Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Session 2

September 26, 2024

Romans – Tentative Schedule

Sept 19 Introduction, Salutation, Thanksgiving Rom. 1:1-17

Sept 26 God’s Judgment Rom. 1:18-4:25

Sept 28 Living in Hope Rom. 5 – 7

Oct 3rd The Heart of Romans Rom. 8

Oct 10th God’s Faithfulness Rom. 9 - 11

Oct 17th Faithful Obedience Rom. 12:1-15:13 Oct 24^th Extra week (I suspect the above will take a bit longer than planned)

(Oct 31^st, seems busy. We could consider Wednesday Oct 30^th if folks are interested)

Nov. 7th Paul’s Closing Reminders Rom. 15:14-16:27

Nov. 14^th Extra week just in case

Romans – Class Comments�

• Jump in with questions – we are all learning from each other
• Don’t worry about preparing for class (but if you want to read ahead, great(!), but no need either.)
• If you miss a session or two – no worries
• You won’t be lost the next time around
• You can watch sessions you miss
• As we are “Zooming” through Romans, please self-mute if you have background noise, but again… don’t hesitate to jump in!
• Finally, if you have suggestions over the course of the study (e.g. “Bob, could you do more of these things… Bob, could you do less of these things…” just shoot me an email at boballtop@gmail.com!)

Last week with Paul

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• Re-introduction to Paul
• Re-introduction to Epistles
• Introduction to Romans
• Salutation and Thanksgiving

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Pop-Quiz from Last Week

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• Letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament were:
1. All written by Paul
2. None were written by Paul
3. Both A and B
4. Some written by Paul, others in Paul’s name to tone down or even rein-in his radical Good News of Jesus Christ to make it more socially acceptable to Roman culture and hierarchies.
5. None of the above

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Pop-Quiz from Last Week

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• In calling Jesus Lord and Son of God, Paul was:
1. Leveraging titles of the 1^st Century Taylor Swift to tie Jesus to pop culture.
2. Using short title that would work well on Twitter and other social media platforms
3. Using the very titles applied to Caesar – a bold statement about Jesus and God’s Kingdom that was essentially treasonous.

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Pop-Quiz from Last Week

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• Because Paul wrote to the Romans – a city where much historical research has been done:
1. We know everything about the community and exactly what Paul meant in this letter.
2. Actually, what was going on in Rome didn’t really matter to Paul – he was just writing a theology text.
3. We still struggle to know exactly all of the circumstances and background, as we are reading someone else’s mail, and someone else’s story.

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This week with Paul

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• Background about chapters 1:18-4:25
• God’s Judgement on the Gentiles
• God’s Judgement on the Jews
• Judging others
• Sin despite the Law
• Hebrew Scripture & God’s Righteousness
• Righteousness of God for all with Faith
• Abraham, Justified by Faith
• Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision
• Abraham’s Faith and our Faith

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Introduction to the Theme of Justice

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• These chapters (and the letter as a whole) are more of a symphony, not a textbook. Themes introduced in chp. 1 – 4 don’t resolve fully until later in the letter.
• Paul is writing in with an ‘apocalyptic world view’
• The cataclysmic time when the world comes to an end
• Common viewpoint among oppressed cultures
• Paul is not writing to a ‘middle-class,’ dominant culture, that enjoys broad personal freedoms.
• His concern isn’t just about individual behavior, but how systems, powers, principalities, and individuals have taken God’s world in the wrong direction
• Thus, final judgment is good news, in that God puts ‘to right’ what is so wrong.

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General Outline of the Argument

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• Paul is going to be moving towards “grace,” but first he lays out why it is needed.
• Writing to a Gentile and Jewish community, he has to tread carefully
• Lays out how the Gentiles, because they worshipped false Gods, have distorted the world
• Lays out how Israel, which was meant to be a light to the world, as also distorted themselves
• Everyone has sinned, and if you think you are in a position to judge, you are all the more in the wrong!

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General Outline of the Argument

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• Paul is writing in a particular ancient world style – where it is assumed he is arguing with an interlocular – not with his readers.
• So when Paul says something like the following, he isn’t accusing the Roman church, but this hypothetical counterpart:

“Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

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General Outline of the Argument

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• Or another example:

“17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God 18 and know his will and determine what really matters because you are instructed in the law, … 21 you, then, who teach others, will you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by your transgression of the law?”

• Paul isn’t condemning the Roman church, but his hypothetical counterpart.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. So they are without excuse, 21 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, …

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

…they became fools, 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

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24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

…26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse[e] for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. …

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

…28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done. 29 They were filled with every kind of injustice, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters,[g] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

What strikes you?

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

Comments:

• Before Paul can claim God makes all righteous (Jew and Greek) through Jesus Christ, he must show that all have sinned and need grace.
• There is a problem with the topic of Gentile sin… they never received the law as the Jew’s did. Pauls’ solution?
• Gentiles have God’s law naturally written in their hearts
• Gentiles know there is one God, one Creator, but they fail to worship and give God thanks
• They worship what God has made, instead.
• They live in idolatry.

Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

Comments:

• Punishment for the Gentile’s sin?
• “God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done.”
• In essence they bear the natural consequences of worshiping the wrong things
• Sin is putting other things in the place of God
• Bad actions – of any sort – is the consequence of this sin.
• Wrong relationship with God results in wrong relationship with others this is true whether we are talking about:
• Sexual exploitation
• Deceitfulness
• Gossip that tears down, etc.

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

Comments:

• Issue of same-sex relationships
• This passage is often cited to condemn same-sex relationships, so… some cultural context
• Same sex relationships and sexual exploitation would have been unacceptable to Paul and other devout Jews… it was one of their beefs with Gentiles
• Gentiles had temples with prostitutes (male and females); relationships between old men and youthful men were not taboo in Hellenistic culture.

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

Comments:

• A modern same-sex relationship would likely have been outside of Paul’s frame of reference. Also…
• Do churches that reject members in same-sex relationships reject members who gossip, deceit, greed?
• If we applied the condemnation for those whose sexuality differs from ours to all the categories of the results of idolatry in this passage, would there be anyone eligible to belong to a church, or become ordained, etc?
• So, the point of Paul’s argument is that – the Gentile sin is idolatry. All the other acts that follow (any kind of human interaction that is unjust) comes from the choice to put the created above the Creator.

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Judgment on Gentiles – �Romans 1:18-32

Comments:

• If we apply this passage to our own world…
• What if we try to understand the sins of our world as simply the outcomes of idolatry?
• What are we worshiping as a culture that makes gun violence so prevalent, childhood poverty so prevalent, migrating refugees so prevalent (and the list could continue)?
• What is the idol underlying the bad consequence?

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

2 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. 2 We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth. 3 Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

…5 But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He will repay according to each one’s deeds: 7 to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, 8 while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality. …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

…12 All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged in accordance with the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves.

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

…15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

Comments:

• Paul is not shifting his focus subtly to the Jews
• The focus is now longer on the how the Gentiles – without the law sin – but how the Jews, with the law sin.
• The sin of those with the law is two-fold
• They judge others, which is haughty at best
• They commit the very same sins they condemn
• Everyone sins
• Gentiles sin against the law written on their hearts
• Jews sin against the law of God they are under

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging Others – Romans 2:1-16

Comments:

• Apocalypticism moves to the fore as Paul talks about God’s wrath and judgment.
• God cares about what we do
• Salvation may be through faith, but our works matter!
• Divine Wrath
• We aren’t very comfortable with a punishing God, but…
• If you are being oppressed, it matters to you to know that God cares and holds us to account for what is right and wrong. A God who was indifferent to suffering would be no God at all
• (Grace is coming yet in the letter.)

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God 18 and know his will and determine what really matters because you are instructed in the law, 19 and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, 21 you, then, who teach others, will you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

…23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by your transgression of the law? 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed[b] among the gentiles because of you.” 25 Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 So, if the uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then the physically uncircumcised person who keeps the law will judge you who, though having the written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law. …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

…28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. 29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

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3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first place, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

…4 By no means! Although every human is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written,

“So that you may be justified in your words and you will prevail when you go to trial.”

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5 But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world? 7 But if through my falsehood God’s truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner? …

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

…8 And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), “Let us do evil so that good may come”? Their judgment is deserved!

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

Comments:

• Paul continues his theme that Jews have sinned just as Gentiles
• Circumcision
• This has no value simply in and of itself spiritually. It was meant to be a symbol that one will live obediently to God, but…
• If you do not live obediently, it is as if you are uncircumcised (and not a member of God’s chosen nation) even if you are, and…
• If you live obediently, even if you are uncircumcised (a Gentile not a Jew) it is as though you are circumcised.
• Circumcision – being Jewish – still has value
• Israel has been given God’s oracles and human disobedience doesn’t nullify God’s faithfulness

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Judgment on the Jews:�Judging others Romans 2:17-3:8

Comments:

• Asides on robbing temples
• If idols aren’t real, then…
• Things that were given to them belonged to no one. Thus…
• Some may have stolen from temples on the grounds that it couldn’t be stealing.

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Hebrew Scripture & God’s Righteousness – Romans 3:9-20

9 What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written:

“There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding; there is no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness; there is not even one.”

13 “Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”…

Hebrew Scripture & God’s Righteousness – Romans 3:9-20

14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 ruin and misery are in their paths,

17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

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19 Now we know that, whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For no human will be justified before him by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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Hebrew Scripture & God’s Righteousness – Romans 3:9-20

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Hebrew Scripture & God’s Righteousness – Romans 3:9-20

Comments:

• Paul continues arguing with the hypothetical Jewish opponent
• Paul: “What then? Are we any better off?”
• Opponent: [“Well of course, we are the chosen.”]
• Paul: “No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written…”
• Paul then points to Jewish scripture to
• hit home his point that Jew and Gentile have sinned and
• Fulfills Romans 1:2, “the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures”

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the Law and the Prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; …

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

…26 it was to demonstrate at the present time his own righteousness, so that he is righteous and he justifies the one who has the faith of Jesus.

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27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. Through what kind of law? That of works? No, rather through the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of gentiles also? Yes, of gentiles also, …

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

…30 since God is one, and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law through this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• Paul now introduces his main point: ‘All are now justified by God’s gift of grace.’
• God puts forward a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith
• So… let’s talk about sacrifice and atonement

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• Sacrifice – what is a sacrifice?
• Most basically, to make something holy or sacred
• The soldier who jumps on a grenade to save the lives of his friends, sacrifices – acknowledges the sacredness and holiness of life and of his friends
• The parent who ‘sacrifices’ for her child, acknowledges the scaredness of their child and thereby the effort by which she aids the child
• Neither the soldier not the parent is being punished for the sins of his comrades or her child.
• Atonement – what is atonement?
• Restoration of relationship -- ”at one-ment”

Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• Jewish Sacrifice?
• Lambs, oxen, birds, etc, sacrificed were not being punished, but they were about “atonement”
• Sacrificed animals were usually either entirely burned (so that God got them entirely) or more often, eaten by the community (God got the fat that sizzled away, the fragrance; the people or the priests had the meat)
• Even today, we often make amends over a meal, or a coffee
• To come back together as one so often involves celebration and food.
• Scape goats: these were not sacrificed or killed. They bore the sins and were driven into the wilderness to take the sins away for good.

Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• What is Going on Here?
• Gentiles and Jews have all gone far astray.
• Humans not going to restore relationship with God
• God takes it upon God’s self to restore relationship
• God overlooks our sins and welcome us
• Jesus is obedience (as we were meant to be under the law), even to the point of death.
• Sin – separation from God – is death; but in Jesus’ death, life triumphs over death.
• God’s kingdom triumphs over Rome’s.
• We will never uphold the law alone, but we can have in what God has done in Jesus – that we can participate too.

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• What is Going on Here?
• Gentiles and Jews have all gone far astray.
• Humans not going to restore relationship with God
• God takes it upon God’s self to restore relationship
• God overlooks our sins and welcome us
• Jesus is obedience (as we were meant to be under the law), even to the point of death.
• Sin – separation from God – is death; but in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God triumphs over death.
• We will never uphold the law alone, but we can live in what God has done in Jesus – that we can participate too through faith.

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Righteousness of God for �All who have Faith – Romans 3:21-31

Comments:

• St. Anselm - The Cross as Punishment for our Sins
• The understanding of the cross most commonly heard in American churches is not really that of Paul’s but that of St. Anslem
• God is just;
• Humans sin, which dishonors God. Therefore,
• God remains dishonored if sin is not punished, if the debt is not repaid.
• Jesus can repay the debts as he is both God and human, therefore a sufficient bearer of our punishment. God will take his punishment as payment from us all.
• Is this how we experience the Divine in our own lives?

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

4 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed [had faith in] God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David pronounces a blessing on those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: …

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

… 7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven

and whose sins are covered;

8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

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9 Is this blessing, then, pronounced only on the circumcised or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after but before he was circumcised. …

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

… 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.

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13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. …

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

… 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

Comments:

• Abraham and right relationship to God
• In Abraham Paul leverages a story that will bring in both the Gentiles and the Jews
• Abraham predates the giving of the Jewish law
• Three Key terms
• ”Faith” – it is how Abraham (and we) enters into relationship with God
• “Righteousness” – right relationship to God and to each other.
• “Reckon” – to figure out something’s worth
• Something can be reckoned to us because of our work
• God may reckon something to us because of faith

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Abraham’s Faith and Circumcision – Romans 4:1-15

Comments:

• Faith, Reckon, and Righteousness in Abraham
• Abraham had faith in (believed) God
• God reckons this (gives it value) as
• Righteousness (right relationship with God)
• Role of Circumcision
• Abraham had faith before he was circumcised
• Circumcision is a seal of the righteousness reckoned to him.
• Thus, faith (which is available to the circumcised and the uncircumcised) is what causes righteousness to be reckoned to us; we can never do it by keeping all of the law.

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Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

16 For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” …

Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

…19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 23 Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone 24 but for ours also. …

Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

…It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

What catches your ear in this passage?

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Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

Comments:

• God’s promise rests in faith.
• Faith rests in a God who gives life to the dead – brings forth something from nothing
• Our faith is reckoned as righteousness, believing in the one who ”was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”
• Again, there is no focus on punishment
• But it is God who has initiated the way to restore relationship
• It is God who raises from death to life for us.

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Abraham’s Faith and Our Faith – Romans 4:16-25

Comments:

• So where have we gone thus far…
• Into the reality that all sin
• Into the reality that sin is born of putting something else – the created – in the place of God, the creator
• Whether Gentile or Jew we know what is right, but don’t always do it, therefore
• God takes action to restore right relationship... “at one-ment”
• Our faith in God’s having restored relationship with us is reckon as righteousness.

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Tune in next week…

Grace is on the move!

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What strike you in this passage?

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What strike you in this passage?

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Title

Comments

• jjkj

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Title

Text

Title

What strike you in this passage?

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Title

Comments

• jjkj

​

Title

Text

Title

What strike you in this passage?

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Title

Comments

• jjkj

​

Title

Text

Title

What strike you in this passage?

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​

​

Title

Comments

• jjkj

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