We’ve reached the halfway point of Paul’s letter to the Romans. This means two things: First, it’s a great opportunity stop, zoom out, and look at where we’ve been so far. And second, we’re only halfway through. I say this because there has been a tendency to treat the second half of Romans as “an afterthought or appendix” (Witherington 220)*. But that is pretty disparaging, both to the eight chapters we have left and to their writer. While we may end up moving through them more quickly, it will be because they’re more straightforward, not because they’re less important. As Witherington notes, Paul has done a lot of heavy theological lifting in 1-8, which provides grounding for his arguments in 9-11 and exhortations in 12-15 (Witherington 220). So today, let’s remind ourselves of where we’ve been so we can keep it mind as we forge ahead.
After his greetings and prayer, Paul presents his thesis statement for the letter: that in bringing Jews and Gentiles together into one community that is all about faithfulness, God’s justice has been revealed (1.16-17). In the rest of this half, Paul makes three large arguments in defense of this thesis.
The first argument is that everyone — Gentile, ‘God-fearer’, or Jewish — is in the same position before God, a sinner in need of grace (1.18-3.20). Gentiles are in this position because, even though they did not have the Law of Moses, they still should have been able to differentiate between Creator and creation and honour God, but did not (1.18-32). Moralizers of all kinds are no better than inveterate ‘sinners’ because they do the same things in secret for which they condemn others (2.1.-11). And those who have the Law, whether by virtue of culture (Jews) or cultural appreciation (God-fearers), are also in this position because they fail to keep it (2.12-3.20). So then, there’s no room for boasting.
Paul’s second argument is that justice and righteousness are determined by faith — living in a faithful, reciprocal relationship with God — rather than adherence to the Law (3.21-5.11). While God has opened this path in a new and powerful way through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (3.21-31), it’s nothing new. In fact, faith has been the deciding factor ever since Abraham (4.1-25).
And third, what God has done through Jesus is to create a whole new way of being human (5.1-8.39). While we were created to live in good-faith relationship with God, each other, and all of creation, Adam’s sin knocked us, and all of creation as a result, off course. Jesus was God’s way of starting over, restoring humanity to our original ‘programming’ and therefore enabling us to live out those good-faith relationships (5.1-21). If we’re running this renewed ‘operating system’, we participate in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, freeing us from that old programming. In this way, removing the Law as the determining factor of being right with God doesn’t promote sin; in fact it removes the temptations to hypocrisy and scrupulousness that law seems always to bring with it, and allows us to focus on living rightly, from the heart, instead (6.1-7.25). The sign of this new way of being human ‘in Christ’ is the presence of the Holy Spirit, which empowers us to bear good fruit, adopts us into God’s family, and intercedes for us when we don’t have the words (8.1-29). Yes, following this new way puts us out of alignment with ‘the way the world works’ and so we’ll always face trouble in the world; but we don’t ultimately need to worry about these troubles, because God has demonstrated that God is on our side and loves us with a love from which no one and nothing can separate us (8.31-39).
At every step of the way, Paul has taken care to insist on the goodness of the Law and Jewish identity. This new way in Jesus in no way means the Law was bad; it was just a stop-gap way of limiting sin within old humanity ‘in Adam’. And in fact, since sin was so powerful in that old humanity, it was even able to twist God’s good Law to its own evil purposes (7.1-14). In the same way, something like circumcision is good and true and beautiful if it’s truly a sign of one’s good-faith relationship with God; but if it becomes an end in itself, or if it makes you complacent, hypocritical, or judgemental, then it’s of no value at all (2.25-3.8). This concern for the Law and Jewish identity, and God’s justice in relationship to them, will become an even greater focus in Romans 9-11.
In conclusion, Paul has dedicated his life to serve the gospel, the good news of God’s victory. He is convinced that this victory was won through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This in a sense, short-circuited the control of the old humanity, which left us all as sinners in need of salvation. Jesus’ actions freed us to participate in a new humanity that is oriented toward God through the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore able to live out the good-faith relationships that have always been the heart of God’s plan for us.
Matthew Root 