Today we once again read verses about certain Jews whom God chose for salvation and certain ones whom He hardened. Ripped from their context, these verses are sometimes used to promote the idea that God has sovereignly preselected certain individuals for salvation. But we don’t have to search very far within the context to see the error of that interpretation. Paul cites God’s response to Elijah, who once thought himself to be the only surviving Israelite who was not an idolater. God told Elijah, however, that there were 7,000 others like him who had not “bowed the knee to Baal” (11:4). Paul then comments, “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice” (11:5). In Elijah’s day, God chose a remnant of Israelites who met His conditions—they made a choice not to bow to Baal. Likewise there was a remnant of Jews whom God chose in Paul’s day. He chose them because they met His conditions—they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those Jews who had rejected Christ God hardened as He did to Pharaoh of old. But those Jews whom God chose to harden could have been among those whom He had chosen to save had they not rejected Christ. If Paul was saying that God hardened certain Jews whom He had not arbitrarily preselected for salvation, then Paul was an idiot, because he contradicted himself so many times within this very chapter and the rest of his letter to the Romans. For example, we read today of the possibility of Jews being grafted back in to the olive tree from which they were severed “if they do not continue in their unbelief” (11:23). So is it possible that God might change His mind regarding His alleged sovereign preselection of certain persons?

We also read Paul’s words, “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all” (11:32). The “all” to whom God showed mercy are the same “all” whom He “shut up in disobedience.” God is offering salvation to every sinner.

Referring to the prophecy of Moses that he had mentioned in chapter 10 (10:19), Paul states that God has shown mercy to Gentiles in order to provoke Israel to jealousy, attempting to motivate them to repent. Clearly, God desires that they would all repent. As Scripture teaches consistently, He desires that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, Jew and Gentile (1 Tim. 2:3-4). God’s hardening of Christ-rejectors is apparently not a hardening that makes it impossible for them to repent. “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (11:1).

Based on promises God made through His prophets, Paul knew that eventually there would be an awakening among the descendants of Israel. They will one day, en masse, embrace their Messiah whom they previously rejected. Their current hardening will end after “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (11:26). Won’t that be a wonderful time, to see multitudes of Jews believing in Jesus?

Another modern doctrine that is debunked in today’s reading is the idea that if one is saved, one is guaranteed to always be saved. Paul clearly warns Gentile believers that they face the danger of being severed from God’s tree of salvation—just as Jews have been severed—if they abandon their faith:

If God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off (11:21-22).

How much more clear could it be?

From these same verses we also gain a picture of God that brings some balance to the over-emphasis that is placed on His love. Indeed, Scripture teaches us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but the same Bible also tells us that “God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29) and, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). I think I’ll “continue in His kindness” (11:22)!

When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, he did not, of course, write it in chapters and verses. He didn’t intend that it would be read in short segments over 16 days, as we are doing. Rather, it was meant to be read in its entirety in one sitting. The danger we face by reading one chapter each day is that we might overlook the context of each chapter within its surrounding chapters. Surely that danger exists when we read these later chapters in Romans.

Calvinists, in particular, often lift verses from their context in these latter chapters of Romans to make them mean something that they don’t actually mean. Notice, however, that the obvious theme of chapter 10, just like chapter 9, is God’s acceptance of Gentile believers and His rejection of Jewish unbelievers. Keeping that context in mind is essential. Calvinists who claim that Paul teaches in Romans that salvation is limited to those whom God has sovereignly preselected need to read everything Paul wrote in Romans, not just isolated verses. Salvation is offered to all:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:12-13).

Although I didn’t mention it when we read chapter 9 (having run out of my allotted words), Paul concluded that chapter by explaining why it was not God’s fault that Jews were a minority in the church by AD 55. Quoting Hosea and Isaiah, he showed that God had predicted centuries before that there would be a great influx of Gentiles into His kingdom combined with only a small remnant of Jews. And the reason? It was because so many Gentiles believed God’s Word, receiving the gift of righteousness by faith, while the majority of Jews pursued righteousness by their works (9:30-32). Even this God had foretold through Isaiah—The One whom He sent to be the Chief Cornerstone became a stone of stumbling to those who would not believe in Him. Those who would believe in Him, however, would not be disappointed (9:33).

This same theme continues in chapter 10 as Paul contrasts the “righteousness which is based on the law” and the “righteousness based on faith” (10:5-6). He first refers to Moses’ words found in Leviticus 18:5: “So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live [be saved] if he does them.” That was God’s promise to the Israelites, but since none of them ever kept the Law, none received the promised benefit. Rather, they inherited the Law’s promised curse. Thus, the “righteousness which is based on law” (10:5) was unattainable and out of reach.

The righteousness based on faith, however, is quite attainable and accessible. Once more borrowing Moses’ words (this time from Deuteronomy), Paul applied them to Christ and the gospel. There is no need to scale the heights of heaven to bring Christ down to us nor descend deep into the earth to bring Christ up to us (10:6-7). Jesus has already come to us, bringing salvation and righteousness as near as it can be. To obtain it, we need only to hear and believe “the word [or message] of faith” (10:8), that is, the gospel of righteousness through faith. That message offers righteousness to everyone who believes, Jew or Gentile (10:11-13). That righteousness is much more than just forgiveness and a righteous legal standing before God. It includes practical righteousness, the fruit of the indwelling Spirit.

Of course, if people are to believe the gospel, they must hear it from someone, and so this explains why God had sent so many preachers, something also foretold by Isaiah (10:15). By the time Paul wrote Romans, the gospel had spread far and wide, and multitudes of Gentiles had believed while most Jews had rejected it. God had foretold through Isaiah and Moses of the Gentile inclusion and the Jewish exclusion (10:19-21). But the Jewish rejection was not God’s fault. Through His outstretched hands, he had continually extended his grace to Israel, but they rejected it.

The greatest stumbling block to many Jews who heard Paul’s message was that his gospel excluded from God’s kingdom unbelieving, yet “law-keeping,” circumcised Jews, while it welcomed believing Gentile sinners! To Jews who took pride in their heritage, lineage, law, or circumcision, considering themselves favored above Gentiles, Paul’s message was an insult. So in this chapter, Paul helps Jews see that God can choose whomever He wants and reject whomever He wants, regardless of what anyone thinks! Moreover, God has historically demonstrated that He doesn’t make His selections of people based on those things that most Jews were trusting in to make them right before God, such as physical lineage, birth privileges, or even personal holiness.

In regard to physical lineage, Paul reminds his readers of what they certainly already knew, that although God chose Abraham for a special blessing, He did not choose all of Abraham’s descendants. Moreover, it was Isaac the second-born, not Ishmael the first-born, who was surprisingly chosen to inherit the blessing. (And Paul cannot resist pointing out that Ishmael was a product of Abraham’s works, while Isaac was a product of Abraham’s faith—an analogy that teaches about salvation.)

Moreover, God surprisingly chose Jacob, not Esau, to next inherit the blessing, and His choice was made before they were born, so Jacob’s blessing was not based on his works. Knowing this, how can any Jew object to God choosing to save Gentiles without regard to their works? Their forefather and namesake, Israel, was chosen by God without regard to his works!

May I point out that this chapter doesn’t teach that God chooses some individuals for salvation and (thus by default) chooses other individuals for damnation. Only those who rip verses from their context within this chapter and the entire book can come to such a conclusion. This chapter, from beginning to end, is about Jews and Gentiles as groups of people, and God’s choice to offer mercy. Additionally, God’s choices of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not choices regarding their salvation. That was not Paul’s point.

In the strongest terms, Paul reminds his readers that God is never unjust (9:14). So when it appears to us that God is unjust, it shows we have the wrong perspective. For example, God’s choices of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may have appeared to be unjust favoritism, but it was actually an expression of God’s mercy to the whole world, as they were chosen to carry the seed that would bring blessing to everyone.

I might add that had God chosen to save only descendants of Israel, that would make Him unjust without argument. And if He sovereignly grants salvation to some and not others, as Calvinists claim, that would also make Him unjust without argument. If He is going to remain fair and just and mercifully offer salvation to any, He must offer it to all. Moreover, it is perfectly just for Him to withhold His mercy from those who spurn it, and punish them, as He did Pharaoh. Clearly, from reading the story of the Exodus, God showed mercy to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God’s mercy decreased with each additional judgment, to the point when God actively hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a just punishment. “God has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires” (9:18), but whichever He does, He does it justly, not arbitrarily!

Praise God that, as we will read in just two chapters, “God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all” (11:32). The first “all” in that sentence and the second “all” both mean “all”—all Jews and all Gentiles.

Yes, one can remove from its context Paul’s potter and clay analogy and make it appear that Paul is saying that one’s salvation is entirely up to God, the potter, and has nothing to do with us, the clay. But in context, Paul can only be teaching that God, the potter, can save believing Gentiles and not save unbelieving Jews, both from the clay of humanity.

I have written much more extensively on Romans 9 here if you care to read more.

You have just read what is, in my opinion, one of the Bible’s best chapters! I wish I had more than 700 words today!

Jesus did what the Law couldn’t do. He died in our place “as an offering for sin” (8:3), “so that the requirement of the Law,” that is, death to sinners, “might be fulfilled in us” (8:4). He was our substitute. So we who are in Christ will not be condemned as we would have been otherwise (8:1). And what characterizes those who are “in Christ?” They “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (8:4). Those who walk according to the Holy Spirit are holy, obviously.

The decision to walk according to the flesh or the Spirit rests with each one of us. We are two-natured, and we can set our minds on the things of the flesh or on the things of the Spirit (8:6). The former results in death, the latter results in life and peace (8:6). Paul plainly warned, “If you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (8:13). This is hardly a promise of unconditional eternal security, and once again, we encounter biblical truth about the necessity of holiness for eternal life. Paul was of course speaking of eternal death and life in this solemn warning, as everyone will one day die physically, even those who are “by the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body” (8:13).

How blessed are we who have believed in Christ! We’ve been adopted into God’s family, having been born of Him. He is our Father, and that makes us heirs of His eternal glory with Christ our Lord. Paul says, however, that we must suffer with Christ if we hope to be glorified with Him (8:17), indicating that persecution is par for the course for true believers. Our temporal sufferings, however, are “not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (8:18). We long deep within our hearts for the coming day of our redemption. Paul says that all of creation, currently under God’s curse of futility, also waits longingly for it.

Note that Paul did not write in 8:29-30 (or anywhere else in the New Testament) that God had predestined anyone to be saved or unsaved. Rather, Paul wrote that God predestined those whom He foreknew to be conformed to the image of His Son. God obviously foreknew those of us who would believe in Jesus, and He predestined us to be His sons, like Jesus. That is a far cry from being predestined to be saved by God’s alleged sovereign “unconditional election” that eliminates our free will in believing in Christ.

Paul concludes this chapter by asking five wonderful questions. First, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31). Obviously, there are many who are against us, but since God is for us, our opposition is ultimately meaningless.

Second, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” The supreme proof of God’s love for us was demonstrated on the cross. How can we doubt, in light of the giving of His Son, that He will freely give us every future blessing He has promised, as well as supply all our present needs?

Third, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” (8:34), and a related question, “God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?” Others may judge you as guilty, but if God declares you not guilty, you’re not guilty! The evidence for our justification is seated at the Judge’s right hand!

Finally, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). Paul then lists some specific adversaries and adversities that might tempt us to think God’s love has diminished. None can nullify what Christ has done for us on the cross. Even if we are slaughtered like sheep, God’s love for us ensures that ultimately we “overwhelmingly conquer” (8:37).

Out of allotted words!

Paul continues to address Jewish objections to his gospel. Imagine one of his Jewish opponents arguing, “It was God Himself who gave us the Mosaic Law! How can you claim that Jews who believe in Jesus need not keep it?” Paul replies with an analogy derived from the Law itself, which taught that a woman was free to remarry if her husband died. His death released her from the law that held her. So Jewish believers who are in Christ are released by His death from the Law that held them. But this is not a license to sin. Paul expands his analogy to say that, just as a widow might join herself to another husband, so Jewish believers are joined to Christ to “bear fruit for God” (7:4). Now they “serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (7:6). That is, Jewish believers are not absolved from obedience, but they now follow the indwelling Spirit who leads them in holiness, and have no real need for a written law. The same is true, of course, for believing Gentiles.

“But you are teaching that the Law, given to us by God, was an evil thing, because it only resulted in evil!” some apparently were saying. So Paul explained that it was sin against the Law, not the Law itself, that resulted in death. “The Law is…holy and righteous and good” (7:12).

It is quite obvious that in 7:4-13, Paul was writing about his (and his fellow Jewish believers’) former experience under the Mosaic Law. When we then arrive at verse 14, should we conclude, as some do, that Paul began to write about his experience as a Christian simply because he started using the present tense, especially when the experience that he describes sounds no different than his experience prior to his being born again? I don’t think so. All of us sometimes use the present tense to describe past events. I’ve been doing that in this day’s teaching from the very first sentence: “Paul continues….Paul replies….Paul expands…” and so on. But I switched to the past tense in the second paragraph.

If Paul was describing his experience as a Christian in the last part of chapter 7, affirming that he was “sold into bondage to sin” so that he practiced the very evil that he hated (7:15, 19), why then in chapter 6 did he repeatedly affirm that Christians have “died to sin” (6:2), are no longer “slaves of sin” (6:6, 17, 20), are “freed from sin” (6:7, 18, 22), are “slaves of righteousness” (6:18), and are “enslaved to God” (6:22)? Can the man of chapter 6, set free from sin, be the same wretched man of chapter 7 who is a prisoner of sin? Can the man of chapter 6, whose old self was crucified with Christ that his “body of sin might be done away with” (6:6), be the same man of chapter 7 who longs for someone to set him “free from the body of this death” (7:24)?

If Paul was speaking in 7:14-25 of his present condition as a wretched prisoner of sin, practicing evil, it greatly surprises those of us who have read what he said about his personal holiness in other places (see 1 Cor. 4:4; 2 Cor. 1:12; 1 Thes. 2:10; 2 Tim. 1:3).

Some say that Paul must have been speaking of his current Christian experience because he said that he wanted to do right and “joyfully concurred with the law of God in the inner man” (7:21- 22). Surely, they say, no depraved unbelievers would say such a thing, being sinners to the core.

We must remember, however, that Paul was a very zealous Jewish Pharisee before his salvation. He, unlike the average unsaved person, was doing everything he could to obey God’s laws, to the point of even persecuting the church. But he found that no matter how hard he tried, he remained a slave to sin. Truly, there is no more wretched person than the one who is trying to live by God’s standards but who is not born again. Praise God for Jesus!

Some commentators say that Paul was writing of his personal Christian experience in the very next chapter of Romans—where he refers to “practicing what I would not like to do” and “doing the very thing I hate” (Rom. 7:15). The error of that interpretation, however, is exposed in today’s reading of chapter 6, and it will be further exposed when we read chapter 8. The man of chapters 6 and 8 is a man free from sin, while the man of chapter 7 is in bondage to sin. Note how often in today’s reading Paul mentions the believer’s freedom from sin.

Because Paul affirmed that humanity’s unrighteousness demonstrates God’s righteousness (3:5), some were slanderously reporting that he was telling people, “Let us do evil that good may come” (3:8). Today Paul asks a rhetorical question that may well have been based on a similar slander, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” (6:1). Such an idea was revolting to Paul, and he responded in kind: “May it never be!” (6:2). Continuing in sin is an impossibility for those who had died to sin, which Paul goes on to say includes all who have been “baptized into Christ Jesus” (6:2-3).

Our baptism as new believers was symbolic of what happened to us when we believed. We became one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), united to Him in His death, burial and resurrection. To begin to understand this, you have to remove the element of time. Just as Christ in some sense joined Himself to you by bearing your sin in His body before you were born, so you, as a believer, are identified with Christ in what He did 2,000 years ago. When He was crucified, “our old self was crucified with Him” (6:6). When He died, so did we. And when He was resurrected, we were also resurrected to “walk in the newness of life” (6:4).

The purpose of this union with Christ is “that we would no longer be slaves of sin” (6:6) because we are “freed from sin” (6:7). But our freedom from sin does not automatically prevent us from sinning. Our free will still comes into play, which is why Paul admonishes his readers to consider themselves “to be dead to sin, but alive to God” (6:11), and not allow “sin to reign in your mortal bodies” (6:12). A drug addict may be set free from his addiction, but his freedom doesn’t automatically prevent him from once again injecting drugs into his body. He must resist temptation to take drugs. Believers in Christ are similarly released from bondage to sin, but they must still resist temptation to sin.

Paul’s words, “You are not under law but under grace” (6:14) have been ripped from their context and construed to mean, “You don’t need to be concerned with keeping God’s laws because grace releases you from accountability.” But the immediate context shows that Paul would have been horrified by such a twisting of his words: “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” (6:15).

Paul then reminds his readers of what takes place from the first moment of belief in Jesus. When we come to Christ, we present ourselves as “slaves for obedience,” turning away from sin, our former master (6:16). Having been “freed from sin” we’ve become “slaves of righteousness” (6:18).

Is eternal life, what Paul calls a “free gift of God” (6:23), ultimately granted to the unholy? Paul writes, “Now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life” (6:22). That sentence describes a sequence. We are first freed from sin and enslaved to God, and the benefit is sanctification, or ever-growing holiness. The “outcome” of all this is eternal life, and there is obviously no outcome without the steps that lead to the outcome. That outcome is free because the steps to it are God’s gracious work. But our cooperation is required. Like a free college scholarship, you’ve got to keep your grades up to continue to receive the benefits!

We do not have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Rather, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). Let us not overlook that important distinction. Formerly, we were enemies of God (5:10), destined for His wrath. But by virtue of Jesus’ paying the penalty for our sins, along with our hoisting the surrender flag of faith and repentance, we’ve been reconciled to God. How silly it would be to think that we have peace with God had we done nothing more than “accept Jesus as our personal Savior” while continuing in sin!

Now reconciled, we “exult in hope of the glory of God” (5:2). That is, we rejoice knowing that we will one day be in the presence of God’s glory. We also rejoice when we suffer persecution, because we know that our perseverance validates the sincerity of our character, which also fills us with hope for a glorious future. That hope is one that will not be disappointed. We already have a taste of its fulfillment through the indwelling Holy Spirit (5:3-5). The Spirit is, as Paul referred to Him in another place, a “down payment of our future inheritance” (Eph. 1:14).

For whom did Jesus die? Paul wrote that “Christ died for us” (5:8). Some say that proves that Jesus only died for the church, which they then define as those who were sovereignly pre-selected by God to be saved. But just two verses earlier Paul wrote, “Christ died for the ungodly.” That includes everyone. So did Christ die for the church or the ungodly? Obviously, for both. The greater always includes the lesser. Jesus’ atonement was not limited in its intention, but only in its effect by those who resist God (1 Jn. 2:2).

From what are we saved? Paul wrote, “…from the wrath of God” (5:9). Not only that, but we are also justified (5:9), which could be translated, “made righteous.” To be justified is more than being forgiven. It means to be found not guilty.

The latter half of Romans 5 is not as easy to understand as the first half. Some commentators suggest that Paul is answering critics who questioned how one man’s act could possibly result in salvation for so many people. So Paul goes back to Adam to show how one man’s act negatively affected the entire human race, and then he draws an analogy with Jesus. It is an imperfect analogy, as are all analogies.

To those who believe that the Mosaic Law was a means to salvation we might ask, “If the Mosaic Law was given to save people, then how could people be saved before it was given?” Is it perhaps possible that God wasn’t holding anyone accountable for their sin before the Mosaic Law, since no one knew God’s laws? Paul shows how God was holding everyone accountable for their sin long before the Law of Moses. He writes, “For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses” (5:13-14.). That is, people were sinning before the Mosaic Law was given. God, however, does not hold people accountable for their sin if they don’t know His will. It is obvious, then, that He was holding them accountable for their sin before the Mosaic Law, because everyone between Adam and Moses died.

From this it is also obvious that God must have given laws to everyone before the Law of Moses. Clearly, they would be the laws that He wrote on everyone’s consciences. God expected everyone to obey those laws, but they didn’t. Paul wrote, “The Law [of Moses] came in so that the transgression would increase” (5:20). That is, the Mosaic Law was given to help Israelites to better realize their sinfulness, to lead them to repentance and faith. They were already fully condemned by the law written in their consciences, but I suspect they may have been tempted to ignore that inner condemnation by virtue of God’s delivering them from Egypt, thinking that they automatically had His favor. So by means of the Mosaic Law, they stood doubly condemned, primed for repentance and saving faith.

As we read through Romans, it helps to imagine Paul debating with an imaginary Jew who objected to his gospel of salvation by grace through faith, a salvation offered to both Jews and Gentiles. In today’s reading, Paul answers several objections that he must have frequently encountered during his two decades of preaching. Some of his answers may not be as clear as we’d like, but we’ve become used to that.

Paul’s downplaying of circumcision certainly would have met with Jewish criticism. If circumcision didn’t guarantee salvation, of what benefit was it, and why would God require it? Paul lists one significant benefit: “They [the Jews] were entrusted with the oracles of God” (3:2). That is, above all peoples on the earth, the people of Israel, whose males were marked by circumcision, were blessed because God revealed Himself to them through His written Word.

Some Jews apparently argued that Paul’s gospel nullified God’s faithfulness to the Jews, because it excluded all unbelieving Jews from salvation. This objection was based on the very false assumption that salvation was the guaranteed right of all Jews. It wasn’t, and so Paul’s gospel did not nullify God’s faithfulness to them.

Some had slanderously reported that Paul was preaching, “Let us do evil that good may come,” simply because Paul affirmed that people’s unrighteousness revealed God’s righteousness, perhaps simply by contrast, but certainly by His righteous wrath poured out at times upon unrighteous people. “So Paul,” they reported, “is encouraging people to sin so that God’s righteousness will be magnified.” Such slander hardly deserved a response. God will, of course, righteously judge the world, and He is certainly not going to reward those who made Him look good by their evil.

Using many quotes from the Old Testament, Paul proves that Jews are every bit as much sinners as Gentiles (3:9-19). Until people understand their sinfulness, they see no need for salvation. In the case of the Jews, until they realized their sinfulness, they would continue to cling to their circumcision, their lineage, or their limited law-keeping as their means to salvation, and they would certainly see no reason for a Messiah to come and die for their sins. So it was essential that they perceive themselves as being just as dirty as the Gentiles whom they so disdained. Far from saving them, the Mosaic Law only exposed their unrighteousness even more, and condemned them.

Finally, Paul reaches the goal he has been working towards since the beginning of his letter. Contrary to what his critics claimed, his gospel did not nullify God’s righteousness, but rather revealed it. His gospel was founded in God’s righteous law that righteously condemns sinners. It revealed God’s righteousness in everyone who believed it, as they turned from unrighteousness to righteousness. It revealed how God maintains His righteousness and yet forgives sinners, because He offers forgiveness through Christ, the one who bore His wrath in payment for our sins. Paul uses the word propitiation to describe Christ’s accomplishment (3:25), which means “an appeasing of wrath.” Jesus’ suffering and death appeased God’s wrath against us.

Paul’s gospel even provided an answer to those who thought God to be unrighteousness as He “passed over the sins previously committed” (3:25). That is, God has not seemed to be righteous when He has not punished sinners. In fact, He has not seemed to be righteous in forgiving even someone who sacrificed an animal. How can an animal’s dying atone for a man’s sin? The fact is, it can’t, as the writer of Hebrews would later pen, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). But by the sufferings and death of a God-man, one of infinite worth, God can righteously forgive sinners, because the penalty has been sufficiently paid.

So Paul has effectively answered three grand Jewish objections to his gospel. First, he has shown that Jews cannot be saved by circumcision or Mosaic law-keeping, but only through faith in Jesus. Second, he has shown that Gentiles can be saved by faith as well. Third, his gospel did not nullify the Mosaic Law, but rather established it (3:31). Only through the gospel is the Law correctly understood.

Although we wish that today’s reading were clearer and that Paul’s reasoning made better sense, his general points are not beyond the grasp of our understanding.

Clearly, Paul continues to expose the error of Jews who believed that being right before God was something that was merited by circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses. Of course, had any Jew perfectly kept the Mosaic Law from birth until death, he would have been right before God, needing no grace or forgiveness. But like so many church-goers today, most Jews’ obedience to God’s commandments was very nominal, yet they assumed that they were OK.

Most Jews in Paul’s day were also quite proud of their heritage and God’s dealings with their ancestors, which further bolstered their assurance of God’s approval. So Paul was very wise to use Abraham as an example of someone who was made right before God, not as a result of being circumcised and keeping God’s laws (as we know from the biblical account that Abraham was not a perfect man), but by faith. Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (4:3; Gen. 15:6). That verse was written for the benefit of all who would read it, that they might understand how sinners can become right before God (4:23).

Genesis 15:5 tells us that God told Abraham to look up at the stars in the night sky and then promised him that his descendants would be as numerous. The very next verse says that Abraham “believed in the Lord, and [God] reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Note that Abraham “believed in the Lord.” That is, he didn’t just believe a promise from the Lord, but believed in the Lord Himself. So we could say that Abraham was justified by faith in Jesus, even though he didn’t know the Lord by that name! So, too, we must believe, not just some historical or theological facts about Jesus, but we must believe in Him (John 3:16). And since He is the Lord, if we believe in Him, we will begin to obey Him. Our faith will be evident by our actions, just as Abraham’s faith was evident by his actions.

Paul also points out that Scripture says the esteemed Abraham was made righteous before he was circumcised (4:10-11). That should have helped circumcised Jews understand that circumcision was obviously not the ticket to being right before God. It should have also helped them believe that Gentiles could be saved without being circumcised, just like Abraham was. Paul, in fact, sees God’s promise to Abraham that he would become the “father of many nations” as a foretelling of him becoming a “father” as it were, of Gentiles who, like him, would be made right before God by faith, and without being circumcised.

Note that Abraham was made right before God hundreds of years before the Law of Moses was given. So we learn that, before the Mosaic Law, sinners could become right before God by faith. Paul also points out that highly-esteemed David, who lived under the Mosaic Law and who obviously did not keep it perfectly, was also made righteous by faith, experiencing the great blessing of having his sins forgiven (4:6-8). So we learn that being made right with God has always been through faith, before the old covenant, during the old covenant, and of course under the new covenant as well.

No one can intelligently argue against the plain fact that if sinners are going to be right before God, it will require God’s grace. God has chosen, however, to give His grace only to those who have faith in Him, which requires humility and results in repentance. But being saved by grace through faith in no way mitigates the necessity of holiness. Rather, genuine faith results in holiness.

Jesus “was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (4:25). There’s the good news! Our salvation was made possible because Jesus suffered to pay our penalty, and after He had paid it in full by His death, He came back to life!

Paul’s logic is indisputable. When we condemn others for wrongdoing, we testify before the court of heaven that we know what is right and wrong. Moreover, we desire that wrongdoers be justly punished for their selfish deeds, don’t we? So when we do what we have condemned in others, we stand self-condemned, bearing witness that we deserve to be punished for our own selfishness. Yet most people continue in their sin, “storing up wrath for themselves” (2:5), completely unprepared for the day when God, the righteous Judge, will “render to each person according to his deeds” (2:6). This is the foundation upon which the gospel is built: All of us, Jew and Gentile, are all self-condemned sinners who deserve God’s wrath.

Anyone who may have accused Paul of proclaiming a gospel that nullified either God’s righteousness or the necessity of righteous living to gain eternal life would have been silenced by today’s reading. Paul declared that God will give eternal life to “those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality,” and that He will give “glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good” (2:7, 10). In contrast, “wrath and indignation” awaits those who “are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness” (2:9). Moreover, “there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil” whether they are Jew or Gentile (2:10).

These same statements also contradict the modern message of “grace” that is being proffered and that gives license to sin. Only the holy will inherit eternal life, and since all are sinners, the only way to gain holiness is through repentance, forgiveness and empowerment by the Holy Spirit. But I’m getting ahead of Paul!

Just as so many in our day assume that they are saved by virtue of being baptized church members, so Jews in Paul’s day were convinced that, as God’s chosen people, they had salvation “in the bag” by virtue of the fact that they were circumcised and had been given the Law of Moses. Paul exposes the fallacy of those assumptions. How absurd it would be to think that God would accept and eternally reward law-ignoring but circumcised Jews while rejecting and punishing a Gentile who, although uncircumcised, kept the moral aspects of the Mosaic Law as he followed his God-given conscience. To say otherwise would be to make God unjust and elevate circumcision above morality.

So Paul puts circumcision in its proper perspective: “For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision” (2:25). That is, your circumcision is useless, because it will not save you. A true Jew, Paul says, is one who is not just circumcised outwardly, but circumcised inwardly in his heart by the Spirit, that is, one who is born again.

With this first subject matter, Paul is preparing to demolish the grand Jewish objection to his message—that Gentiles can be justified, or made righteous, through faith apart from the Law of Moses. The plain truth was that the Jews were not obeying the Mosaic Law and were sinners every bit as much as Gentiles. They themselves could not hope to be saved through the Mosaic Law which they didn’t keep, and so they needed some other way of salvation–one that would obviously require grace from God. That way of salvation, as you know and as Paul will soon reveal, is through the sacrificial death of Jesus. Jews can only be saved through faith in Him. That being so, it seems reasonable to conclude that Gentiles, as well, cannot be saved through the Law of Moses, but like the Jews, only through faith in Christ. Paul’s logic is quite compelling.

One final note. Paul wrote, “the kindness of God leads you to repentance” (2:4). Based on this verse, some say that we should never mention God’s wrath or humanity’s guilt when we preach the gospel, since God’s kindness is what leads people to repentance. Might that be taking Paul’s words out of their context? (Hint: The answer begins with the letter Y!)