In this new series “Read Romans with Calvin”, we will publish the comments of the great reformer of selected excerpts from Romans. Go to the summary
(23) For they all sinned and are deprived of the glory of God; (24) be justified free of charge by their grace through redemption that is in Jesus Christ; (25) which God presented as a propitiation, by his blood, to manifest his righteousness, because He left unpunished the sins committed before, according to his tolerance; (26) because in view, I say, the manifestation of his righteousness in the present time, that he himself may be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
- 23.
- For there is no distinction: all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.
- Paul insists that everyone.
- Without distinction.
- Should seek justice in Christ.
- As if to say.
- “There is no other way to obtain this righteousness.
- There is no one-size-all method of justifying one.
- Nor a different method of justifying others.
- But all must also be justified by faith.
- For they are all sinners and no one can justify themselves to God.
- The divine court becomes fully aware of being a sinner and feels annihilated and lost under the feeling of its own guilt.
- So it is obvious that no sinner can bear the presence of God.
- As can be seen in the example of Adam [Gen.
- 8].
The apostle attacks again with an argument against; For this reason, it is good that you write down your reasoning. Since all men are sinners, the apostle deduces that all are deficient or devoid of all praise for justice. Therefore, in light of his teaching, there is no justice except perfect and absolute. If there were what they call half-justice, then it would not be necessary to completely deprive man of all the glory of being a sinner. Therefore, the fiction created by some of the partial justice is sufficiently refuted. If it were based on the concept that we are partially justified by works and partially by God’s grace, then Paul’s argument that everyone is deprived of God’s glory because they are sinners would be lacking. by force. Therefore, the truth is that there is no justice where sin is present, until Christ removes the curse. This is precisely what Paul declares in Galatians 3:10, that is, all who are under the law are exposed to the curse, and we are not released from it except by the bounty of Christ. The glory of God means the glory that is in the presence of God, as in John 12:43, where our Lord tells us that they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. Thus, the apostle plucks us from the applause of the human scene and places us before the heavenly court.
24. Be justified free of charge by your grace. The verb participates here according to Greek custom, here is the meaning: since man is not left, intrinsically, but to the fact that he perishes under the righteous judgment of God, so all are justified freely by divine mercy. Christ comes to the rescue of human misery and communicates with believers, so that only they may find in him all that they lack; it is likely that no other passage of Scripture so extraordinarily illustrates the effectiveness of this righteousness, for it demonstrates that divine mercy is the effective cause; Christ and his blood, the material cause; faith, conceived by the Word [Rom 10:17], causes instrument; and glory, both divine justice and divine munficence, the ultimate cause.
As for the effective cause, does the Apostle say that we are justified free of charge and that we are justified?What strengthens even more? For your grace. Then he used the term twice to know that everything comes from God and nothing from ourselves. It would have been enough to face grace and merit; however, in order to prevent us from weaving the idea of truncated justice, he further clarified its meaning through repetition, and thus called for God’s mercy, exclusively, the full effect of our justice, which sophists divide in two and mutilate, so as not to feel compelled to admit one’s poverty.
For the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This is the material cause, namely: the fact that Christ, by his obedience, satisfied the judgment of the Father; and by taking our cause upon him, he delivered us from the tyranny of death, for which we were captive. Our guilt is overturned by the atoning sacrifice it offered. Again, the fiction of those who make justice a [human] quality receives His best rebuttal. If we are considered righteous before God because we are redeemed at a price, we certainly receive from another source what we do not have. The Apostle, right after, explains more clearly the value and purpose of this redemption, that is: he reconciles us with God, because he calls to the propitiation of Christ or (I prefer to use the allusion to an older figure) propitious. What he wants is for us to be righteous only to the extent that Christ reconciles the Father with us. But now we have to look at what he’s saying.
25. That God presented as propitiation. The Greek verb ??????????? sometimes it means predetermining and sometimes presenting. If we prefer the first sense, then Paul is referring to the gracious mercy of God in having appointed Christ as our mediator to reconcile the Father to us through the sacrifice of his death. It was not a common approval of the grace of God who, through his own good will, found a way to remove our curse. In fact, everything indicates that the present passage agrees with the one found in John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. ” However, if we adopt the second meaning, the meaning will be the same, namely, that in his time God presented him, that he appointed Mediator. There is, I believe, in the word ????????????, as I said, an allusion to the ancient mercy seat, because the apostle informs us that in Christ he has really been shown what, by the Jews, is gave figuratively. However, since the other point of view cannot be ruled out, if the reader prefers to accept the simpler meaning, I will leave the question open. The specific meaning of the apostle here becomes even more evident if we pay attention to what he is saying, that is, that God, outside of Christ, is still angry with us, and we are reconciled to him when we are accepted for his righteousness. . God does not hate us as his actions, that is, because he created us as living beings, but what he hates in us is impurity, which extinguishes the light of his image. When this [impurity] is removed, then he loves us and embraces us as his own pure and pure works.
As a propitiation to faith in your blood. I prefer this literal retention of Paul’s language, because, according to my thinking, his intention was to use a single idea by declaring that he reconciles with us as soon as we put our trust in the blood of Christ. faith that we will take possession of this advantage. By mentioning only blood, I did not intend to exclude the other parts of redemption; on the contrary, he wanted to include everything in one word, and he mentioned blood because that is where we are washed, and so our whole atonement is included in the act of taking part in everything, having declared once that God has reconciled us. in Christ, he now adds that this reconciliation is done by faith, while looking at Christ is the primary purpose of our faith.
Since he left the sins committed before unpunished, the causal preposition amounts to forgiveness or the purpose of erasing our sins, this definition or explanation again confirms what I have repeatedly alluded to, that is, that men are not justified by what they really are, but by imputation. Only he uses various forms of expression to make it more evident that there is no inherent merit in us in this justice. If we obtain it by remission of sins, we conclude that it is beyond ourselves; and more: if the remission itself is an exclusive act of divine liberality, then all merit falls apart.
One wonders, however, why the Apostle restricts forgiveness to past sins. Although this passage is explained in several ways, I think it is likely that the Apostle was thinking of the legal atonement, which were in fact evidence of future satisfaction, but not in Hebrews 9. 15, we have a similar passage, in which it is said that the redemption of transgressions that remained under the ancient covenant was produced by Christ; However, we do not have to understand that only the transgressions of that time were atoned for by Christ’s death. It is a completely meaningless idea, which some extremists have drawn from a distorted view of this passage. Paul simply teaches that, until Christ’s death, no price had been paid to satisfy God, and that this was not fulfilled or consumed by legal types?so the truth had been postponed until the time came, we can say more, that these things that envelop us in guilt must be considered from the same point of view, since there is only propitiation for all.
To avoid inconsistencies, some scholars have argued that past sins are forgiven, so as not to seem to have permission to sin in the future. It is certainly true that no forgiveness is offered except for the sins already committed, not because the value of redemption is extinguished or lost if we sin in the future – according to the concept of the novice and his disciples – but because the dispensation of the gospel consists in putting the sinner before the judgment and wrath of God, and putting divine mercy before It , the true meaning lies in what I had already explained.
The additional phrase, that this remission was based on the long life of God, simply means goodness, this served to restrict divine judgment and prevent it from igniting for our destruction, until finally we were received in his favor. The idea has been proposed here to avoid the objection that this grace appeared only as a last resort, Paul teaches us that this is proof of long [divine] suffering.
26. To do justice. The reiteration of this clause is categorical and reveals the deliberate intention of the Apostle, for it was much needed. There is no greater difficulty than persuading someone to strip himself of all honor and attribute it to God; yet the Apostle intentionally mentions this new demonstration of divine justice, so that the Jews may open their eyes.
In the present. The Apostle correctly applies to the period in which Christ turned out to have existed in all times, for God publicly manifested in his Son what was once known in a dark and grim way. goodwill and on the day of salvation [Is 49:8; 2Co 6. 1. 2]. God, in all times, had proven his righteousness; but when the Sun of Justice was born, the same [justice] emerged with greater irradiation. So let’s take a closer look at the comparison between the Old and New Testaments, because God’s righteousness was not clearly revealed until Christ appeared.
To be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. It is a definition of that righteousness that, as Paul said, was revealed the moment Christ was manifested, and that, as taught in the first chapter, was revealed in the gospel. It affirms that it consists of two parts: the first is that God is just, not exactly one among others, but the only one who inherently possesses all the fullness of justice. He receives the full and perfect praise due to him, as the only one with the name and honor of being righteous, while the entire human race is condemned for its [inherent] injustice. The second part refers to the communication of justice, because God in no way hides his riches in his Being, but instead pours them out on the entire human race. Therefore, divine justice shines forth in us as God justifies us through faith in Christ, because it would have been given in vain through our righteousness, if we had not enjoyed it through faith. It follows that all men are inherently unjust and lost until the heavenly remedy is offered.
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