Is there tension between what Paul and James teach?

The argument that Paul makes in these passages is justification by works verses justification by faith (grace). Paul uses Abraham as a basis for his contrast between these two beliefs. I particularly like what Thomas Schreiner says,

“Now in salvation history the saving righteousness of God has been manifested
apart from the works of the law.”

Paul could build his case by using two prominent figures from the Old Testament, Abraham and David. Paul contrasts Abraham’s righteousness to his faith, not by his works. Douglas Moo puts this into a better way of understanding this passage. Works creates an obligation to the one who is working. For example, as an employee we work for our reward of a paycheck and our employer is now obligated to present you your wages for the obligation of you working for them. The problem with this is God is not obligated to anyone. He cannot be under obligation to any human being. Now the flip side is faith. It is by faith that we humbly accept this gift which then brings us under obligation to God for this gift of faith by grace. My conclusion or interpretation is that this passage brings us into the fullness of God’s plan for our salvation and clarifies what needs to be done for us to receive salvation. That it is only available by faith and you cannot work your way into heaven.[1]
The last area to look at is the contrast between Romans 3 and 4 and James 2. James, in the previous chapters, has already acknowledged the saved by faith principle. I personally do not feel that there is any contention between what Paul has written and what James has written. John MacArthur has a great commentary on this area of James. James is not talking about saving works here. He is referring to faith is living or dead. This tests our actual faith in God and if we are obeying God’s word. The works to which he is referring to is demonstrating a Godly nature? James is not disputing the importance of faith he is merely showing that saving faith can be just an intellectual exercise, which would be missing the key ingredient of actively obeying God’s word. James is showing us that there are two types of faith, living faith that saves and dead faith that doesn’t. [2]

1 Moo, Douglas J. Encountering The Book of Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002. (pg. 93)
2MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Bible Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005. (pg. 1187, 1888)

Paul's use of the Old Testament in the book of Romans

I found Paul’s use of the Old Testament an interesting concept, considering that the letter was written to the Roman Church. I had to refocus my lens from applying these teachings and place myself as one of the recipients of the letter when it was read for the first time. The main question that comes to my mind is why Paul used the Old Testament Scriptures when the first century Roman Church consisted of mostly gentile believers. We find that Paul has used more direct quotes from the Old Testament than in any of his other writings. There are approximately 55 quotes from the Old Testament. At first glance I thought that the book of Genesis was the most quoted until I counted them out. The most quoted book in Romans is the book of Isaiah, used around 18 times. I think that the reason why Paul used the Old Testament was because of the few Jews who were actually counted with the Romans Church. I think the key to unlocking the theme or the central point of this book is found in Romans 1:17. Paul uses a passage out of Habakkuk 2:4 the righteous will live by faith. I did find that in some of those quotes Paul used that he did not use the entire scripture or some did summarize what he was referring to. I could entertain the thought that Paul was quoting most of these scriptures from memory. We must remember that Paul was a Pharisee who was trained by Gamaliel, who was the grandson of the most beloved scholar, Rabbi Hillel. Because of this status and being trained by this Rabbi, Paul most undoubtedly was the crème dele crème, the best of the best. In order to be taught by a Rabbi of this stature the young Saul would have had to memorize the entire scriptures. That is from Genesis through to Malachi, all from memory. My favorite persons that Paul uses in his presentation are Abraham and Adam. It was fascinating to me how Paul showed us the contrast between the first and second Adam, the second Adam referring to Jesus. I also enjoyed the argument that Paul makes by contrasting Abraham and his being considered righteous before the law, or even before his circumcision.

Miller, Stephen M. Who's Who and Where's Where in the Bible. uhrichsville: Barbour Punblishing, Inc., 2004.

Moo, Douglas J. Encountering The Book of Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.

Porter, Stanley. "Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament." 509,510.

Leiden: Brill, 1997.Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Acaddemic, 1998.

A Biblical view on one's responsibility to government

In Romans chapter 13, God establishes the governing authorities. If we rebel and are not law abiding citizens we are actually rebelling against God Himself. The scripture also says that we will be held accountable and if we choose to disobey the law of the land, there may be consequences that we must suffer. In verse 4 I take that scripture as God using the government to bring His judgment upon those who disobey him. The government is also used to exercise God’s wrath. There are two reasons given to obey, (1) because we may be punished and, (2) because of our conscience. In Jesus’ time the poll tax of one denarius was the most hated tax of all because it suggested that the Romans owned the people of Israel. By looking at what Jesus said in Matthew in context, we see that Christ was asked if the Jews should pay these taxes. It was a trick question; if he answered yes then the people of Israel would not follow him anymore, he would not be a friend to the people of Israel. If he said no, he would’ve been arrested for treason. I like what MacArthur says about this,

“Caesar’s image is stamped on the coin; God’s image is stamped on the person.”

The book of Acts also deals with this issue of the tax, teaching when to obey, and when not to obey civil authority. We find in the book of Acts there is one reason that we are not only responsible, but obligated to disobey the commands of the governing authorities. That would be in situations where we find ourselves in opposition with God’s law. This is the only time we are called to be disobedient. I believe it was the responsibility and the obligation of the apostles to be civilly disobedient when ordered to no longer speak the name Jesus or testify to the truth of the Gospel. Today, according to the scriptures, we are to look at our leaders as divinely chosen by God, therefore we must be in submission to our governing authorities unless what they are asking us is against God’s commandments. When and if that happens we also must be ready and willing to suffer the consequences for our disobedience. That is why we are to follow our conscience; it will reveal what God wants.

MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Bible Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005.
Moo, Douglas J. Encountering The Book of Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Acaddemic, 1998.

The Jew-Gentile relationship in the first-century Church and the Roman Church.

In Acts 14, we see that Paul is aware of tensions between the Jewish and Gentile believers. One issue raised was their dietary habits and laws. The Jewish believers would not eat meat or drink wine because most of the meat and wine were contaminated according to kosher laws because they were offered to idols. The Gentile believers seemed to have eaten these meats offered to idols without any regard or without guilt. In fact we find in Acts 15 that the council met to discuss this issue of what the Gentiles must do as far as following Mosaic Law. The council concluded the Gentiles should abstain from anything that has been contaminated by idols, from fornicating and they should also abstaining from anything strangled and avoid any contact with blood.
It is evident there were major problems with the relationship between Jews and Gentiles by Paul’s seeming seesawing between the two groups found in Romans. Paul’s final plea to these two groups was to not cause your brother to stumble. Paul’s reminder to them should also serve as a reminder to us today not to do anything that would cause our brother to stumble.
Observing Acts, Galatians and James, we still see the same divisiveness today, just under a different banner or title. In light of recent events, we see in the media that a certain politician and his pastor are being scrutinized over their affiliation with one another. Pastor Wright seems to be preaching this very division we see and parallel with the fist-century church. I think that the cure is going to ultimately be love. The love of Christ poured out on all of us. If we pick up the banner of love, we will no longer look at what divides us like race, culture, etc. We will become united. The first-century church was so caught up in their own rules and regulations, that they missed the true blessing that God sent his Son Jesus to unite us all under His banner of grace and atonement, to all that would be in unity and submission to Him.

How Romans 9-11 fits into the overall scheme and purpose of the book of Romans

Romans 9-11, demonstrate to us an overall plan that God has set in place for the world’s salvation through his revelation of salvation history. The overall scheme seems to be the salvation-history. Now let’s look at the purpose. Paul demonstrates God’s desire to be revealed with all who will believe and confess that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus was raised from the dead. Even to the point of saving the gentiles to provoke Israel into repentance. These passages also reflect God’s faithfulness to Israel by fulfillment of his covenant promise to Israel. There has always been and will always be a remnant of believers to fulfill God’s promise in his faithfulness to his chosen people. This demonstrates God’s word will never be compromised, no matter how grim the circumstances may seem.
These passages can also be summed up as Paul clearing up may key theological issues. Paul develops his theology of predestination or Justification. However, I think the most important reason or purpose that Paul wrote this was to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ, while embracing his Jewish heritage and God keeping with the promises of the Old Testament.
I especially like how Douglas Moo sums this up by showing that Romans 9-11 is a celebration for God’s unshakable love to us and he reveals his plan to us all. He states,

“God’s wisdom and knowledge, his plans and his purposes, are ultimately quite
beyond the capacity of any human being figured out. In other words God is
sovereign and we must come to a point that we stop questioning God and
surrender and accept His will and bow down and worship our Creator."

Moo, Douglas J. Encountering The Book of Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Acaddemic, 1998.

Justification

If we look at the big picture God is conveying to us through the entire Bible we can see the theme of reconciliation. Starting with justification which then leads to sanctification and will place us into the final area of our reconciliation and that is glorification. John MacArthur breaks down God’s salvation plan like this: First justification is looked at from the point of view of being past tense. Sanctification is looked at as being in the present tense and finally, glorification is looked at in the context of being in the future tense. Justification can therefore be looked at as being saved immediately upon a person’s conversion, which is their accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Sanctification can be seen as a progressive growth, which will cause us to live our lives with sin having less power over us. Finally, the future of our glorification will ultimately save us from sin’s presence.[1] For the sake of this discussion we will be exploring the area of justification.
Another explanation that I will be covering is by Wayne Grudem. The order that follows is taken from his Systematic Theology book. First there is a calling, which is a calling from God to the unbeliever to trust Christ as their savior. The next phase is regeneration which is God’s imparting to us a new spiritual life. This can also be looked at as God breathing life into the spiritual lifeless body of the new believer in Jesus Christ. The next step in the process of salvation is conversion. This is when a person responds to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they realize they are sinners. They fall short of the Glory of God and they place their faith in Jesus Christ as their only source for salvation. I especially like how Wayne Grudem summed up this process.
“

Regeneration made it possible for us to respond to that invitation. In conversion we did respond, trusting in Christ for forgiveness of sins. Now the next step in the process of Applying redemption to us is that God must respond to our faith and do What He promised, that is, actually declare our sins to be forgiven. This must be a legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are completely forgiven and no longer liable to punishment.”[2]

[1] (MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary 2005, 1519)
[2] (Grudem, Systematic Theology 1994, 722)