12:20 Burning Coals?

12:20 Burning Coals?

Persecution would come to the Aramaic-speaking Christians about a decade later (Acts 12), but even then it would come from Herod, not from the Sanhedrin, and would not be enough to drive them all out of Jerusalem. They would remain until the Romans began to surround the city in the war of a.d. 66–70. In the providence of God, then, the Greek-speakers, linguistically and culturally equipped to fit into other areas

from which many of them had originally come, were scattered to bring the gospel to the Roman world. At the same time the core of the church remained in Jerusalem to carry on the Jewish-Christian mission in the very heart of Judaism.

8:16 Baptized but Without the Holy Spirit?

Mention “baptism in the Holy Spirit” in a group of assorted evangelicals and you are likely to have a fight on your hands. For one group it happens at conversion with no outward experience, and to insist on a later experience is to attempt to suggest that the work of Christ was incomplete. For another group it is a necessary second work of grace after conversion that empowers one for ministry. Both groups struggle in their own way with Acts. Why didn’t God give a single unitary pattern for the church to follow? How was the Holy Spirit received in the early church? What type of a historical precedent occurs in Acts 8:17? Should we be doing this today? These are just some of the issues we struggle with as we consider this topic.

The story in Acts 8 is that of the first missionary outreach of the church. The Greek-speaking Jewish-Christians were forced to flee Jerusalem, and as they traveled to safety they “preached the word wherever they went” (Acts 8:4). The author of Acts chooses to follow one of them, Philip, who goes first to Samaria, announcing the good news about Jesus and the kingdom of God and demonstrating through signs and wonders the reality of the message. This was a typical early Christian evangelistic pattern, and typical results followed: many believed. At this point the story takes an interesting twist. As we would expect, the new believers were “baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12). But none of these believers received the Holy Spirit until Peter and John arrived and placed their hands on them. This raises two questions. First, why was it necessary for the apostles to take this action? Second, how could one be a Christian believer and not have received the Holy Spirit?

It is clear that these people were true believers, the one exception being Simon Magus, around whom the story revolves. He sees the normal effects of the Spirit, recognizes that it surpasses his magic, and wishes to purchase the power (as he has all of his magical powers). Although Simon had believed (Acts 8:13), he had failed to repent and abandon his former way of life and so had not come to true faith (Acts 8:21–23).

He had believed in his head the story of Jesus and confessed it in baptism, but without repentance Jesus had not yet become his Lord. He was still lost. But Simon is the exception. The apostles appear satisfied with the rest and lay their hands upon them.

They were fully Christian, but had not received the Spirit.

Clearly Luke considers this failure to receive the Spirit at baptism an exception. He feels it necessary to explain to his readers that “the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 8:16). Normally repentance, faith and baptism were followed by just such a laying on of hands and reception of the Spirit.7 [7 David Pawson, The Normal Christian Birth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989) is the best source for a full discussion of this process.] After all, the experience of the Spirit was the promise of the first preaching (Acts 2:38; 3:19). Paul also assumes that a believer can say, “I know I have experienced the Spirit so I know I am a Christian”

(the assumption of Rom 8:9). But this experience of the Spirit is something different from the regenerating work of the Spirit (which Paul, not Luke, talks about), although the two acts of the Spirit (along with baptism) were normally joined so closely together in practice as to be distinguishable only in theory. This is so much the case

that in Romans 8 Paul goes on to question the regeneration of a believer who has not had an experience of the Spirit.

A parallel situation occurs in Acts 1:8, where Jesus describes the Pentecost experience in terms of empowering for mission. Here again was a group of baptized believers (at least 120 of them). But they lacked one thing before they could be sent out on their mission: the Holy Spirit. There was no one to lay hands on them, so rather than wait for a human visit they wait for a divine visitation. In Acts 8 the order of events is the same, as are the results of the coming of the Spirit, although the waiting is for human agents.

So it is obvious from this story that it is possible to be regenerate and not to have received the Spirit’s empowering presence. Since it was not the normal experience of the church, it had to be explained, but it was a possible experience. We note in this connection that Acts and Paul use the phrase “baptized in the Holy Spirit” differently as well.8 [8 One good discussion of this difference is in Clark Pinnock, “The New Pentecostalism: Reflections of an Evangelical Observer,” in Russell P. Spittler, ed., Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1976), pp. 182–92.]

For Acts it indicates precisely this experiential reception of the Spirit as empowerment for mission. For Paul (1 Cor 12:13) it describes the action of the Spirit in making a person part of the body of Christ, something closer to regeneration. This difference in the use of the same terminology is, of course, what one expects in the New Testament, for such phrases had not yet become technical terms but were living metaphors to describe experience. The modern discussions and controversies were not even remotely in the minds of the authors.

The discussion to this point, however, does not answer the question of the delay. If the normal experience of the early church was to join both baptism in water and the laying on of hands for the reception of the Spirit to a person’s confession of faith, why was there a delay in this case? There are several possible reasons for this. First, we do not have any evidence that Philip normally laid hands on new believers. It is quite possible that while the church was concentrated in Jerusalem many people took part in evangelism and baptism, but only the apostles laid hands on people to receive the Spirit. It was unique to be doing evangelism away from the apostles, for this is the first reported Christian mission outside of Jerusalem.

Second, Philip was a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian, perhaps originally from outside of the Jerusalem area. There were some suspicions between the Greek-speaking and Aramaic-speaking groups, as Acts 6 shows. Philip may have waited for the apostles to come as a gesture of church unity. They could then approve his mission. This was no schismatic enterprise.

Third, the Samaritans were not fully Jewish. They accepted the Pentateuch and were circumcised, but they did not accept the rest of the Old Testament, and they worshiped on Mount Gerazim, not in Jerusalem. Nor were their bloodlines purely Jewish.

Furthermore, a lot of hostility existed between Samaritans and Jews. It would be no wonder, then, if Philip himself did not desire apostolic approval to see if his new church was fully “kosher.” Obviously the apostles did approve, and they took the appropriate action.

Thus, while we cannot know the exact reason for the delay of the laying on of hands and reception of the Spirit, there were a number of logical reasons for it. In the end, however, these baptized believers (except Simon Magus) were initiated fully, just as

the believers in Jerusalem. In the process they illustrate to the modern reader the elements of the initiation process as practiced in that era. They give us historical precedent for the possibility of a delay between conversion and the experience of the Spirit, but the author has no intention of teaching that such a two-stage process is necessary. Instead, he shows that the Spirit did not guide the mission by giving a unitary pattern or set of rules, but instead personally led those under his direction into adapting the practices of the church to the needs of the local cultural and historical situation, operating relationally rather than according to a handbook.

12:15 His Angel?

Rhoda was a slave in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, and was assigned to door-keeping duty. Inside the house a group of Christians were gathered in prayer for Peter, who was chained in Herod Agrippa’s most secure dungeon and slated for execution the next morning. They had prayed and fasted for days, but Herod had not changed his mind. The situation looked similar to that of James son of Zebedee, who had been beheaded earlier that year. Then in the middle of the night someone knocked on the door. Rhoda went to the door and may have opened a peephole to see a man she did not recognize in the darkness. He spoke a greeting. She recognized the voice of Peter. Not bothering to unbar the door, she rushed away to the room where the others were praying and breathlessly announced that Peter was standing at the door.

Acts 12:15 is the response she received. It is hardly surprising under the circumstances (given that they apparently did not believe their prayers for deliverance would be answered and perhaps were already praying that Peter would be faithful and calm in his execution). But it is a surprise that when Rhoda insisted that there was a man at the door and that he did sound like Peter, they responded, “It must be his angel.” What does this phrase mean? If they meant “ghost” or “disembodied spirit,” why didn’t they say “his ghost” or “his spirit”?

If they meant that Peter’s disembodied spirit were appearing at the door, which is what some commentators assume, they could have used other terms. For example, in Mark 6:49 (Mt 14:26) the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water at night and cried out in fear because “they thought he was a ghost” ( phantasma, “apparition”). In Luke 24:37 the disciples in the upper room were similarly terrified by the risen Christ,

“thinking they saw a ghost” ( pneuma, usually translated “spirit”). But here under similar conditions they use the term “angel” ( angelos), which just a few verses earlier was used for “the angel of the Lord” (as it is five times in Acts 12:7–11). It is likely, then, that they meant something different from a ghost or a disembodied spirit.

According to Matthew 18:10 children (and presumably everyone) have angels that have direct access to God himself. They are usually called “guardian” angels, although we do not know if they guard anyone, just that they represent them before God. This

“guarding” (if there is any) may be similar to what Jacob described as “the Angel who has delivered me from all harm” (Gen 48:16)—if this expresses a belief in a given angel accompanying him and caring for him. Protection through an angel also appears in Daniel 3:28 and Daniel 6:22, although it seems that these angels come for momentary deliverance rather than for continuous protection as in the Genesis account. Whatever the exact meaning of these passages, Jewish angelology developed far beyond them.

While no two Jewish groups would likely have agreed in full on the topic, some Jews did believe that angels were capable of taking human form and representing particular

individuals, as we can see in the Apocrypha. In Tobit 5 the archangel Raphael appears to Tobias as a human being and accompanies him on a journey, protecting and rewarding him. He has impersonated “Azarias the son of the great Ananias, one of your relatives” (Tobit 5:12 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), although there is no indication that Tobias or Tobit had ever met Azarias. So convincing is this angel that only toward the end of the book does Raphael find it advisable to reveal who he really is. A similar belief in angels taking human form appears in Hebrews 13:2, although there they appear as strangers, seeming to be simple Christian travelers.

This information makes the passage in Acts clear. Since Peter was known to be in prison, when a person sounding like Peter arrived the believers in the house concluded that it must be his “guardian” angel, whom they naturally assumed would act like Peter. This situation differs from those involving Jesus, where there was some reason for the apostles to believe that they might be seeing an apparition (it was a dark and stormy night, Mk 6:49) or a spirit or ghost (it was after his death, Lk 24:37). But as far as these Christians knew Peter was not yet dead, although he was surely in prison; nor would they have expected an apparition to knock before entering a prayer meeting.

From their point of view Rhoda’s experience could only mean that Peter’s “guardian”

angel had come, either to inform them of his death or in some other way to guide their prayers. Only when the door is flung open and the figure stands in the light are they convinced they are not welcoming an angel, but Peter himself—perhaps due to his having the marks and smells of a person fresh out of prison.

Interesting as this passage is, it simply witnesses to the beliefs of the Christians in that house. The author of Acts reports rather than endorses their views. Only from Hebrews and similar passages can we gather what evidence there is in the New Testament for angels in human form. And Matthew makes the only clear reference to

“guardian” angels. Yet, taking into consideration these passages and their evidence for the real existence of angels in human form, within this context in Acts the only thing that appears to have been lacking in the worldview of the Christians in Mary’s home is the belief that God, who specializes in eleventh-hour deliverances, might just release Peter and that it could be him, not his angel, at the door.

15:29 How Kosher Should Christians Live?

While I was living in Germany, a group of German-speaking Christians from Russia moved into our community. When they attended our church, there was an immediate cultural clash because some of their customs were strange to us, while some of ours, especially women’s dress, were totally offensive to them. They wondered how people such as us could really be Christians. We could have adopted their cultural patterns, but would that not have imposed a rigid legalism upon us that would have stifled church growth? Yet their consciences struggled with our way of life. How could we live together in one church without on the one hand compromising the grace of Christ in legalism or on the other offending the sense of decency of some good Christian brothers and sisters? That is precisely the issue that the early church is struggling with in Acts 15:29.

The cultural issue according to Acts was whether circumcision (that is, becoming a Jew) was necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1). Peter voiced the eventual solution: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are”

(Acts 15:11). James agreed, referring to “all the Gentiles who bear my name” (Acts

15:17, quoting Amos 9:12 in a form somewhat different from the Hebrew Old Testament). In other words, the Gentiles might remain Gentiles and still be saved.

Circumcision was not necessary. From this it seems that Paul and the Gentile mission have been victorious. But in spite of his apparent agreement, James added the stipulations of this verse both in his advice to the council and in the letter to the Gentile believers. What is more, he prefaced them with “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” which makes them sound rather binding. Is this a case, then, in which Paul won the first round but was knocked out in the end? Does this not contradict all that Paul stood for? And if it does not, is it binding today? Must the Germans give up Blutwurst and the English black pudding? All of these questions press in on us in the reading of this verse.

First, we must be clear about what the council did not do. It did not require circumcision or the keeping of the sabbath or tithing or (in their full form) the kosher regulations (the Jewish dietary laws). These rules marked out a Jew from a Gentile and, in the end, were not enforced upon Gentile Christians, although James adds, perhaps as a concession to the Pharisaic party in the church, that since the Mosaic books were being read in every synagogue their teaching was available to any Gentile to whom it might commend itself. Paul surely would have been satisfied with such a situation, for his concern with “works” and “law” in Romans and Galatians is not with moral rules, but with those practices that marked out Jew from Gentile. That they were not necessary for salvation is a point of agreement between Paul and the council.

Second, we need to be clear about the nature of a worship service in the first two centuries of the church. Typically the Christians would gather in the home of one of the members, perhaps the person with the largest house. A city church would have many such cells, each with an absolute maximum of perhaps sixty people, given the size of even large rooms in those days. The central feature of the service was a meal to which every member contributed what they could. At the beginning a loaf of bread was ritually broken and shared, and at the end a cup of wine was likewise shared. But between the two a full meal was eaten.9 [9 Perhaps the best available description of such a meeting is that of Robert Banks in Going to Church in the First Century (Auburn, Maine: Message Ministry, 1990).] This means that if they were in the same church Jews and Gentiles would eat together and share each other’s food in the context of worship. Therefore the Pauline discussions of food in 1

Corinthians 8–10 and Romans 14 were not to regulate one’s private behavior at home, but to assist a church in living together.

Third, while Paul never refers to the decree of the council (nor would it have been advisable for him to have done so, since he was often accused of being secondary to Jerusalem), all of the regulations are explicitly or implicitly contained in his letters. The issue of meat in Romans 14, for example, is mainly an issue over whether the animal had been properly slaughtered, that is, whether it had been strangled and whether the blood had been properly drained. The discussion in 1 Corinthians 8–10 revolves around the issue of meat that had been offered to idols. In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul discusses sexual immorality. None of these issues was foreign to Paul and on none of them does he take a position different from that of the council.

Finally, what do these rules mean in their context in Acts? All of them have to do with the Mosaic law and are drawn from Leviticus 17–18. The first issue in those chapters is the sacrificing of an animal to anything other than Yahweh—or even sacrificing it to him outside of the appointed place. Thus a Jew would find it impossible to eat meat that came from a sacrifice to a god other than Yahweh. Most meat found in pagan

markets was in some way associated with sacrifices to idols. Paul does not believe that this contaminates the meat (1 Cor 8–10), although he rules out actually going to a meal in an idol temple. But in 1 Corinthians 8 he states clearly that love would make one refuse to offend a “weaker brother” (that is, a Jew) on this issue.

The second issue of Leviticus 17–18 is that of blood. Here both this regulation and the previous one are applied not only to Israelites but also to aliens, the Gentiles who might live among the Jews. There were two ways in which blood might be eaten. On the one hand, it was common in many cultures for blood to be eaten directly (as in the examples of Blutwurst [blood sausage] and black pudding mentioned above). On the other hand, in some cultures the manner of slaughter might lead to the retention of blood in the meat, perhaps as a deliberate means of keeping it tenderer or juicier. But neither the direct eating of blood nor retaining the blood in the meat through strangling the animal were acceptable to the Jew. The blood must be poured out.

All of these regulations have to do with meat, not with vegetables, grain or fruit. The reason for this is simple. Meat was at the core of Israelite sacrificial rites, as well as the rites of other religions. Furthermore, Jewish kosher practices had virtually nothing to say about vegetables. So one could share bread or vegetables freely between Jews and Gentiles. It was when meat was served at the Lord’s Supper (as it normally was) that the issues arose, as we see clearly in Romans 14.

The third issue of Leviticus 17–18 is that of sexual relations with inappropriate women, mostly with women who were too closely related, although the same group of regulations also prohibits adultery (defined in the Old Testament as a man having sexual relations with a married woman who was not his wife), bestiality and homosexuality. Again the regulations are applied to both Israelites and aliens. This, then, is what Acts means by “sexual immorality.” It would be highly disturbing to a Jew to have table fellowship at the Lord’s Supper with a person and his partner if the relationship was one that God had labeled an abomination. Paul opposes just such a relationship in 1 Corinthians 5, ending with a general prohibition of sexual immorality (1 Cor 5:11). In the specific case in Corinth, Paul believed that even the Gentile world would disapprove of the relationship. However, many of these types of relationships would be approved of in Gentile cultures but would make table fellowship in the church difficult.

What we are talking about, then, is Paul’s rule of love in Romans 14, summed up in the principle “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). If the Gentile Christians would keep the minimal food standards, not so much in what they did privately at home but in what they brought to church or served Jewish believers, and if they would observe minimal rules of sexual decency, then Jews and Gentiles could live and function together in the church. As long as the principles were based on love and unity, Paul had no problem. It was only when the legal rituals became a means of salvation that he put his foot down.

Are these principles binding today? It is true that we find a similar rule in Revelation 2:14, 20, which may have been written later than Acts. And there are examples of Christians in the late second and early third centuries who feel bound by the rules. But at the same time there is often an observing of the rules and an ignoring of the reasons for them. In a context in which people of differing cultures must relate in the church these or analogous rules (depending on the sensitivities of the cultures) would be

applicable. But as permanent principles we should let Paul be our guide. He clearly prohibits sexual immorality for all Christians everywhere, leaving the dietary rules to our own conscience before God and our love for our fellow Christians.

16:3 Why Did Paul Circumcise Timothy?

Inconsistency confuses us, and arguing for one point of view and then turning around and acting contrary to that point of view appears inconsistent. Of course, we sometimes misunderstand the actions of others, and an inner consistency can exist behind apparently contradictory deeds. Yet when we see truly inconsistent actions we at best call the doer fickle, at worst hypocritical, even deceiving. This is the issue that appears to face us in Acts 16:3. No sooner does Acts report the Jerusalem council’s decision that it is not necessary for one to be circumcised or keep the Mosaic law to be saved (Acts 15) than it mentions Paul’s circumcising Timothy in order to take him along as a coworker. Doesn’t this contradict Paul’s principles in Acts 15? And doesn’t Galatians 2:3 state, “Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek”? How could the Paul who in Galatians 2:5

writes, “We did not give in to [those who wanted to circumcise Titus] for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you,” have Timothy circumcised?

Was Paul himself two-faced, or is one of the accounts historically inaccurate?10 [10 Many scholars view this text as an indication of historical inaccuracy in Luke-Acts, that is, as an unhistorical attempt to reconcile the Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian positions on circumcision. Yet this is in reality a surface reading of the text, for while it may save Paul from the charge of being inconsistent, it means that the author of Luke-Acts has Paul argue against circumcision in Acts 15

and then act contrary to this in Acts 16. If he were making up the story, he could have made it more consistent than that. Instead, this shows that the author is reporting history and probably understands the reasons for Paul’s action, although he reports them cryptically.]

The resolution of this issue turns on a very important point. In Jewish eyes Titus was clearly a Gentile, for his parentage was Gentile, but Timothy was considered a Jew, because his mother was a Jew. The Mishnah, the Jewish legal tradition, makes it clear that children of Jewish mothers are really Jews, regardless of the race of their fathers.11

[11 The references in m. Bikkurim 1:4–5 show that this applied to both men and women. If one were brought up in a Gentile family, one could not become fully Jewish unless one’s mother was a Jew. But there would then be no difference between this person and a person whose mother and father were Jews. The same basis is recognized today in Israel’s Law of Return: One is a Jew and may have automatic citizenship if one’s mother was a Jew.] Acts states that Timothy’s father was a Gentile. It is also clear from the verb tense used that his father was dead by the time Paul selected Timothy as a coworker. Timothy’s mother and grandmother (according to 2 Tim 1:5) were Jews, which fits with what we know about the laxity in the Jewish community in Asia Minor, for allowing a Jewish woman to marry a Gentile was not orthodox Jewish practice. Paul presumably converted the family during his first missionary journey, but even before that Timothy was probably steeped in Scripture and observed the religion of his mother, although she may have practiced it in secret. When his father died and what his father had felt about his religious practice is not known. He may have been a God-fearer, on the fringes of the synagogue. But neither the father himself nor his son had been circumcised. The father had not allowed his son to be fully Jewish (circumcision in the days of public baths was a public mark that would have identified Timothy as a member of a different race, the Jews).

Normally, Paul’s missionary practice was to go to the local synagogue first. How could he do so with Timothy, who would have been viewed as a type of renegade Jew?

And how could Timothy participate fully in the mission while being only half-Jew?

With Titus a principle was involved: Gentiles do not need to become Jews. But with Timothy the question was whether a half-Jew could or should fully actualize his Jewish heritage. Paul’s decision is to regularize Timothy’s status, perhaps to facilitate mission

(“To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews,” 1 Cor 9:20) or perhaps to allay suspicions (“They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs,” Acts 21:21). For Paul, Gentiles had no need to become Jews to improve their spiritual status, but it was not wrong for a Jew to live his Jewish culture to the fullest.

It might have appeared more consistent if Paul had not taken this step, especially in light of the issues discussed in Galatians and the fact that Timothy lived in the Galatian area. Some have suggested that troubles stemming from this action led to the writing of Galatians and the citing of the counterexample of Titus. However, it is more likely that Galatians was written before the second missionary journey and that this incident clarified Paul’s stance. When seen as a cultural rather than a religious issue, circumcision was an indifferent practice. Where it could be used for the advantage of the gospel, it was good. Where it hindered the gospel, it was to be avoided. In no case did it make the person more or less spiritual. Analogous cultural practices can be found today. Likewise today slavish consistency may hinder mission, while apparent inconsistency may point to a deeper underlying consistency and meet the requirements of a nuanced cultural situation. Until this is understood, it is unwise to criticize the apparent surface vacillation.

19:2 Did You Receive the Holy Spirit?

Paul has just arrived in Ephesus to begin a major evangelistic effort. Priscilla and Aquila have perhaps already established a house church and laid the groundwork, but Paul’s arrival will trigger the major thrust. As he proclaims repentance in the face of the kingdom of God, much as Jesus did before him, he is informed that there are other

“disciples” like him in the area. On meeting them he apparently senses something different among them, so he asks the diagnostic question of Acts 19:2. This is certainly not the question we would expect to ask today. Their response, however, might not be untypical of what many modern churchgoers might give: No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Paul then takes a step backward and asks a second diagnostic question about their baptism, another question that sounds strange today.

They had been baptized with John’s baptism. Proclaiming that John’s baptism pointed forward to Jesus, Paul rebaptizes them into Jesus, places his hands on them, and they receive the Spirit, prophesying and speaking in tongues. Why, we ask, did Paul rebaptize them? This is not what happened in Acts 8 when there was a separation between baptism and receiving the Spirit. Were these disciples Christians before they received the Spirit? Why this strange (to us) evangelistic procedure? What does it tell us of the role of the Spirit in the church today?

The messages of John the Baptist and Jesus were very similar. Both announced the coming of the kingdom of God and demanded repentance. Both called for baptism as the outward step of repentance (Mk 1:4, 14–15). They differed, however, because John stated that One who was coming was stronger than he, while Jesus indicated that the kingdom had come in his person (Lk 17:21). It is not until after Pentecost, however, that the mark of John’s Coming One is seen in Jesus. That is, John predicted that the Coming One would baptize with “fire and the Holy Spirit” in contrast to his own baptizing with water, which does not happen in any of the Synoptic Gospels. All of this is significant to Acts, which begins with the prediction and fulfillment of the

promise of the Holy Spirit.

Paul came to Ephesus, then, proclaiming the kingdom (Acts 20:25). The mark par excellence that the kingdom had come in Jesus was the presence of the Holy Spirit.12

[12 See, for example, J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), or Baptism in the Holy Spirit (London: SCM, 1970), for an exhaustive treatment of this theme.] When Paul meets people who claim to be disciples but do not display any of the effects of the Spirit, he asks his question. Their negative answer indicates that at the least the instruction they had received was defective, for from Pentecost onward the promise of the Spirit was part of the gospel proclamation (see Acts 2:38), especially among Jews for whom the Spirit was the sign of the coming age, the kingdom. Throughout the early church Christian initiation consisted of four discernible steps: repentance, commitment to (faith in) Jesus, baptism into his name and reception of the Spirit.13 [13 For a full explanation, see David Pawson, The Normal Christian Birth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). This book is about the process of Christian initiation and its implications for the church today.] Having discovered that these “disciples” were defective in the last step of initiation, Paul wonders how much of the whole process was defective. By moving backward one step Paul gets the information he needs. These folk were not Christians.

They had gone through the first step, repentance, but they had yet to hear about Jesus.

Their baptism was a sub-Christian baptism.14 [14 In Acts 18:24–26 Aquila and Priscilla meet Apollos, who

“had been instructed in the way of the Lord” and “taught about Jesus,” but “knew only the baptism of John.” While it may be that this account is very compressed, we do not hear of them rebaptizing Apollos, only of their “explain[ing] to him the way of God more adequately.” If the basic commitment to Jesus is already there, even if somewhat defective, only further instruction, not rebaptism, appears to be necessary.] It was then natural for Paul to lead them through the final three steps of complete Christian initiation.

This situation differs from that in Acts 8 where there was no question about the adequacy of the preaching and belief. Philip, a trusted Christian leader, had done the preaching. The baptism was clearly “into the name of the Lord Jesus,” so it in no way had to be repeated, for Christian baptism is once for all. The situation in Acts 19 also differs from Acts 10, in which Peter proclaims a proper gospel, but God sovereignly gives the Holy Spirit without the usual laying on of hands in order to convince Peter and the others to accept the Gentile Cornelius as a full disciple and therefore to baptize him. (One wonders if Peter would have dared to make such a step without the sign of God’s acceptance in the Spirit.) Pentecost is different yet in that all of those in the upper room were believers in Christ and baptized. Only the empowering for mission in the Spirit was missing. In that situation, of course, no one could lay on hands.

The situation in Acts 19, then, is similar to the others in that the Holy Spirit is seen as the experience of normal Christian life. Furthermore, as in all Scripture, Old or New Testament, when the Holy Spirit comes something happens. The most frequent manifestation in Acts is speaking in tongues (Acts 2, 10, 19), with prophecy second (Acts 19; in Acts 8 something observable happens but we are not told what it is). In his letters Paul does not mention any particular gift as being characteristic of receiving the Spirit, but he does indicate that the Spirit is a concrete experience, a down-payment on the full experience of Christ in heaven. Thus we can safely say that Acts gives us historical precedence for the initial experience of the Spirit as evidenced in tongues or prophecy. These gifts are, of course, easy to observe. Presumably any of the gifts in 1

Corinthians 12 or Romans 12 might be similarly produced, although, for instance, a gift of healing would be difficult to manifest if there was no one around who was ill.

(In Gal 3:5 Paul associates the Galatians’ reception of the Spirit with their working miracles, which may be another example of gifting.) The important issue for Paul, which Acts illustrates, is not how the Spirit manifests (according to 1 Cor 12 that is under the sovereign control of God), but that believers know that they have the Holy

Spirit (see Rom 8:9).

Thus it was natural for Paul, given his theology of conversion, to ask if people claiming to be “followers of the Way” or “disciples” (as the early Christians were often called) had received the Spirit. This experience, however it was manifested, was the indication that Christian initiation was complete. It was equally natural for him to lead those who had not had a full Christian experience (for instance, had not yet committed themselves to Jesus as Lord) into that experience and then to baptize them and pray that they might receive the Holy Spirit. He was simply completing the preevangelism that John the Baptist had begun. What would be quite unnatural would be for Christians to rebaptize individuals who had already committed themselves to and been baptized into Christ, even if their doctrine were somewhat faulty. Likewise it would be incorrect to take the historical precedent of Acts and turn it into an invariable rule of how conversion and Spirit-filling must take place. Still, “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” is as appropriate a question today as it was then, for it is not only a historical question in Acts, but an underlying question in Paul’s letters and 1 John as well.

20:23 Ignoring Prophetic Warnings?

It is not easy to deal with prophetic words. When someone says, “Thus says the Lord,”

it puts the hearer in a difficult situation, especially since the meaning of the prophetic message may not be self-evident. How does one handle prophecy? That is the issue raised by the statement in Acts 20:23, which Paul made in Ephesus on the way to Jerusalem. Even earlier Paul had some concerns about his safety in Jerusalem, for in a letter written from Corinth he asked the Romans to pray for him (Rom 15:30–32). By the time he traveled around through Macedonia to Ephesus he could cite frequent warnings by “the Holy Spirit.” Since they happened “in every city” they were probably prophetic oracles given to Paul by believers in each city. These warnings continued.

When he arrived at Tyre on the Palestinian coast the believers “through the Spirit …

urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4). Again we must assume some type of prophetic word or divine insight.

While we may wonder what, if anything, Philip’s prophesying daughters said in Caesarea (and if they said nothing, why did the author mention that they prophesied?), another event that happened there overshadows everything else. Agabus arrived. His accurate prophecy had previously guided Paul into timely famine relief in Jerusalem (Acts 11:27–30). Now he walks over to Paul’s group, takes Paul’s belt, ties himself up, and states, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles’” (Acts 21:11). Paul’s friends were sure that this prophecy meant that Paul ought not to go to Jerusalem. Paul, however, ignored the pleas of his companions, traveled on to Jerusalem and was in fact arrested, remaining a prisoner for at least the next three years.

How are we to evaluate this response to prophecy? Was Paul disobedient, receiving in his imprisonment the results of such disobedience? Were his companions, including the author of Acts (who includes himself among the “we” who wanted Paul to avoid Jerusalem), misinterpreting the prophecy? What does it all mean for both this passage and the interpretation of prophecy today?

We note first of all that the whole series of prophetic words, beginning with Paul’s own inner “knowledge” in Romans, indicates trouble in Jerusalem. The messages

appear to become increasingly clear the nearer he gets to Jerusalem. All warn Paul, but none contains a directive. A warning can be taken in one of two ways. It can point out a danger to avoid, or it can point out a danger to walk into with one’s eyes open. In itself a warning does not tell a person what to do, unless one assumes that God’s will is always to keep his people out of danger. One prophecy, however, gave something more than a warning. In Tyre Paul was urged “through the Spirit” not to continue his trip. He obviously chose to ignore this message.

Second, while all the prophecies are accurate in indicating danger, they are not unequivocally clear. Agabus’s is the only detailed one, but it was not fulfilled in every particular. It is true that the result of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem was that he was bound and ended up in the hands of the Gentiles, that is, the Romans. It is also true that this happened because of the Jews. But it certainly was not the Jewish plan to “bind” Paul and “hand him over to the Gentiles.” In fact, they were trying to lynch Paul when the Romans arrived and bound him with chains (Acts 21:31–33). An exacting historian would be correct in saying that Agabus was at least in part wrong in his prophecy. At the same time, if we did not have the story in Acts, the prophecy would have given us an accurate impression, although not in detail. Prophecy by nature is “dark speech”

(RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) or “riddles” (Num 12:6–8) and partial (1 Cor 13:9, 12). Even Old Testament prophecies did not mean what they seemed to mean (Dan 9:2, 24), and both Jeremiah (Jer 17:14–15) and Jonah complained that their prophecies were not fulfilled. In what form did Agabus receive the prophecy? Was it a vision, perhaps of Paul bound, standing between Roman soldiers with Jewish accusers facing him (see Acts 21:40; 22:30)? Or did he receive words or impressions from God?

Whatever he experienced, his expression of it shows some fuzziness.

Third, all prophecy needs discernment or testing. The church through the ages has already passed its judgment on the prophecies recorded in Scripture, but Paul himself taught that new prophecy has to be “weighed carefully” (1 Cor 14:29). This is not simply to determine whether it is true or false, but also to discover what it means. Paul also indicates that during this process a further revelation might clarify the meaning of the first one (1 Cor 14:30). This instructional passage explains Paul’s response to the prophetic words he receives in Acts. He apparently understood the words to be a warning about what would happen, preparing him for the problems facing him, rather than telling him not to go to Jerusalem. In coming to this conclusion he obviously stood against the judgment of his companions. Furthermore, he must have believed that the speakers in Tyre had gone beyond the message God was trying to communicate and had added their own interpretation, for he certainly does not obey it.

In other words, he shows that in responding to a prophetic word the responsibility for discernment and decision remained on his own shoulders. In the end he would answer to God for his actions.

Was Paul wrong in his interpretation? Different Christians may come to different conclusions on that matter. For some his three-year imprisonment indicates a failure to heed God’s warnings. For others the prophecies are to be seen as preparation to endure just such a trial. God was bringing Paul to Rome in his own way. Apparently his companions concluded from their inability to persuade him that Paul had a strong inner conviction that what he was doing was right and that he ought to interpret the prophecy accordingly. They fall silent and say, “The Lord’s will be done.” The same principles of personal testing of a prophecy one receives, of personal decision as to its meaning and of personal responsibility for that decision hold true today. We cannot tell

others what to do, although we may mediate to them messages from God or give them good advice. If we hold to these principles, we will clear up some of the confusion surrounding prophecy today.15 [15 Several recent works discuss the gift of prophecy. The best and most practical is Clifford Hill, Prophecy Past and Present (Crowborough, U.K.: Highland Books, 1989). Also good are Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1988) and Graham Houston, Prophecy: A Gift for Today? (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1989).]

20:35 Missing Words of Jesus?

How complete are our Gospels? Have the authors missed anything? That is the issue raised by Acts 20:35. In this context Paul is defending his ministry to the Ephesian elders. They do not doubt his ministry, but Paul knows that after he leaves false teachers will come in and will (1) seek to discredit him and (2) attempt to establish a new pattern of ministry. Paul’s own example of self-giving in ministry will help them distinguish the true from the false. Having noted his faithfulness in teaching and pastoring (Acts 20:18–21), Paul points out that he supported himself and his companions in ministry; he took no offerings from them nor raised money elsewhere.

This was in part to teach them to “help the weak,” to support poorer Christians financially. But then Paul quotes “the words of the Lord Jesus himself.” The problem here is that we know of no Gospel context where these words appear. Where do they come from? What does this say about the nature and formation of the Gospels?

Jesus left no literature behind him. He taught his disciples as a rabbi would teach his students. They were expected to memorize the words and deeds of the teacher. That is why the earliest rabbinic writings come from the third century, although they contain some oral traditions going back to the first century. That was, of course, a time when memory was well developed. Any scribe in Palestine would have memorized the whole Old Testament.

The author of Luke-Acts tells us in the prologue to Luke (Lk 1:1–4) that in the years after Jesus’ ascension “many” collected the words and deeds of Jesus into Gospels of one type or another. He distinguishes these writers from the “eyewitnesses,” probably because the eyewitnesses themselves (such as the twelve apostles) felt no need to write, for they had seen and heard enough to last them a lifetime. Furthermore, he states that he himself used careful research to sort through these accounts in writing his own Gospel. Most scholars believe that one of the written sources he used was Mark’s Gospel.16 [16 Some scholars, such as Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript (Uppsala, 1961), believe that some of Jesus’ disciples (such as Levi/Matthew) were literate and may have taken a type of shorthand notes. But even if some of the sayings were recorded in writing, Gerhardsson admits that memory was the major means of preserving Jesus’ teaching and that such notes were at best partial.]

In any such process of research and writing some material is discarded for one reason or another. The author of the Fourth Gospel tells us that there was a vast amount of material that he could not include in his work (Jn 20:30; 21:25). Each Gospel author had the goal of providing certain information to the church and painting a portrait of Jesus from a particular angle; what did not fit into this plan had to be dropped. Scrolls only came in limited sizes.17 [17 Matthew, Luke and John fill the longest scrolls available in that day. Each of them would have needed a second volume if he had wanted to include more information.]

The fact that such material was not included in this or that Gospel, however, does not mean that the stories or sayings were not genuine or were immediately forgotten.

Many of them circulated in the oral tradition of the church for the first generation or two as the eyewitnesses and their first hearers told stories about Jesus. Some were

later distorted and recorded in Gnostic Gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas. Such second-century or later works, dug up by archaeologists or found in the recesses of ancient libraries, have been heralded by some scholars as “secret sayings” of Jesus.

These later heterodox Gospels contain such distorted versions of Jesus’ sayings that they add nothing to our knowledge of him. In the first century, however, before there was a lot of distortion, some of these sayings found their way into orthodox and even canonical works, even though they were rejected by (or unknown to) the Gospel writers. For example, James 5:12 quotes a saying of Jesus which appears in a longer form in Matthew 5:33–37. Other short sayings in James also may well be sayings of Jesus (see Jas 1:27; 2:13; 3:18; 4:11–12, 17), but since James never tells us if he is quoting Jesus, we will never know which come from Jesus and which are his own coinage. But his readers probably knew, for in the first century when few could read the church memorized the teachings of Jesus and would have recognized them in print.

In Acts 20:35, then, Paul indicates that he knows a saying of Jesus that was not included in any of the canonical Gospels. We appreciate the fact that he tells us that it comes from Jesus, for that enables us to identify it. The author of Luke-Acts, who obviously knows the saying since he cites Paul as using it, does not include it in his Gospel, perhaps because it did not fit into his scheme or perhaps because he knew he would cite it later. His method appears to be not to repeat material if he can avoid it.

So words of Jesus found in the Gospel do not appear in Acts and this one in Acts does not appear in the Gospel.

While we in the present age may lament the loss of a wealth of sayings and stories after the first century (especially given our own drive to preserve as much of the past as possible in museums, archives, libraries and on computer disks), we need to remember two things. First, orthodox Christianity believes in the Holy Spirit who oversaw getting what was necessary into the canon. What was not included might have been nice but was not necessary for us to have in written form. Second, believers in the first century had no New Testament to help them distinguish between accurate and distorted traditions. They had to rely on the personal interpretations of eyewitnesses. As the church grew and the eye-witnesses died, getting such a judgment became more and more difficult. Those first-century Christians who knew a major eyewitness would have had access to far more information about Jesus than we have today, but most Christians never met a single eyewitness and so actually had far less trustworthy information available than is contained in the New Testament.

We can be thankful for having what we do today in a form that all Christians everywhere can consult at the same time, assuming it has been translated into their language. We have sufficient fully trustworthy information about Jesus for the needs of the church, although we do not have exhaustive information or even enough to answer all of our questions or direct us in our personal lives. Yet what is needed in personal direction beyond Scripture Jesus is still quite capable of providing through his Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers, even if that does not come in canonical form and so cannot be imposed upon others.

21:21 Should Christian Jews Live like Jews?

A fascinating phenomenon has occurred in the Christian world in the last few decades.

The Messianic Jewish movement consists of Jews who have committed themselves to Jesus as their Messiah and thus are completed, not converted. This movement is both

welcomed and questioned by Gentile Christians. It is welcomed because it enriches the Christian church with Jewish tradition and provides a culturally relevant path for Jews to come to Christ. It is questioned because it is a form of church to which Gentile Christians can never fully belong and perhaps because of the fear that it contains overtones of superiority. The statement in Acts 21:21 raises this same question: Is it legitimate for Jews upon conversion to maintain their Jewish culture? Or did Paul declare that any such attempt is illegitimate from the start?

The context of the passage is Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem for the last time. James receives him warmly but is concerned for the unity of the church. The Jewish-Christian mission has been very successful. “Many thousands” of Jews have believed, but upon committing themselves to Christ they expressed their faith in a very Jewish way; they have become “zealous for the law.” The rumor in Jerusalem is that Paul is turning Jews away from the law, which could cause a split in the church. James reaffirms the decision of the Jerusalem council concerning Gentile believers (Acts 15), but he assumes that Paul himself as a Jew keeps the law of Moses. He suggests that Paul join some of the church members who are finishing a Nazirite vow and pay their expenses, demonstrating to all that he is in favor of such observance. Paul does this, but before the process is complete is arrested by non-Christian Jews. Why did Paul offer sacrifice in the temple and take part in Jewish rites? Did he really want Christian Jews to live according to the law? Doesn’t this contradict faith as a basis for salvation? What would Paul have said to today’s Messianic Jews?

Paul clearly had no place for the observance of Jewish ceremonies by Gentile believers.

He states in the strongest terms in Galatians and Romans that circumcision, sabbath observance and Jewish dietary laws are not binding on Christians.18 [18 Also significant is Paul’s resounding silence on the matter of tithe, a fourth major mark of Jewish practice, especially since he does discuss giving extensively in 2 Corinthians 8–9. As law it can no longer be binding on Christians.] In fact, he writes, “If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all” (Gal 5:2).

It is also clear that Paul believed that God’s promises to Israel were still in effect.

Therefore he expected not just a remnant of Israel to be saved in the present, but “all Israel” to be saved in the end (Rom 11:26). He could therefore also write about a separate Jewish-Christian mission with a methodology different from his Gentile-Christian mission (Gal 2:7–10).

Finally, Paul states that even though he was free he became “all things to all men,”

which included becoming a Jew and living under the law while among Jews, for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor 9:19–23). This means that Paul personally could take part in Jewish ritual, if for no other reason than to forward the gospel. For him this would not be the same sort of compromise as the circumcision of Titus would have been (Gal 2:3), for Titus was a Gentile by birth and Paul was already a Jew when he was converted. Thus Jewish behavior would not have been adding anything to his Christianity, but saying that he did not have to abandon his Jewish culture to become a Christian.

The evidence of Acts along with Paul’s letters confirms that James was correct about Paul: Paul did keep the law, although probably imperfectly, given what Gentile Christians must have served at the Lord’s Supper (which was a communal meal for the first two centuries of the church’s life). Paul, after all, was very conscious of being a Jew (Rom 11:1). Rituals such as circumcision, sabbath observance, dietary laws and tithing were part of his national and cultural identity as a Jew. If Israel as a people was

still important to God, then it was fitting that those who belonged to Israel racially live out their cultural identity. On the other hand, it was not fitting for Gentile believers to observe Jewish customs, for they would gain no advantage in becoming Jews, since they already had Christ. What is more, such actions would put a barrier in the way of the Gentile mission.

The observance of his Jewish identity must have been more than simple cultural custom for Paul. In Acts 18:18 we read that he shaved his head due to a vow. This probably indicated the start of a Nazirite vow (see Num 6) that was fulfilled when he reached Jerusalem. At the least this indicates that Paul had a place in his own personal piety for such observance, which was voluntary in Judaism.19 [19 It is significant that this is a voluntary practice, which means that there was no reason for Paul to do this simply to maintain his acceptance in the Jewish community. The only reason to observe such a vow was because it was a meaningful part of personal devotion.] It was a cultural expression of worship and submission to God that was meaningful to him, and thus there was no reason for him to have refused James’s suggestion. Very likely there were many other similar private practices as well.

Thus for Paul there was no theological reason why Jews could not observe Jewish customs, as long as they were seen as signs of national identity or cultural expressions of piety, not a way of making themselves more holy than Gentile Christians. At the same time it was improper for Gentile Christians to follow such observances, for they were not Jews and becoming Jews would be no advantage to them. Instead, such observances would indicate that Christ was not enough for them. Finally, he insisted that Jewish and Gentile Christians remain in table fellowship with one another (Gal 2:11–21; Rom 14), which meant principally the observance of the Lord’s Supper together. However difficult this may have been due to Jewish dietary rules and Gentile freedom from them, the rule of love was to prevail in maintaining their unity in Christ.

Within such constraints Paul felt personally free to live as a Jew whenever possible.

For him returning to the temple as a worshiper was a meaningful experience in continuity with his early zeal for God that, although misdirected, had now been brought to its proper fulfillment in Christ. Likewise he would surely bless today’s Messianic Jews who also find their Jewish culture meaningful in continuity with their Christian belief. What he would discourage is any tendency to separatism or elitism, for love and the unity of the faith must be preserved across cultural and ethnic barriers.

22:16 Baptism to Wash Away Sins?

Does baptism really wash away sins? Is it not the death of Christ (or, to use the biblical metaphor, the blood of Christ) the cleanses us from sin? Does this not introduce a deed of ours into the salvation process?

Paul is standing on the steps of the Fortress Antonia in Jerusalem, defending his activities. He has just recounted how he met Jesus on the Damascus road and has been told to go into Damascus to await further instructions. He is already a believer of sorts, but the Christians do not know it yet. Ananias comes to Paul, heals him, mentions the fact that Paul had met Jesus and that God was commissioning him to be a witness.

Then comes Acts 22:16, which gives him his further instructions, telling him what to do next.

This verse pictures baptism as a washing (in that period it was probably a complete immersion, although Didache 7 indicates that the church did not delay baptism if they

lacked enough water to immerse). This aspect is similar to the washings for purification in the Old Testament (Lev 14:8–9; 15:5–13, 21–22, 27; 16:26, 28; 17:15–

16; Num 19:19; Deut 23:11). When one was ritually impure, it was often necessary to wash oneself (and in other cases just to wash one’s clothing) in order to be rid of the impurity. The difference between these Old Testament washings and baptism is that when one turns to Christ he or she gets rid of objective guilt and not simply ritual impurity. Previously the person being baptized has lived without being submitted to Christ as Lord. Thus they were guilty of ignoring the wishes of the King of kings. Now the person is repenting and in the act of baptism officially turning from that way of life to one which recognizes Jesus as exalted Lord.

Of course, it is not the water itself that cleanses a person from sin, but the sincere pledge of oneself to Christ. This point is made in 1 Peter 3:21. A person could drown in an ocean of baptismal water and not wash away sin if they were not sincerely turning to Christ. Ananias makes this same point when he says, “Calling on his [Jesus’] name.”

It is this commitment to Christ that is the critical part of baptism.

So does baptism wash away sins? We could answer this with another question, “Does turning to Christ wash away sins?” The answer is clearly yes. Then, since baptism is where one officially turns to Christ, it can be said to wash away sins. In fact, that is one aspect of the symbolism of the water. Paul has had an encounter with Jesus; Ananias is inviting him to make his private commitment official. The means God ordained for this is baptism, and so Paul is invited to be baptized.

See also comment on mark 1:4; john 3:5; acts 2:38; 1 peter 3:21.

Romans

1:16 First for the Jew?

See comment on matthew 10:5–6.

1:18 Is God Wrathful?

God’s wrath is difficult both to understand and to believe. For some, the idea of a wrathful God has been a roadblock to faith. For others, who have experienced the transforming grace and love of God in their lives, the idea of God’s wrath has seemed to contradict their experience of God. Can we believe that the God whose unconditional love is revealed “in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”

(Rom 5:8) is at the same time a God of wrath?

Before we tackle the main issues here, we need to discuss the biblical use of anthropomorphisms—the use of analogies from human experience to describe God.

The Bible speaks about God’s nature, work and purposes in terms analogous to what we know and experience as human beings. This is by necessity. God’s absolute nature is not open to finite creatures. We can only approximate what God is like by comparing him to us. Indeed, the Incarnation, God’s coming into our midst in the Word become flesh (Jn 1:14), gives legitimacy and authority to anthropomorphic speech about God.

In traditional theological language, this necessary and legitimate use of anthropomorphisms has been recognized, but it also has its limitations. Thus, while knowledge and power are aspects of human experience, God is said to possess these in an absolute, infinite sense: he is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful). Generally, those aspects of human nature and experience which we have identified as the highest and the best have been ascribed to God. We see God as the one who is or possesses truth, grace, beauty, love, righteousness, faithfulness in their most complete or absolute forms. But a corollary of this way of speaking about God is the resistance to ascribe to God human attributes or feelings which we perceive as negative: hate, anger, a vindictive spirit, ugliness and so forth. Wrath is clearly one of these.

There is some biblical warrant for this resistance. For example, in Hosea 11, the reason for God’s refusal to give up on Israel—though it clearly deserved destruction on the basis of human standards of justice—is the fact that “I am God and not man” (Hos 11:9). However, the major reason for our difficulty in accepting such negative human attributes for God is an idealistic, romantic notion of God, born from philosophical speculation. The Bible does not have such a notion of God, for it takes both God and the world more seriously than abstract philosophical speculation.

The Lord of the Bible enters into relationship with his creation in Jesus of Nazareth, in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:19 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is this Jesus who is, at the same time, in all respects like us (Heb 2:17). The Bible also takes the relationship between Creator and creation with utmost seriousness. Because the creation is God’s, it is responsible to God. Within such a relationship of accountability, romantic, idealistic, sentimental concepts of God are out of place. Against this larger background the concept of God’s wrath must be understood.

It is instructive that Paul speaks of the revelation of God’s wrath within the context of a theology of creation. The biblical story of creation and alienation contained in the opening chapters of Genesis clearly forms the backdrop of Romans 1:18–23. Romans 1:21–22 especially is a poignant reminder of the refusal of humankind (Adam) to live as creature in relationship with God and instead to grasp for likeness with God (see Gen 3:1–7).

In the Genesis narrative, the temptation is to deny our creatureliness, our limitations, our dependence on the Creator in order to become “like God” (Gen 3:5). The result of that denial is that we become debased, less than authentically human. According to the narrative of Genesis 3–11, the denial of dependence on and accountability to God results in a wide variety of distortions within various spheres of human community.

Paul, in Romans 1:25, sums up this situation with these words: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” It is within this assessment of God’s purposes for creation and its refusal to be accountable within those purposes that the idea of God’s wrath needs to be heard.

Paul speaks of the wrath of God in two ways. Mostly, the expression refers to a future event in which God’s judgment is executed on the world’s sinfulness (Rom 2:5, 8; 5:9; Eph 5:6; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9). In these contexts, God’s wrath (or its synonym, God’s judgment) is clearly perceived as an activity of God, his decided action against sin. It is important to note here that wrath is God’s personal response to sin, though unlike that

of the various divinities of Greco-Roman religions and myths, God’s wrath is never capricious, vindictive or malicious.

In Romans 1:18 Paul does not say that God’s wrath will be revealed at the last day (that is, judgment day) but rather, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven”

now. It is not only the divine response to the creation’s unfaithfulness in the future judgment; it is already a present reality. This sense of a present manifestation of God’s wrath is confirmed in several other passages from Paul (Rom 3:5; 4:15; 9:22; 1 Thess 2:16), as well as in other New Testament writings (see Jn 3:36).

As the passage which follows shows, the present manifestation of God’s wrath is indirect rather than direct; it is an expression of God’s permissive will, not God’s active will. God is not depicted here as doing something in response to human sin. In some sense, God’s wrath is built into the very structure of created reality. In rejecting God’s structure and establishing our own, in violating God’s intention for the creation and substituting our own intentions, we cause our own disintegration.

The human condition, which Paul describes in Romans 1:18–32, is not something caused by God. The phrase “revealed from heaven” (where “heaven” is a typical Jewish substitute word for “God”) does not depict some kind of divine intervention, but rather the inevitability of human debasement which results when God’s will, built into the created order, is violated. Since the created order has its origin in God, Paul can say that the wrath of God is now (constantly) being revealed “from heaven.” It is revealed in the fact that the rejection of God’s truth (Rom 1:18–20), that is, the truth about God’s nature and will, leads to futile thinking (Rom 1:21–22), idolatry (Rom 1:23), perversion of God-intended sexuality (Rom 1:24–27) and relational-moral brokenness (Rom 1:28–32).

The expression “God gave them over” (or “handed them over”), which appears three times in this passage (Rom 1:24, 26, 28), supports the idea that the sinful perversion of human existence, though resulting from human decisions, is to be understood ultimately as God’s punishment which we, in freedom, bring upon ourselves.

In light of these reflections, the common notion that God punishes or blesses in direct proportion to our sinful or good deeds cannot be maintained. God’s relationship with us is not on a reciprocal basis. God’s radical, unconditional love has been demonstrated in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. God loves us with an everlasting love. But the rejection of that love separates us from its life-giving power.

The result is disintegration and death. Against such a perverted creation, God’s wrath is revealed.

See also comment on psalms 5:5; 11:5.

1:24–28 God Gave Them Over to Sin?

See comment on romans 11:32.

1:27 Homosexuality Condemned?

Romans 1:27 appears to speak of homosexual relations as sinful. Is this actually the case? Would the Bible really condemn people for such acts, or is it speaking about

something quite different from what we understand as homosexuality?

In our day speaking negatively of homosexuality is often declared to be evil. Several factors have led to this. First, postmodern society believes that all personal options are equally good. Thus one should take pride in one’s ethnic background or religion or sexual preference. None is better than another and no one should judge another. This postmodern view may express a truth about our relative human judgments, but does it give God’s view? What if God really does exist and has a view by which he will judge the world in the end? Furthermore, there are limits to our tolerance of cultural diversity, for we are not very accepting of Nazi culture, for example.

Second, genital sexual expression is viewed as a right and even as a necessity for emotional health. This is a new view, which ignores the fact that many who cannot function sexually (such as impotent males) can and do live full and meaningful lives.

Unlike food and water and shelter, sexual expression is not a need. Nor is it a right.

Many people, whatever their sexual inclinations, are deprived of opportunities for full sexual expression (think of those heterosexuals who want to be married but cannot find an appropriate spouse) and, while it may not be a desirable situation for them, it is not that they are being wronged.

Third, homosexuality has found increasing acceptance in our society. However, acceptance does not make something right. Nor does the evidence that homosexuality may be inborn make it right. Some types of personality are apparently inborn, and we think of these varieties of personality types as equally good, but alcoholism, schizophrenia and a tendency to violence may also be linked to genes, and we look at these as genetic defects. We view them as bad and try to control their expression.

Fourth, there have been attempts to label any rejection of homosexuality as

“homophobic” and thus make a rejection of this lifestyle appear wrong. Such labeling begs the question. Is one “kleptophobic” if he or she calls theft wrong? It is not always an issue of fear (phobia) at all, but one of sober judgment about what is right and wrong based on a given standard. For Christians the standard has been the Bible, so that is why looking at this passage is so critical.

There are several passages in the New Testament that refer to homosexual genital sexuality: Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10 and Jude 7. These build on the Old Testament attitude toward homosexuality found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. What conclusions can we draw from these texts?

First, all of these passages condemn particular sexual acts. None of them speak of homosexual desires. In the Scriptures it is not homosexual temptation that is wrong, but the actual acts themselves. This is an important distinction, for it reminds us that the Scriptures honor people successfully struggling with temptation rather than condemning them for their temptations. The man who has never been tempted to commit adultery is not more virtuous than the man who has successfully resisted repeated significant temptations. The first man is only untested in that area.

Second, we recognize that while homosexual practice does not appear to have been common in Palestine, it was a significant feature of the Greek culture. It is not that Greeks were exclusively homosexual, for in fact the general practice was bisexuality, with wives being necessary for procreation, but the use of prostitutes and boys also being more or less accepted. It is also not true that all Greeks equally accepted

homosexuality. One form of it, pederasty, was debated by Greek thinkers.

Third, we notice that the explicit rejection of homosexuality is found mostly in Paul’s letters, for he was the Christian writer most in contact with the Greek world. Romans was probably written from Corinth and 1 Corinthians was, of course, written to Corinth. It is sometimes argued, then, that Paul’s concern was only with pederasty, that he was entering one side of the discussion which was common in the Greek world.

However, his language in this passage is not a description of pederasty. A case can be made for making 1 Corinthians 6:9 refer to that vice, but such a case is not totally convincing to scholars in this field. What it looks like is going on in 1 Corinthians 6:9

is that Paul, living in the Greek world, needing an example of vice to use in his letter, used the vice that he found close at hand, homosexual practice, which included, but was not limited to, pederasty.

In other words, homosexual practice was not a major problem within the church. It was a problem in the Gentile world around the church. Why was this the case?

Probably the reason is that the church taught fidelity to one’s wife. For example, look at the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19. When in Matthew 19:9 Jesus prohibits divorce, the disciples respond in shock that it would be better not to marry than to be stuck forever with a single woman. Rather than softening his statement, Jesus comments that it might be good not to marry and distinguishes those who cannot marry due to sexual dysfunction from those who choose not to marry because of “the kingdom of heaven.”

In other words, he gave people only two alternatives: faithful marriage (and he has already made it clear in Mt 5:27–28 what he means by faithfulness) or celibacy. While Jesus does not appear to have been married, Simon Peter was. It would be Paul who would follow the route of celibacy.

Turning to Paul, we find the same alternatives offered. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–20 he rules out “sexual immorality” by which he means sexual intercourse with a person who is not one’s spouse, especially a prostitute. He makes the alternative clear in 1

Corinthians 7:9: if one does not have the gift of celibacy, then one should marry. For the same reason married couples should practice regular sexual intercourse (1 Cor 7:2–

5). One can read through the whole of the rest of 1 Corinthians 7 and find only two options: celibacy or faithful marriage. These same two options are offered to the widow and to the never-married, to the old and to the young.

As we noted above, in the Greek world as in the world today there were very few who were exclusively homosexual. Most men married out of duty to their family, if for no other reason. The church had only one instruction to such men and women: your wife or husband is to be your exclusive sexual focus. Satisfy one another. There is no option of a homosexual relationship on the side. For the few who were not married the church had two options: remain celibate or marry. Again homosexual sexual intercourse is not an option. By stressing these two positive options (rather than ranting against homosexuality) the early church appears to have had little problem with the practice of homosexuality, despite its being in the world around them.

Does the Bible really condemn homosexuality? The answer is yes, it does. In every place it mentions any homosexual practice it roundly condemns the practice. In no place does it speak positively of homosexuality. Does the Bible dwell on the issue, especially since parts of it were written in a world full of bisexuality? No, it does not.

Instead the Bible focuses on its alternative. It encourages sexual expression in the context of a faithful marriage, and it exalts celibacy for those who cannot or choose

not to marry. Both are honorable lifestyles. There is no third way.

2:5 Is God Wrathful?

See comment on romans 1:18.

2:7 Salvation by Works?

See comment on john 5:28–29.

2:12 Is God Fair to Condemn Those Who Have Never Heard?

The Bible seems to be teaching that those who have not heard the gospel will be condemned. This does not seem fair—after all, they have not heard that they could believe and live.

Obviously the standard of judgment for those who have not heard the message of the Bible is a truly thorny issue, one which Christians have discussed for ages. No short answer to this question is going to be fully satisfactory. However, we can discuss the particular aspects of this issue which are brought up in this verse.

First, Paul’s purpose in writing this verse is not to discuss the issue of the judgment on pagans. He is writing to the church in Rome in order to address the issue in his teaching which caused the most controversy, his insistence that both Jews and Gentiles could come to God on the same basis, that of the grace of Jesus. At this point in his argument he is pointing out that Jews who hear and understand the law but do not actually obey it are under the judgment of God. Jewish religious practice will not make one any better off before God if one lives sinfully. Romans 2:13 states, “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.”

This was an important point for Paul to make. The Jews assumed that the pagans were under God’s judgment, for they did not observe the commands of God as stated in the law. Paul is arguing that Jews who did not obey all of the law (as none of them could hope to) were also under the judgment of God. Both were equally in need of salvation through Jesus, and thus the Jews’ Judaism did not give them any advantage in this respect (later, in chapters 9–11, he will mention some advantages Jews do have). The outcome of this argument is that Gentiles who have come to believe in Jesus will not be any better off if they become Jewish Christians, for they are already in the same state of salvation that Jews have when they believe in Jesus.

Thus we conclude that Paul is not arguing that Gentiles will be judged on the basis of commands that they have never heard about. He is arguing that both Jews and Gentiles will be judged on the basis of their deeds, whether or not they have ever read the Mosaic law.

Second, Paul does know of a source of revelation for all Gentiles, as we read in Romans 2:14–16.

Paul’s point is that even the Gentile cultures he knew of taught the main virtues and

condemned the main vices mentioned in the Mosaic law. Roman and Greek law condemned murder and theft and adultery just as the Mosaic law did. Likewise care of one’s parents, loyalty to one’s fellow compatriots and other virtues were commended in both sets of law. Where did these pagans get such ideas, since it is quite unlikely that any of the ancient Greeks or Romans had read the Hebrew Scriptures? Paul’s answer is that such principles were written on their hearts. God had revealed such principles to them, making them the standard of their consciences. Of course this does not mean that every regulation in the Mosaic code can be found in all pagan legal institutions.

The point is that the main virtues of the Mosaic law can be found in most pagan legal traditions.

Thus, third, Paul is teaching that people will be judged according to the standards that they know, not according to the standards that they do not know. Now this does not mean that it is not important to know the Bible if one can know it. There are two reasons for this conclusion. On the one hand, the law showed one how to live well, so people suffer when they ignore it, whether or not they know about it. Ancient societies would have been a lot less violent and a lot better places to live had the Mosaic law been in force in them. In the end it does not matter whether one knows a cliff is there and purposefully jumps or does not know it is there and accidentally falls.

On the other hand, Paul will go on to point out that only the revelation found in Jesus can deal with the problem of sin, whether one is Jew or Gentile. The problem is not that the Gentiles are not living up to the Mosaic law that they are ignorant of. The problem is that they are not living up to their own laws which they know very well.

About 150 years later than Paul the church father Tertullian would point out as part of a defense of the faith that Christians were living the virtues that Greco-Roman pagans taught but did not live up to.

Thus, returning to our question: How fair is God? Paul’s answer would be, “Perfectly fair!” Pagans will not be judged on the basis of a law of which they are ignorant. They may suffer the natural consequences of their ignorance, but this is not the basis of guilt before God. Pagans will be judged on the basis of their obedience to the law that they find written in their own hearts, their violations of their own consciences. They will be judged on the basis of their obedience to what they know. And not only pagans will be judged on this basis, but also the Jews. They know the Mosaic law, so they will be judged, not on their knowledge, but on their obedience.

Naturally, there is an extension of this principle for the readers of this volume. God is also fair toward us. We will not be judged on the basis of how much Bible we know or how many theological exams we can pass. The orthodoxy of our minds will not excuse us. We will be judged on how much of that Bible which we know we actually obey.

Indeed, if we ignore the rich knowledge that we have, a pagan who obeys the little knowledge that he or she has may be better off than we.

See also comment on john 14:6; acts 4:12.

4:9–12 Is the Church Israel?

See comment on galatians 6:16.

5:3 Rejoice in Suffering?

See comment on james 1:2.

5:9–10 Salvation: Past, Present or Future?

See comment on 1 peter 1:9.

5:12 One Man’s Sin Means My Death?

Why should the sin of the first human being become the downfall of the entire race?

Why should all subsequent human beings stand under God’s judgment against a basic sinfulness for which none of us is ultimately responsible? How, in the face of such claims, are we to believe that God is just?

This text has provided the basis for commonly held doctrines about the nature of the human predicament. Many of the questions and problems that arise from it are in fact the result of improper interpretations or misunderstandings of the text itself.

The word sin (and its synonym, trespass) is the key word in Romans 5:12, just as it is in Paul’s description of the human condition in the first three chapters of this epistle.

How are we to understand what Paul means by that term? What is his understanding of the origin of the human situation which he describes with this term?

Paul’s understanding of human sinfulness is expressed in two phrases: (1) “they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God” (Rom 1:28) and (2) “you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God” (2:17). Sin is seen as refusal to accept our creatureliness, to acknowledge our dependence on our Maker, to recognize our limitations. “We are sinners” does not mean, primarily, that we have moral problems, but that in the deepest and final sense we are severed from relationship with God because of refusal or bragging.

Sin is not a genetic defect. The idea that sin is passed on genetically and thereby becomes the property of each individual through heredity ultimately led to a low view of sex. Sex came to be seen as the prime locus of human sinfulness—tolerated for the purpose of procreation, but not celebrated as a part of God’s economy for human wholeness and fulfillment.

Nor is sin a perverted inner nature. The problem with this understanding of sin is that it divides the individual into a number of separate boxes. It arises from the idea that the Fall resulted in the perversion of one essential part of ourselves. A number of candidates for this part have been proposed. For some, the perverted part is the will.

For others, it is the emotions or passions. For still others, it is reason. The pervasive mood of anti-intellectualism in some Christian circles is traceable to such an understanding. Since the mind was affected by the Fall, our reasoning capacity is perverted and depraved and the quest of the mind cannot be trusted. But such a view does not do justice to all the biblical data. As total persons we are fallen and stand under the judgment of God. Both our heads and hearts stand under the signature of death. Both are dust.

From the biblical point of view, the term sin designates a particular kind of relationship

between the creature and the Creator. And a relationship cannot be inherited; it can only be established or destroyed, affirmed or denied. Sin is thus a relational reality.

We are sinners insofar as we are unrelated to God. The questions raised by that statement are: Why are we that? Why is that our condition? Why do we find ourselves in such a dilemma? Paul’s answer to such questions is found in Romans 5:12–13.

This text has traditionally been seen as the biblical foundation for the Christian doctrine of original sin: “We all stand under the Fall of first man; that is why we are in the mess we are in!” But this view is inadequate. For Paul does not say that we sin because Adam sinned. He does not say that we die because Adam sinned. What he does say is this: Sin (alienation from God) entered the stage of history in the first man’s rebellion (“sin entered the world through one man”). The result of that separation is disintegration and death. But the universal penetration of that condition is due to the fact that all persons have sinned; all persons have become revolutionaries against God (“because all sinned”).

There is a two-sided perspective here in Paul that must be taken seriously if we wish to understand him adequately. On the one side of this dual perspective is the Hebrew idea of human solidarity, the recognition that each individual shares in a common humanity.

On the other side is the recognition of individual responsibility. By virtue of the former, we are in bondage; by virtue of the latter, we become responsible for participation in that bondage.

Human solidarity. Paul was heir to a tradition concerning the human condition that was deeply rooted in Jewish beliefs. That tradition recognized the intimate interdependence of individuals and the effect that such solidarity could have, both positively and negatively. The Old Testament concept that the sins of parents would have their effect down through several generations reflects the Hebrew idea of corporate solidarity. The immediate background for Paul’s statements concerning the relation between first man and the rest of humankind (Rom 5:12–21) can be clearly seen in a Jewish work of the first century a.d.:

[Adam] transgressed. … Thou didst appoint death for him and for his descendants. …

For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent. (2

Esdras 3:7, 21–22)

O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants. (2 Esdras 7:118) Paul clearly reflects this Jewish understanding in Romans 5:12–13. Adam, the typical representative and first human being, yields to the temptation to determine his own existence and his own destiny (that is, he sins). The result of that self-determination is death. Death is the condition of separateness, since the creature apart from the Creator does not have life. Physical death is clearly a part of this picture in the Hebrew-Pauline understanding. Separation from the source of life results in decay and disintegration.

But both for the Old Testament and for Paul, death is also an existential reality, a real condition of life. Thus Ezekiel receives a vision of “dry bones” that are representative of the failure of Israel to be and remain God’s people (Ezek 37). Hosea can speak of

the resurrection of Israel from the grave of its national downfall (Hos 6:2). And Paul can speak of Christians as those “who have been brought from death to life” (Rom 6:13). The uniform affirmation of this biblical tradition is that there exists a mysterious relationship between human self-determination and death and between the first man’s self-determination and our own death. We belong to one another, and the condition of one has inevitable consequences for others.

Sociological and psychological studies have confirmed that scriptural understanding of human solidarity. We have been shown how heredity, upbringing and environment play major roles in the formation of our personalities. I am, to a large degree, the product of my world. What I am in the present is a continuation of all that I have assumed—

consciously and unconsciously—from my past. Thus the child raised in an environment with violent models is more likely to be involved in violent behavior than those not raised with such models. The child of psychologically disturbed parents is more likely to become neurotic than the child of mentally healthy parents. The child who grows up in a broken home is less likely to become a whole, healthy person than one raised in a home with genuine love and caring from both parents in a consistent and stable relationship.

All of us are born into a human community that is overshadowed by the cumulative weight of human sinfulness, oppressive structures, prejudices and injustices. We are, all of us, more or less affected by the shadows that these clouds cast over our motives and orientations, our attitudes and priorities.

Individual Responsibility. In Romans 5:12–21, Paul not only reflects Jewish religious thought that we share a common humanity and that we are affected by that interdependence, but also reflects the Jewish belief that as individuals we are responsible and held accountable for the way we relate to that common humanity.

At the time of Ezekiel a protest was raised against the ancient Hebrew idea that the sins of parents will be visited upon the children and that the children will be held accountable for their parents’ transgressions. In Ezekiel 18 the prophet speaks the decisive word of God for individual responsibility:

Yet you ask, “Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?” Since the son has done what is just and right, … he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father. (Ezek 18:19–20) This concept of individual responsibility made itself increasingly felt and is clearly enunciated in Jewish writings close to the time of Paul. In the Wisdom of Solomon, which dates from the first century b.c., the author discusses the presence of evil in the world in clear allusion to Genesis 2:

Do not invite death by the error of your life, nor bring on destruction by the works of your hands; because God did not make death. … But ungodly men by their words and deeds summoned death. (1:12–13, 16 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) The parallel between this understanding of individual responsibility and Paul’s statement in Romans 5:12 is unmistakable. The same idea is voiced in a Jewish book of the first century a.d., the Apocalypse of Baruch:

Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, But each of us has been the Adam of his own soul. (2 Baruch 54:19)

Paul also affirms that each person continues the rebellion and self-determination of Adam in his or her own life. It is in that sense that each of us becomes a part of that fateful history that stands under the signature of death. Each individual participates in the Adamic humanity and becomes accountable for that participation. Death marches across the pages of human history because humans in their own individuality have sinned. They do what Adam did. And the attempt to determine our own existence, however that may work itself out in everyday living, leads to separation from God.

Paul, in this text, affirms both parts of Jewish teaching about the origin and nature of sin: we stand in mysterious solidarity with Adam (Eve and Adam) in sin; we are also individually responsible. There is a sense in which we are determined; there is another sense in which we are absolutely free. But since we are both, neither the one nor the other is the final word.

This Pauline understanding of sin as dynamic, relational reality leads directly to what is his final word; namely, that this paradoxical reality of our bondage to, and freedom from, sin is overcome in a new relationship—one with Jesus Christ. Through that relationship, we are reconciled to God, and in Christ we become members of a new humanity.

5:20 The Law Increases Sin?

On first reading, Romans 5:20 seems to suggest that the purpose of the law of God, given to Moses for the people of Israel, was to increase human sinfulness. But is it possible that the God revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ deliberately acted in such a way that sin increased? Doesn’t the revelation of God, from beginning to end of redemptive history as recorded in the Bible, tell about a God who seeks to bring his lost and fallen creation back into restored relationship with himself?

In order to hear Paul accurately, the context of this passage needs to be considered, as well as several other statements about the purpose of the law.

In Romans 5:12–21 Paul presents the contrast between the devastating consequences of human sinfulness and the magnificence of God’s gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Sin entered the human sphere through Adam’s decision to reject God’s purposes, and it gained universal dominance through continuing human disobedience (Rom 5:12).

Having established this, Paul recognizes immediately that though sin has been here from the start, the law was given much later (Rom 5:13). The point is this: Even though individuals could not be held accountable for a standard that did not yet exist, they are part of a humanity alienated from God and his good purposes (Rom 5:13–14).

Within this understanding of the corporate solidarity of human sin and individual responsibility, Romans 5:20 must be understood. “The law was added so that the trespass might increase” cannot mean that God intended to increase sin. Paul has already shown both sin and its consequence, death, to be a universal reality. It cannot increase beyond this. What sin can be greater than that which separates the whole creation from its Creator?

Thus the meaning of the passage must be that the law was given to “increase the awareness, the consciousness, of sin.” Its destructive, devastating nature is revealed for what it really is when the good intentions of God, expressed in the law, are violated.

Throughout the Old Testament, and in rabbinic interpretations of the narratives that tell of the giving of the law to Israel, it is clear that the law was actually understood as a gift from God. Paul shared this view (see Rom 7:10). But in disobeying the law humankind revealed the magnitude of its brokenness.

This understanding of Romans 5:20 is confirmed in several similar statements made by Paul elsewhere. In Romans 3:20 he says that “through the law we become conscious of sin.” In Romans 7:7–8 he clearly exonerates the law. It is not the law that leads to sin.

Rather, it simply shows what sin looks like and how it expresses itself: “I would not have known what sin was except through the law.” Finally, in Galatians 3:19, Paul asks the question “What, then, was the purpose of the law?” and then supplies the answer:

“It was added because of transgressions.”

When all of these insights are taken together, it becomes clear that “increasing sin”

does not refer to the accumulation of sins or to greater sins (as opposed to lesser sins).

Rather, in light of both the law and God’s grace in Christ (Rom 5:20–21), human sin is exposed and revealed to our consciousness in all its magnitude.

See also comment on ezekiel 20:25; matthew 5:17–20; romans 10:4.

6:2, 7 Dead to Sin?

The basic dilemma expressed in this question and answer is the relationship between our new life in Christ—a life freed from sin—and our actual day-to-day living, where sin in fact is all too often present. In order to grasp Paul in this matter, we must first attempt to understand his language about the nature of the believer’s relationship to Christ.

The theme of Romans 6 is the contrast between an existence characterized by death and one characterized by life. The former is in view when Christians permit their new life in Christ to be infiltrated by the forces of sin, by their former life “in Adam.” The latter is in view when Christians increasingly yield to the claims that Christ has upon them.

The way of belonging to the new humanity, established in Christ, is expressed by Paul in very mystical language. He speaks of believers as those who have been “crucified”

and “buried” with Christ; as having “died” and been “raised” with him. These phrases suggest an intense union between the believer and Christ that we, who have been thoroughly conditioned by rationalistic, scientific and technological thinking, have difficulty grasping. Perhaps Eastern mysticism and various cults with their meditation and inwardness prove so attractive because our civilized, acculturated form of Christianity fails to provide people with a sense of the mysterious, a sense of the

“otherness” of the divine.

Paul’s idea of being in Christ, or being united with Christ, has often been referred to as

“Pauline mysticism,” where “mysticism” designates a particularly intense relationship between the human and the divine. What was Paul’s understanding of the nature of the

mystical relationship between the believer and the Lord?

In Romans 6:1–10, Paul tells us that entrance into the new humanity is by means of an intense union with Christ that he presents by use of baptismal imagery of immersion: going into the waters of baptism and emerging from them symbolizes one’s dying and rising with Christ. Further, the way of belonging to the new humanity is expressed in two ways:

1. By way of negation: we are dead to sin (Rom 6:2), no longer enslaved by sin (Rom 6:6), freed from sin (Rom 6:7) because the old self was crucified (Rom 6:6).

2. By way of affirmation: there is newness of life (Rom 6:4), union with Christ (Rom 6:5) and life with him (Rom 6:8) because a new self emerged in our being raised with him (Rom 6:4).

Now in these images what is extremely interesting, as well as puzzling, is that Paul presents them as statements of both fact and possibility. In the Greek language the indicative mood is employed to make factual assertions. In the context of this passage, Paul uses the indicative mood to assert without equivocation the fact that believers are dead to sin, freed from sin, crucified with Christ and so forth. Side by side with these assertions, Paul uses the subjunctive mood, which in Greek is used to express possibility, to express the hope that believers, as a result of being crucified and risen with Christ, might no longer be enslaved by sin (Rom 6:6) and might walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4).

There is a real tension between the affirmation that we died to sin and are therefore free from its bondage, and the assertion that such freedom is always and only present as a possibility that must be actualized.

How are we to understand this paradoxical juxtaposition of both fact and possibility?

Perhaps another look at the baptismal imagery can help us, since Paul clearly associates baptism with the death and resurrection of Christ and with our dying to sin and rising to newness of life.

Baptism has been understood in the various Christian traditions as sacramental or mystical-spiritual or symbolic. In the first, the event is seen as actually mediating the saving qualities of the death and resurrection of Christ. In the second, the event is understood to signal the real presence of the crucified and risen Christ and an inner, spiritual union between Christ and the baptized person. In the third, the event is seen as an external symbol of movement from death to life, resulting from personal decision, commitment and faith.

This is not the place to argue the merits or demerits of these major positions and their variations. All of them have been supported with weighty theological arguments. But it may be possible to combine the deepest truths expressed in these various understandings in a way which also sheds new light on the paradox between fact and possibility in the life of the believer.

In Romans, Paul teaches that the work of God, accomplished in Christ and received by faith, leads to our justification or restored relationship with God. Since the sign of that transaction or restoration is baptism, it may be possible to view baptism in relational terms. In baptism we affirm that the life of the one who is baptized is henceforth to be determined by the fact that Christ died and was raised, that in relationship with him as

justified persons, we are delivered from the dominion of sin and freed for life.

The dynamic of such a relational understanding allows us to deal with the paradoxical nature of new life in Christ, expressed so strongly in the indicative “He who has died is freed from sin” (Rom 6:7 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) and the imperative

“Let not sin therefore reign … ” (Rom 6:12 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

New life, says Paul, has become both a reality and a possibility. How do we know that? Paul’s answer is given in Romans 6:9–10. Christ is alive; death no longer has dominion over him. Therefore, according to Romans 6:11, we affirm that in relationship with him we are dead to sin and alive to God. The following passage (Rom 6:12–23) then speaks about the practical outworking of this life-giving relationship.

Let me illustrate this point from ordinary human experience. The relationship between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage exists on two levels. There is that reality which exists on the basis of their mutual commitment in love and interdependence. On the second level is the practical incarnation of that reality, that commitment in concrete acts in everyday living.

Now it is clear that the relational reality, existing on the level of commitment, does not translate automatically or inevitably into the incarnational reality of everyday life. As C.

S. Lewis put it, “[There is the possibility] of disappointment … on the threshold of every human endeavor. … It occurs when lovers get married and begin the real task of learning to live together. … [There is] the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.”

In every relationship, there must constantly be movement from affirmation to incarnation, or else it is in difficulty. There are all sorts of threats and temptations that must be rejected again and again. To be married means that our lives are governed by the continual affirmation and incarnation of the commitments in that covenant. To be

“in Christ,” to be united with him in death and resurrection, means that our lives are determined by the continual affirmation and incarnation of the commitments in that relationship. In our relationship with Christ we are free from the bondage to sin; yet it is possible even for the Christian to “let sin reign” (Rom 6:12).

What does our life look like when affirmation is not translated into incarnation? When our relationship with Christ does not impinge on our everyday living, then other relationships will certainly fill this vacuum. If it is not the Lord Christ whose mind is being brought to bear upon our human relationships, then other lords will most certainly bring their minds to bear upon them.

Parents are models for their children, whether they like it or not. Our children sense very quickly who we are and what gods we serve. So the questions for me as a father are these: Do my children sense that my life is ruled by a higher kind of authority than tomorrow’s paycheck, the expectations of my neighbors, the priority of things over persons? Do they sense, as they observe my relations with their mother, that we share a real love, that we are truly there for one another, that we keep pace, in that relationship, with a “different drummer”? To the extent that they sense these things, my life is an incarnation of my relationship with Christ. To the extent that they do not observe these, my life is an incarnation of other relationships.

Christian life is lived between the indicative (“you are raised with Christ”) and the imperative (“let not sin reign in your mortal body”). Only by the empowering presence

of God’s Spirit can the imperative find realization in our living.

See also comment on 2 corinthians 5:17; philippians 2:12–13; 1 john 3:6, 9.

7:4 Freed from the Law?

See comment on romans 10:4.

7:14–19 A Slave to Sin?

On plain reading, what we have in this text is the candid confession of a basic split within the person, of an inner division that leads to utter weakness. Paul’s final word about this condition is in Romans 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

If this passage and the verses that surround it are a description of what the Christian life is all about, then they stand in stark contrast to the joy and freedom and newness Paul describes in Romans 5, 6 and 8. Indeed, it would seem that the “good news” of the gospel, expressed with such exuberance in Romans 5:1 and 11, has become the

“bad news.” For how can Paul say, in Romans 6:6, that “our old self was crucified with him” so that “we should no longer be slaves to sin,” and then go on to say, in Romans 7:25, that “in the sinful nature [I am] a slave to the law of sin”?

Yet, despite these difficulties, the most common understanding of this text is that Paul is here speaking about an internal tension between the Christian’s higher and lower selves. Some have even used this text as a biblical warrant for sinful behavior, as a cop-out from Christian responsibility.

As so often, it is important that both the immediate and the wider context of this text be grasped if we are properly to understand Paul’s meaning. When we do that, it becomes difficult to maintain the usual understanding of the text.

Paul’s discussion of justification on the basis of God’s work in Christ (Rom 1–6) shows that the whole person is reconciled to God—body, soul and spirit. Justification does not create a new moral or spiritual core within us which then has to fight it out with the rest of our being, our “baser instincts,” our “flesh” with its passions and desires. That idea rests on both a misunderstanding of certain words Paul uses and an inadequate hearing of Paul’s intention, revealed in the structure of his argument.

The troublesome word in Romans 7:5–25 is flesh, a word used several times in association with the dominion of sin and death (Rom 7:5, 18, 25). It is the contrast between “flesh” and the “I” with its higher aspirations which is largely responsible for the view that Romans 7 talks about a divided self in which constant warfare is raging.

When Paul speaks about “being in the flesh” throughout his writings, he is not talking about our physical nature as such, about physical passions and desires, but about a way of life, an orientation of life, a life lived apart from God’s purposes for us. The Ephesians are told that they have been made alive, released from “the passions of [the]

flesh.” The passage then goes on to define “passions of [the] flesh” as “desires of body and mind” (Eph 2:1–3 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). This then defines the religious use of the term flesh, which for Paul included what in Greek thought was

understood as the highest part of the human being, the mind.

A similar use of flesh is found in Romans 8. In drawing a contrast between two ways of life, Paul speaks of one way as “liv[ing] according to the flesh,” “set[ting] the mind on the flesh,” “[being] in the flesh” (Rom 8:5–8 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version]

). Then he says, “But you are not in the flesh.” Obviously, flesh is used here not with any physical, biological connotations. Rather, the religious use of the word flesh makes it possible for Paul to say that there was a time when “we were living in the flesh”

(Rom 7:5 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) with the full recognition that Christians continue to be physical creatures.

When Paul, therefore, contrasts a “fleshly” with a “spiritual” way of living, he is not speaking about two distinct parts of the total self, but about two possible life-orientations of that total self. In the contrast between the “I” and “my flesh” (7:18

RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), the “I” represents the total self insofar as it affirms the good, the will of God as expressed in the law; “my flesh” represents the total self insofar as it is powerless, dominated by sin, unrelated to God.

Beside these considerations of Paul’s terminology, the structure of the argument supports the thesis that Romans 7:7–25 is not a description of “life in Christ.” In Romans 7:5–6, Paul contrasts the former life (“while we were living in the flesh”) with the new life (“but now” RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). These verses serve as topical sentences for what follows: Romans 7:7–25 provides the interpretation of 7:5, while Romans 8 interprets 7:6. The former describes existence unto death; the latter, existence unto life.

Let us briefly trace the argument in Romans 7:7–25. Since the law exposes our sinfulness, is the law therefore sin? By no means! For the law is holy and spiritual, just and good (Rom 7:7–14). The reason we are in bondage to sin is because we are

“fleshly” (Rom 7:14 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] —remember the discussion above about this term). Now Paul goes on in Romans 7:15–24 to explain what it means to be “fleshly, sold under sin.” It means that we fail to accomplish God’s will, even though we acknowledge the goodness of God’s law, even though we intend to live our lives accordingly (Rom 7:15–16). The self is so thoroughly in bondage to sin that one can indeed speak of a life in which the “I,” which acknowledges God’s law, is not in control (Rom 7:17–23). The result of such bondage is “wretchedness”

(Rom 7:24). But now there is a new way: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we are freed from this desperate condition in which, though we serve the law of God with our mind, our concrete, actual living is “fleshly,” dominated by sin (Rom 7:25 RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] ). In the next verse (Rom 8:1), Paul begins the description of this new life in Christ, this new life of the Spirit.

What Paul has given us is a description of the ultimate futility of life lived in external conformity to law, even though that law is God’s law. Clearly, Paul’s encounter with Christ caused him to see his former life “under the law” as bondage from this new vantage point. Now, he wants his readers in Rome, as well as us, to understand that legalistic religion leads to death. Only the grace of God revealed and enacted in Jesus sets us free from bondage to sin to experience the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:21 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

8:28 All Things for Good?

The apparent discrepancy between this profound affirmation of faith and our human experience makes Romans 8:28 one of the difficult sayings of Paul. For how can we see the hand of God at work in the killing of a young child by a drunken driver? Where are God’s loving purposes revealed in the agony of a cancer victim’s last weeks? What measure of good can be discerned in the massacre of a Christian congregation by guerrillas? All these kinds of experiences and events seem to contradict Paul’s affirmation. It is therefore imperative that we understand what it is that Paul is saying and how, in light of his own experience, he was able to say it.

Apart from anything else which might be said about this text, it is clear from the context that it expresses Paul’s deep faith and trust in the loving purposes of God. We must remember that this affirmation is not the result of abstract rationalization or theologizing. It is, furthermore, not a word that emerges from the lips of one whose life coasted along in serenity, uninterrupted by the stresses and strains, the pains and perplexities, the turmoil and tragedies that most human beings experience to one degree or another.

No, this word of confidence and hope is written by one who, according to his own testimony in an earlier correspondence, was “under great pressure” and “despaired even of life” (2 Cor 1:8); he was “hard pressed on every side” and “perplexed,”

“persecuted” and “struck down” (2 Cor 4:8–9); he experienced “beatings,”

“imprisonments,” “riots” and “hunger” (2 Cor 6:4–5). It seems clear that we have in Romans 8:28 no “armchair theory,” but a profound affirmation of faith that emerges out of experiences which, on the surface at least, would not seem to support that affirmation.

What then is the “good” toward which God works? I believe we can only discover that when we take the whole context of the passage seriously. In Romans 8:1–18, Paul shows that Christians are people who are “in Christ” (Rom 8:1), whose existence is determined and empowered by the Spirit of Christ who dwells within (Rom 8:9–11).

On the basis of this reality, we are “children of God” and “heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:16–17 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). We are therefore no longer in bondage to “the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).

But to be free from the enslaving realities of sin and death does not mean that we can live our lives unaffected by the continuing presence of sin and death in this world. And it is precisely this dual reality of “freedom from” as well as “continuing experience of”

that Paul deals with in the second part of the chapter.

Paul concludes his description of “life in Christ” or “life in the Spirit” by affirming in Romans 8:17 that this new life is lived in the tension between present suffering and final glorification. That is to say, freedom from bondage to sin and death does not mean the absence of either the reality of sin and death or the experience of this reality in the present.

The present reality of “peace with God” and “justification” (Rom 5:1) is but the first installment of God’s gracious, redemptive action in Christ. There is much more yet to come. The “not-yet” dimension is already anticipated in Romans 5: beyond the present experience of being at “peace with God,” there is the “hope of [sharing] the glory of God” (Rom 5:2) and the expectation of being “saved through his life” in the final judgment (Rom 5:9–10). This “not-yet” aspect of God’s redemptive purpose is taken

up again: in Romans 8:11 Paul points to the future resurrection of our “mortal bodies,”

which in Romans 8:17 he refers to as our “glorification.” Then he goes on to show

“our present sufferings” need to be placed in proper perspective in light of “the glory that will be revealed” (Rom 8:18).

In these verses our experiences, which do not seem “good” at all, are placed in the context of the totality of God’s creation, which “in eager expectation” (Rom 8:19) and which is presently “subjected to frustration” (Rom 8:20) and in “bondage to decay”

(Rom 8:21). It is a creation which “has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth”

(Rom 8:22) just as we human beings “groan” inwardly (Rom 8:22). And just as the total creation “will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21), so we can anticipate “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23).

The proper attitude for our living between the first installment of our redemption and its final culmination is hope and patience (Rom 8:24–25). Our present situation, says Paul, is a situation of “weakness” (Rom 8:26). If it were not so, patience and hope would not be necessary. Yet it is precisely in the midst of our weakness that the Spirit of God is present and working (Rom 8:26–27).

Thus Romans 8:28 must be seen within the context of the redemptive purposes of God. In all things—in our suffering, groaning, hoping, waiting; in “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword” (Rom 8:35)—in all things God is working “for the good of those who love him.” That “good” is the final and complete realization of God’s love for creation, incarnated in Christ, from which nothing can separate us (Rom 8:39).

“In all these things,” Paul is convinced, we can be “more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37). Not on the basis of our efforts, nor on the basis of blind faith, nor through a kind of stoic resignation, but rather “through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37) and called us “according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). That good and loving purpose finds its completion when the whole creation, including our bodies, is freed from bondage to decay.

Prior to this final act in God’s redemptive work, it is God’s love in Christ that sustains us and empowers us—even in the midst of our experiences of sin and death—“to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom 8:29). God works in all things toward that good purpose. But only “those who love him” know that, because they are participants

“with him” in the outworking of that purpose.

8:29 Predestination?

Our verse appears to say that God predestined some people. Does this mean that God predestined who will be saved? Does it then also mean that he predestined who will go to hell?

The passage in question comes in Paul’s letter to the Romans that deals with the relationship of Jewish and Gentile believers. The Jews viewed themselves as the elect of God, and they viewed Gentiles as those who could not possibly be chosen of God unless they became Jews (that is, became proselytes). Because of that attitude, some Jewish Christians argued that Gentile Christians needed to become Jews and keep the

law if they really wanted to be saved, while others felt that while salvation was not at stake, without keeping the law one could not be fully pleasing to God. Paul opposes this teaching in Romans. In the first section of the book he has argued that Jews are just as lost as Gentiles, for it is not having the law that blesses one, but living the law.

His main points are that both Jews and Gentiles needed Jesus’ death and that if one is committed to Jesus he has all of God’s salvation. Now in Romans 6–8 he is making three further points: (1) dispensing with the Mosaic law does not lead to more sinful living, for in Christ Christians die to sin as well as to the law, (2) the Mosaic law was not a solution for sin anyway, for it resulted in transforming innocent wrong into conscious sin, and (3) the Holy Spirit received through Christ is the solution to human sin, for while we have to cooperate with him, he is the one who makes us children of God. In the climax of his argument in Romans 9–11, Paul will conclude by showing the purpose of the Jewish nation and its relationship to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. We are, then, in the middle of these three sections.

In the first part of chapter 8 Paul has discussed the role of the Spirit in overcoming sin in Christians, ending with a description of the believer’s exalted status in Christ: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Rom 8:16–17) As is often the case in Paul’s writing, he points not only to believers’ exalted status, but also to their present reality of suffering. Identification with Christ is not simply identification with the exalted Christ, but also with the suffering Christ. Since living Christians have not yet died, they tend to experience more of the suffering than the exaltation. This observation leads into a meditation on the meaning of Christian suffering (Rom 8:18–25) and how the Spirit helps believers in the middle of their suffering (Rom 8:26–27).

Now we come to Paul’s point, made in part in this verse. Despite the present reality of suffering (although God through his Spirit is in it with us), God will work history for good for everyone who loves God. These “who love God” are those who are the

“called,” for it is not just the Jewish people who are called, but everyone who hears and responds to the gospel. Christians are not simply called and then dropped or forgotten about, but called in accordance with God’s purpose, which is God’s plan in history. Paul has already referred to this grand purpose in Romans 8:18–25: God has a future hope for Christians, and not only for Christians, but also for the whole of the creation. However painful the present may be, it is part of God’s grand plan to redeem human beings from sin, to spread the gospel throughout the earth and to bring his redemption to those human beings who turn to him and to the creation itself.

Another way of putting this is that those whom God foreknew he predestined to be like his Son. The idea of knowing a person in Hebraic thought (in which Paul was immersed) is that of coming into relationship with a person (Gen 18:19; Ps 1:6; Jer 1:3; Hos 13:5; Amos 3:2; or, negatively, Mt 7:23). Now we find out that it is not simply the physical children of Abraham with whom God has come into a relationship, but all of those who love God. Therefore the idea of “foreknew” is to come into a relationship with someone before some point in time. This “coming-into-relationship-before” can mean one of two things: (1) God chose this relationship with believers before they ever existed, for he has worked through the whole course of history for the

salvation of such people and (2) God chose them as a group before they existed, for he also formed them and sent the gospel to them. Yet, whichever of the two is the focus of Paul’s concern, it is not only that God chose them, but that he also has a plan for them, which is to be like his Son. Unfortunately for their comfort, this includes not only the glory of his Son, but also the sufferings of his Son. Thus Christians’ present sufferings for Jesus have a purpose: to make them like Jesus. In the next verse Paul will mention other benefits: how those who love God were called through the gospel, justified through the death of Christ and are certainly to be glorified when Christ returns.

Thus Paul is not answering our question about predestination at all. He is writing in a book addressed to the church in Rome. This means the letter is addressed to people who were already Christians. He is in the middle of a section where he has been talking about the sufferings of the Christian life. Now he is telling them the purpose of these sufferings. However unpleasant they may be (and given what non-Christians thought about Christians in the culture, they may have been very unpleasant indeed), these sufferings do not mean that God has forgotten them. “On the contrary,” Paul says,

“when you were called in the gospel, it was part of a plan of God. That plan was not to leave you as you were. No, God, according to his plan, entered into relationship with you in order to make you like Jesus. Part of that, of course, is suffering, but the other part is glory. So when the plan is complete you will stand before God fully justified and gloried, in the very image of his Son.” That is why in Romans 8:31–39 we get the exclamations of praise to God. Christians have not fallen out of his hand; even when they do not see him, he is bringing them on toward his glorious purpose for them.

So what is God saying about predestination? All those who love God are predestined.

God has a previously thought-out plan for them. And that plan is to make them like Jesus. In this security every lover of God can rest, even if their present life seems full of pain and chaos.

9:13–15 Is God Unjust?

Is God fair? Does he treat us unjustly? These natural human questions are only magnified when we read passages like “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom 9:13).

Yet Paul himself wrestled with precisely this question as he reflected on Judaism’s rejection of Christ in light of Old Testament passages. What these Old Testament passages, appealed to by Paul, seem to reveal is a sovereign arbitrariness in God’s dealing with human beings. Statements like “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” provoke from us the question: But why? What did they do to deserve either God’s love or his hate? Our sense regarding some injustice here increases when we read in 9:11 that decisions about Jacob and Esau were made “before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad.”

The “hardness” of this text arises at least in part both from assumptions which we tend to bring to it and from our neglect regarding the flow and content of the surrounding text.

Paul anticipates the reader’s response to the apparent injustice of God. In words reminiscent of those put to Job (Job 9:12; 40:2), he begins by questioning the appropriateness of even raising such questions (Rom 9:20). Then he drives home the point by citing Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9: “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,

‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Rom 9:20–21).

Paul’s point is, of course, that the question “Is God unjust?” arises from our human propensity to measure and critique God’s ways on our terms. To even raise the question of unfairness assumes that we know what fairness in its final, absolute sense looks like. That is the creature’s presumptuousness. Since we do not know the mind of God nor can we fathom his ways (Rom 11:33–34), we are not in a very good position to judge God’s purposes. We see and experience only pieces; we see but poor reflections in a mirror and know only partially (1 Cor 13:12); we perceive God’s revelation in the context of our earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7). Only God sees the whole, and from that perspective what may seem “unjust” to us will finally be revealed as God’s saving grace.

We bring another assumption to this text which skews our hearing of it in a particular direction. Because of certain inherited theological traditions, we tend to hear this text in terms of predestination and eternal destiny. This theological tradition holds that our eternal destiny has been predetermined. The inevitable question to such a view is the one which Paul’s hypothetical reader asks: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” (Rom 9:19).

This question has validity only if Paul is in fact concerned here with the matter of individuals’ eternal destiny. On close reading of the passage, however, it becomes clear that he is not speaking about salvation and eternal destiny, but about God’s calling of individuals and peoples to service, and God’s use of events and persons in the accomplishment of his redemptive purposes, namely the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles.

Let us attempt to hear Paul’s argument clearly. He begins his consideration of the fate of his own people by recalling all that God had done for them and given them (Rom 9:1–5). The purpose of Israel’s calling is to be a vehicle for the realization of “the promise” (Rom 9:4, 8–9)—the promise made to Abraham that through his descendants

“all peoples on earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:1–3). Paul saw this promise as finding fulfillment in Christ (see Gal 3:15–18), through whose death both Jew and Gentile would be brought into God’s family (Gal 3:28–29).

Yet the reality which Paul, and with him all Jewish Christians, faced was the rejection of Jesus by the people of Israel as a whole. Had God’s word failed? (Rom 9:6). In answering this question, Paul shows, by reciting Old Testament events, that God chooses ways and means for accomplishing his redemptive purposes, and that even the present rejection of the Messiah by Israel is used by God toward that end. Not all the children of Abraham are part of the line which leads to the Christ. Isaac, the son promised to Sarah, becomes the vehicle (Rom 9:6–9). Jacob not Esau, is used by God for moving toward the fulfillment of the promise (Rom 9:10–13). God’s choices have nothing to do with human merit or status or achievement (Rom 9:11–12). Isaac was not better than his brother Ishmael; Jacob not better than his brother Esau. In other words, they were not “more deserving.” In fact, on purely human terms, Jacob’s deception should have made him less deserving (Gen 25, 27).

At this point, Paul cites the prophetic word regarding Rebekah’s unborn twins: “The older will serve the younger” (Gen 25:23). This is not a statement so much of predestination as of prophetic foreknowledge. The historical record reveals that Edom frequently was dominated by Israel and forced to pay tribute (2 Sam 8:13; 1 Kings

11:14–22). For Paul, confirmation for this prophecy regarding the future of Jacob and Esau (and their offspring) is found in Malachi 1:2–3, which he quotes in Romans 9:13.

In the use of this word from Malachi about God’s love for Jacob and hate for Esau, two things are to be noted. First, it is the prophet’s concern to demonstrate God’s love for Israel (Jacob’s descendants), in order to go on to show that her unfaithfulness deserves God’s judgment. The Edomites (Mal 1:4) are the descendants of Esau, who stand in a relationship of enmity with Israel. According to Malachi 1:3–4, they have apparently suffered military defeat, and the prophet sees this as evidence of God’s judgment (1:4–5). Since God is using Israel to accomplish his purposes—despite her frequent rebellions—Edom’s enmity sets it squarely against the purposes of God.

The expression “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” must be understood in this historical context. In contrast with God’s obvious love for Israel, the situation of Edom could only be interpreted as evidence of God’s lesser regard for it. The strong expression

“Esau I hated” must be seen as a typical example of Eastern hyperbole, which expresses things in terms of extremes. Further, in the Hebrew language “to love” often means “to favor,” and “to hate” can mean “to favor or to love less.” Note, for example, that in Genesis 29:31, 33, the RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] renders the Hebrew word hate literally, while the NIV [NIV New International Version]

renders the word with “not loved.” That rendering recognizes, in light of Genesis 29:30, that Jacob loved Leah less than Rachel; he did not “hate” her. (See also Deut 21:15–17, where the Hebrew word for hated is rendered “not loved” in the NIV [NIV

New International Version] and “disliked” in the RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] .)

Neither in Malachi nor in Paul’s use of it is there then any warrant for the idea that God has determined in advance the eternal destinies of either the people of Israel or the people of Edom. The historical situations of the two nations, their “election” or

“rejection,” are but temporary evidences of God’s sovereign freedom with which he moves history toward his redemptive purposes. “God so loved the world” (Jn 3:16), including Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, Jew and Gentile.

This redemptive purpose is strongly underlined by Paul’s citation of Exodus 33:19 in Romans 9:15. God’s mercy and compassion are absolutely free and at his sovereign disposal. No one can earn them; no one deserves them. Even the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, to which Paul refers in Romans 9:17–18, is to be subsumed under the activity of God’s mercy and compassion for his broken creation. For its purpose is that God’s name “might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Rom 9:17). Thus, what from the limited vantage point of our human observation seems “unjust” is in fact only a misunderstanding of the mysterious workings of God’s mercy.

See also comment on malachi 1:2–3; romans 8:29; 9:18.

9:18 God Hardens Whom He Wants to Harden?

We have no trouble reading that God has mercy on whom he wishes. We like to think of God as a God of mercy. Yet it is quite troubling to hear that he hardens whom he wants to harden. Does that mean that some people do not have a chance and that the mercy of God is less than universal?

In order to understand this passage, we first have to understand the context. Paul is writing to the Romans defending his position that Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to become full Christians. That is, he is defending a Christianity that is free from the Jewish law insofar as it marked out people as Jews. At this point in the argument he has just answered the objection that such an approach would lead to immoral behavior (Rom 6–8). Now he is completing his argument by showing that there is a place in the heart of God for the Jewish people. In other words, he is arguing that Old Testament history is not simply a plan that did not work out or a way of producing Jesus, but instead has value in its own right.

Paul begins the chapter by asserting that he does care very much for Israel or the Jewish people (he returns to this theme in Rom 10:1). He cares so much that he would go to hell himself if by so doing he could save the Jewish people from hell. He then lists some of the good things that God has given the Jewish nation in the past. Having said this, he addresses a problem: do these facts imply that God’s plan has failed? His full explanation will take from Romans 9:6 to Romans 11:36. His main point is that the plan of God was to send the gospel to the Gentiles and thus stir Israel to jealousy, resulting in the salvation of Israel in the end. In the middle of this argument he makes it clear that he is talking about the Jews (or Israel) as a whole, not every individual within the nation, for on the individual level there are Jewish people (including himself) who have believed in Jesus.

Our verse comes in the first part of the argument. Paul is establishing the ability of God to work his plan, not only by getting people to cooperate with what he is doing, but also by getting them to oppose what he is doing. Paul’s point is that God is absolutely sovereign in his choices.

The Jewish people prided themselves in the fact that God had chosen Israel and had not chosen the Gentiles. Part of this theme is picked up in the argument in Romans 9:7–13. While Abraham had more than one son, God chose Isaac as the one through whom the promise would be passed down. Isaac also has more than one son, but God chose Jacob and not Esau. Any Jewish reader would nod affirmingly, especially if he or she had not read the opening verse (Rom 9:6): “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Paul’s reason for arguing this is not to prove that God could choose the Hebrew people for his purposes and reject others. All Jews knew this. Paul is pointing out that if this is the case, God can also choose some Jews and reject others. Paul is using the Jews’ own teaching against their national complacency.

The Jewish people also prided themselves on their adherence to the Mosaic law. Surely God would reward their careful observance with salvation; surely he would not select Gentiles for salvation when the Jews were so much more righteous. Paul argues that this is not the case. In the opening parts of the book he has argued that there is no one who is righteous, so no one has a claim on God’s salvation. Any salvation which people get is mercy and grace, not just deserts. Now in this chapter he goes out of his way to point out that God’s choice in the case of Isaac and Jacob was not based on their character. It was made before they developed their character. It does not help to argue that God knew what sort of people they would become, for that would be to deny what Paul is arguing. He is arguing that God simply chose. To underline this point he cites God’s words to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16: “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be

proclaimed in all the earth.” Pharaoh did not arise by chance or by his own power, but God had raised him up. Why would God raise up such an obstinate ruler? So that God’s power could be clearly seen when he brought about the exodus. Pharaoh’s hardening was part of God’s plan for God’s own purposes.

If we have any doubt about this interpretation, in the next section (Rom 9:19–24) Paul argues for the right of God to make anything that he wishes out of human beings. In Romans 9:24–33 he is making the point that God has chosen, but he has chosen Gentiles for salvation, not just Jews, nor have the Jews as a whole been chosen for salvation at the present time. The point is that God would have had just as much right to have chosen Pharaoh for salvation and the Jews to oppose him as otherwise. In fact, something like that has happened in the case of Jesus.

We should not act, however, as if this were Paul’s only word on predestination and the hardening of people. Here he is making a point about how God has worked with broad groups of people, the Jews as a whole and the Gentiles as a whole. He is also pointing out that Jewish prophets knew about this plan of God long before it took place. Yet Paul goes on to underline in the following chapter that all of this happened through human choices. God chose to make his salvation available, not on the basis of the Jewish law, but on the basis of the grace of Christ. This was proclaimed to Jew as well as Gentile, so God did not coerce the Jews into hardening themselves. Yet, as God predicted, this good news was largely rejected by the Jews and often accepted by the Gentiles.

So here are two sides of the same reality. On the one hand, people hear the gospel and reject it, just as Pharaoh heard the command of God through Moses and rejected it.

There is a true moral choice made by the individual in each case. On the other hand, the sovereign God tells us that he had raised up such a Pharaoh precisely so that he could make that choice. It is no surprise to God when Pharaoh chooses to oppose him, nor is it a surprise to God when many of the Jewish people reject the gospel.

So, does God harden some people? Paul’s answer is yes. Does God have mercy on everyone? Paul’s answer is no. Yet do people freely choose to reject God? Paul’s answer is also yes. And does God have mercy on everyone who believes the gospel?

Again Paul’s answer is yes. How do these two things fit together? Paul never tells us.

He knows on the one hand that God is the sovereign ruler of history, shaping it for his own purposes. There is no power that can resist God. He knows on the other hand that people make choices for or against the gospel and all who come to God are accepted by him. He never tries to explain how these two fit together.

The point he is making is that we must never presume on our status with God (“God, of course, will always choose people like us”) or be proud that we are chosen (“God must have seen something great in us”). Each attitude fails to recognize the sovereignty of God. Paul warns us that the Jewish nation fell into the first assumption and thus missed Jesus, and in chapter 11 he warns Gentile believers not to fall into the second assumption. Instead he counsels us to thankfulness, based on knowing that we are where we are, not because we deserved it, but because God chose to extend his mercy to people like us, a mercy that we did not deserve.

See also comment on exodus 9:12; romans 8:29.

9:22 Is God Wrathful?

See comment on romans 1:18.

10:4 The End of the Law?

Romans 10:4, though not the only place where Paul deals with the law, raises more strongly than any other the question of the place of the law and its continuing validity for the Christian. This radical word about Christ as the end of the law—and similar expressions in other letters of Paul—has been the object of intense discussion throughout the history of the church, even beginning as early as Paul’s missionary journeys themselves.

On the face of it, we are confronted with the affirmation that the law no longer determines our relationship with God. To the thinking of many, this has been a hard saying, which is open to the charge of antinomianism, the rejection of any and all laws and regulations, especially absolute norms, for the moral life.

Since the early church used the Jewish Scriptures as their Bible and included them in the canon together with the Gospels and other apostolic writings, the question of the relation between the law of God and Christian faith is an extremely important one.

In attempting to understand this text and its implications, we need to consider three things. First, Paul’s understanding and experience of the law; second, his Damascus road experience as encounter with the Messiah of Jewish expectation; third, his new understanding of the law on the basis of the Christ event. Before we consider these three matters as a background for interpreting this text, a few words about Paul’s use of the term law are in order.

Paul uses the term in both the figurative and the literal sense. When he speaks of

“another law at work in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind” (Rom 7:23) or “the law of the Spirit of life” (Rom 8:2), he is using the term figuratively to denote realities that are determinative for pagan or Christian life, like the Torah is determinative in the life of Israel. Apart from such usage, Paul only has the Mosaic law in view, that religious system with its cultic, ritualistic and moral obligations under which Israel lived its life since Moses. In this latter, literal sense, the term law in Romans 10:4 must be understood.

1. Paul’s understanding and experience of the law. For Paul—“a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee, … as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (Phil 3:5–

6)—the law was God’s law; it expressed God’s will and purposes for God’s people.

To obey the law was to be obedient to the will of God. “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Rom 7:12). It is “spiritual” (Rom 7:14) because it comes from God (Rom 7:22), and its intent is to lead human beings to real life (Rom 7:10).

As a rabbi, Paul knew very well that the law, as a gift of God’s grace, was a privilege to possess (Rom 3:1–2; 9:4). But he also knew that this gift contained within it accountability. To “know [God’s] will,” to “approve of what is superior,” to be

“instructed by the law” (Rom 2:17–18)—and therefore to qualify as “a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark” (Rom 2:19)—also meant that one was obligated to keep the law (Rom 2:17–24).

According to his own testimony, Paul believed that the keeping of the law was possible. With regard to its obligation, he was “faultless” (Phil 3:6). But that conviction was obliterated by his experience of Christ.

2. Paul’s encounter with Christ. Beginning with the Damascus road experience—

which Paul describes variously as that turning point where God “was pleased to reveal his Son in me” (Gal 1:16) or that event where “Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil 3:12)—Paul’s understanding of the place and function of the law underwent significant transformation. It had been his passionate commitment to the law and the resultant zeal to uphold and defend it which led him to persecute the early followers of Jesus. There can be no doubt that he believed deeply that he was carrying out the will of God. But his encounter with the risen Lord opened his eyes to see him as the Messiah of God. In his zeal for the law he had actually opposed the purposes of God. He had resisted the inbreaking of the messianic age (1 Cor 10:11) in the very act of trying to keep the law.

This realization takes on particular force when it is seen against the background of rabbinic views of history with which Paul was likely familiar. Within that tradition some rabbis held that human history was divided into three periods: (1) the period of

“chaos,” lasting from Adam to Moses, when the law had not been given; (2) the period of “Torah,” lasting from Moses till the Messiah, when the law would reign; (3) the period of the Messiah. Now regarding this last period there was considerable discussion among the rabbis about the place of the law. According to some, the Torah was expected to cease in the messianic age; others held that the Messiah would perfect the law by giving it a new interpretation or that he would promulgate a new Torah.

Though the dominant thrust of the rabbinic tradition was that Torah would continue in and through the messianic age, that it was eternally valid, there are also many who thought there would be modifications, that some teachings would cease to be applicable, that others would acquire a new relevance, that the sacrificial system and the festivals would cease, and that ceremonial distinctions between “clean” and

“unclean” would no longer hold. Thus, a rabbinic tradition which both affirmed the continuance of the law in the messianic age and recognized some form of cessation and/or modification forms the backdrop for Paul’s experience and new understanding.

The messianic age had dawned. The Torah could no longer be seen as before.

In addition to this rabbinic tradition, the attitude of Jesus himself to the law must have had some impact on Paul’s thinking. Though we cannot know to what extent Paul was informed about the precise content of Jesus’ teaching and actions, the general stance of Jesus with regard to the law was surely part of the traditions Paul received from his predecessors in the faith. And that stance contains elements which provide both continuity and discontinuity with common Jewish perceptions about the law.

According to Matthew 5:17, Jesus did not come to abolish the law. Throughout the couplets which follow (“You have heard that it was said, … but I tell you”) it is clear that Jesus affirms the eternal validity of God’s will as expressed in the law, but that he also drives his hearers to the deepest and most comprehensive meaning of that will by transcending traditional and often limiting interpretations of the law. As Messiah he provides authoritative interpretation.

Further, according to Matthew 5:17–18, the witness of the Gospels and the earliest Christian preaching, Jesus “fulfilled the law” in his life, death and resurrection. He is declared as the fulfillment of Scripture. In him, the purposes of God are accomplished.

This general conviction is undergirded by the authoritative, sovereign way in which Jesus deals with specific and limiting dimensions of the law and sets his mission on a level of significance above the law. Thus, laws of separation between clean and unclean, of ceremonial defilement, of sabbath observance are set aside in the pursuit of his ministry to sinners and ritually (ceremonially) “unclean” persons. “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,” he said (Mt 11:13; Lk 16:16), indicating that a new reality, the messianic kingship, had entered the scene and was replacing the old order (Mk 1:15).

With this background in focus, it is perhaps easier to grasp both the continuity and the discontinuity between Paul’s thinking about the law and that of his rabbinic contemporaries.

3. Paul’s new understanding of the law. Paul reflects acquaintance with the rabbinic discussion about the three periods of human history. But on the basis of his own experience of Christ and Jesus’ own stance toward the law, Paul intensifies and explicates particularly that strand of the tradition which envisaged either a cessation of the law or at least its transformation in the third or messianic period. He saw Jesus as

“abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations” (Eph 2:15).

Through him “we have been released from the law” which once “bound us” (Rom 7:6).

Serving “in the old way of the written code” (Rom 7:6) and seeking to establish his own righteousness (Rom 10:3) had only brought Paul into opposition to the very purpose of God rather than into peace with God. In Romans 7 he shows that the law as expression of God’s will remains; that it reveals, as ever, human sin and rebellion against God. But he also shows that the law is powerless to bring about obedience. It is an external norm; it does not provide the power with which to achieve the norm.

Therefore the attempt to achieve righteousness based on the law (Rom 10:5) invariably ends in the experience of failure. Paul’s summation of this experience is caught up in the words “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me?” (Rom 7:24).

His answer to that question is “Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25). Why? Because

“Christ is the end of the law.” The word “end” ( telos) can designate either the “goal,”

“outcome,” “purpose” toward which something is directed, or the “end,” “cessation.”

Many interpreters believe that both meanings are caught up in this text. For Paul, the law “was our custodian until Christ came” (Gal 3:24 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Its temporary function has now been accomplished; and Christ is therefore also the terminus, the cessation of the law.

But Paul is saying much more here than simply repeating the conviction of one aspect of his tradition and the witness of the early church that there is a cessation of the law in the messianic period. He qualifies the conviction that the Mosaic law has been completed and abrogated in Christ with the phrase “unto righteousness.” English translations have not served us well here, for they have generally blunted the connection between the statement “Christ is the end of the law” and the qualifying phrase “unto righteousness.”

The preposition unto expresses purpose or goal. Christ is not the end of the law in an absolute sense. He does not abolish the will of God as expressed in the law. Rather his coming signals its end with regard to the attainment of righteousness (that is, right relationship with God). He is the revelation of God’s righteousness (Rom 1:17). His life is an incarnation of God’s relation-restoring action, God’s way of setting us right

(Rom 10:3). Therefore, the law as a means of approach to God, as that which determines relationship with God, as that which was perceived in Paul’s Jewish tradition to lead to life on the basis of conformity, has been abolished.

A third phrase in this text adds a further qualifier to the assertion that Christ is the end of the law. Namely, he is the end of the law “for everyone who believes.” For it is only in the response of faith to Christ, in the humble submission to God’s righteousness (Rom 10:3) that the bondage of the law—consisting of its revelation of sin and its inability to help us beyond it—can come to its end.

See also comment on matthew 5:17–20; romans 5:20.

11:26 All Israel Will Be Saved?

Does this mean every single Jew, or Israel as a national entity? Didn’t Judaism on the whole reject Christ and thus refuse God’s saving act? How then can “all Israel” be saved? And didn’t Jesus, before Paul, say that the kingdom of God would be taken away from the Jewish people and given to a new people (Mt 21:43)?

Romans 11:26 has been at the heart of much Christian reflection about eschatology or doctrines about end times. I remember well the interpretation given this text by one of my college teachers. According to his eschatological timeline, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, which ended an almost two-thousand-year period without nationhood, inaugurated the final days of “the time of the Gentiles,” namely that period when the land of Israel was occupied by Gentiles. (Compare Lk 21:24, where Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and a subsequent period of its being “trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”)

But our teacher said there was one piece of the eschatological puzzle still missing: the Old City of Jerusalem was still being held by the Arabs. A barbed-wire fence separated Jews from their ancient city, including the temple mount. When that fence comes down and Israel regains control over the Old City, so our teacher confidently predicted, Jerusalem will no longer be “trodden down by the Gentiles.” Thus “the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled,” and the conversion of Israel to its Messiah will be inaugurated. Many of us who took this and other very specific eschatological views seriously waited expectantly when, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the fence did come down and Israel regained control over its ancient city. Over twenty years have passed, but Israel has remained a thoroughly secular state.

This rather recent historical experience illustrates the precarious nature of all eschatological theories which tie particular biblical texts to very specific historical events. It also reveals the difficulty of understanding the precise meaning of Paul’s words “all Israel will be saved.” In order to gain a clearer perspective on this matter, we will examine Paul’s extended discussion with regard to Israel in Romans 9–11 with particular focus on the immediate context of Romans 11:11–27.

After showing that God’s redemptive action in and through Christ (Rom 1–4) has brought freedom from condemnation (Rom 5), sin (Rom 6), law (Rom 7) and death (Rom 8), Paul brings this part of his letter to a climax with a magnificent description of God’s love in Christ from which nothing can separate us. This glorious doxology is abruptly overshadowed in Romans 9:1–2 by an expression of Paul’s deep pain over the

fact that Israel, the people of God, had rejected their Messiah.

The question of Israel’s fate, in light of its rejection of the early Christian proclamation that Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic hope, was very much in the consciousness of Jewish followers of the risen Christ. A sense of perplexity and incredulity regarding Jewish unbelief is reflected throughout the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels. But for Paul, it must have been particularly intense. Had not he, a leader of the opposition to this messianic faith, been grasped from the darkness of unbelief to the light and freedom of faith in Christ? But beyond this personal dimension, were not his people those who had been the objects of God’s gracious activity through the calling of father Abraham, the creation of a nation, the deliverance of the exodus, the giving of law and covenant? Had not they been the objects of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness from which “nothing can separate,” as he had just confessed in Romans 8:35? If the word of God does not fail (Rom 9:6), why is Israel stuck in the failure of disobedience? That is the agonizing question which Paul addresses in Romans 9–11.

After the opening lament over Israel (Rom 9:1–5), Paul proceeds to show in a variety of ways that God’s redemptive purposes, inaugurated with the call of Abraham and brought to a climax in Christ, have in fact not failed, even with regard to the people of Israel.

He begins by demonstrating that from the very beginning belonging to the people of God was not a matter of birthright (Rom 9:7–8) or of human achievement (Rom 9:11, 16). Rather, membership in God’s family is determined solely by the promise (Rom 9:8), calling (Rom 9:11) and mercy (Rom 9:16) of God. In this context, Paul introduces a different use of the term Israel, which he has already indicated earlier in this epistle (see Rom 2:28–29; see also Gal 3:7; 6:16); namely, there is an Israel “of the flesh” and an Israel “of the promise.” Both are determined by the gracious action of God, but the latter transcends the boundaries of the former. That “the children of God”

(Rom 9:8 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) have their existence purely on the basis of God’s calling and mercy is underlined by the analogy of the potter and the clay in Romans 9:19–23. The potter is sovereign over the clay. And, in that sovereignty, he has called into peoplehood a remnant both from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles. The citation of prophetic words from Hosea and Isaiah (Rom 9:25–26) underlines this fact.

In the following section (Rom 9:30–10:4), Paul goes on to state why the redemptive purposes of God are being received and realized among the Gentiles and why Israel as a whole is rejecting them. Israel rejected the righteousness of God—his relation-restoring action that culminated in the servant-ministry of Jesus—because it sought to establish its own righteousness by external conformity to the law. This attempt to secure one’s own worth and standing with God—which, according to Paul’s earlier discussion (Rom 2:17–29), invariably results in boasting and self-righteousness—leads to refusal to submit to God’s way (Rom 10:3). And God’s way is that as creatures we respond to the love and faithfulness of the Creator with faith, that we believe his Word, that we respond in trust (Rom 10:5–13).

The opportunity to respond to God in this way has been there throughout Israel’s history, as Paul demonstrates by reference to Old Testament texts (Rom 10:14–21).

And throughout that history, including the coming of God’s righteousness in the

Messiah, Israel has been “a disobedient and obstinate people” (Rom 10:21).

Does this history of rejection and disobedience mean that God has finally given up on his people Israel? That is the question which occupies Paul in the next section of the epistle (Rom 11:1–10). The answer to the question is no. For just as God called out a remnant from a disobedient nation in the past (Rom 9:2–4), so too there is a remnant in the present that has responded in faith to God’s grace (Rom 11:5). Paul himself is evidence of the existence of such a remnant within Judaism (Rom 11:1).

But the fact remains that the vast majority of Israel has refused to submit to God’s way of salvation and has rejected his Messiah. True enough. But God is not yet done with his people. Though Paul has been very adamant throughout the epistle that faith and belonging to Christ are the only criteria for what it means to be “of the seed of Abraham” (Rom 2:20; 9:6–8), Paul also decidedly rejects the idea that this truth means the exclusion of the nation of Israel from God’s redemptive purposes (the analogy of the olive tree in Rom 11:17–24 underlines that). For him, such a conclusion would have been inconsistent with the historical election of Israel (see Rom 11:29).

Thus Paul acknowledges Israel’s failure and rejection (Rom 11:7), but he proceeds to argue that within God’s overarching purposes this reality is temporally limited. Indeed, God uses the present rejection for his purposes. This activity of God is underscored by the Scripture citations from Isaiah 29 and Psalm 69 about the hardening of Israel (Rom 11:8–10), for since Israel’s disobedience is placed in the service of God’s purpose, God can be spoken of as “hardening” Israel. But the goal of disobedience and hardening is not their ultimate rejection and destruction; it is, rather, twofold: (1) the salvation of the Gentiles (the world) and (2) the ultimate salvation of Israel (Rom 11:11–15).

Paul is convinced that through the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles and its acceptance by them, the promise to Abraham—that all the people of the earth shall be blessed in him—is being fulfilled (see Rom 4). He is also convinced, on the basis of Deuteronomy 32:21, which he cites in Romans 10:19, that the salvation of the Gentiles will provoke Israel to jealousy and open them to the gospel (Rom 11:11, 14).

Within the context of this argument, Paul anticipates the “mystery” regarding the nation of Israel’s ultimate destiny, which he will articulate in Romans 11:25–26. If the failure of Israel is leading to the salvation of the Gentiles, the manifestation of God’s grace and blessing will be much greater with “their full inclusion” (Rom 9:12 RSV

[RSV Revised Standard Version] ). What does he mean by this expression?

The term translated “full inclusion” is the Greek word pleµroµma. The ASV [ASV

American Standard Version] renders this term by “fulfillment” or “fullness.” In Romans 11:25 the same expression is used again, but this time in connection with the Gentiles. Here the RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] renders it as “full number of the Gentiles,” while the ASV [ASV American Standard Version] renders “fullness of the Gentiles.” I am persuaded that the idea of a divinely predetermined number, which has to be made up of both Gentiles and Jews, is not within Paul’s purview here. When noncanonical Jewish apocalyptic literature speaks of a “full number” of Israelites in relation to end events, the word used is not pleµroµma but arithmos. In Revelation 7:4 we read of “the number of the sealed” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

The word used is again not pleµroµma but arithmos, and the number is generally regarded as symbolic rather than indicative of numerical extent. Thus we do better to

seek the meaning for Paul’s use of pleµroµma in his use of the term elsewhere in his writings.

With but one exception (Rom 13:10), the most natural rendering of Paul’s use of pleµroµma is “fullness” or “completeness” (Rom 15:29; Gal 4:4; Eph 1:23; 3:19; 4:13; Col 1:19; 2:9). What then do the expressions “[Israel’s] fullness” (Rom 11:12) and “the fullness of the Gentiles” (Rom 11:25 KJV [KJV King James Version] ) mean?

Light may be shed on this problem by Paul’s use of verbal cognates of pleµroµma in three texts where his mission to the Gentiles is in focus. In Romans 15:18–22 he speaks of having “fully proclaimed” the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles and now being desirous of expanding this mission to Spain. In Colossians 1:25–27 he speaks of having made the “word of God fully known” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) among the Gentiles. And in 2 Timothy 4:17 he confesses God’s empowerment “so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

In light of these usages, Johannes Munck argues convincingly, in his book Christ and Israel, that Paul’s commitment to the full dissemination of the gospel to the Gentiles must provide the interpretive key to his use of pleµroµma in Romans 11. The expression “the fullness [or completion] of the Gentiles” in 11:25 (KJV [KJV King James Version] ) then denotes the final result of Paul’s proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles. God’s purpose through that preaching is their salvation, their completion (as children of God in Christ; see Col 2:10).

The completion of the mission to the Gentiles will result in, or lead to, Israel’s

“fullness” or “completion” (Rom 11:12), her “acceptance” (Rom 11:15). These phrases anticipate the affirmation that “all Israel will be saved.” The way from the anticipation of this conviction to this climactic expression is paved by the analogy of the olive tree (Rom 11:17–24) and its astounding claim that God will indeed graft the broken-off branches of unbelieving Israel back into the olive tree to join the branches of “remnant Jews” and believing Gentiles who have already been grafted to the olive tree.

Paul proclaims this future realization of God’s intention as “a mystery” (Rom 11:25).

He is not referring here to a special revelation he had received, some esoteric secret communicated to him directly in a vision or dream. Rather, he is referring to God’s redemptive action and purpose, revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Christ which he proclaims (Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 2:1–2; Col 2:2, where “God’s mystery” is simply identified as “Christ”). Sometimes, as in this text, the term is used more specifically for God’s plan of salvation. The most instructive parallel to this text—

which envisions the grafting of both Gentile and Jew into the same olive tree—is Ephesians 3:3–6, where Paul says that the content of the “mystery of Christ” is the inclusion of the Gentiles as fellow heirs of the promise with Jews in the new community of Christ’s body.

Within this overarching content of the mystery Paul proclaims is a more specific component, namely, that the “hardening [which] has come upon part of Israel” (Rom 11:25) is limited not only in extent, but also with regard to time: its rejection will last only “until the fullness of the Gentiles” comes (KJV [KJV King James Version] ). This completion of God’s purpose among the Gentiles leads then to the completion of that same redemptive purpose for Israel, in that “all Israel will be saved” (11:26).

Commentators are agreed that “all Israel” means Israel “as a whole,” as a historical people who have a unique and particular identity, not necessarily including every

individual Israelite. Support for this way of understanding the phrase “all Israel” comes from a rabbinic tract (Sanhedrin X, 1), where the statement “all Israelites have a share in the world to come” is immediately qualified by a list of exceptions, such as the Sadducees, heretics, magicians and so on. The salvation of Israel is comprehensive, but not all-inclusive. In this text, just as “the fullness of the Gentiles” does not mean that each individual Gentile will believe in his heart and confess with his lips (Rom 10:10), so the “fullness of Israel” cannot mean every individual Jew.

While in Romans 11:25–26 the present “part of Israel” which is hardened is contrasted with “all Israel” which will be saved in the future, it is clear that “all Israel” denotes both the already-saved remnant and the yet-to-be-saved “others” or “rest” (Rom 11:7).

What is also clear from the whole thrust of the discussion in Romans 9–11 is that God’s purposes for the salvation of Israel will be realized in no other way and by no other means than through the preaching of the gospel and the response of faith. It is that preaching and that response which will lead to “life from the dead” (Rom 11:15), clearly a reference to the eschatological event of the resurrection which will be preceded by the “completion of Israel” (Rom 11:26) as the last stage in the process initiated by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

There is no indication anywhere in these chapters of Romans that Paul has in view the conversion of Israel as a nation-state, located on a particular piece of real estate.

Already in Paul’s time, there were more Jews living outside Palestine than within.

What Paul does envision is a time when the gospel will be heard and accepted by his people as a whole, scattered throughout the world but, nonetheless, a unique, identifiable people whose identity is rooted in the great historical events of redemptive history and whose future is guaranteed by the God who has saved his people and will again save them by “banish[ing] ungodliness” and “tak[ing] away their sins” (Rom 11:26–27 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

See also comment on isaiah 63:17; galatians 6:16.

11:32 God Has Bound All to Disobedience?

If God has bound all human beings to disobedience (or, as the RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] translates, “consigned all men to disobedience”), where does human responsibility lie? How can God hold us responsible for disobedience when he caused it? The text seems clearly to indicate that the disobedience of both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 11:30–31) is in some sense the activity of God so that his mercy can be demonstrated. An analogy will highlight the “hardness” of this text. In order to demonstrate my heroic nature, I push a nonswimmer into a swift current. As he is about to drown, I jump in and save him. Is such a view of God’s ways a valid understanding of Paul’s words?

An answer to this problem depends largely on the meaning of the Greek word rendered

“bound over to disobedience” and our understanding of Paul’s general view of God’s relation to human sinfulness or disobedience.

That the Greek word used by Paul is open to a range of meanings and nuances is clear from the following list of a representative sample of English versions: NJV

has bound over to disobedience

ASV

has shut up into disobedience

KJV

hath concluded them in unbelief

NEB

making all prisoners to disobedience

Berkeley

confined under the power of disobedience

JB

imprisoned in their own disobedience

TEV

has made prisoners to disobedience

The Greek word reflected in these translations is synkleioµ. In the Greek-English Lexicon by Bauer/Arndt/Gingrich, both literal and figurative meanings are given. The literal meaning of the verb is “close up together,” “hem in,” “enclose.” That meaning is clearly present in Luke 5:6, where a catch of fish is “enclosed” in a net. The figurative meaning is given as “confine, imprison,” and illustrated from Romans 11:32. The word’s possible meanings in this text are then given as “he has imprisoned them all in disobedience,” that is, put them under compulsion to be disobedient or given them over to disobedience.” The sense of “compulsion” by God is reflected strongly in the renderings of TEV [TEV Today’s English Verision] , ASV [ASV American Standard Version] and NEB [NEB New English Bible] . The alternative meaning, “given them over,” is reflected in the translation of the JB [JB Jerusalem Bible] .

In the New Testament, apart from its literal use in Luke 5:6 and here in 11:32, synkleioµ is used in only one other Pauline text, Galatians 3:22–23. Here Paul affirms that “Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin.” That statement of bondage to sin is paralleled by the statement that “we were held prisoners by the law.”

The meaning of synkleioµ in this text is certainly that of confinement (or restraint, as in RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Yet God is not seen as determining that bondage in any direct way. The meaning seems to be that Scripture shows—by virtue of the history of human disobedience since the Fall—that all are in the grip of sin. The reference to confinement under the law in Galatians 3:23 must be interpreted in light of Galatians 3:24–25, where the function of the law is put in very positive terms: it is the custodial caretaker, leading us to Christ. What is confirmed in this passage’s use of synkleioµ is the reality of bondage to sin or disobedience, as expressed in Romans 11:32. But the possibility of God as determiner of human disobedience does not seem to be in view.

Help for grasping Paul’s meaning may be found in the Old Testament as well as in

Romans 1. The Hebrew Scriptures had been translated into Greek in the centuries before Jesus’ coming, and Paul made frequent use of this translation when he cited, or referred to, those Scriptures.

The Hebrew word saµgar, which means “to deliver up,” “to surrender,” “to give over,” is translated in the Greek Old Testament by two different words. In Psalm 31:8

and 78:50 the translators used synkleioµ. In Psalm 78:48 and Deuteronomy 32:30, the same Hebrew word was represented by the Greek paradidoµmi.

It is clear from this and many other examples which could be given that for the Greek translators these Greek words were both valid equivalents for the Hebrew saµgar, if not synonymous. Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states that synkleioµ, as a translation of saµgar, means “to deliver up” or “to surrender,” and that it is parallel to paradidoµmi.

It is this latter word which Paul uses in Romans 1:24, 26, 28. In Romans 1:18–32, as in Romans 11:32, Paul stresses the pervasiveness and depth of human sin. Its origin is the human refusal to acknowledge God as God (Rom 1:18–23). Paul then goes on to show that in the context of this rejection of God, human life deteriorates and degenerates (Rom 1:24–32). This depiction of human sinfulness is accompanied by the threefold refrain “therefore, God gave them over to” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] “gave them up”). The meaning is clearly that God allowed his creation to sink into the quicksand of its own disobedience. He neither forced its obedience nor determined its disobedience.

Thus Paul’s use of the word synkleioµ in Romans 11:32 can best be understood in keeping with its usage in the Greek Old Testament where, in translation of the Hebrew saµgar, it means “to deliver up,” “to surrender.” This sense of the term is confirmed, as we have seen, by the use of the parallel word in Romans 1:24–28. The meaning of Romans 11:32 would then be “God has given up all people to their disobedience.”

What we have here then is an expression of God’s permissive will. By permitting the creation to become absorbed in and by its sinfulness, God has acted in such a way that the result is their bondage in disobedience. It is from that bondage that God in his grace brings liberation.

See also comment on exodus 9:12; 1 samuel 2:25; isaiah 63:17; roman 12:20 Burning Coals?

The image of pouring burning coals on another’s head—even though we realize that it is a figure of speech—conjures up negative connotations. It sounds like vengeance or retribution. Surely that is not the result to be achieved by acts of kindness. Could Paul be saying that doing good to one’s enemies is an indirect way of punishing them?

These negative assessments disappear rather quickly when we see this passage in its larger context (both in Rom 12 and in Prov 25:21–22, from where it is cited) and properly grasp the meaning of this figure of speech in its ancient Near Eastern setting.

The entire context argues against the possibility of interpreting this figure in a negative sense. As a whole, Romans 12 begins the final section of the epistle in which Paul, on the basis of his theology of justification by faith and the empowering of Christian life by the Spirit, works out some of the practical implications of this theology for

everyday Christian existence. He begins by speaking of the transformation of life in such a way that God’s good will is accomplished in and through Christians (Rom 12:1–2). He continues by showing that as Christians we do not stand alone in this task, but are one body, gifted by God’s grace to empower each other in mutual loving service (Rom 12:3–13). Then he focuses on Christians’ existence in the larger world, a world which, for the early believers, was often hostile toward the followers of Christ (Rom 12:14–21).

In such a world, it would have been very natural and easy to build resentment, to lash out, to resort to even violent means in order to protect oneself against hostility and persecution. But Paul knew, on the basis of Jesus’ “suffering servant” messiahship, that the way of bitterness, resentment and violence was not to be the way of Jesus’

followers in this world. God’s love, demonstrated in Jesus’ death on the cross and poured into believers’ hearts (Rom 5:5), was stronger than hate. He had experienced its grasp on his life while he was a persecutor of Christians (see Phil 3:4–12).

↑ Back to top