Romans: The World: A Beloved Rebel (2)
Chapter 1:18-3:20
He begins with creation and the
human apostasy from God. In that human rebellion the creation itself
became an occasion for sin, was perverted and was treated as if it were
God instead of the creature (1:18-23). From there he moves to Sinai, the
creation of Israel (compare Isaiah 43:1,7; 44:2,21,24; 49:5 and
elsewhere) and Israel's apostasy (2:1-3:20). The whole world is under
God's judgment. (He will later summarize humanity as non-redeemed in
Adam, the old man-5:12-21.)
Why is a message about God's
faithfulness such good news? Part of the answer is implied in 1:18 -
3:20 where Paul charts the sinful course of human history. In light of
humanity's treacherous betrayal of God and our crass abuse of the
dominion he gave to us (Genesis 1:26-27 with Genesis 3) it might be
thought that God would obliterate us.
And in some ways the
biblical record could be seen as proof that God had abandoned humanity.
The expulsion of Adam, Eve and Cain from God's presence, Noah's flood
and the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah could be used as proof that
God had turned from humanity and was bent only on destroying them in
outbursts of his anger. If such expressions of his anger were typical of
his full feelings toward the human race our situation would be hopeless
and lead to utter despair. But Paul's good news is that God is faithful
even in the face of our faithlessness. This means that however we understand the wrath of God it is to be seen as part of his faithfulness toward us.
But
far from implying that God is not angry about our sin Paul insists that
the anger of God is being revealed against all unrighteousness (1:18).
We need to note the present tense of the verb and follow the major
versions and we need to note that when God's wrath is being revealed it
is against "all" unrighteousness.
It's clear not only from the
biblical record but from looking around us that not every evil person is
suffering from God's anger in the present time. Oppressors and cheats,
drug barons and porn kings, warlords and corrupt financiers are living
in luxury while feeding off the helpless. Is the wrath of God being
revealed against all that? Paul would say yes. Every time one oppressor
is exposed and dealt with every oppressor is judged. When a society
imprisons a ruthless criminal it speaks its mind against all ruthless
criminals. Society can't catch up with them all but God can! The justice
he brings down on criminals at a national or individual level is a
demonstration of how he feels toward all oppression and impenitence.
Specific judgements are a promise and a prophecy that all crimes are
noted and will be dealt with. No one "gets away with" anything. As God
works to bring his eternal purpose to a glorious conclusion in a final
judgement and revelation he shows his local and individual judgements to
remind us that a final judgement is up ahead.
[The psalmists and
prophets indicate this when they speak of judgements on various nations.
They often describe the judgments in galactic terms. Stars fall, skies
are rolled up, the earth is bludgeoned and the like. This links the
crime of the particular nation in view with a humanity-wide rebellion
and a universal judgment. See Isaiah 13, 34 and Jeremiah 4 as
illustrations of this.]
It's worth noting that Paul begins this
section of Romans with God as our Father creator and that all the
corruption he lists later begins with our departure from him (1:18-23).
If we're out of tune with God we're out of tune with creation and our
fellow-humans. Paul views our sin not simply as the breaking of some
universal laws—it is a violation of a personal relationship. And our
betrayal of God, our refusal to acknowledge who he is and give to him
our grateful thanks blinds us. Professing ourselves to be wise (Genesis 3
and the forbidden fruit is in view) we became fools (Romans 1:21). Sin
disables us until we are no longer able to think well. It isn't that now
we have rebelled against God that we think 2+2=5. It's all subtler and
much more dangerous than that. Thinking we're very wise (thinking we're
gods) we refuse to be taught. Our intellectual gifts are used to serve
our own selfish ends. They're used to "explain" why we should deprive
one another or why it's okay to jettison developing human beings. We
show why it's all right to bury little nations under mountains of debt
in order to please stockholders and to demand our rights at every single
point to the destruction of community relationships.
Thinking we
are very wise we not only do we oppose gender-discrimination, we
completely deny the differences in gender which is part of our being in
the image of God (see Genesis 1:26-27 and Romans 1:26-27). We substitute
"citizenship" for relationships (like father and mother and children)
and wonder why we promote the absence of "natural affection" (love for
family members). Did ever a nation or an individual admit that what it
was doing was just plainly evil? Haven't we all justified our
wickedness?
As history developed our evil grew Paul says God gave
us up to perversity and moral derangement (Romans 1:24,25,28) It's one
face of God's wrath (though it's not the whole picture) that he chose to
give us over to our sin. Our deepening wickedness is the result of God
hardening us. It isn't that God simply stepped back and "allowed" us to
sin more--the passages speak of a direct act of God that results in our
choosing to sin even more. God's doesn't choose sin for us we do that ourselves but
God works with us (as he did with Pharaoh and Israel see Romans 9:17-18
& 11:7-10) to drive us further into desperate need.
Paul's
good news, however, is that God didn't drive us under sin so that he
might be rid of us. He concluded us all under sin "that he might have
mercy on us all" (Romans 11:32). His giving us up to our wickedness was
an act of mercy. We're tempted to think that a worsening world is proof
that God will or has abandoned us but Paul sees it as the merciful wrath
of God driving us to desperate need for mercy which he is eager to
provide. Our "wisdom" is our arrogance and our arrogance by God's grace
leads us into abysmal trouble out of which we cry for help.
The
apostle takes up the Jewish story (2:1-3:19). They felt superior to the
Gentile world Paul had just sketched but their own scriptures made it
clear that though they possessed the Torah they had not internalised it.
They had not taken it into their hearts. They had the marks of God's
special favour (like circumcision, the covenants and the Torah) but they
didn't have the heart or lifestyle that these called for or bore
witness to. So that while they called themselves Jews and took pride in
the name they weren't true Jews because a true Jew had the flesh of
Abraham and his faith. A true Jew had a circumcised heart as well as
body. The true Jew not only possessed the Torah, he lived it (Romans
2:28-29; 9:6).
Paul lumps humanity together and makes the claim
that Gentiles who had on their hearts what the Torah called for (Romans
2:14-15) would receive eternal life (through the Messiah) as surely as
the Jew who lived in honour before God (Romans 2:6-16). Did this mean
the Jews had never been peculiarly blessed by God (Romans 3:1-2)? No,
Paul insists they were given special privileges but that they had been
faithless just as the Gentiles had been and so, in practice, Jews were
no better off than any other nation. A collection of texts from the
Jewish scriptures showed that the Jews, like the Gentiles, didn't give
to God what was his due (Romans 3:9-19).
He concludes this section
then by saying that the whole world is brought under judgment before
God. On the whole the Gentiles bore the marks of rebellion against God
and the sign of his wrath on them. On the whole the Jews had the witness
of the Torah against them as perennial transgressors.
It's
possible for humans with their darkened hearts and sensitivity to pain
to think that God's reaction to sin is something of "over-kill". We
might claim it is too great a reaction to the crimes of humanity but
this is part of the reason Jesus Christ is our redeemer. He is able to
see it for what it is and confess it for what it is our sin is the one
unendurable! (See this developed in the next section.)
And
the cross marks us out Jew and Gentile together as rebels against God
for when God came, in and as Jesus Christ, we slew him! Explain as we
will, protest as fiercely as we might, we showed that as a race we were
enemies of God when we laid hands on him and sought his extermination.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.