Romans: A 12-Week Study by Jared C. Wilson — A Biblical and Theological Review
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Reviewing Romans: A 12-Week Study
Romans: A 12-Week Study by Jared C. Wilson, part of Crossway’s Knowing the Bible series, is a useful and often insightful study of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is also written from within a theological framework that becomes increasingly important as the study addresses grace, faith, human responsibility, election, predestination, and the sovereignty of God. This review examines Wilson’s study week by week, recognizing where I believe he handles the biblical text well while carefully testing his theological conclusions—including his Calvinist interpretations—against the text of Romans and the wider testimony of Scripture.
Once completed see Biblical Predestination: From Sin to Glory
WEEK 1 — Overview
Romans Within the Whole of Scripture
I agree with Wilson concerning the extraordinary importance of Paul’s letter to the Romans and the tremendous contribution it makes to our understanding of the Gospel, righteousness, justification, faith, sin, redemption, Israel, and God’s plan of salvation. Romans is unquestionably one of the great theological books of Scripture and provides an exceptionally detailed presentation of many foundational Christian doctrines.
At the same time, I would qualify Wilson’s description of Romans as a “grand theological blueprint” for the rest of the New Testament. Romans should never become the theological lens through which every other book of Scripture must be interpreted. Paul’s letter to the Romans does not dictate the interpretation of the other epistles any more or any less than the other epistles dictate the interpretation of Romans. Nor should Paul’s writings be isolated from the Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, Revelation, or the Old Testament.
Rather, all of Scripture must be taken together and must harmonize completely. Where our interpretation of Romans appears to conflict with something taught elsewhere in Scripture, our first response should not be to force the other passage to conform to our interpretation of Romans. Instead, we should reconsider whether we have correctly understood Romans, the other passage, or perhaps both. Scripture does not contradict Scripture, although our interpretations of Scripture certainly can.
This becomes especially important when studying subjects such as election, predestination, justification, faith, human responsibility, and God’s sovereignty. Romans contributes greatly to our understanding of these doctrines, but Romans is not the entirety of what Scripture says about them. A theological conclusion should not be considered established simply because an interpretation can be made to fit a passage in Romans. That interpretation must also remain consistent with everything else God has revealed in His Word.
Election, Predestination, Israel, and the Gentiles
Simply identifying election and predestination as subjects Paul discusses does not tell us what Paul means by them. Their meaning must be determined when we encounter the passages themselves, taking into consideration the immediate context, Paul’s developing argument throughout Romans, and the broader testimony of Scripture.
It is therefore particularly important to remember something Wilson himself establishes in his introduction. He places considerable emphasis upon the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers as part of the historical setting of Romans. He identifies simmering hostility between Jewish and Gentile believers as one of the important circumstances surrounding Paul’s letter. Wilson’s own outline likewise treats Romans 9–11 together under the heading “God’s Righteousness Extended to Israel and to the Gentiles”. These are important contextual observations that should not be forgotten when we eventually reach Paul’s discussions of election, mercy, hardening, Israel, and the Gentiles.
When we arrive at Romans 9–11, therefore, we should not suddenly detach those chapters from the Jew and Gentile questions that Wilson himself has correctly identified at the beginning of the study. Whatever conclusions we eventually reach concerning election, predestination, mercy, hardening, or Israel must make sense within the argument Paul is actually making and within the historical and biblical context in which he makes it.
The Standard Going Forward
While I do not want to begin this study by assuming either a Calvinistic or a non-Calvinistic definition of Paul’s terminology, I recognize that Wilson should be allowed to develop his interpretation as the study progresses. Likewise, alternative interpretations should be allowed to make their case from Scripture. Where Wilson makes a good and well-supported observation, I have no difficulty agreeing with him. Where I believe an interpretation goes beyond what the passage explicitly states, I will attempt to distinguish the words of Scripture from the theological conclusion being drawn from them. That same scrutiny should equally apply to any interpretations I present.
Again, the rule of interpretation must be to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture so that the interpretation fits contextually, progressively and intact throughout the whole council of God. This includes Scripture itself as well as the perfect harmony of God’s natural attributes and character. There should be no exception to this rule meaning any interpretation that contradicts any part of Scripture, God’s perfect nature or His perfect character must be regarded as an incomplete interpretation or a completely wrong interpretation.
With that said. the question throughout this study is not simply whether an interpretation can be made to fit Romans, but whether it fits Romans within the entirety of Scripture. Thus, the study should produce our conclusions; our conclusions should not direct the study.
Week 2 — The Gospel as the Revelation of the Righteousness of God (Romans 1:1–17)
A Strong Beginning
There is much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 1:1–17 with which I agree. He appropriately places Jesus Christ and the Gospel at the center of Paul’s opening words, emphasizes the bodily resurrection of Christ, recognizes the Gospel as the fulfillment of promises already present in the Old Testament, and emphasizes Paul’s desire that the Gospel extend to all nations. His discussion also correctly recognizes that the Gospel is not merely something by which Christians begin the Christian life and then leave behind. The Gospel remains foundational to the believer’s life and faith.
Wilson also draws attention to Paul’s expression “the obedience of faith” in Romans 1:5, an expression that appears again near the conclusion of the letter in Romans 16:26. I believe this will be important to remember as we continue through Romans. Whatever conclusions we eventually reach concerning faith, grace, calling, election, or human responsibility must account for the fact that Paul speaks not only of God’s saving action but also of believing, faith, obedience, hearing, receiving, and responding to the Gospel.
From “Faith Comes by Hearing” to an “Irresistible Call”
There is, however, one statement in this section that deserves much closer examination. In discussing Paul’s greeting “grace to you”, Wilson refers to Romans 10:17 and the truth that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. He then describes the Gospel as bringing an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God”.
At this point, we have moved beyond simply repeating what Romans says. Romans 10:17 certainly teaches a relationship between hearing the Word of God and faith. But the verse itself does not say that the call produced through the Gospel is irresistible, nor does it say that the Gospel is effectually directed only toward certain people who already “belong to God”. Wilson has introduced several theological propositions into Paul’s statement: that there is a saving call distinct from the proclamation of the Gospel, that this call is irresistible, and that it is directed specifically toward people who already belong to God. None of those propositions is stated in Romans 10:17.
The problem, therefore, is not simply that Wilson has used terminology commonly associated with Calvinism. The problem is exegetical. A specific theological mechanism has been inserted into a passage that does not state that mechanism. Following the standard established in Week 1, we must distinguish between what Paul actually says and what a theological system says must be occurring behind what Paul says.
Irresistible Grace and God’s Impartial Judgment
Wilson’s statement concerning an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God” also raises a serious biblical problem concerning the impartiality of God. Paul explicitly declares: “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). It is important to recognize the context in which Paul makes this statement. He is speaking specifically about God’s judgment. Paul has just said that God “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6). He then applies the same judgment to Jew and Gentile before explaining why: “For there is no respect of persons with God”.
The Greek word translated “respect of persons” is prosōpolēmpsia (προσωπολημψία) [G4382], carrying the meaning of partiality or favoritism. The underlying idea concerns showing favor toward the person—the “face”—rather than judging according to a just basis. Paul’s point is not that God gives every human being identical gifts, responsibilities, circumstances, opportunities, or roles. Scripture plainly demonstrates otherwise. Paul’s point in Romans 2 is that God does not judge one person by one standard and another person by another standard because He favors one person over another.
This becomes extremely important when considering the Calvinistic understanding of an irresistible saving call. All sinners stand guilty before God. All therefore face His righteous judgment. None has a claim upon His grace. On that point I completely agree with Calvinism: nobody deserves grace. If grace were something God owed us, it would no longer be grace.
But saying that nobody deserves grace does not resolve the question of partiality. Consider two equally guilty sinners standing under the same righteous judgment of God. Neither deserves salvation. Neither possesses merit that obligates God to save him. If God then unconditionally selects one of those sinners and gives that person the irresistible saving grace without which he cannot believe, while withholding that indispensable grace from the other, we must ask what forms the basis for their different treatment.
Under unconditional election, there is deliberately no condition within the recipients that forms the basis of God’s choice. The distinction does not arise because one was innocent and the other guilty; both are guilty. It does not arise because one deserves grace; neither deserves it. It does not arise because one meets a condition God has established for receiving His gracious provision; unconditional election specifically denies that such a condition forms the basis of God’s selection. The decisive distinction therefore rests entirely upon God choosing to give one guilty sinner the irresistible grace necessary for salvation while choosing not to give that same grace to another equally guilty sinner.
That is precisely where the problem of partiality arises. The fact that neither sinner deserves grace establishes that God is not indebted to either sinner. It does not establish that selectively and unconditionally favoring one of those otherwise equally situated sinners with the indispensable means of escaping judgment is therefore impartial. The absence of obligation is not the same thing as the absence of partiality.
The question is therefore not, “Does God owe grace to everyone?” He does not. The question is: Upon what basis does God give the indispensable and irresistible means of salvation to one guilty sinner while withholding it from another equally guilty sinner? If the answer is that there is no condition whatsoever distinguishing the recipients and that the distinction rests solely in God choosing one rather than the other, then calling the choice “unconditional” does not remove the issue of favoritism. It identifies the very feature that creates the problem.
Whose Standard of Impartiality?
I anticipate that Wilson, or someone who shares Wilson’s theology, might object that I am imposing my own fallen human conception of fairness upon God. If that were what I were doing, I would agree with the objection. God is not accountable to my moral intuitions, and I do not have the authority to establish a moral standard and then require God to conform to it. But that is not the argument I am making. The standard of impartiality being applied here does not originate with me. It originates with God Himself.
God repeatedly describes Himself as impartial. Moses declares concerning God: “For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons” (Deuteronomy 10:17). Jehoshaphat instructed Israel’s judges: “for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts” (2 Chronicles 19:7). Peter likewise declares: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), and Paul states plainly: “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11).
Nor does Scripture leave impartiality merely as something God says about Himself. God requires the same principle from those who judge and deal with others. Moses commanded Israel’s judges: “Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great” (Deuteronomy 1:17). The Law commands: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty” (Leviticus 19:15). James applies the same principle directly to Christians, warning believers against having “the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons” and condemning preferential treatment as sin (James 2:1–9).
This is particularly significant because Scripture connects impartiality with righteous judgment. Paul says that God “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6), applies that principle to both Jew and Gentile, and then gives the reason: “For there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). Peter similarly describes the Father as the One “who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work” (1 Peter 1:17). Paul again says: “he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons” (Colossians 3:25).
Therefore, when I ask whether an interpretation of salvation is consistent with God’s impartiality, I am not placing God beneath a moral standard created by human beings. I am testing a theological description of God against the moral character God has revealed about Himself. There is an enormous difference between saying, “God must act this way because I think it would be unfair otherwise,” and saying, “God has told us that He does not show partiality, has demonstrated that principle in His judgment, and has commanded His people not to show partiality; therefore, any theology describing God’s actions must be consistent with what God has revealed about Himself.”
Indeed, Scripture makes the connection even stronger by commanding human beings not to practice the very favoritism that God Himself does not practice. James does not treat partiality as merely an unfortunate human preference. He says: “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin” (James 2:9). Consequently, we cannot answer an apparent instance of divine partiality merely by saying that God is sovereign and therefore permitted to do what He forbids human beings to do. God’s sovereignty does not make unrighteousness righteous. Rather, God’s commands concerning impartiality reflect the righteous character of the God who gives them.
The question, then, is not whether God must conform to my understanding of fairness. The question is whether our theology conforms to God’s own revelation of His impartial character. If a theological system describes God as unconditionally favoring one equally guilty sinner over another in the very matter of escaping His judgment, while simultaneously insisting that there is no condition whatsoever forming the basis of that distinction, then it is the theological system—not God—that must explain how its description can be reconciled with God’s repeated declaration that He shows no partiality.
Appealing to “Mystery” Does Not Resolve a Contradiction
Neither can this difficulty simply be resolved by appealing to “mystery.” I readily acknowledge that there are mysteries concerning God that finite human beings cannot fully comprehend. Scripture does not reveal everything about God, and I should never expect my limited understanding to exhaust the mind, purposes, or workings of an infinite God. But mystery and contradiction are not the same thing.
A mystery exists when God has not revealed enough for us to understand fully how something is true. A contradiction arises when our theological explanation requires us to affirm propositions that cannot both be true in the same sense. Appealing to mystery may properly acknowledge the limits of revelation, but it cannot be used to transform a contradiction within our theology into a mystery within God.
In this case, God has not remained silent concerning His impartiality. He explicitly tells us that He shows no partiality, repeatedly connects that impartiality with His righteous judgment, and commands His people not to practice favoritism themselves. Therefore, if a theological system teaches that God unconditionally distinguishes between equally guilty sinners by giving one the irresistible grace necessary to escape judgment while withholding that same indispensable grace from another, the resulting conflict cannot simply be labeled a mystery and set aside.
The appropriate response is to examine the theological premise that created the conflict. Perhaps we have misunderstood what Scripture means by election. Perhaps we have misunderstood calling, grace, faith, regeneration, or predestination. Perhaps distinctions have been introduced into the biblical text that Scripture itself does not require. Whatever the answer may be, our first obligation is to reexamine our theology before declaring the apparent contradiction within that theology to be an incomprehensible mystery within God.
There is also a danger in using mystery selectively. We should not construct a detailed theological system explaining whom God chooses, why faith necessarily follows regeneration, why one call is resistible while another is irresistible, and why salvation necessarily occurs for one group but cannot occur for another, only to appeal to mystery when that same system encounters an apparent contradiction with God’s revealed impartiality. If Scripture provides enough information to construct the theological mechanism, then Scripture should also provide enough information to demonstrate that the mechanism does not contradict what God has revealed about His own character.
At that point, the mystery is not how God can contradict His own revealed character. God does not contradict Himself. The real question is where the theological premise producing the contradiction came from in the first place. Rather than protecting that premise by calling the conflict a mystery, we should return to Scripture and test whether the premise itself belongs there.
A Condition Does Not Turn Grace Into a Wage
This does not mean that salvation must therefore be earned or merited. There is an important difference between a condition for receiving grace and a work that earns grace. Scripture itself makes this distinction. Paul says concerning the Gospel: “for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). God provides the Gospel. God provides Christ. God accomplishes the saving work. God reveals the truth and extends the offer of salvation. Yet Paul identifies the beneficiary as “every one that believeth”.
Faith does not purchase salvation, create salvation, deserve salvation, or place God under obligation. A condition for receiving a gift is not payment for the gift. If someone freely provides a gift that I could never earn or provide for myself and tells me to receive it, my receiving that gift does not transform the gift into a wage. The provision remains entirely the work and generosity of the giver.
Therefore, God can remain completely gracious while also remaining completely impartial. He can provide salvation that nobody deserves, establish the condition upon which that gracious provision is received, and judge everyone according to the same righteous standard. The distinction between those who are saved and those who are not need not arise because God gives one guilty sinner an irresistible saving ability that He withholds from another. The distinction can arise from the response to the gracious provision God has made available and the condition God Himself has established: faith in Jesus Christ.
What Does Romans 10:17 Actually Establish?
Paul’s statement places the proclaimed Word in an important position: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. Whatever else we eventually conclude about the work of God in salvation, Paul explicitly connects faith with hearing the proclaimed message. Romans 10 develops this relationship even further when Paul asks: “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).
The sequence Paul explicitly provides is therefore straightforward: the message is proclaimed → the message is heard → faith comes through hearing the Word. Wilson has inserted an additional mechanism into that sequence—an irresistible saving call directed specifically toward those who already belong to God. Romans 10:17 does not state that mechanism.
This raises several questions that we should carry forward as the study progresses. Does God’s Word itself provide the means through which a sinner is brought to faith? Must an additional act of regeneration occur before the sinner can hear and believe the Gospel in the sense Paul intends? Does Scripture actually divide God’s calling into a universally resistible outward call and a selectively irresistible inward call? If such distinctions are biblical, where does Scripture establish them?
These questions should not be answered by inserting the answers into Romans 10:17 beforehand. Wilson has presented a particular theological explanation of how salvation operates. We can now identify that explanation and test its individual claims as we proceed through Romans and the rest of Scripture.
Scripture Describes People Resisting God
The word “irresistible” itself must also be examined in light of passages where Scripture explicitly describes people resisting God’s activity toward them. Stephen tells his hearers: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51). Jesus laments over Jerusalem: “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). Romans 1 describes people suppressing truth God has revealed, exchanging His truth for a lie, and refusing to retain God in their knowledge.
Calvinism commonly responds by distinguishing between a resistible external call given broadly through the Gospel and an irresistible effectual call given only to the elect. But that distinction cannot simply be assumed when reading passages that describe people resisting God. If Scripture actually establishes two fundamentally different calls—one that can be resisted and another that cannot—then Scripture must demonstrate that distinction. The distinction cannot be created merely to protect the doctrine of irresistible calling from passages in which God is explicitly resisted.
Faith Is Still Exercised
It is equally important to represent Wilson’s position accurately. Later in this same section, while discussing Paul’s statement that “the righteous shall live by faith”, Wilson speaks of what occurs “when we exercise faith in Jesus Christ alone.” Therefore, it would be inaccurate to suggest that Wilson’s understanding of divine calling eliminates faith or the human act of believing. He clearly affirms both.
The theological disagreement is more precise. The issue is not whether a person believes. The issue is how and why that person is able to believe. Is faith the response that comes through hearing the Gospel God has graciously provided, or must God first perform an additional irresistible work upon particular individuals that necessarily results in their believing? If that additional irresistible work is necessary, why is it given to one guilty sinner and withheld from another equally guilty sinner? Those questions concern the relationship between grace, calling, hearing, faith, regeneration, election, and God’s impartial judgment.
The Issue Is Not Whether God Acts First
Nothing in this objection requires the sinner to initiate salvation independently of God. God acts first. God reveals Himself. God sent His Son. Christ accomplished the saving work. God provides the Gospel. God sends those who proclaim it. God confronts sinners with truth, calls them to repentance, commands them to believe, and provides the message through which Paul says faith comes. The sinner does not create the Gospel, create Christ’s sacrifice, create grace, or create the truth to which he responds.
The question is therefore not whether salvation originates with God. It unquestionably does. The question is whether God’s gracious initiative must include an additional irresistible saving call given only to selected individuals, without which everyone else hearing the same Gospel remains incapable of responding. That is an additional theological proposition, and it is precisely the proposition Wilson has introduced.
A Theological Premise Introduced Too Early
This is precisely the kind of situation discussed in Week 1. We recognized that theological interpretations will inevitably arise throughout any Bible study. The responsibility of the individual student is therefore to guard against allowing an interpretation to become an established premise through which everything that follows is subsequently read.
Wilson has now introduced irresistibility, selectivity, and a category of people who already “belong to God” into a discussion grounded in Romans 10:17. None of those propositions appears in Romans 10:17 itself. More importantly, when understood according to their Calvinistic meaning, they raise substantial questions concerning God’s impartial judgment, the universal proclamation of the Gospel, the biblical descriptions of people resisting God, the relationship between hearing and faith, and the basis upon which one sinner receives the indispensable means of salvation while another does not.
We should therefore not allow the phrase “irresistible call” to pass as though Wilson has merely paraphrased Paul. He has not. He has introduced a theological conclusion that must itself be tested against Scripture.
A Question to Carry Forward
Week 2 therefore gives us our first clear theological proposition to carry forward and test: Does Scripture teach that the Gospel brings an irresistible call of salvation specifically to certain individuals who already belong to God, while that indispensable saving call is withheld from others who stand under the same judgment?
As we continue through Romans, we should watch carefully for what Paul says about calling, hearing, believing, faith, resistance, grace, election, judgment, impartiality, and the work of the Holy Spirit. We should also test those conclusions against the rest of Scripture. If distinctions such as a resistible external call and an irresistible internal call are required, Scripture should establish them rather than our theology supplying them in advance.
For now, what Romans explicitly gives us is the Gospel as God’s power unto salvation to everyone who believes, the proclamation of that Gospel to others, hearing the Word, and faith coming through that hearing. Wilson has added an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God.” That addition is not Paul’s statement; it is a theological claim placed upon Paul’s statement. It must therefore be tested rather than assumed, particularly where its implications appear to conflict with Paul’s explicit declaration that God judges without partiality or favoritism.
Week 3 — God’s Righteousness in His Wrath Against Sinners (Romans 1:18–3:20)
Re: The Place of the Passage
Wilson describes the Gospel as having the power to save “believing sinners.” By itself, I see no reason to object to that expression. It can simply mean sinners who believe the Gospel, which is entirely consistent with Paul’s statement: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). Although the expression can also fit theological systems in which regeneration logically precedes faith, the words “believing sinners” do not establish that Wilson intends such an order here.
This is an important distinction. Where Wilson explicitly introduces a theological proposition, as he did in Week 2 with an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God,” that proposition should be examined. Where wording is merely compatible with Calvinism, however, we should not read Calvinism into it. Paul’s explicit statement in Romans 1:16 remains straightforward: the Gospel is God’s power unto salvation to everyone who believes.
Question Set #1: The Unrighteousness of the Gentiles — Romans 1:18–32
Does “God Gave Them Up” Argue Against Meaningful Human Choice?
Romans repeatedly says that God “gave them up” or “gave them over.” The important question is what happened before God did so. Paul first tells us that people possessed knowledge of God, suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, refused to glorify God as God, exchanged God’s glory, exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and did not want to retain God in their knowledge. Only then does Paul repeatedly say that God gave them over. The progression therefore appears to be: God reveals → people know → people suppress, reject, and exchange → therefore God gives them over. This does not require what philosophers call libertarian free will, nor does it establish that human beings possess unlimited independent freedom. But it does appear to show genuine human responsibility and a meaningful freedom to act upon choices placed before them.
God’s giving them over functions as a judicial response to their rebellion. Romans 1 does not describe God first causing people to reject Him and then punishing them for the rejection He caused. Rather, God reveals Himself, people reject what He has revealed, and God judges them by giving them over to the direction they have chosen. The passage therefore emphasizes both human responsibility and divine judgment.
Divine Sovereignty and the Hardening of Pharaoh
The study later connects Romans 1 with the hardening of Pharaoh. Scripture does indeed say both that Pharaoh hardened his own heart and that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. On that point there should be no disagreement. The more important question is: How did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Simply saying that both God and Pharaoh hardened Pharaoh’s heart does not explain the relationship between those two statements. One theological explanation understands God as directly determining or changing Pharaoh’s inward disposition so that Pharaoh necessarily resists Him. There is, however, another way to understand the biblical account.
Pharaoh Was Already Resistant to God
Before the great series of plagues unfolds, Pharaoh declares: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?”. Pharaoh is already proud, resistant, and unwilling to obey God. God then proceeds to answer Pharaoh’s question. God reveals who He is through His righteous actions, His judgments upon Egypt, and the demonstration of His power. God knew perfectly well how Pharaoh would respond. Instead of humbling himself before God, Pharaoh became increasingly angry, stubborn, and resolute.
God Did Not Need to Reach Into Pharaoh’s Heart
To say that God hardened Pharaoh does not necessarily mean that God reached inside an otherwise receptive man and created unbelief, pride, or evil within him. God could harden Pharaoh through His own righteous actions toward a man whose heart was already opposed to Him. We commonly understand cause-and-effect language this way. Suppose one person strongly dislikes another and does not want that person to succeed. The second person nevertheless succeeds. We might truthfully say, “His success made the other person jealous.” But his success did not reach inside the jealous person and manufacture jealousy. The successful person supplied the occasion. The jealous heart supplied the jealousy. Another person witnessing exactly the same success might rejoice rather than become jealous. The difference is not found in the good action itself. The difference lies within the heart responding to it.
The same distinction can help us understand Pharaoh. God supplied the righteous action; Pharaoh supplied the sinful response. God knew that revealing His power and bringing righteous judgment upon Egypt would further provoke Pharaoh’s already proud and resistant heart. God nevertheless continued because His actions were righteous and because He intended to accomplish His purposes through them. Therefore, God could truthfully say that He hardened Pharaoh while Pharaoh remained morally responsible for the hardness, pride, anger, and rebellion that arose from within himself.
Foreknowledge Does Not Make God the Moral Cause
God knowing beforehand how Pharaoh would respond does not make God morally responsible for Pharaoh’s response. If I know that doing something good will make an envious person angry, my knowledge does not make me the author of his anger. Likewise, God’s perfect foreknowledge that His righteous actions would provoke Pharaoh’s pride does not require God to be the source of Pharaoh’s pride. This allows us to affirm everything Scripture actually says: Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh’s heart became hardened, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and God deliberately used Pharaoh’s hardened resistance to accomplish His purposes. These statements do not require us to conclude that God morally caused Pharaoh’s unbelief.
God was the righteous cause of the circumstances that provoked the response; Pharaoh remained the moral cause of his sinful response to those circumstances.
Sovereignty Does Not Automatically Mean Determinism
I therefore agree that God remained completely sovereign over the situation. But saying that God is sovereign does not, by itself, tell us how God exercises that sovereignty. Sovereignty can include God knowing human actions beforehand, permitting them, restraining them, judging them, using them, and accomplishing His purposes through them. None of those things requires God to become the moral author of the sinful desire itself. Therefore, the statement “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” should not automatically be expanded into the statement “God caused Pharaoh to reject Him.” The first is explicitly stated in Scripture. The second is a theological explanation of what that statement means and must itself be demonstrated from Scripture.
Does “Mystery” Explain the Hardening?
Wilson describes the relationship between Pharaoh’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty as existing within the “mystery of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.” Certainly there are aspects of God’s sovereignty that finite human beings cannot fully comprehend. But appealing to mystery does not itself explain how God hardened Pharaoh. Scripture tells us that God hardened Pharaoh and that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Calling the relationship a mystery merely restates that both are true without explaining how those truths relate to one another.
Therefore, rather than using mystery to settle the question, we should continue asking what the biblical account itself reveals about how God hardened him. A genuine mystery concerns something God has revealed to be true while withholding sufficient information for us to understand fully how it operates. Mystery should not become a substitute for examining whether a theological explanation of the text is actually required by Scripture.
Question Set #2: The Unrighteousness of the Jews — Romans 2:1–3:8
How Can Paul Say “Jew First” and Still Say That God Is Impartial?
There is really no contradiction. Partiality means showing favoritism toward the person rather than dealing with persons according to a just and relevant basis. The Jews possessed very real advantages. They had received God’s Law, God’s revelation, His covenant history, and His promises. But greater privilege also brought greater responsibility. Paul is saying that knowing more about God does not give someone a free pass to judge others while committing the same sins. The Jews had the Law, but possessing the Law did not excuse disobedience to the Law. God judges according to truth (Romans 2:2) and according to what each person does (Romans 2:6).
That is why Paul can say that trouble comes upon those who do evil, “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile”, while glory, honor, and peace come to those who do good, again “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile”. “Jew first” speaks of historical privilege and priority. It does not mean that God applies a different moral standard to Jews. Paul immediately explains: “For there is no respect of persons with God”. The argument is actually very simple: Do evil → judgment → Jew and Gentile. Do good → glory, honor, and peace → Jew and Gentile. Why? Because God does not show partiality.
“The Doers of the Law Shall Be Justified”
The study asks about Paul appearing to say that obedience will justify Gentiles. I think we should be careful with the word “appears.” Paul actually says: “The doers of the law shall be justified”. The question is not whether Paul said it. He clearly did. The interpretive question is what Paul means by the statement within the larger argument of Romans. This does not mean that Paul is teaching that people earn salvation through perfect law-keeping. Romans 3 will make very clear that all have sinned and that works of the Law cannot provide a basis for boasting before God. Nevertheless, we should begin with what Paul actually says before explaining how that statement fits into his larger argument. Romans 2:15–29 strengthens rather than weakens God’s impartiality. Being circumcised or possessing the Law could not protect a Jew who violated the Law. Likewise, outward religious privilege could never substitute for inward faithfulness toward God.
What Advantage Did the Jews Have?
This naturally leads to Paul’s question in Romans 3:1. If Jews and Gentiles are both accountable before God, what advantage did the Jews possess? Paul does not answer, “none.” He says: “Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God”. The Jews possessed genuine historical and spiritual privileges. But privilege is not the same thing as partiality. Receiving God’s revelation first does not mean receiving immunity from God’s righteous judgment.
Question Set #3: The Unrighteousness of All People — Romans 3:9–20
What Does “No One Seeks for God” Mean?
Paul says: “There is none that seeketh after God”. He is drawing from Psalm 14 as part of a collection of Old Testament passages intended to establish that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin. Paul’s immediate purpose is universal guilt. He is removing any possibility that one group can stand before God and claim natural righteousness over another. The original Psalm is important because it describes people who have “turned aside” and “become corrupt.” Paul then applies this language broadly to fallen humanity. However, there is an important distinction between saying No fallen person, left to himself, naturally seeks God as he ought and saying No unbeliever is capable of responding when God seeks him, reveals Himself to him, confronts him with truth, draws him, or calls him through the Gospel.
See popup on Generational Sin and the Increasing Corruption of a People
Romans 3:11 clearly describes mankind’s sinful condition. It does not explicitly state the second proposition concerning an absolute inability to respond to God’s initiative. That further conclusion would need to be established from Scripture rather than assumed from the words “none seeketh after God.” This distinction also helps us understand passages such as Acts 17:27, where Paul says that God ordered human history so that people “should seek the Lord”. There is no contradiction if Romans 3 describes humanity’s natural departure from God while Acts 17 describes God acting in history so that people might seek Him.
How Does Romans 3:18 Relate to Romans 3:11?
Romans 3:18 says: “There is no fear of God before their eyes”. This helps explain the condition Paul is describing. The failure to seek God is connected with mankind’s attitude toward Him. People have turned aside, become corrupt, and ceased to fear God as they ought. This fits what Paul has already described in Romans 1. People knew God, possessed truth concerning Him, suppressed that truth, refused to glorify Him as God, exchanged His truth for a lie, and eventually did not want to retain God in their knowledge.
The progression throughout Paul’s argument can therefore be understood as: God makes Himself known → people reject and suppress what is known → they turn away → they cease seeking God → they lose the proper fear of God → they stand guilty before Him. That is different from beginning with the theological statement, “They never seek God because they are incapable of responding to Him.” Paul is clearly establishing guilt, corruption, and rebellion. Whether those truths also establish a particular doctrine of total inability is a separate theological question that should be examined from the whole counsel of Scripture.
What Is the “Catch-22” of the Law?
Romans 3:20 says: “For by the law is the knowledge of sin”. The Law is good. It reveals God’s righteous standard and teaches us what is right and wrong. But therein lies the problem. Knowing the standard does not mean that we have kept the standard. The Law can show me what righteousness looks like, but once I violate that Law, merely possessing it cannot erase my violation.
The “catch-22,” if we wish to use that expression, is therefore: The Law shows me what righteousness requires, but in doing so it also exposes the fact that I am guilty. This is precisely where Paul is taking his argument: “That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God”. Romans 3:9–20 is therefore primarily a courtroom argument establishing universal guilt. Paul is demonstrating that neither Jew nor Gentile can stand before God and claim righteousness on the basis of nationality, religious privilege, possession of the Law, or personal merit.
Additional Observations from Week 3
General Revelation
The study’s discussion of general revelation is largely consistent with Romans 1:19–20. Creation reveals enough concerning God’s power and divine nature to leave mankind without excuse. General revelation does not provide the complete Gospel message concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That requires further revelation from God. But Romans 1 does establish that fallen humanity is not completely ignorant of God. Something true about God has been revealed and understood, and that revelation provides sufficient reason and cause for mankind to recognize God and seek Him. This is precisely why suppressing that truth creates moral accountability.
God’s Kindness Leads to Repentance
Wilson appropriately draws attention to Paul’s statement that “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Romans 2:4). I agree. Repentance does not originate because mankind independently discovers a way back to God. God acts toward sinners first. His revelation, patience, goodness, conviction, and ultimately the Gospel itself call people toward repentance. This is another reason we should distinguish between affirming that God initiates and concluding that His gracious initiative must therefore be irresistible. Romans 2:4 clearly establishes the former; it does not state the latter.
Natural Law
The discussion of Romans 2 and natural law also contains an important truth. Human beings demonstrate an awareness of moral categories even without possessing the written Mosaic Law. Paul speaks of Gentiles showing “the work of the law written in their hearts”, with conscience bearing witness. This again supports accountability. People are not judged for failing to possess revelation God never gave them. They are accountable for their response to the revelation and moral knowledge they actually possess.
The Work of the Spirit
The study also speaks of God’s people as those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and of the Spirit applying Christ’s work and sanctifying believers. There is much here with which Christians of different theological traditions can agree. However, as we continue through Romans, an important question will be the relationship between the Spirit’s work, faith, regeneration, and salvation. We should allow the study to develop its position before assuming a particular order of salvation from individual expressions. If a later section explicitly argues that regeneration must occur before faith, then that claim can be examined on its own biblical evidence. Until then, language that is merely compatible with Calvinism should not automatically be treated as proof that Calvinism is being taught.
Closing Perspective
The purpose of these observations is not to criticize Jared Wilson personally or to search every sentence for hidden Calvinism. The purpose is to do exactly what Scripture repeatedly encourages believers to do: test what we are taught against the Word of God. Wilson’s study contains many observations that Christians from different theological traditions can affirm. Where theological questions arise, however, it is helpful to distinguish carefully between what Paul explicitly says, what reasonably follows from what Paul says, and what a theological system may add in order to explain what Paul says.
Calvinistic interpretations should be allowed to make their case from Scripture. Alternative interpretations should be given the same opportunity. Neither should be accepted merely because it is familiar, traditional, or presented confidently. Scripture itself must remain the final standard by which both are tested.
Week 4 — The Saving Righteousness of God (Romans 3:21–4:25)
Much With Which I Agree
There is again much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 3:21–4:25 with which I agree. Paul has established the universal guilt of mankind and now explains God’s gracious provision in Jesus Christ. Wilson appropriately emphasizes that salvation is not earned through works, that justification is a gift of grace received through faith, that Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision, and that obedience follows rather than purchases salvation. His emphasis upon Christ’s atoning work, the fulfillment of God’s promises, and Abraham’s trust in what God had promised all deserve recognition.
But Week 4 also gives us an important clarification concerning the theological questions we have been carefully tracking. In Week 3, Wilson referred to the Gospel saving “believing sinners.” I deliberately refused to interpret that expression as evidence that Wilson was teaching regeneration before faith. I noted that the words could fit within Calvinistic theology, but they could just as naturally mean sinners who hear the Gospel and believe. It would have been unfair to place a theological position into Wilson’s words that he had not actually stated.
We no longer need to make that inference. In Week 2, Wilson explicitly described the Gospel as bringing an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God.” Now, in Week 4, he goes further. While discussing Romans 4:17 and the doctrine of creation ex nihilo—God creating something from nothing—Wilson applies that concept directly to saving faith. He says that by His grace God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ.” Wilson has now stated the theological premise plainly enough that we can examine it directly.
Does Romans 4:17 Say That God Creates Faith Ex Nihilo?
The first question should not be whether this statement agrees with Calvinism. The first question should be much simpler: Is this what Romans 4:17 says? Paul writes of Abraham believing God, “who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”. Wilson takes this description of God’s power and extends it into the proposition that God creates the faith within the sinner ex nihilo. But Paul does not say that.
The context concerns God’s promise to Abraham and God’s ability to accomplish what human circumstances made impossible. Abraham and Sarah were beyond the ordinary possibility of producing the promised child. Yet Abraham believed the God who gives life to the dead and is able to bring into existence what does not presently exist. Paul’s emphasis is upon the power and faithfulness of the God whom Abraham believed, not upon God creating Abraham’s act of believing out of nothing.
Indeed, Paul immediately describes Abraham’s faith in remarkably personal and responsive terms. Abraham “against hope believed in hope” (Romans 4:18). He “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Romans 4:20). Most importantly, he was “fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21).
That final statement is particularly important. Paul identifies both the content and the reason for Abraham’s faith. God made a promise, and Abraham became fully persuaded that God was able to perform what He had promised. Paul does not say that Abraham believed because God first created faith within him from nothing. The object of Abraham’s faith was God and His promise, and Abraham’s persuasion concerned God’s ability to fulfill that promise.
Faith “Out of Nothing” or Faith Through Hearing?
Wilson’s use of ex nihilo creates an additional difficulty when compared with Paul’s own explanation elsewhere in Romans. Paul says: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Faith therefore does not appear in Paul’s argument as something created out of nothing. God has supplied something to be heard. He has revealed truth. He has given His Word. He has made promises. He has provided the Gospel. Faith arises in relation to that revelation.
Abraham provides an excellent example. God did not leave Abraham with nothing and then create faith from nothing within him. God spoke. God promised. Abraham heard. Abraham considered what God had promised. Abraham became fully persuaded that God could perform it. Abraham believed God. The initiative unquestionably belongs to God, but God’s initiative does not require us to redefine Abraham’s response as something God created ex nihilo.
This distinction matters because Wilson’s analogy is stronger than simply saying that faith is made possible by God’s grace. Creation ex nihilo means creation from nothing. The universe contributed nothing to its own creation. It did not hear God, consider His revelation, become persuaded of His truthfulness, and respond to Him. It did not receive a promise and trust the One who made it. If Wilson intends the analogy seriously, he has compared the sinner’s coming to faith with an object being brought into existence without any responsive participation whatsoever. Yet that is not how Paul describes Abraham’s faith.
God’s Initiative Is Not in Question
Once again, the alternative is not that Abraham generated saving truth from within himself or independently found his way to God. God acted first at every essential point. God called Abraham. God revealed Himself. God made the promise. God provided the object of faith. God possessed the power to fulfill the promise. Without God’s initiative there would have been no promise for Abraham to believe. But none of that requires the additional proposition that God also created Abraham’s faith out of nothing. There is an important difference between saying God provides everything necessary for faith and saying God performs the believing by creating irresistible faith within a particular person. The first can be demonstrated readily from the text. The second must be added to it.
Abraham’s Faith Is Repeatedly Presented as His Response
Paul’s language throughout Romans 4 repeatedly attributes the believing to Abraham. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). His faith was counted for righteousness (Romans 4:5). He is described as the father of “all them that believe” (Romans 4:11). He “believed in hope” (Romans 4:18), “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief” (Romans 4:20), and was “fully persuaded” that God could fulfill His promise (Romans 4:21). None of this makes faith meritorious. Abraham did not earn the promise by believing it. He did not create the promise, accomplish its fulfillment, or place God in his debt. In fact, Paul’s entire argument depends upon distinguishing faith from works. “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). Paul himself contrasts believing with working. Therefore, treating faith as a genuine human response does not transform faith into a meritorious work.
The Condition Does Not Become the Cause
This also reinforces the distinction we made in Week 2 between a condition and a meritorious cause. God may condition the reception of His gracious gift upon faith without faith becoming the cause, price, or merit of salvation. Romans 4 is especially damaging to the idea that acknowledging faith as a condition somehow compromises grace because Paul deliberately places faith in opposition to earning wages. Paul says: “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Romans 4:4). He then immediately contrasts that person with “him that worketh not, but believeth” (Romans 4:5). Paul therefore does not reason that if believing is something the person actually does, salvation becomes a wage. He explicitly identifies the person as not working but believing. Faith receives what grace provides; it does not earn what grace provides.
Wilson Has Now Confirmed the Theological Framework
This is why the progression from Week 2 through Week 4 matters. In Week 2, Wilson introduced an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God.” In Week 3, I deliberately declined to infer regeneration before faith merely from his expression “believing sinners.” Fairness required allowing Wilson to state his own theology rather than assigning one to him. In Week 4, however, Wilson tells us that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ.”
We therefore no longer have merely an isolated phrase that happens to be compatible with Calvinism. We have an emerging theological sequence: there are those who “belong to God”; they receive an “irresistible call of salvation”; and the faith by which they receive Christ is itself created by God ex nihilo within them. That is a theological framework, and Wilson has now supplied enough of its components that it is appropriate to examine the framework rather than continuing to treat each statement as an unrelated expression.
The problem is that the framework is becoming more detailed than the passages being used to establish it. Romans 10:17 did not say that the Gospel call is irresistible or restricted to those who already belong to God. Romans 4:17 does not say that God creates saving faith ex nihilo. These propositions are being brought to the passages as explanations of what must be occurring behind the text.
We Should Not Allow Theology to Rewrite Paul’s Explanation
This is precisely the danger identified at the beginning of this study. A theological system may become so familiar that its conclusions begin to sound as though they are simply the words of Scripture itself. Eventually we stop noticing where the biblical statement ends and the theological explanation begins.
Paul says faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Wilson says God creates that faith ex nihilo. Paul says Abraham heard God’s promise and became “fully persuaded” that God could perform what He promised. Wilson says God creates the necessary faith within the heart. Paul contrasts the person who works with the person who believes. A theological system should not be permitted to collapse those distinctions simply because its doctrine of human inability requires another explanation for why Abraham believed.
The question is no longer whether Wilson’s wording might be Calvinistic. Wilson has now confirmed the theological framework himself. The question is whether that framework is what Paul is actually teaching. And at Romans 4:17, the claim that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ” is not something Paul says. It is theology placed upon Paul’s words. Our responsibility is therefore not to grant the premise and interpret Romans through it, but to test the premise against Romans and the rest of Scripture.
Week 5 — Hope as a Result of Righteousness by Faith (Romans 5:1–21)
Much With Which I Agree
There is again much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 5 with which I agree. Paul has established the justification of the sinner through faith and now begins describing what follows from that reconciliation with God. Wilson appropriately emphasizes the peace, hope, reconciliation, and assurance that belong to those who have been justified by faith. His emphasis upon Romans 5:8 is also important: Christ died for us while we were still sinners, when nothing within us could merit or earn the salvation God was providing. Nor could the passage of time or any accumulation of good works ever make us worthy of that salvation. God acted toward us in our sinful condition. The initiative, provision, and accomplishment of salvation belong entirely to God.
Wilson is likewise correct to emphasize the tremendous contrast Paul establishes between Adam and Christ. Sin and death entered human experience through Adam, while righteousness, reconciliation, grace, and life are provided through Jesus Christ. I also agree with Wilson that the grace of God does not provide a license to sin and that the abundance of human sin can never exhaust the abundance of God’s grace. Paul’s argument is moving toward the triumph of Christ over what entered the world through Adam.
What Does It Mean to Be “Stained by Adam’s Sin”?
There is, however, an expression in Wilson’s discussion of Adam and Christ that deserves careful qualification. Under his discussion of Christ as the Last Adam, Wilson states that “all of the heroes of the faith were stained by Adam’s sin.” To this I absolutely agree. Adam’s sin brought catastrophic consequences upon humanity. Sin entered the world, death entered through sin, and mankind consequently exists within a fallen and corrupted human condition. No descendant of Adam, with the sole exception of Jesus Christ, has escaped that sinful / corrupted condition or lived without personally committing sin.
But we must be very careful about what we mean by the “stain” inherited from Adam. There is an important difference between inheriting the consequences and corruption resulting from Adam’s sin and inheriting the personal judicial guilt of Adam’s particular act of disobedience. Romans 5 certainly establishes that Adam’s sin affected everyone who came after him. What must not simply be assumed is that this necessarily means God judicially charges every descendant of Adam with being personally guilty for the sin Adam himself committed.
Our Concern Is Not Without Reason
Ordinarily, I would be reluctant to read more into Wilson’s expression than he explicitly states. That has been the standard followed throughout this review. Where Wilson’s wording is merely compatible with Calvinism, I have deliberately avoided assuming that he intends a specifically Calvinistic conclusion. However, we now have legitimate reason to watch such expressions carefully because Wilson has already introduced a Calvinistic theological framework into earlier passages before establishing that framework from the passages themselves.
In Week 2, Wilson described the Gospel as bringing an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God”, although Romans 10:17 itself says nothing about an irresistible call directed only toward selected individuals. In Week 4, Wilson went further and stated that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ”, although Romans 4:17 is describing God’s power to fulfill His promise to Abraham and never says that God creates Abraham’s faith out of nothing. Wilson has therefore already demonstrated a willingness to interpret Paul through theological conclusions that the particular passages under discussion have not themselves established.
For that reason, when Wilson now speaks of mankind being “stained by Adam’s sin”, we should identify the possible theological implication without yet accusing him of making an argument he has not explicitly made. If by this expression Wilson means that humanity inherited mortality, corruption (sinful / corrupted nature), and the fallen condition resulting from Adam’s sin, I agree. If, however, he intends to say that every descendant of Adam is personally and judicially guilty before God for Adam’s individual act of disobedience, that is a substantially different proposition and must be established from Scripture rather than assumed from the consequences of Adam’s fall.
Romans 5:12 Must Be Allowed to Speak for Itself
Romans 5:12 is particularly important because Paul does not stop after saying that sin entered the world through one man and death through sin. He continues by explaining that death passed upon all mankind “for that all have sinned”. Paul therefore unquestionably connects Adam with the entrance of sin and death into human existence, but he also speaks of the sin of those upon whom death has spread. We should not silently replace Paul’s statement that “all have sinned” with the theological proposition that all are personally guilty because Adam sinned. Those are not identical statements.
The distinction is important. Adam’s sin can have consequences for his descendants without requiring God to regard his descendants as though they personally committed Adam’s act. We experience consequences produced by the actions of others constantly. A child can suffer terribly because of the sinful decisions of a parent without becoming personally guilty of the parent’s sin. Consequence can be inherited; personal guilt is another matter entirely.
Scripture Explicitly Distinguishes Consequence from Personal Guilt
This distinction is not merely a philosophical objection. Scripture speaks directly and unambiguously about personal guilt. God declares through Ezekiel: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” (Ezekiel 18:20). Whatever theological conclusions we eventually draw from Romans 5 must remain consistent with this explicit declaration. The son may certainly suffer consequences arising from his father’s actions, but God expressly denies that the son bears the father’s iniquity.
The same principle appears in the Law: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16). Centuries later, this principle was applied directly when Amaziah refused to execute the children of those who had murdered his father because the Law commanded: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers; but every man shall die for his own sin” (2 Chronicles 25:4).
Jeremiah likewise describes personal accountability: “Every one shall die for his own iniquity” (Jeremiah 31:30). These passages do not deny that one person’s sin can produce devastating consequences for others. Scripture demonstrates such consequences repeatedly. They do, however, establish an important judicial principle: God distinguishes between suffering the consequences of another person’s sin and bearing personal guilt for that person’s sin.
This Reinforces God’s Impartiality Rather Than Competing With It
This also connects directly with the principle of God’s impartial judgment that we encountered in Week 2. Paul declares that God “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6), and then explains that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). Ezekiel expresses the same principle from another direction: the righteousness of the righteous belongs to him, the wickedness of the wicked belongs to him, and the son does not bear the iniquity of the father.
There is therefore a remarkable consistency in Scripture. God judges impartially. He does not condemn the innocent for the personal sin of another person. He does not transfer the father’s personal iniquity to the son or the son’s personal iniquity to the father. Every person is accountable before God for his own sin. At the same time, none of this requires us to deny the enormous consequences Adam’s sin brought upon his descendants. Humanity inherited a fallen world, mortality, corruption, and a sinful human nature from which every morally accountable person eventually commits his own sins. We are not sinful because we sin; we sin because we are sinful. But being born with a corrupted nature is not the same proposition as being personally charged with Adam’s individual act of disobedience.
The Adam–Christ Comparison Must Be Examined Carefully
Romans 5:12–21 will therefore require careful attention. Paul unquestionably establishes an extraordinary parallel between Adam and Christ. Through one man sin entered the world and death followed; through Jesus Christ come grace, righteousness, reconciliation, and life. But identifying the parallel does not settle every theological question concerning how Adam’s sin is related to our guilt or how Christ’s righteousness is received. Those conclusions must come from Paul’s actual argument rather than from a theological system imposed upon the comparison.
This becomes particularly important when Wilson discusses Romans 5:18 and the parallel between condemnation coming to “all” through Adam and justification and life coming to “all” through Christ. Wilson is certainly correct that Paul is not teaching universal salvation. Romans as a whole will not permit that conclusion. But explaining Paul’s language primarily in terms of “transculturalism”—people of every kind, Jews and Gentiles—may not completely explain the comparison Paul is actually making. Paul’s immediate contrast is not merely Jew and Gentile. It is Adam and Christ.
The question we should therefore carry forward is not simply, “Does Adam affect everyone and does Christ save people?” Both are clearly true. The more precise questions are: What exactly came upon humanity through Adam? Why does Paul say death spread to all? What does Paul mean by condemnation through Adam? Who receives the justification and life provided through Christ, and how does Paul say they receive it? We should allow Romans 5 and the rest of Scripture to answer those questions before importing a theological mechanism into Paul’s Adam–Christ comparison.
“The Law Came to Increase the Trespass”
Wilson also comments upon Romans 5:20, where Paul says that “the law entered, that the offence might abound”. Wilson explains that the Law does not merely reveal sin but can in many ways provoke sinners to sin even more, comparing this with the familiar human tendency to want to do something precisely because someone tells us not to do it. There is biblical support for part of this explanation, particularly when Paul later explains in Romans 7 that sin seized an opportunity through the commandment. Likewise, this same concept is illustrated in Romans 9 in regards to the Pharaoh. God does what is righteous and the Pharaoh responds to that righteousness with further hardening of his heart. Click here to see popup of Romans 9:17, the hardening of the Pharaoh's heart
The Law exposes the sinful disposition but the law does not create the sinful disposition. The Law is holy, just, and good. Sin exploits the commandment because something is already wrong within the sinner. The righteous command provides the occasion upon which the corrupted human heart responds rebelliously. Consequently, we should not attribute to God’s Law what Paul attributes to sin working through the fallen person. The Law exposes sin, identifies transgression, and can provide the occasion through which existing rebellion becomes manifest; the sinful response arises from the sinner.
A Question to Carry Forward
Week 5 therefore introduces another theological issue that should be carried forward rather than prematurely settled: Does Romans 5 teach that humanity inherited Adam’s personal judicial guilt, or does it teach that Adam introduced sin, corruption, mortality, and death into human existence, within which all subsequently become personally guilty through their own sin? Wilson’s expression that mankind was “stained by Adam’s sin” can be understood consistently with the latter and, taken by itself, does not require the former. We should therefore not accuse Wilson of teaching inherited guilt merely from that expression.
At the same time, because Wilson has already introduced an irresistible saving call and the creation of saving faith ex nihilo into passages that did not themselves establish those propositions, we have good reason to watch carefully for a similar theological move in Romans 5. If Wilson eventually argues that Adam’s personal guilt is judicially imputed to every descendant, that proposition must be demonstrated rather than assumed. It must account not only for Romans 5 but also for God’s explicit declarations that “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”, that “every man shall be put to death for his own sin”, and for Paul’s own declaration that God judges without partiality.
For now, we can affirm Wilson’s central point without accepting more than Paul has established. Adam’s sin brought a terrible stain upon humanity: a fallen and corrupted condition under the reign of sin and death. Christ is the answer to what Adam brought into the world. What we should not yet do is quietly redefine that inherited stain as the personal guilt of Adam’s individual sin. Scripture clearly distinguishes the consequences that one person’s sin may bring upon others from the personal iniquity for which God holds each person judicially accountable. If Romans 5 requires an exception to that repeatedly stated principle, the text must establish that exception rather than our theology supplying it.
Week 6 — The Triumph of Grace (Romans 6:1–7:25)
Much With Which I Agree
There is much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 6–7 with which I completely agree. Paul has established that salvation is by grace through faith, but grace is never presented as permission to continue living under the dominion of sin. Paul immediately confronts the possible objection: if grace abounds where sin abounds, why not continue sinning so that grace may abound even more? His answer could hardly be stronger: “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Romans 6:2). The grace that forgives the sinner does not leave the believer’s relationship to sin unchanged.
Wilson is therefore correct to emphasize the importance of the believer’s union with Christ throughout Romans 6. Paul repeatedly describes believers in relation to what has happened to Christ: we were baptized into His death, buried with Him, raised to walk in newness of life, and united with Him in the likeness of His death and resurrection. The Christian life is not merely an attempt to imitate Jesus from a distance. Something fundamental has changed in our relationship to Christ, sin, death, and the life we are now called to live.
I also agree with Wilson that Paul does not present the Law itself as sinful or defective. Romans 7 explicitly declares the Law to be “holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). The problem is not God’s righteous commandment but sin working through fallen humanity. Sin takes occasion through the commandment. The Law exposes what is already wrong within us; it does not create the sinful disposition that responds rebelliously to God’s command. To this I appreciate his clarification in light of Week 5.
What Does It Mean to Be “Under Grace”?
Wilson writes that being under grace means that believers now live under the “dominion of grace”, resulting in increasing conformity to God’s righteousness and increasing awareness of our failure to fully measure up to His standard. There is much truth in this description, but I would make an important distinction. Increasing obedience and growing conviction are consequences of our new relationship to God; they should not become the definition of what Paul means when he says that we are “not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
Paul’s immediate concern is dominion: “sin shall not have dominion over you”. The believer has entered a fundamentally different relationship to sin because of his relationship to Christ. Grace does not mean that sin no longer matters. Neither does it mean that the believer immediately becomes incapable of sinning. Rather, sin is no longer to reign as master. The change of dominion provides the foundation from which the believer is commanded to present himself to God and his members as instruments of righteousness. The new relationship comes first; increasing obedience should follow from it.
Grace Is Not a License to Sin
Wilson is also correct to reject antinomianism—the idea that because salvation is by grace, obedience no longer matters. Paul himself anticipates precisely this abuse of grace. If our sins are forgiven and grace abounds where sin abounds, someone might reason that greater sin simply provides an opportunity for greater grace. Paul rejects that conclusion completely. The believer who has been united with Christ cannot consistently treat the grace that rescued him from sin as permission to remain enslaved to it.
Wilson goes somewhat further, however, when he states that “the professed believer who claims that grace gives him license to sin with abandon is not a believer at all.” His concern is understandable, and Scripture certainly gives us reason to question a profession of faith that is accompanied by deliberate, settled, and unrepentant rebellion. Nevertheless, Romans 6:1–2 itself establishes that such reasoning is completely contrary to the Christian’s identity in Christ; it does not, by itself, establish that every professing Christian who reasons or behaves inconsistently with that identity was therefore never a believer. That conclusion requires a broader biblical argument and should not simply be inserted into Paul’s immediate response.
Union With Christ and “God’s Elect”
Wilson’s discussion of union with Christ raises another theological question that deserves careful consideration. He writes: “Union with Christ is one of the major themes of the New Testament and the overarching salvific result of Christ’s atoning work for God’s elect.” I agree completely that union with Christ is a major New Testament theme. However, Wilson’s wording provides an appropriate opportunity to consider more carefully the relationship between Christ’s atoning work, our union with Christ, and election.
Christ’s atoning work was accomplished historically through His death and resurrection. We were not already personally united with Christ in order for Him to die and rise from the dead. The cross is God’s accomplished provision. However, Scripture repeatedly describes our participation in the saving benefits of that accomplished work as belonging to those who are in Christ. Paul says that we are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). He later declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
Paul makes the relationship particularly clear in 1 Corinthians 1:30: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”. Ephesians follows the same pattern. God has blessed us “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3), and Paul says of Christ, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). The repeated emphasis is difficult to miss: the saving blessings accomplished through Christ belong to us in Christ.
The distinction may appear subtle, but it is important. Christ did not atone because we were already in Him; His atoning work is the accomplished provision. Our participation in the saving benefits of that work, however, is repeatedly located in our union with Him. This is particularly relevant because Wilson himself immediately explains that “by God’s grace received through faith, a sinner is in fact united to Christ.” In that statement, Wilson acknowledges both God’s gracious provision and the means by which the sinner comes into this union: God’s grace is received through faith.
Election in Christ
Wilson’s additional expression “for God’s elect” therefore deserves careful consideration without assuming more than he has actually stated. Scripture unquestionably speaks of God’s elect. The question is not whether election is biblical, but how Scripture describes that election and where it locates the believer in relation to it.
Ephesians 1:4 is especially important because Paul does not merely say that God chose us; he says that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world”. The words “in him” should not be treated as incidental. The New Testament also identifies Christ Himself as God’s chosen One. At the transfiguration the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son: hear him” (Luke 9:35), with the textual tradition also preserving the description of Him as the Chosen One, and Peter explicitly describes Christ as “chosen of God, and precious” (1 Peter 2:4). Peter then applies corresponding chosen language to those who belong to Him, calling believers “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9).
This provides another possible way of understanding the biblical language of election. Rather than beginning with an independently selected collection of individuals for whom Christ subsequently performs an atoning work, Scripture repeatedly directs our attention toward Christ as God’s Chosen One and toward those who are in Christ as God’s chosen people. Paul’s statement that God “hath chosen us in him” therefore deserves its full weight. Election is not presented independently of Christ but explicitly in relation to Him.
Click here for my exposition on God Chose us before the foundation of the WorldWilson’s own next sentence makes this question especially relevant because he says that God’s grace is “received through faith” and that through this a sinner is united to Christ. This raises an important question that should be allowed to remain with the reader: Does Scripture present Christ’s atoning work as being directed exclusively toward a previously selected collection of individuals called “the elect,” or is election fundamentally centered in God’s Chosen One, Jesus Christ, with those who are united to Him sharing in the identity and blessings of God’s elect people? Wilson’s statement by itself does not settle that question, and neither should we. The biblical language concerning election and union with Christ should be allowed to establish the relationship.
The Believer’s New Nature and Continuing Struggle With Sin
Wilson also discusses the tension between the believer’s new identity and the continuing presence of sin. He asks whether a Christian is a saint or a sinner and concludes that there is a sense in which both realities must be recognized. I agree with the essential distinction he is making. Salvation does not mean that the Christian has already reached sinless perfection. We continue to experience the weakness and corruption associated with our present mortal condition, and Romans 7 vividly describes the conflict associated with sin and the desire to obey God.
At the same time, Wilson rightly recognizes that the believer’s fundamental identity has changed. The Christian should not define himself merely by the sin from which Christ is saving him. Paul addresses believers as saints and repeatedly describes them according to their relationship to Christ. We remain capable of sin and continue to require God’s grace, correction, and transforming work, but the Christian belongs to Christ and is called to live consistently with that new identity.
The Resurrection Still to Come
Wilson’s emphasis upon the future resurrection is also important. Romans 6 connects the believer’s present union with Christ to both Christ’s resurrection and our future life with Him. Christians presently possess new life in Christ, but salvation has a future bodily dimension that has not yet been completed. Paul will develop this much more fully in Romans 8 when he speaks of the redemption of our bodies.
The Christian hope is therefore not merely that an immaterial soul survives death. Christ was bodily raised from the dead, and those who belong to Him await resurrection and transformation. The mortal condition inherited through Adam will not continue forever. The victory Christ has already accomplished will ultimately include the defeat of death itself and the transformation of those who are His.
A Pattern Worth Continuing to Watch
As with the previous weeks, I find much in Wilson’s direct exposition of Romans with which I agree. His emphasis upon grace, union with Christ, the believer’s changed relationship to sin, the goodness of God’s Law, and the necessity of Christian obedience is substantially consistent with Paul’s argument. The questions arise primarily when additional theological conclusions are attached to that exposition.
This is becoming a pattern worth observing. In Week 2, Wilson introduced an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God”. In Week 4, he stated that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ”. Now, in Week 6, he describes Christ’s atoning work specifically as being “for God’s elect”. Each statement is consistent with Wilson’s Calvinistic theology, but the question throughout this review remains the same: Has the passage of Romans presently under consideration actually established the theological conclusion being stated?
In this case, I do not believe we need to declare Wilson either right or wrong merely because he uses the expression “God’s elect”. Instead, his statement gives us an appropriate opportunity to identify an important biblical distinction. Scripture repeatedly locates righteousness, redemption, forgiveness, sanctification, and the other blessings of salvation in Christ. It likewise says that God has “chosen us in him”. Wilson himself says that God’s grace is “received through faith” and that the sinner is thereby united to Christ. Those statements should be allowed to inform how we understand the identity of God’s elect rather than beginning with a theological definition of election and then reading that definition back into Paul’s language.
Romans 6 unquestionably teaches that those united with Christ have entered a new relationship to sin, death, righteousness, and life. Grace does not merely pardon while leaving sin enthroned. Those who belong to Christ are called to live according to the new reality established in Him. Where I would exercise caution is in moving beyond Paul’s argument to theological conclusions about who constitutes “God’s elect,” how those individuals became elect, or for whom Christ’s atoning work was intended. Those questions must be established from Scripture rather than assumed from a theological system. For now, Paul’s repeated emphasis is unmistakable: the believer’s new life, righteousness, and hope are found in Christ.
Week 7 — Life in the Spirit (Romans 8:1–39)
Much With Which I Agree
Romans 8 is one of the richest chapters in Scripture, and there is much in Wilson’s treatment with which I agree. Paul describes the extraordinary position of those who are in Christ: there is no condemnation, the Spirit of God dwells within them, they have been adopted as children of God, they are heirs with Christ, the Spirit assists them in their weakness and intercedes for them, and they possess a tremendous hope extending ultimately to resurrection and glorification.
Wilson is also right to emphasize that the Christian life is life in the Spirit. Paul does not describe salvation merely as receiving forgiveness and then continuing unchanged. Those who belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within them. The Spirit produces life, leads the children of God, bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children, and assists us in our weakness. This continues the theme we encountered in Romans 6: salvation brings the believer into a new relationship with God, sin, righteousness, and ultimately death itself.
Wilson’s discussion of creation is likewise helpful. Romans 8:19–23 presents salvation within a much larger picture than merely what happens to an individual soul after death. Creation itself has been subjected to corruption and groans while awaiting deliverance. The believer likewise awaits “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). The Christian hope therefore includes bodily resurrection and the ultimate liberation of creation from the corruption associated with the Fall. Christ’s victory will not leave death and corruption permanently reigning over God’s creation.
Wilson also rightly emphasizes the tremendous assurance contained in Romans 8. Nothing external to the believer can overpower Christ, defeat God’s purpose, or forcibly separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Paul is writing to encourage suffering Christians, not to leave them wondering whether some power in creation might be greater than the God who has redeemed them.
“As Secure as Christ Himself Is”
Wilson summarizes the message of Romans 8 by saying, “If we are united with Christ, adopted by God, and indwelt by the Spirit, then we are as secure as Christ himself is.” I appreciate what Wilson is attempting to communicate. Romans 8 unquestionably provides extraordinary assurance to the believer. Nevertheless, we should distinguish Paul’s statements from Wilson’s formulation. Paul does not actually say that believers are “as secure as Christ himself is.”
More importantly, Paul repeatedly describes the people to whom this assurance belongs. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). The Spirit of God dwells in them (Romans 8:9). They are led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). They are children and heirs of God, “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:17). At the conclusion of the chapter, the inseparable love Paul celebrates is specifically “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
We should therefore affirm everything Paul says about the security of those who are in Christ without automatically converting those assurances into a different proposition: that it is impossible for a believer subsequently to cease believing, cease abiding, or turn away. Whether Scripture teaches such an impossibility must be established from the whole counsel of God. The tremendous assurance Romans 8 gives to those who are in Christ should not be diminished, but neither should the warnings and conditional statements found elsewhere in Scripture be made meaningless by extending Paul’s assurance beyond what he actually states.
Can a Believer Never Return to Spiritual Death?
Wilson makes this stronger conclusion explicit when he asks whether, once a person is born again, that person can ever “revert to a state of spiritual death.” He answers in the negative and appeals to Romans 8 as evidence. I want to be careful here because I share Wilson’s belief that the genuinely born-again believer will not ultimately return to spiritual death. My disagreement is not necessarily with Wilson’s conclusion. My concern is whether the particular passages before us actually establish that conclusion. Agreement with a theological proposition does not give us permission to read that proposition into a passage that does not itself state it. The same standard I am applying to Wilson’s Calvinistic conclusions must also be applied to conclusions with which I personally agree.
Romans 8 certainly gives the believer tremendous reason for confidence. The question, however, is whether Paul is discussing the inability of anything to overpower God and separate those who are in Christ from His love, or whether he is additionally teaching in these particular verses that apostasy is impossible. Simply put, Paul nowhere says in these passages that a believer cannot apostatize. That does not mean that a believer can apostatize, nor does it mean that Wilson’s conclusion is necessarily wrong. It means only that we must not make Romans 8 say more than Paul actually says.
Paul’s great conclusion is that neither tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, “nor any other creature” can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35–39). Nothing in creation can defeat God or forcibly remove the believer from Christ. That is an extraordinary promise. Paul is assuring suffering believers that no external circumstance, spiritual power, persecution, death, or created thing possesses the power to defeat God’s saving purpose or tear them away from His love.
But that is not precisely the same question as whether a believer can subsequently reject, abandon, or cease abiding in Christ. Paul does not address apostasy in Romans 8:35–39, much less explicitly declare it impossible. If we wish to establish the doctrine commonly summarized as “once saved, always saved,” we must establish it from passages that actually speak to that question and then reconcile those passages with the biblical warnings concerning unbelief, falling away, continuing in the faith, and abiding in Christ. I may ultimately arrive at the same theological conclusion as Wilson, but I do not believe these particular verses should be required to prove something Paul does not explicitly address within them.
This distinction is important to the method of this review. It would be inconsistent for me to criticize Wilson for reading Calvinistic conclusions into passages and then permit myself to do the same thing simply because I happen to agree with a particular conclusion. Our theology must be derived from the whole counsel of Scripture, but individual passages should first be allowed to say what they actually say. Romans 8:35–39 gives magnificent assurance that nothing in creation can overpower God and separate those who are in Christ from His love. Whether a genuine believer can apostatize is a related but distinct theological question that must be established elsewhere rather than assumed to have been answered here.
Foreknowledge — What Does Paul Actually Say?
The most significant theological questions in Wilson’s Week 7 discussion begin with Romans 8:29. Wilson correctly observes that Paul says “whom he did foreknow” rather than merely speaking abstractly about future events. Wilson then challenges the interpretation that God simply looked into the future, discovered which individuals would believe, and elected those individuals because He foresaw their decision. I do not believe we need to defend such a simplistic description of divine foreknowledge. God is not merely an observer standing outside history waiting to discover what His creatures will do.
Indeed, speaking of God as “looking down the corridors of time” can itself create a misleading picture of divine foreknowledge. God is not subject to time as we are. He does not need to wait for tomorrow to arrive before tomorrow becomes known to Him, nor does He need to peer forward through history in order to discover what His creatures will eventually do. In His perfect omniscience, all things (of all possible realities created or uncreated & counterfactuals) are known to God completely. From our temporal perspective we speak of past, present, and future; God’s knowledge, however, is not acquired progressively as events unfold. Nothing that occurs within creation ever becomes new information to Him.
Nevertheless, Romans 8:29 gives us an order that should not be overlooked. Paul says, “whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son”. Whatever theological meaning we ultimately assign to foreknowledge, Paul places foreknowledge before predestination in the sentence. He does not say, “whom He predestinated, He therefore foreknew.” He says those whom God foreknew, He also predestinated. We should therefore be very cautious about adopting a theological explanation that effectively reverses Paul’s stated relationship between the two.
This becomes particularly important when considering the Calvinistic understanding of divine decree. Calvinism certainly does not deny that God is omniscient; Calvinists strongly affirm God’s perfect knowledge of all things. The question is more precise than that. Within classical Calvinistic theology, God’s certain foreknowledge of future events is commonly grounded in His eternal decree: God infallibly knows what will occur because He has decreed what will occur. When that framework is brought into Romans 8:29, there is a danger that predetermination becomes logically prior to foreknowledge, even though Paul’s statement moves in the opposite direction: foreknown → predestinated.
Click Here to review these very claims by John Calvin himself and othersThat distinction has significant ramifications. If God foreknows a person only because He has first determined everything concerning that person, then predetermination has effectively become the explanation for the foreknowledge. Yet Paul does not present predestination as the basis upon which God subsequently foreknows. He begins with those God foreknew and then says that those whom He foreknew He also predestinated. At minimum, the grammatical progression should prevent us from simply assuming that God’s foreknowledge in this passage is merely another way of describing what He had already unconditionally predetermined.
Nor does affirming genuine foreknowledge threaten God’s omniscience or require us to imagine God passively looking into a future existing independently of Him. God can perfectly know His creation and everything that will occur within it without our reducing that knowledge either to passive observation or to the proposition that He must causally determine every event in order to know it. Perfect knowledge means precisely that nothing is unknown to God. The question before us in Romans 8:29 is therefore not whether God knows the future, but what relationship Paul establishes between God’s foreknowledge and His subsequent statement concerning predestination.
However, Wilson moves from rejecting the “looking down the corridor of time” explanation to supplying another. He writes that Romans 8:29 does not say that God foreknows what will happen but that He foreknows who will “happen.” Wilson acknowledges that God possesses complete foreknowledge of future events as part of His omniscience, but argues that the foreknowledge in Romans 8:29 is relational knowledge of particular persons. He eventually summarizes this foreknowledge by saying, “In a word, it is love.”
God certainly loves His people, and biblical language concerning knowing someone can sometimes carry relational significance. But the important exegetical question remains: Does the word “foreknow” itself mean “previously love” or “previously choose for salvation” in Romans 8:29? Paul does not explicitly define the word that way in the verse. Moving from “whom he did foreknow” to “whom He previously chose or loved in a saving sense” requires an argument; it cannot simply be assumed from the fact that the grammatical object of foreknowledge is persons rather than events.
Foreknowledge Is Not Automatically Election
Other biblical uses of foreknowledge caution us against simply treating foreknowledge and election as interchangeable words. Paul later writes concerning Israel, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew” (Romans 11:2). The nation of Israel was unquestionably foreknown by God, yet Romans 9–11 will distinguish between Israel corporately, the believing remnant, unbelieving branches that are broken off, and those who may be grafted in again if they do not continue in unbelief. Foreknowledge therefore cannot simply be assumed to mean an irreversible selection of every individual included within the object of that foreknowledge for eternal salvation.
Peter likewise says that Christ was “foreordained before the foundation of the world” in the King James Version, translating a form of the same Greek family associated with foreknowledge (1 Peter 1:20). Christ being foreknown by the Father certainly does not mean that the Father selected Christ from among several possible candidates because He otherwise would not have been the Son. Foreknowledge concerns God’s prior knowledge within His eternal purpose, but the precise theological implications must be determined from context rather than built into the word itself.
Wilson therefore raises a legitimate question about foreknowledge, but his answer should not be treated as though it were simply the definition supplied by Romans 8:29. The verse says that God foreknew persons. It does not itself say that foreknowledge means unconditional individual election to salvation. That conclusion, if correct, must be established from the surrounding argument and the rest of Scripture.
What Did God Predestinate?
Wilson’s definition of predestination deserves even closer examination. At the conclusion of Week 7 he defines predestination as “God’s sovereign choice of people for redemption and eternal life. Also referred to as ‘election.’” This definition does considerably more than define the biblical term. It incorporates a particular theological interpretation into the definition itself and then treats predestination and election as essentially interchangeable concepts.
Romans 8:29 actually tells us what those whom God foreknew were predestinated to: “whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son”. Paul’s stated destination is conformity to Christ. The verse does not say, “whom God selected to believe, He predestinated to become believers.” The predetermined destination described by Paul is what God has purposed for those who belong to Christ: they will ultimately be conformed to the image of His Son.
This distinction is important because predetermining a destination is not necessarily the same thing as predetermining which individuals will enter the group destined to arrive there. God can sovereignly determine beforehand what will happen to everyone who is in Christ without thereby requiring that He causally determine which individuals will believe. Those are separate propositions. Romans 8:29 explicitly states the former; the latter must be established rather than assumed.
The same pattern deserves consideration in Ephesians. Paul says that believers have been predestinated “unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself” (Ephesians 1:5), and later speaks of an inheritance according to God’s predetermined purpose (Ephesians 1:11). Predestination unquestionably belongs to God’s sovereign purpose. The question is not whether God predestines, but what Scripture says He predestines and toward what end.
Chosen “In Christ”
Interestingly, Wilson himself makes an observation that deserves considerable emphasis. He writes, “We are lovingly chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world”, citing Ephesians 1:3–4. With that statement I agree, provided we allow the words “in Christ” to retain their full significance.
Paul does not merely say that God chose us before the foundation of the world. He says that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). As discussed in the previous week, Scripture repeatedly locates the blessings of salvation in Christ. Redemption is in Christ. Righteousness is in Christ. Forgiveness is in Christ. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. Likewise, election is described as being in Him.
This raises an important distinction. Is the biblical order that God first selected particular individuals independently and then placed those selected individuals into Christ, or is God’s election fundamentally centered in Christ, the Chosen One, with those united to Him becoming participants in the identity, inheritance, and destiny of God’s chosen people? Wilson’s statement that we are chosen “in Christ” does not by itself answer every question surrounding election, but neither should those two words be passed over as though they add nothing to Paul’s meaning.
The “Golden Chain” — What Paul Says and What Wilson Adds
Wilson next introduces what theologians commonly call the ordo salutis, or “order of salvation,” describing Romans 8:30 as a kind of chronology of the believer’s salvation. He writes: “When God predestines someone to salvation, you can be sure he will call that person. And if he calls him, he will respond in the faith needed to be justified. And if he is justified, he will be glorified.”
This is perhaps the clearest point thus far at which we need to distinguish carefully between what Paul actually says and what Wilson’s theological system supplies to the passage. Romans 8:30 says: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified”.
Paul does not say in this verse, “whom God predestinated to salvation.” The preceding verse identifies the predetermined destination as conformity to the image of Christ. Neither does Romans 8:30 say, “everyone God calls will respond in the faith needed to be justified.” Wilson has inserted that proposition between called and justified. Faith is unquestionably necessary for justification; Paul has spent much of Romans establishing precisely that. But the claim that this particular calling necessarily produces the required response of faith is an additional theological conclusion that Romans 8:30 itself does not state.
That distinction becomes especially important when Wilson’s statements from the preceding weeks are placed together. Earlier he described an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God.” He later stated that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ.” Now he tells us that when God predestines someone to salvation, God will call that individual and “he will respond in the faith needed to be justified.” Taken together, these statements present a recognizable theological sequence: God selects the individual, predestines that individual to salvation, irresistibly calls him, provides the faith by which he necessarily responds, justifies him, and guarantees his eventual glorification.
That theological system may be defended by Wilson, but Romans 8:29–30 should not be presented as though every link in that system appears explicitly in Paul’s words. Particularly important is the inserted proposition that the person called “will respond in the faith needed to be justified.” Paul certainly teaches justification through faith. What Wilson must establish is that the calling mentioned in Romans 8:30 irresistibly produces that faith in every individual called. The verse itself does not say so.
Called and Justified Are Not Identical
There is another reason to maintain this distinction. Paul has already spent several chapters explaining the means through which justification is received. Romans 3:26 speaks of the one “which believeth in Jesus”. Romans 3:28 concludes that “a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law”. Romans 4 repeatedly appeals to Abraham’s faith, and Romans 5:1 begins, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.
Romans 8:30 does not repeal or replace that explanation. Paul can summarize God’s saving purpose by speaking of those foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified without redefining the means of justification he has already explained. The fact that Paul does not repeat faith in Romans 8:30 does not permit us to manufacture a mechanism explaining why the called necessarily believe. The reader already knows from Romans how justification is received: through faith.
“Glorified” and the Certainty of God’s Purpose
Wilson also observes that Paul speaks of glorification in the past tense even though the believer’s bodily glorification remains future. Wilson takes this as indicating that glorification is already secured and describes it as “a foregone conclusion.” There is an important truth here. Paul speaks of God’s redemptive purpose with extraordinary certainty. God has predetermined that those who belong to Christ will ultimately be conformed to the image of His Son, and nothing external can defeat that purpose.
But again, the certainty of the destination should not automatically be transformed into an answer to a different question: whether every individual who at some point believes is incapable of subsequently abandoning faith. Paul’s emphasis in Romans 8:29 is conformity to Christ, and his language of glorification looks toward the completion of that purpose. God has determined beforehand the destiny of those who are in Christ. The certainty of what God has prepared for His people does not by itself establish every theological claim concerning how individuals enter, remain within, or might depart from that relationship.
Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God in Christ
None of these qualifications should be allowed to weaken Paul’s magnificent conclusion. The believer does not live in constant fear that Satan, persecution, death, governments, angels, spiritual powers, present circumstances, future events, or anything else in creation might overpower God and tear him away from Christ. Paul’s language is deliberately comprehensive. Nothing in creation is greater than the God who saves.
But Paul concludes with words that deserve to remain attached to the promise: this inseparable love is “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Once again, Paul brings us back to the location in which the blessings of salvation are found: in Christ. That same emphasis has appeared repeatedly throughout Romans and throughout the New Testament.
The Calvinistic Framework Is Becoming Explicit
Throughout this review I have deliberately tried not to attribute theological conclusions to Wilson merely because his wording sounded compatible with Calvinism. Where a statement could reasonably be understood in more than one way, I have attempted to acknowledge that possibility. By Week 7, however, considerably less inference is necessary. Wilson has now begun explicitly connecting several propositions that have appeared separately during the preceding weeks.
In Week 2, Wilson introduced an “irresistible call of salvation to those who belong to God.” In Week 4, he stated that God “creates ex nihilo the faith we need in our hearts to receive Christ.” In Week 6, he described Christ’s atoning work as being “for God’s elect.” Now, in Week 7, he defines predestination as “God’s sovereign choice of people for redemption and eternal life” and tells the reader that when God predestines someone to salvation, He will call that person and that person “will respond in the faith needed to be justified.”
At this point, the concern is no longer merely that Calvinistic theology may be influencing Wilson’s interpretation. Wilson is openly using a Calvinistic theological framework to explain the text. That does not make his conclusions false merely because they are Calvinistic. Neither does it relieve him of the responsibility to establish those conclusions from Scripture. The same standard must apply to Wilson’s theology that should apply to every theological system, including my own: the question is not whether a theological system can be made consistent with a passage, but whether the passage actually teaches what the system claims it teaches.
What Romans 8 Clearly Establishes
Romans 8 unquestionably establishes an extraordinary redemptive purpose of God. Those who are in Christ are no longer under condemnation. They possess the Spirit of God. They are God’s children and heirs with Christ. The Spirit assists them in weakness. Creation itself awaits liberation. God has predetermined that those whom He foreknew will ultimately be conformed to the image of His Son. Nothing in creation can defeat God’s purpose or separate those who are in Christ from His love.
What Romans 8:29–30 does not explicitly state is that foreknowledge means unconditional selection of particular individuals for salvation; that predestination means God’s selection of which individuals will believe; that the calling mentioned in verse 30 is irresistible; that God creates the faith necessary for those individuals to respond; or that everyone called necessarily responds because God causes that response. Those propositions constitute a theological interpretation of Paul’s words, not simply a restatement of them.
Wilson is therefore right to see tremendous assurance, divine purpose, and ultimate glorification in Romans 8. Where I differ is in how quickly those truths are converted into a predetermined sequence governing which individuals will believe. Paul’s explicit destination of predestination is conformity to the image of Christ. His repeated location of salvation is “in Christ.” His previous explanation of justification is through faith. Before we redefine foreknowledge as prior saving love, predestination as God’s selection of particular individuals for salvation, calling as irresistible, and faith as the inevitable response produced by that calling, each of those conclusions should be demonstrated from Scripture. Romans 8 is too important a passage to allow the definitions of a theological system to decide the meaning of Paul’s words before Paul is allowed to define them himself.
Week 8 — God’s Sovereignty and Israel’s Unbelief
Much With Which I Agree
There is again much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 9 with which I agree. Romans 9–11 raises an important question concerning Israel and the faithfulness of God. If Israel was God’s chosen nation and so many Israelites have rejected Christ, has God’s promise somehow failed? Paul emphatically answers that it has not. I also agree with Wilson that salvation cannot be earned through human works, that no one can place God under obligation to show mercy, and that God’s saving work ultimately magnifies His own glory. God is sovereign, His authority is absolute, and His purposes cannot be frustrated by His creation. My disagreement therefore is not with the sovereignty of God. It is with what Wilson places inside the word sovereignty and then treats as though the word itself has established those additional theological conclusions.
What Does Sovereignty Actually Mean?
Wilson appears to make sovereignty carry a meaning that the concept itself does not contain. Sovereignty establishes God’s rightful and supreme authority over His creation; it does not, by definition, tell us the method by which God exercises that authority. Exhaustive determination may be proposed as one theory of divine governance, but it cannot simply be inserted into the word sovereignty and then treated as though God’s sovereignty has established it. This distinction is important because sovereignty primarily concerns the legitimacy and supremacy of rule. It answers the question of who rightfully possesses authority over a domain. Power concerns the ability to exercise that rule, while governance concerns how that authority is actually exercised. Providence concerns God’s superintendence of His creation according to His wisdom and purposes. These concepts are related, but they are not interchangeable.
Nor should God’s sovereignty be confused with God’s autonomy. God has always been autonomous because there has never been anyone or anything above God. He answers to no higher sovereign. There is no greater authority to whom God must submit. Before creation there was nothing outside God over which He could exercise sovereignty, but God was nevertheless completely autonomous, omnipotent, omniscient, holy, and self-sufficient. Once God created, He became Sovereign over that which He had created while remaining completely autonomous. God is therefore the King of kings and the Sovereign of sovereigns. There is nothing greater than God.
This also explains why sovereignty should not be treated in precisely the same manner as one of God’s natural attributes. A natural attribute belongs necessarily to God’s nature and does not depend upon the existence of something outside Himself. God cannot cease to be omniscient, omnipotent, holy, or self-existent. Sovereignty over creation, however, describes a relationship of rule between God and that which He created. God possessed everything necessary to rule before creation existed, but there was not yet a creation over which He exercised that rule. In much the same way, the title of king describes a relationship of rule over a kingdom or subjects. God’s creation established the domain over which the eternally autonomous and all-powerful God rightfully reigns.
God’s autonomy means that there is no sovereign over God. God’s sovereignty means that God rightfully rules over His creation. Neither statement tells us that God must govern His creation through exhaustive determination. In fact, because God is autonomous, no theological system has the authority to dictate the manner in which God must exercise His sovereignty. If God sovereignly chooses to create morally responsible creatures, places genuine choices before them, commands them to respond, calls them through the Gospel, permits disobedience, restrains evil, intervenes according to His purposes, and judges creatures for their actions, none of this diminishes His sovereignty. It describes the manner in which the Sovereign has chosen to govern.
A king does not cease being sovereign because he does not personally determine every thought, belief, and action of every person within his kingdom. His sovereignty concerns his rightful authority to govern. He may command, permit, prohibit, delegate, restrain, intervene, reward, or punish without personally determining every action performed by his subjects. Sovereignty tells us who rightfully rules. Scripture must tell us how the Sovereign has chosen to rule.
Sovereignty Does Not Establish the Calvinistic Order of Salvation
This becomes particularly important when Wilson moves from God’s sovereignty to distinctly Calvinistic conclusions. He says that salvation is not by human free choice, that if humanity were left to free will no one would ever choose God, that those who trust in Christ were predestined to do so, and that they were brought to faith through what he describes as God’s “invincible love”. These are not definitions of sovereignty. They are separate theological propositions, and each must be demonstrated from Scripture.
God’s sovereignty does not by itself establish Total Inability (hidden under the title of Total depravity). It does not establish that particular individuals were unconditionally selected to receive salvation. It does not establish that God predestined which individuals would believe. It does not establish that regeneration must precede faith. It does not establish an irresistible inward call that causes selected individuals to believe. None of these propositions becomes true merely by placing the adjective sovereign before the word grace. Each proposition must stand or fall according to what Scripture actually teaches.
This is why I have little difficulty affirming God’s absolute sovereignty while rejecting the conclusion Wilson draws from it. The question is not whether God is sovereign. Of course He is. The question is what Scripture says the sovereign God has chosen to do.
God’s Mercy Does Not Establish Irresistible Grace
Wilson similarly moves from Paul’s teaching concerning God’s mercy to the Calvinistic mechanism by which he believes salvation occurs. Romans 9:16 states, “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy”. I agree completely. Mercy originates with God. No human being can earn God’s mercy, compel God to provide salvation, or place God under obligation to save him.
But the statement that God shows mercy is not equivalent to the statement that God irresistibly causes selected individuals to believe. The first proposition is stated by Paul. The second requires additional biblical evidence. We should not move from one to the other simply because both can be incorporated into a Calvinistic understanding of salvation.
I am also not particularly fond of describing the issue in terms of “free will.” I prefer the freedom to act. A person cannot act upon an option that does not exist. Salvation is not something fallen humanity invented, produced, earned, or made possible. God provided the means and method of salvation in Christ. God provides the Gospel. God calls through that Gospel. Because God has provided something to which humanity can respond, humanity can properly be held responsible for its response. The provision remains entirely God’s; the merit remains entirely Christ’s; and believing the Gospel does not transform faith into a meritorious work.
Jacob and Esau — What Did God Actually Choose?
Wilson’s interpretation of Jacob and Esau also requires careful attention to what Scripture actually says. Romans 9 unquestionably teaches that God’s purpose according to election stood before Jacob and Esau had done either good or evil. But identifying an act of divine choosing does not by itself identify the purpose of that choice. We must allow Scripture to tell us what God was choosing.
Paul quotes the declaration, “The elder shall serve the younger”. The Genesis account supplies still more context: “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels”. The immediate biblical context therefore concerns Jacob and Esau in relation to two peoples, the covenantal line, and the reversal by which the elder would serve the younger.
Nothing prevents someone from arguing that additional implications follow from Paul’s use of Jacob and Esau in Romans 9, but those implications must be demonstrated. We cannot simply replace the purpose Scripture identifies with the statement that before either man was born God selected Jacob to be caused to believe unto salvation while withholding that saving choice from Esau. That is a substantially different proposition from the one explicitly stated in the text.
Paul Eventually Tells Us Why Israel Stumbled
One of the greatest dangers in interpreting Romans 9 is stopping the argument before Paul does. Romans 9 is followed by Romans 10 and Romans 11 because Paul is developing one sustained argument concerning Israel, the Gentiles, God’s promises, faith, unbelief, mercy, and the righteousness found in Christ.
Near the conclusion of Romans 9 Paul asks why Israel failed to attain the righteousness it pursued. His answer deserves considerable weight because Paul himself supplies it: “Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law”. Paul does not answer the question by saying that these Israelites failed to attain righteousness because God had not individually selected them to receive the faith necessary for salvation. He says they sought righteousness in the wrong manner. They sought it through works rather than through faith. This does not eliminate God’s initiative, mercy, or sovereignty from Paul’s argument. It does, however, require us to take seriously the explanation Paul actually gives rather than replacing it with a theological explanation imported from outside the passage.
Romans 10 Continues the Explanation
Romans 10 does not abandon the question. Paul continues explaining Israel’s condition. They possess zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Paul speaks of believing with the heart, confessing Christ, calling upon the Lord, hearing the message, and the preaching of the Gospel. He finally states, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”.
This becomes particularly important when compared with Paul’s description elsewhere of God’s calling. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14, Paul describes believers as chosen unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, and then explicitly says, “Whereunto he called you by our gospel”. In 1 Thessalonians 1:4–5, Paul speaks of their election and immediately points to the Gospel coming to them not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. The New Testament repeatedly connects the Gospel, hearing, believing, and salvation, and in that order.
Therefore, if an additional kind of saving call is proposed—an irresistible inward call given only to previously selected individuals which causes those individuals to believe—that proposition must itself be demonstrated from Scripture. We should not redefine every reference to God’s calling according to a theological system when Scripture repeatedly identifies the Gospel as the means through which God calls people to Christ.
Romans 11 Makes Faith and Unbelief Impossible to Ignore
Romans 11 continues the same argument and makes the distinction even clearer. Paul describes natural branches being broken off and Gentiles standing in their place. He explicitly identifies the issue: “because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith”. Once again, Paul provides the explanation.
Even more significantly, those unbelieving branches are not described as belonging to an eternally fixed category from which they can never emerge. Paul says, “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again”. Whatever theological system we construct from Romans 9 must therefore be capable of moving naturally into Romans 10 and Romans 11 without contradicting Paul’s continuing argument.
This does not mean that Romans 11, standing alone, resolves every question surrounding election. It does mean that an interpretation of Romans 9 which treats Paul as establishing two fixed classes of individuals—one selected to be caused to believe and the other passed over—must explain why Paul subsequently describes branches broken off because of unbelief, others standing by faith, and those presently unbelieving branches capable of being grafted in again if they do not continue in unbelief.
“Let God Be God” Is True — But It Cannot End the Examination
Wilson anticipates objections to his interpretation by warning that if we dictate to God what He must be like, we are not worshiping God but an idol of our own making. There is an important truth in that warning. We have no authority to dictate God’s nature, His character, or His method of salvation. God is God, and we are not.
But that principle applies equally to every theological system. I am not permitted to tell God what He must be like, but neither is Calvinism. God Himself has revealed His character and actions through His Word. Therefore, questioning whether a theological proposition accurately represents what Scripture teaches is not dictating terms to God. It is precisely because God is the final authority that every theological system must remain subject to examination by His Word.
Statements such as “let God be God” must therefore never become a shield protecting theological inferences from examination. If Scripture explicitly teaches something difficult, we must accept it whether or not we find it comfortable. But if a theological system introduces additional premises and then responds to questions about those premises by warning that questioning them amounts to questioning God, the theological system has improperly identified its own interpretation with God Himself.
Mystery Cannot Supply a Missing Premise
There is nothing inherently improper about acknowledging mystery. Scripture reveals truths about God whose complete manner of operation finite creatures cannot comprehend. But mystery cannot properly function as a substitute for demonstrating that premises introduced by a theological system are either taught by Scripture or logically compatible with one another.
A mystery properly belongs to something Scripture actually teaches whose mechanism Scripture does not fully reveal. A theological system should not be permitted to create an apparent contradiction through its own additional premises and then invoke mystery as the reason the contradiction need not be resolved. Election, predestination, calling, faith, unbelief, and God’s mercy are not subjects about which Scripture has remained silent. They require careful examination throughout Scripture rather than the assumption that a theological definition has already settled their meaning.
The Real Question in Romans 9
The disagreement between Wilson and me is therefore considerably narrower than it might first appear. I agree that God is absolutely sovereign. I agree that salvation originates with God. I agree that salvation cannot be earned through human works. I agree that God’s mercy is His to give and that humanity cannot place Him under obligation. I agree that God’s purposes according to election cannot be overturned by human merit.
What I do not see established merely by those truths is Wilson’s additional conclusion that God’s sovereignty means He selected particular individuals who would believe, predestined those individuals to believe, and then brought those selected individuals to faith through an irresistible or invincible operation unavailable to everyone else. Those are specific theological claims. They require specific biblical evidence.
The proper question is therefore not, Is God sovereign? He unquestionably is. The question is, What has the sovereign God revealed about the manner in which He saves and governs? Sovereignty identifies who rightfully rules. It does not permit us to manufacture the method by which He rules. That method must come from Scripture itself.
This is why Romans 9 cannot be isolated from Romans 10 and Romans 11. Paul speaks of God’s sovereign mercy and purpose, but he also speaks of Israel seeking righteousness not by faith, of faith coming by hearing the Word of God, of branches being broken off because of unbelief, of others standing by faith, and of unbelieving branches being capable of being grafted in again if they do not remain in unbelief. Any interpretation of Romans 9 must account for all of those statements together.
God is the King of kings and the Sovereign of sovereigns. There is nothing greater than God. Precisely because that is true, neither Calvinism nor any competing theological system has the authority to determine in advance how God’s sovereignty must operate. We must allow the Sovereign Himself, through His Word, to tell us how He has chosen to rule and how He has chosen to save. Wilson warns his readers against constructing a god according to what they believe God must be like rather than allowing God to reveal Himself as He truly is. It is a sound warning, but ironically Wilson would do well to heed his own warning.
Week 9 — God’s Righteousness in His Plans for Jews and Gentiles
Much With Which I Agree
There is again much in Wilson’s treatment of Romans 10–11 with which I agree. He correctly recognizes that Paul has not abandoned the question raised in Romans 9. Paul continues dealing with Israel, the Gentiles, God’s faithfulness to His promises, the proclamation of the Gospel, faith, unbelief, mercy, hardening, and the inclusion of Gentiles among the people of God. Romans 9–11 must therefore be allowed to function as one sustained argument rather than treating Romans 9 as though Paul’s discussion ended before Romans 10 and 11 supplied further explanation.
Wilson is also correct to emphasize the simplicity and universality of the Gospel proclamation. Paul declares that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, that the same Lord is Lord of all, and that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. The Gospel is not restricted by ethnicity, nationality, social position, or previous religious privilege. Salvation is found in Christ, and the message concerning Him is proclaimed to Jew and Gentile alike.
I also agree with Wilson’s insistence upon grace. Faith does not constitute a payment toward salvation, nor does believing the Gospel make the believer a contributor to Christ’s finished work. God conceived the plan of salvation, Christ accomplished the work upon which salvation rests, God provided the Gospel by which that work is proclaimed, and no amount of human merit could ever accomplish what Christ has done. Salvation is by grace from beginning to end.
The Power Is in God’s Message
Wilson describes the hearing of God’s Word as “effectual,” and I have no objection to that description when it is properly understood. There is tremendous power in the Word of God. That power does not reside in paper, ink, a leather binding, pixels upon a screen, or the physical sound waves produced by a preacher’s voice. The power is in the truth God has revealed and in the message being communicated. The Gospel is God’s message concerning what He has accomplished in Jesus Christ.
Paul’s argument in Romans 10 emphasizes precisely this communication of the message. He asks, “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”. He then concludes, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. Paul establishes a recognizable progression. The messenger is sent, the Gospel is preached, the message is heard, and faith comes through hearing that Word.
This is not an isolated description of how God works. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14, Paul speaks of believers as chosen unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth and then states, “Whereunto he called you by our gospel”. In 1 Thessalonians 1:4–5, Paul speaks of their election and immediately points to the manner in which the Gospel came to them, not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. The Gospel, the work of the Spirit, hearing the truth, believing, and salvation are repeatedly connected throughout Paul’s writings.
Effectual Does Not Necessarily Mean Irresistible
The difficulty therefore is not Wilson’s use of the word effectual. God’s Word is effectual. The question is what effect it produces and whether Scripture teaches that God selectively makes the Gospel effectual unto saving faith only for particular individuals whom He previously selected for salvation.
The distinction is important because effectual does not inherently mean irresistible, nor does it tell us what the resulting effect must be. God’s revealed truth confronts the hearer and produces consequences. One person may receive the truth and believe. Another may resist it. Another may become angry. Another may progressively harden himself against what he has heard. God’s Word has not therefore been powerless simply because the resulting response was unbelief rather than faith.
Pharaoh provides an important illustration. Pharaoh asked, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?”. God answered that question in a manner Pharaoh could hardly ignore. Through Moses, God’s commands and demonstrations of power repeatedly confronted Pharaoh with the identity and authority of the God he had refused to acknowledge. Yet that revelation did not initially produce submission. Pharaoh repeatedly resisted and hardened his heart, and Scripture eventually also speaks of God hardening Pharaoh. How? By God’s effectual revelation, not by reaching into the Pharaohs heart and turning it to stone (The Pharaoh did that). Pharaoh was not left unchanged or unaffected by it. But the effect upon an already resistant heart included still greater resistance and eventually judicial hardening.
This is consistent with Scripture’s repeated warning, “Harden not your hearts”. Such warnings take seriously the response of the hearer to God’s revealed truth. God’s Word may be powerful and effectual while still being resisted. Indeed, resistance itself demonstrates that the hearer has encountered something to which he is responding.
Paul Expected the Gospel to Provoke a Response
Romans 11 provides another striking example. Paul explains that he magnifies his ministry to the Gentiles, “If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them”. Paul expects what God is accomplishing through the Gospel among the Gentiles to have an effect upon unbelieving Jews. He hopes that seeing Gentiles enjoying the blessings promised through Israel’s Messiah will provoke his fellow Jews to jealousy and contribute to some of them coming to salvation.
This is an effectual operation of the Gospel that cannot simply be reduced to an irresistible inward call. The Gospel is proclaimed, people believe it, lives are changed, others observe what God is doing, and even that testimony can provoke a further response. Paul clearly believes that his ministry and its visible fruit can become part of the means through which others are brought to reconsider their unbelief.
The Word of God is therefore not powerless when someone rejects it. God’s truth exposes, confronts, convicts, invites, warns, and judges. The same message may be received by one hearer and resisted by another. The question is not whether God’s Word is effectual. The question is effectual unto what? Context must answer that question.
Where Wilson’s “Effectual Hearing” Becomes Problematic
If Wilson were merely saying that God’s Word possesses divine power and that the Spirit works through the proclamation of the Gospel, I would have little disagreement with him. But his statement cannot be separated from what he has already told us concerning his understanding of salvation. In the previous week’s discussion of Romans 9, Wilson stated that those who trust in Jesus were predestined to do so and were brought through what he described as God’s “invincible love.” His reference here to “effectual hearing” therefore operates within an already established Calvinistic framework.
Within that framework, the Gospel may be proclaimed broadly, but the ability to hear it savingly is not equally provided. God makes the call effectual unto saving faith for those particular individuals whom He has selected, while those not so selected are not given the same enabling necessary to respond in faith. That is the proposition requiring biblical demonstration.
Romans 10 does not say that faith comes by hearing only after God has first granted selected individuals a special kind of hearing unavailable to everyone else. Paul asks how people can believe if they have not heard, establishes the necessity of preaching so that they may hear, and then says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The power of the Gospel need not be denied in order to question Wilson’s interpretation. Quite the opposite. The question is why the power Scripture places in God’s Gospel must be supplemented with a selective mechanism that Paul does not state in this passage.
Does New Birth Have to Precede Faith?
Wilson makes the additional statement that the exercise of faith is impossible without the enabling power received at the new birth. This is more than an affirmation that salvation requires God’s grace or that the Holy Spirit works upon the sinner. It establishes a particular order: some form of new birth or regenerative enabling must occur before a person can exercise saving faith.
That proposition should also be tested rather than assumed. The Romans 10 passage Wilson is presently explaining emphasizes preaching, hearing, believing, calling upon Christ, and salvation. Paul does not insert regeneration between hearing and believing. If Wilson believes that regeneration or a special saving enablement must occur there before the hearer can believe, then the burden remains to demonstrate that order from Scripture.
Ephesians 2:8 does not settle the question simply by asserting that faith itself is the gift given to a previously regenerated individual. Paul says that salvation is by grace through faith and that this is not of ourselves but is the gift of God. The entire saving provision is God’s gracious gift. That does not require us to conclude from this verse alone that God first regenerates selected unbelievers and then creates the faith by which those regenerated individuals believe.
This distinction does not make faith a work. Receiving something God has freely provided does not mean the recipient created, earned, purchased, or merited the gift. The Gospel itself is God’s provision. Christ’s atoning work is God’s provision. The Spirit’s work is God’s provision. The ears in which you are given the opportunity to hear and the eyes in which you given the opportunity see see is God’s provision. The possibility of salvation exists because God created and supplied it, not because fallen humanity produced something God lacked.
Human Responsibility and the Gospel
Wilson is correct when he says that God’s sovereignty does not eliminate human responsibility and that God’s sovereign purposes should fuel rather than suppress evangelism. But once again, sovereignty itself does not establish the Calvinistic mechanism Wilson places behind evangelism. We must ask how Scripture says the sovereign God has chosen to work.
Romans 10 gives preaching genuine significance. Paul does not treat evangelism as merely the outward occasion accompanying an inward saving operation that would otherwise guarantee the predetermined result. His questions have real force: “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”. The Gospel must be proclaimed because people need to hear the message in order to believe it.
This is entirely consistent with God’s sovereignty. God sovereignly determined the means by which the saving work of Christ would be proclaimed. He sends messengers. He gives His Word. He works through His Spirit. He commands the Gospel to be proclaimed. He calls through that Gospel. None of this diminishes God by making salvation originate with man. It establishes the means God Himself has sovereignly chosen.
Romans 11 Continues to Explain Romans 9
Romans 11 also reinforces why Romans 9 must not be interpreted in isolation. Paul describes natural branches as having been broken off and Gentiles as standing where those branches once stood. He explicitly tells us why: “because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith”.
These are not incidental details. Paul identifies unbelief as the reason for the breaking off and faith as the condition in which the Gentile stands. He then warns the Gentile believer against pride and unbelief. The argument therefore continues to involve meaningful responses to what God has revealed.
Paul then makes an even more remarkable statement concerning those unbelieving branches: “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again”. The branches presently characterized by unbelief are not described as belonging to an eternally closed category from which salvation is impossible. Paul contemplates their restoration if they do not continue in unbelief.
This must be taken seriously when interpreting the choosing, mercy, and hardening language of Romans 9. Whatever conclusions we draw from Romans 9 must fit without contradiction with Paul’s subsequent statements that branches were broken off because of unbelief, others stand by faith, and those presently unbelieving branches can be grafted in again if they do not remain in unbelief.
Hardening Is Not the Same as an Inability God Withholds
Wilson also discusses Israel’s spiritual blindness and rightly recognizes the biblical theme of hardening. But hardening should not automatically be treated as another name for an inability that God has imposed upon everyone from birth and selectively removes only from the elect. Scripture frequently presents hardening as something occurring within a history of confrontation, rejection, unbelief, and judgment.
Pharaoh again provides an obvious example. Scripture speaks both of Pharaoh hardening his own heart and of God hardening Pharaoh. Israel likewise repeatedly heard God’s voice and resisted Him, which explains why Scripture can simultaneously speak of divine hardening and warn people not to harden their hearts. Judicial hardening is therefore not necessarily evidence that God withheld from the beginning the ability necessary for the person ever to respond. It may instead describe God’s judgment upon persistent resistance to revelation already given.
Romans 11 itself warns us against treating Israel’s hardening as an immutable individual condition. Paul describes the hardening as partial and speaks of those presently unbelieving Israelites as capable of being grafted in again. Hardening is real, but the context must determine its nature, cause, purpose, and duration.
No Distinction — Everyone Who Calls
Wilson’s discussion of “Global Redemption” contains some of the strongest statements in this week’s study. He correctly observes Paul’s repeated declaration that there is “no distinction.” In Romans 3 there is no distinction in humanity’s universal condition under sin. In Romans 10 there is no distinction between Jew and Greek in the availability of the Lord who is rich toward those who call upon Him. Paul then states, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
Wilson appropriately says that “the gospel is not for insiders.” I agree. But that universality deserves to be allowed its full weight. If the Gospel is genuinely proclaimed to all while the indispensable capacity to respond to that Gospel is intentionally withheld from everyone except a preselected group, then the universality of the outward proclamation and the exclusivity of the inward ability become two very different things. Calvinism must demonstrate that distinction from Scripture rather than assume it as the mechanism lying behind Paul’s universal language.
Wilson’s Own Conclusion Is Worth Taking Seriously
Near the conclusion of his discussion, Wilson says that God’s plan is to glorify every person who expresses faith in Christ, whether Jew or Greek, insider or outsider. I agree. That statement fits remarkably well with Paul’s argument throughout Romans 9–11.
Israel sought righteousness but did not attain it because they sought it not by faith. Christ is righteousness to everyone who believes. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek. Whoever calls upon the Lord will be saved. People must hear in order to believe. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Branches were broken off because of unbelief. Gentiles stand by faith. Those presently unbelieving branches can be grafted in again if they do not continue in unbelief. Paul even conducts his Gentile ministry with the hope that its results will provoke his fellow Jews and contribute to saving some of them.
These statements do not diminish God’s grace, sovereignty, initiative, or power. They describe how the sovereign God has chosen to work.
The Question Is Not Whether God’s Call Is Effectual
The disagreement with Wilson can therefore be stated quite narrowly. I have no difficulty believing that God’s Word is powerful. I have no difficulty believing that the Holy Spirit works through the Gospel. I have no difficulty believing that God’s calling can be effectual. I have no difficulty believing that no one could be saved had God not first provided Christ, the Gospel, the Spirit, and the means through which salvation is received.
What Wilson has not established is that God makes that Gospel call effectual unto saving faith only for particular individuals whom He previously selected to believe, while intentionally withholding from every other hearer the ability necessary to respond. That is not simply another way of saying that salvation is by grace. It is an additional theological proposition.
There is power in God’s Word. But that power is not found in the physical book, its pages, or its ink. It is found in the message God has revealed. That message can bring faith, conviction, repentance, anger, resistance, exposure, or further hardening. Scripture therefore requires us to ask not merely whether God’s Word is effectual, but what effect it produces in a particular context and how the hearer responds to the truth with which he has been confronted.
Paul’s own conclusion remains wonderfully simple: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. We should be careful not to place another mechanism between God’s Word and faith unless Scripture itself requires us to do so.
Week 10 — Living in Light of the Gospel
Much With Which I Agree
Wilson’s treatment of Romans 12:1–13:14 is, for the most part, very good. Having spent the previous chapters explaining the Gospel and God’s dealings with Jews and Gentiles, Paul now turns increasingly toward the practical implications of those truths. Wilson appropriately describes Romans 12–13 as essentially the “then” that follows the preceding chapters’ “if.” If these things concerning sin, justification, grace, Christ, the Spirit, Israel, the Gentiles, and God’s mercy are true, then how should those who believe them live? This is an important transition in Romans. Christianity is not merely a collection of theological propositions to be understood and defended. What we believe about God and what He has done in Christ is intended to change the way we live. Paul moves naturally from God’s mercies to the believer’s response: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God”. Wilson does well to preserve that connection between the Gospel Paul has explained and the life that should follow from it.
Worship Is Larger Than What Happens in Church
Wilson’s discussion of spiritual worship is particularly helpful. He rightly challenges the tendency to think of worship primarily as something Christians do while gathered in a church building, especially while singing. Corporate worship is certainly important, but Romans 12:1 reaches much further. Paul calls believers to present their very bodies as living sacrifices to God. Worship therefore encompasses the life of the believer. Wilson describes this as living with an openness, availability, and abandonment to God’s will that reflects the sacrifice of Christ. His larger point is sound. The believer does not leave worship behind when the church service ends. Our bodies, activities, relationships, occupations, decisions, and conduct all belong to God. Christian worship is therefore not confined to a particular building, hour, or activity. Wilson also emphasizes that this worship occurs “by the mercies of God.” That is exactly where Paul begins. Christian obedience is a response to what God has already done. God acts first. God provides first. God shows mercy first. The believer is then called to respond to that mercy by presenting himself to God.
“Spirit-Generated” Should Not Eliminate the Believer’s Response
I would place one qualification upon Wilson’s description of worship as “not man-generated, but Spirit-generated.” There is an important truth in what he is saying. Christian worship does not originate independently from God. Without God’s mercy, Christ’s work, God’s revealed truth, and the work of the Holy Spirit, there would be no Christian worship at all. At the same time, Paul’s language should be allowed to retain its force. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren”, and then calls upon them to “present your bodies a living sacrifice”. God’s provision and the believer’s response are not competitors. God provides everything necessary for Christian life, and the believer is genuinely called to respond to what God has provided. Therefore, if Wilson simply means that worship is made possible by God’s mercy and the work of His Spirit, I agree with him. I would only resist making “Spirit-generated” mean that the believer’s acts of worship and obedience must therefore be causally determined by the Spirit. Paul himself appeals to believers to act.
Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ
Wilson’s treatment of spiritual gifts is also helpful. He recognizes that the gifts God gives are not intended to elevate individual Christians into positions of personal prominence. They are given for service and for the building up of the body of Christ. Every believer has a place within the body, while Christ remains its true center. This fits Paul’s emphasis upon humility in Romans 12. The different gifts do not establish different degrees of personal worth. Rather, they demonstrate the interdependence of the body. Christians serve one another with what God has supplied. As Wilson appropriately observes, everyone plays a part, but Jesus alone occupies the position of preeminence.
One Body, Justification, and Humility
Wilson also makes a valuable connection between justification and relationships within the church. A person who understands that his standing before God rests upon grace rather than personal merit has no legitimate basis for exalting himself above another person. The Gospel removes boasting because our reconciliation with God rests upon what Christ has accomplished rather than upon our superiority to someone else. I would slightly qualify Wilson’s statement that only when we have been totally justified do we “cease seeking to self-justify.” Justified Christians can unfortunately still become defensive, prideful, self-righteous, and concerned with proving themselves right. I take Wilson’s larger point, however, to be that justification removes the legitimate basis and necessity for self-justification. We no longer need to establish our righteousness before God or elevate ourselves above others. In that sense, his point is well taken.
Love as the Fruit of the Gospel
Wilson’s treatment of love is also strong. He correctly connects Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 with Jesus’ summary of the commandments: love God and love your neighbor. Love does not abolish God’s moral instruction; properly understood, love fulfills what those commands were seeking to produce in our relationships with others. Wilson writes that God’s love toward us precedes our love toward others, drawing upon the truth that “We love him, because he first loved us”. This is an important pattern that runs throughout the Christian life. God’s initiative does not eliminate our response; it makes our response possible. God loves, provides, reveals, calls, teaches, equips, and gives. We then respond to what He has done. This is why grace and human response should never be treated as opposites. Loving our neighbor does not somehow diminish God’s grace because we actually perform the loving. The ability, instruction, opportunity, and reason for doing so have all come from God. Nevertheless, God genuinely commands us to love, and we are genuinely responsible for whether we obey that command.
Nonconformity Does Not Mean Withdrawal from the World
Wilson makes another helpful connection when discussing Paul’s command, “be not conformed to this world”. He traces the theme through Abraham, Israel, the teaching of Jesus, Peter’s description of believers as pilgrims, and Paul’s description of our citizenship in heaven. This distinction is important. Heavenly citizenship does not require Christians to ignore their earthly citizenship or withdraw from the societies in which God has placed them. In fact, the structure of Romans 12–13 makes such a conclusion difficult to sustain. Paul tells believers not to conform to the world and then immediately gives extensive instructions concerning how they should live among other people, including their responsibilities toward civil authorities. Our heavenly citizenship should therefore govern how we conduct ourselves during our earthly citizenship. Christians are not called to disappear from society but to live within it according to the values and commands of the kingdom to which they ultimately belong.
Wilson Handles Romans 13 Responsibly
Wilson deserves particular credit for not turning Romans 13:1–7 into a doctrine of unconditional obedience to government. He recognizes Paul’s command to respect civil authority, pray for those who govern, pay what is owed, and remain in proper subjection. At the same time, he explicitly states that Christians should never become cowardly or sinfully compromising concerning what God has commanded. His study questions reinforce that qualification by directing the reader to passages such as Acts 4:19–20 and Acts 5:29, where faithfulness to God required refusing the commands of human authorities. That is an important biblical balance. Government possesses genuine authority, but governmental authority is subordinate authority. No earthly ruler possesses authority greater than God. This is entirely consistent with the distinction between autonomy and sovereignty. God is autonomous because there is no sovereign above God. Once God created, He became Sovereign over His creation because He possesses the supreme and rightful authority to rule what He has made. Human rulers may possess genuine delegated authority, but they remain under the authority of God. Consequently, submission to government can never mean that government replaces God as the believer’s highest authority.
Submission Does Not Make Everything Government Does Legitimate
I would add one qualification to Wilson’s treatment. The limitation upon governmental authority should not necessarily be reduced to whether a government is directly commanding an individual Christian to commit a particular sin. Romans 13 also describes the purpose for which governmental authority exists. The ruler is described as God’s servant “to thee for good” and as one who bears the sword in response to wrongdoing. Paul therefore speaks not only about the responsibility of the citizen but also about the God-given function of civil authority. Submission to legitimate authority does not require Christians to declare everything performed by a government legitimate. Governments themselves remain morally accountable to the God from whom their authority ultimately derives. Wilson does not appear to deny this. In fact, his appeal to Acts 4 and Acts 5 demonstrates that he recognizes genuine limits upon governmental obedience. My qualification is therefore not a major disagreement with Wilson but simply an important distinction worth preserving when Romans 13 is applied beyond its immediate context.
Paul’s Commands Assume Meaningful Response
One feature of Romans 12–13 deserves particular attention after the theological questions raised in the preceding chapters. Paul fills these chapters with commands and appeals. Believers are told to present their bodies, refuse conformity to the world, renew their minds, exercise their gifts, love sincerely, honor others, bless their persecutors, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, overcome evil with good, submit properly to authority, love their neighbors, cast off the works of darkness, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul does not appear embarrassed by meaningful human response. Nor does he treat response as a rival to divine grace. The entire section begins “by the mercies of God”. God’s mercy precedes the response, provides the basis for the response, and gives the believer every reason to respond. Nevertheless, Paul still appeals to believers to act.
This is the same distinction that must be maintained when discussing salvation. God’s provision and human response need not be placed in competition with one another. The ears with which we hear are God’s provision. The eyes with which we see are God’s provision. The Gospel is God’s provision. The messenger is God’s provision. The opportunity to hear is God’s provision. Christ’s atoning work is God’s provision. The Holy Spirit is God’s provision. Indeed, the possibility of salvation exists only because God created and supplied everything necessary for it, not because fallen humanity produced something God lacked. Consequently, responding to what God has provided does not turn God’s provision into a human achievement. Romans 12 demonstrates the principle beautifully. Paul can ground everything in God’s mercy while simultaneously calling believers to present themselves willingly to God. Divine provision establishes rather than eliminates the possibility and responsibility of human response.
A Strong Treatment of Paul’s Practical Gospel
Overall, Wilson handles Romans 12:1–13:14 well. There are a few statements that benefit from qualification, particularly where terminology such as “Spirit-generated” could be interpreted through the more deterministic framework Wilson has expressed in previous weeks. But those qualifications should not obscure the substantial value of his treatment here. Wilson correctly recognizes that the Gospel produces a transformed life; that worship extends far beyond a church service; that spiritual gifts exist for the service of Christ’s body rather than personal prominence; that justification should produce humility; that love fulfills God’s moral purposes toward our neighbor; that heavenly citizenship calls Christians to faithful rather than worldly living; and that submission to civil authority does not require sinful compromise when human authority conflicts with God.
Where Wilson explains what Paul actually says in these chapters, there is much here worth affirming. The theological disagreements raised in earlier weeks should not prevent us from acknowledging that. Our purpose is not to find fault with Wilson because he writes from a Calvinistic perspective. It is to test what is being taught against Scripture. Where the teaching is well grounded in the text, as much of Week 10 is, credit should be given where credit is due.
Week 11 — The Extension of God’s Righteousness Through Mission
Much With Which I Agree
Wilson’s treatment of Romans 14:1–16:23 contains much with which I agree. He appropriately recognizes that Paul’s discussion of Christian liberty, relationships within the church, missionary activity, and the inclusion of the Gentiles belongs within the larger Gospel argument of Romans. The reconciliation accomplished through Christ should become visible in the relationships of those who belong to Him. Jews and Gentiles who might otherwise have been divided by ethnicity, culture, religious background, food, and observance of particular days are called to receive one another in Christ. Wilson also correctly sees a missionary dimension in this unity. A church proclaiming reconciliation with God while remaining needlessly divided against itself presents a contradiction to the message it proclaims. Conversely, believers who love one another despite differences provide a visible testimony to the reconciling work of Christ. This is an important and worthwhile emphasis in Wilson’s treatment.
Christian Liberty Governed by Love
Wilson handles Christian liberty particularly well. Romans 14 deals with matters over which believers may reach different conclusions without either position necessarily constituting sin. In Paul’s immediate setting, questions concerning foods and the observance of particular days were especially important as Jewish and Gentile believers learned to live together within one body. Wilson correctly recognizes that Christian liberty is genuine liberty. Where God has neither commanded nor forbidden something, believers should be cautious about turning personal convictions into universal commandments. At the same time, Christian liberty is never permission for self-centeredness. The stronger believer should not parade his liberty without regard for the conscience of another believer, while the believer with the more restrictive conscience should not condemn another Christian merely because that Christian possesses liberty he does not yet feel free to exercise. This balance is important. The question is not merely, “Am I permitted to do this?” Christian love also asks, “What effect might my exercise of this liberty have upon my brother or sister?” Freedom in Christ does not release us from love. It frees us to serve one another through love.
Everything Is Clean — But Love Still Matters
Wilson’s discussion under the heading “Everything Is Clean” is also helpful. The ceremonial distinctions concerning foods that characterized Israel under the Mosaic covenant do not govern the New Covenant believer in the same manner. Paul can therefore say, “All things indeed are pure”, while immediately warning against using that freedom in a manner that causes another believer to stumble. Wilson rightly sees grace operating on both sides of the question. Grace frees the believer from regulations that God no longer imposes, but the same grace teaches the believer to surrender the exercise of a legitimate freedom when love requires it. The Gospel therefore both frees us and binds us together. Christian liberty is not merely freedom from restrictions; it is freedom to love and serve another person without needing to insist upon ourselves.
Conscience Is Not the Holy Spirit
Wilson also makes a useful distinction in his definition of conscience. He describes conscience as the ability to recognize the rightness or wrongness of one’s actions and motives while carefully distinguishing conscience from the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. He then acknowledges that the Holy Spirit may employ the conscience in guiding and convicting people. That distinction is biblically important. Paul has already spoken in Romans 2 about the operation of conscience among people apart from the Mosaic Law. Conscience is therefore not something possessed only by Christians who are indwelt by the Spirit. Nor should every feeling of conscience automatically be identified as the voice of the Holy Spirit. Conscience can be informed, weak, strengthened, wounded, or even corrupted. It must itself remain subject to the truth God has revealed.
Judgment According to Works
Wilson also deserves credit for taking seriously Paul’s statement that believers will stand before God and give an account of themselves. He affirms justification on the basis of Christ’s finished work, received through faith, while also acknowledging the biblical passages that speak of judgment according to works and rewards corresponding to what believers have done. Wilson admits that these teachings can be difficult to reconcile and then makes an important methodological statement: we must submit to Scripture at every point and seek to bring our minds under its authority. I agree. When Scripture presents truths that do not fit comfortably within our theological categories, our responsibility is not to eliminate one of them in order to preserve the system. The system must remain subject to Scripture. There is also no necessary contradiction between justification by faith and the expectation that genuine faith will produce fruit. Works do not purchase justification, contribute to Christ’s payment for sin, or make the sinner worthy of salvation. Nevertheless, what a person does can provide evidence concerning what he actually believes. Wilson’s conclusion that godliness is evidence of faith rather than the meritorious basis of justification is therefore an important distinction.
The Mission of God
Wilson’s discussion of what theologians sometimes call the Missio Dei, the mission of God, also contains much worth affirming. Scripture repeatedly portrays God as acting to make Himself known. He called Abraham, sent Moses and the prophets, sent His Son, sent the Holy Spirit, commissioned the apostles, and sends His people into the world with the Gospel. Wilson begins this week by observing that everyone falls short of God’s glory and that God wants the message of His righteousness revealed in Jesus Christ to go out to everyone. That emphasis fits the missionary movement of Romans itself. Paul does not regard the Gospel as a message intended to remain within one ethnicity, culture, nation, or geographical region. The good news concerning Jesus Christ is to be carried outward. Wilson’s description of God as “drawing a people to himself” need not be controversial. God is indeed calling people to Himself through Christ. Nothing in that statement by itself, however, establishes that God irresistibly draws only particular preselected individuals while withholding from everyone else the ability necessary to respond. The nature and means of God’s drawing must be established from Scripture rather than placed inside the word drawing.
Paul Believed People Needed to Hear the Gospel
Paul’s missionary activity in Romans 15 deserves particular attention. He desires to preach Christ where Christ has not previously been named. He plans journeys, enters new regions, preaches the Gospel, establishes churches, and seeks opportunities to carry the message still farther. His missionary activity makes sense precisely because people need to encounter the message concerning Christ. This takes us directly back to Paul’s argument in Romans 10. “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”. Paul then concludes, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. The missionary goes because the message must be proclaimed. The Gospel is proclaimed so that people may hear. People must hear so that they may believe.
None of this makes salvation a human accomplishment. God provided Christ. God provided the Gospel. God provided the messenger. God provided the ears with which people hear and the eyes with which they see. God provided the human capacities by which His message can be understood. God provides the opportunity to hear. God provided His Spirit, who convicts and works through the truth. Indeed, the entire possibility of salvation exists because God created and supplied it. Fallen humanity has contributed nothing that God lacked. Paul can therefore say elsewhere, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase”. Paul planting was real. Apollos watering was real. God’s giving the increase was real. Scripture has no difficulty placing meaningful human activity and God’s gracious activity together. We should not create a competition between them where Scripture does not.
There Is Power in God’s Word
Wilson again makes an important point when he speaks about the spiritual power of God’s Word. I agree with him. There is power in God’s Word. That power is not a physical property residing in paper, ink, a book binding, pixels upon a screen, or the sound waves produced by a preacher’s voice. The power resides in the truth God has revealed and in the message being communicated. The Gospel is not a powerless message waiting for human beings to supply what it lacks. It is God’s message concerning His Son. It can convict, expose, persuade, provoke, comfort, warn, produce faith, or be resisted. As we have already seen, God’s revelation to Pharaoh was certainly effectual even though Pharaoh responded by further hardening an already resistant heart. Scripture consequently warns its hearers, “Harden not your hearts”. God’s Word acts upon those who encounter it, but effectual does not by itself tell us what the resulting effect will be.
The “Right Ears” Are Everyone’s Ears
I would therefore qualify one phrase Wilson uses when discussing Paul’s statement that faith comes by hearing. Wilson says that God’s Word possesses spiritual power “to open the right ears to hear it.” I agree wholeheartedly with the first part of that statement. God’s Word possesses spiritual power. My concern is with what Wilson means by “the right ears.” If “the right ears” simply describes people who hear and receive the message, there is little difficulty. But Wilson’s statements in previous weeks have established a much more particular theological framework. He has argued that those who believe were individually predestined to do so, brought by God’s invincible love, and given the enabling necessary for faith. Within that framework, “the right ears” can easily become the ears of those particular individuals God previously selected to hear savingly, in contrast with everyone else to whom that necessary ability is withheld. That distinction is not stated in Romans 10:17. The ears in which we hear are themselves God’s provision, and the Gospel message is intended for everyone’s ears. Paul does not tell his missionaries to locate people whose ears God has secretly designated as the right ears. He sends the Gospel outward. The message is to be proclaimed to people so that they may hear, and Paul declares that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”.
The question therefore is not whether God must provide the ability to hear. Of course He must. We did not create our ears, our minds, our capacity for language, the Gospel, the messenger, or the opportunity to encounter the message. These are God’s provisions. The question is whether Scripture teaches that God intentionally makes those provisions capable of producing saving faith only in particular individuals while withholding from everyone else the ability necessary to respond. Wilson’s phrase “the right ears” should not be allowed to establish a distinction that the passage itself does not make.
Rejoice, O Gentiles
Wilson also does well with Paul’s collection of Old Testament passages in Romans 15:9–12. Paul reaches repeatedly into Israel’s Scriptures to demonstrate that the inclusion of the Gentiles was not an unexpected interruption of God’s purposes. The nations praising God had been anticipated within the Old Testament itself. The emphasis is not merely that Gentiles may reluctantly be admitted into God’s saving purposes. They are called to rejoice in Him. Jews and Gentiles together glorify God for His mercy. Wilson appropriately connects this with the larger biblical picture of redeemed people from every tribe, language, people, and nation worshiping God together.
The God of Peace Will Crush Satan
Wilson’s connection between Romans 16:20 and Genesis 3:15 is also worth considering. Paul tells the Roman believers, “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”. Wilson appropriately recognizes the larger biblical trajectory beginning with God’s promise concerning the offspring of the woman and culminating in Christ’s victory over sin and Satan. What is especially striking in Romans 16:20 is that Paul speaks of Satan being crushed under the feet of believers while identifying God as the One who accomplishes it. Once again, divine action and the participation of God’s people appear together. The victory belongs to God and ultimately rests in Christ, yet those united with Christ participate in the triumph of their Lord.
A Strong Treatment of Christian Mission and Liberty
Overall, Wilson handles Romans 14:1–16:23 well. His discussion of Christian liberty is balanced, his emphasis upon love and consideration for the conscience of another believer is appropriate, his distinction between conscience and the Holy Spirit is useful, and his treatment of justification and judgment according to works preserves important biblical distinctions rather than simply ignoring difficult passages. His missionary emphasis is also valuable. God is making Himself known. The Gospel is intended to go outward. Paul devoted his life to taking that message where Christ had not been named. Jews and Gentiles reconciled in Christ demonstrate the reconciling power of the Gospel, and believers are called to carry that Gospel still farther.
My principal qualification concerns Wilson’s reference to God opening “the right ears.” The power of God’s Word is not the point of disagreement. I affirm that power. The ears themselves are God’s provision. What has not been demonstrated is the additional Calvinistic proposition that only certain preselected ears are given the capacity to hear God’s Gospel savingly. The Gospel is God’s provision, the messenger is God’s provision, the ability to hear is God’s provision, and the message is sent outward to everyone. The right ears to hear God’s message are the ears God created upon the people to whom He commands that message to be proclaimed. That qualification should not obscure the larger assessment of this week’s study. Wilson has given a thoughtful treatment of Christian liberty, reconciliation, mission, conscience, judgment, and the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel. Where he stays with what Paul actually says, there is much here worth affirming, and credit should be given where credit is due.
Week 12 — Final Summary of the Gospel of the Righteousness of God
A Fitting Conclusion to Romans
Wilson’s treatment of Romans 16:25–27 provides a fitting conclusion to his study of Romans. Paul closes this remarkable letter with a doxology, returning once again to the Gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ, the revelation of what had previously been a mystery, the obedience of faith, the wisdom of God, and ultimately the glory that belongs to God through Jesus Christ.
There is much in Wilson’s final week with which I agree. He correctly recognizes that Paul’s theology repeatedly erupts into worship. Paul does not discuss grace, justification, Christ, the Spirit, God’s promises, the Gospel, and salvation merely as abstract theological subjects. These truths lead him to praise the God who accomplished them. Wilson appropriately sees the closing doxology as gathering together many of the great themes with which Paul began and developed throughout the letter.
Wilson asks what the ultimate point of Romans is and answers that God’s glory through Jesus Christ should be magnified. That is a worthy conclusion. Romans explains the terrible condition of humanity under sin, the righteousness of God, the saving work of Jesus Christ, justification through faith, life in the Spirit, God’s dealings with Jews and Gentiles, the transformation of Christian life, and the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel. Paul appropriately concludes by directing our attention away from ourselves and toward the wisdom and glory of God.
The Gospel Is God’s Power
Wilson’s discussion of what he calls “Gospel Strength” is particularly good. Paul speaks of God being able to establish or strengthen believers “according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ”. Wilson connects this with Paul’s declaration near the beginning of Romans that the Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”. That connection deserves emphasis. The Gospel is not merely information about something powerful God once did. God has appointed the Gospel itself as the message through which the saving work of Christ is proclaimed. The message tells us who Christ is, what He has done, what God promises through Him, and how we are reconciled to God through faith in Him.
Wilson also makes the valuable point that the Gospel does not merely begin the Christian life and then become unnecessary. The same Gospel that announces salvation continues to establish and strengthen believers. Christians never graduate from their dependence upon Christ. Our confidence remains grounded in Him and in what God has accomplished through Him. This again reinforces something that has become increasingly important throughout this study. There is power in God’s Word. That power is not a physical property of paper, ink, a book binding, pixels upon a screen, or the sound waves produced by a preacher. The power resides in the truth God has revealed and in the message being communicated. The Gospel is God’s provision, and God has chosen the proclamation of that Gospel as His means of making Christ known.
The Obedience of Faith — Fruit Follows the Root
Wilson’s discussion of what Paul calls “the obedience of faith” contains another important truth. Faith and obedience must be distinguished when discussing justification, but they should never be separated in the Christian life. Genuine faith in Christ should produce corresponding fruit. Works do not create salvation, contribute to Christ’s finished work, or provide an additional basis upon which God justifies us. Rather, works are evidence of salvation through faith in Christ.
Wilson expresses the distinction well when he says that faith and obedience must be kept separate regarding justification while remaining closely connected in Christian living. I agree. Obedience flows from faith. It does not replace faith, complete faith, or become another means by which we earn acceptance with God.
This distinction also affects how we respond when the expected fruit appears to be lacking. If I examine my life and discover that my works are deficient, the answer is not to place greater faith in my works or simply attempt to manufacture more outward religious activity. I should examine the faith from which those works are supposed to flow. Is my trust truly resting in Christ? Am I listening to Him, believing what He has said, submitting myself to Him, and walking in the relationship with Him that I profess to have?
The order matters. We do not strengthen the root by fastening artificial fruit onto the branches. We attend to the root, and healthy fruit follows. In the same way, Christian obedience should flow from genuine faith rather than faith being treated as something validated by accumulating enough works to reassure ourselves that we are saved.
This is why I substantially agree with Wilson when he says that obedience flows from faith and that the believer’s life should bear fruit. I would simply be cautious with his statement that all who exercise faith will “necessarily” produce a fruitful life if necessarily is taken to imply some predetermined measure or visible quantity of works. Christians can stumble, neglect obedience, require correction, and mature at different rates. Nevertheless, persistent absence of spiritual fruit provides legitimate reason for self-examination—not because works save us, but because works provide evidence concerning the condition of the faith from which they should be growing.
Therefore, when the works are wrong, our first concern should be the faith beneath them. Get the faith in its proper place—resting in Christ—and the works should follow. Reversing that order risks producing religion from the outside in. The Gospel works from the inside out.
“Not Saved by Obedience”
Wilson summarizes his position by saying, “We are not saved by obedience, but neither are we saved without it.” The statement could be misunderstood if isolated from his surrounding explanation, but Wilson has already made clear what he means. He is not presenting obedience as an additional payment or meritorious condition that completes Christ’s work. He is arguing that saving faith should not remain fruitless.
I would prefer to state the distinction more precisely: we are saved through faith in Christ, and obedience is the expected fruit and evidence of that faith. That preserves the warning Scripture gives concerning fruitless professions without allowing the evidence of salvation to become another cause of salvation. Christ saves. Faith receives what God has provided in Christ. Works testify to what that faith is producing in the life of the believer.
The Mystery Has Been Revealed
Wilson’s discussion of the “mystery of Christ” is also helpful. Paul speaks of a mystery that had been kept secret but has now been manifested and made known through the prophetic Scriptures. Wilson appropriately connects this with the Old Testament anticipation of Christ and the fuller revelation that has now come through Him.
This is also an important example of how the biblical word mystery should function in theology. A biblical mystery is not necessarily a contradiction that we are forbidden to examine or a theological difficulty that can simply be protected from questioning by calling it mysterious. In this passage, the mystery was something previously hidden or not fully disclosed that God has now revealed.
There will certainly remain things about the infinite God that finite human beings cannot completely comprehend. Scripture gives us no reason to pretend otherwise. But appealing to mystery should never become a substitute for demonstrating that the propositions we are being asked to accept are actually taught in Scripture. Here in Romans 16, Paul celebrates a mystery precisely because God has made it known.
The Old Testament Was Pointing Toward Christ
Wilson also appropriately emphasizes the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The coming of Christ did not introduce an unrelated divine plan. God’s promises, patterns, covenants, prophecies, and expectations throughout the Old Testament progressively pointed toward what would ultimately be revealed and accomplished in Jesus Christ.
Paul says that the mystery has now been made manifest “by the scriptures of the prophets”. The Gospel therefore does not discard the Old Testament. It helps us understand where the unfolding revelation was heading. Christ stands at the center of God’s redemptive work, and the New Testament reveals with greater clarity what earlier revelation anticipated in promise, prophecy, pattern, and shadow.
Made Known to All Nations
Paul’s final statement also brings us back to the missionary emphasis that Wilson appropriately highlighted in the previous week. The revealed mystery is now “made known to all nations for the obedience of faith”. The Gospel moves outward. What God accomplished through Christ is to be proclaimed among the nations so that people may hear, believe, and respond to Him.
This harmonizes with Paul’s argument throughout Romans. The Gospel is God’s power unto salvation to everyone who believes. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. People must hear in order to believe. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Paul therefore devoted himself to preaching Christ where Christ had not been named. Now, in his closing words, he again speaks of God’s revealed truth being made known among all nations for the obedience of faith.
God’s initiative is everywhere in that process. Christ is God’s provision. The Gospel is God’s provision. The prophetic revelation is God’s provision. The messenger is God’s provision. The ears with which we hear and the eyes with which we see are God’s provision. The ability to understand communication is God’s provision. The opportunity to hear is God’s provision. The Holy Spirit is God’s provision. The possibility of salvation exists because God created and supplied everything necessary for it, not because fallen humanity produced something God lacked.
Human response therefore does not diminish divine grace. The obedience of faith is possible because God first acted, revealed, provided, sent, and called. The response is real, but everything to which we are responding originated with God.
The Eternal God
Wilson’s brief treatment of God’s eternality is also substantially sound. God is not a creature within the created order. He did not come into existence, and He will never cease to exist. Human beings experience their lives sequentially within time, while God is the Creator rather than a product of the temporal creation in which we live.
Wilson appropriately connects this with God’s self-revelation to Moses as “I AM”. His purpose is not to provide an exhaustive philosophical explanation of God’s relationship to time but to remind the reader that the God whose Gospel Paul has proclaimed is the eternal God. That basic distinction between Creator and creature is worth affirming.
To God Be the Glory Through Jesus Christ
Wilson appropriately concludes with God’s glory. Paul ends Romans with the declaration, “To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen”. After everything Paul has written, that is where the letter belongs.
Wilson describes God’s glory in terms of His resplendence, holy beauty, supreme magnificence, and the fullness of who He is. No single human definition can exhaust what Scripture communicates when it speaks of the glory of God. But Wilson’s central point is correct: Romans ultimately directs our attention toward God rather than ourselves.
The sinner cannot boast because salvation was not his invention. The believer cannot boast because Christ accomplished what he could never accomplish for himself. The messenger cannot boast because the Gospel he proclaims did not originate with him. Even faith does not provide grounds for boasting because the person believing is responding to the truth, opportunity, provision, and salvation God first supplied. The glory belongs to God through Jesus Christ.
A Final Assessment of Wilson’s Study of Romans
It is appropriate to end this review by giving credit where credit is due. There is a great deal of sound biblical teaching throughout Wilson’s study of Romans. He repeatedly emphasizes the seriousness of sin, the sufficiency of Christ, justification through faith, the necessity of grace, the importance of union with Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, Christian humility, love within the body of Christ, the importance of Christian obedience, the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel, and the glory that belongs to God.
Where I have disagreed with Wilson, the disagreement has not been because these truths are Calvinistic or because Wilson identifies himself with a theological tradition different from my own. The concern has arisen when conclusions belonging to that theological system appear to have been placed into passages that do not themselves establish those conclusions. Individual unconditional election unto saving faith, regeneration necessarily preceding faith, irresistible saving calling restricted to selected individuals, and the assumption that divine sovereignty itself establishes exhaustive determination all require biblical demonstration. They cannot simply be assumed because they fit a theological system.
At the same time, disagreement in those areas should not cause us to dismiss what Wilson gets right. To do so would violate the very standard by which his interpretations have been examined. If an interpretation should not be accepted merely because Calvinism teaches it, neither should an interpretation be rejected merely because a Calvinist teaches it. The question must remain the same in both directions: What does Scripture actually say?
That standard has produced considerable agreement with Wilson, particularly when his conclusions remain closely tied to Paul’s actual words. It has also produced disagreement where additional theological propositions appear to have been supplied. That is not inconsistency. It is precisely what testing an interpretation against Scripture requires.
Wilson closes his study where Paul closes Romans—with God, the Gospel, Jesus Christ, faith, obedience, and glory. That is a fitting place for this examination to end as well. The Gospel is God’s provision. Christ is God’s provision. Salvation is God’s provision. Faith responds to what God has revealed and provided. The life that follows should bear evidence of that faith. And when everything is placed in its proper order, there is no reason for man to boast.
Paul’s final words therefore provide an appropriate conclusion not only to Romans but to our examination of Wilson’s study: “To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen”.
Final Thoughts
After reading Wilson’s Romans: A 12-Week Study, I can honestly say that I enjoyed his book. No, I do not agree with everything Wilson said, and until someone can harmonize those conclusions with all of Scripture, I will continue to challenge them. With that said, I do not question Wilson’s love for God, his love for Christ, his faith or his gifts as an author.
Would I recommend his book? I believe Christians should follow the example of the Bereans, who “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so”. They did not reject what they heard simply because it was unfamiliar, nor did they accept it merely because it came from a respected teacher. They listened, and then they tested what they had heard against the Scriptures.
That is how I would recommend reading Wilson’s book. Read it. Enjoy it. Appreciate the many things he says well. Allow his observations to challenge you and send you deeper into Romans. But do not surrender your responsibility to examine what is being taught simply because you respect the person teaching it. Wilson should be tested by Scripture. I should be tested by Scripture. Every pastor, theologian, author, commentary, creed, confession, and theological system should be tested by Scripture.
Where Wilson has helped me see something more clearly, I am grateful for it. Where I believe he has gone beyond what the text establishes, I have said so and explained why. And where I remain unconvinced, I will continue searching the Scriptures. That is not disrespect toward Wilson. I believe it is respect for the authority that both Wilson and I ultimately claim to serve.
So yes, I would recommend Wilson’s book—but I would recommend reading it the same way I believe every Christian book should be read: with an open Bible beside it. “Test everything; hold fast what is good”.