Chapter 4

The book of Romans stands out in the New Testament as the most lengthy and detailed defense of the gospel. In it, Paul defends his divinely given message that salvation was being withheld from unbelieving Jews and freely granted to believing Gentiles. Many Jews hated Paul’s teaching, and throughout his letter he addresses their various objections. This is obvious even to the casual reader.

Two Pillars of the Gospel

After his introduction, Paul continues in chapter 1 by focusing on two foundational pillars upon which his gospel is built: humanity’s sinfulness and God’s wrath. Here, right from the start, we begin to see contradictions to the Calvinistic interpretation of certain verses in Romans 9.

Paul first describes how God’s wrath is revealed in His judgment upon sinners who are without excuse before God (1:18–23). In fact, Paul plainly declares that people’s ever-increasing depravity and slavery to sin are an indication of God’s judgment upon them. In the space of just a few sentences he mentions three times how God “gives them over” to impurity, degrading passions, and a depraved mind (1:24, 26, 28). There is no mistaking Paul’s point: God judges sinners by giving them over to ever-increasing depravity.

In this way God can be said to be righteously hardening sinners. I suspect Paul had more in mind than merely illuminating one aspect of God’s wrath. If he can secure his Jewish readers’ early acceptance of the fact that God righteously hardens Gentile rebels, they will more readily accept his later teaching that God also righteously hardens Jews who reject His Messiah.

This Contradicts Calvinism

Note that Paul’s declarations regarding human corruption stand in contradiction to the Calvinistic ideas of total depravity and irresistible grace. God gives people over to depravity only after they have first, by their own choice, decided to resist Him and continually yield to sin. Before He gives them over, they suppressed the truth (1:18), they did not honor God or give thanks (1:21), they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures (1:22–23), they exchanged the truth of God for a lie (1:25), and they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer (1:28). “Therefore God gave them over to impurity,” to “degrading passions,” and to a “depraved mind” (1:24, 26, 28). Those depraved people practice the many vices Paul lists in 1:29–32.

So, although all people are born with a propensity to sin inherited from Adam, they are not born “depraved” in the Calvinistic sense. God judges those who persist on the path of sin by “giving them over” to degrees of depravity. Yet even such depraved sinners are not so depraved that they cannot repent with God’s gracious help while He extends His kindness during their lifetimes (2:4). Clearly Paul was contradicting the Calvinistic concept of total depravity and, consequently, the Calvinistic concept of irresistible grace.

Chapter 2

Through the end of chapter 1, Jewish readers of Paul’s letter may have been saying “Amen.” Surely, they likely thought, Paul was writing only about the depraved Gentiles. But the tables begin to turn on self-righteous Jews in chapter 2. There Paul unmasks the hypocrite who passes judgment on others who sin. Any person who condemns another for wrongdoing testifies before heaven’s court that he knows there is such a thing as right and wrong. Thus, when he himself does wrong, he stands self-condemned, without excuse before God. Paul points out that people are guilty of condemning others for sins that they themselves practice (2:1). What person, for example, who condemns another for lying has never lied himself?

Paul goes on to say that everyone knows God’s judgment rightly falls upon such people (2:2). That is, we all know that such people deserve to be punished, and they would be very foolish to think they will escape God’s punishment when they practice the very sins they condemn in others. The only thing that keeps them from immediate punishment is God’s merciful kindness, which He shows them in the hope that it will lead them to repent (2:4). If they do not repent, however, they will inevitably face God’s wrath, which they have been storing up for themselves while they enjoyed God’s kindness all their lives (2:5).

Again, Paul’s words contradict the Calvinistic ideas of total depravity, irresistible grace, and unconditional election. Paul believed that God is patient with corrupt people who are able to repent and whom He wants to repent, yet who may never repent and will ultimately receive the full measure of His wrath. Therefore no one is so totally depraved that he cannot repent, and thus irresistible grace is unnecessary. Moreover, the saved are not those unconditionally elected, but those who by their own choice repent while God is showing them mercy.

Paul continues by stating that because God is perfectly fair, He will one day render to every person according to his deeds (2:6)—a point no Jew could debate, because Paul was quoting Scripture. God will give eternal life, glory, honor, and peace to everyone who perseveres in doing good and who seeks glory and honor from God. Those who do evil, who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, however, will face His wrath, indignation, and distress (2:7–10).

Most Jews who opposed Paul’s gospel believed eternal life was merited by keeping the Mosaic Law. But no Jewish reader could at this point rightly accuse him of eliminating the necessity of holiness for eternal life. Paul’s message was different, however, because he believed that no one who is a slave to sin can keep the Law. One who believes in the Lord Jesus is supernaturally set free from sin and can keep God’s commandments by the power of the indwelling Spirit. Thus the Law is not nullified by faith, as some of Paul’s opponents might argue. Rather, as Paul later declares, “through faith” the Law is established (Rom. 3:31).

The destinies of eternal life for the righteous and eternal death for sinners apply to Jews as well as Gentiles (2:9–10). The reason, Paul says, is that “there is no partiality with God” (2:11). He is perfectly fair. Clearly this point also stands in direct contradiction to the Calvinistic idea of unconditional election, which voids God’s impartiality. The God of Calvinism has favorites—those whom He elects for salvation before the foundation of the world.

Paul expands the concept of God’s impartiality toward Jews and Gentiles in 2:12–16. God gave the Law only to the Jews, so He will judge them by the standard of the Law. Paul adds what no Jew can argue against: merely hearing the Law does not make one righteous in God’s sight; it is the doers of the Law who will be justified.

Likewise, God did not give the Law of Moses to the Gentiles, so He will not judge them by that standard. God did, however, give them all consciences that condemn them when they do what is wrong and commend them when they do what is right. They will be held accountable to the law written in their hearts.

Paul next challenges his Jewish opponents to apply logically to themselves what he has just said. He exposes the Jew who knows God’s Law, boasts in it, and teaches it to others, yet transgresses it himself, and he compares that Jew to an uncircumcised Gentile who instinctively keeps the Law by following his divinely given conscience. Such upright Gentiles can rightfully condemn such hypocritical Jews.

By this example Paul exposes the absurdity of the common Jewish belief that circumcision somehow made them right before God. He even goes so far as to say that in such a case God would consider the hypocritical Jew uncircumcised and the upright Gentile circumcised. The reason is that true circumcision is of the heart. Paul writes: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (2:28–29). A true Jew has had his heart changed by the Spirit and pleases God by heart obedience.

Within the second chapter of Romans, Paul sets up his Jewish opponents so that they will be unable to argue logically against his doctrine that God is freely granting salvation to believing Gentiles while rejecting unbelieving Jews. If Jews can be justified by obeying the Law God gave them, then certainly Gentiles can be justified by obeying the consciences God gave them. If not, God would be unfair—and this the Jews had to acknowledge. They are now prepared for the next point of Paul’s argument.

As Paul will next explain in chapter 3, Jews and Gentiles are both “under sin” (3:9); both stand equally condemned before God; and thus neither can obtain salvation by merit. Therefore, if either is to be saved, it must be by another way; and if God offers that way to Jews, He must in fairness also offer it to Gentiles. That way of salvation is, of course, the way of faith. Thus God can righteously reject unbelieving Jews and righteously accept believing Gentiles, just as He can righteously reject unbelieving Gentiles and righteously accept believing Jews. If this is not true, then God is partial, which stands against what Scripture teaches.

From reading the first two chapters of Romans, one would assume Paul was an Arminian who believed that anyone—Jew or Gentile—could be saved by faith. He continually contradicts Calvinistic theology.

Chapter 3

From the start of chapter 3 Paul anticipates an inevitable Jewish objection to what he has just written regarding uncircumcised Gentiles being accepted by God while circumcised Jews are rejected by Him: “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?” (Rom. 3:1).

Paul responds that Jews are advantaged because they were entrusted with the “oracles of God” (3:2)—that is, they were given God’s Word in what we call the Old Testament. Yet some of the Jews to whom God’s oracles were given did not believe what God said (for example, those who failed to enter the Promised Land). Paul therefore asks, “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?” (3:3). He answers emphatically, “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar” (Rom. 3:4).

Here Paul begins to respond to a Jewish objection that he later expands in chapter 9. His Jewish opponents apparently argued that if his gospel were true, then God’s word had failed (9:6), because by Paul’s criteria most of the Jews had failed to obtain the salvation God promised them. Here Paul reminds Jewish readers that it is not God’s fault that some Jews did not or do not believe. Neither does their unbelief nullify God’s faithfulness to His promises.

Because all people—Jew and Gentile—stand condemned for their sin and fall short of God’s glory, Paul says that “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (3:20). The Law does not save anyone; it only brings “the knowledge of sin” (3:20) and reveals God’s righteousness (3:21). God has, however, provided a salvation that is granted by His grace to all sinners, Jew and Gentile, if they will believe in Jesus (3:22–24). Again, Paul certainly does not sound like a Calvinist.

Another primary Jewish objection to Paul’s gospel was that it made God look unfair or unrighteous, in that He was accepting wicked, sinful Gentiles while rejecting “law-abiding” Jews. But in light of the fact that Jews stood just as condemned before God as Gentiles, Paul’s gospel did not make God unrighteous in the least. On the contrary, it made God look perfectly righteous in several ways.

First, because God showed “no distinction” (3:22) between Jews and Gentiles. Since all Jews and Gentiles had sinned and stood equally condemned, God made atonement for all their sins and offered them all, by His grace, the gift of salvation, conditioned on each person’s faith. What could be more fair or righteous toward Jews and Gentiles? (And what could be more contrary to Calvinism?)

Second, Paul’s gospel vindicated God before those who accused Him of being unrighteous when He showed “forbearance” and “passed over the sins previously committed” (3:25)—that is, when God did not immediately punish people’s sins in the past. Paul’s gospel revealed that as Christ hung on the cross, He died for all sins for all time as a “propitiation” (3:25)—a sacrifice that appeased God’s wrath against sin. Thus all sin was atoned for by Christ, and His sacrifice made it possible for God to show forbearance to sinners without compromising His own righteousness. Apart from Jesus’ substitutionary death, God could rightly have been accused of unrighteousness when He showed forbearance to those who committed sin. Christ’s death is the basis for all the mercy He has ever shown.

Third, Paul’s gospel revealed God’s righteousness in that when it was believed by Jews and Gentiles, they were made righteous both legally and practically.

Paul’s gospel revealed God’s righteousness in all these ways, and thus the Jewish objection that his message made God unrighteous was completely unfounded.

Again, it is obvious that what Paul has written in the third chapter stands in opposition to Calvinistic doctrine. Calvinism does not uphold God’s righteousness, for it makes God partial to certain people and therefore unjust. Paul’s gospel made salvation equally accessible to Jews and Gentiles. There is no hint of unconditional election in this third chapter.

Paul asks a final question at the end of chapter 3—an objection he either anticipates or has heard: “Do we then nullify the Law through faith?” He answers, “May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law” (3:31). That could be paraphrased: “In light of what I have just written, does my gospel of salvation by faith nullify the Law, making the words of God Himself meaningless, as some accuse? That, you now realize, is an absurd accusation. My gospel does not nullify the Law; it establishes the Law, because it harmonizes perfectly with, supports, and upholds the Law. It reveals God’s righteousness even better than the Law does. It puts the Law in its proper and intended place. It is the fulfillment of many promises, types, and shadows found in the Law that pointed to Jesus. It results in people becoming obedient to God’s Law. How could any intelligent person say that my gospel nullifies the Law?”

Chapter 4

Quoting Genesis 15:6, Paul proves that Abraham, the revered ancestor of all Jews, was justified by faith and not by works (4:1–3). This is a strong argument in Paul’s favor, placing Abraham on his side. Additionally, Paul points out that Abraham was justified before he received the rite of circumcision (4:10–11)—something the Jews considered essential for salvation, if not the very guarantee of it.

Because Abraham was declared righteous before he received circumcision, this proves that non-circumcised Gentiles can be justified before God without being circumcised. Thus “Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised” (4:11). In this way Abraham becomes a father even to those who are not of his physical lineage but who follow his faith. This was even foretold in Scripture when God promised to make him “a father of many nations” (4:17).

Perhaps anticipating that some Jews might retort that Abraham was not required to keep the Law for salvation since he lived before God gave the Law of Moses, Paul also cites words of David, a man who lived under the Mosaic Law. David’s words also prove that, even under the Mosaic Law, justification was by faith and not works, for he wrote of the blessed man “whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered; blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account” (4:7–8).

Going a step further, Paul declares that God’s promised blessing to Abraham and his descendants was conditioned on faith and not on the Law. Therefore those who try to inherit that blessing by keeping the Law nullify God’s promise to Abraham and his posterity (4:13–14). Paul argued this same point in Galatians 3:17: “The Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later [after God’s promise to Abraham and his seed], does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.”

So we see that Paul continues addressing Jewish objections to his gospel. And by the end of chapter 4 there is not a hint of Calvinism—rather, just the opposite.

Chapter 5

In the second half of chapter 5 Paul answers yet another objection. Some might say, “How is it possible for one man’s act to make salvation possible for all people?” Paul responds by relating how one man’s act brought death to the entire world, and then compares the negative results of Adam’s sin with the positive results of Jesus’ death (5:12–21).

Within his comparison Paul writes, “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men” (5:18, emphasis added). From everything else Paul wrote, we can safely assume he was not asserting that all people will be justified, but that all people can be justified through Jesus’ act of righteousness.

In any case, note that there is no difference between the “all men” who are condemned by Adam’s sin and the “all men” who can be justified by Jesus’ obedience. That, of course, flatly contradicts the Calvinistic idea of unconditional election, as well as the Calvinist idea that Jesus died only for the sins of those predestined to be saved (what Calvinists call “limited atonement”).

Chapters 6–8

Some of Paul’s opponents apparently argued that if his doctrine of salvation by grace were true, then it follows that we should continue to sin so that God can show us more grace. Similarly, some argued that if we are not under law (as a means of earning our salvation), then we have no motivation not to sin.

Paul annuls these objections by revealing that those who have truly received God’s grace—that is, true believers—have become obedient from the heart (6:17) and have been united with Christ in His death and resurrection (6:2–7). They have thus died to sin, are freed from it, and it no longer has dominion over them (6:2, 7, 14). Believers are released from the Law’s condemnation by Christ’s death (7:1–6). Now “we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (7:6).

This naturally leads Paul, in the second half of chapter 7, to discuss the plight of the Jew who desires to keep the Law but is still bound by sin (7:14–25). A “wretched man” (7:24) is he indeed—one with whom every Jew who was genuinely attempting to keep the Law could identify. The only one who can set him free from his bondage is Jesus (7:24–25).

In chapter 8 Paul continues this theme, highlighting the great advantage gained by those who have been regenerated and are now “in the Spirit,” no longer “in the flesh” (8:9). Such people have an obligation to follow the indwelling Spirit, and they are God’s own children and heirs (8:12–17). They should patiently wait, even if suffering for their faith, for the time when God’s plan of salvation will be completely fulfilled, when all of the physical creation, including their own bodies, will be transformed for God’s glory (see 8:18–25).

Paul then declares:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (8:28–30).

This passage Piper highlights in his chapter on unconditional election (pp. 21–22), saying it is perhaps the most important text of all in relation to the teaching of unconditional election (p. 21, para. 3). He then attempts to show that this passage does not mean what it actually says. He must, because it contradicts Calvinistic theology.

Piper’s Circular Reasoning

Anyone who reads this passage without a Calvinistic bias would conclude that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him—that is, for believers. This is demonstrated by the fact that those whom God foreknows (obviously speaking of believers), He predestines to become conformed to the image of Jesus, calls them through the gospel, justifies them, and ultimately glorifies them.

Piper attempts to prove that when Paul used the word “foreknew” with regard to the believers, the actual meaning of the word in this context is “foreordained.” The flaw in his logic is so glaring that it is almost embarrassing to expose it. But expose it I must.

Piper ignores the fact that Paul was writing from the beginning of verses 28 and 29 exclusively about people who are saved. Paul defines them as those who “love God,” who are “called according to His purpose,” and whom God “foreknew.” He was clearly not writing about all people, but only about those who are Christians.

Piper points out that Paul says in verse 30 that those whom God calls He justifies. Piper then says that this calling which Paul mentions is not the general call to repentance given to all people, because Paul says it always results in justification. Since not everyone who hears the general call ends up justified, the call of which Paul speaks here must be, according to Piper, the Calvinistic call of “irresistible grace”—the call given only to those unconditionally elected for salvation. Piper ignores the fact that God’s general call of salvation always results in the justification of those whom God foreknew would believe, who are, of course, the only people about whom Paul was writing.

Based on his premise that Paul was writing about people who are called by God’s irresistible grace, Piper then goes back to the beginning of verse 29 and redefines what Paul must have meant when he wrote about those whom God foreknew. Since Paul was (in Piper’s view) obviously writing only about those who are unconditionally elected and irresistibly drawn, when he used the word “foreknew” in verse 29 it must be equivalent to “foreordained.”

Again, the truth of the matter is that the call of the gospel always results in the justification of those whom God foreknew would believe—the only ones Paul was speaking of in this passage from the beginning. It is just that simple.

Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing. I might foreknow that it is going to rain, but that does not prove I foreordained that it would rain. God foreknows who will be saved because He foreknows who will believe. How full is the Bible of events that God foreknew and foretold by prophecy but did not foreordain? How can foreknowledge ever be said to be equivalent to foreordination?

Also note that Paul says nothing in the above passage about God predestining anyone to salvation, but only about Him predestining those whom He foreknew to be conformed to Christ’s image. In that sense God predestines Christians. Foreknowing believers, He predestines them to become like Christ.

Incidentally, God calls people through the gospel, not by irresistible grace. Paul told the Thessalonian believers, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:14, emphasis added). When Paul preached the gospel in Thessalonica, did he preach only to people who were pre-selected to be saved? No—many who heard the gospel in Thessalonica rejected it (see Acts 17:1–12). Everyone in Thessalonica was called by God through the gospel. So when Paul wrote that the Thessalonians were called through his gospel, he certainly did not think that all the Thessalonians who were called were automatically justified.

Interestingly, one sentence before Paul wrote that God called the Thessalonians through the gospel, he wrote, “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13, emphasis added). Paul could say that God had chosen the Thessalonians to whom he was writing because God has chosen from the beginning to save all who would have “faith in the truth” under the drawing of God’s Spirit. Indeed, as Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). All those who believe are among God’s chosen.

Now, having considered chapters 1-8 of Romans, we are ready to read chapter 9 within its context. That’s what we’ll do in our next chapter.