A while ago, I posted the following question to AVB:
Drew said:
I am quite interested in your interpretation on the following text from Romans 2 (as per the NASB):
"But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life".
What I will call a "plain literal reading" seems to lead inexorably to the following conclusion: at some point in the future (day of wrath) something will be rendered to people in accordance with their deeds. One of those things rendered is "eternal life". And the granting of same is rather obviously contingent upon "perseverance in doing good".
AVB responded as follows:
AVBunyan said:
Paul is taking one through a sort of history lesson starting with man prior to the law – Rom. 1-2 then man under the law then blends in the Jew later in Rom. 2 and then finally concludes that those prior to the law (Gen. 1- Ex. 19) and those after the law are guilty in Rom. 3:19 and then finally the cure is provided for from 3:22 onward. So, those folks prior to the law are those to whom you are referring to. That is a gray area but since there was no law then it is possible that they would be judged according to how they lived in light of their conscience. One thing for sure – doesn’t apply to this church age where the sinner is cleared by Calvary and not their works. Basically you went back to folks that Paul was talking about prior to the laws – that ain’t us today.
If I understand AVB correctly, the text that I provided is really targeted at "folks prior to the law" and that, more generally, the material in Romans 1 and 2 is a "history lesson", presumably in the sense that what it says, for example in the Romans text I quoted above, applies to people other than those of us alive at the present day.
I submit that such an interpretation is certainly not supported by the content of the actual text of Romans 1 and 2. What evidence is there in the text of Romans 1 and 2 to suggest that the implications of Romans 2:6-7 (quoted above), which suggest that eternal life is granted on the basis of the quality of the life lived, are applicable to a set of people in the past? I think it is rather clear that Paul is talking about humanity in general. If this were a "history lesson", Paul has apparently forgotten to indicate it as such.
Note that in Romans 1:7, he clearly identifies his target audience - the church at Rome:
To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ
Now of course, the fact that Paul is writing to the Romans does not, in and of itself, rule out the possibility that he will
then go on and give a "history lesson" about how salvation was attained for people in ages past. But, if he does not, at any point, give the reader any explicit statement of the type "OK, you Romans, I am now going to talk about history", it would seem rather forced to read a "history lesson" back into the text.
It is true that in Romans 1:18-32, Paul speaks in the past tense about how man has rejected God. Is this a credible basis for believing that Paul is now speaking about a situation that no longer exists? Hardly. Note the use of the present tense in verse 18:
"
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness".
And, of course, any description of the evidence of mankind's wickedness has to be expressed in terms of events
that have already taken place. Such is the nature of reality - observable evidence lies necessarily in the past.
So Romans 1 gives us not a smidgen of evidence to suggest that Paul is talking about the state of affairs in an age that has come and gone.
Now in the first few verses of Romans 2, it becomes clear that Paul is indeed talking about the state of affairs
as they exist in the church at Rome in the time that Paul is writing (note the repeated usages of the present tense - highlighted in bold):
"
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed."
This is the material that precedes the verses (6 and 7) that I originally posted. Whatever Romans 2:6-7 really mean, I cannot see how one can argue they describe a state of affairs that applied in the past and has now been done away. The text itself in now way supports this view, and the introductory verse of Romans 2 clearly indicate that the present state of affairs in the Roman church is being addressed.
Now, to be fair, any view needs to accomodate all the Scriptural texts. And I for one have not yet considered some of the texts that AVB has posted. Hopefully that will follow. But, the position that AVB holds equally needs to make some sense of Romans 2. And I do not think the "history lesson" argument can be made to work.
