Chapter 11
Romans
The Person:
Paul has been travelling and preaching for twenty-years. He had established many smaller churches across Turkey, in particular he had built up seven strategic churches. As a last act in establishing these, he had visited each asking for a collection to take to the Jerusalem church which was in the grip of a famine.
Despite getting older, he felt one more push to take the gospel to Europe was in order. He was on his way to Jerusalem with the collection, but was stuck in Greece for three-months due to bad sailing weather. During this period, the Holy-Spirit confirmed to him ‘Go west to Europe’. To Paul, that meant Rome because he strategizes the best town, and Rome must be that key town. When he got to Jerusalem, some prophets confirmed he would go to Rome, but not under favourable circumstances. This manifest itself when Paul was falsely accused of taking a gentile into the Jewish sector of the Temple197 Gentiles went beyond this barrier on pain of death. Nobody actually witnessed this, but it was ‘supposed’, and the fake-news caused a riot. Paul was arrested, sent to Felix the Governor, given a choice of going back to Jerusalem or going to Rome he chose Rome, which was the opportunity Paul was not going to miss, and at Rome’s expense too.
Being stuck in Greece again, waiting for the winter to pass, was an opportunity time to write a summary of what he had been preaching over the last quarter-century. Recognizing he was getting older, he set out his teaching on: Kingdom, Resurrection, Ascension, Church, Heaven, Hell, being born, again, together with his concern that Christians should remember their Jewish roots. Most of this is incorporated into the letter because Rome would not be familiar with the Jewish origins of the gospel.
History:
The Church in Rome began in Acts-chapter-two when some Jews from Rome were visiting Jerusalem for the feast. When the Spirit came upon the believers, they were among those out in the streets preaching, before returning home.198
The Church in Rome was in need of the letter. Besides doctrinal background, the letter deals directly with the circumstances in which the Church found itself.
Chapter-one plunges straight in the issue of homosexuality. This had directly affected the Church because thirteen of the sixteen Roman emperors had been openly promiscuous gays. In chapters-two-to-three, Paul describes the contrast between the Kingdom-of-God and the kingdoms of this world, accusing them of not being able to tell the difference. Syncretism had affected, not only the society in Rome, but also the Church and its mission field. Antisocial behaviour, offering meat to idols and tax evasion were also rampant in society, and, as Paul plans this to be a strategic church base, he has to deal with it.
Romans-thirteen addresses how the Church should respond to these challenges. But before that Paul needed to lay the contrast by reminding them the Church started under the Hebrews, and how God deliberately set these to be a people apart, to show a different way of life. The Church itself was at war with its past because Romans had conquered the Jews and in doing so had ridiculed everything Israel stood for.
Claudius was anti-Jewish, not least because they opposed his way of life. When a civil riot broke out, he blamed the Jews. Hoping to remove those opposing his values, he expelled forty-thousand Jews from Rome, citing riots as the excuse. What was a large church with Jewish influence, now became a small gentile church which grew. These Gentile believers changed the structure and nature of the Church. The next Emperor realized when the Jews went, so did Rome’s economy, (because Jews were the backbone of trade). So, he brought the Jews back. When the Jews came back they found the Church so changed that it caused friction between Hebrew and Greek believers. The Sabbath had gone, (because Romans only had one day in ten as a rest day). Slaves never had a day off, and plenty of these were now Christians. Besides which, up to now, as the Church spread, it kept the Sabbath, but now it met on the first day of the week, for communion and prayer, (before work). Kosher butchers had gone, with the exile Christians began eating any meat. Jewish strict law observance had now gone, but it had been replaced with licence. All this, Paul regards as cultural, not essential to faith but affecting it. It was causing many disputes among the believers.
Paul uses this letter to address all these issues at two levels. First he addresses the theological arguments, then, in part two of the book he leaves them with practical solutions.
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s progress is the journey through Romans; from destruction to salvation. The characters in it are very recognizable in Romans.
Salvation is not instant. It takes at root the word for salvaged or recycled. Recycling required time and process and is therefore tied tightly to the doctrines of Salvaging, Processing and Finishing199 which are all found in Romans.
Paul is writing to pagans and, moralists who believed keeping a moral code to become the best you can be been all that was required for salvation. Paul regards these as self- righteous, religious folk200.
The book of Romans was the means to convert Martin Luther in fifteen-hundred-and-five.
“At first I clearly saw that the free grace of God is absolutely necessary to attain to light and eternal life; and I anxiously and busily worked to understand the word of Paul in Romans 1: 17: The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel. I questioned this passage for a long time and laboured over it, for the expression ‘righteousness of God’ barred my way. This phrase was customarily explained to mean that the righteousness of God is a virtue by which He is Himself righteous and condemns sinners. In this way all the teachers of the Church except Augustine had interpreted the passage. They had said: The righteousness of God, that is (id est), the wrath of God. But as often as I read this passage, I wished that God had never revealed the Gospel; for who could love a God who was angry, who judged and condemned people? This misunderstanding continued until, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, I finally examined more carefully the word of Habakkuk 2:4: ‘The just shall live by his faith’ From this passage I concluded that life must be derived from faith…. Then the entire Holy Scripture became clear to me, and heaven itself was opened to me. Now we see this brilliant light very clearly, and we are privileged to enjoy it abundantly”201
The Letter:
Interestingly, the book was written from Corinth where similar practices were rife, but for different reasons.
I am told there are about fourteen-thousand letters in museums and archives dating around this time. Comparing this letter against them, few are longer. The book of Romans has an unusually long greeting and closing, it is not a normal letter for its time, it is more a lecture, probably coming about by Paul’s time of recollection while waiting for the sailing season to begin. It is written to a church Paul has never seen. Paul does not usually interfere with churches he did not start but this was to be a strategic church in his eyes. He has a desire to visit, but so far that door has been closed.
This book contains all the basic doctrines of the early church because the Church at Rome did not have a Jewish theological base. Righteousness is the key word. For the benefit of those who have been taught the principles of speed reading, it is used at least forty-times. Paul sees righteousness as biggest barrier getting into the kingdom of God. Either a person is made righteous by repentance and forgiveness or he is self-righteous and the self-righteous cannot enter the kingdom of God.
The first half of the book lays out the doctrinal shape of the Church. The second half deals with the practical application of those doctrines. Paul, Like Luke, has a strong desire to see a united church. This is meant to be a two-way thing, gentiles fully aware of their inheritance from the Jews and Jews fully accepting the grafting of gentiles into the kingdom. So, Paul speaks to Jew and Gentiles who are both at fault. In Chapters-six-to-seven he addresses legalism of the Jews and the licence of the Gentiles. In Chapter-eight, he addresses the inheritance of ritual by the Jews and the libertarian-spirit of the gentiles.
Chapters-nine-to-eleven address the growing attitude of the gentiles who thought, ‘We are the new Israel now’. (Modern church, please take note)!
When Israel rejected God, the rest of the people in the world were able to turn to him. So when God makes friends with Israel, it will be like bringing the dead back to life. If the roots of a tree are holy, the rest of the tree is holy too. Your Gentiles are like branches of a wild olive tree grafted into a cultivated olive tree. Some old branches have been pruned and you have been grafted in to take their place. You only enjoy the benefits and blessings because you are grafted into the cultivated tree. Don't think you are better than the branches that were cut away. Just remember that you are not supporting the roots of that tree. The root of that tree are keeping you alive.
Maybe you think those branches were cut away, so that you could be put in their place. That's true enough. But they were cut away because they did not have faith, and you are attached by your faith. Don't be proud, but be afraid. If God cut away those natural branches, he can do the same to you? 202
197 Trophimus (Acts 21:27-29).
198 Acts 2: 8-10
199 In the Jargon, Justification, Sanctification and Glorification.
200 I refer you back to the Philosophies of Plato, Aristotle discussed in introduction, and Pilgrims Progress
201 Martin Luther
202 Romans 11: 11- 21