salvation in the epistle to the romans

SERVANTS’ MEETINGJUNE 27 , 2010

Salvation in the Epistle to the Romans

Dogma

A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.

An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.

The Role of Dogma

It is dogma which defines our faithIt is dogma which explains the church’s

understanding of Biblical truthsIt is dogma which essentially guides and

directs our understanding of:• Who God is• What He is like• How we approach Him• The church’s manifestations of our

life with Him through prayers and rites

Dogma in the Pauline Epistles

St. Paul’s writings greatly influenced and help define church dogma:

Salvation Justification Sanctification Propitiation Redemption Liberation Eschatology: end of the world and the

Second Coming

Dogma in the Pauline Epistles

Humbling experience to study the Epistles of St. Paul: Compare and contrast the concept of

Atonement in the Old Testament with that of Propitiation in the New.

Explain the concepts of “predestination” and St. Paul’s use of the word “elect”

What is the connection between salvation, justification, and sanctification as explained by St. Paul?

What eschatological elements do we find in St. Paul’s writings?

Pertinent Sections of Epistle

Forgiveness of sin and justification: 3:21 – 5:11

Deliverance from sin: 5:12 – 8:39Salvation with respect to Israel: Chapters 9 –

11Election, foreknowledge, and predestination

in salvation

Concept of Propitiation

Used four times in the New Testament:To conciliate (reconcile)To lessen the anger of; To appease, pacify, satisfyIn understanding of theology, the Lord Christ satisfied

the justice and anger of God the Father brought on by sin and reconciled us with the Father through His sacrifice on the Cross

“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (5:9)

As we say in the Gregorian liturgy: “and the middle wall You have broken down and the old enmity You have abolished.” Enmity: hostility, acting like enemies


3:23-25:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the

glory of God,24 being justified freely by His grace

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed…


So, we can say that God the Father was propitiated by the sacrifice of the Son

Thus, the Lord Christ satisfied the death sentence on humanity for all sin (past, present, and future) in His Body on the Cross

Those who accept and believe in this propitiatory work, may receive salvation

Those who do not and who attempt to attain salvation by their own works apart from faith, remain under this death sentence


It is through this propitiatory work that: Salvation Justification Sanctification Forgiveness Redemption

…are available to us


Where we differ from Protestant theology is that they might say salvation, justification and sanctification are not attained by forgiveness of sin; forgiveness of sin is a benefit of salvation

We would counter that forgiveness of sin is a benefit of salvation, true, but repentance and seeking forgiveness of sin are still necessary to acquire salvation

Faith and Works and Salvation

This constantly recurring question arises again in our study of Romans

3:27-28 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded.

By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.


Many are confused by St. Paul’s references to “works” in Romans

What “works” is he referring to?St. Paul addressed the many Jews in Rome with

these referencesThe Jews there believed that salvation can only be

acquired by the observance first of the Mosaic Law

St. Paul attempts to transform their way of thinking by extolling the superiority of faith in the Lord Christ over the limitations of the Law


References to the limitations of the Law were also important because the Jews inherently felt that they were a supreme race, the chosen and exclusive people of the Lord

3:29-30 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He

not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also,

30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Salvation through Circumcision?

4:9-10 9 Does this blessedness then come upon the

circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

Here St. Paul gives an example of how Abraham received the blessing, received justification even without circumcision, but through his faith in God

The Gentiles, too, may receive salvation apart from the requirements of the Law.

Chapter 7: Freed from the Law

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another --- to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Chapter 7: The Law Cannot Save from Sin

13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will (desire) to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

16 If, then, I do what I will (desire) not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.


17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

19 For the good that I will (desire) to do, I do not do; but the evil I will (desire) not to do, that I practice.

20 Now if I do what I will (desire) not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.


22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

25 I thank God --- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Chapter 8: Salvation through Suffering

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…

…22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?

Chapter 8: Salvation through Suffering

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Chapters 9-11: Israel and Salvation

In these chapters, St. Paul discusses the accessibility of salvation to those who are not Israelites

He suffers to see his countrymen reject the Lord Christ

Use of Old Testament references increases markedly to prove his points: 28 references in these three chapters alone

Perception that salvation is directly tied to nationalism

Jewish people regard ancestry as supremely important


Jews go to great pains to determine and maintain lineage

According to halakha (collective body of Jewish religious law), the oldest normative definition used by Jews for self-identification, a person is matrilineally (through the mother) a Jew by birth, or becomes one through conversion to Judaism.

“and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” (Matt 3:9)

Are they children, then, of Isaac or Ishmael?


37 “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.

38 I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."

39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

40 But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.” (John 8)


St. Paul addresses this point in Chapter 9:6 But it is not that the word of God has

taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,

7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”

8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.


“Paul wants to say that it is not those who are of Abraham’s flesh who are His children, but those who are of the promise, who are godly and just, whom God promised according to His foreknowledge would be the children of Abraham, just as Isaac was made righteous by the promise.”

--Diodore


Chapter 9: 25 As He says also in Hosea: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved.”

26 “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” (Chapter 9)

Chapters 9-11: Is all of Israel Rejected?

Chapter 11: 1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,

3 “LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”?

4 But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Chapters 9-11: Grafting

17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,

18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”

20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.

Chapters 9-11: Grafting

Election, Foreknowledge, and Predestination

Chapter 11: 7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

8 Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day.”

9 And David says: “Let their table become a snare and a trap, A stumbling block and a recompense to them.

10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, And bow down their back always.”


“God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” (11:2)

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (8:2)

Is, then, salvation only available to those whom God chooses? Where, then, is free will to choose?


“Paul proclaims God’s foreknowledge by citing these events, because nothing can happen in the future other than what God already knows. Therefore, knowing what each of them would become, God said: The younger will be worthy and the elder unworthy. In His foreknowledge He chose the one and rejected the other. And in the one whom God chose His purpose remained, because nothing other than what God knew and purposed in him to make him worthy of salvation could happen.


“Likewise, the purpose of God remained in the one whom He rejected. However, although God knew what would happen, He is not a respecter of persons and condemn nobody before he sins, nor does He reward anyone until he conquers.”--Ambrosiaster


“God does not have to wait, as we do, to see which one will turn out good and which one will turn out bad. He knew this in advance and decided accordingly.”

--St. John Chrysostom

We conclude, then, that salvation is available to all

Salvation is not limited to the children of Israel

The Lord elects according to His foreknowledge those who will be saved

Review

Dogma Definition Role in Church life How it was influenced and defined by St. Paul

Concept of propitiationFaith and works and salvationSalvation through circumcision?Chapter 7: Freed from the LawChapter 7: The Law cannot save from sinChapter 8: Salvation through suffering

Review

Chapters 9-11 Lineage and ancestry in the Jewish mind Is all of Israel rejected? Grafting

Election, foreknowledge, and predestination

salvation in the epistle to the romans

Documents

anger of god

church dogma

god iswhat

forbearance god

glory of god

coming dogma

sin past

lord christ