Romans 4, Conclusion
Jul 14th, 2009 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3| 4: Intro, 1-8, 9-17, 18-25, Conclusion | 5 ]
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So, Paul has argued three things in Romans 4:
- Making you righteous was never the point of the Law. You don’t become righteous by following the Law, since you’re not righteous (at the moment) because you’ve already broken the law. (Not murdering anyone from here on out doesn’t make someone suddenly not guilty of murdering someone in the past!)
- Becoming righteous through faith historically preceded the Law.
- Abraham became righteous through faith, not to save his soul, but in order to enable God’s promise to him to come about. (God had promised that Abraham would, through his descendants, inherit the whole earth [Paul says], but the only way this would be possible is if his descendants were all of those, both Jew and Gentile, who joined him in becoming righteous through faith.)
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In other words, Paul is explaining soteriology not to get people saved — nor to add another section to his Systematic Theology — but to get the members of the ethnically-divided Roman church to see all other members as descendants of Abraham (as siblings, as family), regardless of ethnicity.
Paul is explaining to them all that the fact that they have all already been made righteous through faith means that they have no excuse to see themselves as better than their fellow church members (who come from “the other side” of the Jew/Gentile divide).
And thus, Paul is laying down his argument for church unity.
Along the way, we have seen Paul describe what faith is, and seen how simple/easy/unremarkable a thing it is to “do”/”have.”
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[ Romans 1 | 2 | 3| 4: Intro, 1-8, 9-17, 18-25, Conclusion | 5 ]
