Over the centuries in many different ways. Why Augustine and Luther succeeded? It might seem that a new interpretation of Romans, created centuries after Romans was written, would never be received by the Christian world. This is particularly the case since, in the beginning, the churches had a uniform understanding of the key points of Romans. No one was looking for a new interpretation. However, Augustine and Luther succeeded for several reasons. First, as we have said, Romans is not an easy book to understand.
As the centuries passed, Christians struggled to comprehend Paul's complex arguments, particularly when koine Greek, was not their native tongue. So they were only too happy to listen to someone who provided a slimmed-down version of Romans that was easier to grasp. This is what both Augustine and Luther offered absolutes versus dialectic tension. A second reason why Augustine and Luther succeeded is because in theology, humans find absolutes appealing. They like things to be black or white and either/or.
They dislike dialectic tension, that is, the tension or interplay between two causes. For example, when a Christian sister does an act of love, is she the cause of that action, or is God? Or is it an interplay between the two? This was the very issue that prompted Augustine to develop his theology of monergism. He taught that God alone performs our good works. Even the desire to do an act of love comes from God. Such a black or white answer appeals to many people. It is easy to grasp.
Furthermore, Augustine was able to pull proof texts from Romans to bolster his view. In contrast, the early Christian's answer was more complicated. They said that when a person does an act of love, it normally involves a cooperation between human strength and God's power. From a human standpoint, we cannot say where God's power ends and human power begins. Although this is the historic answer, many Christians do not like such an explanation of both/and.
A similar question arises concerning the role of works in salvation. Luther's simple answer appeals to millions of people. Works play no role. It is all of grace. As we have said, the early Christians would have agreed if we are talking only about our initial salvation. However, they would have said that once we become branches on the vine, we must produce godly fruit. How much fruit is necessary? The early Christians would have replied that it is not a quantifiable issue. It is a relationship issue.
Jesus wants an obedient love-faith relationship with us. Yet millions of Christians find such a non-quantifiable answer unappealing. They want a black or white answer that contains no uncertainties or variables concerning their future. So they find Luther's answer much more attractive than that of the early Christians. The power of the State Church. Although there were appealing elements to the revised interpretations of Augustine and Luther. Their views did not prevail merely for that reason.
The primary reason their views dominated Western theology, particularly Protestant theology, was because of the power of the State. All three of those men had the might of the state behind them. In the end, there was never a fair contest. In the case of Augustine, he was a friend of the Western Roman Emperor, and he personally appealed to the Emperor to silence his opponents. In contrast, in the Eastern Empire, where Augustine had little political influence, his views on Romans never gained any traction.
At the time of the Reformation, the main non-Catholic theological opponents of Luther and Calvin were the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists believed in free will, human responsibility, and the necessity to live a godly life after our initial salvation. In short, their understanding of Romans was very similar to that of the early Christians. Furthermore, like the early Christians, they believed in the separation of church and state.
However, their views never got a fair hearing because Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin unleashed savage persecution against them. Luther succeeded in driving them almost totally out of Germany, and Zwingli, Calvin, and their allies drove them underground in Switzerland. Although the Anabaptists survived in various places, their understanding of Romans was largely silenced.
Even though the power of state churches ended in the 19th century, by then the theological positions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin were well entrenched through centuries of state power. Their schools of thought still had the advantage of long-established universities, seminaries, and publishing houses behind them. So it has never been a level playing field.
The early Christians, why they understood Romans differently, the early Christian teachers of the first three centuries understood Romans differently than Augustine and Luther for one primary reason. They were teaching what was handed down to them from the apostles and the apostolic age. Their understanding of Romans was not the work of one man or even a group of men. It was the understanding of all the churches worldwide. In contrast, Augustine's interpretation of Romans was just that.
It was Augustine's interpretation. He could not point to any prior persons who taught the same thing he did. So if his interpretation is correct, the entire body of Christ misunderstood Romans for 400 years. The same is true of Luther. He had built his interpretation of Romans on the foundation of Augustine, and then made various modifications that were uniquely his. If his interpretation is correct, then the entire church misunderstood Romans for 1,500 years.
The other thing that separated the early Christians from Augustine and Luther is that the early Christian interpretation was based on the whole counsel of God. That is, they did not read Paul in a vacuum. They weighed every statement in Romans against what the entirety of Scripture teaches. If Paul seems to be saying something that contradicts other passages of Scripture, the early Christians analyzed His words with caution. In particular, they gave primacy to the teachings of Jesus.
They focused on what Jesus taught, and they then interpreted Paul in the light of Jesus' teachings. In contrast, Augustine and Luther made Paul the chief theologian of Christianity. They interpreted Jesus in the light of Paul, at least in the light of what they thought Paul was teaching. This was reversing the logical and spiritual order of things. Not only that, but Augustine and Luther both built their theological systems on proof texts.
That is, they use selective quotations from Romans and other scriptures to create their theological positions, and they then ignored or explained away a multitude of scriptures that contradicted their positions, elevating Romans over the rest of Scripture. In fact, Luther went a step further. He elevated Romans above the rest of Scripture.
In his introduction to Romans, Luther wrote," This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest gospel." It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of the soul. Therefore, it appears that St. Paul wanted to comprise briefly in this one epistle the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine. Of course, Paul was doing no such thing.
No New Testament book contains the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine. Not even the four gospels claimed to do this. Luther not only overexalted Romans, but he denigrated any New Testament book that contradicted his reinterpretation of Romans. In fact, in his preface to the New Testament, Luther told Christians they could understand the gospel of Christ without ever reading those books. From all this, you can now judge all the books and decide among them which are the best. John's gospel and St.
Paul's epistles, especially that to the Romans, and St. Peter's first epistle, are the true kernel and marrow of all the books. They ought rightly to be the first books, and it would be advisable for every Christian to read them first and most. The epistles of Saint Paul and Saint Peter far surpassed the other three gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In a word, St. John's gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul's epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. And St.
Peter's first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is necessary and good for you to know, even though you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore, St. James's epistle is really an epistle of straw compared to them. For it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it. Well, sure, anyone can make the Bible say whatever they want by taking that approach.
As Chrysostom warned, when we lose sight of Paul's main point in Romans, countless inconsistencies are going to follow. Luther proved that very point by being forced to devalue entire books of the Bible to make his reinvention of Romans work. In addition to what he said above, in his prefaces to the individual New Testament books, Luther singled out Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation for particular criticism since they so clearly disprove his new interpretation of Romans.
He literally moved these four books to the back of his Bible, and he tried unsuccessfully to have them removed altogether from the New Testament canon. To be sure, today Luther's disciples do not make such audacious statements about James, Hebrews, and other New Testament books. Instead, they simply refuse to accept many of their statements at face value. They explain away verse after verse that do not fit in with Luther's gospel.
Luther's reinterpretation of Romans has replaced the original Romans in the hearts of millions. Luther has successfully placed a veil over the hearts of these Christians so that when they read Romans, they are hearing Luther instead of Paul, law versus law. Not only is Luther's reinterpretation of Romans promoted through printed literature, the spoken word, and hymns, but our very Bible translations themselves reflect His reinterpretation.
Beyond any doubt, the most impactful assistance Bible translators give Luther today is their refusal to capitalize the word" law" in the New Testament when it refers to the Mosaic Law. The Law of Moses or Torah was at the center of the controversy that threatened the entire Church. One of Paul's main thesis in Romans is that Jews and Gentiles are not under the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law cannot save anyone. As I have said, Paul refers to the Mosaic Law nearly 60 times in Romans.
However, Luther had argued that Paul is talking about any kind of law, not particularly the Mosaic Law. One of the factors that helped Luther succeed with his posturing of law versus gospel was that the modern rules of capitalization had not yet been developed in his day. When Luther translated the Bible in the 16th century, all nouns were capitalized in German. So there was no way to distinguish the word" law" when it specifically referred to the Mosaic Law.
Similarly, when the King James Bible was translated in 1611, the modern rules of capitalization in English were not yet in effect. In fact, these rules were not established until the late 19th century. Since then, it has been common in English to capitalize proper nouns, particularly when they refer to sacred things and to foundational government documents. Law is a proper noun when it refers to the Mosaic Law, just as Constitution is a proper noun when it refers to the U.S. Constitution.
Just as we capitalize Constitution when it refers to our nation's Constitution, it is only proper that we capitalize law when it refers to the Mosaic Law. The law is the foundational document of Judaism. It is also a key section of our sacred scriptures. Furthermore, translators create considerable ambiguity when they refuse to capitalize law when it refers to the Mosaic Law.
For this reason, in the mid-20th century, when various publishers began translating the Bible into contemporary English, most of them capitalize law when it refers to the Mosaic Law. Some examples are the J.B. Phillips, the Jerusalem Bible, today's English version, and the New American Standard. However, in 1978, the new international version was introduced.
Its editorial staff broke with the precedent of these prior contemporary English translations and decided not to capitalize law when it clearly refers to the Mosaic Law. I do not know who made the editorial decision not to capitalize law in the NIV, and I cannot read hearts and minds. However, the translators were primarily evangelicals who held to Luther's reinterpretation of Romans. Their refusal to capitalize law when it refers to the Mosaic Law goes a long way in promoting Luther's reinterpretation of Romans.
As it turned out, the NIV was hugely popular, and it set a new precedent for modern Bible translations. Thereafter, virtually every new Bible translation followed the pattern set by the NIV in refusing to capitalize law when it refers to the Mosaic Law. What is particularly inconsistent is that many of these same Bibles capitalize the phrase" the law and the prophets" everywhere it appears. So the editors recognize the normal rule of capitalizing references to specific sections of Scripture.
They simply choose not to follow the rule when the term" the law" is used by itself. One conspicuous example of this inconsistency is Romans 3:21, which the New King James Version renders. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. The very same law is capitalized in the last half of the sentence and left uncapitalized in the first half, these same translators would never dream of refusing to capitalize the word Torah.
Regardless of the motives of the translators, they have greatly assisted the spread of Luther's reinterpretation of Romans by not capitalizing law when it refers to the Mosaic Law. To the casual reader, it appears that Paul is speaking about any kind of law rather than the law of Moses. Since the purpose of this commentary is to help the reader to see how the early Christians understood Romans.
Throughout it, I have capitalized law in every place where the early Christians understood Paul to be referring to the Mosaic Law. My methodology. As I have said, the purpose of this commentary is to set forth the historic understanding of Romans before Augustine's reinterpretation of this letter. So my methodology has been to quote the early Christians as much as possible, rather than merely explaining what they believed.
As a result, this commentary contains over 1,200 quotations and citations from the early Christians. I try to stay as much in the background as possible. This commentary contains an abundance of quotations from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries, which amply chronicle how Christians understood the passages in Romans relating to faith, grace, works, free will, predestination, God's sovereignty, the believer's security, the fall of man, and man's ability or inability.
In other words, we have plentiful testimony of what the pre-Nicene Christians believed on those important doctrinal issues. However, apart from Origen, the pre-Nicene Christians do not comment on every single verse in Romans. The only extant commentary on Romans we have from the pre-Nicene period is that written by Origen.
So to be able to compile a verse-by-verse commentary on Romans that demonstrates how Christians understood Romans before Augustine, I have made ample use of three commentators who lived in the fourth century: Chrysostom, Ambrosiaster, and Theodoret. Brief introductions to these three commentators and the other early Christians quoted herein can be found in the biographical dictionary in the back of this commentary.
For 1,600 years, the early Christians have been ignored and attacked by the Christians who followed them. So I have not only presented the early Christians' understanding of Romans, I have also defended their understanding. To do this, I have set forth the numerous scriptures they relied upon for their understanding, my standards. Although I have written the commentary in a popular readable style, I have applied the highest scholarly standards in my research.
Although my doctorate is in law, the early Christians have been my primary focus of study for most of my adult life. In addition, I have put several years of special research into writing this commentary. Virtually all my research has been from the primary sources. That is, I have read and reread the early Christians themselves, rather than depending on what other people say they taught. I have tried to be as intellectually honest as possible in presenting their views.
However, like all other fallen humans, I am only too fallible. As you read this commentary, please examine how the early Christians understand Paul's words and ask yourself, does this fit the context of Paul's discussion? Is this in harmony with the totality of Scripture? My representation to you is that in the pages of this commentary, I have done my best to accurately present what the early pre-Augustinian Christians believed about Romans.