Romans 2:1-11 Chapel Message
Tag: Romans
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Robert Haldane observed in his commentary on the twelfth chapter of Romans that Paul had a special way of using his authority.
When it comes to authority, we might have some assumptions about Paul. We would assume that Paul would only have a commanding tone in his speaking because he possessed the right of authority. We would expect that his syntax would be always in the imperative mood.
But Haldane observed that Paul didn’t use his authority that way. Paul said, “I beseech you” or “I appeal to you” (Rom 12:1). Haldane wrote:
Those whose authority was avouched by mighty signs and wonders, whose very word was command, strive frequently to express commands as entreaties.
Commentary, 566.
Haldane’s observation is that the apostles were not insecure about their authority, even though their authority had been clearly demonstrated. Yet the apostles could choose to entreat people and appeal to them by way of persuasion, rather than command. They didn’t need to be defensive. They had the liberty to persuade when they had the right to command.
This observation is helpful for pastors to know. Often, according to the authority of God’s word, there is the need to exercise authority and make commands (as Scripture requires). At the same time, the aim of persuading by entreating ought to be the norm.
This is where the pastoral requirement of gentleness comes to the forefront (Ti 3:2). Gentleness is persuading, entreating and compassionate, even when the right to command exists.
Paul would nevertheless urge Timothy, “Command and teach these things” (1 Timothy 4:11). These leaders had the right to command and exercised that right. But when they had the opportunity, they would “express commands as entreaties”.
In his commentary on Romans, the Scottish theologian Robert Haldane (1764-1842), attempted to unpack what the sonship of the Son entailed. Commenting on the third verse of the first chapter, Haldane wrote:
The gospel of God concerns his Son. The whole of it is comprised in the knowledge of Jesus Christ; so that whoever departs one step from him departs from the gospel. For as Jesus Christ is the Divine image of the Father, he is set before us as the real object of our faith.
Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, 19.
So the sonship of the Son relates to his image-bearing of the invisible God (Col 1:15). His sonship is unique in this way, even if it has been revealed to us in the relational language of Father and Son.
Intelligible, but Unique
The qualities of paternity and filiation, are technical descriptions of the Father and the Son, respectively. As high as these unique descriptions are, they still tell us something intelligible. The persons of the Trinity are not called God 1, 2 and 3, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son’s uniqueness doesn’t mean his sonship is unintelligible. But in our limited comprehension, we must be humble and accept that he is a Son like no other.
On the basis of the uniqueness of the Son in all respects, Haldane argues that he has the same nature as the Father, and differentiates the Son from all other types of sons. He wrote:
“He is the Son of God, his own Son, the only begotten of the Father; which proves, that he is truly and exclusively his Son, of the same nature, and equal with the Father, and not figuratively, or in a secondary sense, as angels or men, as Israel or believers”
Ibid, 20.
Haldane believed that the Son shared the same essence as the Father because he is the only begotten of the Father. So an unpartitioned divine nature was the Son’s. He is equal with Father, which his Sonship proves.
Chalcedonian logic
Rather than viewing the description of “Son” as a lesser title than Father, Haldane noted what the orthodox have always known, that the Sonship of the Son, speaks to his shared, co-equal, divine essence. The Son, is “consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead”, according to the creed of Chalcedon. Yet with this divine nature is added his human nature. As the Chalcedonian creed summarized the relationship:
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ
Fourth Ecumenical Council, Chalcedon, 451AD.
This Chalcedonian way of speaking was certainly what Haldane confessed. And following Paul, Haldane understood the significance of the title, “Son of God”:
That the Lord Jesus Christ, in his eternal equality with the Father and not merely as God manifested in the flesh, is called the Son of God, flows directly from the fact, that wherever the first person of the adorable Trinity is personally distinguished in Scripture, it is under the title, the co-relative title of the Father.
Ibid, 20.
In the early nineteenth century, it was necessary for Haldane to make these points. He needed to affirm that the Sonship of the Son vindicated his deity.
Haldane’s Caution
Following a century of rationalism, Haldane constantly re-affirmed a high and historic view of the divine Trinity. He cautioned against the temptation to speculate when discussing the doctrine of God. The easiest temptation which Christian’s face is to suppose that the Sonship of the Son is somehow a lesser ‘derivation’. Haldane dealt with this objection saying:
And what is the objection to this doctrine of our Lord’s eternal Sonship? It is simply, that it differs from all our ordinary notions of the filial relation to represent the Son as co-eternal with the Father; or that begotten must necessarily mean “derived,” and that to grant derivation is to surrender Deity.
Exposition, 20.
Haldane wanted to hedge against the temptation to restrain the Sonship of the Son to our human ideas of sonship alone. This ‘derived personality’ was a way for the rationalists to deny the deity of the Son but affirming the language of sonship.
Haldane expressed the objections to sound doctrine and the wrong thinking from which it came from:
To demand that the distinction of persons in the undivided essence of the Godhead, and the mode of their eternal substance shall be made plain to us; or to repugn against the doctrine of the eternal filiation of the Son of God, because it overpasses the boundaries of our notions of Sonship, what is this but the very summit of unthinking arrogance?
Ibid, 20.
As we consider the Sonship of the Son, we need to be careful about our tendencies to be elevated to a “summit of unthinking arrogance”. At the same time, like Haldane, we need to look at Scripture and explore the significance of the ways that God has described himself, all of the predicates and titles.
At the dinner table, after we’ve eaten but before we clean up, Christel and I spend time having some table talk. Martin and Katie Luther made the practice famous with their Tischreden or Table Talk, and Ligonier calls their magazine Table Talk. But all that we do with our three sons is discuss a passage of Scripture or working through the New City Catechism.
What does the righteousness of God mean?
As the last boy ate his last bites, I opened up Romans 3:21 and read the passage:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it
Romans 3:21
Since kids attention spans are short, we don’t like to make our table talk a seminary class. So my plan was to look at the first part of this verse.
My question to the table was “What does the righteousness of God mean?” A good response back was that it meant God’s holiness. Another response was that is was God’s rightness.
I went with that. God’s righteousness, I tried to explain, was his character of perfect rightness, which is always holy, which is always good. He’s right and he’s always right.
From “But now” to Butt Jokes and Back Again
From there we switched to looking at the phrase “But now”. I asked the table about the “but”. Of course, the boys started making butt jokes. Whose butt? As the conversation turned toward smelly butts (very Luther-like), I reined us in and asked why the “But now” was there.
A boy suggested that something different was happening. And it was happening right now.
I agreed. We then had a discussion about how long is ‘now’. I explained the concept of an unending moment, what theologians would call an eschatological ‘now’ or the grammarians call a gnomic present (mercifully none of which I included in my explanation). A boy waved his hands and said it is now forever and ever. And I said he had got it exactly right.
Connecting the ‘But now’ with ‘the righteousness of God’
At this point, we had to start wrapping things up. We still hadn’t connected the contrast between what had been discussed in chapters 1-3 and what Paul was saying in Ro 3:21. I asked the table about the righteousness earlier in chapter 3. One boy remembered that there is “none righteous, no, not one” (Ro 3:10). I asked how did everyone know what was right and what wasn’t. In a dramatic courtroom judge voice, one boy declared, “The Law!”
At this point, we were nearing the max of our table talk attention span. I left our discussion with that judge-like declaration. Ready to continue the discussion at the next table talk.
If you would like to read more about how our family conducts this table talk, you can check out an interview at The Gospel Coalition Canada.