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“And remember, the Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15-16 NLT)
“From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and appointed to spread the Good News of God. God had already promised this Good News through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant of David. In his spiritual, holy nature he was declared the Son of God. This was shown in a powerful way when he came back to life.” (Romans 1:1-4 – GN)
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.” (Romans 1:16,17 – NET) • “For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, ‘The person who is put right with God through faith shall live.’” (Romans 1:17 GNB)
“READING PAUL IN A NEW PARADIGM” • Sigve Tonstad • Andrews University Seminary Studies, Spring 2002, Vol. 40, No. 1, 37-59
George Kittel (1906) • “It stands as an established fact that in Romans the justification of sinners by faith in Jesus is the prevailing thought. Given this premise, [this] reading will be confronted with grave reservations.” • “To Luther the [Good News] was not an attribute of Christ…it was the God-given stance of the believer, by which he appropriated the righteousness that would be the basis for his acquittal.” – Tonstad
“Moreover, with [the expression] ‘the righteousness of God’ one must not here understand the righteousness through which he himself (God) is righteous, but righteousness through which we are made righteous.” – Luther • “There is little doubt today that Luther reached his conclusion as much on the strength of an overarching theological vision as on the basis of strict exegesis.” - Tonstad
“…there is no doubt that Luther’s interpretation came into being as part of a broad theological system. It was not primarily worked out on a lexical, semantic, and exegetical basis, the accepted tools of interpretation today.” – Tonstad
Luther • James is “a letter written in straw” • Revelation – • “I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it” • “Christ is neither taught nor known in it”
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed” (NRSV, NKJV, NASB, ESV) • “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” (TNIV)
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17 – NRSV) • “Those who know you, LORD, will trust you.” (Psalms 9:10 – GNB) • “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.” (Galatians 5:6 - Amplified)
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17 – NRSV) • “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise…. You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:2,3,13 ESV)
“I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the LORD says and how He will answer my complaint. Then the LORD said to me, ‘Write My answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. ‘Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.’” (Habakkuk 2:1-4 NLT)
“Thus, when Paul quotes Hab. 2:4, we cannot help hearing the echoes – unless we are tone deaf – of Habakkuk’s theodicy question. By showcasing this text – virtually as an epigraph – at the beginning of the letter to Romans, Paul links his gospel to the Old Testament prophetic affirmation of God’s justice and righteousness.” – Hays, Echoes, pg 40 • “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17 – NRSV)
The Good News is that God is righteous • This restores our trust in God and we are “put right” • To reject this Good News about God is the experience of God’s anger • Gentiles • Jews
“True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful? Of course not! Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say about Him, ‘You will be proved right in what you say, and You will win Your case in court.’” (Romans 3:3-4 NLT)
Romans 3:21-26 • “Several NT scholars have singled out this passage as the key to the whole letter: • “it is the centre and heart of the whole of Romans…” – Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, pg 199 • “the thesis proper” – Kasemann, Commentary on Romans, pg 91 • “the great programmatic summary of his gospel.” – Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, pg 144
“the most concentrated and heavily theological summary of the Pauline gospel, and every word has to be wrestled with. But if we take the trouble it demands and really enter into the background of his words it is not, I believe, obscure, however profound.” – J.A.T. Robinson, Wrestling with Romans, pg 43
“But now, apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed. This was also to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, to that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.” (NET)
“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood…” (KJV) • “God appointed him as a sacrifice for reconciliation, through faith, by the shedding of his blood” (Romans 3:25 – New Jerusalem Bible)
Brazen altar – Bronze. In the outer court. The unconverted mind, yet willing to listen • Golden altar – Gold. In the holy place. The converted mind. • The covenant box – Gold, covered by the gold lid. In the most holy place. The sealed mind – settled into the truth about God (his character and his principles).
“We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain---that is, through his own body.” (Hebrews 10:19,20 – GN) • “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace…” (Hebrews 4:16, NLT).
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17 – NRSV) • God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain” (Romans 1:18,19 – GN). • “Those who know Your name trust in You, for You, O LORD, do not abandon those who search for You.” (Psalms 9:10 NLT)
“They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles. And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other. They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen. Because they do this, God has given them over to shameful passions….Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do” (Romans 1:22-26,28 – GN).
“They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice; they are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip and speak evil of one another; they are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful; they think of more ways to do evil; they disobey their parents; they have no conscience; they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others.” (Romans 1:29-31 – GN)
God’s wrath • “My anger will flame up like fire and burn everything on earth. It will reach to the world below and consume the roots of the mountains. I will bring on them endless disasters and use all my arrows against them.” (Deuteronomy 32:22,23 – GN) • “They fail to see why they were defeated; they cannot understand what happened. Why were a thousand defeated by one, and ten thousand by only two? The Lord, their God, had abandoned them; their mighty God had given them up” (Deuteronomy 32:29,30 – GN)
God’s wrath • “They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter. When that happens, I will become angry with them; I will abandon them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible disasters will come upon them, and then they will realize that these things are happening to them because I, their God, am no longer with them.’” (Deuteronomy 31:16-17 - GN)
God’s anger • “Very well, then, I will give you freedom: the freedom to die by war, disease, and starvation” (Jeremiah 34:17 – GN)
“They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious. God was angry when he saw it, so he rejected his people completely. He abandoned his tent in Shiloh, the home where he had lived among us. He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory.” (Psalm 78:58-61 – GN)
“I will fight against you with all my might, my anger, my wrath, and my fury. I will kill everyone living in this city; people and animals alike will die of a terrible disease…. Anyone who stays in the city will be killed in war or by starvation or disease...It will be given over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it to the ground. I, the LORD, have spoken…I will set your palace on fire, and the fire will burn down everything around it. I, the LORD, have spoken.” (Jeremiah 21:5,6,9-10,14 – GN)
“You have brought this on yourself by abandoning the LORD your God when he led you on his way… Your own wickedness will correct you, and your unfaithful ways will punish you. You should know and see how evil and bitter it is for you if you abandon the LORD your God...” (Jeremiah 2:17-19 – GN) • “Judah, you have brought this on yourself by the way you have lived and by the things you have done. Your sin has caused this suffering; it has stabbed you through the heart.” (Jeremiah 4:18 – GN)
“The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the LORD’s fierce anger have turned the country into a desert.” (Jeremiah 25:38 – GN)
“The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the LORD’s fierce anger have turned the country into a desert.” (Jeremiah 25:38 – GN) • “The LORD, the God of Israel, told me to go and say to King Zedekiah of Judah, ‘I, the LORD, will hand this city over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it down. (Jeremiah 34:2 – GN)
“You will feel my anger when I turn it loose on you like a blazing fire. And I will hand you over to brutal men, experts at destruction.” (Ezekiel 21:31 – GN) • “I will hand you over to other nations who will rob you and plunder you.” (Ezekiel 25:7 – GN) • “The king killed the young men of Judah even in the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed them all over to him.” (2 Chronicles 36:17 – GN)
“The Lord in his anger has covered Zion with darkness. Its heavenly splendor he has turned into ruins. On the day of his anger he abandoned even his temple.” (Lamentations 2:1 – GN) • “Why have you abandoned us so long? Will you ever remember us again? Bring us back to you, LORD! Bring us back! Restore our ancient glory. Or have you rejected us forever? Is there no limit to your anger?” (Lamentation 5:20-22 – GN)
“I will attack the people of Israel and Judah like a lion. I myself will tear them to pieces and then leave them. When I drag them off, no one will be able to save them. I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me.” (Hosea 5:14,15 – GN)
“They insist on turning away from me. They will cry out because of the yoke that is on them, but not one will lift it from them. How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you?” (Hosea 11:7,8 – GN) • “I can’t bear to even think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest.” (Hosea 11:8 – The Message)
“In this way they have brought to completion all the sins they have always committed. And now God’s anger has at last come down on them!” (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 – GN)
“Because of our sins he was given over to die…” (Romans 4:25 – GN)
