Gods Plan of Salvation | Page 3

prayer, fasting, self-flaggelation. A wise
monk advised him to study the book of Romans. There he
read the words on 1:17: “For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just
shall live by faith.”. Luther was at peace, and the
Protestant Reformation was founded, and founded on this
doctrine.
So: W hat does it mean?
The key verses in this view are Rom 1:18; 3:19-20). The
case has been made: all the human race lives under sin
and thereby under God's wrath and judgement. The
answer was provided by God sending Jesus, who, on the
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Cross bore God's wrath, and thus our 'guilty' verdict in
God's courtroom. We are thus declared 'in the right', and
it is this declaration which is the basis of our justification.
It also means that 'righteousness is reckoned to us.(cf 2
Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9), for we are now, by this imputation and
our place 'in Christ' (1 Cor 1:30) dead to sin (Rom 6:2).
So we are enabled to have victory over sin and to live for
God.
Righteousness is conceived of as God's perfect, holy
character, but within that righteousness is also included
God's desire to save; God's desire to 'put all things right'
The Greek word for 'righteousness' is dikaiosyn whilst
the word for 'justification' (dikaisis ) comes from the
same root. Justification means that we are declared by
God to be 'in the right' 'Justification' is a word drawn from
the courtroom. Both righteousness and justification are
translations of a group of Greek words with the preface
dik- and the English language cannot quite do justice (no
pun meant!) to these words. We tend to put righteousness
in the same box as justice.
Many also see God as a God of wrath and of vengeance.
Yes, God's wrath against sin is real. “The wrath of God is
being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness
and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their
wickedness” (Rom 1:18) Therefore (sic) God is a vengeful
God, but God is a God who abounds in mercy (Exod
34:6); takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner (Ezek
18:23) and desires that all men be saved (1 Tim 2:4)
But there is a more serious issue here, and it has to do
more with our whole concept of salvation, and with the
presuppositions we bring to the subject. For one,
salvation is to most evangelical, protestant believers a
matter of personal salvation. But God has a much broader
and fuller desire: to restore the whole of his creation-
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because of his righteousness.
And then, because Luther founded the doctrine on a
verse from Romans, we read Romans as a 'text-book' on
salvation. One thing we shall learn is that this grossly
misrepresents what Paul is on about, leading us to
misread Romans (and Paul more generally) and get the
whole centre of gravity of salvation in the wrong place.
Tom W right writes:
If you start with the popular view of justification, you may well lose
sight of the heart of the Pauline gospel; whereas if you start with the
Pauline gospel itself you will get justification in all its glory thrown in
as well 3
Over and above this, our concept of salvation, based as it
is on the Protestant, evangelical and reformed doctrine
focuses very much on my personal salvation. And this
leads to a very myopic view, and misses the grandeur of
all that God's work of salvation involved. For we also limit
salvation to the matter of personal moral perfection. We
need hear Tom Wright's word on this:
(Jesus) has become for us 'righteousness';that is, God vindicated
him, like a judge in a law-court, finding in favour of the one who
appeared condemned, when he raised him from the [dead[......]those
who are 'in Christ' share this status[......]it is not the case...that Jesus
Christ...[....]possesses in himself 'moral righteousness'[.....]Jesus is
not a legalist 4
So, I suggest we need to think again.
W here is the heart of the Gospel? Is it Romans 1:17. I put
forward that it is found in verses 3-4 of chapter 1:
“the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets
in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his
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earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through
the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in
power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our
Lord.”
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel and I want us now to see
the Jewish precedents that led to this. (Let us remember
Jesus was a Jew). Paul was a Jew, too, and he brings his
Jewish belief-system with him: a system he was forced to
rework after his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus
road. This is the