Ian & Jocelyn Barker

There is a lot to be said about Romans because he basically went through 1-11 expounding on justification throughout the letter. He starts in chapter 1 by saying that 1:3-4 is the summary of the content of the gospel, and 1:16-17 is summary of the effect of the gospel. The gospel does not reveal “justification by faith as the true scheme of salvation, as opposed to Jewish self-help moralism” (126). It is His covenantal faithfulness that has defeated sin and evil through His Son and helped the helpless through faith.

Romans 2 baffles scholars who see Romans as a book on how to be saved. The first mention of justification in Romans is one where Paul apparently approves the idea of justification through works (2:13). Paul is talking about the final eschatological justification. Who will be vindicated as God’s people on the last day? The Torah alone is insufficient in this process, but God has done in Christ and the Spirit what the Torah alone couldn’t do. But who will these people be?

Wright says that 2:17-24 says “that it cannot be the Jews as defined by race” (127). Their boasting is negated by the fact that their sin still remains so she can’t be affirmed. But what if He inaugurated the covenant with a remnant of true Jews as he says in 2:25-29. This goes beyond race and circumcision. They are regarded as His covenant people. “Justification” is the coming day when He will vindicate His true people.

Yet how can God be true to HIs promises if Israel has been faithless? God “entrusted” Israel with message for the world but the messenger has failed. Does this mean “sender” is faithless? No! God has sent His Son as faithful messenger in order to fulfill His covenantal promises to Israel by extending blessing to Gentiles.

Regarding Romans 3:21-31, he writes, “The passage is all about the covenant, membership in which is now thrown open to Jew and Gentile alike; therefore it is all about God’s dealing with sin in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, because that was what the covenant was intended to do in the first place. The law court takes its proper place as the metaphorical means through which the covenant purposes of God are fulfilled” (128).

The boasting in 3:27 is not a moral boasting but a racial boast of the Jew. Covenantal membership is not exclusive to the racial Jew alone. Justification is declaration that believers in Christ are members of true covenant. “Present justification declares, on the basis of faith, what future justification will affirm publicly (according to 2:14-16 and 8:9-11) on the basis of the entire life” (129).

Genesis 15 is the backbone of Romans 4 because that was when covenant was established. “Covenant membership is defined, not by circumcision (4:9-12), nor by race, but by faith” (129). Faith was what showed or proved that he was a member of the family of God. It wasn’t something he did to “earn the right to be within the people of God” (130).

Chapters 5-8 show that all who believe in the gospel are the true people of God who have been forgiven their sins and assured of their future salvation. 5:12-21 is Paul’s evaluation of how God’s covenant promise to deal with sin of Adam has been accomplished in Christ. Torah offered slavery because it highlighted the problem of sin in Adam. He has accomplished what Law couldn’t in His Son. People of God will be vindicated/justified in the resurrection after temporal suffering (8:31-39).

This leaves us with 9:30-10:21 as final passage in Romans. The Gentiles have been discovering “covenant membership” by having faith in Christ, while Israel had been clinging to the Torah, the marker of covenant. Yet they could not attain to the Torah which resulted in them stubbornly insisting on a marking of membership that was defined by the works of the Law. She did not submit to Christ’s righteousness (or plan of salvation) which was to be the end of the Law (as marker of covenant) that all who believe might have covenant membership. Works of the Law is reference to covenantal markers, not moral effort. Paul’s understanding of covenantal marker was not works of the Law but faith in Christ — died and rose.

Conclusion

1. Covenant. “Justification is the covenant declaration, which will be issued on the last day, in which the true people of God will be vindicated and those who insist on worshipping false gods will be shown to be in the wrong” (131)
2. Law court. “Justifcation functions like the verdict in the law court: by acquitting someone, it confers on that person the status ‘righteous’. This is the forensic dimension of the future covenantal vindication” (131).
3. Eschatology. Declaration is to be done at end of history. But He has done in middle what He was expected to do, and still will do, at the end. “The declaration, the verdict, can be be issued already in the present, in anticipation” (131).
4. “Therefore…all who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ are already demarcated as members of the true family of Abraham, with their sins being forgiven” (131).