Romans 4 - In Depth Bible Commentaries

436 437 438produces wrath; so then where there is no Law, neither is there transgression.436What Paul means is that divinely-given laws or teachings serve to point out our humanweakness and constant missings-of-the-mark, and therefore the necessity of divine judgment--if we are to be judged solely on the basis of our performance in the light of these highstandards. Paul could point to both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the entirety of theJewish Bible, as a witness to the fact that the divine Law and Teaching had far too oftenresulted in Israel's hardening of its heart, and the coming of divine wrath upon both theNorthern Kingdom of Israel, and then the Southern Kingdom of Judah as well. This theme ofthe wrath of God being revealed against all ungodliness--including Jews as well as non-Jews,has been one of the major themes of Romans 1-3. As Moo notes, Paul is substantiating theconclusion drawn in verse 14 by showing “...what the law does–produces wrath–as opposedto what it cannot do–secure the inheritance.” (P. 276)437The conjunction de, “then,” is read by the first writer of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus,Vaticanus, Ephraemi Rescriptus, Minuscules 81, 104, 945, 1506, a few other Greekmanuscripts and the Harclean Syriac margin.It is changed to the conjunction ga,r, “for,” by a corrector of Sinaiticus, Bezae, F, G,Psi, Minuscules 1739, 1881, the “Majority Text” and the Syriac tradition.Whichever conjunction is read, the meaning or Romans is the same.438It should be obvious that if Abraham had never been given the Mosaic legislation (whichof course he hadn’t), he could not be held responsible for transgressing that legislation.Abraham lived hundreds of years before the birth of Moses, or the giving of the Torah onMount Sinai. How foolish it is, then, to claim that Abraham's right-relationship with God camethrough fulfillment of that divine Law and teaching.Are we to conclude from this that it was impossible for Abraham to miss-the-mark, or beguilty of transgression? No--because even though he did not have the Mosaic legislation,Abraham along with all people, prior to the coming of Moses, was still responsible for thefulfillment of his God-given responsibilities and directions. According to Paul, all humanity hasa God-given conscience, that teaches them right and wrong. Abraham certainly had that, andaccording to Genesis, much more--a continuing revelation from God of the way in which heshould walk.As Moo notes, “Paul, then, is not claiming that there is no ‘sin’ where there is no law,but, in almost a ‘truism,’ that there is no deliberate disobedience of positive commands wherethere is no positive command to disobey. As Calvin puts it: ‘He who is not instructed by thewritten law, when he sins, is not guilty of so great a transgression as he is who knowinglybreaks and transgresses the law of God’...Before and outside the Mosaic law wrath certainlyexists, for all people, being sinners, stand under God’s sentence of condemnation (1:18). Butthe Mosaic law ‘produces’ even more wrath; rather than rescuing people from the sentence ofcondemnation, it confirms their condemnation. For by stating clearly, and in great detail,exactly what God requires of people, the law renders people even more accountable to Godthan they were without the law.” (P. 277)239