Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Crisis in the Early Church 2: Letter to the Romans


This is the second of three sermons about a deep crisis in the very earliest Church, at the time of the apostles. This crisis prompted Paul, first of all, to write to the Galatian Christians, and we took a look at that in the first sermon. To quickly repeat: Hebrew-Christian missionaries from Jerusalem came with a different “gospel”, according to which Jesus Christ came into the world in order to convert all people to correct observation of the Mosaic Law and thus become true children of Abraham. Clearly, from the book of Acts, this was a very strong and influential faction in the Jerusalem church adhering to this so-called gospel. Paul severely, categorically condemned their “gospel” in the epistle to the Galatians, asserting that these people wanted to enslave people all over again, that the Holy Spirit, given by God to those receiving Christ by faith, constituted the proof of God’s already making us His children, and concluding his heartfelt, even passionate letter with these words (read Galatians 6:14-18).

And now, Paul sees need in writing to the Romans, and if we read between the lines it becomes clear that the crisis continues. Most likely, these false missionaries were spreading slander against Paul and his gospel, trying to convert everybody to their own “gospel”. And on the basis of what we noticed in Galatians, and what we’ll see in Romans, it’s quite simple to guess what these slanders sounded like:

Paul blasphemes against God’s holy law.
Paul hates the nation of Israel.
Paul preaches a dissolute, unlawful way of life.

In this Epistle to the Romans, we will hear Paul’s response.

To start with, why write to the Romans particularly? In chapter 15 we find out that Paul is preparing to visit the Roman church; moreover, he wants them to help him travel on to Spain, to proclaim the gospel there. Also, we find out in chapter 16 that Paul had a lot of friends—even a relative!—in the Roman church. So it’s quite understandable that Paul wants to dispel the rumors and slander, to correct false understandings, to reassure those in doubt, to comfort those close to him and to prepare the ground for a good visit and further collaboration, and overall to defend the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is, therefore, a critically important letter for precisely this moment both in the early life of the Church and in the apostolic work of Paul.

So what does he start the letter with?  (read 1:1-6) Just as Paul said to the Galatians, here he again asserts his direct calling from the Lord to preach the true gospel to Gentiles. Two times here he writes the word “called”: he is called by God Himself to apostleship, and “you”, the Romans, are called to belong to Jesus Christ. As for Christ Himself, the apostle here writes something that, typically, we take to be an exposition of the two natures of Christ, but I am convinced that here the apostle is emphasizing something quite different; perhaps my explanation will help you to come to grips with such strange phrases as “through the Spirit of holiness” and “by his resurrection from the dead”. After all, we know perfectly well that Jesus Christ was the Son of God before his resurrection from the dead; moreover, it’s rather difficult for us to understand the relationship between “declared by the Spirit” and his being God’s Son. So this is a quite problematic passage, in that it seems to deal with the topic of Christ’s two natures but its phraseology doesn’t at all correspond to the real biblical teaching about those two natures! But remember the  two things we noticed in the epistle to the Galatians. First, the death and resurrection of Christ changed everything; we no longer belong to the old world. Second, in the Spirit of God we experience a wholly new kind of life; we see, understand, perceive everything differently, on a new plane—indeed, before all else we perceive Christ Himself in the dimension of the Spirit, not the flesh. I’m convinced that here, too, in Romans, Paul is not so much comparing two natures of Christ as much as talking about two “worlds”, two eras, the former and the new, about that world in which Jesus of Nazareth is just, to those who discern by “the flesh”, a descendant of David, and that world in which, to those born of the Spirit, he is the risen Son of God, the Lord of life Whom we know by the Spirit. This is a crucial concept and truth in all of Paul’s teaching and preaching: are you in Christ, in His Spirit, do you belong to him? If so, then no preacher of the Gospel of Law will manage to deceive you, because you already see with new eyes. It’s in this light, and against the background of everything Paul wrote in his earlier letter already mailed off to the Galatians, that we can perhaps feel in a new way the thrust of Paul’s famous words in 1:16-17 (read).

In general, in chapters 1 and 2 Paul exposits the proper view on the matter of law—in the history of the world and particularly the history of redemption. We may sum it up this way: “We are all sinners, whether we have had God’s Law or not; in any case there is a law in our hearts and it has carried out its task by demonstrating that no one can keep it.”

(Read 2:5)

All broken law has ipso facto accomplished its assignment, and there’s nothing more it can do. Good for you, broken law! You’ve done your job! Therefore, as we read in 3:21-22a (read), there is now a “new righteousness”, something new in Christ, apart from law, since providing us this new thing, this righteousness, was never Law’s job to begin with. This is exactly what Paul was trying to drive home to the Galatians.

We might formulate it like this: Any law that would presume to stand at the end of the road of God’s plan of redemption, like a goal or final destination, is a false law. Only Christ stands there, at the end of that road, and waits for us with open arms in eternal love. Yes, there was a Law somewhere along this road—a stage in the journey—and it fulfilled its role.

In chapter 4 Paul raises the matter of Abraham. Why? It’s clear why. Because the controversy was continuing over how a person can really be justified before God. The false missionaries assumed that the best answer was their answer: to completely embrace the Law. But Paul’s answer goes (read 4:13, 16-17).

As for the 5th chapter, I’d title it “To Those Already in the New Life”, because Paul says (read 5:1), and the key word here is “therefore”, which connotes “since”, “inasmuch as”—you might even say “only if”. Only if we have been justified do we have peace with God. Only if you have received this grace and reconciliation with the Lord can you understand why no law can ever add anything to this perfection of redemption. Our real life began with God’s feat of love (read 5:8), and our future consists not in law but in His perfect will (read 5:10) and the whole sense of our present life consists in peace with Him (read 5:11). In the rest of chapter five Paul explains in detail how, when all is said and done, GRACE EXCELLED LAW PRECISELY INASMUCH AS SALVATION HAD TO EXCEL OUR FALLEN CONDITION AND HELPLESSNESS.

Let me repeat that. The sense of Paul’s teaching can be summed up this way: GRACE EXCELLED LAW PRECISELY INASMUCH AS SALVATION HAD TO EXCEL OUR FALLEN CONDITION AND HELPLESSNESS.

In other words, law required everything we could give, and when we gave everything, law wasn't satisfied. But grace required everything God could give, and He gave everything, and grace was satisfied. Grace was fulfilled, and her fulfillment is salvation to us.

In this light, can you feel how that so-called gospel of the Jerusalem missionaries was, in Paul’s eyes, such a horror? It can never possibly reach the depths of God’s love; on the contrary, it conceals them!

Paul’s answer to anybody who’d accuse him of preaching an immoral lifestyle is found in chapter six: (read 6:1, 2, 8). But even so the foundation of such a transformed life is still God’s gift, not law: (read 6:23).

To anybody who’d accuse him of blaspheming God’s law, Paul replies (7:12) and (7:14).

And then in chapter 8, when the apostle is delving even deeper into the matter of our new life, we find the most striking echo of his letter to the Galatians: (read Romans 8:15-16, then Galatians 4:6-7). It’s perfectly clear that Paul is looking, in both places, at the same deep truth, the truth of the very basis of actual life in Christ and connection with Him: we are already His children, by the fullness of His grace (read 8:17).

I think Paul suffered. I think he wrote his epistle in tears, but he also declares in utter confidence (8:18) and moreover (8:26a).

Over and over again, both in Galatians and Romans, Paul returns to this thought: You, believers, have the Holy Spirit—you already have Him. Why does he keep coming back to this thought? Because this is precisely what the false missionaries were trying to refute! This is the key issue in this historical controversy in the early Church: they assert that, unless we become Hebrews in the full sense, we’ll remain outside the blessings of God, but Paul boldly announces (8:39).

After that, three whole chapters are devoted to the matter of the Jewish nation. This is clearly a continuation of the argument with the heretics. Paul demonstrates explicitly why his rejection of the false Gospel of Law is no sort of rejection or hatred of the nation of Israel itself. He says (read 9:3). But what he goes on to say (read 9:6-7) brings back to us vividly what he said in Galatians 6:15-16 (read) which, in turn, illuminates the sense of Romans 11:26 (read)! Yes, indeed, all of genuine Israel, that is, Abraham’s children by faith, will be saved! The lesson for us is, this ancient conflict between the true gospel and the gospel of the Jerusalem missionaries, that is, between the gospel of Christ and the gospel of law, is no conflict between Jews and Christians, or between the Old and New Testaments, and by no means is it a conflict between a stage in God’s plan, which is the Law, and the perfection of that plan, which is Christ Himself. That’s impossible. Rather, that ancient conflict was between the actual Gospel of Christ and an abominable distortion of it, a “Gospel of the Law”.

For us in Christ, no kind of hatred toward a nation of people can ever be justified. All nations, all people, are equally summed up in sin and their need of salvation by God’s grace. That's Paul’s answer to this whole controversy and scandal and crisis in the early Church. And I am sure that not all were satisfied with his answer. They insisted all the same that the Law and Israelite nation occupy a prime position in the Gospel. And when they finally realized that they’d never prevail over the gospel of grace, they took a radical step, a tragic step, but we will talk about this when we look at the Epistle to the Hebrews.

In conclusion, I want to remark that the last chapters of Romans, starting with chapter 12, are very close in spirit to the 5th and 6th chapters of Galatians.  That is, in both epistles, the apostle, in these final sections, summons the believers to show, to manifest in action, the life of the Spirit, to demonstrate the power of this new world in Christ, a world that now exists in us. (read 12:1) Insofar as the Way of Christ remains on the level of theory and ideas, it remains powerless and irrelevant. So the very word “Therefore” at the start of chapter 12 is far more meaningful than simply a grammatical conjunction. It’s a deep theological conjunction, because the whole significance of this “Therefore” grows directly out of all the deep truths Paul has painstakingly unfolded in the first eleven chapters. He’s saying to us, “In light of all this divine grace and new life in the salvation of Christ, how do we live accordingly?”; therefore we must live like this: (read 12:1 again).

And if we do live like that, the way Paul sketches it out in the last chapters of Romans, then we can, humbly yet boldly, respond to our world and to any who accuse us, just as Paul responded to his accusers: (read Galatians 5:6, 22-23 and 6:15-16).

Amen.