INTRODUCTION
By Udo W. Middelmann,
The Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation
The studies of the first eight chapters of Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome you hold in your hands belong to the earliest systematic studies of Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer. These studies are of special significance because they express most of the essential ideas and truths that are foundational to all of Dr. Schaeffer’s works and the content of his later books. As such these studies provide fresh insights into Schaeffer’s work, but much more than this, they help us see the timeless significance of God’sWord for every new generation.
In a more immediate sense, these studies grew out of Dr. Schaeffer’s personal interaction with students and the discussion of the critical ideas of our time. In-depth, give-and-take discussions such as these were typical of Schaeffer’s basic method in all that he did. Thus Schaeffer’s insights were hammered out in these often lively exchanges, where honest questions—no matter how perplexing—were given honest, compassionate answers based on the unchanging truth of God’s Word.
These studies were first given in a student flat in Lausanne, Switzerland in the 1960s. On the same day each week Schaeffer would go down the mountain to take a discussion among university students who met for lunch in the “Café Vieux Lausanne,” just a few covered steps below the twelfth-century cathedral.
There, around 1526, the French reformers confronted the views of the Roman Catholic church with the Bible’s teaching. In a famous debate, the citizens of Lausanne listened to both sides and then voted in favor of the reformers’ teaching. Their views were based on Scripture, free from the distorted traditions of Rome. Just to the side of the Cathedral lies the old Academy, where those same reformers later would place the University. The University was still there when Schaeffer gave the biblical answers to questions from students nearby in the “Vieux Lausanne.”
At night he would teach the Roman class in Sandra Ehrlich’s flat before rushing to the station for the last train and bus home in the mountains. Harold, a Dutch economics student, and students from many nationalities joined them for the evening. On the tapes of the original recording one can hear Harro, as he was called, translate for a Swiss student and frequently ask questions himself. Mario from El Salvador, a South African girl, an Italian art student, a Czech, an American, and my wife Deborah were some of the others who spent two hours every week studying the book of Romans verse by verse. Dr. Schaeffer always made the studies interesting as he applied Paul’s letter to the intellectual questions of Paul’s day, as well as ours, often the very ones discussed earlier in the Café with agnostic and atheist students. For in the fundamentals of the problems of human existence and questions there is little difference from the Greeks to our own twentieth century. As originally given, these lectures were in the “give and take” style of lecture/discussion at which Dr. Schaeffer excelled. This text has been edited to remove repetitions and comments from the audience, while maintaining the style and content of the original tapes.
The Letter to the Romans answers all the basic questions of Man in any age about his origin, the problem of a moral God in an evil world, and the questions about significance and true humanity. In a systematic way Romans addresses the kinds of questions any thinking person has in a world like ours, where problems are often recognized, but the proposed solutions rarely go to the core of the disease.
Schaeffer pointed out that, until recently, Romans was studied in American law schools in order to teach students the art of presenting an argument. A reasoned case is made for a foundational proposition. Counter statements are considered one by one, and refuted. Romans is not about a leap of faith but presents a comprehensive argument for the central proposition: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:16, 17).
Paul, the author, under the direction and inspiration of God’s Spirit, addresses our relationship with God, giving real answers to real questions. What we think we know about the universe, man, meaning, and morals, needs constant nourishment and correction. Without the correction and reproof found in God’s Word, sinful man will inherit foolishness in all the central areas of life. This always begins at the place of what men believe about God.
Schaeffer understood Romans to be a completed sermon of Paul’s, much like other sermons that he presented wherever he preached. After the introduction follows a proposition, then the exposition of that proposition. We see this in Acts 17, where Paul was unable to finish a similar sermon in Athens. He left and went south to Corinth, where he wrote Romans. In each city he visited he taught a whole circle of truth, covering the basics in a complete and integrated way.
Romans is just such a systematic teaching Paul sent to a church he had not seen in person. The church in Rome began in much the same manner as the church in Antioch. Both churches began through the witness of believers who had been present in Jerusalem during the events described in Acts 2, where 3,000 were converted on the day of Pentecost. Cornelius in Acts 10 had become a God-fearer through conversations with believers. In each case, the church was not the result of “professional” teachers but of believers reaching out to others.
Romans differs from all the other letters in the New Testament in one important way. No other New Testament writing gives such a systemization of the doctrine of the gospel. All others are addressed to churches or people who had heard sermons when apostles had visited personally. All the others address specific problems, special needs, or dubious practices. They address believers with specific teachings and admonitions against the backdrop of what they had already heard in the body of belief.
In Rome, however, no one had ever preached the complete gospel. Therefore, the Roman letter can be said to be a unified statement of what the Old and New Testaments present concerning our situation before God and in the world. The entire truth is summed up in the theme verses in chapter 1, verses 16 and 17. The rest of the letter is an unpacking of these two verses: Why they are true, what is the dilemma, what is the solution, and how to live now. Paul declares that there is no reason to be ashamed of Christianity, neither intellectually nor in the experience of life under God.
Through the years since Dr. Schaeffer delivered these lectures/discussions thousands of students have studied the “Romans” tapes, straining their ears to follow the study from a dismally poor recording. They were glued to it because Dr. Schaeffer applied Paul’s teachings to the basic questions of Man at any age. Schaeffer himself frequently returned to Romans in discussing the intellectual bleakness of modern life.
This is a verse by verse study of the text. Woven into it are pointers to the central problems we face in our generation. Everyone who is concerned about a supposed absence of God, or about the truthfulness of God and His moral rightness, discovers a God in the Bible who grieves over the sins of the creature, but who is not responsible for their sin. We come face to face with the anger of God due to our sin as well as His compassion in providing justice, salvation, and a future restoration through Christ. Each member of the Trinity—far from being merely an item of theological interest—is intimately and powerfully involved in our redemption through history.
Along the way, it is interesting to see how much weight Schaeffer puts on the sinfulness of man, which provokes the wrath of God. Yet never is there a hint that this sinfulness destroys the humanity and rationality of man as created in the image of God. God is not the author of evil, and evil does not diminish the obligation of Man to seek after and choose God. Schaeffer does not fall into the theological trap of extreme Reformed advocates who say that depravity has removed humanity from Man, thereby absolving Man from the responsibility to repent or to seek after God. Like Paul, Schaeffer pleads with his neighbor to bow before the known God and to accept “the finished work of Christ” for his salvation, for his present battles against sin in the Christian life, as well as for the hope of a final resurrection and righteousness on the Day of the Lord.
Man is fallen, but he is not a zero, he is not worthless. Man has great value as created in the image of God. At the same time, however, all of our being has been tragically affected by the Fall, including our will and intellect.
Here is a God who does battle for us. There is no arbitrary solution or esoteric mystery. Paul does not shy away from tough questions. He answers them from the wholeness of God’s work in history. By inviting people to believe God (not “in God”)—His existence, His being, and His promises about God’s solution to our guilt from sin in the finished work of Jesus Christ—Paul shows God to be the One who is morally just and the One who will justify those who believe.