Paul’s brand of theology grew from the mind of a man who had been so certain of the truth of Judaism that he was traveling to arrest Christians for the simple reason that they were Christians. When the resurrected Jesus hit him upside the head on the road the Damascus, Paul learned that he had nothing to boast about in God’s eyes. He had assented to the murder of the evangelist Stephen. He was a persecutor of Christ’s body, the Church. He was a sinner through and through no matter how good he looked within Judaism’s structures. Having learned his lessons well, he warned his readers “Don’t boast in your vaulted Gentile intellects or your deep Jewish tradition. Don’t think what you are on the outside makes you important. What you are on the inside in relationship to God is what is important.” This theme would be echoed throughout the Letter to the Romans. Don’t boast. You didn’t do anything. Jesus did it all!

Whatever it is that we rely on to make us feel worthy in this world must be set aside in order to approach the throne of God. Like any sovereign, God wants to be treated with respect as THE largest person in the room. If reliance on personal worthiness stands in our way of worshipping Him, it must be set aside. In Paul’s case and in the case of the Jewish Christians in Rome, it was the Hebrew law. Paul had just finished saying that the law of faith upholds, or completes, the law. For the Jews of the 1^st Century, the law was not something with which to trifle. As you read the gospels, you see how often they cited “Abraham is our father” to Jesus, assuring Him that they had the words of truth. This was their basis of worthiness. They were the descendents of Abraham, to whom God had promised great things. So, it is understandable that Abraham is used often throughout the New Testament as an example of faith. I have a Jewish coworker who finds this objectionable. “Abraham is one of the Jewish patriarchs,” he insists. “He was not a Christian. How can you Christians use him for something he would not have approved?”

I’ve found that Ray doesn’t fully understand Abraham. Paul was, of course, a Jew, a follower of a deceased Jewish rabbi, Jesus. He was not unaware of who Abraham had been. In fact, Paul had studied under Gamaliel, so was probably very well aware of Abraham and his place in Jewish history. This is why he used him (as did the writer of Hebrews and James, Jesus’ brother) as an example of faith. Yet how could a patriarch so intimately linked with the law in the minds of the Jewish people be an example of faith?

As before, I’m going to ask my readers to read Romans 4:1-25 for themselves. I will refer to the pertinent passages.

Abraham was a very important figure in Jewish history. It should be noted, however, that he had nothing to do with the law. That association in the minds of Jews is a false one. Abraham did not live under the law which came centuries after his death. So, though Abraham was the Jewish forefather most often spoken of in Jewish literature, he didn’t know the law, which the Jewish literature considered the center of Jewish faith. So, how was Abraham justified? Not by the law, obviously. Was he justified by works? Paul allowed that Abraham would have something to brag about if he had been justified by works, but that he still couldn’t brag before God. The best human being in the world doesn’t hold a patch to the goodness of God. Genesis 15:6 said “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” Notice that Genesis gives credit where credit is due. God credited Abram’s (note he was not yet Abraham) faith as if he was righteous. It wasn’t something Abram did to be right with God. It was something God did to make Abram right with Himself.

“Now to the one who works, pay is not considered as a gift, but as something owed. But to the one who does not work, but believes on Him who declares righteous [Or who acquits, or who justifies the ungodly], his faith is credited for righteousness.”  Romans 4:4-5

Remember the introduction to Romans, where I said that righteousness and sin are employers that pay their own specific wages? Paul, who often betrays an incredible understanding of a broad spectrum of life, drew attention to this. When we work in someone’s business all day, we expect to be paid. Our wages are not a gift from our employer, but something he or she owes us. However, if we do nothing all day and still get paid, and then we have received a gift.  The only thing Christians do to become right with God is to believe that Jesus can declare us who are ungodly and unworthy to be right with God. Our belief, which isn’t truly an action so much as a submission, is accepted as if we had done something that made us right with God.

Paul anticipated the coming objection. Abraham had been circumcised. He was therefore a Jew and followed as much of the law as he had possession.  But Abraham had already expressed his faith in God before he was circumcised.  “This was to make him the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, so that righteousness may be credited to them also.” Romans 4:11b.  Abraham is then the father not only of the Jews, but of all who possess the same sort of faith that Abraham possessed. Here was a man of older years living in the lap of luxury in Ur of the Caldese (around modern-day northwest Iraq), who believed God and went out into the wilderness, who traveled and risked his own life and the lives of his family, who was willing to sacrifice his only child on God’s command. Those who show faith like this, God declares righteous, not because they have done mighty deeds, but because they have showed faith. The clipping of the foreskin, like baptism, is a symbol of the faith, not what makes us righteous.

Paul again anticipated the objection. God had made promises to Abraham concerning his descendents. Ah, but Paul asked, who are Abraham’s descendents, really?  Are they his descendents in the flesh – that insular and un-evangelical group called the Jews – or are they whose righteousness comes by faith in the same manner that Abraham’s righteousness had come? Abraham’s faith was the basis of the promise or the law was; since Abraham did not live under the law, the heirs of the law cannot possess the promise given to Abraham. The law only shows us our sin. It doesn’t save us. The promise to Abraham was given upon his faith, by the grace (undeserved favor) of God, and it was given to everyone who has the faith Abraham demonstrated.  Paul explained that this was the promise made in Genesis 17:5: “I will make you the father of many nations.”  Abraham’s descendents in the flesh created one nation, Israel, which never showed any interest in spreading beyond its own confines. Yet, Paul restated the Genesis verse as “I have made you the father of many nations.”  It had already occurred in Paul’s lifetime, because of the Gentile converts to Christianity.

When Abram believed God’s promise, it was delivered to him by an angel identified as “the Lord”. There are some scholars who believe this designation always denotes a pre-incarnate Jesus. Paul reminded his readers of the basic facts of Abram’s situation and then concludes with “Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for [Or because of our trespasses] and raised for our justification [Or acquittal].” Romans 4:23-25

 
The promise God made to Abraham was not only for Abraham, but for his descendents, both spiritual and physical. The God who raised Jesus from the dead is quite capable of delivering us from our disobedience and raising us to rightness with Him.

The Old Testament has much to show us even now that we have the New Testament. The New Testament did not replace the Old Testament. It merely completed it. The New Covenant did not replace the Old Covenant. It merely completed it. The Old Covenant said Abraham, because he believed God, would be the father of many nations. His physical descendents became confused and arrogant, thinking the promise only pertained to them. Meanwhile, God wanted all men to be saved. In time, Jesus came to this world in flesh to set things right and to complete the covenant. The promise was not just to the physical descendents of Abraham, but to those who possessed the same faith as Abraham had demonstrated. This was not something new, but something that had been forgotten or misunderstood.

In reintroducing the Jewish Christians of Rome about their ancestry, Paul also taught us about ourselves.  Even the patriarchs were saved by faith. We are no different then they. Yet we must still claim the promise as God offered it and not as we would like it to be. I am a Christian because I chose to admit my sin (disobedience to God) and repent (turn from that sin and go the way God wants me to go). I started this journey by the simple act of saying “I’m not worthy to unbuckle Jesus’ sandal. Thank you, Jesus, for doing for me what I cannot do for myself.” It is tempting to look around at folks – say my friends from high school who choose the other road – and say “Well, look at me! I’m so much better than they! I am favored of God because I got it right!”

I love history and my favorite historical books put me in the scene. I can simply just imagine the world where Paul walked and taught. The Jews thought they were extremely moral people.  The Greeks thought themselves extremely intelligent. The Romans considered themselves sophisticates. I’m sure there were other groups as well that held their high ground based upon  some special attribute they held that others did not – some claim to fame of which to boast.

If I could time travel, I’d love to visit the schools where Plato learned and taught, to see Paul on Mars Hill defending the faith. Alas, I have to content myself with reading about such things. Paul was the greatest Christian theologian who ever lives. This is not saying anything against Augustine or any of the others Christian thinkers who so influenced the terminology and theological systems we use as Christians. It’s simply that Paul came before they did and he had met Jesus on the road to Damascus. In him, Jesus selected a well-educated man who could cross cultural boundaries and speak as clearly to a Greek as he could to a Jew.

Paul looked around his world and saw a lot of boasting going on. As modern-day Christians, we should be aware that he would see the same thing today. Some of us point to our great morality and some to our great intellect. The United States thinks itself very good, thank you very much, because of our democratic ideals and religious freedom.

Paul would look at us today as he looked at society of the 1^st Century and say “Don’t boast!”

“Where then is boasting? It is excluded.”  (Romans 3:27a)

The Jews and the Gentiles had both fallen short of what God wanted in His people, so God sent Jesus to do  it all for us. Where is our boast?

“By what kind of law?  By one of works?” (Romans 3:27b)

Paul had already established that the Mosiac law with its works – ceremonies, sacrifices, feast days – had failed to save the Jews.

“No, on the contrary, by a law^[24] Or a principle of faith.”  (Romans 3:27c)

There were probably some Roman Jewish Christians who struggled with this. Yes, by the law of faith, but ….

 
“For we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. Or is God for Jews only? Is He not also for Gentiles? Yes, for Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.” (Romans 3:28-30)

Faith was and remains all there is.  By the works of the law, the Jews proved man can never be made right with God.  By the exercise of reason, the Gentiles proved they could never be made right with God (or gods, as they probably thought at the time).  We all violate the moral code of right and wrong that seems written on the heart of every human. Every society has some rules against wanton murder. My culture may allow me to leave grandma on an ice flow when her teeth fall out, but it won’t allow me to kill my cabin mate for food when we both get hungry. I’m sure you can come up with other examples. Works will never quite get us where we ought to be and we somehow know that. God came for everyone, justifying us all through faith.

 
“Do we then cancel the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3:31)

Paul answered the objections with which he was no doubt familiar.  What was the function of the law if not to save?  Wasn’t he saying that faith cancels the law?

This is a common argument among some Christian groups. We no longer need to the Old Testament, they say, because the New Testament superseded the Old Testament. This is not quite correct. There are portions of the Old Testament that cannot be understood unless filtered through the New Testament. We no longer stone adulterers as Leviticus prescribes because the New Testament teaches us a better way. Instruct them, discipline them, and even set them outside the community, but there’s no requirement to kill them because dead people can’t repent. This does not invalidate the Old Testament. It actually brings it into focus. Yes, the Israelites were given some harsh commands, but if they’d drawn near to God, the commands would have been tempered by God’s love and mercy. The law would never have become more important than the relationship with God.

It is not that faith cancels the law. It is that the law, viewed through faith, becomes a mirror that shows us our sin. Just as when our physical mirror reveals dirt upon our face, we are not required to slam our forehead into the glass to remove the dirt, but rather use soap and water, when we look at the spiritual mirror that is the law and see our sin, we are not required to kill ourselves or others to eliminate it. We are instead required to cleanse ourselves of sin through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Ordinarily, I post the entire Biblical passage, but this time, I’m going to ask you to read it for yourself while I refer to the pertinent sections.  You see, the monk was riding a bulky mule, but the apostle was making a well-connected statement in Romans 2:17-3:26. It’s a large section, but it boils down to this. It doesn’t matter what your race, religion, ethnic background, political affiliation, nationality, hair color, language, or political party. Every man, woman and child over the age of reason is a sinner.

Sin is a word that gets people’s dander up. Maybe I lie to my boss when I call in “sick” on a sunny day because I want to go to the beach, but that doesn’t make me a sinner. There are people in this world a whole lot more evil than I am. I give to charity sometimes and I don’t cheat on my spouse – there’s no law against fantasizing. And, sure, that vending machine gave me two sodas, but that’s just getting even toward the millions that have been stolen from other people.

God looks down on us and says “You’re all sinners. That ‘little’ sin may not seem like a big deal to you, but to Me – well, I can’t even look at you because I’m so good I can’t look on sin. You’re My beloved creation and looking at you makes Me want to vomit.”

It’s really not about being bad. It’s about disobeying God. There are standards He set and we violate them all the time. Most of us have an inner sense of right and wrong, but if we’re honest, we’ll admit we violate it all the time.  The Jews had the law and they violated it. Paul said God would hold them accountable to the law of which they were so proud. The Gentiles didn’t have the law, but they would be held accountable for violating the inward sense of right and wrong, because that is something God gives us. When we violate it, we reject Him.

Paul asked his readers “But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?” (Roman 3:5-6)

When we show ourselves to be rejectionists of God and His plan for the world, why do we suppose God is unjust when He disciplines us? Paul used a typical human argument. Are parents unjust when they discipline disobedient children? Are we unjust when we as humans choose to punish a mass murderer? Shouldn’t we be happy that the mass murderer’s actions highlight how much better we are than he? Of course not! Normal people can judge the mass murderer only because they provide an objective standard that says mass murder is wrong. God can judge the world because He provides an objective standard that says sin is wrong.

So if you grew up in a really functional home and are a very moral person are you somehow better than others without the same advantage?  I mean, the Jews thought themselves pretty special compared to the Gentiles. They were the moral people of their generation. Weren’t they deserving of some consideration from God? Are we moral people of our generation deserving of some consideration from God?

“What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written:  Paul constructs this charge from a chain of OT quotations, mainly from the Psalms. There is no one righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:9-10)

There are those who would like to have a 12-Step plan for making themselves worthy of God.  Paul shut down that argument right away. Jews may have been moral and Gentiles may have been very smart, but all had disobeyed God. Going to the right church, belonging to the right charity organizations doesn’t make us any better than someone who lacks those qualifications. There is no one who is right with God in their own power.

“For no flesh will be justified in His sight by the works of the law, for through the law comes  The bracketed text has been added for clarity. the knowledge of sin.”  (Romans 3:20)

Twelve steps, eight laws, a theology that fits in a cute little acrostic – none of this is required by God for Him to wash away our sins. The works of the law have value, but it is not salvation value. The law reveals sin to us. When we read the Old Testament, we should be struck by how divergent we are from God’s law. When we read what Jesus had to say to the people of His generation (understanding that He was speaking to our generation as well), we inevitably run across statements where we think “I’m not that bad.” When we think that, it is a warning. I AM that bad.  In God’s eyes there are no shades of grey. Either we’ve disobeyed Him or we haven’t and don’t of us can claim the latter.

“But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed—attested by the Law and the Prophets —that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.  God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.

"He presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.”  (Romans 3:21-26)

Paul explained that we humans are never right with God under our own power. We need to be remade in such a way that it is as if we had never sinned, but we can’t do that for ourselves. Fortunately, we don’t have to.

Jesus, Who had been foretold by the prophets, came to the world at the exact time God decided to show the world that we can be right with God. Not through our own power, but through the action of Jesus Christ in our lives.  Paul would later explain that this process involved believing and confessing that belief, but the primary point here is that Jesus Christ declares those who believe in Him to be right with God. It’s not something we do, beyond acknowledging that He did it. It’s totally something God through His life as a human and death and resurrection provided for us.

God declares those who have faith in Jesus to be right with Him (righteous). This is made possible because Jesus, come as a flesh-and-blood man, managed to live and die in a righteous fashion. None of us could do it, but for what Jesus did for us.

Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles. He was by no means the only apostle to the Gentiles. Barnabas is identified as an apostle as well and he worked among the Gentiles. Perhaps better than most of the apostles, Paul understood the Gentiles. He’d lived among them, traveled with them, prayed and ministered beside them. Raised in a Hellenistic city by devout Jewish parents, Paul understood the Gentile world from an educated Jewish perspective.

“For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”  Romans 1:18-20

I’m going to stick my foot into this one and say that Paul is speaking not of just Gentiles in the 1^st Century, but of materialists in the 21^st Century. God has shown each and every one of us what there is to know about Him. It is evident around us, in the nature that surrounds our human existence, in the “invisible attributes” that show His “eternal power and divine nature”. How could we not see it? I live in Alaska where we are surrounded by powerful statements of nature, but I’m sure that anywhere in the world where you live you can see the hand of God upon nature.

I could launch into a long discussion of the science of the universe. Fact is the universe appears to be designed to facilitate you and me. It works according to some incredibly precise rules and nobody knows why. Well, Paul says we ought to wake up and smell the coffee. It works the way that it works because God made it to work that way.  Having surrounded us with such beauty and order, God expects us to notice and if we don’t, we “are without excuse”. Scientists who look at the Big Bang and admit that it seems almost designed, then come up with some weird and inane explanation for why it wasn’t designed are without excuse. The evidence is there to be seen. It is sheer denial to say that it doesn’t exist or that it can be explained through multiple universes or imaginary time. These scientists are very smart people, but they do not know God and they ignore Him at their peril. They are without excuse.

“For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.^”  Romans 1:21-23

In the 1^st Century Gentile regions, there were many who worshipped idols in the form of graven images. We tend to think we’ve grown beyond that today, but in reality, I have many coworkers who worship nature in the same way.  You see their values when somebody wears a fox hat or burns wood as an alternative heat source. Warmth from the hat or the wood is considered immoral because something “natural” had to die for it. Nature is beautiful, but it is not divine. It is merely the product of the divine. Yet, I have coworkers who protested the building of a new church in town because it meant the loss of some scrubby trees that had previously been logged for fire wood by the miners in the early 20^th Century. Is the concern over global warming nothing more than worship of nature? Is the insistence that Darwinian evolution and materialism are the only true reality based upon the worship of nature as opposed to the worship of the Creator of nature?  Paul had an answer for these questions.

“Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 1:24-25

While we wring our hands in concern about what to do with this sort of idolatry, God has – Paul claimed – already done what was necessary. He released them to follow their heads (as my mother the cow-girl would have said). I think there is no real reason to argue about what is related below. “Males committed shameless acts with males” is plenty clear enough for those who are not in denial. It is historical fact that the Greek philosophers were pederasts, but it’s also thought that the whole society was given to homosexual relations. Men preferred the company of men and women preferred the company of women. While each crossed that divide to procreate, they weren’t expected to interact very much.

“This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for what is unnatural.

"The males in the same way also left natural sexual intercourse with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their perversion.”  Romans 1:26-27

While many today would say this is only natural, Paul came down firmly saying God does not consider it natural nor acceptable.  We don’t know what the “appropriate penalty for their perversion” was, but ours is not the first generation to know venereal disease. Clearly God disapproved of the sins and His inspired writer took pains to let 1^st Century Christians know that.

Yet, the sinfulness of the Gentiles had even greater impact beyond the bed chamber.

^{"And because they did not think it worthywile to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, disputes, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arroagant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.  Altough they know full well God's just sentence -- that those who practice such things deserve to die -- they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them."  Romans 1:28-32}  

Apparently the Gentiles were aware of the harm their lifestyle choices caused, but they refused to give them up and even encouraged others to join them. This is not an ambiguous passage. It translates very clearly (according to a friend who is a Bible translator) and it states very clearly not only what sins were being discussed, but also how Paul (and probably His Inspiration) felt about these sins.  The wages of sin is death and the practitioners of these sins were going to be paid in full if they didn’t repent.

Doesn’t this sound like the 21^st Century? Study after study shows that homosexuality is not a healthy lifestyle choice. It spreads disease, it appears related to depression, anxiety, substance abuse and other emotional disorders, it often results in multiple-partner sex or serial monogamy (I know quite a few lesbians and all seem to have relationships that don’t strive for a lifetime, but only for a matter of years), and it frequently results in pederasty.  Yet many of our generation insist there is nothing wrong with this lifestyle choice, that it is perfectly natural (healthful even) and that others should join them in their debauchery.

As the Gentiles did not like to keep God in their knowledge, they committed crimes wholly against reason and their own welfare. The nature of man, pagan or Christian, remains the same.  The charges of Paul generally apply to the state and character of humans at all times, until they are brought to full submission to the faith of Christ, and renewed by God’s saving power.  There’s never been a human who has not had reason to lament his soul-deep corruption and his secret dislike of God’s will.

The Book of Romans has been called the most significant theological letter ever written. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-430), the most influential of the church fathers, was converted upon reading Romans 13:13-14. Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, was studying Romans when he concluded that faith alone justifies a person before God. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was converted upon reading Luther’s introduction to Romans.

I can only pray to do a letter of this import justice.

To understand any of Paul’s writings in a historical context, it’s best to refer to Acts. Luke was a careful historian who named places and fixed dates based upon verifiable historical incidents. By reading Romans and comparing it to Acts, we know that Paul left Ephesus (where he had sojourned for 3½ years, traveled through Macedonia and Achaia, then went to Jerusalem. He mentioned in the letter he was staying with Gaius, who was a Corinthian Christian. This indicates that Paul wrote the letter in around AD 55-56 from Corinth.

Paul’s description of his purpose led earlier students of the Bible to see Romans as an outline of Paul’s theology, composed at greater leisure, to acquaint the Romans with his views so they would fully support him in his mission to Spain. Scholars soon realized, however, that this perception of Romans as a summary of Paul’s theology was inadequate for three reasons. First, Romans does not contain any discussion or emphasis on some things Paul clearly believed strongly as we know from his other letters—such as the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17-34) and the second coming of Christ (1 Thess. 4:13–5:11). Second, Paul stressed matters in Romans he does not give much attention to in his other letters, such as the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18-32) and the Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah (Rom. 9–11). Third, Romans includes materials that do not fit into the category of a summary of Paul’s theology. The exhortations in 12:1–15:14 are clearly outside this category. Some of them, such as how they should relate to government (Rom. 13:1-7) or those “weak in faith” (Rom. 14:1–15:6) seem to reflect specific problems in the Roman Christian community. Taking these facts seriously, scholars now feel that Paul knew much more about the Roman Christians than earlier scholars realized (this makes sense since his ministry partners in Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila, were Roman Jews) and wrote to the church with several purposes in mind:

(1) to request their prayers as he faced the threatening situation in Jerusalem;
(2) to alert them to his intended visit;
(3) to acquaint them with some of his understanding of what God had
done in Christ;
(4) to instruct them in areas where the church faced specific problems; and,
(5) to enlist their support in his planned missionary venture to Spain.

Paul’s letter to the Romans moves with logical precision as the theme of “the righteousness of God” is developed in its relevance for the Christians in Rome. The expertise of the inspired writer emerges clearly as Paul, although dealing with the problems of a specific group of Christians in Rome, unwaveringly elevated the discussion to a level that also addresses the needs of Christians in all places and at all times.

The theme of Romans is generally agreed to be the “righteousness of God”, though interpretations vary with regard to whether this is righteousness that God bestows on persons because of Christ’s work or if this is God in action, setting things right through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is crucial to understanding Paul’s use of this term to recognize that the same Greek word root is translated into English as righteousness, just, justification and justify. To understand Paul’s concept of righteousness means to also set one’s perception of justification.

Scholars have debated for centuries as to whether justification (God’s action in making persons righteous) refers primarily to one’s new status in Christ—justification would thus mean the bestowal of a righteous status before God—or to one’s new moral character in Christ—justification would then mean God’s action in one’s life to enable a person to achieve high ethical standards. Protestant, and particularly Lutheran scholars, have argued that justification should be understood in the first sense and indicates God’s acquitting or pronouncing the sinner righteous without any reference to moral change. Roman Catholic scholars have argued the opposite, holding that justification means God’s making a person righteous or moral regeneration. In the heated debates over this issue, it has become clear that an undue stress on either alternative leads to a distorted view of Christianity. To stress justification as God’s declaring the sinner righteous without regard to any subsequent change in the sinner’s moral character is as wrong as to stress justification as moral achievement to the point that living by works overshadows living by faith. The best understanding of justification is one which includes both the new status of a person before God and the new life that this status demands.

When the “righteousness of God” is understood as God’s working in Christ to set things right, then it becomes clear that God declares the sinner righteous (acquits). Persons who experience this declaration at the same time repudiate sin as a way of life, enter into an intense struggle with sin, and look forward to Christ’s complete victory over evil. Salvation is thus, according to Paul, both God’s gift of a righteous status before Him in Christ  and God’s demand to live the new life which Christ makes possible. Paul uses pairs of indicative and imperative statements to present his point. At first these seem contradictory, but they represent Paul’s understanding of Christianity—what God has done for us in Christ summons us to what we ought to do for God. It is not that works save us, but that our salvation inspires our works.

The salvation given by the power of God does not bring freedom from struggle. Paul understood the center of the Christian life to be intense struggle with the power of sin in one’s life. The new status before God (justification) opens one’s eyes to understand reality in a new way. In the experience of faith it is “revealed” that God came in Christ to set people free from the enslaving power of sin by enabling guilty sinners to be declared righteous and then to achieve it.

From Paul’s perspective, the Christian understands the power of sin and God’s action to triumph over it in a way the unbeliever does not. Paul described this new understanding and the arena of conflict it thrusts the Christian into in terms that relate to his Jewish heritage, placing Adam as the original transgressor who brought sin and related death into the world and Christ as the anecdote for sin and death.  These present the only two possibilities for human existence, according to Paul.  There are three great powers of Satan (sin, death and the law, as misused by Satan) pitted against three great powers of God (righteousness, life and grace). Paul’s conception is that both of these power fields exist in our present world with unbelievers totally controlled by the evil forces and with believers constantly needing to struggle to free themselves from the hold sin has and tries to gain over them.

Paul further articulated his view of Christian life as a struggle with sin, not with the flesh. Many persons in the First Century felt that an unalterable hostility existed between matter and spirit (thought or consciousness) with matter being the source of evil and spirit being the fountain of good. Paul made use of this kind of language but not with the dualism of Greek thought which opposed flesh (matter) to spirit. Flesh, as substance or material, is in itself neutral and has neither evil nor good nature; but a person under sin’s control is “in the flesh”, a contrast to life “in the Spirit”. In this life (in the flesh) believers must rise to the demand of God’s gift to us through Christ and walk “according to the Spirit”.

Paul alone in the New Testament explained the transition from the realm of Adam to the realm of Christ as a dying and rising with Christ. Our death with Christ causes us to be “united with him” in death. This union with Christ reveals sin in all its ugliness. Believers follow God as Jesus did, repudiate sin’s rule, and realize sin’s end is death. Our resurrection with Christ is our rising from death with Him spiritually to live to God. This dying and rising with Christ sets us free from sin in the sense that sin’s power is no longer enslaving. The Christian has the resources of God to fight sin victoriously; but intense struggle is necessary.

Romans is indeed the most significant theological letter ever written, evidenced by the number of great theologians who were impacted by its message.  Let us turn to what Paul had to say to the Romans and to us in the 21^st Century.