ROMANS: Good

Paul has been working hard to make the case that we are not justified because of our own righteousness, but by our faith. That faith, from a Jewish perspective, can be understood as “trust” — and so we have been using the phrase trusting in the promises of God. But what promises do we mean, specifically? For some, they may not like the phrase because they think that “faith” should be a reference to some creedal affirmation of the personhood and deity of Jesus. While I’m not going to take away from the significance of those truths for even a moment, it is important to see that good biblical exegesis doesn’t let that understanding hold water.

There is great debate over the use of pistis Christou (in the Greek) and how it should be translated. Modern scholarship leans toward saying this phrase in the New Testament should always be rendered as “faith OF Christ” and not “faith IN Christ.” Historically speaking, the phrase “faith IN Christ” will only make sense if the New Testament letters are penned much later than we are typically comfortable with. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the etymological problems with translating the phrase IN and not OF.

Nevertheless, more relevant to our conversation, that understanding of faith will not work in Paul’s line of reasoning. Paul has now said in two different letters that Abraham had an understanding of the “gospel” and his faith was the reason for God’s justification. Obviously, Abraham cannot demonstrate a “faith IN Christ,” while he can demonstrate the “faith OF Christ.” So we return to our original question: What promises did Abraham and Jesus trust in? What promises are we supposed to trust in?

There will be many ways to articulate it, but for our conversation we have used the phrase trust the story. It’s a reference back to the story of creation and how God truly feels about humanity. It’s a story reminding us that God sees us with love and compassion. It is a story where God affirms our acceptance and our value. Simply put, God loves us.

Not only this, but God said we (along with all of creation) are part of a good creation. For many of us, having grown up in a Christian worldview that emphasizes our brokenness, our sinfulness, and our depravity (all truths about us, by the way, but not the essential truth God told us), this may come as hard to swallow. I’m not trying to argue man isn’t sinful or that I believe in some twisted version of Pelagian heresy. Humanity is obviously broken, full of potential for incredible evil, and has a tendency for sinful behavior. We all know it to be true of ourselves (more on that in Romans 7) and of others. What I’m saying is that from the opening chapters of Torah, God has pleaded with humanity not to believe this is the essential truth about who they are. And at no point throughout Scripture did God give us a memo to think otherwise.

Sin is serious. Sin is destructive. Sin is incongruent with the world God desires and the Kingdom he invites us to be a part of. There is an urgency about sin in my heart (and yours) and how we ought to turn from it and repent and return to our original design. But there is an original design about us as true today as it ever was. We wrestle with the parts of us that war against each other. But the most inherent truth about who we are is not our depravity, but the truth that we bear the image the God.

Most will point to the book of Romans to make a case that we are all sinful and doomed. The good news is we are engaged in a verse-by-verse journey through the book of Romans as we speak. We will have an opportunity to see if we think this is really what the letter is trying to communicate.

Maybe this idea is too much. Maybe you aren’t willing to accept this, and that is fine, but we must wrestle with the most fundamental truths that shape our understanding of God and humanity. If we are unconvinced, we should be unconvinced because of a serious look at the Scriptures through sound Biblical interpretation and historical context. If so, we will emerge from this journey with an even better understanding of our convictions. And if we consider these questions and find that things seem to have been construed by a few centuries of bad Christian dogma…

So it sounds like it’s time to keep moving! We’re off to deal with a verse that has never made sense until you see it through the lens Paul is presenting.

After making the argument that our justification does not come from our ability to be righteous, but by trusting in the promises of God, Paul makes this statement:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul references the powerlessness that he so eloquently described in the first three chapters. He then says that somebody wouldn’t die for a righteous man, although for a good man, somebody might dare to die. Wait, what?

In our typical understanding of man’s depravity and ultimate sinful condition, that verse makes no sense without an awful lot of explanatory gymnastics. However, if we hold our previous point in view, everything comes in line and works with Paul’s reasoning. Paul has been saying your righteousness does you very little good when it comes to justification. He then says a person won’t lay down their life for another because they are “righteous.” Nobody would do that. A person is willing to lay down their life for another because that person’s life is good. It’s worth being preserved and it’s worth dying for.

We all inherently know this to be true. If you or I were willing to lay down our life for another, it would not be because that person is righteous. It would be because life is worth saving. Humanity is worth saving. The image of God in another human being is worth saving. And do all the Greek etymological study you want surrounding the words used in this verse — it’s only going to help make this case. The term “good” refers to the inherent nature of a thing. Righteous? Well, not so much.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

We know this to be true for our own lives. We just don’t believe it to be true about God. Brothers and sisters, welcome to the gospel of justification by trusting in the promises of God.

ROMANS: Trusting in the Promises of God

Now that Paul has suggested righteousness comes from faith, apart from observing the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, he needs to be able to make this case from the Torah and show this is the case in the Scriptures, not just a new idea. In the same fashion as Galatians, Paul turns to the the “father of faith” and where the story began, with the story of Abraham.

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

Paul says Abraham knew this inherent truth to be true in his own walk of righteousness. Paul states that if Abraham earned his justification from his works, he would be able to boast. It is here where Paul begins using a metaphor based on labor and wage. When a person works, they get a paycheck. If Abraham was justified because of his works, then he earned the justification and he would be able to boast in his successful campaign to work for justification. Paul then says if a person simply trusts in the promises of God, that trust (faith) is “credited” to them as righteousness. The term credited can also be rendered as “reckoned” and refers to a settling of books.

Paul is working off of the same verse in Genesis 15 he used with the Galatians. Genesis told us Abraham had faith and it was reckoned to his account as righteousness. He believed he was accepted by God and was a member of God’s family by promise — that faith in the promise was just as effectual as if he had walked righteously.

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Paul keeps pushing his point to make it relevant to those Gentiles who find themselves in the church of Rome. This belief, this faith cannot be reserved only for the circumcised, for Abraham experienced all of this before he was circumcised. This justification and the crediting of righteousness has to be available independently of circumcision. In this way, Abraham becomes the father of faith for the uncircumcised.

Paul’s point is that this faith is accessible and available to all — circumcised and uncircumcised.

It’s the same God. It’s the same promise. It’s the same faith.

They receive the same justification.

If Paul started his letter by saying all of humanity struggled with the same problem, he goes on to say all of humanity enjoys the same redemption.

Paul reiterates his point:

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Abraham partnered with God before he was circumcised, before there was a Law, before there was a single command to follow. This means people cannot rely on the fact that they are obedient to God’s Law for their partnership and acceptance. As Paul stated in the first three chapters, nobody lives up to the standard, whether it’s God’s standard or their own. We all know we fall short and live under a cloud of wrath. Paul suggests we should trust the story instead.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

That is one of my favorite lines in Romans 4. …the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

We are invited to trust the story of a God who gives life where death reigns and calls things out of what isn’t there. As we learned in Galatians, we are not righteous, but if we trust in the love and grace of God, He says we are righteous — even when we are not.

…calls into being things that were not.

Abraham understood this. Even though it goes against that which we believe to be most true about ourselves, even though it seems incredibly counterintuitive, Abraham believed that when God said it, it must be true.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

And we too are invited into this same promise and hope. We are invited to believe God feels the same way about all of us. If we believe in this same truth and story, we find we have incredible peace and the joy of a cleansed conscience that is freed from that dark cloud of a curse we carry around.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

It’s because of God’s love and acceptance — unmerited, unearned, undeserved, but true of God nonetheless — we can celebrate in our redemption. Not only this, but the same truth continues to overflow into other areas as well. We have a new perspective in the midst of suffering; if we are loved and valued, my suffering doesn’t raise the same set of doubts it did about God’s anger and doubts about my acceptance before Him.

In fact, our sufferings have the tendency to become teaching tools. They teach us about perseverance. Our perseverance is used by God to shape character in our lives. Our character is then used by God to bring us hope.

Ultimately, the hope is that God really is who He says He is, and that we really are who God says we are: loved, valued, accepted, redeemed.

And this hope does not disappoint, because somewhere in our bones, at our deepest level, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we know God’s love to be true.

As Jonathan Martin puts it in Prototype:

I believe there was a time in your life, sometime before you succumbed to the constant busyness, noise, and distraction of our world, when you knew something of the loving presence of God. There was a time (perhaps associated with a place) when you knew—or at least suspected—that you were infinitely loved. In other words, I believe you have heard from God, and that you probably know a lot more about hearing from God than you might realize.

ROMANS: Righteousness from God

We left off by making the observation that our cleansed conscience, our salvation, and our redemption need to come from somewhere other than our ability to hold true to a system of rules. No matter whether that system came from our own sense of morality, our own measure of reality, or the rules of God Himself, we would fall short and have a conscience testifying against us.

But Paul has good news for us and continues to this very point, moving toward the ending of the third chapter with these words:

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.

As we’ve seen before, an understanding of the first-century conversation surrounding justification is essential to Paul’s argument. If we are justified by performing the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, then there is a difference between the justification of the Jew and of the Gentile. However, Paul says we now understand through Christ that there is a “righteousness of God that has been made known” apart from the Law. If this is true, then this justification is available (and has always been) to both Jew and Gentile alike. We all have the same human condition and we all have access to the same “righteousness from God.” And this righteousness doesn’t come from the Law or from our works of obedience; this righteousness comes from believing in the promises of God. It comes from faith.

He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

And God has been doing this in His story in order to demonstrate and put on display what His righteousness looks like. God did it in order to be the one who is pursuing justice and the one who brings justice about; He did it to be the judge who cares about everything being in its proper place and bringing that restoration about by pronouncing exoneration to those who trust in His love.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

And in case we fall into the trap of typical Christian reasoning, saying the Law is then done away with and no longer a relevant part of the larger conversation, Paul makes it quite clear, just as he did in Galatians, that the Law is far from nullified or done away with. Instead, the Jews are called to uphold the Law. In fact, they are called to correct false understandings of the Law, since it is the Law itself that will bear testimony to the fact that justification has always come by faith.

And because this is the case, boasting is done away with. Since we all wrestle with the same human condition, since we are all justified by the same faith, since we are all subject to the same God and experience the same love, there is no reason or ability to boast. We are all on a level playing field; we are all children in God’s household. Group one, two, and three are all parts of the same story.

But, just as he did in Galatians, Paul now needs to make his case through the Law itself that this gospel isn’t something new at all — it’s been around since the days of Abraham.

ROMANS: No One

Based on a proper understanding of the context of Romans, the opening chapters of the book make much more sense. Looking at this complex situation in Rome, Paul addresses a church with three dominant groups (which are somewhat different than the three groups of Galatia; again, this is why context for each letter is so important). The church in Rome is going to have new Gentile converts who are just coming out of their pagan ways. They will also have Gentiles who have been following this gospel for quite some time and have been transformed in their walk. Then there will be the Jews who once formed the core of this believing community.

Paul addresses all three groups in his opening three chapters. While I considered addressing these three chapters in depth, I decided against it, thinking it was well beyond the scope of this material. The discussion is full of hotly debated details and theories surrounding the nuances of what Paul is saying. Is he building a false argument against the worldviews he’s speaking to — almost as a satirical, faux dialogue? Is he speaking more literally and making an argument just as it reads? These questions are only some of those represented in newer scholarship surrounding the Pauline letters.

But this doesn’t change the bulk of Paul’s arguments in the first few chapters, nor his conclusions. Paul’s point is that all of humanity deals with the same brokenness. Whether the group is submitted to the Law or not, the same brokenness is present in all of us. We all try to live by a law of some kind, and no matter which law we submit to, we always fall short. This insecurity is the very condition to which the gospel attempts to speak.

First, Paul speaks to those corrupt pagans who have given themselves over to a Hellenistic worldview. It might be useful to review Hellenistic culture and the driving premises that lie behind their worldview. About them, Paul says this:

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

That’s almost an exact description of the culture of Hellenism. Paul says they try to live by their own new ‘law’ that man is the measure of all things. This, however doesn’t work and Paul says their own laws are dysfunctional:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

However, some of those Gentiles who have been rescued from such thinking might start to see themselves as quite spiritually evolved. Paul quickly turns his attention to those who are willing and able to see the fault in such kinds of thinking:

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

Paul says that just because they are “better than those other people” doesn’t mean they don’t have their own problems. The fact that they see these things means they now live according to their own law.

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

If they are willing to recognize a “better way,” that way now becomes their new law. Only those who obey this new ‘law’ would be justified by it. So if the person ever transgresses their own understanding (which we all do) then we can’t claim to be in much better of a situation than the pagans. They still have this haunting insecurity, a “conscience that bears witness” to the fact that they fall short of their own self-imposed standard.

But there is a third group which might be sitting there thinking they are far above this pitiful Gentile crew — the Jewish believers. But this same line of thinking applies to them under “the Law,” as in the one given by God:

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

In the end, all of humanity finds themselves in the same predicament. They all fall short of whatever law (or Law) they are trying to live up to. If they are trying to find their justification in any system, any standard, any law, they are doomed to a conscience that testifies against them.

So our cleansed conscience, our salvation, our redemption must come from some place other than our ability to live up to a standard. It must be bigger than getting the standard right, finding the right law (or Law), or adjusting to the right moral code.

ROMANS: Blended Family

The next epistle we’ll turn our attention to is Paul’s letter to the Romans. As usual, I’d like to start with some context. As we mentioned before, the debate about when to date all of these books is always a lively one, so I’ll try to keep my historical ties relatively loose. As referenced in Acts 18, the emperor Claudius has issued an edict (somewhere around AD 51) that expelled all the Jews from Rome. What seems clear by the writing of the New Testament is that there was a significant and substantial community of believers in Rome from a very early date (likely following the story of Pentecost).

As we have seen throughout our study in Acts and Galatians, the safe assumption is to say this is primarily a Jewish community with Gentile believers included in the family. The edict of Claudius changes the physical demographic of the church in Rome. The church goes from being a large, vibrant Jewish community to being a community of new Gentile believers. Not only would the demographic makeup of the church change severely, but the leadership and spiritual direction of this body would have struggled, as well. Having lost the Text (the role of the Jewish believers) and their teaching of the narrative of God, these Gentile believers would have struggled.

Struggle as they might, they would have also survived. Later, however, when the political climate changes and this Jewish population returns home, we have an interesting situation within the church in Rome. Who is in charge? How do we reestablish a relational understanding of spiritual direction and mentorship? After years of figuring out how to “make it on their own,” I’m sure the Gentile believers are far from excited about simply letting everyone back in and submitting to the leadership of the Jewish believers.

With this is mind, we are ready to turn our sights to the letter of Romans. Paul is writing to a church that finds itself splintered and fractured between two dominant groups (Jew and Gentile). For the Jewish believers, they have already had to struggle through a new theological understanding of “sonship” regarding who are children in God’s family. This new tension in Rome is not going to help that learning curve, but challenge it. The Gentiles have found a new sense of confidence and an identity on their own, outside of the narrative of the Jewish people. Both of these things will present the challenges Paul attempts to address. 

But before Paul gets down to business, he has to address a church he is deeply in love with. Paul has always had a fascination with Rome.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Paul has longed to spend time with the Romans and laments writing a letter without having met so many of them. He talks about his time spent with the Gentiles and his calling to the people of Asia and Asia Minor (to the Greeks and to the “barbarians” — those tribal people in regions like Galatia).

Paul then turns his attention to the climate to which he writes and begins to hint at the things to come in his letter:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul is anxious to put the power of the gospel to work in the setting of the conflict in the Roman church — to unite “everyone who believes.” This “everyone who believes” business would certainly be a reminder to those Jews listening about God’s plan to be a blessing to all nations and give them full membership in God’s household. However, to those overly-confident Gentiles he also reminds them whose story it is, as this gospel and its power is “first to the Jew and also to the Greek.”

Paul reminds us it is only when this diverse body is held together that we see the righteousness and goodness and graciousness of God revealed. It is by faith in these promises that such a reality is realized; it is by seeing this faith that others are inspired to their own faith and faithfulness.

Because to every age and every situation — to every point in history — there is a challenge and an invitation to trust the story.

GALATIANS: Neither

Of course, we have potentially created a couple problems for a number of readers. Some will cry that, historically speaking, this task of being one body or, as Paul will put it in Ephesians, a “new humanity,” is an unrealistic task and far too difficult. Not only will the world of archaeology uncover some startling pieces of history to prove this wrong, but Paul moves on to address this issue in the concluding chapter of the letter to the Galatians.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Throughout this presentation of an inclusive gospel, Paul is certainly not throwing out our ability to have objective conversations about appropriate behavior and what the way of Jesus looks like in our lives. He encourages us to hold fellow believers accountable and to restore them in gentleness. Of course, he moves on to say what sounds contradictory; he tells the Galatians to carry each other’s burdens, but also says everyone should carry his own burden. What’s up with that?

But closer inspection shows us Paul is actually making a great claim to how these relationships, whether they be with like-minded or different people (i.e., Jew or Gentile), are fostered properly. Immediately after Paul tells us we ought to restore our brothers and sisters in gentleness, he suggests we help others carry their burdens by being concerned not primarily with their behavior, but our own. “Everyone should test their own actions.” Everyone ought to take the list from Galatians 5 and ask themselves if their actions are producing the fruit of the Spirit. This will tell us if we are doing relationship correctly.

See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.

From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

But Paul’s not done taking every opportunity to remind us about fighting for the place of all people in this Kingdom narrative. He reminds us that in this new Jesus economy, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What matters is whether we are being made into a new creation.

Some will also cry that this inclusive gospel we’ve been talking about sounds like a soft, gutless, everything-goes kind of mentality — that there is no call in this understanding to hold people accountable and no way to establish right and wrong. They’ll say that an inclusive gospel is just another way of describing universalism. And they’ll talk a lot about slippery slopes.

But all of these accusations are based on a fallacy of logic; they create a false dichotomy and dilemmas that aren’t dependent on bifurcated choices. The ideas of inclusion and absolute truth are not mutually exclusive. Just because I believe there is a correct and an incorrect way to bring order to chaos does not mean I cannot fight for the value and place of all people. It does not mean I cannot practice humility and examine the story of people and question my understanding of the Scriptures. It could be that our situation might resemble that of the people of Galatia. It could be that our fundamental beliefs might be structured in a way that more closely resembles Shammai’s thinking than Hillel’s — let alone Jesus.

We might need a reminder that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything.

The only thing that counts is that we are being made into a new creation.