If you want to even begin to understand anything in the New Testament, be it the gospels or Paul’s letters, you need to make sure you have a handle on what was going on in Judaism in the first century.
The Jewish Self-Identity
First of all, you have to remember that the Jews viewed themselves as YHWH’s chosen people. Out of all the people in the world, YHWH chose Abraham and his descendants as His special people through whom He would bring salvation to the entire world. YHWH made a covenant with Abraham and promised Abraham that through his descendants YHWH would do just this. The sign of the covenant was the act of circumcision. Later on, during the time of the Exodus, YHWH called Moses to lead Abraham’s descendants, the Hebrews, out of Egypt and into the land that YHWH had promised to Abraham. At Mount Sinai YHWH gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments and the Torah, and they bound themselves in covenant with YHWH to be His people and to serve and worship Him alone.
Yet throughout their history, Israel continually sinned. They went after other gods, worshipped idols, and failed to be the kind of “light” to the world that they were called to be. In fact, they were just as bad as any other gentile nation. Eventually, YHWH rejected them and let them be taken into the Babylonian exile and captivity. During this time, though, the Jews finally learned their lesson, and they put away worshipping foreign gods for good. Miraculously, YHWH called them out of exile and brought them back to the Promised Land. It looked like YHWH had not given up on the Jews after all. It looked like everything that He had promised to Abraham and all the promises He had made throughout Israel’s history was going to come to fruition.
…but they didn’t. The Jews were back in their land, but they were constantly subject to foreign oppressors. They were back in their land, but YHWH had not brought the Messiah. They were back in their land, but YHWH’s Spirit had not returned to them. They had come back out of exile, but YHWH had not yet brought about full restoration. Therefore, the Jewish mindset during the time of Jesus and Paul was essentially this:
- We are the chosen people of God. God has been gracious to us and has chosen us!
- We’re awaiting the time when God will bring about the full restoration He promised.
- Why hasn’t He brought His full restoration about yet?
The 1st century Jewish (particularly pharisaic) answer was simple: we aren’t keeping the Torah well enough! Therefore, if we really keep the Torah, we’ll show God just how good we are, and then He’ll restore us completely, send the Messiah, and pour out His Spirit upon us, and then we’ll really be a blessing to the world and be able to bring salvation to it!
Oh, How Some Things Never Change
The problem with this thinking is something Christians today still deal with: we think, “Yes, I’m saved, but I really have to prove to God how serious I am about following Him, so I’m going to do X, Y, Z.” We come up with our own brand of “Torah-keeping,” because we think if we show God that we really are good little boys and girls, that then He’ll really love us. Christians in America today are in a very similar situation as the Jews in Jesus and Paul’s day. We’ve essentially “grown up” in a “saved community” and don’t know anything else. We have been taught that one is saved through faith alone; we have been taught that “it is by grace you are saved, through faith…not by works.” We know the lingo, we live the life, but something doesn’t feel right. Paul would say “what doesn’t feel right” can be seen in what often happens when someone gets “saved.” As soon as someone comes forward and accepts Christ (by grace, through faith…not by works!), what do Christians tend to do? We hand the new Christian a laundry list of things to do and things not to do!
Often times the things “not to do” include things like: no smoking, no drinking, no swearing, no porn, no sex before marriage, no voting for Barak Obama, no South Park, etc. The “to do” list includes things like: going to church, reading your Bible, tithing, daily prayer, voting Republican, etc. Now obviously, it’s a good thing to break any addictions, be it smoking, drinking, porn, or whatever; and obviously, going to church, reading your Bible, and praying are good as well. The problem isn’t in these specific things themselves, but in how we view them. The problem is in our very hearts. The problem is that many of us, although we look all “saved” on the outside, still have never really understood what grace really is, and consequently, have never really trusted God to begin with.
The Unofficial Christian Rule Book
The fact is, the reason why so many Christians today carry around this “unofficial Christian rule book” is because many of us are still trying to impress God; many of us really don’t believe He loves us. Consequently, many of us have our own “Evangelical Torah” that we hit people over the head with and that we claim we are good at keeping; but secretly we are terrified because we know we don’t keep it. Secretly we think, “God can’t really love me as long as I am doing this,” or “Once I stop doing this, then God will really open doors for me and use me.” But we need to realize what Paul would say to this kind of thinking. He would say that as long as we keep doing this sort of thing, then all it shows is that we don’t know anything about God’s grace and we don’t know anything about what true faith is.
And so, when asked the question, “How do you know you are saved?” most church-goers will answer, “Because I’ve accepted Jesus into my heart. I’ve surrendered my life to him and he is my Lord and Savior.”
Ask yourself if you really believe that. Or do you actually believe you are saved because you have learned to say the right thing, and live a pretty clean life?
Before we get into that, though, we need to understand that this is the mindset Paul is addressing in Romans. Paul’s point is this:
- Torah was never intended to make you righteous
- Keeping Torah can’t make God like you more
- The “OT experiment” showed one thing: ALL are sinful! Even when God clarifies what a righteous life is (in the Torah), people, even His chosen people, can’t live it because of sin!
- The point of Torah is to point out sin, to hold people to account, to convict us of sin
- Righteousness has never been achievable through Torah observance
- Righteousness comes through faith—for both JEW and GENTILE!
- The “blind faith” in the OT (i.e. Abraham) has now been made known to us in Christ Jesus.
- We are made righteous through faith in Christ, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s message in Romans was thoroughly addressed to this mindset of first century Judaism. You’re not going to fully “get” Romans until you first realize this fact. At the same time though, once you realize this fact, you’ll also realize that Christians today often live their lives in the exact same way as Paul’s original audience did back then. And it is on that point that we can begin to see the relevance of Romans for us today.
