Romans 13

Romans 13:1-7: Paul has been writing about life together in Christian community. He has ended the previous chapter by encouraging those of Christian faith to overcome evil with good. He now shifts attention to a different context – the Christian community in the context of the larger world. Here he encourages this Christian community to be subject to the governing authorities, to appreciate the ordering function of government, and to pay taxes. While many of us might have a degree of comfort with what Paul writes, it does lead us to ask whether and in what ways it may be appropriate to oppose government, even work for its overthrow in situations where it becomes extremely unjust. It may even lead us to ask whether it is appropriate for the church to encourage its people to be politically active. One reading of this passage would seem to caution against such activity. We need to look more deeply at what Paul writes and at the context in which he writes.

Allow me to offer some insights and then look to other sources for even more illumination. Much of what Paul has already written in Romans indicates a concern about the violence of the empire and about some of the practices that are a part of imperial culture. Paul’s use of the term, “Lord,” for Jesus has within itself an anti-imperial tone. The values Paul argues should characterize Christian community – love, a lack of revenge, mutual affection, are counter-cultural values. Why, then, does Paul write so approvingly of government power in this section of his letter? I think that while Paul is critical of many imperial values and believes that Christian faith and Christian community should be counter-cultural, he is both aware of the useful ordering function of government and of the context in which he writes – where Rome is extremely powerful and has a history of putting down rebellions. Rome is often quick to oppress any group that even appears to challenge its authority. If the Christian communal alternative is to truly become a counter-cultural force, it will need time to grow and develop and it would not benefit from a premature confrontation with Roman authorities.

On the first point, that Paul has an appreciation of the ordering function of government, I would cite the text, where Paul argues that government is a “servant of God.” While I think Paul goes out of his way to make this point, and overstates his own case, given both his previous critique of imperial values and the fact that Jesus was executed by Roman authorities, he is on to something. To say that God gives every state as it is its authority is going too far. To say that in the course of history, the God of history uses the state for good ends seems more appropriate. We should grant the institutions of the state the respect and honor they are due. My doctoral dissertation on Christian political ethics argued for a certain conception of political democracy as the most morally legitimate form of the state from a Christian perspective. Underlying that entire argument is an assumption that the state matters and “that the state’s functioning well has some kind of theological importance attached to it” (J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Perspectives on Politics, 45, which I quote in my dissertation). My dissertation advisor, Joseph Allen, in his major work in Christian ethics wrote, “in any effective program for social justice toward the most needy, government will necessarily play a key role” (Love and Conflict, 177). Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life ended in a Nazi concentration camp because he had been part of a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, wrote in his own work about the importance of the state. “Government has the divine task of preserving the world, with its institutions which are given by God, for the purpose of Christ. Government maintains created things in their proper order” (Ethics, 344). I sometimes encounter persons protesting the actions of government using language that seems to delegitimate government. Paul will have none of that. Government has a place, has a role and it needs to be respected. However, that is not all Paul has to say. It is clear in other places that Paul recognizes that government can overreach and claim more than it should (claim it is lord rather than Christ) and that may call for a different kind of response. I turn now to others for additional guidance.

Paul is not writing an essay on church and state or general instructions for all times and places, but a letter to a specific situation. The disturbances in Rome of 49 CE were a matter of recent history. Christians in Rome were already suspected by the government…. In such a situation Paul wants to make it clear that the Christian life does not call for resistance against government authority or withdrawal from public life. (People’s New Testament Commentary)

Paul’s teaching on obedience to rulers must be read in the light of political realities of the 1st century CE. The success of the Maccabean Revolt in the 2nd century BCE and the rise of the Zealot party in the 1st century CE raised aspirations of Jewish autonomy throughout the Roman world. In the 1st century such sentiments incited Jews to tax revolts, riots in Rome and Alexandria, and protests against Emperor Caligula and Pontius Pilate, prefect in Palestine. Less than a decade before Paul wrote Romans, Jews were expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius; less than a decade after Paul wrote Romans, Jewish Zealots would launch a major war in 66 CE against Roman occupation of Palestine. In the light of such political restiveness, Paul urges believers to honor and obey just governing authorities as “God’s servants for your good.” Christian political responses should be informed by discernment of the will of God and expressions of genuine love. (New Interpreters Study Bible)

Romans 13:1-7 is not an abstract theology of civil authority that can be generalized to all Christian situations, but rather concrete and prudent advice for Roman Christians… not to rebel against civil authority for what happened to them under Claudius and for what awaited them when they returned a decade later under Nero…. There are, however, two deeper contexts for understanding Romans 13:1-7. One is the hierarchy of the negative – there is a time and a way to obey, a time and a way to disobey…. On June 17, 1940, according to Eberhard Bethge’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, when the fall of France made everyone around him jump up to give the Nazi salute, Dietrich Bonhoeffer did likewise, saying, “We shall have to run risks for very different things now, but not for that salute!” Another and even more profound context is the primacy of the positive…. Both Jesus and Paul are not so much trapped in a negation of global imperialism as engaged in establishing a positive alternative here below upon this earth. (John Dominic Crossan, Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul, 394, 409)

Paul is writing for a particular community in a particular context. We take his points seriously, but in that context. Paul is not willing to dismiss all government as pointless, and has an appreciation for the ordering function of government, especially good government. Pauline principles can also be used to critique government, and government policies, and perhaps even to oppose government. One must always read one’s context, however. As Christian in the United States, part of our context is that we live in a society governed by democratically elected leaders. Such a system invites participation, criticism of government policy, proposals of alternatives. In such a system, we should offer criticisms of and alternatives to government policies we don’t believe reflect love and justice. We should also work diligently and imaginatively to build alternative social realities within our church communities.

Romans 13:8-10: Paul cleverly shifts back to his conversation about love. Yes, we may owe taxes to the governing authorities, and in fact, the payment of taxes for programs that benefit the less well-off and contribute to the common good of society may be seen as a form of love, but our basic obligation, our fundamental “debt” is to love. “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” Love fulfills the law; it does no wrong to the neighbor.

Romans 13:11-14: Love is our basic reason for doing what we do as people of Christian faith, at least when we are living out that faith. Paul also believes that a great change is coming soon to the world. Whether that great change is really near is not the important point. The important point is that the change God wants for the world is a change in the direction of love. To live in love is to work with the grain of the universe. So we put off the works of darkness, among which Paul includes drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy – an interesting combination and meant to be illustrative and not comprehensive. Instead, we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Romans 14

Romans 14:1-12: Paul now addresses more directly potential conflict within the
Roman Jesus community, the Roman Christian church – the relation between those who are strong in faith and those who are weak in faith. In Paul’s view, those Jews and Gentiles who as Christians continued to observe their former religious scruples were not yet strong enough in their faith to see that Christ had liberated them from their previous laws, and unless or until they came to this conviction themselves, their views and practices should be respected (People’s New Testament Commentary). The Christian community should be a welcoming community, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Paul’s image is of a welcoming community that welcomes a diversity of view points. In the Jesus community we should avoid both disdaining others and passing judgment on them. God has welcomed us all, and it is before God that we will have to judge our own actions and consciences.

While we may have our own opinions and need to examine our own consciences we still belong together in the Christian community. We do not live to ourselves, and in both our living and our dying we are accountable to God and Christ.

Romans 14:13-23: Not only should we refrain from judging others but we should actively seek to be helpful to others and not put things in the way of their faith. Paul is here primarily addressing the strong in faith. Even if we feel free to engage in certain actions, we need to take into account the affect this may have on those “weaker in faith.” Paul’s focus here is on food and drink. Much of the food and drink sold in the markets had its origin in pagan temples and thus could be a source of stumbling for the weak in faith. Of course, there may be limits to the principle of modifying one’s behavior for the sake of others, but in our individualistic day and age, it may seem strange that such a principle is even a part of Christian community – but it is. “The kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” “Let us then pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding.” For Paul, these are part of the alternative society that is the Christian community of faith. This is a kingdom that is an alternative to the empire. It seems counter-cultural in our day and time, as well.

Romans 11

Romans 11:1-10: Paul has noted that his fellow Jews have not been responding to the good news about Jesus Christ that they have heard. So has God rejected God’s people? In a phrase that Paul has used often in this letter, “By no means!” Paul uses his own case as a reason to reject the thought that God has turned against the Jews. Paul identifies himself as an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. If he has experienced God’s grace then it cannot be true that God has rejected all God’s people. Paul also cites the story of Elijah who thought that there we no longer any faithful Jews but was assured by God that in spite of what Elijah saw, there were persons who would remain faithful. The work of God’s grace continues, sometimes under our human radar.

Romans 11:11-24: Paul’s speaking about a remnant who have been the special object of God’s attention leads one to ask, Is it over of the rest of the Jews? “Have they stumbled so as to fall?” By no means. Whatever their shortcomings, Paul has not given up on them, nor has God. In Paul’s theology, the reticence of those of Jewish faith to renew that faith through the message about Jesus has created an opening for Gentiles to come into a new relationship with God. Somehow God has this worked out. When the Jewish people come on board, whatever that may mean, imagine how great that will be. Whatever one makes of Paul’s more specific claim here, the central points he wants to make have to do with the inclusion of Gentiles in righteousness, and an encouragement not to be too quick to judge those who have not yet come to faith in Jesus – trusting their lives to God.

Paul warns the Gentile Christians in the community not to become boastful or proud, not arrogant as against their Jewish sisters and brothers in the faith. This concern for the concrete relationships between these two groups of people permeates this letter. He encourages those who have become a part of the people of God in Jesus to continue in the kindness of God.

Verse 24 expresses Paul’s deepest hope, even assurance, that God is not yet finished with the Jewish people, who are, in Paul’s view, by nature God’s people.

Romans 11:25-36: Paul reiterates that the wonderful mystery of God’s grace is that while some Jews have not embraced righteousness by faith in Jesus, this has allowed Gentiles to become part of God’s people. Even so, “all Israel will be saved.” Paul asserts that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. God will remain faithful to God’s promises. Does this mean all Jews will eventually come to Jesus? Some might argue for this, but I think Paul leaves this intentionally vague. God’s care for all God’s people is the deepest mystery and we ought to be careful about claiming certainty about the direction of God’s grace. God desires to be merciful to all (verse 32).

The end result of these chapters (9-11) is doxological. Paul concludes in awe, wonder and worship over the “depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.” Finally, not even our best theological thinking can capture all the ways of God or the depths of God’s love. As Paul does, we should give our faith our best thought, but also acknowledge with humility the limits of our thinking. We should never be too quick to appeal to “mystery,” but neither should we shy away from the fact that we often stand in awe before the mystery of the world and of God. At the heart of that mystery is a God working to bring reconciliation and well-being to the world.

Romans 12

Romans 12:1-8: When the Rev. Sally Dyck became the United Methodist bishop of Minnesota, she was asked to address the clergy at retreats whose purpose was to foster and encourage pastoral excellence. Everyone wanted to know how this new bishop would define “pastoral excellence.” Bishop Dyck acknowledged the challenge of the concept, but encouraged the clergy to read Romans 12 everyday. In it there was something about “pastoral excellence.” She encouraged us to read it in Eugene Peterson’s version The Message. I will use some of this in the comments below.

This is an incredible chapter. In many chapters of this letter, Paul’s thinking has been difficult, obscure, addressing issues seemingly far removed from the church of the twenty-first century. Now to be sure there are more connections, even in the most difficult chapters, to our lives and churches than we might initially imagine, but here the connections are more evident, fresh, compelling. At 12:1 the content and tone of the letter shift dramatically: from struggling with profound theological issues to practical instruction on life together in the Christian community. Yet one cannot make a neat distinction between Paul’s theology and his ethics, as though the one were mere theory but the other is commonsense practice. In Christian ethics, nothing is so practical as good theory…. We are thinking beings, and action without thought, even if it is right, cannot finally satisfy. (People’s New Testament Commentary). As someone trained in Christian ethics, I can only say, “amen.”

Paul begins with a significant “therefore.” Just immediately preceding this “therefore” is the doxological passage at the end of chapter 11 wherein Paul extols the mystery and wonder of God’s grace and love. In some ways the entirety of chapters 1-11 are devoted to thinking theologically about God’s love in the face of evidence of human harm, violence, self-righteousness, the mistakes found within religious traditions, and the challenges of bringing Gentiles and Jews together into community. Paul argues that the darkness around us is deep and affects each of us. He also argues, especially in chapter 8, that God’s powerful love is also at work in the world. Now on to chapter 12 with its “therefore.”

Paul proclaims with a pervasive intensity the necessity for, and the vital characteristics of, love in the Christian community. This therefore, then, introduces specific and valuable direction for us and for our churches in this efficient, alienated, and lonely twentieth century. We live in an age desperately in need of the kind of love that this letter describes – that is, a love founded in, and expressive of, glad Hilarity. However, such love cannot be created out of our own resources. We must be connected to life-changing experiences of God’s love, of the power available when faith frees us from legalism, and of God’s immense faithfulness toward his people. (Marva Dawn, Truly the Community: Romans 12 and how to be the church, 7)

Verses 1 and 2 invite us to give ourselves over to the transforming love and power of God, so that we are formed in that love rather than conformed to the world. Eugene Peterson renders these verses in an illuminating and beautiful way. So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for God. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what God wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. WOW!

As we do this, we are also not to think of ourselves in inflated terms. I recall the definition of humility offered by Robert Emmons. Humility is the realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weaknesses – neither overestimating them nor underestimating them. To be humble is not to have a low opinion of oneself, it is to have an accurate opinion of oneself. (The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 171) We are invited to be humble in this sense, assessing our strengths and weaknesses in faith. Not only that, but we ought to think of ourselves in relationship to each other. The Christian community of faith is like a body. We belong to each other and have different gifts that should all be celebrated and used for the common good – gifts such as proclamation, ministering, teaching, encouraging, generosity, leading, compassion, cheerfulness (the Greek word is the root of our word, “hilarity” implying a joyousness in the Christian life that is too often neglected).

I think the body image is very important in our day, when “church shopping” has become a common metaphor for how we live together in church. Let me begin by saying that for too long the church often took for granted the needs and hopes of its people. We expected people to be there in church regardless of how poorly prepared an event might be or how low the quality of an event might be. On the other hand, the church is about transformation, including the transformation of our desires and wants. To ask only about what we “want” in a church, though a necessary question, should not be the only question we ask. We may also need to ask what we need. And when we are dissatisfied with some element in the life of a church we should be reticent to leave quickly or easily. Sometimes leaving one church community for another is necessary. But it should not be like changing brands of toothpaste (the church shopping metaphor), it should be more like an amputation (Paul’s body metaphor).

Romans 12:9-21: Paul’s encouragement for the Christian life and for the Christian life together in community continues. “Let love be genuine.” Peterson: “Love from the center of who you are.” Much of what is written here needs little comment. We would do well to read this over and over again, letting the words permeate the center of our being and letting our actions flow from that center. Listen: love, show mutual affection, pray, rejoice, be hopeful, be patient, help others, show hospitality even to strangers, bless others – even if they persecute you, live in harmony, be humble, live peaceably with all. It ends with powerful words reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount. “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” The burning coals image may actually be an image of repentance – your actions may invite the enemy to a changed life. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Remember the words of Jesus: “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Remember the words of the theologian Pelagius: “The enemy has overcome you when he makes you like himself.” Remember the words of the Buddha: “In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.” Remember the words of Booker T. Washington: “Let no man pull you so low as to make you hate him.” Remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”

Listen. Let the words sink deeply into your heart, mind, soul. These words are ways God’s Spirit gets inside of us. Listen. Listen. Listen – then live.

Romans 9

Romans 9:1-18: Throughout his letter to the Roman Christian community, Paul returns to themes related to Jewish Christians and people of Jewish faith. The Roman Jesus community grew out of the large Jewish population in Rome. For a time, all Jews, including Jewish Christians were expelled from Rome, leaving this Christian community a Gentile community. The Jews are returning, and this poses some problems for the community Paul hopes to visit, a community Paul hopes will support him in his mission in Rome and beyond to Spain. Many of Paul’s arguments in this work have implications for the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Here Paul continues to address themes related particularly to the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christian, as well as to the relationship between Christians and those who have chosen to remain Jewish. This section, chapters 9-11, has a certain integrity all its own.

Paul expresses anguish that more Jews have not joined him in following the Jewish faith to become followers of the Jew, Jesus. Paul marvels at how special this people is in God’s work in the world. While the number of Jews who have become followers of Jesus is relatively small, and the church is becoming more and more Gentile in Paul’s time, this does not represent a failure on God’s part. Paul cites stories from the Hebrew Scriptures to make the point that what matters most in relationship to God is faith, faith in God’s promise of new life.

To Paul, God is faithful, though some of his language is a challenge. The language Paul uses in verse 18 can make God sound capricious. God chooses who God chooses, and those God does not choose are simply out of luck. Seen in the context of the example Paul is discussing (Pharaoh), the matter is more complex. Pharaoh represents the kind of world God opposes. Pharaoh was seen as divine and exercised capricious power. Justice in Egypt was defined by what Pharaoh loved, and evil by what Pharaoh hated (see J. M. Roberts, A History of the World, 180). Pharaoh has a hard heart because he does not want to exercise his power in a way more in keeping with God’s justice. God seeks a different world and God’s mercy is that God works toward that justice in the world.

Romans 9:19-29: The problem staring Paul in the face is that it is his fellow Jews, who, from a Christian perspective, are hardening their hearts. And it is Gentiles who appear to be responsive to God’s mercy. Paul’s initial argument is unconvincing to many – who are we to argue with God? There is a great deal of precedence in the Bible for arguing with God, just read the Psalms. Paul’s basic point is not a premature appeal to “mystery,” but a deeper sense of mystery, the mystery of grace which has opened new life to persons once considered “objects of wrath.” All in the Roman Christian community, Jews and Gentiles, are accepted in the mystery of God’s love, the wonder of God’s grace.

Romans 9:30-33: Gentiles are now counted among the recipients of God’s grace. Paul sees many of his own people struggling with a misunderstanding of their own tradition, striving to be righteous before God on their own merit rather than opening themselves to God’s grace. This is not the essence of Judaism, but a misunderstanding of it. Paul grieves for these people, but he is not here making some determination of their ultimate destiny, only commenting on their current plight.

Romans 10

Romans 10:1-4: These verses complete the thought at the end of chapter 9. Paul laments the misunderstanding of some Jews, and he expresses his heart’s desire that they should be “saved” and “enlightened.” Grace comes first, and for Paul this is learned through Jesus. Can it be learned in other ways – we will wait and see what Paul has to say later.

Romans 10:5-21: Paul utilizes two quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures to argue for the primacy of righteousness (right relationship) in faith. Verses 9-10 are both beautiful and challenging. Some have used them to promote Christian exclusivism, the view that only those who openly confess Jesus as Lord will be saved. All others are left outside of salvation. Is this really Paul’s point? Look at the context. Paul has been focusing reflections on Jews who have yet to become a part of the Christian community, and he affirms that “the word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” He has argued that righteousness based in faith is a true interpretation of Judaism. He has discovered this in Jesus and invites others to do the same. I don’t think Paul is making a generic statement about salvation, here. Rather he is inviting people to the faith he has come to know, as an extension of the faith in which he was brought up. To confess Jesus as Lord is to stand against a misunderstanding of Judaism and to stand against the Roman imperial religious ideology. To trust in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is to say that God has indeed acted in Jesus, and will continue to do so. While I think Paul would be pleased to have everyone focus their faith in God on Jesus, I also think the primary point is coming to a new relationship with God through faith, the thing Paul learned as he learned about Jesus. Another important point to make about these verses is the intimate connection between inner and outer. Faith is to be a matter of the heart, but also a matter of life and words. Both are important.

Again, Paul inserts into this context a remark about the relationship between Jew and Greek – “there is no distinction.”

Then Paul makes an appeal to be in mission and outreach. How can people come to believe if they have not heard the message? Remember, Paul hoped to gain the support of the Roman Christian community for an outreach beyond Rome. Paul also leaves this chapter by asserting that many of his Jewish brothers and sisters have already heard? What more will he have to say about them?

I find these chapters difficult and challenging, primarily because the context is so different from our own. There are some wonderful verses, but some of these have been taken out of context so often, that they have lost some of their power for me (verses 9-10, verse 17). As I try and listen for what speaks to me about my life, one lesson I take from chapters 9 and 10 is that every religious tradition, every faith, can lose its way. Paul did not believe that the Jewish law had become spiritually wrong, but had apparently seen enough misunderstanding of it that he was concerned. Rule-keeping seems to have become, for some, the primary means of relating to God. That same temptation can be found in Christianity. We are not immune from providing a check-list as the essence of Christian faith, not immune from our games of one-ups-manship in comparing how we do with our list compared to others. There are countless other ways we can use the language of our faith to avoid our lives, to keep God at bay. We need to pay attention to these. How do we balance an appropriate concern for maintaining Christian spiritual practices and disciplines with a focus on the point of these disciplines which is transformation in love? If we are doing all the “right things” but not being transformed in love, something is amiss. Transformation of our hearts and lives so that we can participate in God’s work of transforming the world are the bottom line. Paul uses different language, but when we get to chapter 12, we will see that this may be his bottom line, too.

Romans 8

Romans 8:1-17: In chapter 5, Paul celebrated life in Christ, life in which God’s Spirit and love were poured into our hearts. We come to this life not because we have earned our way in, but because we trust, we have faith in the goodness of God. Chapter 4 described that faith, and there Paul argued for the continuity of this “faith understanding” with the best of the Jewish tradition. All this followed three chapters in which Paul seemed intent on describing the darkness in the world and our participation in it through sin. Sin mars the image of God within us and thwarts God’s purposes in the world, and when we choose to do things which do this, such actions can have a cumulative and synergistic effect, taking on a life and power of their own. In chapters 6-7, Paul seems to have returned to this theme, examining more deeply a connection between death in our spirits (the image of God being marred), sin and the law. Recall that an important part of the context is Paul’s desire to speak to a Roman Christian community that is both Jewish and Gentile. He wants to foster the bonds of community between them, highlight their common bonds in Christ. To do so, he respectfully disagree that the law gives the Jewish Christians a distinct advantage. Yet he does not want to lose his Jewish readers, so he carefully returns to the subject in chapters 6 and 7, concluding that the law is both good in itself (holy, just and good – 7:12) and that it can be entrapping. Sin can warp what is good and turn it against itself. It happens with the law and it happen within the person.

Now Paul is ready to return to a celebration of new life in Christ. If we have felt condemned or doomed by what he has just written, we need to move on. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We are those who have been set free. Paul’s descriptions of “the law of sin and death” can be confusing and depressing, as well as compelling. Whatever their shortcomings and their power, these descriptions are meant to be a contrast to Paul’s primary point, that we are set free by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” This is true for us. It is what united the Roman Christians, Jews and Gentiles. Being set free we are invited to walk in the Spirit.

Paul contrasts flesh and Spirit as two ways of living. “Flesh is a technical word in Paul’s writings, referring not primarily to physical acts but to… humanity apart from grace” (New Interpreters Study Bible). While Paul will sometimes use the phrase “living in the flesh” to mean physical existence, but here it is a way of life oriented to the realities of the world as they are. Living according to the Spirit means orienting one’s life to the way God would have the world be. For Paul, the way of the flesh means a death to our lives. We lose ourselves, our souls, somehow. The way of the Spirit is the way of life. Paul’s words are not meant so much as a warning, for he moves on to say to the Roman Christians “but you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Remember, Paul has never met these people. He is making a theological determination of who they are. To be a follower of Jesus is, by definition to be a Spirit person. Christ is in us. The Spirit is in us, the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead.

If our life comes from God, from God’s Spirit, then we owe nothing to the way of the flesh, the way of a world that would seek power and fame and “life” in ways that are divisive, spiteful, that pit persons against each other. We are led by God’s Spirit as God’s children – and the “child” image is not meant to denote dependency. We are adult children of God, God’s very people who are to use our freedom in ways that demonstrate the presence of God in our lives. Paul emphasizes this when he contrasts being a slave with being a child. We are God’s children, and there is an intimacy about our relationship with God. Paul strikes a note of realism here. Being a child of God does not mean we will not suffer. Christ suffered, and so may we. This is a distinct contrast to Roman ideas about the power of “heirs of God,” which was an imperial power.

Romans 8:18-30: Paul’s meditation on our lives as Spirit people, children of God, continues. Yes, we may suffer, but such suffering as we may experience belies the incredible strength and glory that is in us and that will be made evident in the future. God’s work is transforming work, a transformation of all creation, and all creation waits with eager longing to see what God is up to, to see it fulfilled. Paul believed that there was something even more wonderful in the future, that God’s transforming work would one day be completed, that the kingdoms of this world would become the kingdom of God. We’ve yet to see that, but we are to live as if it will happen one day, and we are to know the longing for that world of justice, peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, love.

In the meantime, we live as Spirit people and God’s Spirit gives us the strength we need, even the strength to pray. In all this we can affirm that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.” Paul is not saying here that everything that happens is good. Nor is he saying that everything that happens, including all the awful stuff of life is caused by God - that God made it happen so God could bring good out of it later. Grim, bleak stuff happens in the world. Human beings can be cruel and insensitive. The earth itself with its storms and volcanoes, can wreak havoc. But in the midst of it all, God continues to be at work, and God’s work is to create good even in the midst of tragedy. I don’t believe God causes tragedy to bring out heroic responses from human beings, but we often find that human beings respond heroically to tragedy and there is where I see the Spirit of God at work. Looking at the world through the eyes of faith, we see this kind of thing. We point it out, we rejoice in it, we build on it. Paul is certain that the good work of God will continue, and he offers words of deep assurance utilizing concepts such as “foreknowledge” and “predestination.” Paul is not writing a systematic theology, however, and we should be careful about reading too much later theology into his words here. His point is assuring a faith community that has probably known difficulty that God’s good work goes on, and they can be a part of it.

Romans 8:31-39: And then comes Paul’s crescendo about seeing God’s love at work in the world. “What are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” What can finally separate us from God’s work of love in our lives and in our world? In a word – nothing. Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No…. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. For all his lamenting about the darkness around us, Paul is a deeply hopeful person. He is deeply hopeful because he sees, through the eyes of faith, that God is at work in the world making God’s dream more of a reality. He is deeply hopeful in the way that Anne Lamott is hopeful. Hope… is about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak [stuff] anyone can throw at us (Plan B, 275). Paul believes that deeply.

Romans 6

Romans 6:1-14: So light has come into our lives, and we experience this as a gift of God, not something that we “earned” but something that is simply given to us in love. Our task is to open ourselves to the God who wants to pour love into our lives. Well, if all this great stuff happens to us outside of any calculation of “deserving,” if God started working in our lives before we were even aware of it, in fact, while we were stuck in sin, do we get a “free pass?” Paul asks this a little differently. “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?”

I was once a part of a Jesus people church, and during some of the worship services, we would hear stories about people’s lives – testimonies. The typical story involved sharing what life was like before our faith in Jesus and what we had found in that faith. Some of the people who were part of that church had pretty dramatic stories. Some had been involved with drugs, others had given up on life in one way or another. While I could talk about the time I came to accept Jesus as my savior (language I still use meaningfully, but which I have supplemented with many other images from the New Testament and Christian tradition), I had not done drugs or been promiscuous or given up on life. I was a good student, a polite young man, and I fit fairly well into my society and family. There is much more to the story, but in general, my life was pretty ordinary. I shared my testimony once or twice, but I am sure it did not have the drama of other stories.

So maybe we should find some spectacular sin to demonstrate just how amazing God’s grace is!! Paul responds, “By no means!”

To this point Paul has talked about being justified, about being recipients of God’s grace, about having peace with God, about having God’s love poured into our hearts, about having received the Spirit. It is remarkable the range of images Paul uses to try and describe what it means to be a person of Christian faith, someone whose life has been changed by God through Jesus. Paul will introduce yet another way of describing what’s going on. We have died to sin. It is a powerful image. We are leaving behind a part of our lives, the part that gets caught in what takes away from the light of God’s love inside of us. Paul links baptism with the death and resurrection of Jesus. In baptism, the initiation into Christ and the church, we died like/with Christ, were buried like/with Christ, and now we have risen like/with Christ. It’s a new life. Who really wants to go back to the old one?

The old life is like slavery. For Paul, sin is not just the things we do that mar the image of God in us, it is the marring of that image itself and it is the addictive way we get hooked into patterns of behavior that continue to mar the image of God. I just watched Spiderman III. If you have seen it you know that Spiderman, for a time, gives in to parts of himself that end up damaging him and others. Some kind of black substance grabs a hold of him and magnifies certain characteristics of his character. For Paul, sin is a bit like that. However, for Paul, that old life has been buried. It is like Richard Kimball from the old television series The Fugitive. He is headed for prison, but the train crashes and he is free. There is new life, except in the new life offered in Christ the U.S. Marshall is not in pursuit.

So if we have been set free, if we have begun a new life, why would we want to go back to slavery – that’s the essence of Paul’s argument. Some of Paul’s imagery in verse 14 can be seen as a denigration of the body, but I think this is a misreading of Paul, or at least a poor understanding of the best of Christian tradition. Our bodies are a part of God’s good creation. We celebrate that. Our bodies also seem to produce desires that need to be carefully weighed. We should not simply react to our hormones, chemistry, biology - at least not in certain respects. Don’t give yourselves to sin, give yourselves to God, Paul encourages. Then he concludes with a rather cryptic line. “Sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.” Somehow, in Paul’s thinking, law’s most powerful function is to demonstrate all the ways we can go wrong, and if we continue to think of our lives as trying to get it all right all the time, we not only will fail to do that, but will find ourselves in despair, sunk even deeper in that which bleeds life from us. We don’t need to be stuck because we know that our lives are found by welcoming God’s grace.

Romans 6:15-23: Paul returns to the question raised at the beginning of the chapter, but with a slight twist. If the law really doesn’t help us like we thought, should we ignore it? Again, “By no means!” In Paul’s thinking, human life requires that we serve someone or something. In our day and time when freedom and autonomy are prized values, such language is a little difficult. What if we understand it instead as our needing to make choices about what our lives will stand for, what kind of values our lives will exhibit? We can serve one set of values or another, but we will serve some set of values, our lives will stand for something. We are set free in Christ, but now we have to determine how we will use our freedom. For Paul, we did not even have the choice before. Sin had us in its grips. We were caught in negative patterns of behavior of some kind. We died to all that, but now we have to chose how this new life will be lived. We can chose to go back, or we can choose to “become obedient from the heart” to God’s way of life. The law may have something to teach us about how to live – for instance, the concern of the prophets for justice is something we want to keep with us in this new life in Christ. Paul recognizes that there are limits to the metaphors he is using (verse 19), perhaps especially the metaphor about being slaves.

Maybe another way of putting what Paul is trying to say would be to ask: "Now that you’ve been able to give up the idea that you have to earn God’s love by being good, how are you going to live?” Living in goodness becomes not a way to “earn” points with God, but a way of life in response to God’s love. Paul ends by saying that if you want to keep on doing those things that mar the image of God (sin), know that it can enslave you and “kill” something important inside of you [the wages of sin is death]. God freely gives what we need to live a new kind of life [eternal life] in Jesus.

This chapter is pretty abstract and challenging. Many of us find the language foreign and the concerns Paul addresses distant. This chapter may not speak to everyone, at least in the same way. Here are a couple of analogies that may help us relate better to what Paul is conveying. Addicts, when they kick their addictions, have to make a lot of choices about how to stay free. They seek out group support. They will avoid friends and situations that tended to lead them to use the substance to which they were addicted. Over time, they may be able to be in some of those situations again, but it often takes time. They are free from their addiction, but have to choose how best to use that freedom, and if they use it to get hooked again, it won’t be good for them. We stand in the wide open spaces of God’s grace – how will we use our new found freedom? Or have you ever had, as a part of your religious experience a deep fear that God was just waiting to punish you in some way. Your view of God was as a harsh, judgmental parent and you toed the line out of fear. In Christ you realize that’s not God at all. God has been waiting for you with open arms all along, and now you know it. God knows where you’ve not been your best, but God is not interested in punishing you, but in forgiving you and giving you new life. Now what are you going to do with that life? Maybe some of the things you did not do because you were afraid of God remain better left alone, not because God is going to get you, but because they don’t contribute anything valuable to your life and may even harm you in some way.

Romans 7

Romans 7:1-6: Here again Paul is traversing territory that we find strange as he discusses the law – part of his religious background and part of the religious background of some of the Jesus community to which Paul writes. We are not caught up in this issue the way some Roman Christians were. Part of the point, however, is that elements of religious faith can become something other than what they were intended to be, can, if misunderstood, misinterpreted, misapplied become a barrier to one’s relationship to God rather than a means of developing that relationship more fully. That religion can be misunderstood and misused is as fresh as today’s headlines.

Paul’s “teaching” about the law is complex and many-sided. He never writes a systematic treatise, an essay that neatly pulls together his variety of statements about the role of the law in God’s plan, but responds ad hoc to the various needs of his churches (People’s New Testament Commentary). Paul begins this discussion of the law, which is addressed to those who know it (Roman Jewish Christians) with an interesting analogy – the law is only valid for those who are living. Dead people don’t get speeding tickets! What may be appropriate for a woman whose husband has died would not be appropriate were he still alive – makes sense, though it is kind of humorous.

Paul returns, then, to his image of the Christian as a person who has died. This time, we have died to the law. We are free to be united to another, Christ. The way of Christ is different from the way of the law. We have new life in the Spirit, a life in which we are meant to bear fruit for God. Perhaps Paul’s contrast, here, between the way of the law and the way of Christ might be formulated like this: you have a set of guidelines, rules to live by. If you break these rules, there are others that tell you what you need to do to be forgiven. There is grace and forgiveness here, but it may seem secondary. But you begin with the rules, and doing so sometimes merely highlights all the ways things go wrong. On the other hand, you begin with grace. You are accepted as you are. Now you are to live that out, and there happen to be some good rules for just how to do that. Grace seems primary.

Now in drawing this contrast, I want to be clear that the view of the way of the law I have sketched above is not a very adequate view. For Jews, God’s dealings with humankind begin with grace, as in the story of Abraham. The law is itself a gift of grace from the very beginning. Remember, Paul has already argued that his understanding of faith is in keeping with his understanding of the Jewish tradition. However, it just may be that many were experiencing that tradition as beginning with law, rules, and with the struggle to keep those laws and rules. In that struggle they may have been reminded daily of their failures and of the desires within them that were not in keeping with the law. Paul’s writing here seems to suggest that he may have been addressing such an experience of the Jewish tradition. Again, we need to be careful not to assume that this is the essence of the Jewish tradition. We also need to remember that an important issue for Paul is the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the Roman church, and both now share in the new life in the Spirit and are on equal footing before God in that new life.

Romans 7:7-13: While Paul is concerned to put the law in a different perspective, he is also concerned not to dismiss it as worthless. Paul walks a fine line here as he speaks to the Jewish Christians in Rome. Paul has linked together life under the law with sin and death, but he refuses to say that the law itself is sin.

The most challenging aspect of interpreting the remaining verses in chapter seven have to do with how to interpret the “I” statements. Is Paul writing autobiographically or tying to say something about universal human experience, even if he did not feel it as acutely as he writes about it? “The best solution, preferred by most interpreters today, does not regard the “I” as primarily autobiographical, but as representative of human experience as such.” (People’s New Testament Commentary). The other possibility is that Paul is honestly sharing some of his own struggles as a Christian (the theory held by the commentator in The New Interpreters Study Bible). The least plausible interpretation, but one that some still appeal to is that Paul is recounting his pre-Christian experience with the law. No where in his other writings, however, does Paul talk about his experience as a Jew before his Christian faith as a struggle. While Paul may or may not be talking about something he has experienced deeply, there is an experiential dimension to his words here and we should find out about it to see how it may illumine our lives.

For Paul, the law, for all its shortcomings, is not itself sin. In fact it does good in that it shines a light on the kind of things that are sinful, that mar the image of God in us. Paul chooses as an example, covetousness. This seems a brilliant choice. It is the one commandment in the Ten Commandments that deals with an intention, something in the heart or in one’s attitudes. It is also a commandment that most of us know we have violated in our lives. We may not have committed murder, or adultery, but few of us go through life without coveting. The big problem with this is that we forget the image of God within our own lives and look at the lives of others as our goal. Covetousness often leads to a denigration of the other, as well. We find ourselves denying the image of God in that other person, too, perhaps seeing only their outward circumstances. Somehow for Paul, the commandment not only points out our failings, but incites them. There can be an allure to that which is forbidden.

The insidiousness of sin, for Paul, includes the notion that it can warp the good purpose of the law to order life well. Think about times when you wanted to violate a rule simply because it was given by someone you wanted to show up. Rules can have that effect. Rules can sometimes invite their own violation – the notion of forbidden fruit (a phrase which goes back to Genesis). The dilemma can be that “the very commandment that promised life proved death to me” (verse 10). Paul exonerates the law, but points out the deceptive power and insidiousness of sin by noting that it can warp the good law for “deadly” ends. This is a powerful truth. Sin comes not just in the guise of gross violations of obvious rules, but can wrap itself in the good. The most common way this happens is when marks of goodness become not just helps along our spiritual journey, but become means for self-righteousness. It also happens in the way Paul describes here.

Romans 7:14-25: Paul shifts gears a bit, coming at his subject – the relation of law and sin – from a different angle. Paul affirms the spiritual goodness of the law, but notes that human existence (life in the flesh, not bad in itself) can also be warped by sin. Sometimes we experience that as an inner struggle, a struggle between doing what we think to be good and acting in ways contrary to our sense of goodness. Verse 18 seems to be a rhetorical exaggeration, something we may feel on occasion – “nothing good dwells within.” Sin is powerful, and it can take on a life of its own when we continue to make choices that feed it.
I am reminded of a story from a Native American tradition. A grandfather looked at his young granddaughter thoughtfully. Something the child was developing there and so he spoke to her as follows. “Inside me, there are two wolves and these two wolves fight each other constantly. One of the wolves is aggressive, nervous and filled with a wish to succeed. The other wolf is different. He wishes for more understanding. Both wolves want fulfillment. The first wolf dreams that this could result in more prestige in the eyes of others but the other wolf believes that fulfillment may be found through the path of understanding. This fight between the two wolves takes place in every one of us.” The granddaughter looked thoughtful and was silent for some time and then she said, “Grandfather, which wolf will win the fight in you?” “Well” said her grandfather, “It depends which one I feed.”
We may struggle with some of the language Paul uses to describe the human condition. Much of what he seems to be describing is the existence he sees outside the life of grace, but remnants of this continue to be a part of our experience as Christians. We are not immune from being tempted to feed actions that enhance the “bad wolf” within. God has given us grace and strength to choose rightly, and forgives when we do not. With Paul we are encouraged to say, “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Romans 4

Romans 4:1-12: Paul has been arguing that while there is something special about the religious heritage of the Jewish Christians, when it comes right down to it, both the Jews and the Gentiles who are now a part of the Roman Jesus community, are on equal footing before God. All have sinned, Paul argues, and all find their relationship with God through trusting in God’s love and forgiveness. Relationship with God is not earned, not even by following the law that is a wonderful part of the Jewish heritage. Paul wants to argue here that the idea that faith is the essential element in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ is not an upending of the law, but in keeping with the tradition. For this he will look to Abraham.

Abraham is cited more frequently in Paul’s letters that any other historical figure except Jesus. By Paul’s day, Abraham was honored as the quintessential believer who worshipped the one true God in the midst of idolatrous peoples. His stature had been embellished by legend, miracles, and quasi-deification; and his grave in Hebron was regarded as a holy place. Rabbis taught that God ordained Torah “for Abraham’s sake” and that he had kept it perfectly even before it was given on Mt. Sinai…. Abraham was a bold choice on Paul’s part because Jewish rabbis taught that Abraham has been justified because of works. Paul demonstrates that Abraham was justified apart from both the law and works. (New Interpreters Study Bible)

Paul’s language here is a little difficult for many of us, in part because our context is so different in many ways. The key issue behind Paul’s arguments seems to have been the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the new Christian movement. That is not our issue today. However, we might see some parallels. Do we see in churches people who “pull rank” based on their own sense of “spirituality,” or perhaps longevity of church membership? If we take Paul seriously, we are all justified, that is, we all have our relationship with God through trusting God, and if that is the case, it is difficult to measure and compare “trust.” We shouldn’t even try.

Paul argues that Abraham was righteous, in right relationship with God, not because of his actions, but because he trusted God. He quickly shifts to a psalm and as was the tradition, attributes this to King David. The psalm acknowledges and celebrates God’s forgiveness. Paul asks if this is only for those who have been circumcised, and refers back to Abraham who was blessed by God before he was circumcised. The act of circumcision was an outgrowth of a right relationship with God, not its precondition. The kind of rich and engaged debate about the meaning of the Scriptures Paul is working with should be modeled in our own reading of Scripture. “The interpretation of Scripture is never absolute but is always conditioned by its location with a particular tradition at a particular time, place and social location” (The People’s New Testament Commentary).

Romans 4:13-25: Paul continues to make his point by citing the story of Abraham. Not only was Abraham in relationship with God because of his trust in God, his faith, but the promise that Abraham would be the ancestor of many was rooted in trust, not in following the law. Those whose relationship to God is rooted in faith are descendants of Abraham. Paul powerfully cites more of the Abraham story – how Abraham might look at his own body and doubt that life could come from it. But God is a God who “gives life to the dead” and who “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” Paul then makes a crucial shift. Just as the story of Abraham was a story about a God who could bring life out of death, so, too, is the story of Jesus. The Roman Christians had a story closer to them, but parallel with the Abraham story. And they are a part of the Jesus movement, the Christian community, because they have trusted the same God, who continues to act in bringing life out of death. We stand in this same tradition. We trust in the God who acted in Jesus, and we trust that this God can still bring life. We, too, hope against hope. I think of the words of Anne Lamott, words I have come to love. Hope… is about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak [stuff] anyone can throw at us (Plan B, 275).

Romans 5

Romans 5:1-11: “Therefore” – this word indicates that Paul thinks he has “proven” his point about “justification” by grace through faith. It is faith that brings us into a right relationship with God (justification, being declared righteous). In this new relationship, we are at peace with God, that is, we are moving in the direction of God in our lives and in our actions in and for the world. We know well-being in this right relationship to God. Eugene Peterson renders part of verse 2 in this way: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his doors to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand – out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory. The God through whom we experience this well-being is the God of “our Lord Jesus Christ.” Anytime the word “lord” is used there is something of an alternative to the Roman culture being proposed. The emperor was lord in the wider culture of the time, and the imperial system had its own sense of appropriate relationship to God, its own sense of what constituted success and well-being. The Christian faith and way were an alternative, a counter-culture. We might ask ourselves, “In what way is or should Christian faith be counter-cultural in our day and time?” Paul also asserts that this new life we have through grace and faith has a future dimension, and so we are people of hope. Here it is interesting to note that Paul, who has been concerned about boasting, invited boasting in our hope. It is a shared and common boasting, not a divisive one. We are a people of hope, and all can participate in that hope.

Then Paul makes a rather startling statement. We not only boast in our hope, but we boast in our sufferings. The life of faith is not always easy. God doesn’t promise prosperity and smooth sailing contrary to some contemporary versions of Christian faith. In Paul’s time such thinking would have seemed absurd. Christians were persecuted at times, some were thrown out of the synagogue, others were looked at askance. But our suffering is not in vain. We stand for God’s purposes, which will ultimately prevail and so our suffering can produce endurance and character and hope. Ultimately, our lives will not disappoint us because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” “We can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!” (Eugene Peterson, The Message). For all the difficult language in Paul, for all the passages in his letters we have to struggle with, no one can deny that he also writes with great beauty and joy and hopefulness. Yes, we have all marred the image of God within us and thwarted God’s purposes in the world. Yet we are also people into whom God’s love has been poured, into whom God’s very Spirit (God’s very self) has come.

For Paul, Christ’s death makes this pouring out of God’s love into our lives possible. Throughout Christian history, theologians have understood this differently. This is the doctrine of atonement and we discussed it pretty thoroughly when we read the chapters about Jesus’ death from the gospels. That the death of Jesus is significant for us is a central element in Christianity, but we are free to understand that significance differently. In part, Paul is saying that Christ’s death proves God’s love for us. That kind of love opens us up to the one who gives it, in this case, God. Paul uses the language and image of sacrifice, imagery which would have been familiar to he and his readers, to understand the significance of Jesus’ death. He talks about being justified by Christ’s blood. Blood and life are often used synonymously in the Bible, so we need not be as literal as perhaps Paul is being. A life lived in service of others, that ends in such tragedy, speaks deeply to us, and the God of Jesus Christ is a God whose character is seen in the life and death of Jesus. Paul is also clear that some part of being “saved” is yet to come. We are reconciled now, we will be fully “saved” in the future. There is this sense in Paul that at some future time everything will be made well and whole. He shares this notion with many other biblical writers. That God has done such wonderful things for us gives us cause to boast about God.

Romans 5:12-21: So we have used this set of images to try and explain what is happening to us because we are loved by God and have accepted that love. We can look at things from yet another angle. This time Paul refers to another tradition from the Hebrew Scriptures, the story of Adam. Again, the imagery and reasoning may seem distant from us, but let’s see if we can’t make something of this for our own lives. Paul’s first important point is that sin came into the world. It is a part of our experience that there is evil, injustice, wrongdoing in the world and that we are negatively affected by it. Most of us recognize that there have been times when we have contributed to the wrong, when we have hurt others unnecessarily, when we have not been just, when we have not cared for others or for the world around us. The negative impact of “sin” is death, and here Paul in not referring to natural death but to something like the death of God’s image within. For Paul, sin and death are a problem. He looks to the story of Adam as a type for human kind, not that he passed sin on, but his story is our story. Taken by itself, this is a sad story. A person does something he ought not to do, and the consequences are tragic.

But the story cannot be taken by itself. For Paul, a new chapter, a more powerful chapter has been written by Christ, and this is a story about “the grace of God, and the free gift in the grace of… Jesus Christ.” God’s grace and love have “abounded.” Paul sees some parallel between Adam and Jesus, but he is convinced that the power of God’s grace given freely is much greater than the power of death which is in the world because of human sin. In fact, “one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” There is a sense here, in Paul, that in the end, the power that was at work in Jesus will overcome all that opposes it, will make everything and everybody right.

Part of the function of the law, as Paul sees it, is that it pointed up all the ways human beings could get it wrong. That’s a pretty negative picture, but it is only one step in Paul’s argument. The more important point is that grace abounds much more than sin. Grace that leads to life is what has the most power. It has the power to overcome the death-dealing actions in human life. God’s power to restore the image of God within us is greater than our power to mar that image.

In Romans 1-3, Paul made the point that the darkness around us is deep. In chapter 4, he argues that faith in the love and grace of God, as we have come to know that in Jesus Christ, provides a way to connect with light, and, in fact, that light of God’s love has been at work in spite of us. In chapter 5, Paul celebrates the power of God’s grace and love, arguing that while there is darkness in the world, it is no match, ultimately, for the power of the light of God’s love. Furthermore, that love has been poured into our lives graciously, generously, abundantly. In the words of the contemporary alternative band Wilco, “There’s a light (one light), There’s a light (white light), Inside of you.”

Romans 2

Romans 2:1-16: The darkness around us is deep, but isn’t it wonderful that we don’t participate in such awful things? Some reading chapter one might feel smug, self-satisfied and self-righteous. Like Jesus, Paul is deeply concerned for self-righteousness, for an attitude that condemns others without self-reflection, an attitude that assumes one is unfailingly on God’s side. For Paul, honest self-reflection leads to the realization that we are all recipients of God’s grace and that we have all done things that contribute to the darkness around us. Perhaps we have not misused our sexuality. Perhaps we have not been heartless and ruthless to any extreme, but honest self-reflection leads us to acknowledge that there are times when we have been less than loving. This is not intended to foster guilt. “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” Repentance simply means being open and willing to change. Paul believes God invites us to be persons who patiently do good. In this, “God shows no partiality.”

This last statement of Paul’s is remarkable. It seems endemic to the human condition that we want to add God to our side, make God partial toward us. We do this individually and collectively. Most people I know who hold fast to a hard doctrine of sin, death and hell don’t believe they are headed toward hell. Nations often assume that God is on their side and against their enemies. These statements are not meant to deny that there are genuine differences between people and nations, and that some actions are good and others are not. But to assume that one’s person or group is the sole source of good in the world is dangerous. Certainly part of Paul’s argument here is directed toward the Jewish Christians in the Roman Jesus Community who may consider themselves superior to the Gentile Christians because of their background. Paul argues that persons can have the right thing written on their hearts, without the benefit of the covenantal tradition of Judaism.

Whatever one may think about some of the specifics of Paul’s argument and language, his intent, to demonstrate the insidiousness of darkness – it even masks as “righteousness” when it becomes self-righteousness, and to argue that Jew and Gentile are on equal footing, is praiseworthy, and he remains insightful about human life. It is interesting to note Paul’s use of the phrase, “according to my gospel.” Paul’s gospel has something to do with Jesus Christ being God’s “standard” for how the inner life of people will be judged.

Romans 2:17-29: Paul now specifically turns his attention to the Jewish Christians in the Roman community. One wonders about his view of the Jewish Christians in the polemic he writes here - - - they talk about teaching others, but do they teach themselves? Are they free from adultery, theft, idolatry? Perhaps Paul is not just speaking of individuals, but of the behavior of Israel through the centuries. The prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures pointed out how Israel often lived in ways that violated God’s justice. In doing so, God’s reputation among the Gentiles was tarnished. One wonders if Paul had heard that the Jews in the Roman Christian community were being prideful and haughty. Circumcision, an outward sign of being a part of the people of God, should be interpreted symbolically and internally. What counts is not what marks one physically, but what marks one’s heart. Paul can be pretty challenging toward his own people in these verses. Again, one wonders what Paul has heard about the Roman Christian Community. Perhaps he is also reflecting some of his own experience with other Jesus communities – an on-going problem between Jews and Gentiles wherein the Jewish Christians consider themselves superior to the Gentile ones. Paul will have none of that. At the same time, Paul will also not let Gentile Christians suppose that non-Christian Jews have been abandoned by God, as we shall see later in this letter.

Romans 3

Romans 3:1-8: So, is there anything special about being Jewish? Paul has tried to deflate self-righteousness, but some might come back and ask why they were Jewish in the first place. Here Paul responds. The Jews have been special for God revealed Godself in a special way to them. Paul’s theology is paradoxical – all are equal before God, yet God did indeed do something special with a particular people. God’s promises, which are for all people, first came to light in the religious tradition of the Jews and in their experience of God. Even if the Jews did not always live up to their covenant to be a light to all people, God’s promise that light would be given to the world is not any less valid. Then, in an argument that can be a little confusing, Paul posits on objector. His interlocutor offers a counter argument – if God remains faithful, and if, in fact, God’s faithfulness is made even more apparent by the unfaithfulness of human beings, why should God judge that unfaithfulness? If our sinning, our marring God’s image in our lives and in the world, makes even more evident the graciousness of God who will not give up on us no matter what, should, perhaps we sin even more? Paul dismisses such arguments as nonsense. God’s justice, truthfulness, and love by themselves judge the inadequacies of human action. For Paul that is axiomatic. No doubt there are issues here that were more relevant to Paul’s time than to our own.

Romans 3:9-20: Though there is something special about being Jewish, Paul returns to his point that all share in human sin – all, both Jews and Greeks “are under the power of sin.” Paul quotes a variety of texts in the Hebrew Scriptures to make his point about the universality of sin. These are hard words for us to hear for we too easily equate “sin” with either gross evil or with the violation of petty moralistic rules. Sometimes we think of sin as killing or robbery. Sometimes we think of it in terms of drinking, dancing, smoking, sexual thoughts. None of us likes to have the word “sin” attributed to our actions or person. What if “sin” were understood to be anything that we do that mars the image of God in us or that detracts from God’s purposes for the world. When we have been unkind, we have thwarted God’s purposes. When we have not valued ourselves as beloved people of God, we have marred the image of God within us. Sin can take on a power of its own. Think of a time when you may have done something wrong or unkind and then found yourself constructing ways to deny what you had done. The story can build so that it has a life, a power of its own. Over time we can convince ourselves that our unkindness was justified, our inappropriate action was not so bad, and if anyone tells us differently, we probably react badly again. The power of sin can be a social power as well. When a group that has some social power sees only its goodness and never its shortcomings, it may begin to think that whatever way it uses its power is good. We see that time and again in human history. When I think about “sin” in those ways, it is easier for me to acknowledge that I have sinned. Maybe the word has become so worn and warped in our day and time we need to find some replacement for it – but the reality to which it points is important. Prominent theologians from Reinhold Niebuhr and Barbara Brown Taylor have written insightfully about “sin” and we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For Paul, all are under the power of sin, all succumb to the temptation to sin. For Paul, the law given to the Jews was an indication of the purposes of God, and no one could reasonably claim that they had on every occasion fulfilled those purposes.

Romans 3:21-31: If all fail to measure up to God’s purposes for their life and the world, where do we go from here? Paul asserts again that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The early Christian theologian, Irenaeus once wrote, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” I don’t have a problem with the notion that I have not always been “fully alive,” nor with claiming that the same is probably true for most other human beings. I would argue that there are social forces which work against the full aliveness of human beings. The power of sin, I think, is real. But we need not simply acquiesce to this situation. There is grace, forgiveness and power to change found in Jesus Christ. For Paul, that power was the power of God revealed when Jesus died and was raised. That power comes to us as a gift from God, who is always at work to make things right (righteousness). The image of redemption Paul uses may have its roots in the Roman social norm of ransoms paid for the release of slaves. We have been trapped by the power of sin, but God frees us from that on-going trap by the power that was at work in Jesus as the Christ. For Paul, God put Jesus forward as a sacrifice of atonement. Here he is using imagery from Jewish sacrificial ritual. Note, then, that Paul uses both Roman and Jewish images to try and define what God was up to in Jesus. Paul is writing metaphoric theology here, searching for images that help explain how God acts in Jesus to heal, forgive and free. We should be as creative in search for relevant images of how God in Jesus continues to work in human lives to heal, forgive and free. Humans access this power through faith. Faith has the primary connotation of trust. We trust that God works in our lives to heal, forgive and free. We trust that the power of God’s love is a life-giving power. We trust that the way of God shown in the way of Jesus is the way to be a fully alive human being.

If having our lives set back on a better way is primarily a gift of God’s grace, offered to us while we were yet caught in the power of sin, there is no reason for anyone to boast about their relationship to God. Paul does not deny that there may be an equality of sin but an inequality of guilt (to use Reinhold Niebuhr’s phrase), that is, that some people’s actions are more harmful than others. Yet, at some level, all have managed to lose their way and God’s grace found them. Boastfulness which may divide a community of faith is thus inappropriate. God is a God of both Jews and Gentiles. Through all this detailed an complex line of reasoning, one of Paul’s essential points is that God is a God of us all and we all receive grace from God as we receive such grace in faith. Divisive pridefulness has no place in the Christian community.