of that off the table.
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He starts by calling himself a servant.
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And the tension in that introduction is it's fascinating
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when you look at the original language.
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How so? Well, when we hear the word
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servant, we might think of a Butler or an employee or someone
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who punches a clock and goes home at 5:00.
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Right, like a hired hand. Yeah, but the Greek word used
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there is doulos. It carries the weight of a bond
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servant, someone who belongs entirely to their master.
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A doulos in the 1st century had no independent agenda, no
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property rights, and really no personal autonomy his entire
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life. His schedule, his goals, they
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are all dictated by the one who owns him.
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So by adopting that title, Paul is claiming a position of
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absolute lowliness. Yeah, but in the very next
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breath, he claims to be an apostle.
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Which is a massive swing. He goes from the lowest possible
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social rung to the highest tier of religious authority.
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Yes, and that juxtaposition is very deliberate.
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An apostle is a scent. 1 You know, an authorized
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representative in the ancient Near East, an imperial envoy or
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an apostle carried the full authority of the sovereign who
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sent them. If you rejected the envoy, you
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were rejecting the king. So Paul is holding these two
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realities together. He is a lowly doulos, entirely
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submitted with no rights of his own, yet he carries the highest
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possible authority because he speaks on behalf of God.
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Exactly. Or rather, that is completely
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right. He is establishing his authority
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not through personal ambition, but by being drafted into a
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specific role. He says he is set apart.
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Set apart that phrase. It implies he was taken out of
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general circulation and repurposed for a specific task.
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Yeah, he did not volunteer for this out of a desire for a
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career advancement he was apprehended for.
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It right you read the account in Acts and Christ literally knocks
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him off his horse on the road to Damascus.
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He was drafted. Totally drafted.
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So how does this dual identity, you know, this tension between
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complete submission and total authority, frame the way he
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writes to the Christians at Rome?
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Well, it frames his entire approach to them.
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Because he is an apostle, he has the right to teach them the
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heaviest, most dense theology they will ever hear.
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Yeah, he really doesn't pull any punches regarding human sin or
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divine judgement later on. No, not at all, But because he
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is a bond servant, he approaches them with a pastoral heart
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rather than a dictatorial 1. The text notes his eagerness to
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proclaim the Gospel there, and it highlights his constant
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prayers for them. Right, He's not writing a
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sterile theological treatise from an ivory tower somewhere.
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No, he is writing as a man who desperately cares for their
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souls, even though he had not actually visited their church
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when he wrote this letter. The affection is palpable right
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alongside the intellectual rigor.
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Yeah, and to really grasp the magnitude of Romans, you can't
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just look at it in a vacuum. You have to look at the full
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scope of his letters. Definitely.
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Dockery's commentary provides this massive doctrinal table
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that maps out the emphasis across Paul's writings.
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Each letter acts like a distinct tool designed for a specific
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historical and theological problem.
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Paul did not just sit around writing abstract philosophy.
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He wrote to real people dealing with real crises.
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That historical grounding is so essential.
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These were letters carried by hand across the Mediterranean to
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put out fires, to correct bad theology and to comfort
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terrified believers. Yeah, so let's break this
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toolbox down, starting with what we can call the salvation texts.
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This includes Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians.
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OK, let's look at Romans itself first, The commentary states the
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objective of Romans is to express the nature of the
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gospel, its relation to the Old Testament and Jewish law, and
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its efficacy to alter human lives.
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And the major doctrine here is salvation.
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The historical ripple effect of this single letter is just
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staggering. The text points out that in
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1515, Martin Luther, while preparing lectures on Romans,
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felt himself to be reborn. You really have to understand
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Luther's psychological state before that moment to appreciate
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what Romans did to him. Right, he was a monk.
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Right. Yeah, an Augustinian monk and
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Erfurt, and he was agonizing over his inability to achieve a
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righteous standing before God. He would spend hours in
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confession. Hours like daily.
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Oh yeah, He was trying to use the law, his own moral effort,
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to bridge the gap between his sin and God's absolute holiness.
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It was crushing him mentally and physically.
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Man, he actually grew to resent the concept of God's
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righteousness because he viewed it strictly as a condemning
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standard he could never meet. But then he encounters Romans.
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Right. He realizes that the
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righteousness of God in the gospel is not a standard that
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condemns him, but a gift that justifies him.
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The weight of the world basically fell off his
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shoulders. Wow.
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And we see a strikingly similar phenomenon with Galatians.
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The commentary notes that the objective of Galatians was to
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stress freedom in Christ against Jewish legalism while carefully
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avoiding moral license. Again, the major doctrine is
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salvation. And the historical note here
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involves John Wesley hearing a sermon on the book of Galatians
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brought peace to his heart. Wesley's realization was I felt
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I did trust Christ alone for salvation.
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Notice the common denominator between Luther and Wesley there?
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Yeah, both men were incredibly religious.
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Both were trying their absolute hardest to be good, upstanding,
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moral individuals, but their religion was producing
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exhaustion and despair. Right, they were burned out.
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Why do Romans and Galatians, out of all the historical texts
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available, trigger such massive paradigm shifts in files like
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them? It is because these texts
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dismantle the human instinct to earn favor.
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Wesley realized he'd been relying on his own religious
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performance when he finally grasped the core doctrine of
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salvation as taught in Galatians, that it centers on
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trusting Christ alone without the addition of legalism,
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circumcision, or personal merit. It created an intellectual and
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spiritual awakening. It makes me think of someone
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trying to pay off a billion dollar debt with pocket change.
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That is a great image. Yeah, they are scraping pennies
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together, exhausted, terrified of the debt collector.
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Then suddenly they read a legal document proving the debt was
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already cancelled by someone else.
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The relief must have been physical.
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Seriously, the entire system of legalism says do, but Galatians
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basically says done. That captures the transition
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perfectly. Then we look at Ephesians, the
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third in this group of salvation texts.
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The objective here is to explain God's eternal purpose and grace
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and the goals God has for the church.
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And Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the famous poet and philosopher,
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called Ephesians one of the divinest of compositions.
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Yeah, if Romans is the courtroom laying out the legal mechanics
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of salvation, and Galatians is the battlefield defending that
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salvation from legalism, then Ephesians feels like standing on
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a mountain peak looking at the vast, eternal scope of what God
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is doing. Ephesians pulls the camera way
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back to show the cosmic plan her.
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It really does. Paul starts before the
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foundation of the world, discussing predestination and
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adoption, and then moves into how that eternal decree plays
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out in time through the unification of Jews and Gentiles
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into one new man. It connects the individual
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believer salvation to the grand design of the universe.
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Exactly. I mean, yes, absolutely.
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Now, moving from the cosmic to the incredibly local, we shift
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to the second section of the table, focusing on the Church in
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practice. Right, so we are looking at 1st
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and 2nd Corinthians alongside Philippians.
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First Corinthians is fascinating because it is so messy.
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Oh, incredibly messy. The commentary lists its
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objective to respond to questions about marriage, idle
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food and public worship, to discourage factions, and to
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instruct on resurrection. The major doctrines are the
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Church and the Resurrection. You know, Corinth was a chaotic,
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cosmopolitan port city. It was famous for its wealth.
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It's transient sailor population and its rampant immorality.
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And the church there reflected that chaos.
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Completely. They were divided into factions
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following different celebrity teachers.
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They were suing each other in secular courts.
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They were struggling with massive ethical failures.
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I just picture First Corinthians as a troubleshooting manual for
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a highly dysfunctional organization.
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Paul is just going through a checklist of disasters.
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Pretty much. But he does not just give them
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behavioral modification tips. He anchors his solutions in
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theology. Right, right in the middle of
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this troubleshooting manual, we get Chapter 13, the famous hymn
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on love, which the text notes is among the most familiar in love
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chapters in Paul's writings. And he finishes with chapter 15,
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a massive defense of the physical resurrection.
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But wait, how does teaching about a future physical
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resurrection solve their present day behavioral problems?
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Because the Corinthians had absorbed a lot of Greek
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philosophy which taught that the physical body was a prison and
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only the spirit mattered. Oh, I see.
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Right. So if you believe your body does
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not matter eternally, you will either punish it through extreme
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asceticism or in indulge it through wild immorality, which
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is what they were doing. So Paul corrects their behavior
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by correcting their theology. Yes, he insists the body matters
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so much that God is going to resurrect it.
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You cannot sleep with a temple prostitute if that physical body
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is destined for eternal glory. He anchors their practical chaos
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in theological reality. Wow, that makes a lot of sense.
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Contrast that troubleshooting manual, the Second Corinthians,
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though the objective of the second letter is to prepare
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readers for Paul's third visit and to defend Paul and the
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gospel he taught against false teachers.
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The major doctrines shift to the Church, Jesus Christ, and
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salvation. And the commentary quotes CK
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Barrett, who calls Second Corinthians the fullest and most
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passionate account of what Paul meant by apostleship.
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Yeah, if First Corinthians is Paul fixing a broken machine,
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Second Corinthians is Paul defending his own heart.
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False teachers, whom Paul sarcastically calls super
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apostles had infiltrated the church.
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They were attacking Paul's character, his speaking ability
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and his authority. Basically a smear campaign.
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Totally. They claim that because Paul
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suffered so much, he must not have God's blessing.
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The ancient world viewed suffering as a sign of divine
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disfavor. So Paul is forced to defend
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himself, but he does it in the most counterintuitive way
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possible. He boasts in his weaknesses.
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He outlines his shipwrecks, his beatings, his stonings, and his
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daily anxiety for the churches. He argues that his physical
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weakness is the exact venue where Christ's strength is made
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visible. It is raw, vulnerable and
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intensely personal. He completely subverts the
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definition of success. Then we have Philippians in this
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practical block. The objective here is to command
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a perforitis, to affirm generosity, and to encourage
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unity, humility and faithfulness, even to death.
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The major doctrines are Christian unity and joy and
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salvation. There's a quote from Bengal in
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1850 summarizing Philippians. The sum of the Epistles is I
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rejoice, rejoice he. What makes that joy so striking
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is the context. Paul is writing Philippians from
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a Roman prison cell. Yeah, he is chained to a
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Freightorian Guard. He is facing potential
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execution. Epaphroditus, the man the
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Philippian church sent to care for Paul, got deathly ill along
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the journey. The situation is objectively
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terrible. Yet the entire letter just
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radiates joy. It proves that the salvation he
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outlined in Romans and Galatians is not just theoretical, it
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provides A psychological anchor that circumstantial suffering
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cannot touch. He can rejoice because his joy
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is tethered to the advancement of the gospel, not his personal
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comfort. Even his imprisonment, he
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argues, has served to advance the message among the Imperial
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Guard. Which provides a really natural
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transition to our third subsection, supremacy and
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Orthodoxy, specifically looking at the letter to the Colossians.
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The text notes the specific historical conflict here.
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Paul wrote Colossians to oppose false teachings related to a
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matter and spirit dualism and distress the complete adequacy
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of Christ. What was that dualism about?
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This dualism was an early form of Gnosticism.
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It was a philosophy that viewed all physical matter as
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inherently evil and all spirit as inherently good.
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OK, so that created a massive problem for the Christian
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understanding of Jesus. Right, huge problem.
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If matter is evil, how could a holy God take on a physical
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human body? The false teachers in Colossae
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were trying to insert and just lick mediators between God and
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humanity, arguing that Jesus was just one of many emanations.
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Oh I see. So Paul writes to establish
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Christ's total adequacy and absolute supremacy.
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The commentary gives us some serious historical facts
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regarding this letter, specifically Colossians chapter
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1, verse 15, which is part of an early Christian hymn on the
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supremacy of Christ. The text states that Arias of
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Alexandria in the year 318 AD use this specific verse to
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undermine Christ's deity. This is one of the most critical
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moments in church history. Arias was a presbyter who looked
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at the phrase first born of all creation in Colossians 1.15.
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He argued that the word first born meant Jesus was a created
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being. He famously taught that there
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was a time when the sun was not. He argued that Jesus was the
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highest creation, the first thing God ever made, but still a
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creature that. One interpretation of a single
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Greek word sparked A theological firestorm that threatened to
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tear the Roman Empire apart. It really did.
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The commentary notes the result. Arianism was pronounced
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heretical at the Council of Nicaea in 325AD and the Council
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of Constantinople in 381AD. How does a single verse from a
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localized letter become the central battleground for
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defining Orthodox Christianity? Because the entire Christian
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faith hinges on the identity of Jesus.
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Athanasius, the great defender of orthodoxy against Arius, saw
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the fatal flaw in Arianism. Which was?
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If Arius was right and Jesus is a created being, then a creature
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died on the cross, not God Incarnate.
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A finite creature cannot bear the infinite wrath of God on
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behalf of humanity. Only God can satisfy the justice
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of God. Spot on.
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The early Church fathers recognized that if you lose the
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eternal deity of Christ, you lose the mechanics of salvation
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entirely. Yeah, that makes sense.
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They had to clarify from the rest of scripture that the first
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born or proto tocos in Greek refers to rank, inheritance and
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supremacy over creation. It does not mean being the first
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created. Thing oh like David is called
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the first born of the kings of the earth in the Psalms, even
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though he was the youngest in his family.
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Yes, great example. Paul's letter, designed to
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assert Christ's supremacy against the local cult, became
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the very text used to defend his eternal deity against a global
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heresy. The tools and poles toolbox are
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incredibly sharp. They are.
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Now we turn to of the letters concerning the last things.
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This covers 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
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The dual objective of these letters is clearly laid out in
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our source material. First, to encourage new converts
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who are facing intense persecution. 2nd to instruct
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them and correct misunderstandings about the
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second coming of Christ. You know the Thessalonian church
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was birthed in a riot. You can read about it in Acts.
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Paul was chased out of town after only a few weeks.
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So he leaves behind this infant congregation in a highly hostile
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environment. Yeah, and the focus on the
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second Coming in his follow up letters is pervasive.
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The text highlights that every single chapter of First
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Thessalonians ends with a reference to the Lord's return.
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And 2nd Thessalonians is incredibly brief at only three
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chapters, but the source notes it is one of Paul's most
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extensively studied letters, specifically because of chapter
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2, verses 3 through 10, which deals with the man of
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lawlessness and the specific events preceding the return.
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But wait, if you have a group of brand new believers who are
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being physically persecuted, losing their livelihoods, and
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facing the threat of death, does an intense, constant focus on
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the end times distract them from daily living?
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Is telling a starving, persecuted church to look at the
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clouds just a form of religious escapism?
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How does eschatology help them survive the weak?
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That is a very common critique. People say you are so heavenly
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minded, you are of no earthly good.
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But Paul uses the future to anchor the present.
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He does not teach eschatology to satisfy chronological curiosity.
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He teaches it to provide stamina.
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Yes, for a persecuted church, knowing that divine justice is a
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certainty, knowing that Christ will physically return to set
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the world to rights, offers them the exact grounding they need to
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hold the line today. It is not an escape hatch.
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If the story ends with their persecution, despair is the only
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logical response. If the story ends with the
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return of the King who judges the living and the dead,
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endurance makes sense. The future hope dictates the
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present action. That reframes the whole concept
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of studying the end times. It is about present day
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resilience. We see that transition into
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practical resilience as we look at the final grou of letters,
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leadership, ethics, and liberty. We are looking at the Pastoral
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Epistles, First and Second Timothy, Titus, and the short
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letter to Philemon. These are the letters where Paul
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is passing the baton. He knows his life is coming to
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an end. The focus shifts toward church
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structure, leadership qualifications, and maintaining
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sound teaching in the next generation.
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A movement cannot survive on the charisma of its founder forever.
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It needs structure. Let's analyze First Timothy.
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The objective is to encourage Timothy as a minister, refute
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false doctrine, and instruct about church organization and
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leadership. And the commentary provides a
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fascinating historical note. Thomas Aquinas, before his death
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in 1274, described First Timothy as a pastoral textbook.
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It has been formally known as a pastoral epistle since the early
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18th century, right? Yeah, Aquinas recognized the
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sheer practical utility of the letter.
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It outlines the moral and domestic qualifications for
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elders and deacons. It provides the.
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Architectural blueprints for how a local congregation should
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function long after the original apostles are gone.
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Right. It deals with how to care for
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widows, how to handle church discipline and and how to govern
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worship. Then we have Second Timothy.
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The focus here is education and encouragement in the face of
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persecution and false doctrine. The historical figure attached
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here in the source is Augustine, who died in 430AD.
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He used Second Timothy in his book on Christian doctrine to
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support the necessity of Christian teachers.
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Second Timothy is Paul's final letter.
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He is in a cold, damp Roman dungeon, the Mamertine prison,
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awaiting execution by the sword. His primary concern is not his
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own life. His concern is ensuring that
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Timothy guards the truth and entrust it to reliable men who
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can teach others. Augustine saw that this
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generational chain of vegetation is the mechanism for the faith
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survival. Next is Titus, with the
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objective to instruct church leaders, advise about groups in
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the church, and teach Christian ethics.
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The major doctrine is salvation. The commentary calls Titus the
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Magna Charta of Christian Liberty.
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It earns that title because it so clearly articulates the
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relationship between grace and ethics, doesn't it?
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Yes, it states that the grace of God has appeared, bringing
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salvation, and this very same grace trains us to renounce
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ungodliness. It links the theological reality
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of grace with the ethical demand for a pure life.
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It frees believers from legalism because salvation is by grace,
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but it frees them from lawlessness because that grace
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actively trains them in righteousness.
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I mean, yes, completely. And finally, Philemon, the
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objective is highly specific to effect reconciliation between a
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runaway slave, an SMS, and his Christian master Philemon.
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The major doctrine is Christian ethics.
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Emile Brenner, who died in 1965, called this letter a classic
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testimony to what is meant by Christian justice.
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We have to understand the social economics of the Roman Empire to
22:07
get the weight of this letter, though.
22:10
Rome ran on slave labor. There were millions of slaves.
22:13
A slave revolt was the Empire's greatest terror.
22:16
If a slave ran away and was caught, the punishment was often
22:19
crucifixion or being thrown to the beasts.
22:21
And Paul is sending the runaway on SMS back to his master.
22:25
But Paul does not explicitly demand the political dismantling
22:28
of the Roman institution of slavery in this short text.
22:31
Instead, he drops a relational bomb into the middle of
22:33
Philemon's household. He tells Philemon to receive an
22:36
SMS no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother.
22:39
Yeah. If you truly view someone as
22:41
your equal brother in Christ, if you are breaking bread with them
22:44
at the Lord's table and recognizing you are both equally
22:47
bankrupt sinners saved entirely by the same grace, the mechanics
22:51
of exploitation completely fall apart.
22:53
You cannot own your brother. No, Brenner was correct.
22:56
It is a display of justice rooted entirely in grace.
23:00
It undermines the institution of slavery from the inside out by
23:03
changing the ontology of the relationship.
23:05
We have walked through this massive blueprint of doctrine.
23:09
We have seen the tools designed for salvation, for practical
23:12
Church issues, for defending orthodoxy, for anchoring the
23:15
persecuted, and for structuring the future Church.
23:18
But now we need to steer the conversation back to the crown
23:21
jewel of this theology. Right, We need to return to the
23:23
central theme of Romans itself. We have seen the breadth of
23:26
Paul's thought. Now we look at the absolute
23:29
core. The crux of the matter?
23:30
Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17 Righteousness by faith.
23:35
The text tells us that the theme of Romans is summarized right
23:38
here, the revelation of a righteousness of God and the
23:41
statement the righteous will live by faith.
23:43
The commentary notes that some have suggested this is a summary
23:46
of Pauline theology as a whole. But before Paul gets to the
23:49
glorious mechanics of this salvation, he starts with a very
23:53
sobering reality. He addresses the temptation of
23:56
shame. The commentary states that the
23:58
negative phrasing Paul saying I am not ashamed, is a sober
24:03
reflection of the reality that the gospel is something of which
24:06
Christians will, while still in the world, continually be
24:10
tempted to be ashamed. The text references Mark 8.38,
24:14
Luke 9.26 and Second Timothy 1.8 to support this.
24:18
So what is it about this specific message that generates
24:21
societal shame or embarrassment for the believer?
24:24
Well, think about what the Gospel actually claims,
24:26
especially in the 1st century Roman context.
24:29
OK, It tells the most educated philosophers in Athens and the
24:32
most successful military commanders in Rome that all
24:35
their achievements count for absolutely nothing when it comes
24:38
to their standing before God. That's a hard pill to swallow.
24:40
Yeah, it claims that humanity is so broken, so thoroughly
24:43
corrupted, that the only solution was for God to become a
24:46
man and be executed on a Roman cross as a criminal.
24:50
And the cross was an obscenity. It was designed to be the most
24:53
degrading, humiliating death possible.
24:56
There is an ancient Roman graffito found on the Palatine
24:59
Hill, the LX Amanos graffito. It shows a man worshipping a
25:03
figure on a cross that has the head of a donkey.
25:06
The caption reads Aleximedos worships his God.
25:09
It was meant to mock a Christian soldier.
25:11
To the Roman mind, worshipping A crucified criminal was absurd.
25:15
It was inherently humiliating to human pride.
25:18
The message of the cross was offensive to Jewish listeners
25:21
who expected a conquering political king, and it was sheer
25:24
foolishness to Greek philosophers who valued
25:26
intellectual elevation and viewed the physical body as
25:29
something to escape. To align yourself with a
25:31
crucified Savior invited mockery, marginalization, and
25:34
often violence. The temptation to quietly hide
25:38
that belief or to soften the edges of the message to make it
25:41
more palatable to high society is an ever present reality.
25:44
So how does Paul counter this overwhelming temptation?
25:47
How does he look at the absolute peak of Roman intellectual and
25:50
military might and say I am not embarrassed of this message?
25:54
Because of what he knows the message contains, the commentary
25:57
emphasizes, or rather, the commentary highlights, that Paul
26:00
views the gospel as the almighty force of God directed toward the
26:04
salvation of men and women. He does not see it as a nice
26:06
philosophical suggestion. No, he sees it as the only
26:09
effective rescue operation in existence.
26:12
For Paul, eternal issues were at stake.
26:16
The source lays this out clearly.
26:18
Those whose minds were blinded, who failed to believe and obey
26:20
the gospel, were perishing. The text references Second
26:24
Corinthians 4.3. They would fall under the divine
26:27
wrath, referencing Second Thessalonians 1.9.
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The stakes could not possibly be higher.
26:32
When you realize a building is on fire, you are not embarrassed
26:35
to yell at people to get out. You do not worry about looking
26:38
foolish or disrupting their dinner.
26:40
Right. The shame vanishes because the
26:42
reality of the danger over rides social decorum.
26:45
Paul knows that everyone who believes, whether Jew or
26:48
Gentile, experiences the gospel effectively becoming the very
26:52
mechanism of salvation. It is not just news about
26:54
salvation, it is the force that accomplishes it.
26:57
Let's break down the exact mechanics of this righteousness
26:59
as defined in the source. This is where we need to be
27:02
incredibly precise. The text says righteousness
27:05
denotes the right standing God gives to believers.
27:09
It is not a moral uprightness we generate through our own effort.
27:12
It is a legal status given to us in the courtroom of God.
27:15
That distinction is the hinge of the entire Christian faith.
27:19
Justification is a legal declaration.
27:22
God the Judge declares the Sinner righteous, not because
27:26
the Sinner is inherently good, but because the perfect
27:28
righteousness of Christ is credited to their account.
27:31
The commentary goes further and this is the vital part.
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It states believers are righteous, justified through
27:37
faith and by faith, but never on account of faith.
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That phrasing is remarkably careful.
27:43
It requires us to focus intensely on an analogy the
27:45
source provides. It says faith is not itself our
27:48
righteousness. Rather, it is the outstretched
27:50
empty hand that receives righteousness by receiving
27:53
Christ. The.
27:54
Empty hand analogy. It is brilliant because it
27:56
clarifies the exact function of faith.
27:59
Let's unpack this empty hand analogy because it completely
28:02
destroys the idea of human merit.
28:05
If you think about an empty hand reaching out to receive a gift,
28:09
what is the hand actually doing? Receiving?
28:12
Yeah. If my hand is empty, it brings
28:13
no currency. It brings no trade value to the
28:15
transaction. If I hand you $1,000,000 to pay
28:18
off your mortgage and you reach out to take the check, you do
28:22
not get to turn around and say look at how well I receive that
28:25
money. Right, you don't say.
28:26
My reaching was so excellent, the angle of my arm was so
28:29
perfect that I actually earned the $1,000,000.
28:31
The reaching itself possesses 0 intrinsic value.
28:35
The value is entirely in the object being received.
28:38
The hand gets no credit. The empty hand only receives.
28:41
The commentary makes it explicitly clear Paul's concept
28:45
of righteousness or justification is a complete and
28:48
total work of God, and we can do nothing to earn it.
28:51
This is why the text insists we are saved through faith, but not
28:54
on account of faith. Wait, unpack that a little more.
28:56
Well, if we were saved on account of our faith, then faith
29:00
becomes a work, faith becomes the new currency.
29:03
We would be standing before God, saying God, I admit I did not
29:07
have perfect moral behavior. I broke your laws, but I did
29:10
have this really high quality, intense faith, so you owe me
29:14
salvation based on the merit of my believing.
29:16
Which just smuggles human pride right back into the equation
29:19
through the back door. It turns faith into a substitute
29:22
for the law. You are still trying to buy your
29:24
way in. That completely subverts grace.
29:26
Paul absolutely rejects that. The empty hand analogy clarifies
29:30
that faith is is just the instrument, the conduit.
29:33
The hand is completely impoverished.
29:35
It holds nothing to offer God. It simply receives the
29:38
righteousness of Christ. The credit goes entirely to the
29:40
giver, never to the receiver. That is a stagger reality.
29:44
It is a complete and total work of God from start to finish.
29:47
But this brings up a massive question.
29:49
What's that? If salvation is entirely a work
29:52
of God requiring empty hands, why are those hands so desperate
29:56
in the 1st place? Why do we need to be rescued by
29:59
an alien righteousness? Which leads directly to the
30:01
human condition. Paul knows he cannot fully
30:04
explain the glory of the cure until he has thoroughly,
30:07
ruthlessly diagnosed the disease.
30:10
We move into the final section of our outline, the downward
30:12
path, looking at Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through 32.
30:17
The commentary states that before Paul sets forth his
30:19
message of righteousness by faith, which he expands upon in
30:22
chapters 3 through 8, he first shows the desperate need for it.
30:26
The diagnosis is incredibly bleak.
30:29
The human race stands condemned, helpless and hopeless apart from
30:33
God. It is a devastating assessment.
30:36
He's not saying humanity is a little bit sick and needs some
30:38
moral medicine or behavioral coaching.
30:40
He is saying humanity is entirely destitute, spiritually
30:43
dead, and actively rebelling against its Creator.
30:46
Now, a common objection here is fairness.
30:49
People might say, how can God condemn people who perhaps did
30:52
not have a Bible, who lived in a remote area, or who never heard
30:55
this specific historical message about Jesus?
30:58
Right. The source addresses this
30:59
directly. It asserts that God provided
31:01
sufficient revelation of His existence and power in the world
31:04
through creation. This is the theological concept
31:06
of natural revelation, right? Yeah, Paul argues that the
31:09
physical universe itself is a continuous, undeniable broadcast
31:13
of God's existence and eternal might.
31:15
Oh, wow. The complexity of the human eye,
31:17
the order of the solar system, the sheer scale of the cosmos.
31:20
These are not silent realities. They're constantly testifying to
31:23
a designer. The causal link described in the
31:26
text here is crucial because this revelation in creation was
31:30
sufficient. Humanity's failure to
31:33
acknowledge God is not a passive ignorance.
31:36
They are not innocent victims lacking information.
31:39
It is an active suppression. The text says.
31:42
Men and women had nevertheless become idolatrous and
31:44
polytheistic. They look at the evidence of the
31:46
Creator and they push it down. They actively suppress the
31:49
truth. It is like trying to hold a
31:51
fully inflated beach ball underwater.
31:54
It requires constant, active, exhausting effort to deny what
31:59
is plainly visible and naturally wants to rise to the surface.
32:02
And because humanity rejects the true Creator, they inevitably
32:05
replace Him. You cannot just have a worship
32:07
vacuum in the human heart. If you remove the true God, you
32:10
will worship something else. Hence idolatry and polytheism.
32:14
They worship the creation rather than the Creator.
32:17
And this rejection triggers a terrifying consequence.
32:20
The commentary details the moral degradation that follows.
32:24
It says Paul claimed that God gave them up to their
32:26
dishonorable lusts, passions, conduct, and all kinds of evil.
32:31
I want to examine the wording carefully.
32:33
It is very common to view divine wrath as an act of striking
32:36
down. We picture lightning bolts from
32:38
the sky. We picture immediate, fiery,
32:41
catastrophic judgement. But the text describes wrath as
32:44
God giving them up to their own desires.
32:47
How is the removal of divine restraint the ultimate form of
32:50
condemnation? That is perhaps the most
32:52
chilling concept in the entire letter.
32:54
We often think of God's moral laws as restrictive barriers
32:57
keeping us from having fun. But Paul reveals that those
32:59
barriers are actually protective grace.
33:02
When humanity continually beats against those barriers,
33:04
demanding to be let go, demanding autonomy from God's
33:07
design, the wrath of God is simply him saying have it your
33:10
way. He removes the restraint.
33:12
He gives them over to the very things they demand.
33:14
It makes me think of the psychology of addiction.
33:17
If someone is deeply addicted to a destructive substance, the
33:20
worst possible thing you can do for them is to give them
33:23
unlimited access to it. The most severe punishment isn't
33:26
locking them in a room. The most severe punishment is
33:29
handing them the keys to the pharmacy and walking away.
33:32
Letting the addiction run its natural, devastating course is a
33:35
far more terrifying judgement than an immediate physical blow.
33:39
That is a highly accurate parallel.
33:41
God's passive wrath, His hand in humanity over to their own
33:45
corrupted desires, accelerates the destruction.
33:48
They become slaves to the passions they thought would
33:50
bring them liberation. The source outlines the final
33:53
resulting downward path from this removal of restraint.
33:57
It is a threefold descent, worthless thinking, moral
34:01
insensitivity and religious stupidity.
34:03
Let's analyze these stages. Worthless thinking.
34:06
The mind becomes darkened. It loses its ability to
34:09
accurately perceive reality because it has rejected the
34:11
foundation of reality. Once you deny the Creator, your
34:14
framework for understanding the universe fractures.
34:17
You lose the objective standard for truth.
34:19
You start calling good evil and evil good.
34:21
Your philosophy becomes futile because it is disconnected from
34:25
the source of all logic and order.
34:26
Which leads directly to moral insensitivity.
34:29
The conscience gets seared. The things that used to cause
34:32
shame now 'cause pride. The text mentions dishonorable
34:36
conduct and all kinds of evil. The societal breaks are
34:40
completely gone. And then the final stage
34:42
specified in the commentary. Religious stupidity.
34:46
That is a stark, almost offensive phrase.
34:49
It really is. How does religious stupidity
34:51
manifest when the mind is completely detached from
34:53
acknowledging its creator? It manifests when humans, having
34:57
access to the staggering brilliance of the cosmos, turn
35:00
around and bow down to a statue they carved out of a piece of
35:03
wood. They worship birds and four
35:06
footed animals, as Paul notes. Or, if you want to look at it in
35:09
a modern context, it manifests when we attribute the
35:11
astonishing intricacies of human consciousness, DNA and
35:14
biological engineering to blind, undirected chance.
35:17
It is the height of irrationality.
35:19
When the human mind severs itself from the source of all
35:21
wisdom, it inevitably embraces absurdity, all while patting
35:25
itself on the back and calling itself enlightened.
35:27
So we have the complete picture. We have seen the utter
35:30
helplessness of this downward path.
35:32
Humanity suppresses the truth of natural revelation, embraces
35:36
worthless thinking, loses all moral sensitivity, and engages
35:41
in religious absurdity. The diagnosis is terminal.
35:44
But that incredibly dark backdrop is precisely what makes
35:48
the first part of our discussion so luminous.
35:51
We see the stark contrast between the total ruin of human
35:54
effort and the total provision of God's righteousness.
35:58
A righteousness that cannot be earned by keeping the law cannot
36:00
be bought with moral currency and cannot be achieved through
36:04
spiritual striving. A righteousness grasped only by
36:07
an empty hand. We have looked at the vast
36:09
toolkit of Paul's letters, dealing with everything from
36:12
local church chaos in Corinth to cosmic dualism in Coliseum.
36:16
We have looked. At the massive shifts caused in
36:18
the lives of men like Luther and Wesley.
36:20
But the absolute center of it all remains this truth.
36:23
The righteous will live by faith.
36:25
It is the hinge upon which human destiny turns.
36:27
It is the core of the biblical message.
36:30
If you're listening to this and wondering how this 2000 year old
36:32
theology applies to your modern life, I want to leave you with a
36:36
final challenge. Based on the text we have
36:38
covered today, we established that creation provides
36:41
sufficient revelation to render all of humanity utterly without
36:45
excuse. Every person is accountable to
36:49
the Creator. Yet we also establish that only
36:52
the gospel possesses the specific almighty force
36:56
necessary to save a person from that resulting condemnation.
37:01
Think about those two massive realities coexisting.
37:04
If both are true, that everyone is accountable and only this
37:07
gospel can save, how should that alter the way you view every
37:11
single person walking down the street tomorrow?
37:14
Think about that tension. It changes everything about how
37:16
we see the world, how we view our neighbors, and how we
37:19
understand our own standing before God.
37:21
It absolutely does. Thank you for joining us on
37:23
Reformed Thinking for this deep dive into the mechanics of grace
37:26
and the letters of Paul. Keep reaching out with empty
37:28
hands. We will see you next time.