God is one: Romans 3.21–31 (Day 225)

Pray

Lord, open my ears to hear what you have to say to me; open my heart to love your word, and open my mind to understand your truth.

Read

1 Samuel 3 Romans 3 Jeremiah 41 Psalm 17

Daily reflection: Romans 3

In this chapter Paul continues his argument that Jews and Gentiles are on level ground. Jews, he says, have been entrusted with God's message (verse 2) but they are in no better or worse condition than Gentiles (verse 9); we are all 'under the power of sin' and are saved by faith in Christ.

We need to be careful about reading back into Romans more modern ideas about 'salvation by works', which focus on the idea that we can 'earn our way to God' by living morally righteous lives. We can’t, of course! We aren’t saved by anything we achieve, but by God’s grace. But that wasn’t really what Paul was talking about. When he referred to ‘doing what the Law commands’ (verse 28), he meant the marks of Judaism like circumcision and Sabbath-keeping. He was saying that those things do not secure salvation for Jews, and that just like Gentiles they need faith in order to be saved (verse 30).

For a Gentile congregation today, this argument is over. A Gentile Christian takes faith for granted. But that's the problem: what was revolutionary to Paul's readers is just ordinary to us. So we might need to read Romans 3 more carefully. Have we as Christians fallen into a sense of privilege? Do we assume that belonging to a Christian community is enough to make us right with God, without really thinking about personal faith? Does keeping the 'law' of the Church stand in the same place for us as keeping the Law of Moses did for Paul's first-century Jewish brothers and sisters? If so, we might be failing to appreciate the wonderful blessing of the 'free gift of God's grace' (verse 24).

Pray

God, thank you for the blessings of your Church, and that I can be part of a loving and faithful community. Let me never lose my sense of wonder at your grace to me.