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Romans 3:25
- Thread starter OrthodoxyUSA
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In my experience, filtered interpretations are pretty common. People spot particular trigger-words that mean something to them (be it 'blood', 'grace', 'faith', 'salvation', 'justification' etc) and think "oh, I know what that refers to". Thus a person's huge and complex understanding of one or more concepts can get read into a biblical passage just because a single word is present in the passage. People are simply really really good at spotting their own theologies in the Bible because a single word can be interpreted a referring to an entire doctrine time and again. I like to think of it as wearing Eucharist-tinted glasses... they see the Eucharist (or whatever doctrine) in any passage they look at because they put it there. I had one amusing experience where I pointed a person to a passage due to it being 100% opposed to their theological beliefs, and then they responded by seizing on one particular word in the passage as an excuse to read their whole theology into the passage and then convinced themselves it taught what they believed.
Now I agree with you that this does not really make for good biblical analysis. I prefer a much more academic/scholarly approach to carefully interpreting biblical texts. However, it's something that's really hard to get away from - everyone is naturally inclined to see ideas that they are used to in a piece of text when reading it, and less naturally inclined to see ideas that they are unfamiliar with. Even influential theologians can be extremely prone to expanding single trigger-words into whole doctrines.
Getting away from the tendency to do this myself was a real struggle for me personally. As I studied the Bible carefully I began to increasingly question and reject as unbiblical the doctrines that I had grown up with. Yet for a long time my natural / intuitive reading of several passages was still in agreement with the views I had grown up with, because I had learned a certain way of reading passages which I struggled to leave behind. The net effect of this is that it's always incredibly hard to convince anyone to change their theology by citing the Bible, because people are so extremely good at reading their own theology into any biblical passage you care to name.
This is why I am always fascinated to see an entirely new reading of a biblical passage from a point of view I haven't seen before (like the Eucharist-centric reading here). Because I realise that people who come from different backgrounds to myself will naturally have ways of reading that I won't have thought of. And one of those ways of reading could potentially be what the original author meant, but if I haven't thought of it, I can't fairly assess that possibility.
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I had to put it in it's context, because I wasn't sure what you're asking:
Honestly, um...you have to read the entire chapter to realize that Paul is telling us that both Jews and Gentiles were both sinners and that both are now justified by the grace of God through the blood of Christ to those who believe.
Edit: I added Romans 9-20
By the way: What version are you reading from?
Romans 3: 9-26
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
10 As it is written:
“ There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “ Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“ The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “ Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “ Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “ There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
10 As it is written:
“ There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “ Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“ The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “ Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “ Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “ There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Honestly, um...you have to read the entire chapter to realize that Paul is telling us that both Jews and Gentiles were both sinners and that both are now justified by the grace of God through the blood of Christ to those who believe.
Edit: I added Romans 9-20
By the way: What version are you reading from?
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If I may take the liberty of answering for him, he seems to be observing that a lot of Protestants use this verse as a proof-text for the Reformation teaching of Sola Fide (salvation by faith alone). He appears to be questioning whether the verse really does teach that doctrine. He also appears to be pointing out that the verse can be understood in significantly different ways (eg referring to the sacraments). (I hope he will correct me if I've misunderstood him here)
He's using the King James Version (KJV). It is widely used by English-speaking Eastern Orthodox Churches. I'm guessing that's because the archaic ye-ol' worldly sound of it sounds nice and traditional, something Eastern Orthodox Christians tend to like.
Okay, but those same words can mean very different things to different Christians. eg The word "grace" has at least six majorly different meanings among different Christian groups. But what's of particular concern here is what does it mean to "believe"? Some see "faith" as opposed to "works" and see "faith alone" as required for salvation. While others understand faith and works to be complementary or even the same thing.
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I don't know anything about the Sola Fide movement. So I didn't quite understand why he asked the question based on that verse. Thanks for clarifying.
How does one answer that question, "what does it mean to believe?" using Romans 3:25 alone? I would think you would need more verses than that to establish what one "believe". But then again, I don't know the Sola Fide's reasoning nor the opponents.
Here it is the NIV:
25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his bloodto be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished
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Yes. He taught them all "do this in remembrance of Me" "as often as you drink it (or eat it)."
The churches where he personally ministered, anyway. The others he stayed out of:
"And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation" (Rom. 15:1)
Blessings,
H.
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Every commandment of the 10, in the Old Testament law, is repeated in the New Testament except for keeping the sabbath commandment. Therefore they are still the Law and they are still endorsed by God and by the apostles.
Therefore, it cannot be this Law in its actual commands that Paul is saying not to live by; otherwise they would not have been repeated in the New Testament letters in an imperative way.
Because of this, we are back again to keeping Law as a principle, no matter the law: whether Old Testament, New Testament, or our personal standard. The method of attempting to keep the law in the strength of Consecrated Self is what Paul is identifying here.
Every command given to the Christian is probably given for two reasons: to show the Old Nature that it cannot keep it, i.e., to identify its weakness, lack, and sinfulness; and to call the New Nature to obey through reliance on the Holy Spirit and Christ within, who alone can cause us to "will and do of His good pleasure."
The Law is not the problem; the problem is the method with which it is implemented.
I know there are several of them, but these quotes are the best set of thoughts to convey what I'm trying to get across, and the best ones I've come across in helping understand the purpose of the Law to the Christian, where it fits and where it doesn't.
Anything we seek to do, or keep from doing, in our own strength brings us under legal bondage. Any promises or vows we make to the Lord, any code of ethics or rules of conduct that we set up for ourselves or have placed on us, are on the basis of law and therefore result in failure and ever-deepening enslavement. The principle of law applies to the self-life, and can produce nothing but self-righteousness. Thus, the law convicts of our need of life in Christ.
Positionally, in Christ, no believer is under law (John 1:17; Rom 10:4). Conditionally, almost all believers are to some extent under the principle of law as a rule of life. The all-too-general attitude is: I must love the Lord and others; I must maintain my testimony; I must witness and work for Him; I must resist self; I must stop this sinning. The feeling of constraint expressed in I must makes for Romans 7 defeat.
Anything we seek to do, or keep from doing, in our own strength brings us under legal bondage. Any promises or vows we make to the Lord, any code of ethics or rules of conduct that we set up for ourselves or have placed on us, are on the basis of law and therefore result in failure and ever-deepening enslavement. The principle of law applies to the self-life, and can produce nothing but self-righteousness.
As long as we depended on our own resources, all we produced was sin; we hungered for life, and brought forth death. But in the midst of our wretched attempts to be delivered from the body of this death (Rom 7:24), our faithful Father was teaching us what we had to know for our freedom in Christ: self is our greatest enemy, Christ is our only hope.. For to me to live is Christ (Phil 1:21)
As Paul tells us in Rom 7:1, as long as we lived and walked in the self-life we were under the principle and dominion of law. The answer to the principle of sin prepares us for the answer to the principle of law. Reckoning is the key to both, and both have to do with the death of the Cross and our life in Christ.
Here again, we must be reminded that the power for deliverance from the law does not reside in the fact that we have died to it, but in our relationship to the risen Liberator. Christ the power of God (1 Cor 1:24). Unless we clearly reckon on our having died to the principle of law, we are constantly under the pall of failing to meet our spiritual obligations. On the other hand, when we rest in our risen Lord we are more aware of his sufficiency than we are of the claims of law on us, and we are able to walk in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free (Gal 5:1).
- Miles Stanford, "The Complete Green Letters"
God bless,
H.
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heymikey80
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur
You realize though, that Paul's explanation of how that works -- in Romans 4 -- has zilch to do with the Law alone. Paul uses Abraham as an example: someone who lived centuries before Moses.
Chapter divisions in Romans weren't made by the author. Romans 4 is explaining Romans 3.
So the injection of "Law of Moses" as entirely different from "law" doesn't wash in Paul. The system of righteousness-by-works is encoded into a law. The point Paul brings up is that any work-for-wages system is what Paul means by a law of works.
Paul continues to consider the Law of Moses, specifically the Ten Commandments, as a useful example (or indeed, the best example) of such a law of works for wages.
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