How are we to understand the comprehensive nature of the gospel scripturally? Consider the words of the apostle Paul: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).
The verse begins with the words “For in it,” in what? Paul here means to say “in the gospel” as per the preceding verse (v. 16). Thus, the verse should be read as “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” Consistent with the whole of Scripture, man is portrayed as subject to the sovereign rule of God, which means that, man in his own sinful rebellion cannot escape the just wrath of God. He has broken God’s law, sought after existential, moral and epistemological autonomy, and believes in the illusion that he himself can be his own god. This stark reality of man’s fallen, delirious and rebellious nature, deserving the fullness of the Lord’s judgment, would render man completely helpless if it were not for what Christ had wrought on the cross. In sending his Son as a substitutionary atonement for his people, God fulfilled the law, for as Paul writes “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).
The just and logically consistent nature of God requires of himself justice and consistency, and faced with man’s rebellion, he demonstrated his grace and mercy by providing a righteous means of redemption. The sacrifices of animals, as the Lord had established in the Old Testament, was never meant for the redemption of God’s people, but instead served a dual-purpose: (i) to reveal that animal sacrifices offered by man could never change the nature of the heart (Isa. 1:11), and (ii) to point towards the ultimate, once-and-for-all sacrifice of the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world (Isa. 53; John 1:29). In the first Adam, all men became sinners, dead in their trespasses, but in the last Adam, that being Christ, men are made alive and righteous again (1 Cor. 15:22, 45). This transformative, redemptive work of God is central to the Christian faith, it is the integral and culminating component to the biblical narrative, expressed schematically as “creation-fall-redemption.”
What follows next in Paul’s writing is a phrase that is often misunderstood, “from faith for faith.” Does Paul mean to say here that one passes from the faith of the people of old to the faith of the gospel? This is how Origen (c. AD 184-254) interpreted it,[1] but it runs contrary to Pauline expression. Could he have meant “from the faith of Jesus to the faith of the Christian”? This was how Leonard Ramaroson (1955-) interpreted it, based on how he interprets 3:22,[2] but this simply introduces an equivocation into the meaning of both occurrences of the text. Rather, the words “from faith to faith” is to be understood as from one degree to another. As the New Testament scholar Joseph A. Fitzmyer writes, “God’s economy of salvation is shared more and more by a person as faith grows: from a beginning faith to a more perfect or culminating faith.”[3] What Paul is saying here is that faith is absolutely central to the believer’s life.
Faith begins by first recognizing our own depravity, that we are insufficient for any high end of life according to God’s standards, and, as a result, an utter dependence upon the sufficiency of God is absolutely necessary.[4] We are not only, therefore, saved by grace through faith, which is the beginning faith, but as Paul cites, “the righteous shall live by faith.” The meaning, therefore, of “from faith to faith” is explained by Paul in the citation that follows, hence why he writes “As it is written…”. The believer is, in other words, to live out his faith, an all-encompassing faith, which bears public witness of the gospel as it relates to all spheres of life. From a beginning faith, to a culminating faith.
The Inspiration for the Reformation
Martin Luther, the German monk who lit the spark for the whole protestant reformation, was deeply inspired and convicted by what the apostle Paul had written here. In this text he saw, as with Habbakuk 2:4, a powerful reminder that it is not by the natural man’s good works that we are justified before God, but rather by God’s grace through faith. As he wrote, “A person cannot help himself by his works to get from sin to justice any more than he can prevent his own physical birth… Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God.”[5]
Luther’s comments on this passage can be most appreciated when we consider the circumstances of his own life. Initially a law student, God in his providence redirected Luther towards studying God’s word as a monk. It was while in the monastery that Luther came to be faced with his own insufficiency. He was bound to various rules, such as how to walk, how to bow, how to talk, how to eat, etc. And every few hours the monks were required to leave their rooms and make their way to the chapel for prayer. It is said that, in all of this, Luther outperformed the other monks, even going as far as taking no bread or water for three days at a time.
What Luther accomplished while in the monastery was not for vain glory, but out of sheer desperation. He knew that God had called him, but he urgently sought redemption for his own soul, for the more he studied God’s word, the more unworthy, unqualified and guilt-ridden he felt under the burden of his own sin. His works, no matter how extreme, did the opposite of alleviating his anxieties, instead, he became more troubled and miserable. Michael Reeves writes how serious a struggle this was for Luther:
There were countless sins that needed to be absolved, and Luther was not going to cut corners where his salvation was at stake. Driven to confession, he would exhaust his confessors, taking up to six hours at a time to catalogue his most recent sins (in the process missing chapel and so adding more prayers to his ‘to do’ list)… In all this, he was desperately seeking for a solution to the problem of salvation, a solution that seemed so hidden by all that he knew.[6]
Later in his life, serving as a teacher at the University of Wittenburg, Luther protested against Romanism’s sale of indulgences by writing his ninety-five theses and nailing it to the church door. It had appeared to him that, in the manner that the indulgences were being offered, no one really had to repent of their sins. He knew this to be wrong and a clear denial of the teaching of Scripture. Little did he know that his theses, written in Latin and in academic language, would spark the protestant reformation across Europe.
The protestant fight in the sixteenth-century was not merely about ecclesiological reform, but about the gospel itself. Corrupt traditions had been introduced into the church and were regarded as on-par or complimentary to the authority of Scripture, and the reformers, discerning this error and the subsequent consequences, protested this illegitimate elevation of tradition. What the reformers sought was to restore the Word of God to its rightful place within the church, as sovereign above all man-made tradition and authority, for only by adhering to Scripture as the highest authority can the gospel in its truthfulness be preserved and proclaimed. What Romanism had put forward was a gospel of works and grace, as if salvation were a joint-effort by man and God. The reformers, on the other hand, proclaimed a gospel of God’s grace alone, for this is what Scripture teaches in its simplicity.
Luther, in his early struggle with his sinful state, and with false concepts of an angry, capricious and cruel God, had the veil over his eyes lifted when he studied Romans 1:17, “…For the righteous shall live by faith.” It was then that he finally understood the just and loving nature of God, and what made the gospel “good news.” As he writes on Paul’s passage:
Grace does do this much: that we are accounted completely just before God. God’s grace is not divided into bits and pieces, as are the gifts, but grace takes us up completely into God’s favor for the sake of Christ, our intercessor and mediator…
God’s Word Applied
There is much value in what we can learn from Luther’s commentary, but we must not commit the error of limiting this passage to personal soteriology, as Luther has so often done in his writing.[7] The protestant reformation was a great liberating movement because it stressed God’s sovereign grace in man’s justification and redemption, however, as others followed Luther’s example, that is, in restricting Romans 1:17 (and other relevant texts) to personal soteriology, Protestantism gradually became a faith that was more restrictive in scope and retreating in nature. As a late theologian commented, “[Protestantism] has fallen into pietism, limited the meaning of the Great Commission, and lost its relevance to the world around us.”[8]
What is meant by this restrictive scope and retreatism? As a result of the gospel being perceived as solely concerning personal soteriology, the Christian faith was reduced to a privatized spirituality. This meant that the gospel had nothing to say about law, government, education, the sciences, economics, the family, academia, etc. The consequence of this gospel conception is a church that is either not involved with public affairs, or involved, but with a mistaken dualistic perception of reality, that is to say, that personal, spiritual related matters are “sacred,” while all other things pertaining to public affairs are “secular.” But is such a dualism realistic? Is not a person’s worldview, that is, the religious presuppositions they have regarding reality, influence and reflect in whatever they do? This means that nothing is truly irreligious, directionally, what a Christian and an unbeliever does are quite different. While structurally speaking, both may perform the same tasks, whether that be in cooking, cleaning, coaching a sports team, etc., directionally, the Christian seeks to glorify God, while the natural man seeks to glorify the self.
Take into consideration, also, that Scripture teaches that Christ is Lord over the whole created order, and it becomes clear that there is no sacred-secular divide. Man is either willfully subject to the Lordship of Christ, or set up in hostility against Him (1 Cor. 15:25-28). This includes everything he does in government, law, economics, medicine, etc. The gospel, therefore, begins with personal soteriology, the beginning faith, but it does not end there, it extends to every aspect of man’s creational interaction. The Christian’s beginning faith is to grow into a perfect, culminating faith, relating to every area of life, for if there is such a thing as true religion, that is, true faith applied (James 1:27), and religion underlies every aspect of culture, then there must be a right and true way of doing everything, that is, according to the principles of God’s Word.
Luther and the reformers found themselves overturning tradition where it was found in conflict with the testimony of Scripture, we in our day are to overturn the unbiblical tradition of privatizing the Christian faith. By doing this, man, in Christ, is restored to his created purpose, to cultivate God’s creation into a godly civilization, for not only is Christ’s salvation victory applied to the person, but to every task that he puts his hands to do.
[1] Origen, Commentarii in Epistulam ad Romanos, 1.15; Patrologia Graeca 14.861.
[2] Leonard Ramaroson, Revue Science et Esprit, Vol. 39 (Ottawa, ON.: College Universitaire Dominicain, 1987), 91.
[3] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Vol. 33 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 263.
[4] Leon Morris, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Epistle to the Romans (Leicester, UK.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 70.
[5] Martin Luther, “Romans 1.” Bible Study Tools. Accessed February 06, 2018. https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/luther/romans/1.html
[6] Michael Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation, Kindle Edition (Nashville, TN.: B&H Publishing, 2009), 38-39.
[7] Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistles to the Romans 1, trans. J. Theodore Mueller (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1954), 25.
[8] R.J. Rushdoony, Romans & Galatians (Vallecito, CA.: Ross House Books, 1997), 6.