Romans 5 - Introduction
As I try and work out the different perspectives on righteousness between the Old and New Testaments, something occurs to me. I read (and wrote on) book after book about how the righteous are saved and the unrighteous are condemned, that the wicked can become righteous and the good can become wicked, and finally it is how you end up without regard to duration that determines whether you go to Heaven. And the point is made in terms of how well Israel and Judah seek the Lord, how often and to what degree God disperses them, punishes them, or lets them die, and the conditions under which He lovingly returns them to their home, and welcomes them into His house. There is something huge in all this, something to explain all of the good and evil in this world that I have been trying to put my finger one for a long time, and I just knew it had to do with “righteousness”. And lo and behold, a study of righteousness reveals example after example of exactly what I am trying to have explained.Â
Then, I come to the New Testament, and suddenly the scriptures hone in one aspect of the big picture above… ones turning to righteousness. Not only that, but Romans is focusing on one particular aspect… redeeming righteousness. And the rest of the big picture? To play a supporting role. It seems that without an opportunity to be unrighteous, there would be no righteousness. Without something to believe, you cannot believe God. Without something something to obey, you cannot then obey Him either. It makes it all seem like collateral damage on a certain level.
If that’s true, then some of the questions I have tried to answer, like whether a given war is “justified” or not comes down to a person’s relationship with God… just like everything else, huh? And everyone has their own perspective on it. But here’s the thing… we have a bunch of people in this world who love God, and love their neighbor, and believe in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection, for the redemption of their sin… yet they agree on little else. And all of them stake their position based on how they face the Cross. But here’s the thing… they all face it. Perhaps it’s because the angle of your perspective reveals a different backdrop, a different scene, a different need to fulfill for their life. It makes none of them wrong and all of them saved, and it takes all of them to form a complete circle around that cross. Without us all, the Church is incomplete. And without the rest of unredeemed mankind, there would not even be a church, let alone an incomplete one.