Living by Faith - Romans

The Objector Answered

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 8-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 008

Dictation Name: RR311D8

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said: “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Let us pray. “Oh God our Father who has made known Thy love to us in Jesus Christ Thy Son, made known Thy presence by Thy Holy Spirit; we praise Thee, we rejoice in Thee, we worship Thee. Fill us ever with the joy of salvation, and make us mindful we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ, that we are heirs of all creation, and that we have been called to inherit all things, to exercise dominion over all things, and to use all things in Thy service, praise and glory. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is in Romans 3:1-8. Our subject: The Objector Answered. Romans 3:1-8, the Objector Answered.

“3 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”

Certain things are by now apparent. Paul contrasts two groups who claim to be the covenant people; that is, those who were chosen and saved by God’s grace. Paul here and elsewhere refers to the circumcision, meaning the covenant people of the old era, but his eyes are on the baptized, the covenant people of the Christian era. The covenant people in Paul’s day also spoke of themselves as the people of the law, and of the Gentiles as those outside the law, so that the terminology that Paul uses is the language of his day, and Paul corrects the thinking so prevalent that the mere rite was sufficient to mark one as belonging to the covenant.

There is no approach to God by circumcision or law, or by baptism and the law, apart from the grace of the covenant; and we must see the fullness of the covenant. He speaks of the gentiles as those outside the law or the covenant, but also those who by the grace of God are being brought into the covenant.

Now Paul later on as we shall see subsequently at later meetings, makes clear how covenant men shall live, or more accurately how the chosen shall live; because the initiative and the choice and the power which make one a covenant man come from God. The chosen are the predestined, not the meritorious.

Now having said all of this up to this point, having laid down the foundation that the just shall live by faith, which means more than the just shall be saved by faith, it is included, but ‘they live by faith’ which is far more extensive a premise. He has cut the ground out from under those who feel that there is a status in being Jew or in being a church member.

And then the question is raised: “What advantage” in verse 1, “Then have the Jew? Or what profit is there in circumcision?” what is the advantage of being a covenant man? Remember now, when Paul says this he has his mind on the people to whom he is writing, Christians, who feel that by being a church member and making a profession of faith, that is it. Now they are entitled to heaven, they have fire and life insurance, so that they need not worry about hell. What advantage is there then in being a Jew, or as he is saying, with his eye on his readers: “What advantage is there in being a church member? I put my money in the plate, and I don’t go around killing anybody, what advantage is there?”

Paul says in verse 2, “Much every way. Chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”

Now from the humanistic point of view which is so commonplace in the church, Paul has turned their universe upside down. What advantage is there in being a covenant man? ‘Much every way.’ How? ‘Because the word of God has been committed unto you,’ a responsibility. A responsibility. This is what Paul calls the great advantage of the faith, of the covenant.

So it is not: “Well, I have fire and life insurance, so my problems there are over, and I am now on the side of the good people, so look at me and admire me. I am in the ranks of the saved and the good.” Paul says: “You are in the ranks now of those who have responsibility. You have been enlisted in the ranks of the army of the Lord. To you has been committed the word of God, with all that it commands, with the marching orders which it constitutes.”

This of course is not what people like to hear, they want a privilege, not a responsibility. But what Paul says most emphatically is that it is not a status, but a function, and the office of the Christian is a duty, a responsibility, a function.

As Calvin stated it and I quote: “Now the oracles were committed to them for the purpose of preserving them, as long as it pleased the Lord to continue His glory among them; and then of publishing them during the time of their stewardship throughout the whole world. They were first depositaries, and secondly dispensers.” What is our advantage? Calvin put it very well. First the Jews and now the Christians, they are the depositories. Calvin said ‘depositaries,’ that is the old fashioned form of the word. First they are the depositories, it has been given to them; they are the depositories that they might be the dispensers, that we might bring the whole world under the dominion of Jesus Christ.

Both Jews and Christians in turn have sought to exploit the covenant and see it as status, and to treat it as an advantage over other men, rather than a responsibility under God to all men. And there is a world of truth in this statement that we neglect.

One of the most infuriating books I have read perhaps in the past 10-15 years was handed to me with a great deal of pleasure by someone, as though: “Here is a privilege, read this.” And I was told what a great book it was. The essence of the book was: “We the marvelous Christian white people of this country are now in trouble, we have all the those minority peoples of different colors, and from southern and central and eastern Europe and the Middle East who have poured into this country, and what are we going to do about it to save this country for Christ?” From start to finish the book was blasphemy, it regarded the status this country had attained under God as a privilege for them, not a responsibility to be dispensers to all nations, to all peoples.

This is what Paul is striking at, and this is why we begin in Romans with: “The just shall live by faith,” not saved. It is inclusive of that, remember, but it doesn’t make us the end, as when people pervert the book of Romans, and say: “It tells us how the just are saved by faith.” As though the whole end of the gospel were our salvation; that is the starting point of it! The end is that God be served by His people.

The just shall live by faith. We cannot make this man centered, it is God centered, and the church has turned the moral universe upside down. And then it wonders: “Why is the world around us so humanistic?” It is humanistic because humanism has started in the church.

To illustrate the damage that a superficially correct perspective can do when that perspective is governed by humanistic motives, let us examine Freud with respect to marriage. We are accustomed to thinking of Freud as someone who did a great deal of harm to the institution of marriage, but the simple fact is that he favored marriage. He thought it was an excellent institution, because he saw it as the best solution to the sex problem. Now, this reductionism of marriage to being simply the most convenient sexual outlet destroyed marriage, because it took away the entire fact of a community of life under God, the theological, the moral aspects of marriage, and reduced it to a matter of sexual convenience.

The same is true of the covenant. If we reduce the covenant to our personal status with respect to heaven, if we reduce our salvation to a matter of life and fire insurance, we then destroy the meaning of our salvation and of the covenant, and of the work of Christ. Sex is a part of marriage, just as heaven is basic and essential to our salvation; but the greater meaning of both marriage and salvation is denied by this reductionism, it is destructive of meaning.

Thus Calvin was right, we receive from God in order to dispense to men. We cannot reduce our salvation to the narrow limits of our life. Our Lord says the same thing: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. And to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

What our Lord says here in Luke 12:48 is that salvation confers responsibilities, and the greater the gifts to any man, the greater the blessings, the greater that which is asked of a person.

Then Paul continues in 3-4, citing in verse 3 another objection; and then in verse 4 answering. “3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?”

Paul answers this objection in these words: “4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.”

Paul first cites the objection of some who ask: “Why should our unfaithfulness or unbelief invalidate the faithfulness of God? God has made promises to Abraham, and are not these promises irrevocable? Is the covenant dependent on our moral character? Do changes in man require a change in God?”

Now of course, later on Paul will deal with this issue of the irrevocable covenant, and what he will say is that God indeed has created an irrevocable covenant; but the other partner, the other party to the covenant can be changed. So that Israel is taken out, the church is grafted in. And various churches are taken out as they depart from the covenant. The covenant thus is irrevocable with God, but the human partner can be replaced.

But for the present, what Hodge says in verse 4 with respect to verse 4 is very much to the point, and I quote: “There the Jews great objection to Paul’s applying his general principles of justice to their case was that their situation was peculiar. “God has chosen us as His people in Abraham. If we retain our relation to Him by circumcision and observance of the law, we shall never be treated or condemned as the gentiles.” Such was their opinion. Traces of this opinion abound in the New Testament, and it is openly avowed by the Jewish writers. “Think not,” says our Savior, “to say within yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our Father, we be Abraham’s seed’” was their position.

In these and other passages Paul argues to prove that being the natural descendants of Abraham is not enough to secure the favor of God, that such was the doctrine of the Jews is shown by numerous passages from their writings. “If a Jew commit all manners of sin.” Says (Bar Minell?) “He is indeed of the number of sinning Israelites and will be punished according to his sins, but he has not withstanding a portion in eternal life.”

The same sentiment is expressed in the book (Terith Adam?) in nearly the same words, and the reason assigned for it: “That all Israel have a portion in eternal life.” This is a favorite phrase with the rabbis, and frequently appears in their writings. Justin Martyr attributes this doctrine to the Jews of his day. “They supposed that to them universally who are of the seed of Abraham, no matter how sinful and disobedient to God they may be, the eternal kingdom of God shall be given.”

We find a like Phariseeism in the church, over and over again throughout the centuries, and in our own day, Arend ten Pas has documented even worse statements among contemporary churchmen. For this see his book The Lordship of Christ which Rosshouse books published.

Ten Pas quotes one very prominent pastor, nationally prominent, who has said that if you come forward and accept Christ as your Lord and savior, you can go out and deny God, declare yourself to be an atheist, commit adultery, murder, do what you please; but God is bound, and you will go to heaven. In other words, this kind of thinking in the Old Testament era and in the church age has again and again appeared among those who claim to be of the covenant. They feel that only God is bound, and man can do as he pleases; and the result is a monstrous evil.

The objector says: “But is Gods covenant without effect?” Now Paul denies this vigorously. In the fourth verse the image is of a courtroom with God on trial before and by all men, who sit there as judges and jury as well as prosecutors. At issue is the truth of God. Is He faithful to His covenant word? And Paul says: “God forbid.” Or he implies that it is blasphemy, that to talk so is evil, because truth is inseparable from the person, the nature and the being of God. Truth is not an abstract universal. Our Lord said: “I am the way, the truth and the life, and there is no truth, no justice, no righteousness, nothing apart from God.”

As Gifford wrote more than a century ago and I quote: “It is not enough to reject with righteous abhorrence the thought that the unbelief of some could make void Gods faithfulness to others. Gods truth is absolute and independent. It cannot be impaired even if man’s falsehood be universal, nay more; Gods truth is the only truth, it will be found in the end that He alone is holy and righteous, and every man in himself is unholy and unrighteous. So let it be, let God be true with every man a liar.”

The last clause expressed in the exact words of Psalm 116:11, is an essential part of the argument that truth must be ascribed to God and none but God. Saint Paul adopts the apt words of the Psalmist to express his own thought, and this is why for unbelief and faithfulness, verse 3, he now substitutes the correlative ideas, truth and falsehood. These again give place to righteousness and sin in the quotation which follows from the 51st Psalm. It is clear from the objection introduced in verse 5 that Saint Paul quotes the word of David as a declaration that man’s sin serves to establish the righteousness of God.”

Thus to indict God is impossible, because there is no alternate truth, no alternate justice, no alternate idea of anything that is good apart from God, and therefore man’s only consequence of his position is to destroy himself, but at the same time to establish Gods righteousness. Nothing man does can ever alter the righteousness of God, the plan of God, and the triumph of God.

This is a point that churchmen have made over and over again through the centuries. Thomas a Kempis in the imitation of Christ summed it up thus in words that we are all familiar with: “Man proposes, but God disposes.” A Yiddish proverb makes a similar point beautifully: “A man plans, and God laughs.”

Paul next takes up another objection by the objector in verse 5: “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)” Paul emphasizes this fact of the absolute governance of God. The mind of man cannot grasp the vast complexity and perfection of Gods government and purpose. Paul’s expression, “I speak as a man” is a Hebrew idiom according to the language of the children of men. Paul is saying: “These antinomians who say that covenant status is sufficient to eliminate the penalties for sin are in effect saying ‘God should reward and bless sin.’”

So, he says, “This is impossible. The premise of Gods judgement is justice. How can God be a just judge if because a man is circumcised or baptized He says: “That is alright, go ahead and sin. Your covered, you’ve got life and fire insurance.””

As scripture says beginning in Genesis: “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? He shall judge the world in righteousness.” We are told.

By the way, Paul does something in his writings that shows his background, he very often answers a question with a question, an ancient Rabbinic method. To show the absurdity of a question you answer a question with a question that manifests how absurd such a question is.

“God forbid,” he says. “How can God judge the world if because of circumcision or baptism He overlooks sin; and in fact does not the sin of someone who has such a privilege loom more fearfully in the sight of God?”

In verse 7 the objector says: “If my lie furthers Gods glory, why am I then judged? Why isn’t God satisfied? He makes everything work together for good, so why should He be upset?”

And then Paul says in verse 8: “All who side with such a position hold that: “Let us do evil that good may come.”” And he says: “I am accused of this. These people involve themselves with a contradiction, they are antinomians, they begin by denying the law, but faith” he says, “without works is dead.” And as Paul says in the last verse of this chapter: “If you think I am making void the law, no; rather I am establishing the law, not as a means of salvation, but as the way of sanctification.”

So Paul says: “Mans salvation does not depend on baptism or circumcision, but on the heart, on faith in terms of which he lives, so that he believes in his heart and acts with all his being in terms of the covenant faith which he holds. The covenant man is the called of Jesus Christ.”

The objector says: “If our salvation is of Gods election then the law is meaningless and we should not be judged by it; and besides, God brings good out of evil.”

Thus we have in these 8 verses four objections that are raised.

In verses 1-2: “If the requirement of circumcision is of no advantage, then what advantage is the covenant status? If baptism is of no advantage, what advantage is the covenant state?” and Paul says: “Very great, because it gives us a responsibility under God.”

Then the second objection in verses 3-4: “If some Jews or Christians have not believed, what then?” Paul says: “This does not alter Gods faithfulness and His justice. Justice is just as much a part of Gods covenant as grace and mercy.”

The third objection in verses 5-6: “Wickedness is advantageous to God, He makes it work together for good.” And Paul says: “The sinner must be condemned, Gods justice requires it. What God brings forth out of that is an entirely different matter.”

Then in verses 7-8, again the question of “If good comes out of it, then punishment is not merited.” And Paul says: “This position reduces all morality and faith to nonsense.”

Because of Paul’s strong insistence on sovereign grace, the antinomians were insisting that he was in their camp in spite of himself, and yet at the same time they were attacking him for teaching a-moralism!

Paul before he went to Rome, wrote this epistle to clear the ground, to strike at these opinions and to make clear what makes a man a covenant man. And he says the letter of the law is the first step, of course, to be baptized. But is requires confirmation in the life of a man. In Judaism we have confirmation in the form of Bar Mitzvah, in Christianity the rite of confirmation. Both faiths have realized from the beginning that confirmation in one’s life is a necessity. Too often it has been reduced merely to the letter, and the Spirit left out.

Paul is striking at both legalism and antinomianism, they are essentially the same at the end. In legalism a man’s law replaces Gods law as in statism today, or Gods law is used as a means of justification rather than sanctification. Both of these are antinomian, because they deny Gods covenant law, which must have Gods covenant meaning.

Paul calls these men sinners. He does not say they have an intellectual problem, their problem is moral. They refuse to understand. The essence of the objectors position is a quest for loopholes in Gods logic, an attempt to use Gods promises against God. Have you not encountered this argument when somebody objects to predestination, he will take a verse and say: “Well you can’t believe in predestination, God obviously is not talking about that, look at this verse.” Oh, but God is talking about human responsibility, you are right; He is also talking about predestination. He doesn’t give you the right to pick and choose. And if you can’t reconcile the two, well you are not capable, you do not have the mind of God and you can’t use God against God.

Paul sees this as blasphemy. There is a lot of that around. He also sees it as a kind of insanity, a refusal to be logical, because if there be no God, there is no man. And if there be no God there is no justice, and you cannot talk about justice as an abstract thing and insist that God be judged by your idea of justice. All creation rests on the absoluteness of Gods government, justice, and His law word. He is the foundation which cannot be destroyed or shaken. We take Him then at His word, His whole word, and without reservation. Let us pray.

Thy word oh Lord is truth, and Thou hast spoken, and Thou hast made us depositories and dispensers of Thy word. To manifest that word in thought word and deed, to go forth and to manifest the responsibilities of the kingdom. We thank Thee oh Lord that Thou hast given us so great a calling; make us more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

[Audience Member] Isn’t it a kind of a twisting of this whole series of verses at least, that we live under grace and not under law syndrome?

[Rushdoony] Yes, you see, the position he is striking at when he talks about the Jews is that they had that status, they were living under grace which no disobedience could nullify; and you have Christians with the same premise, so that from the beginning there was a feeling that: “Well, the covenant has given us a status which is irrevocable, it is grace and nothing can be done about it.” It is like a prominent southern preacher who has said more than once that: “If you come forward and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, you can go out of here and you can turn atheist, and you can commit adultery, and you can murder, lie, steal and blaspheme, but God is bound by the contract you made when you came forward. So nothing you can do can ever change it.”

That is as old almost as the Bible. After all, remember when God made the covenant and Moses came down from the mount, he saw people who felt they could do as they pleased, they were involved in fertility cult rites, they were the chosen. ‘Why was Moses getting so huffy?’ Yes?

[Audience Member] In verse 2 where Paul mentions or responds that there is a great advantage, much every way, is that advantage strictly limited to a responsibility? Is there not more than that? Is there not more of an advantage to having the oracles of God and the knowledge of the law than simply responsibility?

[Rushdoony] A very good question, in case you did not hear it: In verse two when Paul says there is “A great advantage” the word he uses is chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. Paul doesn’t want to in this context, to tell you that: “yes there are blessings in being a believer. You are now under the care and love of God; and indeed God richly blesses and prospers His saints.” But he doesn’t want to deal with that here because he said: ‘chiefly’, essentially, primarily, we are the people who have been given a responsibility.

Now in the course of our discharge of that responsibility, all kinds of blessings accrue to us; but in this context what he is striking at is the idea of people: ‘Okay, now I am the Lords.’ As with the Old Testament era: ‘I’ve been circumcised’ or with the New Testament: ‘I’ve been baptized. Okay Lord, dish it out, I am ready to take it, and I’ve got a pickup outside so that if there is more than I can handle I can go back there and unload and come back and get more of your blessings.’

Now this is the kind of mentality he was striking at. Yes?

[Audience Member] (When you talk about using the Bibles truth, is that something theologians all agree to in all the different views of… no?)

[Rushdoony] Unfortunately it is too prevalent that they try to prove a perspective by knocking something else in the Bible. They take one thing that suits them and then forget the rest.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, you take the whole word of God. For example one of the most abused texts in the whole Bible is: “Wives obey your husbands.” Men love it, but they don’t want to talk about their responsibility to obey God, every jot and tittle; and their responsibility of obedience is more total, because Gods word is absolute and perfect, a husbands word is not. So men love to throw that word around without talking about the fact: “I am under a greater responsibility.”

So that is using the word blasphemously, when you take one thing and you don’t take the context and the whole. Yes John?

[John] It seems to me the general statement that we should try to follow is that if God is fully self-interpreting, then His word which is the product of His work ought to also be fully self interpreting.

[Rushdoony] Yes. I mentioned the fact that the Arminians take the one and not the other, they take their ideas of free will and reject predestination. We have some Reformed men who want to take only the one too. You can’t do that. The Bible speaks both of responsibility, every jot and tittle responsibility, and also the fact that the very hairs of our head are all numbered. We are not asked to reconcile that, but to do it, to live in terms of it. Just as when a mother or a father tells a child to do something, the child isn’t entitled to know the reason why they are told to do it, they are told to do it, and that is it. Yes Otto?

[Otto Scott] Well, perhaps the convert ought to be told more often that after you are converted, you get a lot of troubles; it’s just as though the roof falls in; and Paul tells you in effect: “Enjoy that.” Which is rather difficult to do…. C.S. Lewis said: “It is almost as though God said: ‘Okay I have got you, now you stand behind the door and I’ll go look for somebody else.’”

I was very surprised at this, I thought that all kinds of good things were going to happen. They do eventually.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, C.S. Lewis also said in his book Surprised by Joy that the day after his conversion he was the sorriest man in all of England, because he realized the responsibilities that were his, that he couldn’t shuck off anymore. But he also found in time that it was a joy.

So we have to see it that way. Yes?

[Audience Member] …see people say that “If I make a decision for Christ that takes care of everything.” Or if someone says: “I paid this tithe therefore God owes me x number of dollars.’ It almost seems to me like a ritual act of magic, that is controlling God.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is exactly it. They are buying something. Now, some years ago when I was working among the Chinese I felt that I had seen the perfect expression of that on the human level, because at a Chinese wedding as the gifts were brought in, there is someone there to appraise each gift immediately and write it down, and everybody accepts this because then on another occasion of a wedding in that family you give the exact equivalent. And the appraisers are good, it is exactly tit for tat in everything; and a great many people approach God in the same way: ‘Now I’ve given you a present of so much, now I expect the equivalent, and the slower you are in giving it, the more interest I want with it.’

Well, I think our time is about up, let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Oh Lord our God Thy word is truth, and Thy word is a joy unto our hearts, and life for us. Give us grace day by day to move into ever greater faithfulness, knowing that we have been called, to be not the worlds losers, but more than conquerors.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always; amen.