The Livening of Sin and the Liberty of Christ
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The Ruination of the World
The Ruination of the World
Yesterday, we left off in Romans Ch. 2 wherein Paul dictated the futility and sinfulness of hypocrisy, and the blanket condemnation of the world: Jewish and heathen alike. The Apostle asked this question about circumcision:
So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will his uncircumcision not be regarded as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a violator of the Law?
So then, those of us who are circumcised (or baptized, as in the new covenant) if we do not perfectly keep the Law, will not reap the benefit of the Law perfectly kept, viz., eternal life. Likewise, those of are who are uncircumcised (or unbaptized, as in the new covenant), if they do perfectly keep the Law, will reap the benefit thereof, viz., eternal life. With that, Paul is impelled by his argument to ask —
Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?
The Jew’s Advantage
The Jew’s Advantage
Paul wastes no time in answering his question in a few short words.
Great in every respect. First, that they were entrusted with the actual words of God.
By “the actual words of God” he means the revelations that were delivered from heaven to the Jews; to be specific, God revealed Himself in the burning bush as “I AM”; He revealed the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai (or Horeb); He revealed His words to Belshazzar through Daniel, and at various other times He entrusted His actual words to be inscripturated by the Jews, who went up to make Isreal. The reception of Scripture was unavailable to the Gentiles. Salvation is, as Jesus says, from the Jews and is delivered to the Gentiles.
John 4:22
…salvation is from the Jews.
For example, King Balthazar, king of Babylon, was confounded by the actual words of God until they were interpreted for him to understand.
Suddenly the fingers of a human hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. Then the king’s face became pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints loosened and his knees began knocking together. The king called aloud to bring in the sorcerers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners. The king began speaking and said to the wise men of Babylon, “Anyone who can read this inscription and explain its interpretation to me shall be clothed with purple and have a necklace of gold around his neck, and have authority as third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription or make known its interpretation to the king. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, his face grew even more pale, and his nobles were perplexed.
This was the finger of God — the same finger wailed about by the Egyptians that transformed the Nile River into blood. Balthazar could not understand what was being communicated although it was being communicated in Aramaic, a language that Balthazar understood — it was encrypted and the decryption didn’t belong to him. Daniel, the Jew, only was able to interpret it. Daniel, when asked because of his Jewish origins to interpret the writings on the wall, can do so.
Then Daniel replied and said before the king, “Keep your gifts for yourself or give your rewards to someone else; however, I will read the inscription to the king and make the interpretation known to him.
And so he did. An understanding of some of the actual words of God is ordinarily necessary for salvation, and the actual words of God were entrusted to the Jews; so salvation, as Jesus said, is from the Jews. Moreover, the Bible has been miraculously conserved throughout the ages, better than all its contemporary literature which has, for the most part, passed away. But the Bible will not pass away; it cannot pass away, for Jesus said that
Matthew 5:18
…until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!
And Peter exhorts his readers in his first epistle, saying
Since you have purified your souls in obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brothers and sisters, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For,
“All flesh is like grass,
And all its glory is like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
And the flower falls off,
But the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word which was preached to you.
The Advantage of the Church and Baptism
The Advantage of the Church and Baptism
For any of this to matter to us, we must translate it, like usual, into a new covenant language. No longer are the oracles of God entrusted to the Jews and no longer do the Jews go up to make the assembly of God, which was Isreal; instead, the oracles of God are entrusted to us Christians who go up to make the Church, and God’s former ways of revealing His will to His Church, old and new, have ceased. So the oracles of God belong to us in the preaching and singing of the word, and the administration of the new sacraments — which are sermons invisible and visible respectively. By sermons invisible I mean preaching, as I am now, the oracles of God or singing them, and so fulfilling our ecclesiastical duty in convicting the world of the word of God. By sermons visible I mean, in large part, the administration of the sacraments. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two sacraments entrusted to the Church of God; whenever we publicly administer either, we are delivering a sermon. For example, when we take the Lord’s supper, we are sermonizing about the forgiveness of sins and the Lord's death. Hence it is written of Jesus when He was instituting the Lord’s supper:
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
And Paul says in his epistle to the Corinthians this:
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
Whenever we baptize somebody, we are sermonizing about the forgiveness of sins. When we baptize our infants, we are preaching a special sermon about 1) the depth of sin since even infants are needy for their sins forgiven because even they are infected with original sin, and 2) we are preaching of God’s promise to our children, to whom the promise of the covenant belongs. Hence why it is written about Peter in His sermon:
Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
It is also for the Church — for the individual members of the Church — to be lights. By this, I mean that we ought to let our good works be seen by men, not so that our goodness which we don’t have can be clarified, but so that God’s goodness can be clarified like I previously taught. Hence Jesus says in His sermon that
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
So our virtue is a visible sermon and is preached outside of the visible church where the sacraments are administered.
The Righteousness of God and the Depravity of Man
The Righteousness of God and the Depravity of Man
Paul, having established the advantage of the Jews (and I, the advantage of the Christians) juxtaposes God’s giving them the aforementioned advantages and their treatment of them. Romans 3:1–20
Then what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Great in every respect. First, that they were entrusted with the actual words of God. What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? Far from it! Rather, God must prove to be true, though every person be found a liar, as it is written:
“So that You are justified in Your words,
And prevail When You are judged.”
But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking from a human viewpoint.) Far from it! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (just as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let’s do evil that good may come of it”? Their condemnation is deserved.
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written:
“There is no righteous person, not even one;
There is no one who understands,
There is no one who seeks out God;
they have All turned aside, together they have become Corrupt;
There is no one who does good,
There is not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave,
With their tongues they keep deceiving,”
“The venom of Asps is under their lips”;
“Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;
“Their feet are swift to shed blood,
Destruction and misery are in their paths,
And they have not known the way of peace.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.
The advantages given to the Jews, and so to the Church, were often squandered by the Jews, and so by the Church. But God did not take away their oracles or advantages; the promises of God are inviolable. Instead, He has given a new administration of the covenant, which includes Jews and also gentiles. Many in Isreal did not believe; many in the Church did not believe. This has not given God cause to withdraw the oracles from the Church. For if God were to take away our advantages whenever we squandered them, He would have to leave us utterly bare. Through our lie, God is clarified as One who is honest; so God is glorified. But Paul rightly notes that it seems incongruous that God should be glorified through our lying and other sins; for “if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (just as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), ‘Let’s do evil that good may come of it’?” By this Paul is asking about two things. 1) If my sinning has resulted in God’s ultimate glorification, and God’s glorification is the ultimate goal of things, how is my sinning sinful, seeing that it achieved the highest good? And 2), if my sinning achieves this good, why shouldn’t I purposefully sin to see God’s goodness abound? Paul does not answer this question in ch. 3. Instead, he waits until Ch. 9 to give a clear answer. But the answer is known, and it’s that it belongs to humans to acquiesce to what has happened and to be purposeful about what is going to happen. That is to say, if something has happened, acknowledge that it happened according to God’s will, as God predetermines every occurrence. But if something is going to happen, act with volition toward a virtuous outcome. As Leibniz, the Christian mathematician, metaphysician, polymath, and philosopher maintains “I hold therefore, that on these principles, to act conformably to the love of God it is not sufficient to force oneself to be patient, we must be really satisfied with all that comes to us according to his will. I mean this acquiescence in regard to the past; for as regards the future one should not be a quietist with the arms folded, open to ridicule, awaiting that which God will do; according to the sophism which the ancients called λόγον ἄεργον, the lazy reason. It is necessary to act conformably to the presumptive will of God as far as we are able to judge of it, trying with all our might to contribute to the general welfare and particularly to the ornamentation and the perfection of that which touches us, or of that which is nigh and so to speak at our hand. For if the future shall perhaps show that God has not wished our good intention to have its way, it does not follow that he has not wished us to act as we have; on the contrary, since he is the best of all masters, he ever demands only the right intentions, and it is for him to know the hour and the proper place to let good designs succeed.” (Von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Leibniz: Discourse on Metaphysics Correspondence with Arnauld and Monadology. Translated by George R. Montgomery, The Open Court Publishing Company; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1902, pp. 7–8.) How this is coherent is a mystery, and the mystery is discussed thoroughly in ch. 9. I will, God willing, talk more about it when we get to that chapter. So I digress; God is not wicked for inflicting His wrath on sinners for any reason, and all of us are condemned by sin, Jew and Greek, as Paul maintained: no one does good. However,
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.
Christ has Bested the World
Christ has Bested the World
So the Law — the Law of Moses — has vivified sin and livened its consequences for everybody. So if there is to be salvation, then a viable route ought to be opened. Hence Paul says
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.
This is the viable route: faith. Now, God is the just and is the Justifier of faithful; He is also the gracious giver of faith. And such is the new Law: grace. Faith has always been the effectual means of salvation; nobody was ever justified by the Law because we have all sinned. This law of faith is only now perfectly revealed in the new administration of the covenant, but it has always been the way of salvation. The way of faith is expounded more thoroughly in Ch. 4, which we will attend next Thursday.