Sin: The Overwhelming Force

In Romans 7, Paul once again returns to the subject of the law, a topic that has already figured prominently in his argument since he has been trying to show that righteousness apart from the law is possible. In Romans 6, Paul has continued to argue that we are not under law but under grace. This is because we have participated in Christ's death and resurrection through baptism and as a result have been transferred from the realm of Adam, with its reign of sin and death, to the realm of Christ where life and righteousness are a new possibility.

Paul continues that same argument by way of illustration in the opening verses of chapter 7. He likens our situation to that of a woman who is married. If a married woman marries another man, she commits adultery because she is bound by law to her husband. But, Paul says, if the husband dies, she is free to marry another without committing adultery. Paul says we are in a similar position if we have died to the law with Christ. We are free from the obligations of the law because of our death in Christ, just as the married woman is freed from the obligation of her husband because of his death.

But now Paul must take a step back and answer another possible objection. Throughout his letter, Paul has been arguing that the law didn't really make anyone righteous and that it is now possible to be made righteous apart from the law. In fact, Paul really hasn't said much positive about the law at all. That may not seem like a big deal to a predominantly Gentile 21st century Church but we must remember that Paul and his fellow Jews regarded the law as God's good and gracious gift to Israel (and notice Paul says at the beginning of this chapter that he is speaking to those who know the law, his fellow Jews). So in all the ways that Paul has pointed out the shortcomings of the law, one might begin to wonder if Paul actually regards the law, not as a good and gracious gift from God, but as evil. As he asks in v. 7 "What then shall we say? That the law is sin?"

Paul once again answers with his very strong "May it never be!". Instead, the law was what allowed Paul (and all Jews) to know what was sinful and what wasn't. This was supposed to be an advantage of the law, separating the sacred from the profane. At least Jews had the law to let them know what God expected as opposed to Gentiles who simply walked in darkness. But Paul says that knowing what sin was actually produced an opportunity for sin to go to work (notice that Paul is once again personifying sin, talking about it as a kind of force). Much like commanding a child not to do something will almost guarantee that they will obsess about doing the one thing they've been told not to do, Paul says that the law, rather than preventing sinful desires, was actually used by sin to produce them.*

But just because sin used the law to produce sin doesn't mean that the law itself was sinful. In fact, Paul's conclusion is that "the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good." The root problem isn't the law. The root problem is the power of sin. Just because the parent's command that the child not eat cookies before dinner incites the child's desire for cookies doesn't make the parent's command a bad one. It just means that the child's desire needs to be disciplined. Likewise, Paul concludes that the law is not sinful because sin used it to produce sinful desires. It is the sinful desires themselves which need to be addressed.

The problem with the law is that it can't address those sinful desires. The law can point out sin for what it is but it is powerless to prevent it. This is what the tongue twister of v. 13-20 is all about.

 It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

In other words, Paul knows what is good because the law has shown him as much. And Paul desperately wants to do that good but he finds that he can not because the power of sin at work within him is too overwhelming. Finally, in these verses we have the full picture of the problematic human condition which Paul has been painting since the beginning of his epistle. The law is not evil. Human beings are not evil. But both are weak. Sin is the real problem and it is a powerful force that overwhelms both God's good law and God's good creation. 

I'm convinced that these are not mere abstractions for Paul. He is not trying to solve a theological riddle of no practical consequence here. Nor do I think that Paul is making a case for how all Christians will continue to struggle with sin throughout their earthly life. Instead, I am convinced that these verses are autobiographical for Paul. These seemingly obtruse verses take on life when we consider them in light of Paul's own story.

These verses, I believe, are Paul's attempt to make sense of his own experience prior to meeting Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul was on that road, Acts 9 tells us, because he was on his way to Damascus to arrest "any belonging to the Way." Paul wanted to arrest them because he saw them as blasphemers and false prophets; that is, they were spreading lies about the God of Israel by claiming that God had been embodied in a human named Jesus. The law made it clear that Israel could not tolerate such people. So when Paul traveled to Damascus to arrest Christians, we must understand that he wasn't just a mean or vindictive guy. He wasn't doing this because he hadn't read his Bible closely enough. Quite to the contrary, he was persecuting Christians precisely because that was what the scriptures told him to do. As a Pharisee, Paul's number one goal was to follow the will of God. Paul persecuted Christians because he thought that was what God willed. But once Paul encounters Christ, he realizes that he was actually doing the very opposite of what God wanted. In his attempts to work for God, Paul was actually working against God. In other words, Paul didn't do what he wanted to do but did the very thing he hated. He had the desire to do what was right but not the ability to carry it out. He didn't do the good he wanted but the evil he didn't want is what he kept on doing. Sound familiar?

This is why Paul believes that we are so terribly lost without Christ and the gift of the Spirit. It is not because we human beings are just really awful creatures filled with all kinds of evil intentions or because God can't forgive us of all our evil acts without Christ's blood. We are so terribly lost because as long as we live in Adam's realm of existence the overwhelming power of sin will turn even our best efforts to serve God into the worst kinds of evil. Sin is just that powerful a force. That is why Paul cries out "Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

But we can say with Paul "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." For we are not left in Adam's realm of existence. Paul has already argued in Romans 5 that what Christ did has overwhelmed what Adam did. In Romans 6, he argued that we have been transferred from Adam's realm to a new existence in Jesus Christ by baptism and that, although baptism does not make it happen automatically, we can be dead to sin if we submit ourselves as slaves to righteousness. And in Romans 8, Paul will claim that the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled by those who walk in the Spirit. Although Paul sketches a grave outline of sin's terrible force in Romans 7, the surrounding chapters make clear that because of what Christ has done, the struggle with sin does not have to be the identifying mark of Christian existence. The once overwhelming force of sin has lost its power to enslave because of what God has done in Jesus Christ.

*It may also be helpful to know that many scholars believe that Paul has Adam in mind once again here. That is, that when Paul says "I" did this or that, he isn't just talking about himself. He is thinking of Adam's disobedience as a type for all humanity (just as he did in ch. 5) and including himself in that. A number of things point to this possibility. First, Paul chooses the particular sin of coveting as his example, a term that describes well Adam and Eve's attitude toward the tree of knowledge. Secondly, it would certainly have been more true of Adam and Eve than most to say "I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said "Do not covet"." Adam and Eve had all they needed. There would have not been anything for them to desire if the tree of knowledge had not been restricted from them. Third, we can see how sin, personified in the serpent, used God's good command to produce Adam's disobedience. Fourth, thinking of Adam in this way is still fresh in our minds from just two chapters ago. If Paul doesn't have Adam in mind here, it at least serves as an excellent illustration of what Paul is saying. Just as God's command to Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge did not prevent them from doing so but actually incited their lust for it, so also the law could not prevent sin but was actually used by sin (the power) to produce sinful desires. 

Working with Grace

In the previous section of his letter, Paul argued that Christ, like Adam, did something that impacted all of humanity. More specifically, what Christ did reversed what Adam had done. Whereas Adam's disobedience had allowed the corrupting forces of sin and death into the world, Christ's faithfulness brought righteousness and life into the world. In fact, one way of understanding Romans 5:12-21 is to organize it into two very neat but opposing columns.

          Adam                                                Christ
          Disobedience                                     Faithfulness
          Sin                                                    Righteousness
          Death                                                Life
          Law                                                  Grace

In this chapter, Paul is emphasizing the objective reality of what Christ has done and stressing that it has overcome what Adam did, even going so far as to say in v. 20 that "where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more." If Paul had left off here, it would be easy to think that this was all very formulaic and automatic; Adam messed up the world, Christ fixed it. End of story. We might as well go on living our merry lives and, in fact, go on sinning while we are at it since our sin is what led to God's grace anyway. This is why Paul begins as he does in Romans 6.

"What shall we say then? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may increase? 

Paul answers emphatically "May it never be! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?" The change that Christ has brought about in the world is not something external to us that doesn't involve us. The movement from that left column to the right one is not merely something Christ is doing in the world around us. It is something Christ wishes to accomplish in us. Paul believes that this is what happens in baptism. Just as Christ's faithful death and resurrection made the movement toward that right column a reality in our world, so also in baptism we die and are raised with Christ allowing us to move from the left column of sin and death to the right column of righteousness and life. For Paul, baptism is nothing less than a transfer of our being from one reality to another, an induction into a completely new way of being human. Paul's whole argument in this chapter rests on that premise. It is essentially "Given that we've been caught up in this entirely new reality in Christ, how can we possibly go back to the old one?"

Of course, the fact that Paul has to make this argument at all is the first indication that life, even in life in Christ, can never be as neat and tidy as two columns. Even though Paul believes that baptism is nothing less than the portal into this new way of being, he also knows that baptism does not guarantee a sinless life. It is not automatic. If it were, there would be no need anywhere in Paul's letters to correct his congregations or to say as he says here:

"Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies...Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness." 

Paul is emphatic that the victory has been won in Jesus Christ and that the way to participate in that victory is through baptism but he is just as emphatic that for all Christ has done he has not left us with nothing to do. The Church is called to "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness." Like soldiers presenting arms before a commanding officer, we are to present ourselves before God as those who are ready to carry out his mission of righteousness in the world.

I think any person with military experience would attest to the reality that simply signing papers to join the military isn't the same thing as being a trained soldier. To be sure, when you sign those papers your status has changed in a very real way. In that single act you have been transferred from the life of a civilian to that of a soldier and you are no longer your own master. But despite the very real change that has taken place, you do not suddenly become a combat ready warrior by signing your name. There has been a change of status that has tremendous consequences but it will take enormous amounts of discipline and training for that change in status to be fully realized.

I think that is something like what Paul is saying here. When we are baptized, our status really has changed but it would be foolish to think that all the consequences of that change will immediately and automatically take effect. Instead, we must continually choose to engage in discipline and training that will shape us into people who can be agents of God's redemptive movements in our world. We need worship, prayer, scripture, communion, fasting, service to others, Christian fellowship and all the other things we call "means of grace" and "spiritual disciplines" because these are our training, our boot camp. Baptism alone will not turn us into a people who imitate the faithfulness of Christ. We need the work of the Holy Spirit through these disciplines to be the people of holiness, mercy, compassion, and justice that we are called to be. Salvation is by grace but there is work to be done if that salvation is to be fully realized in our lives and the lives of those around us.

The Power of One

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all humanity because all sinned..."*

So Paul begins his thought in Romans 5:12 but it is a thought he doesn't seem to finish. That "just as" of Paul's sentence causes us to expect another half to this statement; a "so also".  We might expect something like "just as sin came into the world through one man so also righteousness came into the world through one man." But we don't see that right away. Instead, it seems that right in the middle of his thought Paul realized that he needed to make some clarifications before even completing his analogy as if the analogy might have been too badly misunderstood and could not be recovered if he does not first clear up some things.

We'll get to those clarifications in a moment but it maybe helpful to first see the main comparison Paul is making. That is, Christ is like Adam in that both have done something that impacts all of humanity. Adam was the one who allowed sin to enter the world through his own disobedience to God. Notice the kind of picture that Paul's language portrays here, as if sin were this personified force that had been locked out of the creation but by Adam's disobedience the door was left open for sin to enter and bring death with it. Once sin and death entered the creation, they ran rampant and unrestrained. As Paul says, they reigned like kings over God's creation. We've already seen in previous sections of Romans that God gave the law to help combat this hellish reign on earth but the law proved ineffective in that all humanity continued to sin anyway. Now that sin has made its way into the world, its power was too great to be resisted.

We have to skip down to v. 18-21 to get the other half of the equation, the "so also." If sin can be allowed to enter the world through one man's disobedience, then it stands to reason that the reign of sin might also be defeated by one man's faithfulness. This is what Paul believes Jesus has done. The unique faithfulness of Jesus Christ has allowed a new power of righteousness to enter the world in order that humanity might be made righteous and that new righteousness has brought new life along with it. Just as one man brought sin and death to all so also can one man bring righteousness and life to all.

But it is not as if these were two equal powers, sin and righteousness, now warring within the creation. Paul says that what Christ did is already overtaking what Adam did. That is the clarification Paul makes in v. 15-17. If many died by Adam's sin, much more will many live because of Christ. If Adam's one sin brought condemnation, Christ's one life of faithfulness overcomes many sins. If death reigned through one man, much more will those who receive grace and righteousness reign in life. Adam is a type of Christ but what Christ has done is far greater. Jesus has not merely leveled the playing field between sin and righteousness. He has won the decisive battle against sin and death and they are now retreating before the powers of righteousness and life advancing in our world.

Of course, that retreat of sin and death before the powers of life and righteousness doesn't always seem so obvious in our world. Often it may appear things are moving in the other direction, even in our own lives. Although the decisive blow has been struck, these wannabe kings of sin and death do not easily give up the territory they have held for so long. This, Paul will say in the next chapter, is why we must continually submit ourselves as instruments to the cause of righteousness. But it is because of what Paul has proclaimed in this chapter that we know we are submitting ourselves to a winning cause; the faithfulness of Jesus has overcome the transgression of Adam.

*You may notice that in some translations of Romans 5:12, the final phrase reads “in whom all sinned.” That final phrase in Romans 5:12 reads "eph ho all sinned", that "eph ho" being the Greek phrase that is in question. These are fairly simple words in Greek; "eph" being a shortened version of a common Greek preposition typically meaning "in" or "on"  and "ho" being a relative pronoun meaning "whom". So a very literal translation of this phrase would read "in whom all sinned." If this is the proper translation, then Paul would be saying that when Adam sinned everyone sinned. That is, the entire human race is implicated in Adam's sin and found guilty because of what he did. St. Augustine, a Bishop in the North African city of Hippo in the late 300's and probably the single most influential theologian in the history of the Church, understood the phrase this way and it was in his understanding of this verse that he saw the doctrine of original sin; the idea that because Adam sinned all of humanity is guilty. Indeed, if "in whom" is the proper translation of this verse then it would be difficult to understand it any other way. Prominent as Augustine was, his teaching of original sin has impacted generation after generation of the Church, even those who have never heard the name of Augustine.  

However, there is debate about the meaning of this verse because "eph ho" can also be a conjunction meaning "because". This would change substantially how we would understand what Paul is saying here. If Paul meant to say "death came to all humanity because all sinned" then Paul is not saying everyone is guilty because of Adam's sin, as Augustine thought, but that all human beings are guilty because all human beings have, in fact, sinned. Either way, we are all guilty. The question is this: Are we guilty because of what Adam did or because what we have done? As I have hinted at in this post, I think the idea that is most consistent with the rest of Paul’s thought is to understand Paul as saying that Adam opened the door for the power of sin to enter the world and that humanity has been powerless to stand before this force with the result that we have all sinned. So all have sinned as a result of Adam’s sin because it allowed the power of sin to enter the world, not because everyone is guilty due to Adam’s single transgression. 

Abraham: Father of Righteousness Apart from the Law

Paul has been arguing that a new righteousness is possible apart from the law. This is a bold claim on Paul's part. In an earlier post, I noted the objection that Paul's fellow first century Jews likely would have offered to what Paul says in Romans 2:26:

"So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law...."

We don't even need to finish the sentence. Paul's contemporaries surely would have found the premise itself to be contradictory. They likely would have asked "How can one be uncircumcised and keep the law when circumcision itself is a key component of the law?" In order to answer that question, Paul returns to the very origins of circumcision.

In Romans 4, Paul supports and illustrates his claim that righteousness apart from the law is possible by recounting the story of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Israel. God promised Abraham that if he followed God then he would be made the father of many nations and that all the people of the earth would be blessed by his offspring. As such an important figure, Abraham serves as a sort of paradigm for all of Israel. There is a sense in which what is true for Abraham is true for God's people. He is not merely one example among many Paul could have utilized. Abraham, more so than any other individual figure, is really the example when it comes to the identity of Israel. And it was with Abraham that circumcision became an identifying mark of Israel. God commanded Abraham to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant that God had made with Abraham. God commanded that all of Abraham's descendants be circumcised as well as a sign of their participation in this same covenant.

Here we begin to get a sense of why circumcision, which probably seems an arbitrary and inconsequential thing to us, was of such great importance to the Jewish people. It was commanded by God and it was a sign of God's call to Abraham, the very beginnings of Israel. It was a sign of God's promises to Abraham and his descendants. It was a sign of Israel's continued participation in that very same covenant. It was nothing less than a symbol of God's faithfulness to Israel and Israel's faithful response. It is probably not an overstatement to say that circumcision was synonymous with what it mean to be Israel, to be God's people. Abraham is precisely the figure that Paul's opponents would have cited (and did, if Galatians is any indication) as the reason why one must be circumcised in order to keep the law and participate in God's covenant. It is because of Abraham, they would have argued, that one can not keep the law and remain uncircumcised.

It is a demonstration of Paul's keen mind at work re-reading the scriptures in light of Christ that he managed to use the very figure who formed the crux of his opponents argument to make his own point which was precisely the opposite of theirs. The critical turn in Paul's argument is found in 4:9-11:

"Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith(fulness) was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after but before he was circumcised."

God counted Abraham as righteous in Genesis 15. God did not require Abraham to be circumcised until Genesis 17.  God counted Abraham as righteous before he was circumcised. That is, Abraham actually serves as the perfect example for Paul's argument because Abraham was considered righteous apart from circumcision, apart from the law. The scriptures themselves claim that God considered Abraham righteous because of his faith(fulness). 

It is faith(fulness), Paul radically claims, not circumcision or adherence to the law which has always been the true mark of God's people. Abraham demonstrated this same faith(fulness) by trusting God even when he was old and had no heir, even when God demanded the sacrifice of his heir. Abraham was righteous not because of circumcision but because he lived faithfully before God and what is true for Abraham is true for all God's people. When there is not yet a God-given law, when that God-given law fails to produce righteousness, when God is doing crazy things like promising a fatherhood of nations to an old and childless couple or raising God's messiah from the dead, "the righteous out of faithfulness will live." 

New Righteousness, New Law

Paul finished the previous section of his letter having articulated the problematic predicament of humanity. We are a people too weak to stand up to the power of sin. Likewise, God's good and gracious provision of the law was too weak to help us make that stand. All it could do was point to the reality of sin. It couldn't help to defend against it. How do we know this? Because Israel's own story, its own scriptures attest to the fact. Despite hundreds of years of following the law still "there is no one righteous, not even one."

"But now..." v. 21 begins. But now something new has happened. But now there is a new possibility for righteousness. But now an entirely new epoch in history has dawned because of what God has done in Jesus Christ. But now a new strength has come to rescue our weak flesh. "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed to by the law and the prophets - the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe."* This new righteousness, Paul claims, is for Jew and Gentile alike since there is no real difference between them since both have sinned. It is a gift freely given out of the redemption and atonement accomplished in Christ Jesus. As a result, there can be no boasting of Jewish Christians over Gentile Christians (or the other way around) since both are made righteous by the same God on account of the same faithfulness.

But just because God's righteousness has now been revealed apart from the law doesn't mean that God has now done away with law entirely. Rather this new righteousness revealed in Jesus requires a new kind of law. Paul says it is a law of faithfulness instead of the law of works. That is, rather than righteousness being determined by works of the Jewish law (things like circumcision, Sabbath observance, and food laws) the source of righteousness is now the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and living faithfully out of and in imitation of that faithfulness is the law which followers of Jesus are called to obey. Jesus is both the new righteousness revealed apart from the law and the new law of faithfulness. 

But even to call this righteousness and this law "new" is a fairly serious misnomer if by that we mean that it has no connection to what is "old". To be sure, Paul's claim that Jesus is God's righteousness and God's law is radically new in some very substantial ways. It is no small thing that Paul claimed that circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath observance were not necessary for Gentiles to be considered righteous. These were central pieces of Jewish identity and themselves crucial parts of the law that God had given Israel. But, in other ways, Paul wants us to see that this new law and new righteousness in Jesus really aren't so new - at least not so new as to be entirely alien to God's history with Israel. After all, Paul says that this righteousness is witnessed to by the law and the prophets.

One of those prophets was Habakkuk whom Paul has already quoted in 1:17. Paul's language in these latter verses of chapter 3 echoes and expands on much of the language Paul use in 1:17  and by that connections helps us to see yet again why that quotation from Habakkuk is so critical to Paul's understanding of what God has done in Jesus Christ. In Habakkuk's opening verses we hear that the law is paralyzed and that justice goes forth perverted. This is precisely the same thing that Paul has been arguing in the opening chapters of Romans; that the law is paralyzed, weak, and powerless to produce true righteousness. In Habakkuk chapter 2, the prophet declares that "the righteous will live out of faithfulness." In other words, in a time when when the law is failing to serve its purpose and God is doing strange and unexpected things like using the Babylonians as his instrument to make Israel righteous, those who wish to be counted as righteous will still live faithfully before God trusting in God's faithfulness even its strange, new forms. Paul sees a parallel here as well; since the law has failed to produce righteousness a new righteousness must come through a life of faithfulness, even if it is the strange and unexpected faithfulness of a crucified messiah. Paul sees Habakkuk as a precedent for arguing that this is not the first time that God has called the righteous to live by a law of faithfulness as an alternative to a law of works. What is new is that this faithfulness has been embodied in the person of Jesus, the crucified messiah.  He is the new law and Paul believes that the law of Christ can produce true righteousness in a way the law of works never could.

*You may have noticed that I translated this phrase in v.22 as "the faithfulness of Jesus Christ" rather than "faith in Jesus Christ." There are two issues that allow this phrase to be translated in these two ways. The first is that the word "pistis" in Greek can be translated either as "faith" or "faithfulness". It really means both intertwined together but one aspect of the word can be emphasized more than the other in certain contexts. 

The second is an issue of Greek grammar. The words "of" or "in" are not actually in the Greek text of Romans 3:22. Instead, this phrase is in what is known as the genitive case. (In English, word order is an important part of determining the meaning of a sentence. So, for example, in the sentence "Dave teaches his class lots of crazy Greek stuff." we know that "Dave" is the subject of the sentence because it comes before the verb. Greek, on the other hand, uses a case system to indicate how a word functions in the sentence. A change in case is indicated by a slight change in the spelling of a word. So, for example, "Jesus Christ" which is "Iesous Christos" in the nominative case becomes "Iesou Christou" in the genitive case.) The most typical use of the genitive case is to indicate possession but it can have a whole range of meanings throughout the New Testament. 

Two of those possibilities are known as the subjective genitive and objective genitive. You can see something similar to this in English in a phrase like the "the love of God." Does that phrase refer to God's love for us or our love for God? Is God doing the loving (so God is the subject, a subjective genitive) or is God receiving the love (so God is the object of the love, an objective genitive)? It can mean either or maybe even both at the same time but the only way you would be able to decide would be context. What makes the most sense with what is around it? If Paul said "Christ's death demonstrates the love of God" it would be clear that he was referring to God's love for us. If he said "Our love for others demonstrates the love of God" it might be more difficult to decide whose love Paul was talking about. 

Something similar is at stake in our phrase in Romans 3:22. Is Jesus Christ the object of the faith(fulness)? That is, is Paul talking about Jesus receiving our faith? Or is Jesus the subject of the faith(fulness)? That is, is Jesus the one who has himself been faithful? Of course, both are true in the big picture! The issue here is not choosing one to the exclusion of the other. The question is a matter of emphasis. Is Paul's emphasis in Romans on our belief or on God's faithfulness through Jesus Christ?  

The Insufficiency of the Law

"Then what advantage has the Jew?"

It's a logical question given the kind of claims that Paul has made in Romans 2. In the verses leading up to this question in 3:1, Paul has talked about the possibility of Gentiles being a law to themselves and keeping the law without being circumcised. He has even said that such Gentiles are better off than Jews who have the law but fail to follow it. So its worth asking "Is there any advantage to being a Jew?" One could have easily misunderstood Paul as saying that Jews and Gentiles were just alike with absolutely no difference between them. Paul makes clear here at the beginning of chapter 3 that this is not the idea he intended to communicate. The Jews are still God's chosen people to whom were entrusted "the oracles of God".

But there is some sense in which Paul wants to communicate that Jews and Gentiles stand on equal footing. Even though Israel is God's chosen people and hold certain advantages by virtue of their election, they are still basically in the same boat as Gentiles when it comes to being counted as righteous before God. That is what Paul has been saying for most of these three opening chapters and it is the point he is driving home in these verses. As he says in V.9:

"What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin."

Greeks, that is, Gentiles being "under sin" would have been a given in the mind of any first century Jew (as we saw in Romans 1:18-32). Paul spent all of chapter 2 arguing that the same is true for Jews as well, despite having the law. Just in case there is any doubt left on the matter, Paul adds a litany of quotations to his argument; quotations from Israel's very own Scriptures pointing out Israel's very own sinfulness. Paul is at great pains to demonstrate that however good and perfect a gift God's law might have been to Israel, Israel's own Scriptures testify to the reality that the law alone was not capable of assuring the righteousness of Israel. Page after page of Israel's own story speaks to the reality of Israel's idolatry, sinfulness, and injustice despite the presence of God's law to guide them. That is why Paul can say that even though there is an advantage to being a Jew, "both Jews and Greeks are under sin."

It is also why Paul closes this section by saying

"For by works of the law no human being will be made righteous in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of sin." 

I suspect that this statement and much of this chapter are often read as a kind of eternal decree from God as if Paul were saying "No one will be saved by works because God said so (and God said so because God also said we are sinful thus our works are sinful)." In other words, we could read this chapter as a very blunt statement of the doctrine of original sin; that every human being is corrupted from birth and as a result even our best works will not justify us in God's sight. Without debating the merits of such a doctrine, I would argue that isn't exactly what Paul is saying here. Rather than repeating an eternal maxim from God, I think Paul is making an inference from human experience. He is essentially saying "Look, we know no one is going to be made righteous by works of the law because for hundreds of years of Israelite history the law has failed to make us truly righteous. In fact, the law's only real accomplishment has been to point out sin in all its sinfulness (something on which Paul will elaborate in chapter 7).  

In short, we are in need of something more than law. Even the law given by the creator of the universe was not enough to make us righteous. It couldn't prevent sin or produce justice. It couldn't make us whole. So if we are to be righteous before God, if we are to be made new and whole, we will need God to do something new, something in contrast to what has gone before, something more powerful than law. We need this:

"But now..."

Circumcision of the Heart

In the last half of Romans 1, we saw what was probably a typical first century Jewish view of Gentiles. That is, they are a people to whom God has not been revealed in the same way that God was revealed to Israel. Paul says that the Gentiles still should have been able to observe the attributes of the creator by way of his creation. However, they have not received God's good and perfect law. As a result of their ignorance of God and God's law, their lives have become ones that pervert justice and produce unrighteousness. In contrast to the Gentiles, Jews understood themselves as the chosen people of God who had been given God's law. As a result, Israel's life together was to be one where righteousness prevailed. Jews presumed that they were to be a light to the Gentiles.

Paul, a Jew himself, agreed with these presumptions. He understood (even after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus) God's law to be a good and perfect gift and he continued to believe that Israel was a people chosen by God to be a light to the rest of the world. Paul's point in Romans 2 is not to denigrate either of those realities. His point is to argue that neither of those intertwined realities - the gift of the law to Israel and Israel's election - automatically make Israel righteous. Righteousness is not a matter of being ethnically Jewish or even knowing the law but of faithfulness to God.

Paul begins by arguing that God does not show partiality. Even though God has chosen Israel that election is not a matter of favoritism. It is an election to live faithfully before God. As such, Paul says that God will judge Jew and Gentile alike according to their works. V.12-13 sum up Paul's point well when he says that those who don't have the law (Gentiles) will perish because they don't have it to lead them to righteousness but that those who have the law (Jews) and still commit sin aren't any better off because they will be judged by the law they have broken. It is not merely hearing the law that makes one righteous but doing it.

This is a place where the narrative of Habakkuk, which Paul quoted in 1:17, proves illustrative once again. In the days of the prophets, many in Israel thought that destruction could never come their way simply because they were God's chosen people. Habakkuk is shocked when he hears that God will use the Babylonians to clean up Israel. Likewise, we hear in Jeremiah the refrain "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" reflecting the belief that no harm would come to Israel so long as God's temple stood among them. But God warns through Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and the other prophets that this is not the case; that God's people must turn back to God or destruction will be brought upon them even though they are God's people and even though they have the law and the temple. As Habakkuk says, it is out of faithfulness that the righteous will live. Paul is arguing a similar point in Romans 2; that merely being Jewish or having the law will not save or make righteous. One must put God's law into practice through faithful living.

So far, so good. I don't think Paul has said much there that is terribly different from what any first century Jew would have said. Faithful Jews would have been very happy for Jews and Gentiles alike to live faithfully by putting God's law into practice. But Paul also goes on to say something that Habakkuk and Jeremiah do not say. In v.14-15 Paul states:

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts..".

And in v.25-29

"For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."

This is surprising because circumcision is itself a part of the law that Paul is talking about. When Paul says "if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law," I imagine that most of his fellows Jews would immediately object saying "How can one be uncircumcised and keep the law when circumcision is itself a central part of the law?" This is a question we will hear Paul begin to answer in more detail in Romans 4 where he writes about the faith/fulness of Abraham. For now, it is enough to notice the consequences of what Paul is arguing here: Gentiles can live just as faithfully in God's righteousness as Jews even without fulfilling certain parts of the law such as circumcision. Indeed, Paul go so far as to say that an uncircumcised Gentile who lives faithfully to God is more righteous than a circumcised Jew who breaks other parts of the law. We Gentile Christians may take this for granted but it was an enormous and controversial claim on Paul's part; one that puts him at odds with his fellow Jews, even at times with his fellow apostles (see Peter in Galatians), and one that will take him the rest of Romans to fully unravel.

As Gentile Christians it would be foolish of us if we did not see that Paul's admonition, which is here directed to his Jewish brothers and sisters, also applies to us. We might hear the Spirit speaking through Paul's words to us saying "You who call yourselves Christians and rely on the Spirit and boast in God and know his will and approve of what is excellent because you are instructed by the Scriptures, you who consider yourself a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in Jesus the embodiment of knowledge and truth, - you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" Merely bearing the title "Christian" or knowing the Bible or being baptized is not enough. The righteous will live out of faithfulness to God.