“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.””
— Romans 1:16-17
Gospel is the means God used to save people. It is what He has chosen to do His work. People cannot be saved apart from the gospel (and I’m not going to get into people who haven’t heard… let’s just leave that to Gods character for now).
This verse is key to understand Romans. I try to have balanced approach. Since Reformation, interpretation has been individualistic. New perspective on Paul emphasizes ethnic approach of Jew/Gentile relations. V 16 supports this. I like a both/and but Paul’s main point and throughout first century may be the Jew/Gentile relations.
Righteousness of God is debated: could be his character, believers new identity, or Christs imputed righteousness. Cant solve that here.
From faith to faith is just as hard bc prepositions can mean different things. Point is that those who enter Gods family or inherit His righteousness do so on the basis of faith, and both Jew and Gentile are equal in this regard.
No comments:
Post a Comment