Romans, part 1

1
Romans, part 1
2

• And remember, the Lords patience gives people
  time to be saved. This is what our beloved
  brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom
  God gave himspeaking of these things in all of
  his letters. Some of his comments are hard to
  understand, and those who are ignorant and
  unstable have twisted his letters to mean
  something quite different, just as they do with
  other parts of Scripture. And this will result in
  their destruction. (2 Peter 315-16 NLT)

3

• From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
  be an apostle and appointed to spread the Good
  News of God. God had already promised this Good
  News through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
  This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Jesus
  Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant
  of David. In his spiritual, holy nature he was
  declared the Son of God. This was shown in a
  powerful way when he came back to life. (Romans
  11-4 GN)

4

• For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is
  Gods power for salvation to everyone who
  believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
  For the righteousness of God is revealed in the
  gospel from faith to faith, just as it is
  written, The righteous by faith will live.
  (Romans 116,17 NET)
• For the gospel reveals how God puts people right
  with himself it is through faith from beginning
  to end. As the scripture says, The person who is
  put right with God through faith shall live.
  (Romans 117 GNB)

5

• READING PAUL IN A NEW PARADIGM
• Sigve Tonstad
• Andrews University Seminary Studies, Spring 2002,
  Vol. 40, No. 1, 37-59

6

• George Kittel (1906)
• It stands as an established fact that in Romans
  the justification of sinners by faith in Jesus is
  the prevailing thought. Given this premise,
  this reading will be confronted with grave
  reservations.
• To Luther the Good News was not an attribute
  of Christit was the God-given stance of the
  believer, by which he appropriated the
  righteousness that would be the basis for his
  acquittal. Tonstad

7

• Moreover, with the expression the
  righteousness of God one must not here
  understand the righteousness through which he
  himself (God) is righteous, but righteousness
  through which we are made righteous. Luther
• There is little doubt today that Luther reached
  his conclusion as much on the strength of an
  overarching theological vision as on the basis of
  strict exegesis. - Tonstad

8

• there is no doubt that Luthers interpretation
  came into being as part of a broad theological
  system. It was not primarily worked out on a
  lexical, semantic, and exegetical basis, the
  accepted tools of interpretation today.
  Tonstad

9
Luther

• James is a letter written in straw
• Revelation
• I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit
  produced it
• Christ is neither taught nor known in it

10

• For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
  (NRSV, NKJV, NASB, ESV)
• For in the gospel the righteousness of God is
  revealed. (TNIV)

11

• For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
  through faith for faith as it is written, The
  one who is righteous will live by faith.
  (Romans 117 NRSV)
• Those who know you, LORD, will trust you.
  (Psalms 910 GNB)
• For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor
  uncircumcision counts for anything, but only
  faith activated and energized and expressed and
  working through love. (Galatians 56 -
  Amplified)

12

• For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
  through faith for faith as it is written, The
  one who is righteous will live by faith.
  (Romans 117 NRSV)
• O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you
  will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you
  will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity,
  and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction
  and violence are before me strife and contention
  arise. You who are of purer eyes than to see
  evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly
  look at traitors and remain silent when the
  wicked swallows up the man more righteous than
  he? (Habakkuk 12,3,13 ESV)

13

• I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my
  guardpost. There I will wait to see what the LORD
  says and how He will answer my complaint. Then
  the LORD said to me, Write My answer plainly on
  tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct
  message to others. This vision is for a future
  time. It describes the end, and it will be
  fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait
  patiently, for it will surely take place. It will
  not be delayed. Look at the proud! They trust in
  themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the
  righteous will live by their faithfulness to
  God. (Habakkuk 21-4 NLT)

14

• Thus, when Paul quotes Hab. 24, we cannot help
  hearing the echoes unless we are tone deaf of
  Habakkuks theodicy question. By showcasing this
  text virtually as an epigraph at the
  beginning of the letter to Romans, Paul links his
  gospel to the Old Testament prophetic affirmation
  of Gods justice and righteousness. Hays,
  Echoes, pg 40
• For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
  through faith for faith as it is written, The
  one who is righteous will live by faith.
  (Romans 117 NRSV)

15

• The Good News is that God is righteous
• This restores our trust in God and we are put
  right
• To reject this Good News about God is the
  experience of Gods anger
• Gentiles
• Jews

16

• True, some of them were unfaithful but just
  because they were unfaithful, does that mean God
  will be unfaithful? Of course not! Even if
  everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the
  Scriptures say about Him, You will be proved
  right in what you say, and You will win Your case
  in court. (Romans 33-4 NLT)

17
Romans 321-26

• Several NT scholars have singled out this
  passage as the key to the whole letter
• it is the centre and heart of the whole of
  Romans Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical
  Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, pg 199
• the thesis proper Kasemann, Commentary on
  Romans, pg 91
• the great programmatic summary of his gospel.
  Ridderbos, Paul An Outline of His Theology, pg
  144

18

• the most concentrated and heavily theological
  summary of the Pauline gospel, and every word has
  to be wrestled with. But if we take the trouble
  it demands and really enter into the background
  of his words it is not, I believe, obscure,
  however profound. J.A.T. Robinson, Wrestling
  with Romans, pg 43

19

• But now, apart from the law the righteousness of
  God (which is attested by the law and the
  prophets) has been disclosed namely, the
  righteousness of God through the faithfulness of
  Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no
  distinction, for all have sinned and fall short
  of the glory of God. But they are justified
  freely by his grace through the redemption that
  is in Christ Jesus. God publicly displayed him at
  his death as the mercy seat accessible through
  faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness,
  because God in his forbearance had passed over
  the sins previously committed. This was also to
  demonstrate his righteousness in the present
  time, to that he would be just and the justifier
  of the one who lives because of Jesus
  faithfulness. (NET)

20

• Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation
  through faith in his blood (KJV)
• God appointed him as a sacrifice for
  reconciliation, through faith, by the shedding of
  his blood (Romans 325 New Jerusalem Bible)

21
(No Transcript)
22

• Brazen altar Bronze. In the outer court. The
  unconverted mind, yet willing to listen
• Golden altar Gold. In the holy place. The
  converted mind.
• The covenant box Gold, covered by the gold lid.
  In the most holy place. The sealed mind settled
  into the truth about God (his character and his
  principles).

23

• We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to
  go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death
  of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living
  way, through the curtain---that is, through his
  own body. (Hebrews 1019,20 GN)
• So let us come boldly to the throne of our
  gracious God. There we will receive his mercy,
  and we will find grace (Hebrews 416, NLT).

24
(No Transcript)
25

• For in it the righteousness of God is revealed
  through faith for faith as it is written, The
  one who is righteous will live by faith.
  (Romans 117 NRSV)
• Gods anger is revealed from heaven against all
  the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways
  prevent the truth from being known. God punishes
  them, because what can be known about God is
  plain to them, for God himself made it plain
  (Romans 118,19 GN).
• Those who know Your name trust in You, for You,
  O LORD, do not abandon those who search for You.
  (Psalms 910 NLT)

26

• They say they are wise, but they are
  fools instead of worshiping the immortal God,
  they worship images made to look like mortals or
  birds or animals or reptiles. And so God has
  given those people over to do the filthy things
  their hearts desire, and they do shameful things
  with each other. They exchange the truth about
  God for a lie they worship and serve what God
  has created instead of the Creator himself, who
  is to be praised forever! Amen. Because they do
  this, God has given them over to shameful
  passions.Because those people refuse to keep in
  mind the true knowledge about God, he has given
  them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the
  things that they should not do (Romans
  122-26,28 GN).

27

• They are filled with all kinds of wickedness,
  evil, greed, and vice they are full of jealousy,
  murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip
  and speak evil of one another they are hateful
  to God, insolent, proud, and boastful they think
  of more ways to do evil they disobey their
  parents they have no conscience they do not
  keep their promises, and they show no kindness or
  pity for others. (Romans 129-31 GN)

28

• Gods Wrath

29
Gods wrath

• My anger will flame up like fire and burn
  everything on earth. It will reach to the world
  below and consume the roots of the mountains. I
  will bring on them endless disasters and use all
  my arrows against them. (Deuteronomy 3222,23
  GN)
• They fail to see why they were defeated they
  cannot understand what happened. Why were a
  thousand defeated by one, and ten thousand by
  only two? The Lord, their God, had abandoned
  them their mighty God had given them up
  (Deuteronomy 3229,30 GN)

30
Gods wrath

• They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods
  of the land they are about to enter. When that
  happens, I will become angry with them I will
  abandon them, and they will be destroyed. Many
  terrible disasters will come upon them, and then
  they will realize that these things are happening
  to them because I, their God, am no longer with
  them. (Deuteronomy 3116-17 - GN)

31
Gods anger

• Very well, then, I will give you freedom the
  freedom to die by war, disease, and starvation
  (Jeremiah 3417 GN)

32

• Philistines

33

• They angered him with their heathen places of
  worship, and with their idols they made him
  furious. God was angry when he saw it, so he
  rejected his people completely. He abandoned his
  tent in Shiloh, the home where he had lived among
  us. He allowed our enemies to capture the
  Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory.
  (Psalm 7858-61 GN)

34

• Babylonian captivity

35

• I will fight against you with all my might, my
  anger, my wrath, and my fury. I will kill
  everyone living in this city people and animals
  alike will die of a terrible disease. Anyone who
  stays in the city will be killed in war or by
  starvation or disease...It will be given over to
  the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it to the
  ground. I, the LORD, have spokenI will set your
  palace on fire, and the fire will burn down
  everything around it. I, the LORD, have spoken.
  (Jeremiah 215,6,9-10,14 GN)

36

• You have brought this on yourself by abandoning
  the LORD your God when he led you on his way
  Your own wickedness will correct you, and your
  unfaithful ways will punish you. You should know
  and see how evil and bitter it is for you if you
  abandon the LORD your God... (Jeremiah 217-19
  GN)
• Judah, you have brought this on yourself by the
  way you have lived and by the things you have
  done. Your sin has caused this suffering it has
  stabbed you through the heart. (Jeremiah 418
  GN)

37

• The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion
  that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the
  LORDs fierce anger have turned the country into
  a desert. (Jeremiah 2538 GN)

38

• The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion
  that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the
  LORDs fierce anger have turned the country into
  a desert. (Jeremiah 2538 GN)
• The LORD, the God of Israel, told me to go and
  say to King Zedekiah of Judah, I, the LORD, will
  hand this city over to the king of Babylonia, and
  he will burn it down. (Jeremiah 342 GN)

39

• You will feel my anger when I turn it loose on
  you like a blazing fire. And I will hand you over
  to brutal men, experts at destruction. (Ezekiel
  2131 GN)
• I will hand you over to other nations who will
  rob you and plunder you. (Ezekiel 257 GN)
• The king killed the young men of Judah even in
  the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or
  old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed
  them all over to him. (2 Chronicles 3617 GN)

40

• The Lord in his anger has covered Zion with
  darkness. Its heavenly splendor he has turned
  into ruins. On the day of his anger he abandoned
  even his temple. (Lamentations 21 GN)
• Why have you abandoned us so long? Will you ever
  remember us again? Bring us back to you, LORD!
  Bring us back! Restore our ancient glory. Or have
  you rejected us forever? Is there no limit to
  your anger? (Lamentation 520-22 GN)

41

• Assyrian captivity

42

• I will attack the people of Israel and Judah
  like a lion. I myself will tear them to pieces
  and then leave them. When I drag them off, no one
  will be able to save them. I will abandon my
  people until they have suffered enough for their
  sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their
  suffering they will try to find me. (Hosea
  514,15 GN)

43

• They insist on turning away from me. They will
  cry out because of the yoke that is on them, but
  not one will lift it from them. How can I give
  you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? (Hosea
  117,8 GN)
• I cant bear to even think such thoughts. My
  insides churn in protest. (Hosea 118 The
  Message)

44

• The Romans destroy Jerusalem

45

• In this way they have brought to completion all
  the sins they have always committed. And now
  Gods anger has at last come down on them! (1
  Thessalonians 214-16 GN)

46

• Because of our sins he was given over to die
  (Romans 425 GN)

47
Objections
48
Objections Soft on sin
49
(No Transcript)
50
Objections God is too nice to punish sin
51
Objections What about the Old Testament?
52

• I was shown that the judgments of God would not
  come directly out from the Lord upon them, but in
  this way They place themselves beyond His
  protection. He warns, corrects, reproves, and
  points out the only path of safety then if those
  who have been the objects of His special care
  will follow their own course independent of the
  Spirit of God, after repeated warnings, if they
  choose their own way, then He does not commission
  His angels to prevent Satan's decided attacks
  upon them. It is Satan's power that is at work at
  sea and on land, bringing calamity and distress,
  and sweeping off multitudes to make sure of his
  prey. And storm and tempest both by sea and land
  will be, for Satan has come down in great wrath.
  He is at work. He knows his time is short and, if
  he is not restrained, we shall see more terrible
  manifestations of his power than we have ever
  dreamed of. 14MR 3.1