Grace: Impact On History

December 20, 2011 briank Grace

As I searched the entire Bible for Scripture that speaks of grace, I found that the book of Romans tops the list. It should not be so surprising then, to find that Romans has had an enormous impact on history.

Who has been impacted profoundly by the grace of God in Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans? Here are some examples (source).

Augustine. Upon reading Romans 13, Augustine wrote: “No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away (Confessions, viii. 29). The impact which Romans would have on Augustine, and the impact which Augustine would have on the world, can still be seen today.

Martin Luther. “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God,’ because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous … Night and day I pondered until … I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.”

John Wesley. “I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans… About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

These men certainly had differences in their theological conclusions. Yet it is undeniable that they stand united by the impact the grace of God had on them through Scripture found in Romans. Once I considered grace to be weak and fragile. I thought grace just meant being polite and not causing problems. I am finding that the grace of God is explosive, dynamic, powerful, effective and life-changing, history-making even!

So I begin my journey into the grace of God with a study of Romans. This is rather fitting because Romans has been called the starting point of Biblical understanding. One fact is striking me rather significantly as I continue on this journey into grace: I have never studied the book of Romans.

James I. Packer of England said:

“There is one book in the New Testament which links up with almost everything that the Bible contains: that is the Epistle to the Romans, … In Romans, Paul brings together and sets out in systematic relation all the great themes of the Bible—sin, law, judgment, faith, works, grace, justification, sanctification, election, the plan of salvation, the work of Christ, the work of the Spirit, the Christian hope, the nature and life of the Church, the place of Jew and Gentile in the purpose of God, the philosophy of the Church and of world history, the meaning and message of the Old Testament, the duties of Christian citizenship, the principles of personal piety and ethics. From the vantage-point given by Romans, the whole landscape of the Bible is open to view, and the broad relation of the parts to the whole becomes plain. The study of Romans is the fittest starting-point for biblical interpretation and theology.”

– James I. Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, p. 106f., as cited by David N. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas, Romans: An Interpretive Outline (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company), p. 1.