The Transforming Message of Romans…To Augustine
by Eric Landry
Augustine of Hippo, the fourth century North African Christian bishop, was familiar with the Book of Romans even prior to his conversion. Before becoming a Christian, Augustine read Paul's epistle as a Platonist, seeing Paul as an exegete of the "spiritual ascent" because of his contrasting images of the renewing inner man and the decaying outer man. But such a reading didn't assuage the fear and doubts that continued to plague Augustine through his young adult life.
After years of personal turmoil, including two mistresses, broken engagements, and the serious study of Manicheanism and Neo-Platonism, Augustine found himself in a walled garden in Milan where he wrestled with doubt and despair. Having flung himself under a tree and crying out for cleansing from God, Augustine heard the voice of a child singing "Tolle lege" (or "pick it up, read it"). Augustine rushed back to the house where he had a copy of the Epistle to the Romans and his eyes fell upon Romans 13:13-14, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." Upon reading the sentence, a light of certainty dawned in Augustine's heart and the gloom of doubt faded away.
Augustine would return to Romans again and again in his theological and pastoral career. From Romans he would develop his influential ideas about original sin; argue against his former Manichean colleagues whom, Augustine believed, misread and twisted Paul's writings to suit their own distorted view of Christianity; and prepare his assault against his primary theological opponent, Pelagius, on the decisive questions of man's nature, free will, and God's predestination.
As contemporaries, Augustine and Pelagius presented lectures on Romans at nearly the same time. Augustine gave his to a circle of friends in Carthage while Pelagius delivered his in Rome. Pelagius's disciples took his ideas and scattered them throughout the empire. One disciple, Caelestius, arrived in Carthage and expounded on the problems with the federal headship of Adam and the necessity of infant baptism. Augustine responded by linking Caelestius's radicalism to Pelagius's teaching. What followed was the most famous and distant disputation between the two brilliant theologians, ending with the condemnation of Pelagius by Pope Innocent I in 417.
Augustine's dependence upon the Book of Romans is proven over and over again by the numerous citations to Paul's epistle in his theological disputations and sermons. He regretted later in life that he had never completed a commentary on Romans, but the transforming effect of the epistle was written large on every aspect of his life.
Sources: Peter Brown's Augustine of Hippo (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969) and Augustine's Confessions.
The Transforming Message of Romans…To Luther
by Rod Rosenbladt
Should I go buy Luther's commentary on Romans? Sure sounds like a winner to me-that author and that epistle? Wow! What a combo!
Well, perhaps. Just know beforehand that you might be disappointed in what you find. There could be a great disparity between what you are expecting and what you actually discover in Luther's notes. (What you are probably looking for is better found in Luther's pastoral, conversational, and utterly grace-drenched Commentary on St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians.) Let me explain.
First, Luther, though he was completely conversant with the categories of "salvation" as these were argued in the medieval church, was first and foremost a teacher of the Bible. His mind was saturated with the text of Scripture. But also, at the time he was preparing these lecture notes (and that is really what the book is), he was a thinker in process. Scholars argue about how much of the gospel Luther "got" at this time. Wilhelm Pauck argues mightily in his preface to Luther's lectures, that Luther had "gotten it." Others argue (and well) that the Luther of Romans is still no more than a faithful Augustinian son of the church, but is doubtless on his way to "getting it."
Luther's choice to teach the Romans pushed him into the letter that contained all of the themes which would, over time, be his constant themes as a reformer. Romans forced to the fore of his thinking the "big" themes of the Bible, its central themes-the same salvific ones hammered later on in the Reformation.
Will you find in Luther's Romans exposition of the radical depth of human sin, of the nature of human "concupiscence," of our utter lack of ability to live up to even the least of God's demands upon us? Will you find the pathetic insufficiency of human [so-called] good works for a righteousness coram Deo? Will you find God's "justness" in condemning all of us sinners? Will you find the relation between God's eternal predestination and men bound of will toward him and his Christ? Will you find God's complete and sufficient answer to our self-caused problem of sin in Jesus our Savior/Lamb given vicariously into death for our sin? Will you find the nature of "saving faith"? Will you find the righteousness of Christ freely imputed to your account? Will you find "mercy all"? Will you find "simul justus et peccator"? Will you find how the Christian should (and should not) understand Christian "growth"? Yes, yes, yes-sort of. But about the time you are cheering about the external, "alien" righteousness that is in Christ and that saves you, Luther will revert and start talking (in an Augustinian way) about the effects of grace inside you. And your confidence that Christ will be enough to save you will tumble. And if it does, you just might be reading aright what Luther is saying.
If those scholars are right who argue that it was not until several years after Romans that Luther finally "got it" (and I think they are right), then the answer to the question, "How did the Epistle to the Romans affect Martin Luther?" is: The book began to sharpen in his mind-in a precise and utterly textual way-the details of all of the Bible themes above, and how God in Jesus' blood, cross, and death (plus nothing!) saves us sinners freely. (And if not freely, then not at all.)
The Transforming Message of Romans…To Calvin
by Kim Riddlebarger
Many of you, no doubt, have consulted Calvin's famous biblical commentaries. You may even have consulted Calvin's commentary on the Book of Romans, one of his first, written in 1539 while he was still in Strasbourg. It is my guess that many who have consulted Calvin on Romans have not read Calvin's dedication of the commentary (to Simon Grynaeus), nor Calvin's introductory essay on the theme of Romans. In these two essays we get a fascinating glimpse of Calvin's goal as a biblical interpreter and his estimation of the importance of grasping the central message of Paul's great letter: the doctrine of justification by faith. We also get a sense of what Calvin believed about the transforming power of the Book of Romans.
In his dedication to Grynaeus, Calvin reminds him that "both of us felt that lucid brevity constituted the particular virtue of an interpreter." Conversely, says Calvin, a commentator "misses his mark, or at least strays outside his limits by the extent to which he leads his readers away from the meaning of his author." It is especially important to be brief and lucid when commenting on Romans, writes Calvin, "because if we understand this epistle we have a passage opened to us to the understanding of the whole of Scripture."
While Calvin lauds the recent commentaries of Melanchthon, Bullinger, and Bucer, Calvin felt a lucid and brief commentary on Romans should be produced "for no other reason than the common good of the Church." The power and importance of the Romans epistle is too great not to. Although he felt at times compelled to depart from the views of his illustrious predecessors, this stemmed not from Calvin's desire to be an innovator, nor to slander others, nor because of personal ambition. Rather it is because of the necessity of expounding Holy Scripture for God's people-particularly this book of the Bible in which we learn so clearly of Christ and the gospel, that Calvin attempted to set forth in brief and lucid form Paul's gospel to the church in Rome.
In Calvin's essay on the theme of Romans, he makes the point that in the Book of Romans, we really do have the key to understanding the whole Bible. If we understand Paul here and grasp his main point, "that we are justified by faith," we will be able to navigate our way through much of the Old Testament, since Paul quotes over sixty passages from the Old Testament and alludes to a number of others. We will also understand the gospel as it is preached by the apostles.
Therefore, to understand the Book of Romans, says Calvin, is to understand the gospel. And the gospel is centered in Paul's message of justification by faith alone.
The Transforming Message of of Romans…To Spurgeon
by Ken Jones
It should come as no surprise that the book of Romans was a significant influence for the reformers and the preachers and theologians that followed in their wake. This is because in Romans the apostle Paul arti-culates the gospel, in a concise yet comprehensive manner. With divine justice and grace at the core, Romans branches out to all of the corresponding components of the gospel, such as universal guilt, saving faith, justification, sanctification, assurance, imputation, the problem of remaining sin, eschatology, and the life of gratitude that stems from saving faith. It is for this reason the Book of Romans has been a favorite preaching place for Protestant preachers since the time of the sixteenth-century Reformation. This is certainly true for the great nineteenth-century British Baptist Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Spurgeon, affectionately called the "Prince of Preachers," was not only heard by multitudes during his lifetime, but his sermons were also published in local newspapers, pamphlets, and books, and distributed throughout the world. Volumes of his sermons still line the bookshelves of preachers and ministers of all denominations to the present day.
Spurgeon was not what we would call an expository preacher; his preaching style was more topical and textual. However, as one of his many biographers Lewis Drummond has noted, he was thoroughly Christocentric in his preaching, anchoring his sermons in the person and work of Christ. Although Spurgeon was an avowed Baptist, he was also an avid Calvinist in his understanding of the gospel. A title of one of his books, All of Grace, would be an apt description of Spurgeon's preaching. With preaching saturated in the grace of God and the person and work of Christ, it is no wonder that among his published sermons there are more than 130 from the Book of Romans. A preacher who truly understands the gospel and its implications will be at his best when preaching from Romans, and Spurgeon is no exception. In what follows I take the liberty to comment on one of Spurgeon's sermons from Romans.
From the text of Romans 8:34, he preaches a sermon entitled "The Believer's Challenge." The thrust of the message is the confidence that Christians have in the efficacy of God's saving grace in the person and work of Christ. Here is an excerpt from the sermon's introduction:
We have before us, in the text, the four marvelous pillars upon which the Christian rests his hope. Any one of them were all-sufficient. Though the sins of the whole world should press on any one of these sacred columns, it would never break nor bend. Yet for our strong consolation, that we may never tremble nor fear. God hath been pleased to give us these four eternal rocks, these four immovable foundations, upon which our faith may rest and stand secure. But why is this? Why needeth the Christian to have such firm, such massive foundations? For this simple reason: he is himself so doubtful, so ready to mistrust, so difficult to be persuaded of his own security. Therefore, hath God, as it enlarged his arguments … Moreover, he well knew that our faith would be sternly attacked. The world, our own sin, and the devil, he foresaw would be continually molesting us; therefore, hath he entrenched us within these four walls; he hath engarisoned us in four strong lines of circumvallation. We cannot be destroyed.
And what are the four pillars to which Spurgeon so eloquently alludes?
1.The death of Christ2.The resurrection of Christ3.The position of Christ at the right hand of the Father4.Christ's intercession on our behalf
This is truly medicine for the soul that trusts in Christ but is beset by internal doubts and external obstacles. Such are the riches to be mined from the treasures of Romans, and such is the fruitful mining of those trea-sures by faithful preachers of the gospel.
