Reading: Romans 1-2, Psalm 133

Ten years ago, when I was in seminary (the first time…), I sat down to read Anglican bishop N.T. Wright’s book titled Justification. I was very interested in various views on the subject of atonement through the death of Christ, and Wright is a pretty accessible writer, so there I went. Over the next few years, I traversed many opinions, eventually forming my own, though I have never stopped reading on the subject. I’m currently engaged in John Owen’s book The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, which is an absolute masterpiece. But that is not why I bring it up. In the course of his argument, Wright calls the Epistle to the Romans the “greatest letter ever written.” I’m not sure what the right measures are to evaluate a claim like that, but I will give you this: it is almost certainly the most argued over and difficult letter ever written.

The church in Rome apparently started quite early, within a few years of the resurrection. However, things did not go easily for the church there for many, many years. During the book of Acts, we heard about the expulsion of all the Jewish people from Rome under the emperor Claudius. This necessarily included most of the Christians as well, though some gentile Christians may have been allowed to remain. Both Jews and Christians fared poorly under the empire for several generations. Paul’s letter appears to be written to the church there during one of the periods of tolerance. It seems clear that he is addressing issues of division and unity of the Jewish and gentile Christians, and he is doing so through the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Paul pushes the Roman Christians to submit to the gospel of repentance and belief in the name of Jesus, and in so doing see themselves as the new humanity for God’s new world.

He opens the letter with a condensed biblical theology. The first six verses of Romans 1 are a masterful summary of the great Story that the Scriptures have been telling this entire time. It is a good thing that it is encouraging, because it is going to get depressing for a quite a while now. Addressing an unstated problem, Paul leaps into an exposition of the human problem– humans violate natural law, human law, personal ethics, God given laws… no matter what their context, humans never live out the dictates of their own moral codes. No matter what the problem facing the Roman church is, Paul roots it in the big human problem. No human ever lives up to the moral standards of God. And it is even worse than that. No human even lives up to their own moral standards.

Francis Schaeffer once explained Paul’s argument in Romans 2 using the image of an invisible tape recorder. Lets make believe every human was born with an invisible tape recorder around their neck that recorded every action, word, and thought of that person. At the end of their life they come before God and God says, “I’ll only hold you accountable for your behavior by your own standards of right and wrong.” Then we all listen to the tape recorder, and every human is condemned by their own standards. The human problem is not just the violation of God’s law, it is an inherent inability to adhere consistently to any moral standards at all, even one we make up ourselves.

Paul is setting the Romans, and many other Christians through the ages, up for a big fall. He is challenging the ability of anyone to judge anyone from a morally superior position. Humans who have the problem are not qualified or able to maintain positions of authority over one another. Paul is going to blow this out to issues of Christians judging one another, of Christians being persecuted by governments, of Christians judging themselves, and finally of Jesus’ unique right to judge any and all people by whatever standards he chooses. Fortunately for us all, the righteous judge is the man who willingly went to the cross.

This is, at its root, the doctrine of justification, which is the theme of Romans from end to end. The human problem obfuscates justice from human observers. There is no justification for humans judging one another or accepting the judgment of other humans as ultimate. Jesus, the Servant of the Lord, is the only human without the problem. Therefore he, and he alone, has the right to judge. The gospel message, of repentance unto life in his name, is good news because of who Jesus is. The one Judge is faithful, true, and merciful beyond comprehension.

Now, we can obviously carry this too far. This is why you will shortly see Paul making a big deal about repentance. God is gracious, but not permissive of evil. God is against evil in every sense. He has only one purpose for evil and it is to obliterate it. This means that mercy from the judge is not the same thing as decriminalizing evil actions. This judge defines the law as well as enforces the law. He is a judge in the ancient sense of the King- lawmaker and lawgiver. Paul’s question to the Romans is now: who has the right to judge? Not you.