In our journey through Romans, we now come to a different section of Paul’s argument. We must always remember, though, what Paul has been arguing up to this point:
- Both Gentiles and Jews are sinful
- Having the Torah doesn’t give the Jews any special advantage with God when it comes to righteousness
- Both Gentiles and Jews are made righteous through faith in Christ
- Therefore those who put their faith in Christ are the true children of Abraham.
Paul’s “Last Days”/“Already-Not Yet” Worldview
With that, Paul sets out a new argument in Romans 5-8 that is thoroughly eschatological all the way through. Now, the term “eschatological” means something pertaining to the “last days.” Therefore, we can say that here in Romans 5-8 Paul is outlining the “last days” worldview; the “new covenant” worldview; the truly Christian worldview.
Of course, the actual biblical understanding of “the last days” is something quite different than the popularized Left Behind concept of the “last days” that has been accepted almost without question in the Evangelical world today. Biblically-speaking, the “last days” is not considered the final 7 years of world history during which the rapture happens, and a world leader from the revived Roman Empire (i.e. Nicolae Carpathia from the Left Behind series) rules the world, persecutes Christians, and then is defeated by Christ at the end of time.
No, the New Testament concept of the “last days” is essentially an altered Jewish eschatological worldview. Simply put, the Jews saw themselves as living in the old age ruled over by Satan, and characterized by foreign oppression, sin, sickness, death, spiritual dryness, demon-possession, etc. They looked forward to the Day of YHWH, when God would send His Messiah, the sick would be healed, the dead would be raised, God’s Spirit would be poured out on His people, and Israel would be vindicated. When that happened, so the Jews thought, that would mark the end of the old age and the beginning of the new age.
But when Jesus’ followers witnessed Jesus’ resurrection and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, they had to alter their inherited Jewish worldview. During Jesus’ ministry, the sick were healed, demons were cast out, and the dead were raised. They thought Jesus was the Messiah, but then he died. But then even more shocking, He rose again, thus defeating death. And then 50 days later at Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on the followers of Jesus. They had, in fact, experienced a taste of the new age, of the Kingdom of God…but they hadn’t experienced it in full. There was still sickness and death in the world, but now they were empowered by the Holy Spirit.
What they had come to realize was that there was a new wrinkle in the former Jewish worldview: the Messiah had come, the Spirit had been poured out, and the Kingdom of God had come in part, but not fully yet. They were, they came to realize, living between the ages. They were experiencing a taste of the new Messianic Age, but they were still living in the old age. And therefore, the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit empowered them to deal with sin and live righteously…through faith in Christ.
Therefore, we need to view Christ and the Church as the “good infection” God has injected into this fallen world. Through the Holy Spirit’s power, we have the ability to bring about the redemption of the world. We already have been given a taste of the Age to Come. Our task is to join Christ in establishing the Kingdom of God on this earth, which has not yet been completed. This New Testament worldview is called the “Already/Not Yet” worldview—and it is crucial if you are to understand anything in the New Testament and Christianity.
With this in mind, we turn to Romans 5-8. The main question Paul will address is this: If you get rid of the Torah, (a) how can you deal with sin? and (b) how can you guarantee righteous behavior? After all, from the Jewish perspective, if you get rid of the Torah, how will you know what is right and what is wrong? How will you live a righteous life? And let’s face it, that’s a pretty good question! For we want a rule book to define good and bad behavior for us, so we know what to do. But Paul won’t let us. He has something far greater in mind, as we will see. What he ends up doing is making a division between what we’ll call the “Old Age” way of thinking and the “New Age” way of thinking. The “Old Age” way of thinking is centered on sin, death, the “flesh,” and ironically the Torah. These are the things that are passing away. By contrast, the “New Age” way of thinking is centered on righteousness, life, the Holy Spirit, and faith/grace. This all will be teased out as we go through Romans 5-8.
Check Your Translations! It’s Important! (5:1-5)
Romans 5:1-11 acts as the first “bookend” (or “inclusio”) to the larger section of Romans 5-8. Unfortunately, a number of translations have wrongly translated key verbs in this section that completely make the point of the passage incomprehensible. Properly translated, we can see the “already/not yet” eschatological mindset run all the way through this section.
In 5:1, Paul begins by referring to the previous point he just made in chapter 3: “Having been justified (i.e. made righteous) by faith…” but then—it must be made clear—he does not say, “…we have peace with God.” Rather, he says, “Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The verb is not indicative, but rather subjunctive. What that means is that Paul is not stating a present reality (i.e. we have peace), but rather he is exhorting his readers to take advantage of the access to God that being justified brings. Through Christ, we are no longer God’s enemies, cringing before a conquering king and afraid of his wrath. We are now people who have access to God’s grace…so take advantage of God’s grace!
It is in this sense that we need to understand the concept of “peace” that Paul is taking about. He is not talking about some kind of “inner peace” we feel in our hearts. He is talking in terms of the peace that is instituted after a war. Paul is saying, if you will, “The war with God is over and the hostilities have ceased. Sign the peace treaty and live your lives in that peace with God—your former enemy, but now your beloved ruler!”
In 5:2-5, Paul then gives another subjunctive: “Let us boast in the hope of glory,” and “Let us boast in hardships.” Now, we can all understand boasting in the hope of glory, but how can Paul say we should boast in hardships? The answer is quite simple, and we know this from experience in everyday life. Hardships brings endurance, and endurance tests and refines our character, and that refined character produces that hope that will not result in shame. Simply put, the reason we boast in hardships is because they are the “building blocks” of our hope in Christ.
By means of analogy, the reason why the athlete puts himself through all the pain of training is because he knows that every time he tears his muscles when he lifts weights, and every time he runs until he’s exhausted, that pain means he is actually building up his muscles and endurance so he can become a better athlete than he was. The same goes for the Christian life—even though you have accepted Christ, and are thus “on the team,” so to speak, there still is a lot of “training” to undergo before you are made fully like Christ. Your life thus becomes the “weight room” in which God is slowly but surely making you into a Christ-like creature who fully reflects His image. So, boast away!
The Problem with Self-Righteousness (5:6-11)
In 5:6-11, Paul discusses the problem with human righteousness (like that of older son in the Prodigal Son parable). The problem is that a so-called “righteous” person is very rarely really good. Often times, the kind of person who “follows all the rules” and makes a point of letting everyone know that he follows all the rules—most of the time that person is what we call self-righteous. And self-righteous people are not really good people who care for others, are they?
These kind of people would have been the Pharisees in Jesus and Paul’s day (remember, Paul was a Pharisee—he knew what he was talking about). The Pharisees would have called themselves “righteous” because they followed the Torah, and they would have viewed everyone else, even their fellow Jews, as “sinners” because they weren’t as committed to keeping the Torah like the Pharisees were! So, technically speaking, in the Jewish way of seeing things at that time, the Pharisees were righteous, and not “sinners,” but they were not good, whereas everyone else were sinners. And so what’s Paul’s point? Christ died for us while we were still sinners—and, newsflash, those “righteous” people like the Pharisees were ungodly sinners like everyone else! And still, Christ came and died for us.
What does this prove? Keeping the Torah does not—it cannot—make one righteous. Our righteousness entirely depends on God’s grace, the faithfulness of Christ, and the redemption by his blood from the wrath to come. And so, if Christ’s death reconciles us to God, Paul says, how much more will Christ’s life save us from God’s wrath?
