Full Text for Romans- Volume 18 - Paul's Main Proposition in Romans (chapter 3) (Video)

No. 18. >> You mentioned that Romans Chapter 3 Verses 21 through 31 is the place where Paul sets out his main proposition in this epistle. Could you talk through these important verses? I'm wondering how Paul's statement in Romans 3 Verse 31 fits into his larger proposition. Just how is the law being upheld by faith? I thought all the law could do is make us conscious of sin. >>PROFESSOR DAVID I. M. LEWIS: Nick, this is a very good follow-up question to the one you just asked. You brought us to the end of that section where Paul accuses all of humanity of universal sin. And then you asked properly that justification seems to be the term that would answer that problem. If we are all silent and answerable before God with no defense of our own, we need a verdict that can only come to us in a gracious way. And now the answer to that previous question is really fully impacted in this next section, Romans 3:21 through 32. Now, Nick, remember when I discussed the six-part rhetorical outline I identified this section of Romans as being the proposition. In other words, this is where Paul states the chief truth upon which this entire epistle will hang. And that this proposition then really does reflect the thematic verses back in Romans 1:16 and 17. Again, Paul says: I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. First for the Jew and also for the Greek. For in it a righteousness of God is being revealed. A righteousness which is from faith to faith or through faith for faith. Just as it is in Habakkuk 2:4, the just man, the righteous man, will live by his faith, by faith. And so now that theme is going to be answered and unpacked in these verses at the end of Romans Chapter 3. And so this is a section we really should look at in a little -- in very close detail. Because this is where Paul is really making the big statement, his big proposition of what he believes to be true. And in a sense, the rest of the epistle then hangs upon these very central verses right here. Before we get into it, though, I want to discuss some of the terms that we see here. Once again, I want to discuss first the righteousness of God. Righteousness of God will be discussed in these verses. And I've already made the case that the Lutheran understanding of the righteousness of God is that it has to do with the act of justification. That again, it is not an attribute of God when we use it in this sense. But it is the action of God declaring right those who believe in Jesus. Now, Nick, it may seem like a bit of a paradox. But as we get into these verses, Paul will discuss how God is righteous in an attribute that God is a righteous God. But it will be in the wider context of him discussing righteousness of God as his action and declaring people righteous. And actually this passage here proves that Lutheran point. Because here we actually see the verb being used with a noun. Again, the verb dikaios, to declare righteous, occurs four times in this passage. In Verse 24, in Verse 25, in Verse 28 and in Verse 30 we have this verse being used. To times it's used in the passive voice. Just to let you know, a passive voice verb is a place where the subject of the verb is not doing the action. But receiving the action. And in those places where this verb is used passively, it is the believers who are being justified. And who is justifying them? Well, then it would be God. But then it's used two times in the active voice where God is the subject, he is the one who is justifying, who is declaring righteous. So in this context we really see how indeed Paul does mean by righteousness of God the act of God justifying, of declaring righteous. We see that very clearly in this passage. And I will try to point that out as we go through. One other term that I need to discuss is the term the faith of Jesus that occurs also in this passage. Here we have another genitive relationship. Here the genitive noun is Jesus. And in English we usually understand this relationship is that the genitive possesses the other noun. So faith of Jesus would be Jesus' faith. But what exactly does this mean? Well, there is a minority of scholars who believe that Jesus' faith actually means Jesus' act of believing. Or Jesus' act of being faithful. That Jesus' faith is something that Jesus does. And this would usually be a Reformed interpretation of this -- these words. Where the emphasis is being put upon what Jesus does. And usually they would say his faith in God and his faithful response to God's call that he should perform his ministry, suffer and die. And so that would be the faith of Jesus. And of course theologically we would have no objection to the question, is that what Paul actually means. Probably the majority view and probably also the majority Lutheran view is that faith of Jesus means faith in Jesus. Here we have again another noun of faith, the Greek is pistis that has a related verb. Related to pistis is the verb pistevo, which means to believe. And whenever you look especially at Paul, whenever you see the verb pistevo being used, who is doing it? Well, that's a good question to ask. Whenever we see the verb dike eye owe awe to declare righteous we have to ask who is doing it. And it's always God doing it to somebody else. So whenever we see pistevo, faith to believe, being used it's never Jesus doing it. It's always someone else doing it to Jesus. Which then leads us to the conclusion of faith of Jesus really does mean faith in Jesus. And notice that this is how the NIV and the ESV translate faith of Jesus. Faith in Jesus. And I'll try to point that out as we go along, too. And finally one other term that I want to bring out is the term the law. The Greek here is nomos. And this is an interesting phenomenon that we see in English, too. Very often the same word, the same symbols, can be used to signify different meanings. In English we have words that do this all the time. I can use the word run and it could be what I do when I go out for a jog. But it could also be what I do when I turn a machine on and make it do what it's doing. Notice that the machine is not moving it's legs and running down the track. It's just sort of doing something else. And if I run my wife to the ground, which she would never let me do, that means I'm just kind of bossing her and wearing her out. And we can use terms that have different meanings in English. And this word nomos, it means law. But it can be law in several senses. And I have to bring this out because Paul uses the word here that's actually three different meanings as we go. Nomos can mean law in that Lutheran sense of law as opposed to Gospel. Where law means the righteous demands of God. Do these things and you will live. Don't do these things and you're answerable to God. Well, Paul will use law in that sense. And then he'll also use law in the sense of the Pentateuch, the torah. The five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were also referred to as generally the law. But notice when we consider those five books, they contain the places where God gives his righteous demands. But also they contain God's acts of salvation. His calling Abraham and promising Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. His saving Israel from Egypt and the exodus. And so the torah has within it both law and promise. And so it's not the same thing as God's righteous demand. And then in a very general way, this word genome nomos, law, could mean simply a principle, sort of the way things work. We use it that way in English. When we say the law of gravity. The law of gravity is not something that was passed by Congress. The law of gravity is simply a principle that if you jump out -- jump up, you are going to fall down. So jump off a building because the law of gravity will definitely bring you down to the ground. It's just a principle. This is the way a thing works. So as we go through this section I'll try to point out how Paul is using the word law, as well. So now we look at this section. And to be begin, we see Paul giving his main proposition in Verse 21. And I'll read through the main proposition. Paul argues: But now the righteousness of God, in other words, this would be God's act of declaring other people righteous, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Now, if you're looking at the ESV, notice how law here they translate with a lower case L. Here law is referring to the righteous demands of God. And it goes on. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. Now, notice if you're looking again at the ESV, law here has a capital L. This is ESV's way of signify different meanings and different uses of law here. The first use is the law as the righteous demands of God. The second use is law as the five books of Moses. Verse 22: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, faith in Jesus Christ, that's literally faith of Jesus Christ. The ESV is giving it the interpretation that this is our believing in Jesus. Faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And notice the ESV has a period right there. Here is Paul's main proposition in the book of Romans. To summarize: Now a righteousness of God has been made evident. Has been manifested. And there's four things about this righteousness of God. It comes apart from the law. In other words, apart from God's righteous demands. It does not depend upon our obedience and our works. So it does solve the problems in Romans 3:19 through 20 where we have no defense and we're all guilty before God. This is a righteousness that comes apart from the law. But it is a righteousness that was witnessed by the law, that is by the torah, and the prophets. This is how many New Testament authors refer to the Old Testament, as the law and the prophets. This righteousness, this Gospel, was promised in the Old Testament. And this is a righteousness, third, that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And for, it's for all who believe. And so this is a righteousness apart from God's righteous demands, testified in the Old Testament. It comes through believing in Jesus. And it's received in faith. And it has to be received in faith because it's trusting this declaration of God that really makes no sense. He says that we're righteous when in fact we know that we're ***habatikos, guilty, answerable. So it is a righteousness received in faith. And this now would be the main proposition of the book of Romans. This is the main truth that Paul was putting forward. That there is a righteousness that has been made evident apart from the law, promised in the Old Testament. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And it's for all of those who believe. It's received in faith. And now this does in fact answer the problem created and described in Romans 1:18 through 3:20. The whole world is guilty before God. Nevertheless, God declares people righteous apart from his righteous demands. Even though they are guilty of the law. Only now it comes through faith in Jesus Christ and what Jesus has done. And yes, indeed, this was -- this is not out of context with the Old Testament. In fact, the Old Testament promised and looked ahead to this Gospel. There's the main proposition. Now, you might say that the whole book of Romans should be read in light of this proposition and the thematic verses back in 1:16 and 17. These three verses in a sense -- these three statements sort of hang the whole book of Romans. Going on now in the middle of Verse 22 we have kind of a secondary proposition that relates to the first proposition. It says here: For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Period. And so here is a secondary proposition. And this proposition makes two points. The main point is this. There is no distinction. And then this is understood in two ways. No. 1, all have sinned, past act. And are falling short of the glory of God, present reality. That's one distinction. Jew and Gentile alike have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God. And I think glory of God here refers to God's righteous demands. We fall short of his glory. This was what Luther was well aware of in his own life. That he was supposed to meet these high expectations but he fell short. Well, this was not only true for Martin Luther, not only true for David Lewis, this is true for all people, Jew and Gentile. There's no distinction. But also there's no distinction in a second sense, all are declared righteous by God. And notice here again we have the verb being declared righteous signifying that the righteousness of God is his act of declaring people righteous. And how does this come? No. 1, it comes as a gift. No. 2, it comes by means of his grace. No. 3, it comes through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. So it comes as a gift by grace and through what Jesus did. And now we may ask: Well, what did Jesus do? Well, Paul goes on in this context and explains that God presented Jesus as a means of atonement. The ESV translates this as a propitiation. The RSV translates it as an expiation. Those are two words that are talking in sacrificial language. I call it a means of atonement because this is really referencing the Old Testament sacrificial system where people would give an animal. The animal would be sacrificed and they would be purified from their sins. Well, God presented Jesus as a sacrifice so that through faith in his blood, we would be purified from our sins. That we would be atoned. And this is what Jesus did. This is how in fact we are redeemed. And that would be the first related proposition. So let's continue. We then in the middle of Verse 25 find a second related proposition. So in the middle of Verse 25 if you're looking at the ESV it says: This was to show God's righteousness. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Notice that who has faith in Jesus, this is again faith of Jesus. Literally. The ESV and the NIV, too, interpret this as faith in Jesus. They make that interpretive move in their translation. This is a second related proposition. And here we actually now get into the discussion of whether or not God is a righteous God in and of himself. And Paul is making the point here that when God gave Jesus as an atoning sacrifice, he has demonstrated not only that he is the one who justifies sinners by his grace as a gift. But that he himself is right. And this is actually explained in two ways. First, in reference to the former days, God in his forbearance passed over sins. Now, what is Paul talking about here? Some people think that Paul is talking about the individual Christian and that before they were saved, God should have punished them for their sins. But he didn't. He waited until they were saved. And now he proves that he is righteous for not punishing them before. I don't go with that. I believe that Paul is actually talking in terms of salvation history. And that by former days he's actually referring to the Old Testament. In the days before Jesus came. In other words, there's a true sense in which all of those people before Jesus came, you know, they should have been punished by God. If he was righteous, he should have punished them. And yet if you read the Old Testament narrative, we see that so often, God forgives. Even in the Old Testament his own people sin and yet he forgives them. Noah sinned. Abraham sinned. Isaac sinned. Jacob sinned. Moses sinned. David sinned in a very grievous way. And yet God did not kill them when they sinned. Why didn't he kill them? If he was a just God, he should have killed David for his adultery and his murder. But God forgave him. Well Paul says that by sending Jesus as the atoning sacrifice God in a sense shows how he is righteous because all along all through the Old Testament God knew that he was going to send his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for sin. And so in light of that even before Jesus came, he forebear in the past and he forgave sins knowing that in time he would act decisively through his Son. So here we see that Jesus' sacrifice covers the former time. All the Old Testament saints are covered by what God did in Jesus Christ. And then also in this now time, in this present time, God demonstrates in Jesus two things. No. 1, that he is just. In other words, God does take sin seriously. So seriously that it has to be punished. He does not leave sin unpunished but what he does is something unexpected, he punishes sin in the person of his Son. So today now we know that God is just. And because he has punished sin in Jesus, he's the one who declares those who believe to be righteous. Now, this is a second related proposition. And now finally a third related proposition picking up in Verse 27: Now what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? And now here law is meaning -- is that third use I mentioned, law in the sense of principle. And what sort of principle is our boasting excluded? By a law or a principle of works? No. But by the law or the principle of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles, also? Yes, of Gentiles, also. Since God is one, he will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith. Now, in this third related proposition Paul basically blasts any notion of human boasting before God. Now, probably he has in mind here the relationship of Jews and Gentiles. If we go back to Romans Chapter 2, there seems to be the issue of some Jews, maybe Jewish Christians, who thought they had a special status because God had given them the law, the torah, because they had circumcision. And they may have thought then that they were better than the Gentile Christians who were uncircumcised and who were not of national Israel. Well, now Paul is saying there's no room for that kind of boasting anymore. On what principle? On the principle of faith. Because a man is not justified by what he does, by obeying the torah. A man is justified by faith in Jesus. God is the one who does it. And so no person, Jew or Gentile, has a right to boast over and against any other person. You might say this is a leveling act of God. Jew and Gentile are now put on the same level. Every Christian is put on the same level. None of us can boast against another. We can definitely not boast to God. Because we're all in the same boat. All equally guilty and equally justified by God's grace. There's no room for boasting in the church. One person holding it over another because they think they are more righteous. That's blasted. Because what happens in the Gospel is that it's God who acts. And so Paul makes it clear: God is God of both Jew and Gentile. He declares righteous both the circumcised and the uncircumcised by faith. And so finally the conclusion in Verse 31: Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Now, this is kind of a strange conclusion because it seems that Paul is kind of against the law in this whole section. Law as the righteous demands of God. He keeps saying: It's not by the principle of the law that we are justified but by the principle of the faith. And so in a sense you might expect Paul to say: Do we abolish the law? Well, of course we abolish the law because it's all faith. But his final sentence here is in fact that we uphold the law. And so Nick, this gets us to your final question: How are we to interpret this? In other words, reading this proposition you might be saying: If this is a righteousness of God apart from the law, then how is Paul upholding the law? How is he establishing the law? Well, there are two options for how these verses are to be interpreted. Option 1 would argue like this: God has established his own law in this sense: Jesus Christ is the one who has obeyed God, who has fulfilled the law in himself. And then who was given as a sacrifice to God for sin. So that in a sense God's righteous demands of the law have been upheld in the person of Jesus Christ. And so the law is established. God's righteous demands have been met, have been satisfied. Only they've been satisfied in this way: Jesus did it. Not us. And so what we receive as a gift is the declaration of righteous for the sake of Jesus Christ. And are there any theological objections to this point of view? No, I don't think so. Now, many people would argue from this that in a sense the law would be established in our life because now that we are free from the condemnation of God and our consciences are free, we don't have to worry anymore about doing God's will to earn his favor. So now the Christian is free actually to live in the law in the third use of the law as a gift, as a guide and a rule for how we're to live. And then they would reference the exhortation section in Romans, Romans 12:1 through 15:13 as that place where Paul in a sense will establish the law in it's proper place in a Christian life. No longer does it tell us what we need to do to be saved. But it tells us how to live now that we have been justified. Now that we have been saved. And so that's one option to explain Verse 31. A second option, some interpreters argue that when Paul uses law, nomos, in Verse 31, he doesn't mean the righteous demands of God. He means law in the second sense of the torah or the Word of God. So that in a sense when Paul says: We establish the law, we're establishing the torah. In other words, we're establishing the Old Testament Scripture, because the Old Testament Scripture all along agreed with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All along even in the Old Testament people were saved not by their works but by faith. And again, those examples of Abraham and David, men of God who sinned and should have been punished. But because they trusted God's promises they in fact were considered righteous and forgiven even back then. And therefore, what we see going on in the Gospel is that the Old Testament Scriptures are not torn down and abolished, they are actually established in their proper place. And people who hold this interpretation would argue had a what we see Paul doing in Chapter 4 is he goes to the torah to establish that the principle of faith has always been the way God worked things. I would argue this: Both Options 1 and Options 2 both present good theological answers to what Paul is doing in Verse 31. We know that Paul is not contradicting himself and saying: Well, now that we're Christians we have to keep the law so that God will love us. That's not what he's saying. And so you can't take it that way. And so east Options 1 or Options 2 will explain what Paul means by: We establish the law. That was a very good question, Nick. And it helped us focus on these very important verses in the epistle to the Romans.