God is Love

The theme “God is love” is the essence of the whole Bible, but it is frequently referenced in the book 1 John. “God is love” is the perfect example of how Christians should love. Love is found in the Bible all the way starting from Genesis until Revelation. It is a theme that is prevalent in Creation, in the Israelites, in the Birth of Jesus, in the Crucifixion, in the Resurrection, in the life of Paul, and in the Epistles. 1 John explains how the rest of Bible shows the theme of “God is love”. 1 John 3 starts with a command from God to love others and continues with God showing love in action. 1 John 4 continues the theme of love and explains how to know God through love. 1 John makes it explicitly simple that God is love. God is love because He commands us to love our brothers, He sent His Son to die for mankind, and He remains in us and we remain in Him through love.

            1 John 3:10-15 reads a command like sentence from God for us to love our brothers. “Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another” (3:10b-11). John continues and brings up the story of Cain and Abel. Verse 12 recounts the story of when Cain killed Abel mentioning that it was out of murderous evil and the opposite of love. John is comparing the lack of love to murder. “He shakes us with the realization that absence of love for people may be contributing to their emotional and spiritual demise.”[1] Man was made by love and through love is how man survives. Cain killed Abel because he was jealous of Abel’s blessing being accepted by God and his was not accepted. Cain did not have love in his heart. John makes it clear in verse 13 that the murderous evil of Cain is in the hearts of those who oppose Christians. “Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you” (3:13). John makes it clear that there is hate in the world and even Christians can have hate in their hearts. He is stressing the importance of love because love is what separates Christians from the rest of the world. Verses 14-15 say, “We know that we have passed through from death to life because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” John shifts his emphasis on love and hate to the point that love means life and hate means death. He cannot stress enough that loving one another means passing from death to life. This does not mean loving one another gives eternal life, but rather “those who exhibit love for Christ’s family demonstrate that already they are enjoying the eternal life promised them… He is simply underscoring that because such love is already going on, we have a tangible sign of Christ’s salvific work in progress.”[2] John is explaining what love means in the life of a Christian: to love one another.

            John shifts his focus of loving one another towards the example of love. 1 John 3:16, which mirrors John 3:16, gives the outright definition of how God is love. “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers” (3:16). Other verses such as John 3:16[3] and 1 John 4:19[4] reiterate God’s love for mankind because He sent His Son Jesus to lay down His life for mankind. Jesus is the example of God’s love. “Christian love can be recognized by its conformity to the supreme model found in Christ’s death for us.”[5] God’s love shows no bounds or limitations. Jesus is God and He left His throne in heaven in order to be born on this Earth. Jesus was born of a virgin and lived over 30 years on this Earth as a perfect man. He went through trials and temptations in order to be the perfect example of how not to sin. After living a perfect life He was tried, convicted, beaten, and hung on a cross to die. Jesus died on the cross, not because of His own sin, but because He was willing to bare the sin of the entire mankind to repair the relationship between God and man. God is love because of this sacrifice. He sent Jesus to be humiliated and tortured to death because He wanted to restore the relationship between God and man. “He laid down His life for us” (3:16).

            John uses the example of Jesus as another reason to love one another. “We should also lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to his need – how can God’s love reside in him?” (3:16b-17). Christians who want to love like Jesus are to love in the way Jesus loved. “We should recognize that hatred of our brother makes us like Cain, while love for our brother makes us like Christ.”[6] John gives the example of love in Christ and shows that Christ’s love for man was not through His words or speech, but with action. Verse 18 explains that love is through action and truth. Christians, in order to be like Christ, must love like Christ. Christ sacrificed His life for the Creation He loved and Christians need to be able to sacrifice for their brothers and sisters. The message John was trying to get across seemed simple and the church members should have understood the sacrifice of Jesus, but they did not understand how it really applied to their lives. “The believer is called to express his love for others in small matters as in great.”[7] God’s love is mostly known and exemplified through major parts of the Bible such as Creation, the Exodus, David, and Jesus to name a few. However, God’s love can be found in every aspect of the Bible, especially the smaller parts. John is showing his readers that even though Christians can show Christ’s love by sacrifice they also can show God’s love by smaller sacrifices. A Christian laying down his or her life does not have to mean literally dying, but can also mean sacrificing his or her time, money, help, care, etc. Jesus gave up everything to show His love and Christians need to be willing to give up everything as well.

            Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection is the major theme of the New Testament. It is what Paul mentions as the most important factor for salvation. Salvation is the result of God’s love for mankind. God allows man to be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again three days later He defeated sin and made it possible for man to have a restored relationship with God. “Salvation is the most widely used term in Christian theology to express the provision of God for our human plight… It can be used of any kind of situation in which a person is delivered from some danger, real or potential.”[8] Jesus saved man from certain death by dying in man’s place. God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and John 3:16 states that whoever believes shall have everlasting life. The ultimate love of God has been exemplified.

            John moves into chapter 4 of 1 John to show how Christians can know God through love. 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not know love does not know God, because God is love.” God is love.

            “It is a principle, which is inherent in the new-born mind; every one born of God is           possessed of it; they, having been regenerated by the Holy Ghost, are guided, influenced, and governed by it: so that there is nothing can be more evident to our spiritual senses and perceptions, than this must be, to all the regenerated, and called people of God, that  every one that loveth his brother in Christ, is born of God.”[9]

God’s love has been revealed to man in order for Christians to be born again in Christ and of God. John continues to show God’s revelatory love for mankind in verses 9 and 10, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” John is repeating himself time and time again so that the early church can understand the true nature of love. Why is it important that John stress God’s love? The word “propitiation” that John uses here means sacrifice. “From one point of view Christ by his sacrifice of himself put away the wrath of God from sinners. Paul and John speak of him as a ‘propitiation’”…“Propitiation is a personal word; we propitiate a person. And the problem in bringing about our salvation is that by our sin we have put ourselves in the wrong with the living God.”[10] God recognized the sin of mankind and through His love He sent a way for man to be saved. John does not want his readers to miss the fact that God loved man so much that He sent Jesus to save and now, when men become saved, they need to exemplify the kind of love Christ showed on the cross with others.

            The kind of love John is talking about in 1 John is known as Agape love. The New Dictionary of Theology defines love in many ways, but notes God’s love as a unique and distinctive love.

            “Agape, as Godlike love, stands in total contrast to all pagan ideas of love in a fallen          world… Agape is completely unselfish. It is based neither on a felt need in the loving person nor on a desire called forth by some attractive feature(s) in the on loved; it is not afraid to make itself vulnerable, and it does not seek to get its own way by covert ruses and psychological ‘games’. It rather proceeds from a heart of love and is directed to the  other person to bless him or her and to seek that person’s highest good. Its source is God, and its pattern and inspiration are Jesus Christ… By such love, the most essential and abiding quality in human life, Christians are to be recognized.”[11]

Christians are to be recognized through agape love. Agape love is unconditional. God sacrificed His Son, His perfect Son, for a fallen humanity. Loving unconditional loves in a way that no matter what the other person has done they are shown love anyways. God knows how dark and sinful humanity is and His unconditional love made a way through the darkness towards the light. The New Testament writers found this agape love and once they accepted this love God remained in them and they remained in God and they spread this love to everyone around them. John is trying to get his readers to spread this agape love because God shows His agape love to them. “Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we must also love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us” (4:11-12).

            John shifts his focus from Christians love another towards God remaining in the believer in 1 John 4:13-16. John says, “This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior” (4:13-14). God’s love remains in the heart of the believer. Christians are able to remain in God and because of this God’s love is able to remain in them. John does not mention God’s love as an example that cannot be followed, but rather that it is the example Christians must follow. God allows Christians to love in a way that is worthy of God. He allows Christians to show agape love towards one another, but it is the duty of the Christian to show this kind of love. How does a person remain in God in the first place? John says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God – God remains in him and he in God” (4:15). It comes to the basis of John 3:16 as well, “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish…” A person must become a believer by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. They must accept God’s love into their lives by accepting that God sent His Son to die on the cross for them. Once they accept their brokenness and God’s perfectness they are able to remain in God and God will remain in them. The ability to accept Christ’s sacrifice into the life of the believer is another example of God’s love. God allowed Jesus to be the sacrifice needed in order to restore the relationship between man and God. Christians, now that God remains in them and them in God, must show love towards others. God commands Christians to love one another. God wants the whole world to know that He loves them and the best way to show the world is by Christians showing love towards the lost and the broken. Christians may appear scared or experience hardship when trying to show love towards other people, but John reaffirms them of God’s promise and love. “In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment, for we are as He is in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us” (4:17-19). John is talking about the perfectness of love in the Christian from God. This love is without fear and is the complete form of love. John is giving the reason to pursue love. “John introduces a purpose clause that explains why the pursuit of perfect love is desirable: ‘so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment.’”[12] Christians who pursue love have kept God’s commands. God commands Christians to love one another. John ends 1 John 4 with the command from God. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother” (4:20-21). Ultimately, God commands Christians to love Him, but He also mentions that Christians cannot love God without loving one another. God has shown His love by loving everyone; Christians must show their love by doing the same.

            The Bible is full of examples of God’s perfect love for humanity. Every book in the Bible exemplifies God’s love in a different way. The overall theme of the love of God is agape, meaning unconditional. John writes 1 John with a type of doctrinal teaching about God’s love and how it plays a role in a Christian’s life. Christians need to understand how God’s love has brought them from death to life by Jesus Christ. A Christian can understand that God’s ultimate love was sending Jesus to die on the cross, but he or she also has to understand that they must love others in the same way. Christians must love unconditionally and sacrifice themselves for others. God’s love needs to shine through the believer in a way that the whole world can see it. Love is a gift from God and it is only by God that humanity is able to love. “We love because He first loved us” (4:19).

Bibliography

Burge, Gary M., The NIV Application Commentary: Letters Of John, Grand Rapids, Michigan:     Zondervan Publishing House, 1996.

Ferguson, Sinclair B., Wright, David F., New Dictionary of Theology, Downers Grove, Illinois:      InterVarsity Press, 1988.

Hodges, Zane C., The Epistles of John, Irving, Texas: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999.

Longman III, Tremper, Garland, David E., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 13, Grand Rapids,             Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2006.

Ogilvie, Lloyd J., When God First Thought of You, Waco, Texas: Word Books Publisher, 1978.

Pierce, Samuel E., Newport Commentary Series: 1 John, Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2004.

Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary Volume 51: 1,2,3 John, Waco, Texas: Word

Books, Publisher, 1984.

New American Standard Bible, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

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[1] Lloyd John Ogilvie, When God First Thought of You, (Waco, Texas: Word Books Publisher, 1978), 99.

[2] Gary M. Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: Letters Of John, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 161.

[3] “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

[4] “We love because He first loved us.”

[5] Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John, (Irving, Texas: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), 160.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Stephen S. Smalley, Word Biblical Commentary Volume 51: 1,2,3 John, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, Publisher, 1984), 196.

[8] Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, New Dictionary of Theology, (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 610.

[9] Samuel E. Pierce, Newport Commentary Series: 1 John, (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2004), Volume II, 55.

[10] Ferguson, 609.

[11] Ibid., 399.

[12] Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 13, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2006), 483.

Salvation - Justification

Salvation is one of the most important doctrines of the Bible. Although Salvation seems simple, there is more to it than meets the eye. Salvation is a gift from God given through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Salvation is a process that requires a beginning, middle, and end to it. The beginning of Salvation is called justification. Justification is man being justified by God in order to be declared righteous. The middle or on-going position of Salvation is called sanctification. Sanctification is how God works in the believer who has been justified to make him or her more like Christ. After sanctification is finished there is glorification. Glorification is the reward after this life and is the resurrection of the believer into heaven. All three of these doctrines are what makes Salvation. The doctrine of Justification is the first and possibly the most important aspect of Salvation. It is the key to the other two doctrines that continue after it. Justification is an act of God and not of man. Salvation could not be possible without all three of these aspects, yet even the concept of Salvation is not possible without Justification.

            In the beginning God created everything. He created man and He had a deep relationship with man. However, it was short-lived as man committed sin in what is known as the Fall. Since the Fall of man there has been a strain in the relationship between God and man. The strain is known as sin and man is full of it. Man’s sin has kept him apart from God and unable to reach Him until God decided to send His Son Jesus Christ to take the sin on Himself and restore the relationship between God and man. God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and accepts any person who believes in Jesus to be saved. However, there is still sin in the world and how does man deal with the sin and guilt? Men surely deserves punishment for their sins and do not deserve to be with God. Justification is the answer to man’s problem of punishment and sin. “Justification is God’s action pronouncing sinners righteous in his sight. It is a matter of our being forgiven and declared to have fulfilled all that God’s law requires of us.”[1] Man did not recognize there was a problem and was able to fix it, but rather God knew the problem from the beginning and decided He wanted to fix it. God understands that man was sinful, but He still loved humanity enough to offer a solution to the problem.

            One of the prerequisites to understanding Justification is understanding what righteousness means. In the Old Testament “a righteous man is one who has been declared by a judge to be free from guilt.”[2] This applies to humanity because God is the ultimate judge of man. The New Testament defines justification as

            “The declarative act of God by which, on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death, he pronounces believers to have fulfilled all of the requirements of the law which pertain to them. Justification is a forensic act imputing the   righteousness of Christ to the believer; it is not an actual infusing of holiness into the individual… It is not a matter of making the person righteous or altering his or her actual spiritual condition.”[3]

The Theology book defends this position by stating that “the concept of righteousness as a matter of formal standing before the law or covenant, and of a judge as someone who determines and declares our status in that respect.”[4] Paul writes in Romans 4 that “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works” (4:5-6). Justification comes from the faith of the believer and not the works. Paul ends chapter 4 with a verse that helps Christians understand that their faith in Christ has given them righteousness. “But for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:24). This verse explains that Jesus’ righteousness is credited to Christians as well as Him. Therefore, it is understood that Justification is an act of God not an act of man.

            A prerequisite to Salvation is an aspect of God and an aspect of the believer. Judgment is God judging mankind and their sin. Repentance is the act of the believer that leads to Justification and Salvation. “Repentance is the shocking awareness of a radical failing which cannot be undone and the admission that God is just in his judgment. Repentance thus means our awakening to sin.”[5] Christians are to repent to God that they have sinned and because of the grace of God they are forgiven. Repentance comes before Justification. “In our repentance we receive the courage not to take flight from ourselves, but to identify ourselves with our guilty past. In our justification we may say farewell to what we are in ourselves and our deeds.”[6] Although Justification is entirely an act of God, Christians still have to do their part and repent of their sins. Repentance leads to God’s Justification and ultimately leads to Salvation.

            The theme of Justification is found often in Paul’s letters. Paul goes by the phrase “Justification by Faith.” It is important and clear to Paul that Christians are justified by their faith in Jesus Christ and not by their works. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (3:23-24). Paul recognized that he was a sinner and that his redemption was found in Christ Jesus. Paul continues in chapter 5 saying, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God” (5:1-2). Paul is saying that faith and only faith leads to Justification by God. Chapter 5 also speaks of the consequences of Justification. The first being

            “‘Peace with God.’ It (peace) speaks of the new relationship that exists between God and those who turn to him in faith (cf. Eph 2:14-15; Col 1:21-22)… To have ‘peace with God’ means to be in a relationship with God in which all the hostility caused by sin has been removed.”[7]

Salvation leads to “Peace with God” because of the work of Jesus Christ. Paul deals with the issue of Justification often in the churches he started and he addresses the issues in his letters. The three other consequences of Justification are joy, love, and hope.[8] “Love, joy, peace and hope, then, the true fruit of the Spirit, mark the lives of those who have been justified by faith in God.”[9] Paul’s letter to the Galatians deals with an issue regarding Justification by faith or by works. Galatians 3:11 says, “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘the righteous man shall live by faith.’” Paul repeats himself again and again stressing this importance. The most important prerequisite to Salvation and Justification, for the believer, is faith in Jesus Christ.

            Salvation has two aspects for the believer: subjective and objective. The subjective aspect deals with the inside of the believer known as his or her conversion. The inward or subjective aspect coincides with repentance and faith mentioned earlier. The believer must repent of their sins and have faith in Jesus. Once this is accomplished God will justify the believer and transform him or her. The objective aspect does not deal with what the believer does, but rather what God does for the believer. This is where Justification comes in; God unites the believer with Christ and then justifies the believer to be righteous and finally, God adopts the believer as His or Her child. This process is the beginning of Salvation for Christians.

            The doctrine of Justification has had many different views in history and its importance has varied in certain centuries. Justification by faith, for the Reformers of the sixteenth century, was “the center of the Christian faith, the foundation of their program of reform and renewal.”[10] They held a strong position in Paul’s beliefs and they believed that the church had, not necessarily lost this view, but were not stressing the importance. There was a big debate disagreement between the definitions of Justification. The disagreement was between the Reformers and the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome taught that “‘justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.’ Justification is therefore regarded as a process of becoming actually and intrinsically righteous.”[11] This belief says that God’s grace initially justifies the believer, but it is the work of the believer that God accepts. The Reformers were against this view of Justification. They taught,

            “Justification is distinct from sanctification. Although all of Christ’s gifts are given in our union with him through faith, justification is a verdict that declares sinners to be righteous even while they are inherently unrighteous, simply on the   basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed on them. Whereas Rome teaches that one is finally justified by being sanctified, the evangelical conviction is that one is being sanctified because one has already been justified.”[12]

This created a lot of controversy between the Church. However, Protestantism was “born out of the struggle for the doctrine of justification by faith.”[13] The controversy came down to justification by faith and justification by good works.

            Martin Luther and John Calvin were two leading Reformers who had different views regarding Justification. Luther studied the Scriptures intently to try and discover what Paul said about Salvation and Justification. Luther “develops the idea that faith unites the believer to Christ, in much the same way as marriage unites a bride and bridegroom. The soul is thus made ‘single and free’ from its sin on account of being married to Christ.”[14] Luther understood Paul’s teaching that faith is more important than works. The text goes on saying, “Luther emphasizes the critical role of faith in establishing an intimate relationship between Christ and the believer.”[15] Calvin “regarded justification as ‘the primary article of the Christian religion,’ ‘the main hinge on which religion turns,’ ‘the principal article of the whole doctrine of salvation and the foundation of all religion.’”[16] Calvin did not see eye-to-eye with Luther on the definition of Justification. Calvin “taught too strictly a justification by imputation, but instead of sharply delineating this from repentance to the one side and sanctification to the other, he endeavored to see these moments as a unity.”[17]  The doctrine of Salvation and the doctrine of Justification had many different views even inside the split views of the Reformers and the Church of Rome.

            Contemporary theologians have different views on the importance of the doctrine of Justification. Instead of arguing on the definition, they “generally tend to treat the doctrine of justification as some sort of theological dinosaur – something that was of great importance in its own day and age but has now become extinct as a burning theological issue.”[18] Today’s Christians are failing to understand what the doctrine of Justification means and it is because they are not being taught. C.S. Lewis wrote,

            “We must learn the language of our audience… You must translate every bit of your theology into the vernacular. This is very troublesome… but it is essential. It    is also of the greatest service to your own thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts are confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood your own meaning.”[19]

What Lewis is trying to say is that it is the theologian’s responsibility to teach the importance of theology and what it truly means for the believer. The issue in the sixteenth hundreds was what the doctrine meant for the believer and what view was correct. The issue today is that it is not being taught. “One of the reasons why the doctrine of justification by faith has lost its impact is the tendency of preachers to discuss the doctrine in general terms in terms appropriate to a bygone age.”[20] Thus the answer is simple: there is a need and importance is the specificity of the doctrine of Justification by faith that needs to be addressed more frequently in the church. That means that instead of being generic when discussing the doctrine of Salvation, pastors need to devote more time and effort in discussing not just the doctrine of Justification, but also all three doctrines that coincide in the doctrine of Salvation. Believers need to know why they are saved and how they are saved. The church in today’s society stresses evangelism and spreading of the Gospel, but the church needs to stress what the doctrines of their salvation mean for them personally. There is a great opportunity for the church to teach these doctrines that will greatly influence the spread of the whole Gospel. Salvation is a very important doctrine for a Christian. The importance of Justification by faith is as important today as it was for the Apostolic Fathers. Justification by faith means that good works do not grant salvation, but rather that faith in Christ is what is necessary. Justification is not something that man possesses, but rather it is a gift and grace of God.

  

Bibliography

Berkhof, Hendrikus, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983.

Bruce, F. F., The Letter of Paul to the Romans An Introduction and Commentary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997.

Erickson, Millard J., Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1985.

Horton, Michael, The Christian Faith, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2011.

McGrath, Alister E., Studies in Doctrine, Grand Rapids, Michigan:             ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1988.

McGrath, Alister E., The Christian Theology Reader, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell Publication, 2011.

Mounce, Robert H., The New American Commentary Vol. 27 Romans, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995.

           

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[1] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1985), 954.

[2] Ibid., 955.

[3] Ibid., 956.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 428.

[6] Ibid., 433.

[7] Robert H. Mounce, The New American Commentary Vol. 27 Romans, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 133.

[8] F. F. Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans An Introduction and Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 115.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Alister E. McGrath, Studies in Doctrine, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1988), 355.

[11] Michael Horton, The Christian Faith, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2011), 622.

[12] Ibid.

[13] McGrath, 357.

[14] Alister E. McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell Publication, 2011), 371.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Horton, 623.

[17] Berkhof, 436.

[18] McGrath, Studies in Doctrine, 357.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., 358.