My still uninformed thoughts on Romans 7

At one point in my life, I thought I would conquer Romans when I was 30.  Now, I think my goal is to conquer Romans when I am "30s".  This means I still have 9 years left.  Oh, what an "s" can do to schedules!

I basically stopped the regular habit of reading Romans commentaries, memorizing those verses, listening to lectures/sermons.  I just got Romansed out.  But my wife just bought me the new project by Psallos where they walk through the entire book through musical performance.  Very, very cool, and wonderful gift! Also, a perfect gift in a situation where adding another book to the library would be just one more book that we would eventually, one day, have to bring back to the States.

Romans is an amazing book, but it is super challenging.  I've heard one person refer to it as Everest.  Part of what makes it so difficult is all the available literature and history of exegesis.  Less-researched passages of scripture are easier to form an opinion on, because usually there are only a few people that I really respect and trust that have commented on the exegetical question.  Since they often agree, it's easy for me just to go along with their interpretation.

But there are many controversial passages in Romans that have ultra-conservative commentators in the exact same theological streams forming drastically different opinions.

One such case is the passage in Romans 7.  I won't do a roundup.  But the big question here is: "who is Paul referring to?"  There are 3 choices: (1) Paul, (2) Israel, (3) Adam.

Most people you read from before this century believed it was Paul.  The Puritans I read never even look at the other options.  Fastforward to the 20th century and now it's difficult to find a scholar who believes this is talking about Paul.  Some examples, for those who care: Bruce Ware, NT Wright, and Doug Moo take this as referring to Israel.  Michael Horton takes it as Paul.  Tom Schriener leans towards Paul.  But recently (last 20 years or so) more and more are adopting the "Adam" choice.  There was a PhD thesis paper that someone did at TEDS a while back that really awakened the academic world to this in a new light.  And I've heard both Tom Schriener and Douglas Moo say in their lectures that if they wrote their commentaries again, they would give this position more attention.

Why is there such a temptation to see this as referring to Adam?  First of all, you have the Adam/Christ parallel that has already been brought up in chapter 5.  Second, look at verse 9 below:

Romans Chapter 7, Verses 7-12:
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law o I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if p the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin q seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. r For apart from the law, sin lie sdead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment s that promised life proved to be death tome. 11 For sin t seizing an opportunity through the commandment u deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So v the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 

Verse 9 is tricky one here, isn't it? As I've already pointed out in a previous post, it's difficult to see how this could be talking about anyone but Adam.  Weren't we born in sin?  The Bible never talks about us being born alive and at some point dying.  I haven't consulted a Roman Catholic commentary on this; maybe this is support for the "age of accountability"?  I don't know.  But it's difficult for me to see how this could be talking about anyone after Adam.

However, we need to say that, if pressed, we could see this verse as referring to the modern experience in that, in one sense, this experience is true in our personal lives.  Every one of us, in Adam, has sinned like him.  We replicate the human story over and over again.  We weren't born into the world without sin, but we replicate Adam's sin who did that.  The commandment comes, we sin, we die.  (Much of this point and even the language used was borrowed from Tom Schriener)

This kind of goes along with something a mentor/friend of mine said concerning this question:

It seems to me that the alive and dead throughout Romans 7 are almost logical constructs about authority and control vs. Freedom. When I am alive I am free to act, when I am dead I am controlled or bound by something. So in verse 9, before I knew anything about the law I was able (as far as I knew) to do my own thing. But then when I became aware of the laws/ commands the sin that was there - but had nothing to rebel against, sprang into action. I became bound/controlled by the sin, and not free to do the right things....but I am not a theologian and don't play one on TV. Rob

We become bound by sin and the law is the catalyst to show us what not to do.  Our human natures, before we are Christians, are not seeking to glorify God - they are, in fact, actively working against that. So when the law comes, our natures are drawn to transgress the law so that we can dishonor Him.

But the harder question to answer is: Are verses 15-25 talking about the Christian life or the Non-Christian life.  Even the camp that says 7:7-25 refers to Paul are split between those who think it is referring to him BEFORE his conversion and those who believe it is referring to him AFTER conversion.  This is a touchy subject for some people.  Bruce Ware thinks the right interpretation of this passage is a really big deal.  Holding the position that this passage is referring to Israel in an unregenerate condition, he believes that many Christians are wrongly using this passage to justify defeat in their lives.

I definitely don't think it's as big a deal as Ware makes it out to be.  But I think we can agree that interpreting it correctly is important.

The arguments that it is referring to Non-Christians are compelling:

(1) Paul, in Romans 6 and 8 says that we are NOT slaves to sin.  ("The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.")  So, how could he say here, in 7:14 that we are "sold under sin" and in 7:23 that we are "captive to the law of sin"?  As Bruce Ware points out: Paul is not talking about an internal struggle - he's talking about abject captivity and submission.  "Not the ability to carry it out" (7:18b)

(2) The structure of Romans 7-8ff indicates this.  7:5 is about the non-Christian and is parallel to 7:7-25.  7:6 is about the Christian and is parallel to Romans 8:1 and following.  Thus, 7:7-25 is referring to non-Christians.

But these arguments can be answered pretty easily I think.  As for "(1)" above, I think we can just say that this is a part of the already-not-yet in a Christian's life.  Yes, we are now dead to sin.  Yet, we still live in the period where the Old Age and the New Age overlap.  And "(2)" is just an argument from structure.  Maybe this is what Paul intended.  Maybe it isn't.  Not a very strong argument, and easily dodged.

So in the end, I don't really know.  Paul's point is that the law is unable to transform us.  Non-Christians experience this totally.  Christians experience this in-part due to the already-not-yet.

I'm happy to hold this position right now.  Tom Schriener didn't even make a decision in his commentary.  So, I'll hold out and wait and see if I form more solid opinions on it.

Really enjoy the comments on this.

Syllabus for Romans 2:1-3:9

Instead of writing a post on each of these topics, I thought I'd provide an outline of an imaginary 14 week course on it.  Here's the way I'd like the class to be layed out if I was going to take it.

Week 1: Background theology: "Root and Fruit" and Future Justification

You need to be familiar with the passages in scripture that talk about the fact that Christians will be distinguishable based on their fruits.  This will help your assessment of whether or not Paul is talking about that in this passage.  Same thing with "future justification".  Does such a concept exist in scripture?  Get a solid foundation about what the Bible as a whole says about these things.  Primary sources: Paul David Tripp's "How People Change"

Week 2: Background exegesis (1): Old Testament sources

Mainly bring up what's going on in the poetic passages (Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah) that Paul quotes from.  Walk through their background.  Primary sources: Seifrid (Commentary on NT use of the OT) vs (!) Moo (Romans).

Week 3: Background exegesis (II): NT context and literary features

Cover the parallel passages in Paul.  Also bring up the diatribe style, how it was used in contemporary sources.  If time permits, deal with E.P. Sander's (crazy) claims.  (e.g. deal with whether or not Paul was wrong to require so much of the Jews for their salvation.  And other NPP debates.)

Week 4: Background ethics and application: Hypocrisy

Give a general overview of the way we choose spin rather than substance. Primary source: Cornelius Plantinga's "Not the Way it's Supposed to Be" and his chapter "Masquerade".

Week 5: Romans 2:1-5, Switching to the religious world

Cover mainly how these verses set the tone for 2:1-3:9.  Especially with regards to hypocrisy.  Trace the themes of hypocrisy and judgment through the rest of the section to get and understanding of the importance of this opening section.  If time permits, cover who Paul's audience is in this section (his "hidden target").

Week 6: Romans 2:6-11, Judged according to our works

Focus mainly on the debates surrounding whether or not Paul is referring to Christians in this passage.  Bring up the prevailing modern view (that Christians are in view) over against the traditional Lutheran view (that they aren't).  Examine the symmetry and chiasm in the passage.  Review the OT background (Proverbs) behind "according to their works" (v. 6).

Week 7: Review for Mid-term.  Survey the recent contributions on Pauline theology from children's literature.

Week 8: Excursus: Gentiles and Christians in Romans 2:1-29

Take a break to argue that Christians are not mentioned until 1:29 and that they are not being described by any of the verses prior to this one.  Answer any questions.

Week 9: Romans 2:12-16, Jew and Gentile

Several items: (1) The "law" that Paul brings up and how it is used in verse 12.  (2) The common grace of conscience (v. 14-15) and the philosophical ramifications of these verses (especially as they relate to natural law), and (3) Bring up the alleged future justification of verse 13.  (4) Should there be a parenthesis in this passage or not?  (5) If time permits, deal with any wrong hermenuetics commonly associated with this passage (inclusivism, or that it is referring to Gentile Christians).

Week 10: Romans 2:17-24

Were the Jews robbing temples?  What is Paul doing in this passage?  Cover how vv. 17-18 are symmetrical with vv. 19-20.  Emphasize that vv. 17-20 were all true and good things.  Review the OT background of v. 24.

Week 11: Romans 2:25-29

Cover how crazy and irritating Paul must have seemed to the Jews of the time.  How revolutionary it was for Paul to be messing with "circumcision".  Also point out Paul's use of the word "law" and how someone can keep it without being circumcised.  Cover the way (and reason) Paul brings in the language of the "Spirit" in verse 29.  If time permits, deal with whether or not verse 27 is hypothetical.

Week 12: Romans 3:1-8

Cover the traditional interpretation of this passage.  Understand the traditional exegete's view of who is asking the questions and how and why Paul answers them the way he does.  If time permits, examine some of the nuances in the original text and why this text is so difficult to translate.

Week 13: Main application - our condemnation

Spend a week reviewing the other sections (before the test).  And re-reflect on the theme of judgment that has been in Romans up until now (Romans 1:18-3:8).  Examine various ways this can be brought into evangelism conversations.  "Sin is more than just disobeying a father.  It is a treasonous rebellion of a subject in the kingdom against a good and noble king."  Reflect on Paul's main point of this passage (we are all under sin).

Week 14: Exit

Last class. Bring up some of the main homiletical challenges this passage presents.  Ask the class for any ideas they can think of for how to preach it.  Review its common applications. Review for final.

Just a few more thoughts on Paul's clever transition

Have a couple minutes here on my lunch break.  So I thought I'd cover some more of my thoughts on Paul's transition from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

#1 The connection with Rom. 1:18

I never noticed this before, but the fact that people are giving approval to others (1:32) for their sin continues the theme of how people are attempting to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  If you can get a horde of others to do the same thing as you, it can look pretty well like it's the right thing to do.  I think this theme climaxes (in this section anyways) at the end of 1:18-3:20 in 3:1-8 where Paul says "let God be true and every man a liar".  Men try to suppress the truth by approving of the lies in the lives of everyone.  But judgment is coming, and God will be justified in the end.

#2 Jewish thought

A lot of ink is spilled over getting to the heart of what the real salvivic theories existed in second temple Judaism.  What was the soteriology of the first century Jew?  I mean, this is one of the main things that got people to listen to E.P. Sanders in his "Paul and Palestinian Judaism".

[His idea was that Jews basically were covenental nomists: they thought they were automatically chosen to enter in to the kingdom and that they just had to perform basic religious rites to stay in the covenant. He (and his followers) developed his theory by examining many of the intertestamental and secondary first century (mainly Dead Sea Scrolls) sources.]

I think, if we can reverse engineer Paul's conception of their world from his comments in 2:1-3:8, I think we can determine that they acknowledged their own moral shortcomings (Paul assumes they know that they "practice the same things"), but were relying on their observance of the ritualism of the Mosaic law to shield them from the wrath of the coming judgment of God.

Consequently, this chapter provides us a chilling account of what goes on inside the mind of the religious person.  I look forward to going through it.  It should be highly profitable for understanding religion qua religion (not religion qua Christianity), how to watch out for it, and how to respond to it when we find it creeping into our own lives.

Approving and judging

We're just very briefly going to look at the end of Romans 1 and the beginning of Romans 2.  This is the transition between 1:18-32 (how all of us, with special emphasis on the Gentiles, are condemned) and 2:1-3:8 (how the moral majority, with special emphasis on the Jew, are especially condemned).  He has just mentioned (in vv. 1:29-31) a long list of 21 sins that we all commit.  Now Paul starts out the transition by saying

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die

Isn't it interesting that everyone, atheist or not, knows this?  Everyone knows that we deserve God's judgment on our sin.  Paul adds one more thing to our list of things we cannot not know.  It's a sad and scary thing when the threatened judgment of God no longer affects a person.

He continues:

they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Paul is saying that giving approval for these sins is in some ways even worse than doing the sins.  Piper says, "Which is worse? Suicide or murder?"  He likens our approval of things in society (like our society's rampant approval of homosexuality) to being spiritual and eternal Dr. Kevorkians.

Of course, at this point, some people in the audience are clearly not feeling condemned.  Even if they were guilty of the 21 sins Paul mentioned in his vice list of vv. 29-31, they definitely didn't approve of the sins and often spoke out against them in society.

It seems to me that the reason for Paul mentioning how the Gentiles publically approve of these sins was mainly for rhetorical purposes to draw in the self-righteous crowd so that Paul could turn the argument to them.  Watch how Paul continues:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

Paul would have had a lot of experience preaching to self-righteous Jews during his missionary journeys.  And when you travel around giving the same sermon, you learn what works and what doesn't work.  You really notice what has an affect on the crowd.  I imagine that Paul had used this trick a few times: first talk about how the Gentiles are approving of these sins.  Then when the self-righteous religious person says "Not me! I don't approve of their sins", Paul uses this opportunity to start his condemnation of them.

And he, here at least, isn't condemning them for their hypocrisy (as is often stated), but rather he is showing that their own knowledge of the truth makes them inexcusable.  (Paul has, ever since verse 18-19, been strongly emphasizing our own knowledge to point out God's justice in judging us.  We actually just saw this again in v. 32 above.)

This little rhetorical trick reminds me of Paul Washer in his, now famous, "shocking sermon".  I've tried to start the youtube video 5 minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79h7RnmDMEY&t=5m0s

The law of the Spirit of Life

A friend of mine asked What is the "law of the Spirit of Life"

Some autobiography
This is a more complicated question than I was anticipating.  I've been reading all about the first part of Romans; this is a good excuse to get to Romans 8.  Before tonight, my only recall of the passage was that I'd memorized Romans 8:1-2 a long time ago, have heard some lectures and sermons on Romans 5-8 in general (mostly in the contexts of the topic of sanctification.  And I'd read John Owen's book on Indwelling Sin.

Consultants
So when I heard the question, I quickly consulted 3 books:
 (1) To start with, I read what Gordon Fee's book "God's Empowering Presence" had to say about it. In this book, Gordon walks through literally every Pauline passage that makes reference to the Spirit.  But he does so in its full context, so the book also acts as a stand-in commentary on the entire Pauline corpus.  It's a pretty magisterial book, so any time I'm in a passage where Paul mentions "Spirit", I consult it.

(2) Next, I read the relevant pages in Moo's commentary on Romans.  This is the meatiest book I own on Romans.  And as expected, it proved the most helpful.

(3) Lastly, I picked up John Owen's book on Indwelling Sin.  Like I said, I had read this several years prior and still had its definition in my mind.  But I wanted to make sure I wasn't just taking Owen's word for it.  The cool thing is that he and Moo (resource # 2 above) agreed.  So that was cool.

So I'll work backwards through those 3 resources:

John Owen's view
John Owen starts out his book saying that Romans 7:21-23 is the foundational text for understanding indwelling sin in the life of believers.  And so to make his point, he has to give a definition for "law".  The one he lays out is:

"An inward principle that moves and inclines constantly unto any actions is called a law.  The principle that is in the nature of everything, moving and carrying it toward its own end and rest, is called the law of nature.  In this respect, every inward principle that inclines and urges unto operations or actings suitable to itself is a law.  So the powerful and effectual working of the Spirit and grace of Christ in the hearts of believers is called "the law of the Spirit of life" (Rom 8:2). ... It is a powerful and effectual indwelling principle, inclining and pressing unto actions agreeable and suitable unto its own nature." [1]

But often, when you read something by a guy a few hundred years ago on a peripheral passage like this, you'll learn that modern Greek exegesis has something else to say about it.  So that's where Moo comes in.

Moo
Moo spends 5 very detailed, heavily footnoted pages explaining his view on verse 2.  So the rules for me re-explaining what he said are that I'm not allowed to open the book.  (Keeps my response short!)  As I remember, he said the following things:
(1) Some people take "law" to refer to the Mosaic law.  In this interpretation, the Spirit now helps us to obey the law and so it is an agent of life rather than an agent of death.  However, this interpretation is unlikely.  How much hope is there if our deliverer turns out to be our enslaver?  He had other linguistic arguments against this interpretation but I forget them.
(2) nomos, the Greek word for "law" can mean "principle" or "binding authority" (as Owen mentioned above), and so is a viable interpretation here.  And it parallels 7:23 nicely, which refers to the "law of sin".  We even expect for Paul to "finish the story" and explain how we are set free from the "law of sin".  There, in 7:23, it refers to a binding principle / power as well.  The Greek construction is the same and given the parallel, it is likely that the meaning is retained.

Fee
"But", some might object, "what is the point of Paul using this language here?  This just seems so ad hoc of him.  He never uses this language anywhere else..."  This is a good objection and a true observation.  The most likely reason for him doing this is that there is a play on words going on in the Greek.  "Pneumatos" (Gk. for "spirit") sounds like "nomos" (Gk. for "law").  So Paul is saying, the real 'law' that sets you free isn't the law (nomos) of Moses - it's the "law" (nomos) of the Spirit (pneumatas).

Conclusion
Here are Moo's closing words on chapter 2:

"Verse 2, we might say, is speaking directionly about neither justification nor sanctification but about that "realm transfer" that is the presupposition of both.  As such, it significantly advances the discussion of chaps. 5-7 by introducing the Spirit as a key agent of liberation from the old realm of sin and death."

[1] p. 234, Indwelling Sin, in "Overcoming Sin and Temptation", edited by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic.  Italics their own.


***   Update 9/17  ***
One thought I had after posting this was that I believe there is a slight difference in Moo's position and Owen's.  Moo (and Fee) see "law", in 8:2a as epexegetical.  That is - they see it as just another word for "Spirit".  This is important because it means that they see the Spirit as the agent that is setting the believer free (instead of the law-ish aspect of the Spirit, as, I think, Owen interpreted it).

However, though both Moo and Fee (is it odd that both of these men have a consonant-vowel-vowel last name?) agree that "law" is epexegetical here, they actually still have a mild disagreement.  Moo sees "law" acting as, more or less, a metonymy.  He thinks Paul is intentionally brining to the reader's mind this aspect of the Spirit - the way the Spirit powerfully works in the believer's life.  Fee, however, doesn't see it this way: he thinks "law" is used purely as a rhetorical device - a segue from talking about the Law of Moses to talking about the Spirit.  It's an odd position for him to hold, especially since the title of his book is "God's Empowering Presence".

All manner of unrighteousness (Rom 1:29a)

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice."
- The Apostle Paul, Romans 1:29 (b)

This week, we'll go word-by-word through a short sentence of Romans 1: the first half of verse 29.  It's the opening of the vice list that forms the climax of Paul's entire argument in Romans 1:18-32, namely that all of mankind is justly under the condemnation of God.  This argument is so crucial to understand to where Paul is going to be going soon.  If you don't understand the bad news, you'll never understand the good news that comes later. [1]  Let's listen up as Paul painfully describes our state.

They were filled with all manner of
Notice that Paul says "filled with" in the passive tense.  The filling is happening to them.   It doesn't say that we filled ourselves with these things.  This is something God has done.  The idea of God being the creator of evil isn't new to the Bible.  It is found in Isaiah and other places. [2]

Unrighteousness

• Greek: Adikia ἀδικία
• Parallel vices: Injustice, wickedness
• Obvious Examples:
• Taking or giving a bribe
• Overlooking the crimes of the guilty
• Punishing the innocent
• Perpetuation the corruption of "the system"

C.E.B. Cranfield describes this Greek word as the striking out against the just order of God.  So, a good enough parallel would be "injustice".[3]  Romans 1:29-31 is a long vice list of 21 sins, so it is no small thing that the word Paul chose to start out the list was "unrighteousness".  Paul is trying to point out (as he also does in 1:18) that God is just and righteous and that we are just the opposite.

Evil

• Greek: Poneria πονερία
• Rhymes with: gonorrhea
• Obvious examples:
• Sin [4]

Have you ever noticed that many of the words in this vice list are just the negation of something good?  "Un-righteousness" (a-dikia), "without-understanding" (a-sunetous), "without-faithfulness" (a-sunthetous), "without-affection" (a-storgous), "without-mercy" (a-neleaymonas).  This mirrors the way the Bible most often represents evil: as without that which is good. [5] According to the Bible, evil was not a part of the original "good" creation: it entered in later. Therefore, according to the Bible, evil is not a substance that exists independently on its own.  It is not an autonomous entity. [6] Evil is just the corruption of what is good.

Therefore, we might expect that the greatest evil should be derived from the greatest good.  Some theologians have recognized this and have deduced that since the greatest good is the gospel, therefore the greatest evils must be, or stem from, corruptions of that gospel.

This rings true even in our own experience.  All of our sins stem from false gospels.  As one example, I'll use one of the most common false gospels of our day: the prosperity gospel. The "prosperity gospel" teaches that you can can measure how much God is blessing someone's life by the amount of material health and wealth that person has.  We often look down our theological noses at those who hold that belief - but how many of us actually believe this in practice?  This leads us to the next word in the vice list.

Covetousness

• Greek: Pleonexia πλεοξία
• Parallel vices: Greed, envy
• Obvious Examples:
• Have you ever sat in church and seen another husband loving his wife well and thought, "Why don't I have a husband like that?  I deserve a husband like that."
• Desiring the paycheck someone else has

As I was saying, many of us practice prosperity gospel ethics every day of our lives.  When we are confronted with someone who seems more "blessed" than we are (materially), why does it mess us up so much inside?  Maybe it's easy if it's a super Christian - someone you know is suffering anyways.  "Sure, let them have the riches; I know he's a worthy man."  But it really gets under our skin, doesn't it, when we see riches and honor given to worthless and wicked men.

But don't you see that this is a perversion of the gospel?  We are warned in the Proverbs not to envy a wicked man - "for the devious person is an abomination to Yahweh" (Prov 3:31-32).  The point of the wise parent in this verse is: these material possessions that you see are not the end of the story.  Don't be so deceived!  They will get what's coming to them.  There will be a day of reckoning when the righteous will receive honor and the wicked will only have the reverse - destruction of the honor they had and eternal dishonor.

But how often we don't trust God and instead measure our blessing in terms of the comforts and riches of this fleeting life.  God keep us from these tendencies.  This is why it so important for us to keep the gospel at the center.  Later on, in chapter 2, Paul will tell us that a key part of his gospel is that God has a day of wrath coming.  We need our eschatology to inform and comfort our hearts.

Malice / Murder / Maliciousness
But not only do we need it to inform and comfort our hearts - we need it to restrain them from evil.

In verse 29, "malice" follows "covetousness" and "murder" follows "envy".  This is probably intentional on the part of Paul. James 4:2 says "You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel."  [Envy and murder were also connected in several extra-biblical texts of the time; cf. Moo.]

How often have you wanted to inflict pain on someone else?  How often, when you are badly wronged by someone else, do you want to "get even"?  "Vigilante justice"; retaliation.  "I want them to experience as much pain as they caused me."  This is often, again, because we aren't trusting the Judge to truly get His vengeance in the last day.

The failure to trust that there will be a reckoning can often lead to a bitterness in us that turns into malice in general.  [Dictionary.com describe malice as "desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another, either because of a hostile impulse or out of deep-seated meanness."]

Conclusion

From this short text (1:29a), we get the "hard evidence" that proves the assertion of verse 28: we are depraved.  God has "given us over".  I think I will end this post with a fitting quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” [7]

[1] As John Owen has said: "As the world by its wisdom never knew God aright, so the wise men of it were always utterly ignorant of the "inbred" evil in themselves and others. [Yet] without a supposition of it, not any of [the benefits of Christ] can be truly known or savingly believed." (Indwelling Sin, introduction)

[2] For more on this, I recommend the article from Henri Blocher on Evil in the New Dictionary of Biblical theology.  A representative quote: "The Bible stands out among sacred texts for its preoccupation (some might say 'obsession') with evil... [yet] the very texts that portray God as the author of evil also declare his indignation against evil"

[3] For an excellent overview of what the Bible has to say about injustice, I recommend the relevant passages of Bruce Waltke's 2 volume commentary on the book of Proverbs.

[4] Henri Blocher: "If evil is perversion, its original locus is the perversion of freedom: the primary evil is sin."

[5] See ibid.

[6] Following Augustine here. "Every actual entity is good [omnis natura bonum est.] Nothing evil exists in itself, but only as an evil aspect of some actual entity." - Augustine, Enchiridion, chapter 4 (link)

[7] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956.
  

Greek Sounds in Romans 1:28-31

Hoping to write an actual post on Romans 1:28-31 sometime.  This one is more of just a quick observation I had that would really be too distracting to try to add it onto a more conceptual post on the topic as it would probably detract from the mood of the post.  But this section [1] is super rich if you know how to pronounce Greek.  There are all sorts of "sound-alike" things going on.  Here are five that I've counted:

(1) The edok(i)masan [2] vs ad(o)kimon sound-alike pair.  In verse 28, Paul uses the Greek word "edok(i)masan" for "did not approve" (retaining God in their knowledge), and in response, God is said to give them over to a depraved ("ad(o)kimon") mind.  They sort of sound a like and a lot of scholars have caught onto that.

(2) The "ias" in verse 30 of the vice list.   ἀδικίᾳ πονηρίᾳ πλεονεξίᾳ κακίᾳ.  The accent mark is always on the "i" of the "ia".  So it sounds cool to say them in a row.  If I were a preacher, I think I would say the four words in a row and then at the end add "mama mia" just to see who was tracking.

(3) The envy/murder pair. (verse 30) These are linked conceptually (see James and also other works of Hellenistic Judaism) but also phonetically: "φθόνου φόνου", or "psth(o)nou ps(o)nou".

(4) The "foolish, faithless" pair. (verse 31) "ἀσυνέτους, ἀσυνθέτους" pair.  "asoun(e)tous, asunth(e)tous".  ESV: "foolish, faithless".

(5) The last four words (verse 31) in general all begin with "a" and there is a really cool assonance that Paul achieves by putting them together like this.  Of all the English versions, I think the ESV best matches this: "foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless".

Footnotes

[1] The Greek passage with the words color coded by their numbering above if you're interested:  ²⁸καὶ καθὼς οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸνθεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν, ποιεῖν τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα,²⁹πεπληρωμένους πάσῃ ἀδικίᾳ πονηρίᾳ πλεονεξίᾳ κακίᾳ, μεστοὺς φθόνου φόνου ἔριδος δόλουκακοηθείας, ψιθυριστάς, ³⁰καταλάλους, θεοστυγεῖς, ὑβριστάς, ὑπερηφάνους, ἀλαζόνας, ἐφευρετὰςκακῶν, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ³¹ἀσυνέτους, ἀσυνθέτους, ἀστόργους, ἀνελεήμονας: 

[2] The parenthesis around letters is meant to indicate that this is where the accent falls.

They gave up natural relations

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27 ESV)

Friday night, I woke up (I'm a chronic insomniac), started, and finished, Sam Allberry's book "Is God Anti-Gay", and then went back to sleep. It's definitely the best treatment on the topic of homosexuality I've ever read and I know I'm not going to do as well a job at treating it at 4:14PM on a Sunday night after being wiped out by going to church. So if you have it, read it.

So since we're going through Romans 1, I thought it would be appropriate to hone in on this paragraph (1:26-27) to see what Paul says about homosexuality. Not only is it a crucial hinge in Paul's argument, it's also a misunderstood issue today.

Teaching us about nature

People often take the space given to homosexuality in Romans 1 to mean that homosexuality is the chief of sins. I've heard it said that once a culture accepts homosexuality, it's all downhill from there. That's a complete misreading of this passage. Homosexuality isn't mentioned here because it is of superior guilt, but because it is of superior pedagogical value. Homosexuality tells us something about the sin in all of us.

See, what Paul accuses the homosexual of, (namely, exchanging natural relations for those that are contrary to nature), is actually not something that only those who practice homosexuality do. "Nature", here, represents the ideal that God intended for this earth. In verse 25, people turned their backs on the "Creator". In verse 26 and 27, they live that out by using His creatures the way they want instead of how He (as the Creator) wants and intends. That's what "contrary to nature" means.

What is "contrary to nature"?

The argument that some people make is that if we can just prove that some people are born with a homosexual orientation, we can disprove Paul's assertion that homosexuality is "contrary to nature". ("After all", they say, "if homosexuality is contrary to nature, then how can someone be born that way?") But that's a misreading of Paul. Paul's argument wouldn't at all be undone by the existence of a "gay gene" because the "gay gene" itself is contrary to nature. For instance, if a baby was born with only two months to live (e.g. missing key organs, etc.) we might say that such births are "contrary to nature" because they are not the design God had for the birth process when He created it. In the same way, we say that homosexuality is contrary to nature because it is not how God had designed intercourse when He created it. Things that are "contrary to nature" happen in nature all the time.

It's not just homosexuality that is contrary to nature. Actually, any deviation from the purity God demands is "contrary to nature". 1 Corinthians 6:13b says "the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." So any sexual immorality is contrary to nature. Only pure sexuality, as God designed, is according to nature. Man and wife, unashamed, as God mentions in Genesis. But nothing else. The problem is that we're all sexually deviant. None of us measure up. All of us, in one degree or another, have turned to something other than what God designed. Don't you see? We all have gone after unnatural relations when the Divine natural relation was offered all along.

I am trying to show that verse 25 (we have turned our backs on the Creator) and verse 26 (we therefore turned our backs on the created order) are very critically related. Verse 25 says that we worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Verse 26 and 27 vividly portray an example of how this happens. And rather than distance ourselves from these verses as something only "those kinds of people do", I think Paul means for us to stand in horror at our own hearts.

Wrath as sin

But now, "horror at our own hearts" isn't the only thing that is going on here, is it? Of course, it is one of the things going on. Paul mentions that our hearts are "foolish" and "darkened" (v. 21) and that our minds are "depraved". But we are also to see homosexuality as a punishment on the human race. That is the argument of Romans 1. The argument starts out stating the "inaugurated eschatology" of God's wrath. And we're supposed to see homosexuality as a sort of "already-not-yet" of hell.

In other words, we are not supposed to be afraid for America because they're legalizing gay marriage. As in, "Oh no! Now God might judge us! Maybe this is what ISIS is about!" But, biblically, not counting the final judgment, our sins in this life are God's temporary judgment on us, not the precursor for it. God's wrath is most harshly manifested in this life when He gives us what we want.

This is so radically different than (a) most religions, and (b) what most people think Christianity says. I remember discussing with a non-Christian recently on this very point. He was trying to find some common ground with me on how to think about morality. He is an atheist and so, of course, has a very difficult time finding a basis for morals. But he was saying to me, "Well, Ryan, don't you generally want for America to be a society of people acting morally? Because otherwise, God may judge you, right?" And so I explained that in the Christian religion, we don't really expect to get full judgment for our sins in this life. And that actually, the way the Bible talks, the sins themselves, in this life, are the judgment. That definitely was new to him. But it's exactly what the Bible says.

I remember Matt Chandler's application on this point was that when you get busted for your sin, that is God's grace to you. God's wrath would be most manifest if He let you get away with it.

Society or the individual?

But who does this sin-retribution cycle describe? Are these sin-retribution cycles in Romans 1 a description of what happens to society as a whole, or is it a description of what happens in each of our lives individually?

We can easily see that the pattern in Romans 1 is that sin produces more sin which in turn produces more judgment in the form of more sin, and so on. Everyone agrees on the fact that there is a reiterating sin-retribution cycle described in the text. But the question is: Who is it that is caught up in this cycle? Is it the individual or the society?

The individual?

The most natural reading of the text is that this cycle is happening in the lives of pagan individuals, described as a corporate whole. In other words, this view would say that the people committing idolatry in verse 23 are the same as those committing acts of homosexuality in verses 26 and 27. The homosexuality, in this view, is the consequence of their idolatry.

The society?

But many have pointed out that this is another place where Paul's argument could be weakened by the findings of science. If the sin-retribution cycle is happening to the individual, then it would seem that the idolatry is the cause of their homosexuality, not genetics or whatever else. So there are some interpreters (Sam Allberry and John Piper included) who interpret this passage to say that actually homosexuality is a judgment on the human race, not the individual per se. They say that the sin-retribution cycle is actually talking about humanity in general. "Humanity in general committed idolatry. So God handed humanity in general over to all kinds of sins, including homosexuality." This is an attractive position. Because it seems that a person was given their genetic dispositions before they even had a chance to commit idolatry.

The individual's Act (not the temptation)

But I don't think this is necessary interpretation on the part of Allberry or Piper. In my view (and Tom Schriener's if I understand him correctly), Paul is giving an example of how this sin-retribution sequence works itself out in the lives of some individuals. Those individuals were the same ones who committed the sins of verses 21-25 (i.e. dishonored him, exchanged the glory of God for images, etc.). And for these particular people in Paul's example (which are supposed to be a paradigm for all of us), their initial sin of dishonoring God led them into the practice of homosexuality.

But that is the key word. The "practice" of homosexuality. Notice that I didn't say that it led them into the temptation of homosexuality. Of course, the temptation for homosexuality may just as well be result of the fall. But the sin itself - the "practice", - not the temptation (i.e. same-sex attraction), is what is in spelled out in verses 26-27. So there doesn't seem to be (to me at least) any contradiction between this passage and the current or potential findings of science about where homosexual desires come from.

Long story short, the same-sex attraction isn't the sin - the "inflamed with passion for one another" is. The temptation isn't the sin until it becomes the burning with desire and exchanging the natural use of their bodies for what is contrary to nature. And that (the sin) is what God gave them up to in response to their idolatry.

Another Great Exchange

The "great exchange" in this passage is the exchange of natural relations for unnatural relations. Zooming out a little, this is supposed to show us the wrath that God is revealing against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men (Rom 1:18) and looking ahead, we are to see that God's wrath is also, even more greatly, demonstrated in another "great exchange" in which we get God's righteousness and Jesus becomes sin for us. God "laid on Him the iniquity of us all." I think this passage lends extra weight to that Isaianic phrase.

So I don't know if you've thought about this, but since homosexual acts are actually seen as the judgment for sin (1:27b), this is one of the most vivid, real-life portrayals of God's wrath that we see (in Romans at least). And if Jesus is dying for us with God laying on Him the iniquity of us all, then that means that in some ways, Jesus understands the horror of being bound to a homosexual lifestyle. Not that He ever has been or ever will be. But the suffering associated with the sexual deviant, according to this passage, is under the category of "the wrath of God", and therefore is something underwent for us at the cross.

Jesus took on him homosexuality. He became sin. But He also rose again. And if we unite ourselves to Him in His death, then we will reign with Him in life.

Conclusion
One of the things I loved about Sam Allberry's book is that he really seemed to "get it". He understood the demands of the Christian gospel. He was willing to say that the only alternative to marriage is celibacy and that is the route he took with his own life. The Christian gospel invitation is not an invitation to "your best life now" (the way the world thinks of it). It's a call to the army, to radical suffering, to alienation, suffering, and oftentimes humiliation. But it is precisely in that suffering that we are most ably able to place our faith and trust in Christ and so be united to Jesus in His cross. And the scriptural promise is that if we are united with Him in His death, we will be united with Him in His resurrection.

Amen, come Lord Jesus. Come.

God gets even

(18) For[1] the wrath [2] of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 

(19) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

(21) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 

(25) Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (28) And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Romans 1:18-31, ESV (except the capitalization of "Because" in verse 25). All emphasis my own.
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Have a feeling this will be a long post. Really, you don't need to read it. But I need to write it. With a passage this large in front of us, it's almost impossible for it not to be. We are helped out, though, by three things: (1) I've already covered the issue of natural revelation and the issue of our dishonoring of God in previous posts. And I plan on taking up homosexuality in an upcoming post. So we shouldn't need to get sidetracked with those in this post. In this post, my main objective is to see the top-level perspective of Romans 1:18-31. We're just trying to get a 30,000 foot view of it.

In Greek, they tend to start out the text with the most important thing. And here, the defining characteristic is the wrath of God. (Verse 18 starts it saying "For the wrath [Gk. orge] of God is revealed from heaven...") So that's where we're headed.

Another of the main ideas that Paul is trying to communicate throughout this first part of Romans is the righteousness of God (see our post on verse 17). God does things justly. In fact, throughout this first section (1:18-3:20) where Paul is trying to show that everyone stands condemned before God, one of the things he keeps coming back to is that God is completely just in His judgment of us:
 - 1:20: "so they are without excuse"
- 1:27b: "receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error"
- 2:1a: "you are without excuse"
- 2:2: "God's judgment is always according to truth"
- 2:5: "God's righteous judgment"
- 2:6: "He will render to each one according to His works"
- 2:11 "For God shows no partiality [in judgment]"


So there is this legal dimension to what Paul is getting at. It's not just unbridled wrath with no constraint. God is showing "patience, forbearance, and kindness" (2:4a), and His judgment is always according to truth. Lex talionis.

This legal category of how God's wrath plays out is very important to keep in mind. Because where Paul takes the text is about to get really interesting. He starts to talk in vindictive terms.

Did you notice that in the text above, I added formatting to the text? The underlined phrases show what man's initial sin that dishonored God. We covered these last week. Basically, man spit in God's face. God showed Himself to us (unveiled Himself as it were, verse 19) and instead of being thankful, we dishonored (verse 21), turned our backs on Him (verse 25) and tried to forget Him (verse 28).

The question we left off asking last week was this: Does God let us get away with this? Does He let His glory lie in the dust and let His public shaming stand?

The answer (No!) comes in what you see bolded above. God responds with His wrath (verse 18) and this is seen not only in the legal, tit-for-tat, eye-for-eye judgmental sort of way, but also takes on vengeful, retributive sense.

God doesn't just get even, He gives them a taste of their own medicine. (I am indebted to Douglas Moo and G. K. Beale for pointing this out to me.) Look at the following pattern:

1:21 They "dishonor" God.
--> 1:24 "Therefore God handed them over... to the dishonoring of their bodies"

1:25 They "exchange" [Gk. metallassow / μεταλλασω] the glory of God for images
--> 1:26 "For this reason, God handed them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged [Gk. metallassow / μεταλλασω] natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

1:28a: They didn't approve [Gk. edok(i)masan [3] / ἐδοκίμασαν] to to acknowledge God.
--> 1:28b "God handed them over to an disapproved [Gk. ad(o)kimon / ἀδόκιμον] mind.

The word for "handed them over" above is the same in all three sentences (παραδιδωμι) so the peculiar repetition is there in the original document (not just our English versions.)

They dishonored God, so God dishonored them.

They dishonored God by making an exchange. So He dishonored them with another exchange.

They disapproved God, so He disapproved them. [4]

God throws their sin back on them, so to speak. It's like when Haman gets hung in his own gallows (cf. Esther 5:14 and 8:7), and countless other great stories of revenge. God gets His satisfaction by pouring His wrath out on His enemies. This is how He restores His honor.

This is a great thing. How terrible it would be if God just let people dishonor His name. If He just let His defamation have the final say. God had to have the last laugh or He would look tiny and impotent. In some ways, He would be tiny and impotent. God's wrath being revealed from heaven is a good thing and, even if we don't understand this right now, someday we will. In heaven, we will go out and look on the dead corpses of our enemies (Isaiah 66:24) and rejoice that God got His glory (Rev. 16:7). God gets the last laugh.

**************

That was a good way to end the post. So actually, that counts as the end of the post. But I wanted to answer a misconception about what I just posted. From the looks of Romans 1:18-32, it might look like the sin itself is the only punishment meted out to His enemies. And so some God-haters might actually respond to this as follows: 

"Hmm.. Well, that's not so bad actually. If I read this text rightly, it says that if I dishonor God, I will be given over to a host of other sins, like homosexuality, envy, etc. But what if I like my sin? This doesn't really seem like such a bad course. Tell you what God, I'll dishonor You, and You can just continue to give me over to more sins. Quid quo pro. Deal?"

But the sin lists in 1:18-32 are proleptic punishments. They are not the end of the story. Notice that Paul says God "hands them over". God is handing them over to a slave master (satan) who has them chained, gagged and shackled until their final execution. I love the way John Owen puts it: "he gives them up to one sin as the judgment of another, a greater for the punishment of a less, or one that will hold them more firmly and securely for that which they might have possibly obtained a deliverance from." [5] And not only that, but Paul explicitly says in the same passage (2:5) that there is a future judgment that is coming. When we see a prisoner on death row who deserved to be there, we say "he got what was coming to him", even if he isn't dead yet. Same sort of thing here. If we see a person infected with ebola, we feel intense compassion and dread for them, even if none of the symptoms have started to show yet. This is because we anticipate what is going to happen. But here, the sins are not just pointers to the coming judgment that is going to happen. They serve three purposes:
(1) They hold them as prisoners. (They are too enslaved to their sin and blind that they cannot repent and so escape the judgment of God, cf. 2:3-4.)
(2) The sins are a punishment in and of themselves. This is the straightforward interpretation of 1:18-32. (Sin is destructive and keeps the person from having the joy of having God be the center of their affections as He is meant to be.) In this way, they are prolepses of the coming judgment. Part of Hell will be the natural consequences of sin (but this is not all that Hell is said to consist of.)
 (3) The sins actually are actually adding to the horror of the coming judgment. Romans 2:5 says calls it "storing up wrath." Each sin adds more and more wrath to the anger of God that will some day be inflicted on them "on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed."

This is definitely a sobering post and I don't have much time to close it out with more reflective thoughts.

A brief note though: If all of this is new to you, don't take my word for it. Look over the verses I mentioned. Also, please do realize that while this is all completely true, it is not the end of the story. But.. what I've just written is absolutely essential to understanding any of the rest of the story.

Thank You God, for Your wrath.

[1] There is debate over what the "for" that starts out verse 18 is referring to. (a) John Piper and Douglas Moo think it is answering an implicit question that was raised by verse 17. In their view, when Paul says "for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith", maybe Paul was also intentionally raising the question of why it is necessary for the righteousness of God to be revealed. And then he answers that implicit question in verse 18. This seems a little far fetched. (b) Some people (this is the way I used to think) think it points back to verse 15. In verse 15, Paul has said he is eager to preach the gospel to those in Rome. Then in verse 18, he would be picking up this thought again. "I am eager to preach the gospel to you because the wrath of God is being revealed." But this is unlikely, since there are so many subordinate clauses in between verse 15 and verse 18. Paul says, "I am eager to preach the gospel to you for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation... for in it the righteousness of God is revealed... for the wrath of God is revealed." It's very unlikely that, at this point in the game, he's referring all the way back to verse 15. (c) The most likely option, then, is that it is explaining the clause that comes right before it. Namely, verse 17, where Paul says that the righteousness of God is being revealed. But then that leaves us with an interesting question. How is that the wrath of God being revealed is an explanation for the righteousness of God being revealed? Mark Seifrid answers this conundrum well [Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 2007, page 611] by pointing out that most often, in the Bible, God's salvation is revealed through judgment. So why should we expect it to be different here. If we are biblically aware, and we hear that God's salvation and righteousness are being made manifest, we should be asking, "But where is the judgment on His enemies?" And Paul answers that question in the next verse (verse 18) by saying "for the wrath of God is being made manifest against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (i.e. His enemies.)

[2] "Wrath" is an unpopular idea anywhere, and academic circles are no exception. C.H. Dodd (academically active circa 1930-1960) tried to make a case that this was not the personal, vindictive wrath of God, but rather just the way nature naturally ran its course in the moral universe God created. Nobody really seems to care about the issue anymore because it's been answered so well by Leon Morris. Indeed, Douglas Moo only passingly referred to the idea in one sentence of his commentary. But pretty much everyone, when they talk about the idea of wrath in Romans, has to at least say what it's not thanks to C.H. Dodd. You can find a nice summary against Dodd's thesis in The Cross of Christ (2006 ed.), pages 105-106.

[3] Someone really needs to come up with an ISO 9 way of representing Greek. This is important for when you need to pass along text documents to other people and still retain the Greek transliteration. I have my own representation that you see above. Namely: (1) for accents, I enclose the vowel in parenthesis, (2) for "η", I actually type "ay", and (3) for "ω", I use "ow".

[4] Actually, the text, 1:28, leaves it passive. It just says that their mind was "disapproved." G.K. Beale says it was God that was disapproving them. But I'm not so sure this is set in stone here. It could also be that other people are disapproving their mind. This could be a sort of public humiliation that God is putting on them.

[5] Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers in Overcoming Sin and Temptation, 2006 ed. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, pp. 88-89.