The Romance of Romans-Part 15

Romans Chapter 4 cont'd

But trying to live up to the Mosaic code actually produces greater offense and guilt in people, for where there is no clear standard, there is no clear violation. Therefore salvation must be by grace through faith so that the promise might be divinely secured for all, Jews or Gentiles, who express the same kind of trust in God which our father of faith, Abraham, did. As it says in scripture, "I have made you a father of many nations.

Comments:
In this little section of chapter 4, Paul continues to press the point that God's salvation methodology has never been based on people trying their best to improve themselves morally. He posits a notion that he will elaborate on in Romans 7...that the main purpose of God giving the Law to the children of Israel through Moses was never to make them (or us, or anyone) intrinsically righteous, but to diagnose and highlight the sin and broken-ness that ruled in their fallen human natures, so that...they would ultimately completely trust in God and His promised Messiah rather than in the, always limited and imperfect, degree of their obedience to the Law. Added to this "radical reframing" of understanding God's historical purposes and His dealings with and future plans for Israel, Paul also again reinforces that it was always God's intention to include the gentile nations in His covenant-based salvation through His original promise to father Abraham.

Both of these fundamental notions were a deep challenge to the prevailing interpretations of Jewish history and theology in the first century. These ideas, based in the Jewish scriptures, were ironically very difficult and painful for first century Jews to accept. They struck a terrible blow to both the prideful nationalism and self-righteousness that tend to gradually creep into any culture that has a genuine history of experience with the Living God. (There are the very same religious traps that exist in our day within "Christendom" and "Christian nations".) The gospel of Jesus always strikes a death blow to human pride in all its various forms, but...not to humiliate us as human beings...but, rather, to open the door to an amazing grace that comes from God as a free gift to the humble.