Romans bible study

[mikeledes]

But I think that they indicate that our righteousness in this life is not complete, particularly the one from Augustine. I believe language of imputation is not used because it really wasn’t thought of any significance at the time to make a distinction about it.

My purpose here is not to show that anyone is wrong. I want us to realize that we are closer to agreement than we think and that much is a matter of semantics.

I think that rather in the matter of infusion versus imputation, there is greater differences between at least some Protestants and Catholics as to whether faith precedes or follows regeneration.

If God is going to make us perfect so that we can be in His presence in heaven, then what is the purpose of imputing an alien righteousness? The fact that we are infused righteousness in regeneration - which you say is “imperfect” - and that this righteousness will be perfected makes an imputed righteousness quite redundant.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[mikeledes]

Because what we experience here is discipline to correct us, not punishment. When we are told that we are forgiven and that our sins will not be remembered, I believe that is truly the case. If there is temporal punishment then they have not been truly forgotten.

And thank you for the complement. I may not always agree with you but you are always reasonable and pleasant to discuss things with.

In the case of David, God tells him his sins are forgiven, and yet God takes the life of the child conceived in adultery. Does this mean God did not “forget” David’s sin?

God Bless,
Michael

 

[Pax]

Because what we experience here is discipline to correct us, not punishment. When we are told that we are forgiven and that our sins will not be remembered, I believe that is truly the case. If there is temporal punishment then they have not been truly forgotten.

Sins are forgiven and forgotten, but the consequences of sin can remain. Our attachment to sin and its attractions must be purged. It is not easy for us to give these up, and pain can be associated with doing so.

Sin has consequences and the consequences must be dealt with prior to entering eternal bliss. The souls of just men “made” perfect is not simply forgiveness. It is a genuine cleansing of all that is associated with sin.

 

[SyCarl]

In the case of David, God tells him his sins are forgiven, and yet God takes the life of the child conceived in adultery. Does this mean God did not “forget” David’s sin?

God Bless,
Michael

With David it would be a case of discipline rather than punishment. David was still alive and needed discipline. Hebrews 13 deals with God’s discipline and verse 11 tells us that discipline is for training. Discipline will teach us what to do or not to do in the future. In many cases discipline may seem to be punishment but its purpose is to correct our future actions. The sin is forgotten but not the need for a lesson.

After death we cannot change our ways. We are either saved or not saved. Purgatory could only be for punishment rather than discipline since it serves no corrective purpose. We cannot change our future actions as a result of it.

 

[SyCarl]

Sins are forgiven and forgotten, but the consequences of sin can remain. Our attachment to sin and its attractions must be purged. It is not easy for us to give these up, and pain can be associated with doing so.

Sin has consequences and the consequences must be dealt with prior to entering eternal bliss. The souls of just men “made” perfect is not simply forgiveness. It is a genuine cleansing of all that is associated with sin.

Jesus has already atoned for all our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that original sin and all actual sins are forgiven in baptism. The consequences are taken care of amd no punishment remains for those sins. This is also the case with any sins we commit, even those after our intial regeneration and justification.

 

[Pax]

Jesus has already atoned for all our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that original sin and all actual sins are forgiven in baptism. The consequences are taken care of amd no punishment remains for those sins. This is also the case with any sins we commit, even those after our intial regeneration and justification.

There are temporal consequences of sin that are not taken care of as described. If someone is a thief they have a personal material gain and the victim has a personal material loss. The consequences of the gain and loss are not taken care of through God’s forgiveness.

The sinner’s personal material gain creates an attachment to material goods and to sinful methods of gain. Moreover, the sinner may continue enjoying the benefits of ill gotten gains for extended periods of time…perhaps for the rest of their life.

Likewise, the victim may suffer from the material loss at the hands of the thief and may suffer consequences for an extended period of time.

Forgiveness alone granted to the sinner does not remedy any of this. Restitution on the part of the sinner and penance provide what forgiveness alone cannot provide. In the NT we receive a wonderful example of repentance that shows how this works. The narrative is as follows:

Luke 19:2-10
And there was a man named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it they all murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”

I hope this helps.

 

[mikeledes]

Protestantism stands or falls on imputational righteousness. However, except for extreme anti-nomian OSAS Protestants, all Protestants recognize the necessity of sanctification - being made inwardly rightoeus/ holy in one’s earhtly life - as an essential element of salvation. The Bible is very clear who will enter the heavenly Jerusalem (final salvation) and who will not:

Revelation 21:27

27and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it

Matthew 5:8

8"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Hebrews 12:14

14Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord

So the Bible makes it clear that only those who are ontologically holy will enter eternal glory. Being made ontologically holy means being conformed to the image of Christ:

1 John 3:3

**3And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. **

Romans 8:29

** 29For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; **

Now if we must become ontologically holy in order to enter heaven, how is this accomplished? Since we cannot become ontologically holy by our own natural efforts and we cannot be ontologically holy if we have the debt of sin - which, BTW, is the main point Paul is trying to make in Romans 4 - God must intervene by providing atonement for our sins in Christ, giving us prevenient grace so that our minds and wills can respond to His call to repentance and faith and receive forgiveness of our sins, and transforming us by His grace into a new creation, ontologically holy. But the process of being conformed to the image of Christ does not end when we are first justified. When we are justified/regenerated/sanctified, we are united to Christ and enabled by grace to bear fruit for God:

John 15:5

5"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

Both Arminian/Wesleyan and Calvinist Protestants recognize sanctification as a cooperative work (work of the Holy Spirit and work of man). The problem, however, is that Romans 6 clearly indicates that sanctification involves works - making one’s members instruments of righteousness. In other words, being made ontologically holy so that we may be in God’s presence does not depend on faith alone. And if Protestants believe that sanctification is as essential as justification, then this undermines the notion of salvation being through faith alone from beginning to end, since the “being saved” involves faith and works.

Moreover, if we are made ontologically righteous so that we can enter eternal glory and be in God’s presence and, according to Romans 2:5-8, we will be judged according to our works, what essential role does an imputing the alien righteousness of Christ play? There is not a single passage in Scripture that says that when we are judged according to the personal righteousness of Christ. Of course, Catholics do not deny that the personal righteousness of Christ does not play a role in our salvation. His personal righteousness is an essenial element of the Atonement. Like the passover lamb, a sacrificial Victim must be free of imperfection. Christ could not be a perfect sacrificial offering to the Father if He was marred by personal sins. Perfection enhances the dignity and value of the sacrificial Victim. But, as I stated earlier, Christ made reparation for our sins so that we can be confromed into His image. And being conformed to His image means an ontological change in which both faith and works are involved, as made clear by Romans 6. And the end of this ontological change is eternal life.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[Pax]

Extremely well put.

 

[Odell]

**Chapter 7

1
Are you unaware, brothers (for I am speaking to people who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over one as long as one lives?
2
Thus a married woman is bound by law to her living husband; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law in respect to her husband.
3
Consequently, while her husband is alive she will be called an adulteress if she consorts with another man. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and she is not an adulteress if she consorts with another man.
4
In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5
For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, awakened by the law, worked in our members to bear fruit for death.
6
But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter.
7
What then can we say? That the law is sin? Of course not! Yet I did not know sin except through the law, and I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, “You shall not covet.”
8
But sin, finding an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetousness. Apart from the law sin is dead.
9
I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive;
10
then I died, and the commandment that was for life turned out to be death for me.
11
For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it put me to death.
12
So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13
Did the good, then, become death for me? Of course not! Sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.
14
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin.
15
What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
16
Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
17
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18
For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
19
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
20
Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21
So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
22
For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
23
but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24
Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
25
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin. **

 

[Pax]

Paul speaks of the bondage of sin because of our fallen nature in the flesh. Life in the flesh as illuminated by the old law brings death. Christ brings redemption and life.

 

[D_M]

Hi,

So here we are talking about the purpose of the law, as well as the corruption of that purpose by sin.

I think our question about who Paul was addressing in this letter seems to have been answered in the first line, when he writes that he is speaking to those who know the law (ie. jews in Rome that were christians).

He begins by talking about how the law only applied to the living, and gives the example of a woman who is bound to the law regarding her husband only as long as her husband is still alive. He then takes this biological death of the husband and relates it to the non-biological death we experience at our baptism when we ‘die to sin’, and that just as the couple had been freed from the law by death, so are christians freed from the law (and he means the old covenant, jewish law, and does not mean the teachings of Christ) in dying through Christ. We are no longer subject to the law of Moses therefore, but are now subject to the One who was raised from the dead for our redemption.

He says something interesting next, and it is an important theme for this chapter, when he writes that our sinful passions were ‘aroused’ by the law, or that the law ‘held us captive’. For before Christ’s redemption, all men were likewise bound in the same sinfulness through Adam which the law did not end, but which ‘increased’ or ‘aroused’ sin. Paul didn’t mean that the law was a bad thing (as his jewish enemies would then retort), but rather what he meant by the law ‘increased’ or ‘aroused’ sin was that it taught what sin was and instructed people to know things which were sinful which they otherwise would not have known to be sinful , and it was their faithlessness in keeping the law which wrought such evil.

‘Apart from the law sin lies dead’ ← in other words, a person can only be charged with having committed a sin when they knew that the action was sinful. A person who did not know the law could not be blamed with not having kept it, but only a person who knew it could be.

Therefore for a person who (as all people were in the original sin) committed sin and lived in sin, the law will teach them that they are sinful even when if they were apart from the law (not knowing it) they would have been so. The commandments then, which promised life, turned into death and held men in captivity, even though the law itself is holy, just, and good as well as came from the same God who sent His Son as Our Redeemer

It was not that the law was the problem, since the law was perfect and given by angels, but sin, working through the law which taught men what sin was, was the problem.

The purpose of the law then was to show sin for what it was… God did not give the law in order to cause people to sin, but rather to reveal our wretchedness for what it really is and this wretchedness became worse than all measure through the law which revealed it all the more for what it really was. This wretched sinfulness is the need for which Christ came to die on account of so that the world may be saved from it.

From here he then talks about the corruption of the flesh as apart from the holy law. Our bodies are corrupted from the fall from the garden, for that was part of the punishment that God should have given us. If we disobey God and do not do what He wills we should do, therefore we are punished in turn, by our own flesh disobeys us and does not do what we will it should do… what we do to others is done to us, for that is the whole of the law and the prophets… and so our bodies lust in a manner which we cannot control. If this is not what we want though, then we agree in our inmost selves that the law is good and we are thankful for that law, even though our bodies in our outward selves continue in their sinful disobedience against our will. Our flesh is in love with death, and the only escape we shall find is through Jesus.

It is not only our souls, but also our bodies, which are redeemed and shall rise with Him on the last day.

[anyone can say this themselves, if they choose to]

Lord, we pray that we may be brought always to serve you with your minds even when our bodies bring us to sin, and that our mortal flesh may be redeemed and we become immortal with your Son on the last day. We ask this, if it is your will, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Verses of Potential Interest:

I delight in the law in my inmost self:

Psalms 1:2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

The very commandment which promised life proved death for me:

Leviticus 18:5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live: I am the Lord.

I would not know what it was to covet except for that the law said do not covet:

Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his ox, or his ***, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”

our sinful passions were at work to bear fruit for death:

James 1:15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth deah

A married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if he dies she is discharged from the law concerning her husband:

1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

God Bless,

 

[mikeledes]

In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.

Again, the purpose of the Cross was to deliver us from the debt and power of sin so that we can bear fruit for God (good works) and be conformed to the image of Christ.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[Pax]

Amen:thumbsup:

 

[mikeledes]

**Chapter 7

14
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin.
15
What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
16
Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
17
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18
For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
19
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
20
Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21
So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
22
For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
23
but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24
Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
25
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin. **

What I would like to know is if Paul is speaking as one who has not been justified or has “been severed from Christ” by trying to be justfied by the Law or is he speaking of one who is justified? According to the New American Bible, Paul is speaking as one who has not been justified or has reverted to the Law. This person sees a contradiction between his reasoned desire to do observe the law and his inability to do so due to his “bondage to sin.” The Navarre bible, on the other hand, seems to say that this refers to the Christian’s continuing struggle with sin due to concupiscence? Verse 14 (“I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin”) seems to favor the NAB interpretation since Romans 6 states that Christians have been delivered from slavery to sin. Any thoughts?

Thanks and God Bless,
Michael

 

[Catholic_Dude]

What I would like to know is if Paul is speaking as one who has not been justified or has “been severed from Christ” by trying to be justfied by the Law or is he speaking of one who is justified? According to the New American Bible, Paul is speaking as one who has not been justified or has reverted to the Law. This person sees a contradiction between his reasoned desire to do observe the law and his inability to do so due to his “bondage to sin.” The Navarre bible, on the other hand, seems to say that this refers to the Christian’s continuing struggle with sin due to concupiscence? Verse 14 (“I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin”) seems to favor the NAB interpretation since Romans 6 states that Christians have been delivered from slavery to sin. Any thoughts?

Thanks and God Bless,
Michael

I think the first part of ch 7 is talking about the time before someone converts, but around v7 he talks about the concupiscience that remains after someone converts and struggles against sin as a Christian. In older translations, like the KJV/DR, the word “concupiscience” actually appears in v8.

It is very important not to misunderstand comments like “sin that dwells in me” to mean something like a black blob of sin actually resting in your soul. That is a heresy because evil is not a substance, otherwise God is the creater of evil, this is the heresy of the Manicheans in which they explained evil by two forces running the universe, good and evil, battling eachother. The Manicheans take this to another conclusion and that is they cannot help it when they sin and that they are not really guilty if they sin. Protestantism runs dangerously close on certian points of Manicheanism (eg concupiscience to them is truly sin and never removed even after conversion).

 

[Odell]

**Chapter 8

1
Hence, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2
For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death.
3
For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4
so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
5
For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit.
6
The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace.
7
For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it;
8
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9
But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.
12
Consequently, brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
16
The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
18
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
19
For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God;
20
for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope
21
that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
23
and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
24
For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees?
25
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.
26
In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
27
And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.
28
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
29
For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30
And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.
31
What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32
He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
33
Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us.
34
Who will condemn? It is Christ (Jesus) who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
35
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
36
As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
38
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers,
39
nor height, nor depth, 10 nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord**

 

[Odell]

**Chapter 8

35
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
]**

I have a odd question why is nakedness in this list?

 

[SyCarl]

I have a odd question why is nakedness in this list?

Possibly because one of the cares of this world that Jesus said we should not worry about is from where we will get clothing?

"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
(Matthew 6:28-30 NASB)

 

[Nita]

I have a odd question why is nakedness in this list?

I would take it for extreme poverty, where one couldn’t afford to buy any clothing as protection from the elements.

(*Deut. 24:11 You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. 24:12 And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge; 24:13 when the sun goes down, you shall restore to him the pledge that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the LORD your God. *)

 

[mikeledes]

**Chapter 8

1
Hence, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2
For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death.
3
For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4
so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
5
For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit.**

There is no condemnation for the one united to Christ through faith and baptism. This promise, however, is for those who are and remain united to Christ. Paul states in the same chapter the following:

13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

In other words, the promise of a future life beyond this life is attached to “putting to death the deeds of the body.” In other words, the promise of a future life is not atttached to faith alone, but to a faith that works through love. A faith that works through love means putting to death the deeds of the body. And putting to death the deeds of the body means doing good works or, as Romans 6 states, using one’s members as instruments of righteousness. As the first 5 verses of chapter 8 indicates, we are able to do this because of our union with Christ.

John 15:4

4"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

The power of sin over our lives has been broken and now the rigteous decree of the law is fulfilled in those who live according to the Spirit. And those who live according to the Spirit are those who love, and those who love fulfill the Law, as will be stated later in Romans. None of this could be accomplished by natural human effort (i.e. observance of the law). That’s why God had to intervene. Again, this is the basic point of Romans 4. He’s not teaching salvation through faith alone. He was teaching the inability of man to save himself through his own natural efforts (works of the law) and the impossibility of man in bondage to sin obligating God to save him based on those efforts. God must first take the initiative through prevenient grace so that man can turn to Him with faith and a contrite heart for salvation.

To be continued…

God Bless,
Michael