Reading: Romans 3-4, Psalm 134

Yesterday we read Paul’s argument that Jesus is the only person with the right to judge anyone else, because he is the only person to live up to even their own standards of what good and bad. While it is not universally accepted, one of the arguments for the authority of Jesus through the ages is that he is basically impossible to condemn based on the accounts of his life found in Scripture. There are vanishingly few moral systems that find Jesus of Nazareth as anything but a paragon of virtue. Anyway, not really the point here, but interesting. Today Paul moves into the implications of the arrival of Jesus on the scene for both Jew and gentile.

It is important to recall that Paul was a kind of super-Jew by the standards of the day. He was a strict Pharisee, trained in the school of their strictest rabbi of the time. He is introduced to us in the story as someone so committed to the preservation of the Jewish law and traditions that he will travel the country searching out threats to eliminate them. He’s a true believer, and a militant one. Then he is met with an undeniable message that Jesus actually is the Messiah that his people have been waiting for, who tells him to go spread the message of salvation in his name to gentiles. It is an odd thing that this was so revolutionary given the message sent through Isaiah about the Servant of the Lord being too great to bring salvation only to the house of Israel, but must also proclaim salvation to the gentiles. It seems like a natural consequence of Jesus being the Messiah, but Paul sure does get a lot of flack for it.

So, what we see today is Paul making sure that neither Jew nor gentile believer misunderstands their place. As a Jew, Paul is aware of the enormous significance of his heritage- the Jews were entrusted with the Hebrew Scriptures which brought us to this point. They came from Abraham, the man of faith on which Paul is about to base his entire argument for justification. They received the law through Moses after being brought out of Egypt by the hand of God himself. It is a pretty great story, and it belongs to the Jewish people. But. It is also a condemning story. The people of God, who received all these things, did not follow through on them. Bad news for the Jewish people, but not exactly a revelation, given that this is basically the message of all the prophets in the last half of the Hebrew Scriptures. But Paul isn’t done. The gentiles aren’t any better off. They also have revelation from God, and as we read about in chapter 2 they also do not live up to even the standards they make up for themselves. This leads into one of the more famous Bible versus in Romans: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Paul is presenting the second piece of his argument on justification. First, there is one and only one judge. Second, everyone is under condemnation. No one passes the test. The judge is fully within his rights to condemn every single person who ever lived because they all fall short of whatever revelation they were given. It is the bad news. The human problem. The issue that this whole Story has been dealing with all along.

And now, for the first time, there is a solution to the problem. It is the second half of the sentence started in Romans 3:23- All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is is Jesus the Messiah. It is a beautiful symmetry that Paul is describing. Jesus is the only righteous judge. All humans are rightly condemned by their own standards. God provides an instrument of redemption for these condemned humans- and it is the judge! He is, as Paul later says, both the just and the justifier. Jesus plays both roles- the one who judges, and the one who redeems.

Now, how do we get access to this grace and redemption? I don’t think Paul is a universalist who thinks that this plays out for every person. In fact, he makes some noises against this concept in this passage when he puts down those who say you can do whatever you want because it is all forgiven. Paul sees that as a horrendous evil- it is preaching Jesus the Redeemer without Jesus the judge. Selling short either role is a huge mistake.

So how does Paul get away with doing neither? He points back to Abraham, whose entire belief in God rested on faith. He believed that God was faithful to his words. That he was a promise keeping God. That what he promised was certain. Now, we can go back to Genesis and see that Abraham had his share of doubt. Paul is not saying Abraham’s faith was blind, absolute, and involved no doubts. He is using Abraham’s story as a model for the Roman church for the purpose of instruction in justification. The division of Jew and gentile is less important that the division of those who believe God to be faithful and those who do not. The Christian believes that God will be faithful to his words- that Jesus, the Servant of the Lord, will lead all people to redemption through his sacrifice. That there will be a judgment which will encompass all the evils of the world. That the serpent will be crushed. That there will be eternal life in the name of Jesus. Paul is interested in that division, not the division between Jew and gentile, or as he will say in other letters, between male and female, slave and free. The only division that matters is the one between those who believe God is faithful, and those who do not.