February 27, 2025 • 52 mins
Romans is often considered one of the hardest and confusing books of the New Testament. What is Paul telling us through this complex book? David Bercot breaks down what the early church believed about the book of Romans before the time of Augustine, and why it matters to our understanding of Romans today.
David Bercot’s Romans commentary:
I Was An Anglican Priest. Here’s Why I Left:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Imagine Paul is your guide and he's taking you
through this magnificent palace of,you know, the emperor.
Okay?
And he leads you through the doorof, of a bedroom, let's say.
And you go into this parlorand it's, all these amazing things,
but you don't get to stay there very long
and he takes you out through another door,
and then you'rein some little hidden passageway,
(00:22):
and then he opens another door, and nowyou're in another room and it's like,
wow, this room is amazing to, you know,and you start looking around.
But then in a few minutes,he takes you out another door
and, and then you're in another room,you know.
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
instead of going,you know, this, this kind of order, he's
(00:42):
he gives you a little bit of a taste ofsomething, and then he immediately goes to
another point, you know,which is a brilliant point.
And, oh, that's wonderful.
But then he doesn't just stay there.
He, he, he goes to another.
He, he, he goes to another.
So you're going through this palace
and by the time you're done,you've gone through the whole palace.
But it's been in this door, out this door.
Kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
(01:07):
All right,
well, David Bercot, it is fantasticto have you back on the podcast.
It's been a minute since we've done this.
Yeah.
So you have launchedprobably the biggest project
I think you've done,and that's the commentary series.
So New Testament commentary seriesbased on the Ante-Nicene fathers,
the early Church fathers, and a new volumejust came out pretty recently.
(01:28):
As of this recording, it'sthe one on Romans.
And I have to say,Romans is a pretty confusing book for me.
Hey, I really struggle with it,and I feel there’s
probably a lot of other peoplein that same boat.
So we want to dive intosome of the things you found
and what are lessons for us today,and maybe glean some pieces that
that you've pulled.
And obviously there's
this massive commentarythat you've pulled from from all of this.
(01:49):
And so people can go get thereif they want more information, but
I feel like that'd be a good placeto start.
So, without further ado,let's just launch right into it.
Let me go to the first question here.
You creditwhat you consider the misinterpretation
of Romans to be the writings of Augustineand Luther?
And then you say thisin, I think, the introduction, Augustine
presented his radically new interpretationof Romans in the fifth century.
(02:13):
Why do you think that was the case?
Why did why did Augustine do that?
And what was that interpretation?
Okay, so
yeah, the whys are a little bit harder.
But how it happened I can explain, youknow, as far as whys, I mean, you know,
I can't read somebody's heart or mind,but how how it all happened,
it was reacting so much of Christianity,
(02:36):
the changes have come aboutbecause of overreacting to
an out and out heretic, or just someone,maybe, who's gone a little bit too far
this way, and then somebodyI'm going to say with a good motive swings
way too far the other way, and they end uppulling the church with them.
And that's happened over and overand over throughout church history.
(02:58):
And it's how doctrine has
one of the big reasons why doctrine haschanged as you go through through history.
It's not the only reason, butbut I'd say is maybe the biggest factor.
So in the fifth century,
up untilthe beginning of the fifth century.
So we're talking about the year 400.
It's fairly uniform.
I mean, whoever you read, whether it'speople say in the year 96 A.D.
(03:21):
still in the first centuryor it's Chrysostom in the late,
three hundreds,I mean, they're all saying basically
the same thing, that they all understandRomans the same way.
Now, I don't mean every single verse.They have the same explanation.
But but the book as a whole.
Okay.
So then
(03:41):
you get into the,
fifth century and Augustine
has become this figure in the West.
He's up on this pedestal.
He is the theologian, which is alwaysdangerous when that happens in the church.
And one man gets that much power.
(04:02):
And Augustine was that man.
He's he's brilliant.
I mean, he is very goodwith his argumentation.
I mean, his writings are still read todayby people other than scholars.
You know, someone like Chrysostom,you know, no one reads him except somebody
who's, you know,
really into the early church or is,you know, some scholarly thing.
(04:23):
But I mean, laypeople read Augustineand he is very clear
with his logic and how he lays things out.
And yeah, when you get that exalted
where everybody looks up to youas the guy.
And what had happenedwas the East and West,
the Roman Empire was dividedinto East and West,
(04:44):
and now the barbarianswere overrunning the west.
Okay.
And you see a dividebetween east and west, the west.
There are few peoplewho speak Greek in the, in the west.
Now, in the days of Paul,he could write to the Romans.
When he wrote the book of Romans,he wrote in Greek.
Okay, so we're saying at this point, Latinis starting to be much more prominent.
(05:06):
Greek, which is the languageof the New Testament. Right?
Okay.
Because we're a few hundred yearsafter the time of Jesus.
You know, Augustine is writing,you said around 400.
Yeah. Is that right?
Yeah. He he he wrote things before 400.
But he changed his view on Romans
in the fifth century.
Yeah, his early writings.
He's pretty much in harmonywith everyone else.
But then in the fifth century,
and it was because of a disputewith a man named Pelagius.
(05:29):
Okay.
A divide is beginning to happenbetween East and West
on the understanding of the fall.
Because the West is reading from Latin.
By the timeyou get into the three hundreds
and certainly by the year 400, very,very few
laypeople in the West can read Greek,even educated people like Augustine.
(05:53):
He has some familiarity,but he's not fluent in Greek.
Okay, so they're reading a translationthat has an error in it
that states that, we all sin in Adam.
Okay? Which is not what the Greek says.
This is Romans five were ittalks about the fall through one man sin
entered into the world and deaththrough sin, because in him all sinned.
(06:18):
That's how the Latin reads.
So we all sinned somehow in Adam.
So this view begins to develop in the Westthat we are guilty for Adam's sin.
The guilt comes down to us.
Okay, interesting now is
which Latin translation is being usedthat had that error then?
Well, it's called the old Latin.
(06:38):
It's something that would have beentranslated maybe in the first century
and there wasn't an official
there's different versions,but they're all saying that, okay.
Now Jeromeis beginning to work on the Latin Vulgate.
It had not yet become the maintranslation, and he follows that too.
It was so ingrained in the West,he follows that in his translation,
(07:00):
even though he's translatingfrom the Greek, he is, you know,
aware of how Latin speaking Christiansare understanding the scriptures.
Okay, so so you have one view of the fall
in the West that we inherit sin from Adam.
We inherited his guilt getting closemaybe to total depravity,
not quite that far yet, but getting more.
(07:22):
The fall is a big thing in the West.
In the East you have a bunch of viewsand it's still that way today.
Okay, so they recognize the fall,but some say we inherit
Adam's mortality,not his sin, but his mortality.
That would be a prominent viewamong the Eastern Orthodox today.
Others said this and that,
(07:44):
Pelagius, he would be well in the East.
He would be considered Orthodoxin his lifetime.
But his view of the fall is morewe've been influenced
and affected by Adam's sinbecause of his example and the teaching
that would have been handed downfrom a sinful parent to his children.
And we're raised now in a worldwhere sin is all around us,
(08:07):
but we don't inherit necessarilya sin nature from from.
Adam.
Now, that was perfectly orthodoxin the East.
But by now,because of the language barrier
to Augustine, that's like, wow, what?
What are you saying?That's heretical. Okay.
What are you saying?That's heretical. Okay.
Wow. Okay, okay, I'm starting to see it.
This is this is very interesting.
So Augustine comes into this situationand then that's where we're picking up
(08:31):
with what you were sayingwith these interpretations
that Augustine is presenting,that were pretty different.
changes everything. Okay.
So now play Pelagius, he'sactually from Britain.
He is a Westerner.
He's much more educated than Augustine.
He is fluent in Greek. He reads Greek.
He's familiarwith this wide range of views of the fall.
(08:53):
And he leans, like you say,to the eastern view, to the far
edge of the eastern view of,you know, the fall is mainly
the environment we're born into,being kicked out of Paradise, etc.
so he's preaching, boy,
I mean, you have you've had a state churchnow for nearly 100 years.
The word Christian means almost nothing.
(09:14):
It's I mean, everyone born into the RomanEmpire is a Christian,
you know, pretty muchunless you're Jew, pagan,
it's forbidden the pagan religions, etc..
So you have a church.
It's just made up of largely peoplewho are nominal Christians.
You have some really greatsold out Christians, but you mainly have
(09:35):
the nominal Christians that you still seetoday in the Roman Catholic Church.
Okay, so Pelagius, he's preaching
against this lax discipline,this lack of godliness,
and really emphasizingour need to obey the scriptures
because we can obey themand we are held accountable to God.
And he criticizes.
(09:55):
He's travelingnow throughout the Roman Empire,
preaching thisno nonsense of gospel of holiness.
And he foolishly,
although you should be able to do this,he criticizes Augustine because in his,
I guess it's called his Confessionsin English.
It's his autobiography.
(10:17):
In there he makes a statement, he'slooking at becoming a monk, maybe.
And so he.
Augustine makes a statement, commandwhatever
you will God, and do what you command.
Meaning.
In other words,if you want me to be celibate,
tell me to to be it,and then give me the power to do it.
You do it, you know you do it.
(10:38):
And Pelagius says, well,it doesn't work that way.
You know, God gives commands.
He assists us,but he doesn't just do it for us.
And so he criticized.
Well, AugustineI mean, he's up here on a pedestal.
I mean, you don't criticize Augustine,you know?
So right away, he and his friendJerome, boy, they they jump on Pelagius.
(10:59):
Well, now, Jerome at that time,he's from the West,
but he's living in Bethlehem.
He's studying, Hebrew.
So he,they convene a council against Pelagius.
Okay. They're in the East.
And, you know, the Eastern Christianslisten,
it's like you're not saying anythingheretical.
He's fine.And then he convenes another council.
(11:20):
They listen. Yeah.
What Pelagius says is fine ismaybe not what they all think, but it's.
It's within the realm of Orthodoxy.
Okay? Augustine is not happy with that.
So he convenes a council in Carthage,which is close to where he lives
way in the West.Okay. These are Latin speakers.
Don't know anything about Greek.
They don't even realize there's
this difference of viewbetween the East and West on the fall.
(11:40):
And so these are Augustine's buddies.
So they declare him a heretic, you know,so he's, you know, banned, excommunicated
and all of this in the, in the West,which is where he is from.
So he then appeals to the Pope,and he goes to Rome
and explains to the Pope his views,what his views
are of the falland our ability as fallen humans.
(12:04):
And you know how that all works.
And the Pope says, well, yeah,there's nothing wrong with this.
This is within the realm of Orthodoxy.
And he tellsthe ones that the bishops are in Carthage.
You guys overreacted.
You were too hasty in excommunicating him.
He restores him. Okay.
Now, if that had been just a normalsituation, it would have ended there.
(12:24):
But again, he's working against Augustine.
Augustine is the most powerful man
in the West,probably more than even the Emperor.
Okay, so he and the Emperor are friends.
So he goes over the pope’shead to the emperor and says,
you know,
I don't like what the Pope did,
(12:44):
Pelagius, I say he's wrong.
I need you to back me up.
So the emperor, you know,it's a state church now.
He puts pressure on the pope.
Okay, great.
Reinstate the excommunication.
So Pelagius is excommunicated. And,
maybe that would have ended. But
(13:05):
Augustine feels like.
Okay, there's all these peoplewho were following Pelagius.
All right, we've got to put a stop.
So he does all these writings against thequote Pelagians, but he moves their view,
he misrepresents their view, is saying
that we humansdon't need the help of the Holy Spirit.
Okay. So you see, we're looking atwe're starting it.
(13:26):
This is so interestingin human nature, right?
Because you you start with somethingthat may have been fairly mild initially,
but over timeit becomes a us versus them scenario.
And you almost get more entrenched.
And it sounds like this is whereAugustine starts taking some steps,
putting down some lines on some things.
and he starts moving.
So what he used to teach, you know,he maybe, you know, had crossed the line
(13:48):
a little bit on that statement.
You know, command what you will and,you know, do what you command.
Okay. That was just one statement.
Pledges probably should have left it alonewith if Augustine had been a humble
Christian,you know, no big deal, you know,
well, all the people who
criticized me, if I responded that way,man, I'm going to go to the Emperor.
And you know, you're if anybody doubts,just look at the comments
(14:11):
from other episodes we've done with you.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, so you should be ableto do that, you know, man.
And it was a mild criticism.
But like I sayyou don't do that to Augustine.
So he he does all these writingspulling from Romans.
Okay.
Like Romansthat we'll be talking about Romans
chapter nine and all these statementsthat you can proof text
(14:33):
trying to argue we and he moves.
His position was hereand he ends up moving all the way here.
He misrepresents
Pelagius is saying that we don't needGod's grace in his power at all.
We can do it all,which is not what Pelagius was saying.
But that's what people still think becausethey know Pelagius through Augustine.
Okay?
(14:53):
Meanwhile, Augustine keeps moving.
It's not just that.
No. You know,
we're not as strong as you think Pelagius.
It's.
He he finally moves to the point ofwe can do nothing.
We humans have no role in our salvation.
We cannot believe.
We can't have faith.
(15:14):
We cannot obey.
We are absolutely.
We have no role. It's all God.
God does every bit of it.
100% of our salvation is God.
0% is human.
Now that is heresy.
I mean, the church had never taught that,and if it had been anyone else saying it,
it would have been like, what on earthare you saying this is heresy?
(15:34):
But it's Agustine.
And I mean,he was like way up on a pedestal
because he had defended the churchagainst the Arians and against different,
you know, real heretics.
Yeah.
But now he'sthe one who becomes the heretic.
But yeah, he's so powerful.
I mean, he's so looked up to number one.
Number two,he has so many influential friends
(15:55):
in high places,including the emperor himself, you know,
so he moves the whole Western church,
where they end up adopting this view that,yeah, we can do nothing on our own.
It's 100% God.
Not only that, it's all predestined.
So not only do we not have any power,but God decided before we were created
(16:16):
whether you're going to be savedand I'm not going to be saved.
You know, we have no say on that.
That's already been decided.
Yes. So this is where we're startingto see the origins of
what would now be like Calvinism today.
And, you know, things like thatessentially is just purely it.
Calvin took Augustine.
(16:36):
He organized it maybe a little better.
Came up with a brilliant system.
And but yeah, it's almost pureAugustinian.
okay.
So I'm going to I'm going to look herein your introduction and, and pull a chunk
because this gives contextthen for some of these things.
So like for example on on the first page,you're saying, you know how
Augustine's presenting thisradically new interpretation of Romans
(16:57):
in your early fifth century.
So this is you're basically giving usthe backdrop of how we even got there.
right.
So you do have a section hereon, on page seven,
and then you're going intohow that influences Luther,
which is another huge chunkright of our understanding.
Right. Yeah. And then,
but this is a point that I wantto pull back to.
A little bit later on.
(17:18):
You said the church has had a uniformunderstanding of the key points of Romans
up to this point.
But then this is where we start seeingsome of these new things splintering out.
And really,a lot of this is just my perspective.
Right?
But I try to read Romansnow, and I feel like I have
so many different things that I've heard,I just can't even untangle it anymore.
So maybe walk us through
(17:39):
that a bit where there was you're sayingthere was a uniform understanding
or at least somewhat uniformunderstanding of Romans up to this point.
So if you were to summarizewhat is Romans about?
What did especially the Nicenefathers, the early church fathers
previous to Augustine?
What what would you say?
What would be the answer to or whatwould have they said is Romans all that?
(18:01):
okay.
So yeah, one so why
it was written, what the issue is
that if you just read the book of acts,it's, you know, people who weren't
influenced by Augustine and then laterby Luther, I mean, they all read it
and it was obviouswhat the context is, that the Jews,
the Christian Jews,are telling the Gentiles, look,
(18:24):
you have got to be circumcised and live
by the law of Moses to be saved.
You know, it's fine.
Okay, we baptize you, but at some pointyou've got to be circumcised.
You've got to live by the by the lawto be a Christian.
It's not.
You can't just come in.
You can maybe come in as a Gentile,but you're going to have to become a Jew
(18:45):
at some point, okay?
There's no salvationoutside the law of Moses.
And that's why they had the JerusalemCouncil.
Acts 15.
You know, the Jews are saying,you know, we've got to circumcise them
and make them live by the law of Mosesand all the apostles were there,
plus Paul and Barnabas, plus James.
And they say, no, the Jews, you know,
(19:06):
the Gentiles are saved, just like weby grace through faith in Christ.
You know,they don't have to live by the law.
They even send out a a letterto go to all the churches.
And you'd think that would end it.
But, I mean,the Jews were so adamant on this.
Now, to be fair to the Jews,I mean, think about it for 1500 years
(19:28):
God gave them the law.
They didn't make up this law.
God gave it to them.
And the promises.
You could easily read the Old Testamentand think, this is going to go on forever.
This law, and in their minds
even the law became so important,the rabbi started teaching it,
you know, it was in heavenfirst it came down from heaven.
(19:50):
And like, you know, the Torah existedbefore man was even created.
I mean, they really put iton a ridiculous pedestal.
But the point is, it was from God.
Jews had always lived this way.They were punished.
They were sent into exilebecause they weren't obeying the law.
So when they got back from exile,it was like,
man, we're going to obey this from now on.
And you know, no more idols, no more.
(20:12):
You know, we're going to keep the Sabbath,all of this stuff, you know?
So, yeah, this is all from God.
And it's suddenly like, whoa, whoa,you're saying now we don't have to live
this way, that you'rethe one who brought the Sabbath law?
We didn't make it up.
You're the one who said,
you know, you can't eat this kind of meatand that kind of meat.
You're the onewho gave us the law of circumcision.
(20:34):
We didn't make any of this up.
And now you're just pulling therug out from underneath us.
So you can understandwhy the Jews are like, this isn't fair.
That you mean these Gentiles?
They've been worshiping idols.
They've been living in immorality,and all they have to do
is just come have faith in Jesus, repent.
They're baptized.They're part of the church.
(20:56):
They don't have to live by the law.They can eat pork.
No circumcision, the Sabbath.
I mean, all of this.
It's like, well, this isn't fair, God.
You know, so they justI mean, Paul, everywhere
he goes, he's pushing against this,the Jewish Christians
trying to force the Gentilesto come under the law.
You see it in acts.
(21:16):
If you when you read Galatians, which waswritten before Romans, you see it there.
It was so strongthat even Peter and Barnabas, it was like,
whoa, we better just back off.
These Jews are so adamant on this.
It's just better not to make an issue hereat this point in time, you know?
And then Paul got real upset with himfor for doing that.
(21:37):
But yeah, Peter's like I'mwith the Jewish church in Jerusalem.
I've got to worry about their reaction.
And is it worth is this the, the the time
and place to say, okay, no,this is how it is.
Well, that led to then, okay,we need to have a, a, a conference
of all the, apostles, everybody,we need to make a definitive ruling.
(22:02):
But like you say, even though they didthat, the Jews wouldn't accept it.
They keep pushing.
So Paul in Galatians,he addressed it nicely.
But, in Romans he decides, okay,I'm going to take everything I said
in Galatians, and I'm going to expand itand really go into even more detail.
So Romans is, I don't know, maybe twiceas long as Galatians.
(22:24):
I'm just guessing, I don't know,
but yeah, he really goes into detail,
but that is what he is trying to onceand for all,
you know, destroy this ideathat Gentiles have to live by the law,
or that even JewishChristians have to live by the law.
So there's six key points,and I don't know him by memory,
(22:45):
so I'm going to just read them from herethat if you I call it his great argument.
So it's like in English it's 8000words long.
I mean, it's the longest sustainedtheological argument in the whole Bible.
See that that I did thisjust shows the ignorance right on my part,
because I never even realized that,like I'm reading through
(23:07):
through your introduction hereand you're just saying, you know, that.
Yeah,this this chunk text is like the longest
theological argument in the Bibleor in the New Testament.
I just never thought of that as as a chunkto, to, to untangle,
if that makes sense.
And it's not presented as a chunkand that was,
Well, I'll go into the history of thiscommentary in a little bit, but okay,
so his six points,you know, his thesis is neither Jews
(23:31):
nor Gentiles any longerhave to live under the law of Moses.
You know, we're saved by faith, by grace,
you know, through faith in Jesus Christ,through his blood.
It is no longer from the law of Moses.
So here's his six points that he develops.
All mankind lies guiltybefore God and needs salvation.
(23:52):
And by the way, I don't think
there's only one of these six pointsthat that is even controversial
today among Protestants,I mean, or even Catholics.
Okay.
Number two, the Law of Moses is unable
to save or justified Jews,let alone Gentiles.
Neither circumcision nor obedience tothe law of Moses are necessary any longer.
(24:15):
Okay.
Number threeall humans, Jews and Gentiles alike
are saved and justified only by God'sgrace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Okay, the law plays no part in salvation.
Number four,there is no partiality with God.
Jews and Gentilesstand as equals before him.
(24:37):
See the Jews were having trouble, we’llaccept the Gentiles, but not as equals.
And Paul is really hammering no, a Gentilewho is uncircumcised, who does not keep
the regulations of the law,but keeps the moral teaching of the law.
He is a real Jew, the Jew who is outwardly
a Jew and has,you know, the tassels and is circumcised
(24:59):
and does all these regulations,but doesn't have faith in Christ,
which means he isnot really keeping the law,
because here's the Messiah,and you've rejected him. He's not a Jew.
Paul is saying he is not a Jew.
Okay, so this is really radical.
Believing Jews and believing Gentiles
together make up the new Israel of God.
So God is now lookingnot at fleshly Israel,
(25:22):
but at an Israel that is made up
of Jews and Gentileswho are grafted in to the Jews,
which he's always allowedGentiles to join the Jews.
But now the Jews who rejectChrist are being lopped off.
He goes into that in chapter ten and 11.
Okay.
(25:42):
Now, this is somethingthat I had never caught in Romans.
That is all throughout it.
God has not been unfair to the Jews
in bestowinggrace and salvation on the Gentiles.
So you would ask, you know,you mentioned how complicated Romans is.
Okay.
One of the things that complicates isPaul starts developing these points
(26:06):
and he's realizing his Jewish brother,man, they're getting really, really mad.
So he has to keep coming back overand over again.
Number one, saying, hey, I'm a Jew myself
and I love I love the Jews so muchI would die for them.
I would be, you know, let Christ,you know, be cut off from Christ
if it would save the Jews, that’show much.
(26:26):
I so don't think I'm anti-Jewishand God hasn't been unfair.
You're saying God is unfairto let these Gentiles come in?
He is not unfair.
And he develops that argument.His last one.
This is the one where Protestants,many Protestants today, would reject.
But it's just as much a pointas these other five, whether we are Jews
(26:48):
or Gentiles, after our initial salvationby grace through faith,
God requires us to walk faithfullywith Christ,
producing godly fruitfor the remainder of our lives.
However, we do not do thissolely on our own strength,
for we have the empowermentof the Holy Spirit.
(27:10):
So there's one phase of salvation.
You know, when you comein, you don't have to have any works.
I mean, these Gentiles,I mean, think of the day of Pentecost.
Well, those were Jews, okay?
Think of the Philippian jailer. Okay?
I mean, this guy and he's just a pagan,you know, and a jailer at that,
I mean, he probably beat several people upthat day, was probably cursing.
(27:32):
He may have worshiped some falsegod that morning.
And then at midnight,you know, this earthquake happens
and, you know,he's quaking before Paul himself.
And what must I do in order to be saved?
Paul witnesses to him.
He believes he's baptized that night.
No works.
I mean, this guy is just filthright out of the Gentile world.
And boom!
(27:53):
Because he believes and repents.
He's baptized.
He is now acceptedand he's justified by by faith.
But now he has to live by Christteachings.
He can't go back to living the way he was.
So he saved by faith and grace.
But yeah,now he's a branch on the vine of Christ.
(28:13):
He has to produce godly fruit,and yet God will give him the power.
He's not on his own to do this.
But yeah, he doesn't go back to the sow
returning to the mud, or the dogto its vomit, you know, whatever.
So that's a big part of Paul's argument.
That is just as much a part of Romansas these other teachings.
(28:34):
Yeah.
That'sinteresting. I hadn't thought of that.
That last point,
before like so.
So I think what what we're seeing here,
there's a lot of contextthat Paul is writing out of that
that's pretty easy to missif we're not paying attention.
Is that is thatbecause that's one of the questions
I had is like, why does Romans feelso complicated to us today?
Is that because we've heardso many different ideas tossed around
(28:57):
and so many differenttheological frameworks,
or is it the way Paul is writing this,or is it the context of the times?
Like what?What's leading to all the confusion?
So it is both.
So we've heard these other interpretationsthat we've heard him
so many times when you start readingRomans, man, you hear Luther.
Whether you've ever read one of hiswritings or his teachings is everywhere.
And it's infiltrated the Anabaptists,you know, big time.
(29:20):
So it is really hard to to get the, youknow, free of, of your mind is part of it.
Now, I said, there's the six points.
It'd be so niceif Paul wrote like a Augustine.
See, Augustine is a Westerner.
He writes in Latin.
He thinks like a Westerner, and that'swhy he's so popular in the West.
He's easy to follow.
Paul is an Easterner.
(29:42):
He writes in Greek.
He does not think like a Westerner.
So the Greek writers,you know, in reading the early church,
I always loved the Western writerslike Tertullian, Lactantius and them.
Yeah, I can follow them.
You get into Origen,Clement of Alexandria,
I love them as people, you know, but,well, the way they attack a problem,
(30:03):
the Greek way was just differentthan the Western way.
There's, there's just you know,there's a difference there.
So Paul doesn't do one, two, three, four,five, six.
He does 1352, one four.
I mean he just keeps going.
He gets he starts with one,he ends with six.
But yeah I mean he's jumping all around.
(30:24):
So it's 16I mean like I sayit's it's all these different ones.
And he keeps repeating them.
So it's maybe 55344I meanit sounds like a musical thing, you know.
So that's where it is so confusing.
And we're I got so mentally fatigued,you know, I started this thing.
Well, now it's been like,
(30:46):
almost three years ago. Okay.
So I worked on it nearly a full year,
and I just reached a point where mentally,I just couldn't take it anymore.
It's like, I, I can understand
the early Christians,but I've got to put this back into Paul
and they're able to work through thisbecause they're Easterners
and they're writing in Greekand that sort of thing.
(31:09):
But I felt like I maybe understood it,but how how can I present this
to other people?
Because,I mean, it's it's got me so mixed up.
So I just I had to take a breakbecause I was about to go insane.
I thought I was going to pick itback up in six weeks,
and then it was so niceto not have to wrestle with Romans.
It went on
for actually a year and a half,and I just, stayed away from it.
(31:31):
And then it was,
a year ago at Kingdom FellowshipWeekend that at our book
table people, people kept saying,
whens the Romans commentarygoing to come out, David,
whens the Romans commentary and
and oh, well, I'm not sure, you know,because I knew in my mind I had decided
I'm just not going to finish it,you know, and, you know, put so much work.
And so then, you know, I talked withDeborah, my wife, you know, and it's like,
(31:52):
wow, maybe I should finish that thing,you know, how how long could it be?
You know, how long would it take,you know, to finish.
So having left it alone,when I got back in it,
it was a little bit more clear.
It was just good to to step away.
And then you come back to a problem,you know, after you've just left it,
left it alone a whileand it's as it becomes more clear.
(32:13):
And so I reread what I had writtenand it's like, okay, this is the
I had written like already eight versionsof this commentary by then.
You know, it's now this what you'rereading now is version something like 17.
Okay.
But I had already donelike eight versions of it.
Okay.
When I say eight versions, I don't meanthat each one is a totally new one.
(32:34):
Eight revisions.
So, you You know, wow,that is a lot to untangle here.
Okay. Yeah.
So so then I, I read it
and I okay, I kind of
see this, but now this will not make senseto anyone else.
I mean, if it's been this hard for me,
then anyone else readingthis is going to be okay.
We still don't get it. Okay.
(32:54):
So I, I went through,I don't know how many times I read Romans
during this process and after each,
let's say, section heading whatever,which are of course, man made.
He didn't write in chaptersand all of that.
Okay.
And sometimes the chapters helpand sometimes they confuse us because this
is man putting these chapter divisionsand he's not writing in any division.
(33:15):
It's one long argument, you know, andyou got to think of it as one argument.
And you start in your mind, dividing it upis, oh, now we're in chapter nine.
Like we're in a new thing.
No, Paul didn't make that chapter.
That's something, you know, a human did.
Okay. Robert Stephanos okay.
So, we are
what I'm
doing is reading throughand after each section,
(33:36):
the way it's divided into sectionsin the new King James.
But I'm not paying complete attention.
I'm following Paul's argument. Okay?
As as informed by the early Christians.
I've read them a bunch of times.
Okay, I see they're understanding Paul.
Okay. So okay,this is what they're saying.
And then I'm readingand then I write down, okay,
(33:57):
verses chapter two, versesone through ten.
He's talking about,you know, we all need salvation.
Okay.
Chapter two verses.
Whatever he's saying,Jews and Gentiles are equal.
So I'm making this long list.
I don't know, it's going to be six points.
I'm just making a list.
What's he saying?
So when I get done and I don't know howlong I spent on that a couple of weeks.
(34:20):
Then I look at my list
and I start realizing,okay, this one basically is the same here.
It's just a nuance of thisand I'm finally able to reduce it.
Okay, he really covers six main points.
Each one is a little nuance.
He says it a little different.
And like I say,they're not in any kind of perfect order.
(34:40):
But the yeah, I'm finally grasping.
Okay, I see Paul really,he knows where he's going with this.
He's arguing the Greek way,which is the Greek way, is
if we're talking about,like we're talking about Romans.
Okay.
And I say something about,
(35:02):
you know, okay, Paul wrote this, you know,Paul was from Tarsus, by the way.
You know, about Tarsus. It's it'sthis city, blah, blah, blah.
And then I go into thisbig thing about Tarsus.
That's how Greeks did something.
If if something is related in some wayto what they're talking about,
they feel like,oh, I better explain that a little bit.
So it's almost think of it almost likeweaving all these things in together.
(35:24):
Yeah.
Whereas maybe
a more Western Latin style would be like,hey, here's a checklist Yes.
And you go down logically.
The Greek is if there's a nexusyou follow that nexus.
So the way Origin describes it.
And he's not saying this in criticism.He loves Romans.
I mean to him, man,this is marvelous book because of course
Origin thinks, you know, in thishe loves complicated arguments.
(35:47):
So here's the way he describes it.
He says, ImaginePaul is your guide and he's taking you
through this magnificent palace of,you know, the emperor.
Okay?
And he leads you through the doorof, of a bedroom, let's say.
And you go into this parlorand it's, all these amazing things,
but you don't get to stay there very long
and he takes you out through another door,
(36:09):
and then you'rein some little hidden passageway,
and then he opens another door, and nowyou're in another room and it's like,
wow, this room is amazing to, you know,and you start looking around.
But then in a few minutes,he takes you out another door
and, and then you're in another room,you know.
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
instead of going,you know, this, this kind of order, he's
(36:31):
he gives you a little bit of a taste ofsomething, and then he immediately goes to
another point, you know,which is a brilliant point.
And, oh, that's wonderful.
But then he doesn't just stay there.
He, he, he goes to another.
So you're going through this palace
and by the time you're done,you've gone through the whole palace.
But it's been in this door, out this door.
Kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
(36:52):
Oh, wow. Okay.
And and then it leaves people like myselffeeling a little confused
because it's like, I'm not even surewhat to do with all of this. Yeah.
And this is Augustine’s problem.
He's a Westerner. He doesn't understandthe Greek way of thinking.
He can't read Greek.
He's trying to make sense as a Westerner.
And so, yeah, we can't do that.
I mean, we can't get away from the factwe think as Westerners.
(37:14):
But yeah, we have to realizePaul isn't writing as a Westerner,
and he's he thinks the way a Greek,
thinker, approaches things.
And we've got to give credit to that.
We have to get back into that world.
We can't try to bring himinto the 21st century.
We have to get back into Paul's worldand not some imaginary world.
(37:36):
Look at how the Christians who livedright after Paul.
How did they understand this book?
I mean, the most amazing thing we haveis in the year
it's either 96 or 97.
We have the letter,it's usually called First Clement
because apparently the one who pennedit was Clement.
(37:57):
He was an elder in the Church of Rome.
But the letter isfrom all the elders in Rome.
Now you remember this is Romans.
The letter from Paulwas to the church in Rome
before the first century is over.
We have a letter from those eldersin Rome.
They're writing to the church in Corinth.
Okay.
Unfortunately,they're not discussing Romans.
(38:20):
It would solve everything.
They're dealing with.
They're having dissension in Corinth.
And so that's why they're writingthe Corinthians, to encourage them to.
Hey, look, we got to get our act together.
It's better to give way, gelassenheitwould be the Anabaptist
word, you know, instead of insistingon having your own way and all that.
(38:41):
But in there, they touch on subjectsthat are covered in Romans.
So you can see how the elderswere understanding some of these
basic concepts.
And they are not understanding itthe way Luther or Augustine, either one,
the things they say, you know, you can seethat they're being informed by Romans
because they state some of the samethings. You know, we're saved by,
(39:03):
grace,you know, through faith in Jesus Christ.
But then the next paragraph, you know,
we have to walk worthilyif we're going to be saved in the end.
That's in Romans two.
And, you know, in chapter two of Romans
and you can see, okay,this is how they're understanding it.
And then you just go from there.
I mean, you've got other writings,you know, Justin Martyr
and other ones, Ignatius,all the way up and like, say,
(39:26):
all the way till you get tothe fifth century, even Augustine,
they're all sayingbasically the same thing.
And then because of this overreaction,everything changes.
And because you have a state church,if you didn't have a state church.
You would have been like, okay, well,we don't agree with you, Augustine.
You know, you can do what you want,but we don't agree with you.
(39:46):
But when you got to say churchwith an army, yeah,
they can not only excommunicate you,they banished you.
I mean, Pelagiusdidn't just get communicated.
Yeah.
The soldiers took him and he got banishedto the edge of the empire, you know?
And you better be.
Stay here and be quiet,or that's the end, you know?
So, yeah.
Augustinewins through the force of, of arms.
(40:07):
So it's.
But it's so amazing we can goback, actually, to the first century
and get their thought processesfrom the elders in Rome itself. Wow.
Yeah that's really interesting.
Like I, so as you were working onthis commentary, this is not
you wouldn'treally say this is a commentary you wrote.
(40:29):
It's more going throughwhat the early church was saying
and pulling those piecesinto a single place, essentially.
Like you're not engaging with a lot ofthe more recent scholarship, Not at all.
No, no, I didn't in fact,I didn't even read those guys.
I did not want to be influenced by them.
I, I wanted to justwhat did they say back then?
(40:51):
And so I just looked at, like you say,the early Christian writings, of course.
Then I looked at Augustine, okay,
I had done this before because, you know,it's like, why did things change?
And I'd read Augustine, you know,
these writings against the Pelagiansyou know, 40 years ago
and of course, had read Luther as well.
(41:12):
So I was I was aware of, of those changes,but I thought,
I knew there were modern, scholars who,
is called like,
what is it, the new Paul, the new,there's a number of different ones, Yeah,
yeah, of how they put it, the,new understanding of Paul.
And so when I was through,when I finish this,
(41:35):
I thought, I want to read these guysto see what they're saying.
And in case.
Yeah, I need to relook at some,but I don't
really want to be influenced by thembecause, yeah, this is what they believed
back then, you know, now I put it in easyfor a Westerner to understand.
You know, I don't just havea bunch of early Christian quotes.
I do try to, you know,put their arguments in a way that,
(41:57):
you know, you and I can understandit, you know, because I saw
how hard it was even for me, like, say,wrestling with this.
But it is interesting. Yeah.
The new perspective on Paul,is a whole lot closer to the early church.
It's not exactly the same,but it's a whole lot closer.
It's a welcome.
Wow. I'm glad some people are.
Yeah.
(42:17):
Finally standing up to Luther and saying,hey, you know, maybe Luther,
overreacted, misread Paul misrepresentedwhat Paul is saying.
So that's.
Yeah, that's very encouraging to me that.
Yeah, some people are doing that now.
The new perspective doesn'trely as much on the early Christians.
Unfortunately.
What they did was let's see what the Jewswere saying in the first century.
(42:42):
Yeah.
And and we're reading Paulas a response to the Jews.
And, Luther was misrepresenting the Jewsin their mind anyway.
And so he's, he's he's misreading Paulbecause he's misrepresenting the Jews.
Okay.
So they're saying this is what the Jewsreally believed in the first century.
And Paul is counteringthat which in the end,
(43:06):
it gets back to very similarto what the early Christians were saying.
But I'm very disappointed.
It's like, why do you go to the Jewsand not go to the early Christians?
I mean, to me, that's the elephant inthe room is like, wow, you've got, the
elders in Rome in the first century who,you know, touch on many of these topics.
You don't go to them.
You go to see what the Jews were,were believing.
But nevertheless, it'sstill it brings scholarship
(43:29):
a lot closer to whatthe early Christians were, were saying.
And yeah, once you see it,
like you say, just finding the light bulb,I mean,
but it did take like to say it wasit was a lot of work.
But what then when the light bulb cameon, it's like, hey,
this book isn't so terribly difficult.
And that's why I hope
(43:50):
I know it will take a lot of readingbecause, you know, now it's clear to me.
But, I mean, it was a,you know, like, say a year.
And then it took anothersix months of intense work
and I would start right after breakfastand I would work till ten at night,
six days a week,you know, breaking for supper,
you know, and a little devotional timerelaxation at 10:00 at night, you know.
(44:13):
But yeah, it was really intenseto, to get through this. So,
it is
without a doubt the hardest bookof the New Testament to understand outside
of the apocalyptic part of revelation inwhich everyone is going to have their own.
But it's it is the hardest book.
And yeah, I'll let you talk.
I'm going, I'm going.
(44:34):
Not giving you a chance to say anythingThat's great.
So I think what you're,
maybe advocating for or whateveryou want to call it
is that historic snapshot of what waswhat was the church saying at the time.
Let's let's look at them.
Let's pull a slice of, of that.
And, and how does that help usunderstand what Paul.
And so if you're talking, Clementof Alexandria or, you know, first Clement
(44:57):
being written in 96 or 97 and, you know,Romans was written, what year was that?
About 50, 55.
Some might put it later.
60. Probably not as late, but but yeah,within 30 to 40 years of Romans itself
being written.
So you're saying,you know, like that proximity to Paul.
There's a lot of value there.We should be paying attention to it.
And that's why you just put a lot of workinto compiling that.
(45:20):
And that's pretty neat.
You know, I thinkI think you're on to something there.
Yeah, Yeah. It's terriblethat it's been ignored.
I mean, that people and they praiseAugustine, Oh, yeah, Augustine.
And yeah, finally someone with insightand it's like,
what's you think all of these,these people who were personally
taught by the apostles,who were part of that generation, that,
oh, they don't understand that, but,a Westerner who doesn't even read
(45:44):
Greek, who's, you know, counteracting,who changes
his own view to counteract somebodybecause he's in this personal feud.
That's absurd, you know,and you come up with this doctrine
that it's all predestined,that we do nothing in our salvation.
So why does Jesus even botherto preach the sermon on the Mount?
We can't live that, you know,if we do it because God does it.
(46:06):
And it's like theI mean, it's a terrible overreaction,
but and people think todaypeople associate Augustine, you know,
with Calvin and with Protestantism,they don't get it in their hands.
This was Roman Catholic theology.
This was the Roman Catholic Churchwho promoted Augustine,
who made himthe father of the Roman Catholic Church.
(46:28):
It was Roman Catholic councilsthat, you know, condemned
Pelagius and made Augustine's view,you know, become the official view
of the Roman Catholic Church.That's the irony.
This is Roman Catholic doctrinethat, you know, then worked its way
into the Reformationand and all of that which would have been
through Luther, Calvin.
(46:49):
And so I've.
Yeah,I guess I never thought of that before.
Yeah.
well, Luther was an Augustinian monk, so.
Yeah,his whole basis was built on Augustine.
He goes just a little further.
Now, Augustine's bigpoint is we don't do anything,
and God's going to be mad at usif we said that we obeyed.
And it's like, you know,he doesn't want you to take credit.
(47:11):
He wants all the creditbecause you didn't do anything.
You know, to Augustine,that's the big thing.
You take credit for nothing. To Luther.
Yeah, that's true.
But more importantly,that it's faith alone.
And if you think works play any rolein this, then that's works righteousness.
And wow, you're outside of Christianitynow, see, Augustine
(47:32):
had no issue with works,His point was God does the works.
Yeah. You just need to recognize youdidn't do those.
You might think you did,but it was really God working through you.
But yeah, I mean,he didn't have any negativity on works.
It was Luther who made works a negative,you know, term.
And that has influenced so many people.
So, yeah, it,
(47:54):
to me it was just excitingwhen the light bulb, you know,
finally came on, it's like,
okay, I've got to be able to put thiswhere other people.
Yeah, can can get the same benefitthat that I did without having to spend,
you know, a year and a half, two years,
you know, working through all of these,these writings and that sort of thing.
So yeah, hopefullythat's what I've been able to, to do to.
(48:15):
Yeah, some degree anyway.
So, so as we tie all the pieces together
Romans is an intimidating book right.
We've been saying how it's, it'scomplicated.
It's hard to get our minds around.
What would you say as an encouragementto leave with our listeners to
dig into that book,to dig back into into God's
(48:36):
word, into the book of Romans and,and read it for themselves.
What would you sayto encourage them? Okay.
so I just a waythat'll make it easier to understand it
correctlyif I had to give someone a recommendation,
it would be startwith the sermon on the Mount.
Read the sermon on the Mount.
I mean, just clear your mindof everything else
you've heard about salvationand everything else.
Just read the sermon on the Mount.What did Jesus say? Okay,
(49:00):
read the book of acts.
What was happening in actswhen Paul preached?
We have some of his sermons to people.
I mean, where he's presenting the gospel.
How did Paul present the gospel to peoplewhen he was preaching?
What were the things he was workingagainst in the book of acts?
Okay, then.
Okay.
You ready to to go into Paul, read,I would probably say read
(49:23):
James first because James is very clear.
He he's still a Greek writer,
but he reasons more like a Westernerand he's very easy to understand.
Read James to make sure you're getting,you know, the whole perspective.
But then read Galatiansas a shortened version of Romans.
(49:43):
Now don't read Galatiansthrough Luther's eyes.
Just read the book.
It's what, five chapters or whateverit is.
He makes the same points.
But Galatians to me is a pretty easy book.
I mean, the context is really clear.
He's talking about the mosaic lawthat the Jews were trying
to force the Gentiles,you know, to live by the law.
They wouldn't eat with them, etc.
he shows that there's a, these thingsin the Old Testament
(50:06):
prefigured the, the church and,and the unbelieving Jews.
And then he goes intohow we must live as Christians.
It's the same thing he does in Romans.
But Romans is is a lot more complicated.
So if you've got Galatians down, then,then yeah, go through Romans,
use the commentary as, as an aid,you know, let the people who spoke
(50:27):
the same Greekas Paul, who lived in that culture,
who thought like him, yeah,take advantage of their of their insights.
They're not inspired.
But yeah,they at least like, say, thought like him.
And it's amazing
because these are just a scatteredgroup of people, some speaking Latin,
some speaking Greek, some living in Egypt,some living in Europe,
(50:47):
and they're all saying the same thing,you know?
So that's what's really reassuring.
And it was a United church.
I mean, before it was a state church,you had one church.
So they were all able to agree,which today nobody can.
But you had a period thereof nearly 300 years without a state church
when you had one churchthat all Christians just about
(51:08):
were able to agree on what the scripturesmean, which to me shows
they had the Holy Spirit.
You don't have that kind of unitywithout the Holy Spirit, you know,
unless you have the sword,which is a totally different thing.
Yeah.
So thanks for thanks for sharingall of this.
I'm really hoping this episodewill encourage people to give Romans
another read.
And I think what you were outlining thereof other context
(51:30):
to read, like reading Galatians,first things like that.
I think that's that's really helpful
because it's a big chunkto take all at once.
it is it help me.
I don't know how many times I readGalatians when I was working on Romans,
because there's so many parallelsand I realize, man, Galatians, I can,
I can, I can grasp it,you know, and he's saying the same things.
But yeah, he's just saying it in a muchmore detailed, complicated way in Romans.
(51:52):
Yeah. Hmhmm.
Wow. Well, thank you so muchfor coming on the podcast, David.
This is this is there's a lotwe there's a lot, a lot to unpack here.
So yeah, I really hope this inspirespeople to to dig
back into God's word and,and give it another shot. So.
All right. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for listening to this episodewith David Bercot.
We've had him on the podcastseveral other times, and you might find
(52:15):
the episode we did with himabout how he was an Anglican priest.
Interesting.
And you can find thatlinked in the description below.
If you like this podcast,leave us a rating and review.
It really does helpmore people find this content.
And of course you can find everything
we've made over on our websiteat anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks againand we'll see you in the next episode.
Imagine Paul is your guide and he's taking you
through this magnificent palace of,you know, the emperor.
Okay?
And he leads you through the doorof, of a bedroom, let's say.
And you go into this parlorand it's, all these amazing things,
but you don't get to stay there very long
and he takes you out through another door,
and then you'rein some little hidden passageway,
(00:22):
and then he opens another door, and nowyou're in another room and it's like,
wow, this room is amazing to, you know,and you start looking around.
But then in a few minutes,he takes you out another door
and, and then you're in another room,you know.
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
instead of going,you know, this, this kind of order, he's
(00:42):
he gives you a little bit of a taste ofsomething, and then he immediately goes to
another point, you know,which is a brilliant point.
And, oh, that's wonderful.
But then he doesn't just stay there.
He, he, he goes to another.
He, he, he goes to another.
So you're going through this palace
and by the time you're done,you've gone through the whole palace.
But it's been in this door, out this door.
Kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
(01:07):
All right,
well, David Bercot, it is fantasticto have you back on the podcast.
It's been a minute since we've done this.
Yeah.
So you have launchedprobably the biggest project
I think you've done,and that's the commentary series.
So New Testament commentary seriesbased on the Ante-Nicene fathers,
the early Church fathers, and a new volumejust came out pretty recently.
(01:28):
As of this recording, it'sthe one on Romans.
And I have to say,Romans is a pretty confusing book for me.
Hey, I really struggle with it,and I feel there’s
probably a lot of other peoplein that same boat.
So we want to dive intosome of the things you found
and what are lessons for us today,and maybe glean some pieces that
that you've pulled.
And obviously there's
this massive commentarythat you've pulled from from all of this.
(01:49):
And so people can go get thereif they want more information, but
I feel like that'd be a good placeto start.
So, without further ado,let's just launch right into it.
Let me go to the first question here.
You creditwhat you consider the misinterpretation
of Romans to be the writings of Augustineand Luther?
And then you say thisin, I think, the introduction, Augustine
presented his radically new interpretationof Romans in the fifth century.
(02:13):
Why do you think that was the case?
Why did why did Augustine do that?
And what was that interpretation?
Okay, so
yeah, the whys are a little bit harder.
But how it happened I can explain, youknow, as far as whys, I mean, you know,
I can't read somebody's heart or mind,but how how it all happened,
it was reacting so much of Christianity,
(02:36):
the changes have come aboutbecause of overreacting to
an out and out heretic, or just someone,maybe, who's gone a little bit too far
this way, and then somebodyI'm going to say with a good motive swings
way too far the other way, and they end uppulling the church with them.
And that's happened over and overand over throughout church history.
(02:58):
And it's how doctrine has
one of the big reasons why doctrine haschanged as you go through through history.
It's not the only reason, butbut I'd say is maybe the biggest factor.
So in the fifth century,
up untilthe beginning of the fifth century.
So we're talking about the year 400.
It's fairly uniform.
I mean, whoever you read, whether it'speople say in the year 96 A.D.
(03:21):
still in the first centuryor it's Chrysostom in the late,
three hundreds,I mean, they're all saying basically
the same thing, that they all understandRomans the same way.
Now, I don't mean every single verse.They have the same explanation.
But but the book as a whole.
Okay.
So then
(03:41):
you get into the,
fifth century and Augustine
has become this figure in the West.
He's up on this pedestal.
He is the theologian, which is alwaysdangerous when that happens in the church.
And one man gets that much power.
(04:02):
And Augustine was that man.
He's he's brilliant.
I mean, he is very goodwith his argumentation.
I mean, his writings are still read todayby people other than scholars.
You know, someone like Chrysostom,you know, no one reads him except somebody
who's, you know,
really into the early church or is,you know, some scholarly thing.
(04:23):
But I mean, laypeople read Augustineand he is very clear
with his logic and how he lays things out.
And yeah, when you get that exalted
where everybody looks up to youas the guy.
And what had happenedwas the East and West,
the Roman Empire was dividedinto East and West,
(04:44):
and now the barbarianswere overrunning the west.
Okay.
And you see a dividebetween east and west, the west.
There are few peoplewho speak Greek in the, in the west.
Now, in the days of Paul,he could write to the Romans.
When he wrote the book of Romans,he wrote in Greek.
Okay, so we're saying at this point, Latinis starting to be much more prominent.
(05:06):
Greek, which is the languageof the New Testament. Right?
Okay.
Because we're a few hundred yearsafter the time of Jesus.
You know, Augustine is writing,you said around 400.
Yeah. Is that right?
Yeah. He he he wrote things before 400.
But he changed his view on Romans
in the fifth century.
Yeah, his early writings.
He's pretty much in harmonywith everyone else.
But then in the fifth century,
and it was because of a disputewith a man named Pelagius.
(05:29):
Okay.
A divide is beginning to happenbetween East and West
on the understanding of the fall.
Because the West is reading from Latin.
By the timeyou get into the three hundreds
and certainly by the year 400, very,very few
laypeople in the West can read Greek,even educated people like Augustine.
(05:53):
He has some familiarity,but he's not fluent in Greek.
Okay, so they're reading a translationthat has an error in it
that states that, we all sin in Adam.
Okay? Which is not what the Greek says.
This is Romans five were ittalks about the fall through one man sin
entered into the world and deaththrough sin, because in him all sinned.
(06:18):
That's how the Latin reads.
So we all sinned somehow in Adam.
So this view begins to develop in the Westthat we are guilty for Adam's sin.
The guilt comes down to us.
Okay, interesting now is
which Latin translation is being usedthat had that error then?
Well, it's called the old Latin.
(06:38):
It's something that would have beentranslated maybe in the first century
and there wasn't an official
there's different versions,but they're all saying that, okay.
Now Jeromeis beginning to work on the Latin Vulgate.
It had not yet become the maintranslation, and he follows that too.
It was so ingrained in the West,he follows that in his translation,
(07:00):
even though he's translatingfrom the Greek, he is, you know,
aware of how Latin speaking Christiansare understanding the scriptures.
Okay, so so you have one view of the fall
in the West that we inherit sin from Adam.
We inherited his guilt getting closemaybe to total depravity,
not quite that far yet, but getting more.
(07:22):
The fall is a big thing in the West.
In the East you have a bunch of viewsand it's still that way today.
Okay, so they recognize the fall,but some say we inherit
Adam's mortality,not his sin, but his mortality.
That would be a prominent viewamong the Eastern Orthodox today.
Others said this and that,
(07:44):
Pelagius, he would be well in the East.
He would be considered Orthodoxin his lifetime.
But his view of the fall is morewe've been influenced
and affected by Adam's sinbecause of his example and the teaching
that would have been handed downfrom a sinful parent to his children.
And we're raised now in a worldwhere sin is all around us,
(08:07):
but we don't inherit necessarilya sin nature from from.
Adam.
Now, that was perfectly orthodoxin the East.
But by now,because of the language barrier
to Augustine, that's like, wow, what?
What are you saying?That's heretical. Okay.
What are you saying?That's heretical. Okay.
Wow. Okay, okay, I'm starting to see it.
This is this is very interesting.
So Augustine comes into this situationand then that's where we're picking up
(08:31):
with what you were sayingwith these interpretations
that Augustine is presenting,that were pretty different.
changes everything. Okay.
So now play Pelagius, he'sactually from Britain.
He is a Westerner.
He's much more educated than Augustine.
He is fluent in Greek. He reads Greek.
He's familiarwith this wide range of views of the fall.
(08:53):
And he leans, like you say,to the eastern view, to the far
edge of the eastern view of,you know, the fall is mainly
the environment we're born into,being kicked out of Paradise, etc.
so he's preaching, boy,
I mean, you have you've had a state churchnow for nearly 100 years.
The word Christian means almost nothing.
(09:14):
It's I mean, everyone born into the RomanEmpire is a Christian,
you know, pretty muchunless you're Jew, pagan,
it's forbidden the pagan religions, etc..
So you have a church.
It's just made up of largely peoplewho are nominal Christians.
You have some really greatsold out Christians, but you mainly have
(09:35):
the nominal Christians that you still seetoday in the Roman Catholic Church.
Okay, so Pelagius, he's preaching
against this lax discipline,this lack of godliness,
and really emphasizingour need to obey the scriptures
because we can obey themand we are held accountable to God.
And he criticizes.
(09:55):
He's travelingnow throughout the Roman Empire,
preaching thisno nonsense of gospel of holiness.
And he foolishly,
although you should be able to do this,he criticizes Augustine because in his,
I guess it's called his Confessionsin English.
It's his autobiography.
(10:17):
In there he makes a statement, he'slooking at becoming a monk, maybe.
And so he.
Augustine makes a statement, commandwhatever
you will God, and do what you command.
Meaning.
In other words,if you want me to be celibate,
tell me to to be it,and then give me the power to do it.
You do it, you know you do it.
(10:38):
And Pelagius says, well,it doesn't work that way.
You know, God gives commands.
He assists us,but he doesn't just do it for us.
And so he criticized.
Well, AugustineI mean, he's up here on a pedestal.
I mean, you don't criticize Augustine,you know?
So right away, he and his friendJerome, boy, they they jump on Pelagius.
(10:59):
Well, now, Jerome at that time,he's from the West,
but he's living in Bethlehem.
He's studying, Hebrew.
So he,they convene a council against Pelagius.
Okay. They're in the East.
And, you know, the Eastern Christianslisten,
it's like you're not saying anythingheretical.
He's fine.And then he convenes another council.
(11:20):
They listen. Yeah.
What Pelagius says is fine ismaybe not what they all think, but it's.
It's within the realm of Orthodoxy.
Okay? Augustine is not happy with that.
So he convenes a council in Carthage,which is close to where he lives
way in the West.Okay. These are Latin speakers.
Don't know anything about Greek.
They don't even realize there's
this difference of viewbetween the East and West on the fall.
(11:40):
And so these are Augustine's buddies.
So they declare him a heretic, you know,so he's, you know, banned, excommunicated
and all of this in the, in the West,which is where he is from.
So he then appeals to the Pope,and he goes to Rome
and explains to the Pope his views,what his views
are of the falland our ability as fallen humans.
(12:04):
And you know how that all works.
And the Pope says, well, yeah,there's nothing wrong with this.
This is within the realm of Orthodoxy.
And he tellsthe ones that the bishops are in Carthage.
You guys overreacted.
You were too hasty in excommunicating him.
He restores him. Okay.
Now, if that had been just a normalsituation, it would have ended there.
(12:24):
But again, he's working against Augustine.
Augustine is the most powerful man
in the West,probably more than even the Emperor.
Okay, so he and the Emperor are friends.
So he goes over the pope’shead to the emperor and says,
you know,
I don't like what the Pope did,
(12:44):
Pelagius, I say he's wrong.
I need you to back me up.
So the emperor, you know,it's a state church now.
He puts pressure on the pope.
Okay, great.
Reinstate the excommunication.
So Pelagius is excommunicated. And,
maybe that would have ended. But
(13:05):
Augustine feels like.
Okay, there's all these peoplewho were following Pelagius.
All right, we've got to put a stop.
So he does all these writings against thequote Pelagians, but he moves their view,
he misrepresents their view, is saying
that we humansdon't need the help of the Holy Spirit.
Okay. So you see, we're looking atwe're starting it.
(13:26):
This is so interestingin human nature, right?
Because you you start with somethingthat may have been fairly mild initially,
but over timeit becomes a us versus them scenario.
And you almost get more entrenched.
And it sounds like this is whereAugustine starts taking some steps,
putting down some lines on some things.
and he starts moving.
So what he used to teach, you know,he maybe, you know, had crossed the line
(13:48):
a little bit on that statement.
You know, command what you will and,you know, do what you command.
Okay. That was just one statement.
Pledges probably should have left it alonewith if Augustine had been a humble
Christian,you know, no big deal, you know,
well, all the people who
criticized me, if I responded that way,man, I'm going to go to the Emperor.
And you know, you're if anybody doubts,just look at the comments
(14:11):
from other episodes we've done with you.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, so you should be ableto do that, you know, man.
And it was a mild criticism.
But like I sayyou don't do that to Augustine.
So he he does all these writingspulling from Romans.
Okay.
Like Romansthat we'll be talking about Romans
chapter nine and all these statementsthat you can proof text
(14:33):
trying to argue we and he moves.
His position was hereand he ends up moving all the way here.
He misrepresents
Pelagius is saying that we don't needGod's grace in his power at all.
We can do it all,which is not what Pelagius was saying.
But that's what people still think becausethey know Pelagius through Augustine.
Okay?
(14:53):
Meanwhile, Augustine keeps moving.
It's not just that.
No. You know,
we're not as strong as you think Pelagius.
It's.
He he finally moves to the point ofwe can do nothing.
We humans have no role in our salvation.
We cannot believe.
We can't have faith.
(15:14):
We cannot obey.
We are absolutely.
We have no role. It's all God.
God does every bit of it.
100% of our salvation is God.
0% is human.
Now that is heresy.
I mean, the church had never taught that,and if it had been anyone else saying it,
it would have been like, what on earthare you saying this is heresy?
(15:34):
But it's Agustine.
And I mean,he was like way up on a pedestal
because he had defended the churchagainst the Arians and against different,
you know, real heretics.
Yeah.
But now he'sthe one who becomes the heretic.
But yeah, he's so powerful.
I mean, he's so looked up to number one.
Number two,he has so many influential friends
(15:55):
in high places,including the emperor himself, you know,
so he moves the whole Western church,
where they end up adopting this view that,yeah, we can do nothing on our own.
It's 100% God.
Not only that, it's all predestined.
So not only do we not have any power,but God decided before we were created
(16:16):
whether you're going to be savedand I'm not going to be saved.
You know, we have no say on that.
That's already been decided.
Yes. So this is where we're startingto see the origins of
what would now be like Calvinism today.
And, you know, things like thatessentially is just purely it.
Calvin took Augustine.
(16:36):
He organized it maybe a little better.
Came up with a brilliant system.
And but yeah, it's almost pureAugustinian.
okay.
So I'm going to I'm going to look herein your introduction and, and pull a chunk
because this gives contextthen for some of these things.
So like for example on on the first page,you're saying, you know how
Augustine's presenting thisradically new interpretation of Romans
(16:57):
in your early fifth century.
So this is you're basically giving usthe backdrop of how we even got there.
right.
So you do have a section hereon, on page seven,
and then you're going intohow that influences Luther,
which is another huge chunkright of our understanding.
Right. Yeah. And then,
but this is a point that I wantto pull back to.
A little bit later on.
(17:18):
You said the church has had a uniformunderstanding of the key points of Romans
up to this point.
But then this is where we start seeingsome of these new things splintering out.
And really,a lot of this is just my perspective.
Right?
But I try to read Romansnow, and I feel like I have
so many different things that I've heard,I just can't even untangle it anymore.
So maybe walk us through
(17:39):
that a bit where there was you're sayingthere was a uniform understanding
or at least somewhat uniformunderstanding of Romans up to this point.
So if you were to summarizewhat is Romans about?
What did especially the Nicenefathers, the early church fathers
previous to Augustine?
What what would you say?
What would be the answer to or whatwould have they said is Romans all that?
(18:01):
okay.
So yeah, one so why
it was written, what the issue is
that if you just read the book of acts,it's, you know, people who weren't
influenced by Augustine and then laterby Luther, I mean, they all read it
and it was obviouswhat the context is, that the Jews,
the Christian Jews,are telling the Gentiles, look,
(18:24):
you have got to be circumcised and live
by the law of Moses to be saved.
You know, it's fine.
Okay, we baptize you, but at some pointyou've got to be circumcised.
You've got to live by the by the lawto be a Christian.
It's not.
You can't just come in.
You can maybe come in as a Gentile,but you're going to have to become a Jew
(18:45):
at some point, okay?
There's no salvationoutside the law of Moses.
And that's why they had the JerusalemCouncil.
Acts 15.
You know, the Jews are saying,you know, we've got to circumcise them
and make them live by the law of Mosesand all the apostles were there,
plus Paul and Barnabas, plus James.
And they say, no, the Jews, you know,
(19:06):
the Gentiles are saved, just like weby grace through faith in Christ.
You know,they don't have to live by the law.
They even send out a a letterto go to all the churches.
And you'd think that would end it.
But, I mean,the Jews were so adamant on this.
Now, to be fair to the Jews,I mean, think about it for 1500 years
(19:28):
God gave them the law.
They didn't make up this law.
God gave it to them.
And the promises.
You could easily read the Old Testamentand think, this is going to go on forever.
This law, and in their minds
even the law became so important,the rabbi started teaching it,
you know, it was in heavenfirst it came down from heaven.
(19:50):
And like, you know, the Torah existedbefore man was even created.
I mean, they really put iton a ridiculous pedestal.
But the point is, it was from God.
Jews had always lived this way.They were punished.
They were sent into exilebecause they weren't obeying the law.
So when they got back from exile,it was like,
man, we're going to obey this from now on.
And you know, no more idols, no more.
(20:12):
You know, we're going to keep the Sabbath,all of this stuff, you know?
So, yeah, this is all from God.
And it's suddenly like, whoa, whoa,you're saying now we don't have to live
this way, that you'rethe one who brought the Sabbath law?
We didn't make it up.
You're the one who said,
you know, you can't eat this kind of meatand that kind of meat.
You're the onewho gave us the law of circumcision.
(20:34):
We didn't make any of this up.
And now you're just pulling therug out from underneath us.
So you can understandwhy the Jews are like, this isn't fair.
That you mean these Gentiles?
They've been worshiping idols.
They've been living in immorality,and all they have to do
is just come have faith in Jesus, repent.
They're baptized.They're part of the church.
(20:56):
They don't have to live by the law.They can eat pork.
No circumcision, the Sabbath.
I mean, all of this.
It's like, well, this isn't fair, God.
You know, so they justI mean, Paul, everywhere
he goes, he's pushing against this,the Jewish Christians
trying to force the Gentilesto come under the law.
You see it in acts.
(21:16):
If you when you read Galatians, which waswritten before Romans, you see it there.
It was so strongthat even Peter and Barnabas, it was like,
whoa, we better just back off.
These Jews are so adamant on this.
It's just better not to make an issue hereat this point in time, you know?
And then Paul got real upset with himfor for doing that.
(21:37):
But yeah, Peter's like I'mwith the Jewish church in Jerusalem.
I've got to worry about their reaction.
And is it worth is this the, the the time
and place to say, okay, no,this is how it is.
Well, that led to then, okay,we need to have a, a, a conference
of all the, apostles, everybody,we need to make a definitive ruling.
(22:02):
But like you say, even though they didthat, the Jews wouldn't accept it.
They keep pushing.
So Paul in Galatians,he addressed it nicely.
But, in Romans he decides, okay,I'm going to take everything I said
in Galatians, and I'm going to expand itand really go into even more detail.
So Romans is, I don't know, maybe twiceas long as Galatians.
(22:24):
I'm just guessing, I don't know,
but yeah, he really goes into detail,
but that is what he is trying to onceand for all,
you know, destroy this ideathat Gentiles have to live by the law,
or that even JewishChristians have to live by the law.
So there's six key points,and I don't know him by memory,
(22:45):
so I'm going to just read them from herethat if you I call it his great argument.
So it's like in English it's 8000words long.
I mean, it's the longest sustainedtheological argument in the whole Bible.
See that that I did thisjust shows the ignorance right on my part,
because I never even realized that,like I'm reading through
(23:07):
through your introduction hereand you're just saying, you know, that.
Yeah,this this chunk text is like the longest
theological argument in the Bibleor in the New Testament.
I just never thought of that as as a chunkto, to, to untangle,
if that makes sense.
And it's not presented as a chunkand that was,
Well, I'll go into the history of thiscommentary in a little bit, but okay,
so his six points,you know, his thesis is neither Jews
(23:31):
nor Gentiles any longerhave to live under the law of Moses.
You know, we're saved by faith, by grace,
you know, through faith in Jesus Christ,through his blood.
It is no longer from the law of Moses.
So here's his six points that he develops.
All mankind lies guiltybefore God and needs salvation.
(23:52):
And by the way, I don't think
there's only one of these six pointsthat that is even controversial
today among Protestants,I mean, or even Catholics.
Okay.
Number two, the Law of Moses is unable
to save or justified Jews,let alone Gentiles.
Neither circumcision nor obedience tothe law of Moses are necessary any longer.
(24:15):
Okay.
Number threeall humans, Jews and Gentiles alike
are saved and justified only by God'sgrace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Okay, the law plays no part in salvation.
Number four,there is no partiality with God.
Jews and Gentilesstand as equals before him.
(24:37):
See the Jews were having trouble, we’llaccept the Gentiles, but not as equals.
And Paul is really hammering no, a Gentilewho is uncircumcised, who does not keep
the regulations of the law,but keeps the moral teaching of the law.
He is a real Jew, the Jew who is outwardly
a Jew and has,you know, the tassels and is circumcised
(24:59):
and does all these regulations,but doesn't have faith in Christ,
which means he isnot really keeping the law,
because here's the Messiah,and you've rejected him. He's not a Jew.
Paul is saying he is not a Jew.
Okay, so this is really radical.
Believing Jews and believing Gentiles
together make up the new Israel of God.
So God is now lookingnot at fleshly Israel,
(25:22):
but at an Israel that is made up
of Jews and Gentileswho are grafted in to the Jews,
which he's always allowedGentiles to join the Jews.
But now the Jews who rejectChrist are being lopped off.
He goes into that in chapter ten and 11.
Okay.
(25:42):
Now, this is somethingthat I had never caught in Romans.
That is all throughout it.
God has not been unfair to the Jews
in bestowinggrace and salvation on the Gentiles.
So you would ask, you know,you mentioned how complicated Romans is.
Okay.
One of the things that complicates isPaul starts developing these points
(26:06):
and he's realizing his Jewish brother,man, they're getting really, really mad.
So he has to keep coming back overand over again.
Number one, saying, hey, I'm a Jew myself
and I love I love the Jews so muchI would die for them.
I would be, you know, let Christ,you know, be cut off from Christ
if it would save the Jews, that’show much.
(26:26):
I so don't think I'm anti-Jewishand God hasn't been unfair.
You're saying God is unfairto let these Gentiles come in?
He is not unfair.
And he develops that argument.His last one.
This is the one where Protestants,many Protestants today, would reject.
But it's just as much a pointas these other five, whether we are Jews
(26:48):
or Gentiles, after our initial salvationby grace through faith,
God requires us to walk faithfullywith Christ,
producing godly fruitfor the remainder of our lives.
However, we do not do thissolely on our own strength,
for we have the empowermentof the Holy Spirit.
(27:10):
So there's one phase of salvation.
You know, when you comein, you don't have to have any works.
I mean, these Gentiles,I mean, think of the day of Pentecost.
Well, those were Jews, okay?
Think of the Philippian jailer. Okay?
I mean, this guy and he's just a pagan,you know, and a jailer at that,
I mean, he probably beat several people upthat day, was probably cursing.
(27:32):
He may have worshiped some falsegod that morning.
And then at midnight,you know, this earthquake happens
and, you know,he's quaking before Paul himself.
And what must I do in order to be saved?
Paul witnesses to him.
He believes he's baptized that night.
No works.
I mean, this guy is just filthright out of the Gentile world.
And boom!
(27:53):
Because he believes and repents.
He's baptized.
He is now acceptedand he's justified by by faith.
But now he has to live by Christteachings.
He can't go back to living the way he was.
So he saved by faith and grace.
But yeah,now he's a branch on the vine of Christ.
(28:13):
He has to produce godly fruit,and yet God will give him the power.
He's not on his own to do this.
But yeah, he doesn't go back to the sow
returning to the mud, or the dogto its vomit, you know, whatever.
So that's a big part of Paul's argument.
That is just as much a part of Romansas these other teachings.
(28:34):
Yeah.
That'sinteresting. I hadn't thought of that.
That last point,
before like so.
So I think what what we're seeing here,
there's a lot of contextthat Paul is writing out of that
that's pretty easy to missif we're not paying attention.
Is that is thatbecause that's one of the questions
I had is like, why does Romans feelso complicated to us today?
Is that because we've heardso many different ideas tossed around
(28:57):
and so many differenttheological frameworks,
or is it the way Paul is writing this,or is it the context of the times?
Like what?What's leading to all the confusion?
So it is both.
So we've heard these other interpretationsthat we've heard him
so many times when you start readingRomans, man, you hear Luther.
Whether you've ever read one of hiswritings or his teachings is everywhere.
And it's infiltrated the Anabaptists,you know, big time.
(29:20):
So it is really hard to to get the, youknow, free of, of your mind is part of it.
Now, I said, there's the six points.
It'd be so niceif Paul wrote like a Augustine.
See, Augustine is a Westerner.
He writes in Latin.
He thinks like a Westerner, and that'swhy he's so popular in the West.
He's easy to follow.
Paul is an Easterner.
(29:42):
He writes in Greek.
He does not think like a Westerner.
So the Greek writers,you know, in reading the early church,
I always loved the Western writerslike Tertullian, Lactantius and them.
Yeah, I can follow them.
You get into Origen,Clement of Alexandria,
I love them as people, you know, but,well, the way they attack a problem,
(30:03):
the Greek way was just differentthan the Western way.
There's, there's just you know,there's a difference there.
So Paul doesn't do one, two, three, four,five, six.
He does 1352, one four.
I mean he just keeps going.
He gets he starts with one,he ends with six.
But yeah I mean he's jumping all around.
(30:24):
So it's 16I mean like I sayit's it's all these different ones.
And he keeps repeating them.
So it's maybe 55344I meanit sounds like a musical thing, you know.
So that's where it is so confusing.
And we're I got so mentally fatigued,you know, I started this thing.
Well, now it's been like,
(30:46):
almost three years ago. Okay.
So I worked on it nearly a full year,
and I just reached a point where mentally,I just couldn't take it anymore.
It's like, I, I can understand
the early Christians,but I've got to put this back into Paul
and they're able to work through thisbecause they're Easterners
and they're writing in Greekand that sort of thing.
(31:09):
But I felt like I maybe understood it,but how how can I present this
to other people?
Because,I mean, it's it's got me so mixed up.
So I just I had to take a breakbecause I was about to go insane.
I thought I was going to pick itback up in six weeks,
and then it was so niceto not have to wrestle with Romans.
It went on
for actually a year and a half,and I just, stayed away from it.
(31:31):
And then it was,
a year ago at Kingdom FellowshipWeekend that at our book
table people, people kept saying,
whens the Romans commentarygoing to come out, David,
whens the Romans commentary and
and oh, well, I'm not sure, you know,because I knew in my mind I had decided
I'm just not going to finish it,you know, and, you know, put so much work.
And so then, you know, I talked withDeborah, my wife, you know, and it's like,
(31:52):
wow, maybe I should finish that thing,you know, how how long could it be?
You know, how long would it take,you know, to finish.
So having left it alone,when I got back in it,
it was a little bit more clear.
It was just good to to step away.
And then you come back to a problem,you know, after you've just left it,
left it alone a whileand it's as it becomes more clear.
(32:13):
And so I reread what I had writtenand it's like, okay, this is the
I had written like already eight versionsof this commentary by then.
You know, it's now this what you'rereading now is version something like 17.
Okay.
But I had already donelike eight versions of it.
Okay.
When I say eight versions, I don't meanthat each one is a totally new one.
(32:34):
Eight revisions.
So, you You know, wow,that is a lot to untangle here.
Okay. Yeah.
So so then I, I read it
and I okay, I kind of
see this, but now this will not make senseto anyone else.
I mean, if it's been this hard for me,
then anyone else readingthis is going to be okay.
We still don't get it. Okay.
(32:54):
So I, I went through,I don't know how many times I read Romans
during this process and after each,
let's say, section heading whatever,which are of course, man made.
He didn't write in chaptersand all of that.
Okay.
And sometimes the chapters helpand sometimes they confuse us because this
is man putting these chapter divisionsand he's not writing in any division.
(33:15):
It's one long argument, you know, andyou got to think of it as one argument.
And you start in your mind, dividing it upis, oh, now we're in chapter nine.
Like we're in a new thing.
No, Paul didn't make that chapter.
That's something, you know, a human did.
Okay. Robert Stephanos okay.
So, we are
what I'm
doing is reading throughand after each section,
(33:36):
the way it's divided into sectionsin the new King James.
But I'm not paying complete attention.
I'm following Paul's argument. Okay?
As as informed by the early Christians.
I've read them a bunch of times.
Okay, I see they're understanding Paul.
Okay. So okay,this is what they're saying.
And then I'm readingand then I write down, okay,
(33:57):
verses chapter two, versesone through ten.
He's talking about,you know, we all need salvation.
Okay.
Chapter two verses.
Whatever he's saying,Jews and Gentiles are equal.
So I'm making this long list.
I don't know, it's going to be six points.
I'm just making a list.
What's he saying?
So when I get done and I don't know howlong I spent on that a couple of weeks.
(34:20):
Then I look at my list
and I start realizing,okay, this one basically is the same here.
It's just a nuance of thisand I'm finally able to reduce it.
Okay, he really covers six main points.
Each one is a little nuance.
He says it a little different.
And like I say,they're not in any kind of perfect order.
(34:40):
But the yeah, I'm finally grasping.
Okay, I see Paul really,he knows where he's going with this.
He's arguing the Greek way,which is the Greek way, is
if we're talking about,like we're talking about Romans.
Okay.
And I say something about,
(35:02):
you know, okay, Paul wrote this, you know,Paul was from Tarsus, by the way.
You know, about Tarsus. It's it'sthis city, blah, blah, blah.
And then I go into thisbig thing about Tarsus.
That's how Greeks did something.
If if something is related in some wayto what they're talking about,
they feel like,oh, I better explain that a little bit.
So it's almost think of it almost likeweaving all these things in together.
(35:24):
Yeah.
Whereas maybe
a more Western Latin style would be like,hey, here's a checklist Yes.
And you go down logically.
The Greek is if there's a nexusyou follow that nexus.
So the way Origin describes it.
And he's not saying this in criticism.He loves Romans.
I mean to him, man,this is marvelous book because of course
Origin thinks, you know, in thishe loves complicated arguments.
(35:47):
So here's the way he describes it.
He says, ImaginePaul is your guide and he's taking you
through this magnificent palace of,you know, the emperor.
Okay?
And he leads you through the doorof, of a bedroom, let's say.
And you go into this parlorand it's, all these amazing things,
but you don't get to stay there very long
and he takes you out through another door,
(36:09):
and then you'rein some little hidden passageway,
and then he opens another door, and nowyou're in another room and it's like,
wow, this room is amazing to, you know,and you start looking around.
But then in a few minutes,he takes you out another door
and, and then you're in another room,you know.
And so what he's trying to sayis, you know, Paul
instead of going,you know, this, this kind of order, he's
(36:31):
he gives you a little bit of a taste ofsomething, and then he immediately goes to
another point, you know,which is a brilliant point.
And, oh, that's wonderful.
But then he doesn't just stay there.
He, he, he goes to another.
So you're going through this palace
and by the time you're done,you've gone through the whole palace.
But it's been in this door, out this door.
Kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
(36:52):
Oh, wow. Okay.
And and then it leaves people like myselffeeling a little confused
because it's like, I'm not even surewhat to do with all of this. Yeah.
And this is Augustine’s problem.
He's a Westerner. He doesn't understandthe Greek way of thinking.
He can't read Greek.
He's trying to make sense as a Westerner.
And so, yeah, we can't do that.
I mean, we can't get away from the factwe think as Westerners.
(37:14):
But yeah, we have to realizePaul isn't writing as a Westerner,
and he's he thinks the way a Greek,
thinker, approaches things.
And we've got to give credit to that.
We have to get back into that world.
We can't try to bring himinto the 21st century.
We have to get back into Paul's worldand not some imaginary world.
(37:36):
Look at how the Christians who livedright after Paul.
How did they understand this book?
I mean, the most amazing thing we haveis in the year
it's either 96 or 97.
We have the letter,it's usually called First Clement
because apparently the one who pennedit was Clement.
(37:57):
He was an elder in the Church of Rome.
But the letter isfrom all the elders in Rome.
Now you remember this is Romans.
The letter from Paulwas to the church in Rome
before the first century is over.
We have a letter from those eldersin Rome.
They're writing to the church in Corinth.
Okay.
Unfortunately,they're not discussing Romans.
(38:20):
It would solve everything.
They're dealing with.
They're having dissension in Corinth.
And so that's why they're writingthe Corinthians, to encourage them to.
Hey, look, we got to get our act together.
It's better to give way, gelassenheitwould be the Anabaptist
word, you know, instead of insistingon having your own way and all that.
(38:41):
But in there, they touch on subjectsthat are covered in Romans.
So you can see how the elderswere understanding some of these
basic concepts.
And they are not understanding itthe way Luther or Augustine, either one,
the things they say, you know, you can seethat they're being informed by Romans
because they state some of the samethings. You know, we're saved by,
(39:03):
grace,you know, through faith in Jesus Christ.
But then the next paragraph, you know,
we have to walk worthilyif we're going to be saved in the end.
That's in Romans two.
And, you know, in chapter two of Romans
and you can see, okay,this is how they're understanding it.
And then you just go from there.
I mean, you've got other writings,you know, Justin Martyr
and other ones, Ignatius,all the way up and like, say,
(39:26):
all the way till you get tothe fifth century, even Augustine,
they're all sayingbasically the same thing.
And then because of this overreaction,everything changes.
And because you have a state church,if you didn't have a state church.
You would have been like, okay, well,we don't agree with you, Augustine.
You know, you can do what you want,but we don't agree with you.
(39:46):
But when you got to say churchwith an army, yeah,
they can not only excommunicate you,they banished you.
I mean, Pelagiusdidn't just get communicated.
Yeah.
The soldiers took him and he got banishedto the edge of the empire, you know?
And you better be.
Stay here and be quiet,or that's the end, you know?
So, yeah.
Augustinewins through the force of, of arms.
(40:07):
So it's.
But it's so amazing we can goback, actually, to the first century
and get their thought processesfrom the elders in Rome itself. Wow.
Yeah that's really interesting.
Like I, so as you were working onthis commentary, this is not
you wouldn'treally say this is a commentary you wrote.
(40:29):
It's more going throughwhat the early church was saying
and pulling those piecesinto a single place, essentially.
Like you're not engaging with a lot ofthe more recent scholarship, Not at all.
No, no, I didn't in fact,I didn't even read those guys.
I did not want to be influenced by them.
I, I wanted to justwhat did they say back then?
(40:51):
And so I just looked at, like you say,the early Christian writings, of course.
Then I looked at Augustine, okay,
I had done this before because, you know,it's like, why did things change?
And I'd read Augustine, you know,
these writings against the Pelagiansyou know, 40 years ago
and of course, had read Luther as well.
(41:12):
So I was I was aware of, of those changes,but I thought,
I knew there were modern, scholars who,
is called like,
what is it, the new Paul, the new,there's a number of different ones, Yeah,
yeah, of how they put it, the,new understanding of Paul.
And so when I was through,when I finish this,
(41:35):
I thought, I want to read these guysto see what they're saying.
And in case.
Yeah, I need to relook at some,but I don't
really want to be influenced by thembecause, yeah, this is what they believed
back then, you know, now I put it in easyfor a Westerner to understand.
You know, I don't just havea bunch of early Christian quotes.
I do try to, you know,put their arguments in a way that,
(41:57):
you know, you and I can understandit, you know, because I saw
how hard it was even for me, like, say,wrestling with this.
But it is interesting. Yeah.
The new perspective on Paul,is a whole lot closer to the early church.
It's not exactly the same,but it's a whole lot closer.
It's a welcome.
Wow. I'm glad some people are.
Yeah.
(42:17):
Finally standing up to Luther and saying,hey, you know, maybe Luther,
overreacted, misread Paul misrepresentedwhat Paul is saying.
So that's.
Yeah, that's very encouraging to me that.
Yeah, some people are doing that now.
The new perspective doesn'trely as much on the early Christians.
Unfortunately.
What they did was let's see what the Jewswere saying in the first century.
(42:42):
Yeah.
And and we're reading Paulas a response to the Jews.
And, Luther was misrepresenting the Jewsin their mind anyway.
And so he's, he's he's misreading Paulbecause he's misrepresenting the Jews.
Okay.
So they're saying this is what the Jewsreally believed in the first century.
And Paul is counteringthat which in the end,
(43:06):
it gets back to very similarto what the early Christians were saying.
But I'm very disappointed.
It's like, why do you go to the Jewsand not go to the early Christians?
I mean, to me, that's the elephant inthe room is like, wow, you've got, the
elders in Rome in the first century who,you know, touch on many of these topics.
You don't go to them.
You go to see what the Jews were,were believing.
But nevertheless, it'sstill it brings scholarship
(43:29):
a lot closer to whatthe early Christians were, were saying.
And yeah, once you see it,
like you say, just finding the light bulb,I mean,
but it did take like to say it wasit was a lot of work.
But what then when the light bulb cameon, it's like, hey,
this book isn't so terribly difficult.
And that's why I hope
(43:50):
I know it will take a lot of readingbecause, you know, now it's clear to me.
But, I mean, it was a,you know, like, say a year.
And then it took anothersix months of intense work
and I would start right after breakfastand I would work till ten at night,
six days a week,you know, breaking for supper,
you know, and a little devotional timerelaxation at 10:00 at night, you know.
(44:13):
But yeah, it was really intenseto, to get through this. So,
it is
without a doubt the hardest bookof the New Testament to understand outside
of the apocalyptic part of revelation inwhich everyone is going to have their own.
But it's it is the hardest book.
And yeah, I'll let you talk.
I'm going, I'm going.
(44:34):
Not giving you a chance to say anythingThat's great.
So I think what you're,
maybe advocating for or whateveryou want to call it
is that historic snapshot of what waswhat was the church saying at the time.
Let's let's look at them.
Let's pull a slice of, of that.
And, and how does that help usunderstand what Paul.
And so if you're talking, Clementof Alexandria or, you know, first Clement
(44:57):
being written in 96 or 97 and, you know,Romans was written, what year was that?
About 50, 55.
Some might put it later.
60. Probably not as late, but but yeah,within 30 to 40 years of Romans itself
being written.
So you're saying,you know, like that proximity to Paul.
There's a lot of value there.We should be paying attention to it.
And that's why you just put a lot of workinto compiling that.
(45:20):
And that's pretty neat.
You know, I thinkI think you're on to something there.
Yeah, Yeah. It's terriblethat it's been ignored.
I mean, that people and they praiseAugustine, Oh, yeah, Augustine.
And yeah, finally someone with insightand it's like,
what's you think all of these,these people who were personally
taught by the apostles,who were part of that generation, that,
oh, they don't understand that, but,a Westerner who doesn't even read
(45:44):
Greek, who's, you know, counteracting,who changes
his own view to counteract somebodybecause he's in this personal feud.
That's absurd, you know,and you come up with this doctrine
that it's all predestined,that we do nothing in our salvation.
So why does Jesus even botherto preach the sermon on the Mount?
We can't live that, you know,if we do it because God does it.
(46:06):
And it's like theI mean, it's a terrible overreaction,
but and people think todaypeople associate Augustine, you know,
with Calvin and with Protestantism,they don't get it in their hands.
This was Roman Catholic theology.
This was the Roman Catholic Churchwho promoted Augustine,
who made himthe father of the Roman Catholic Church.
(46:28):
It was Roman Catholic councilsthat, you know, condemned
Pelagius and made Augustine's view,you know, become the official view
of the Roman Catholic Church.That's the irony.
This is Roman Catholic doctrinethat, you know, then worked its way
into the Reformationand and all of that which would have been
through Luther, Calvin.
(46:49):
And so I've.
Yeah,I guess I never thought of that before.
Yeah.
well, Luther was an Augustinian monk, so.
Yeah,his whole basis was built on Augustine.
He goes just a little further.
Now, Augustine's bigpoint is we don't do anything,
and God's going to be mad at usif we said that we obeyed.
And it's like, you know,he doesn't want you to take credit.
(47:11):
He wants all the creditbecause you didn't do anything.
You know, to Augustine,that's the big thing.
You take credit for nothing. To Luther.
Yeah, that's true.
But more importantly,that it's faith alone.
And if you think works play any rolein this, then that's works righteousness.
And wow, you're outside of Christianitynow, see, Augustine
(47:32):
had no issue with works,His point was God does the works.
Yeah. You just need to recognize youdidn't do those.
You might think you did,but it was really God working through you.
But yeah, I mean,he didn't have any negativity on works.
It was Luther who made works a negative,you know, term.
And that has influenced so many people.
So, yeah, it,
(47:54):
to me it was just excitingwhen the light bulb, you know,
finally came on, it's like,
okay, I've got to be able to put thiswhere other people.
Yeah, can can get the same benefitthat that I did without having to spend,
you know, a year and a half, two years,
you know, working through all of these,these writings and that sort of thing.
So yeah, hopefullythat's what I've been able to, to do to.
(48:15):
Yeah, some degree anyway.
So, so as we tie all the pieces together
Romans is an intimidating book right.
We've been saying how it's, it'scomplicated.
It's hard to get our minds around.
What would you say as an encouragementto leave with our listeners to
dig into that book,to dig back into into God's
(48:36):
word, into the book of Romans and,and read it for themselves.
What would you sayto encourage them? Okay.
so I just a waythat'll make it easier to understand it
correctlyif I had to give someone a recommendation,
it would be startwith the sermon on the Mount.
Read the sermon on the Mount.
I mean, just clear your mindof everything else
you've heard about salvationand everything else.
Just read the sermon on the Mount.What did Jesus say? Okay,
(49:00):
read the book of acts.
What was happening in actswhen Paul preached?
We have some of his sermons to people.
I mean, where he's presenting the gospel.
How did Paul present the gospel to peoplewhen he was preaching?
What were the things he was workingagainst in the book of acts?
Okay, then.
Okay.
You ready to to go into Paul, read,I would probably say read
(49:23):
James first because James is very clear.
He he's still a Greek writer,
but he reasons more like a Westernerand he's very easy to understand.
Read James to make sure you're getting,you know, the whole perspective.
But then read Galatiansas a shortened version of Romans.
(49:43):
Now don't read Galatiansthrough Luther's eyes.
Just read the book.
It's what, five chapters or whateverit is.
He makes the same points.
But Galatians to me is a pretty easy book.
I mean, the context is really clear.
He's talking about the mosaic lawthat the Jews were trying
to force the Gentiles,you know, to live by the law.
They wouldn't eat with them, etc.
he shows that there's a, these thingsin the Old Testament
(50:06):
prefigured the, the church and,and the unbelieving Jews.
And then he goes intohow we must live as Christians.
It's the same thing he does in Romans.
But Romans is is a lot more complicated.
So if you've got Galatians down, then,then yeah, go through Romans,
use the commentary as, as an aid,you know, let the people who spoke
(50:27):
the same Greekas Paul, who lived in that culture,
who thought like him, yeah,take advantage of their of their insights.
They're not inspired.
But yeah,they at least like, say, thought like him.
And it's amazing
because these are just a scatteredgroup of people, some speaking Latin,
some speaking Greek, some living in Egypt,some living in Europe,
(50:47):
and they're all saying the same thing,you know?
So that's what's really reassuring.
And it was a United church.
I mean, before it was a state church,you had one church.
So they were all able to agree,which today nobody can.
But you had a period thereof nearly 300 years without a state church
when you had one churchthat all Christians just about
(51:08):
were able to agree on what the scripturesmean, which to me shows
they had the Holy Spirit.
You don't have that kind of unitywithout the Holy Spirit, you know,
unless you have the sword,which is a totally different thing.
Yeah.
So thanks for thanks for sharingall of this.
I'm really hoping this episodewill encourage people to give Romans
another read.
And I think what you were outlining thereof other context
(51:30):
to read, like reading Galatians,first things like that.
I think that's that's really helpful
because it's a big chunkto take all at once.
it is it help me.
I don't know how many times I readGalatians when I was working on Romans,
because there's so many parallelsand I realize, man, Galatians, I can,
I can, I can grasp it,you know, and he's saying the same things.
But yeah, he's just saying it in a muchmore detailed, complicated way in Romans.
(51:52):
Yeah. Hmhmm.
Wow. Well, thank you so muchfor coming on the podcast, David.
This is this is there's a lotwe there's a lot, a lot to unpack here.
So yeah, I really hope this inspirespeople to to dig
back into God's word and,and give it another shot. So.
All right. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for listening to this episodewith David Bercot.
We've had him on the podcastseveral other times, and you might find
(52:15):
the episode we did with himabout how he was an Anglican priest.
Interesting.
And you can find thatlinked in the description below.
If you like this podcast,leave us a rating and review.
It really does helpmore people find this content.
And of course you can find everything
we've made over on our websiteat anabaptistperspectives.org.
Thanks againand we'll see you in the next episode.
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