Romans 1:11 - 17

Romans 1:11 - 13
For I long to see you, that I may impart some spiritual gift, so that you may be established - that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.

This is fairly straightforward, but significant. First, St. Paul asserts his apostolicity, declaring that he has a spiritual gift to impart to the Roman Christians that they may be properly established. This gift does not come independent of the laity, however. The Bishop leads from within the Church, not over the Church. It is our mutual faith, incarnate in the laity and overseen by the bishop, that establishes us. You cannot have one without the other. The laity, independent of guidance, will each turn to their own opinions - nothing will be established because there will be no order. The bishop, independent of laity, cannot have a Church to establish. We must always remember that we are in God's house - God asks us to serve one another, and so the bishop serves us, and we serve the bishop through our obedience and support. Thus we establish one another.

St. Paul also makes a critical emphatic point here: his preaching is to the Gentiles. It isn't exclusively to the Gentiles, but he is certainly not a Judaizer. This is important because the entire theme of the book of Romans is this Judaizing heresy of the early Church.

Romans 1:14 - 16
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

St. Paul herein reveals the heart of his message in this epistle - his thesis statement, if you will. First, St. Paul is an apostle and missionary of the Church. This should confirm to us the importance of preaching the gospel to all people. In particular, St. Paul makes certain to say his debtor to the "wise" (as the Judaizers would have been in their own eyes) and the "unwise" (as they doubtless thought of the Gentiles). "[The Gospel] is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek."

It is not to the Jews alone that salvation is promised; the Messiah is for all people - the Jew first, and also for the Greek (the Gentile).

Romans 1:17
For in it ((the Gospel)) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

A few critical things we must comment on here, as now we enter the part of Romans that begins to talk about the nature of this Gospel which is the salvation of Gentiles and Jews alike.

FIRST: St. Paul is, in this letter, contrasting the views of the Judaizers with those of the Church. The Judaizers said that one must first become a member of the Jewish culture / ethnicity (represented in Jewish law) in order to become a Christian, since Christianity is a sect of Judaism. The Church, at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) disagreed. It says that Judaism was chosen because it would give birth to the Christ, but that the Christ belongs to all peoples. One does not need to be Jewish in order to be of Christ, because it is by FAITH (not Jewish cultural law) that we become Christ's.

SECOND: Faith, here in the very sentence, is revealed as an ACTION. Notice he says the just shall "live by faith." You can't live by a cognitive belief. Rather, one lives by something only if one does what that thing compels. Faith is, therefore, intimately connected to action in the salvific sense. So when, in this Epistle, St. Paul discusses faith versus works, what he is contrasting is the ACTION motivated by faith versus the ACTION motivated by the Jewish cultural law. St. Paul does NOT contradict St. James - rather they agree. Faith without works is dead, for the just shall LIVE by faith (not merely believe it and call that sufficient).

Think of it this way: faith is, ultimately, TRUST. We are called to trust God. This sense in our culture that faith is a cognitive belief in the existence of God (as in, we have faith against all evidence that God is real), is an empty and satanic faith. It deprives faith of its power. YES, we must believe that God exists. To be certain, we believe that. I don't, personally, think that requires us to check our brains at the door - on the contrary, I think atheists are the ones committing grave philosophical errors (it is nearly impossible to prove a negative), though I can see how agnosticism is a philosophically defensible position.

But faith? Faith is Trust. The two words are identical in the Greek (pistis). The creed says, if translated this way, "I TRUST in One God... And One Lord Jesus Christ... and in the Holy Spirit..."

If I trust God, then I must act on that trust. If I trust God, and someone cuts me off when I'm driving, then I trust that God's providence allowed that. If God's providence allowed that, then my only reaction can be to THANK God. Anger, rage, swearing... these will show up nowhere. If someone is my enemy, it is only because God's providence allowed that. And if God's providence allowed it, then I trust it is ultimately for my good, even if I don't know how. And if I TRUST God, then I am thankful for that enemey - indeed, I love him or her. I love my enemies if I have faith. If I have faith, I trust that God has made each person in His image, and that it is by God's will alone that they live. I trust, then, that God has made each person, each moment, a complete and utter free gift of his grace - a miracle of creation. I cannot help but love and love absolutely if I have the eye of faith.

In so much as we don't act this way - with absolute love towards God (whom we Trust) and neighbor (whom we love by our trusting God) - then we don't have faith. Those who preach that we should have faith alone are partially correct. Absolute faith, lived absolutely, will produce moral action (though the spiritual life is also about unity with God, and faith is but one part of this process). We cannot just "pray a sinner's prayer," though, and call that salvation when our lives are still full of rot, pride, anger, and sin. REPENT and believe is the first command of Christ, and the just - those who have been justified - will LIVE by faith.

In Christ,
Macarius