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Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans
What follows is not a translation in the ordinary sense of the word. It’s more like a paraphrase. Rather than worry over the letter of the text, the goal has been to illuminate the large scale patterns that structure it. The King James Version, for instance, renders Paul’s letter with uncanny beauty but is opaque as an argument. Modern translations tend to have the same problem. Their overriding concern is with the letter of the text, not with its logic. As a result, Paul’s forest is always getting sacrificed for the sake of his trees. But Paul’s work is too important, his good news too urgent, to leave so much of him locked in the first century. We need our renderings to do more than mimic the original, we need them to bleed and breathe.This work argues that the deep logic of Romans comes into sharp focus around a single Paul’s claim that grace is not God’s backup plan. Paul never quite puts it like this, but he implies it at every turn.
84 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 26, 2015
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October 30, 2017
"...the deep logic of Romans comes into sharp focus around a single premise: Paul’s claim that grace is not God’s backup plan."
- Adam S. Miller, Grace is Not God's Backup Plan
This book, essentially, is a paraphrase/modernization/interpretation of Romans. As Miller puts it, it is his "Pauline house mix". It is also the second book of scripture Adam Miller has modernized. It is the yang to his Nothing New Under the Sun: A Blunt Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes yin. From Miller's perspective, these two books (Ecclesiastes and Romans) are linked. According to Miller, "These books are two sides of the same coin: grace on one face, hopelessness on the other."
I've probably read Romans a half-dozen times. Each time I learned something new, but Miller's perspective was helpful. He is bold. It is a bit audacious to not actually translate a book of scripture, but to interpret it and modernize it. Especially a book so central to Christian thought as Romans. But no one would accuse Miller of NOT being bold. He is graced, however, with a soft touch and a sharp mind. I enjoyed his introduction to this book almost as much as the interpretation. In his introduction he provides his approach, his methods, his limitations. He sets up the problem: "The King James Version, for instance, renders Paul’s letter with uncanny beauty but is opaque as an argument." He details why this problem exists: "Their overriding concern is with the letter of the text, not with its logic." And he proposes an approach that seems both novel and simple: "To make sense of Romans, we have to surrender a very natural assumption. We have to stop pretending that the world revolves around us. We have to let God be the center of the universe."
Probably my favorite part of Miller's introduction deals with the limitation of translations. It doesn't matter if you are translating scripture or Nabokov, a translator has to make big choices. Moving text from one language and time to another language and time, while keeping the poetry and meaning exactly would require a parallelism between different languages that just doesn't exist. So, the translator makes tough choices. She either has to keep the poetry and lose some accuracy in translation, or keep the accuracy and lose the poetry. And it isn't binary either. This is 3D chess. There is logic that might not exist distinct from the syntax and the poetry. Choices are made in every sentence translated. According to Miller, "The question is never whether something was lost. The question is always what was lost." To aid in our understanding of Romans, Miller choses to focus on the argument, the logic of Paul. In doing so, he dances right past direct translation. He isn't interested in accuracy in terms of WORDS, he is interested in accuracy in terms of IDEAS. "Rather than worry over the letter of the text, my goal has been to illuminate the large scale patterns that structure it."
- Adam S. Miller, Grace is Not God's Backup Plan
This book, essentially, is a paraphrase/modernization/interpretation of Romans. As Miller puts it, it is his "Pauline house mix". It is also the second book of scripture Adam Miller has modernized. It is the yang to his Nothing New Under the Sun: A Blunt Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes yin. From Miller's perspective, these two books (Ecclesiastes and Romans) are linked. According to Miller, "These books are two sides of the same coin: grace on one face, hopelessness on the other."
I've probably read Romans a half-dozen times. Each time I learned something new, but Miller's perspective was helpful. He is bold. It is a bit audacious to not actually translate a book of scripture, but to interpret it and modernize it. Especially a book so central to Christian thought as Romans. But no one would accuse Miller of NOT being bold. He is graced, however, with a soft touch and a sharp mind. I enjoyed his introduction to this book almost as much as the interpretation. In his introduction he provides his approach, his methods, his limitations. He sets up the problem: "The King James Version, for instance, renders Paul’s letter with uncanny beauty but is opaque as an argument." He details why this problem exists: "Their overriding concern is with the letter of the text, not with its logic." And he proposes an approach that seems both novel and simple: "To make sense of Romans, we have to surrender a very natural assumption. We have to stop pretending that the world revolves around us. We have to let God be the center of the universe."
Probably my favorite part of Miller's introduction deals with the limitation of translations. It doesn't matter if you are translating scripture or Nabokov, a translator has to make big choices. Moving text from one language and time to another language and time, while keeping the poetry and meaning exactly would require a parallelism between different languages that just doesn't exist. So, the translator makes tough choices. She either has to keep the poetry and lose some accuracy in translation, or keep the accuracy and lose the poetry. And it isn't binary either. This is 3D chess. There is logic that might not exist distinct from the syntax and the poetry. Choices are made in every sentence translated. According to Miller, "The question is never whether something was lost. The question is always what was lost." To aid in our understanding of Romans, Miller choses to focus on the argument, the logic of Paul. In doing so, he dances right past direct translation. He isn't interested in accuracy in terms of WORDS, he is interested in accuracy in terms of IDEAS. "Rather than worry over the letter of the text, my goal has been to illuminate the large scale patterns that structure it."
June 6, 2016
"Sin acts as if God's original plan was for us to bootstrap ourselves into holiness by way of the law and then, when this didn't quite pan out, God offered his grace--but only the bare minimum--to make good the difference. This is exactly backwards. God's boundless grace comes first and sin is what follows."
"Grace doesn't grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn't God's way of jury rigging a broken law. It's the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely--from top to bottom, from beginning to end--by grace."
This book was challenging for me. I expected to finally "get" Paul, and that didn't happen. While Miller's paraphrase rendered the text more poetic and contemporary, I still found it hard to follow the thread of Paul's logic, supposedly laid bare here. At times, I felt like I was on the cusp of some great spiritual insight-- which never happened. Of course, this is more an indictment of me than of the book, and a symptom of my very limited experience reading Paul. Perhaps this is a book I will return to later, after more preparation and study. This book, along with Miller's _Letters to a Young Mormon_, did encourage me to pursue my own paraphrase of scripture, which I will attempt soon.
"Grace doesn't grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn't God's way of jury rigging a broken law. It's the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely--from top to bottom, from beginning to end--by grace."
This book was challenging for me. I expected to finally "get" Paul, and that didn't happen. While Miller's paraphrase rendered the text more poetic and contemporary, I still found it hard to follow the thread of Paul's logic, supposedly laid bare here. At times, I felt like I was on the cusp of some great spiritual insight-- which never happened. Of course, this is more an indictment of me than of the book, and a symptom of my very limited experience reading Paul. Perhaps this is a book I will return to later, after more preparation and study. This book, along with Miller's _Letters to a Young Mormon_, did encourage me to pursue my own paraphrase of scripture, which I will attempt soon.
March 19, 2015
This book is beautiful. Thoughtful. Useful.
I take it all back: it's not so much that Adam Miller has produced something beautiful, thoughtful, and useful (although he has). It's more that he has produced a text that speaks to modern ears, allowing them to hear the original beauty, thoughtfulness, and usefulness—along with the original urgency and grace—of Paul's letter itself.
Forget the categories. It's not whether you're a believer, or even what it is you've chosen to believe in: if you're human, you'll find something worth thinking about here.
I take it all back: it's not so much that Adam Miller has produced something beautiful, thoughtful, and useful (although he has). It's more that he has produced a text that speaks to modern ears, allowing them to hear the original beauty, thoughtfulness, and usefulness—along with the original urgency and grace—of Paul's letter itself.
Forget the categories. It's not whether you're a believer, or even what it is you've chosen to believe in: if you're human, you'll find something worth thinking about here.
April 13, 2017
This is a modern paraphrase of the New Testament book of Romans. It is a short--read in one sitting--book that shifted my paradigm in regards to Grace. Thought-provoking and worthy of discussion and rereading. Just a couple of great quotes:
"They treated the law as a list of works rather than as an occasion for faith. What was meant to be a stepping stone became a stumbling block. And then, stumbling over the law, sin seized them."
"Don't let your traditions spurn someone Jesus died to save."
I just finished it the second time as a study group book. We read it aloud and found it deep, moving, and profound. This is my go-to when I want to read Romans. Miller has made it contemporary without making it cutesy or by trying too hard. He has made me think about Grace and its relation to my life in a much deeper way.
"They treated the law as a list of works rather than as an occasion for faith. What was meant to be a stepping stone became a stumbling block. And then, stumbling over the law, sin seized them."
"Don't let your traditions spurn someone Jesus died to save."
I just finished it the second time as a study group book. We read it aloud and found it deep, moving, and profound. This is my go-to when I want to read Romans. Miller has made it contemporary without making it cutesy or by trying too hard. He has made me think about Grace and its relation to my life in a much deeper way.
May 29, 2015
I've long found Paul's writings to be rather inscrutable. Adam Miller's paraphrase of Paul's letter to the Romans replaces the opaque English of the KJV with clear declarations in contemporary idiom, thereby rendering the text "scrutable." But he's traded one kind of inscrutability for another: Paul's message, when read in plainer English, is just as surprising and puzzling as ever. Instead of trying to understand grace by looking through the lens of sin, Paul (via Miller) invites us to try to understand sin through the lens of grace. Grace comes first. It's not God's backup plan, as the title says. But unpacking that simple declaration is going to take me a lot more time. I'm happy to have Miller's rendition alongside me as I continue to unpack Paul's message, though.
April 28, 2019
This book is a little gem. My favorite was Romans 12:
“ Bound together, we’re each fit for different things. Use your gifts wisely. If you have the gift of prophecy, prophesy. If you’re filled with compassion, spread compassion. If you’re a teacher, teach. If you’re persuasive, persuade. If you’re a mourner, mourn. If you’re kind, be kind. More, if you’re a doubter, doubt whatever deserves to be doubted. And if you’re a leader, be sure you know not only where you’ve been but where you’re going. Make love real. Make evil wither. Hang on to what’s good. Be generous with your affections. Show respect. Don’t tire of hard work. Burn with spirit. Bind yourself to God. Celebrate hope. Be patient in suffering. Pray always. Care for the poor. Welcome the stranger. Bless your persecutors. Don’t be snarky. Rejoice with the joyful. Mourn with the mourners. Get along with each other. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Befriend the lowly and visit the lonely. Don’t testify to what you don’t know. Don’t be more clever than you are. More, don’t repay evil with evil. Think about what’s best for everyone. Be a peacemaker. Never take revenge—leave that to God. If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they’re thirsty, give them a drink. If you do, you’ll either make new friends or kill your enemies with kindness. Whatever you do, don’t let evil win. Conquer it with good.”
“ Bound together, we’re each fit for different things. Use your gifts wisely. If you have the gift of prophecy, prophesy. If you’re filled with compassion, spread compassion. If you’re a teacher, teach. If you’re persuasive, persuade. If you’re a mourner, mourn. If you’re kind, be kind. More, if you’re a doubter, doubt whatever deserves to be doubted. And if you’re a leader, be sure you know not only where you’ve been but where you’re going. Make love real. Make evil wither. Hang on to what’s good. Be generous with your affections. Show respect. Don’t tire of hard work. Burn with spirit. Bind yourself to God. Celebrate hope. Be patient in suffering. Pray always. Care for the poor. Welcome the stranger. Bless your persecutors. Don’t be snarky. Rejoice with the joyful. Mourn with the mourners. Get along with each other. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Befriend the lowly and visit the lonely. Don’t testify to what you don’t know. Don’t be more clever than you are. More, don’t repay evil with evil. Think about what’s best for everyone. Be a peacemaker. Never take revenge—leave that to God. If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they’re thirsty, give them a drink. If you do, you’ll either make new friends or kill your enemies with kindness. Whatever you do, don’t let evil win. Conquer it with good.”
April 28, 2015
I picked up Adam Miller's book on sale through the kindle store. After reading it, I would have paid full price for it.
This book is, as the author describes it, an urgent paraphrase of the book of Romans in the New Testament. What that means is that he has translated and paraphrased this sometimes complicated and convoluted text all with the intent of showing Paul's primary message about GRACE.
I've read the book through twice and I have now read the KJV version of Romans twice. Sometimes I feel like I can't get close enough to Paul to relate to him or to appreciate the messages he taught. This book gave me a better way to approach Paul's writing and also showed me some threads of meaning I have been missing.
I'll be re-visiting this book and the book of Romans on a more regular basis, as the central message of grace is incredibly important and profound.
I highly recommend it for any reader.
This book is, as the author describes it, an urgent paraphrase of the book of Romans in the New Testament. What that means is that he has translated and paraphrased this sometimes complicated and convoluted text all with the intent of showing Paul's primary message about GRACE.
I've read the book through twice and I have now read the KJV version of Romans twice. Sometimes I feel like I can't get close enough to Paul to relate to him or to appreciate the messages he taught. This book gave me a better way to approach Paul's writing and also showed me some threads of meaning I have been missing.
I'll be re-visiting this book and the book of Romans on a more regular basis, as the central message of grace is incredibly important and profound.
I highly recommend it for any reader.
June 14, 2015
If everyone interpreted the words of God the way Adam Miller does, the world would be full of better Christians. If love isn't your driving force in keeping the laws of God, you're doing it wrong. I can get behind that kind of interpretation.
May 31, 2016
Adam Miller offers a hopeful and helpful take on Paul's letter to the Romans. It is enlightening, brisk, and inspiring. It reorients the Christian path in Christ's grace where it should have been all along. It is filled with gems of wisdom and wonder. I will return to it often.
December 4, 2022
I really like the concept of grace, and I love the idea that grace is not a backup plan but a plan all in itself. This book clarified some ideas that were mulling in my head for me, which I appreciate.
January 7, 2023
One of the best books I’ve ever read 👏
August 30, 2019
You know that friend or teacher who is always there to translate and put a difficult text into perspective for you when you’re struggling to understand just one verse? Not the condescending, know-it-all kind who volunteers their opinion to “help you out.” More like the one you seek out or try to sit next to in Sunday School because you know they have studied something so deeply out of genuine passion and curiosity that they can put it into layman’s terms as if you’re just talking about the weather. You know that friend?
Imagine that friend decides to paraphrase the entire book of Romans for you over dinner, probably for no other reason than they just thought you would enjoy it, and it is the most meaningful conversation you have all year. One that makes you want to change your approach to gospel living. This is that dinner conversation in book form. What a gift! Read it. Reread it. Read it along side the NT verses. Melt into your seat with joyful self-actualization.
Imagine that friend decides to paraphrase the entire book of Romans for you over dinner, probably for no other reason than they just thought you would enjoy it, and it is the most meaningful conversation you have all year. One that makes you want to change your approach to gospel living. This is that dinner conversation in book form. What a gift! Read it. Reread it. Read it along side the NT verses. Melt into your seat with joyful self-actualization.
August 29, 2023
solely logging this for my goodreads books goal
April 30, 2015
What a wonderful "translation" of the Pauls letter to the Romans. Adam Miller brings the letters to life showing the importance of Grace not coming about because of sin, but in showing a grace that is and has always been working for us. Through his idea's (translations) of Paul's view of grace we can come to better understand the workings of empathy for our neighbors, whether they are similar to thought or different than us. Regardless, we find that Paul asks us to accept all as God has already accepted all.
This book is a wonderful addition to any New Testament study. Whether you've read the book of Romans many times, through many different translations, you will gain a whole new view of what Paul was getting at through his letter to the Romans in a unique, relevant, and modern light.
This book is a wonderful addition to any New Testament study. Whether you've read the book of Romans many times, through many different translations, you will gain a whole new view of what Paul was getting at through his letter to the Romans in a unique, relevant, and modern light.
May 4, 2015
Lots to chew on in this "translation" of the Book of Romans. Adam Miller lays out core teachings of the Apostle Paul in language that reaches out to a modern reader. This is what I came away with: God's plan for us begins, continues, and ends with grace. Grace draws us to God and to each other. Sin, on the other hand, thinking it knows better, rejects grace and turns away from God and others. Grace through Christ guides us to light and life, while sin drags us blindly toward death.
April 15, 2017
Christianity 101. This paraphrase of the Romans(New Testament) was so good! A fresh perspective on Grace, modernized without feeling forced. It was especially good when read out loud. Short, but a lot of food for thought!
"They treated the law as a list of works rather than as an occasion for faith. What was meant to be a stepping stone became a stumbling block. And then, stumbling over the law, sin seized them."
"Don't let your traditions spurn someone Jesus died to save."
"They treated the law as a list of works rather than as an occasion for faith. What was meant to be a stepping stone became a stumbling block. And then, stumbling over the law, sin seized them."
"Don't let your traditions spurn someone Jesus died to save."
April 22, 2017
I have loved studying Romans this week. Paul's bursting energy for the Grace of Jesus Christ is contagious. Miller's treatment of the epistle to the Romans helps to enunciate Paul's energy and rhythm. Miller brings Saint Paul's boldness to life. I highly recommend this as a companion to any serious study of the book of Romans - one of the most soulful treatises ever written on God's infinite Grace.
August 21, 2019
This was a re-read for me as I was contemplating the book of Romans again. It is indispensable reading. Beautiful and insightfully paraphrased for contemporary readers and a compelling appeal for acceptance grace.
April 3, 2015
Breathing New life and urgency to Paul's words
A quick and energetic read, this book has done more to bring me back to the roots of my faith than any I have read in a long time.
A quick and energetic read, this book has done more to bring me back to the roots of my faith than any I have read in a long time.
May 19, 2015
Can you do one on the whole New Testament? Please!!!
June 5, 2015
Romans is a key book in the New Testament that I have always found difficult. Miller's paraphrase is a welcome introduction, and has helped me get up the gumption to tackle the original on my own.
September 27, 2015
Easier to read than Paul's version with even more sound bites. The modernisation helps. Plus there's so much to work with in Romans. Two thumbs up.
December 20, 2020
Brilliant, beautiful work. Enthusiastically recommended to anyone who seeks to understand the relationship between sin and grace. I found myself underlining almost the entire introduction. What follows the introduction is a paraphrased rewriting of the book of Romans, using modern syntax and examples. There were a few lines here and there that felt too convenient to Miller’s main point (grace comes first, sin is our rejection of grace) but when compared to the KJV, they checked out. Some people might be tempted to dismiss this thin volume as an over simplification of biblical text, but it is extraordinarily difficult to take complicated ideas and texts and create something simple from them while retaining (and perhaps restoring)the original meaning. That is exactly what Adam Miller does in this book. I loved it!
November 25, 2018
I've never felt so drawn to feast on the Word as I do when reading this book. The message of grace is so clear and compelling in this paraphrase of the book of Romans.
I invite you to read this book!
I invite you to read this book!
December 19, 2019
Author goes through the book of Romans and puts it in modern speak. I didn't have the patience to do this on this reading but I think I would really like this if I sat down and read Romans side by side with this book. I bet it would offer a lot more insight. So that's what I will do. Someday.
May 26, 2020
Phil Fernberg wrote the perfect review of this book, so I refer you to him. It sums up my thoughts & feelings quite well.
September 23, 2022
Interesting paraphrase but an appendix would have made it way more useful.
August 21, 2023
A helpful guide for the study of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Clear, direct and to the point.
September 25, 2023
Beautiful and thought provoking
December 7, 2017
Paul’s epistle to the Romans is yet another text that I found very opaque in my initial readings of the New Testament when I began to study in my teens. First off, much of it seemed irrelevant to a modern reader, dealing with the law of circumcision and the like. To the uninformed reader, this is lost without context. Second, it’s discussion of faith and law and grace and sin seemed in parts contradictory, and in other parts outright wrong to my Mormon sensibilities (“we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” How is this in the Bible? I thought we Mormons were all about “faith without works is dead” and now Paul seems to be contradicting it!) On top of that, Paul seems to waste a lot of time with niceties, wanting to pass on his greetings to everyone in Rome! Romans just didn’t seem to have a lot to offer.
Since those early days in my scripture study, I have since learned to appreciate Paul’s letters a bit more, but they still often do seem more difficult and less rewarding that reading the stories of Jesus or the more clear sermons in the Book of Mormon. But Miller’s little book here does an excellent job at showing just how profound and coherent Paul’s letter to the Romans really is. Miller sums it up: “Romans is a rare thing in religion: an explanation.” And as I read the text, I realized more and more that Paul wasn’t an aberration in the Bible; he didn’t contradict or preach a different gospel than Peter or John– or even James’ statement that faith without works is dead. What he does is he shows how faith and works and grace and sin all are pieced together in the context of God’s plan. Totally worth the read if you have ever been lost in Paul’s writings.
Two of the major ideas that I found really compelling were (1) realizing that grace comes before sin, not the other way around and (2) reconstructing the Jew/Gentile language as insider/outsider to show just how relevant these passages are for us. As a Mormon, I grew up with at explicit assumption that those outside of our faith (“outsiders” using Miller’s terms) were wrong (“all their creeds are an abomination before me” and “having a form of godliness but denying the power therefore”) and the implicit consequence that they probably weren’t going to be exalted in the celestial kingdom. It took me a while to shed such religious hubris and realize “who am I to judge another?” Miller’s paraphrasing of Paul states this beautifully as well: “When outsiders intuitively respond to God’s grace with grace and thereby fulfill the law, their lives reveal the truth of the law. Even without knowing the law, they show what the law is about. The law is written in their hearts and when the end comes their conscience will be clear.”
Some quotes:
To make sense of Romans, we have to surrender a very natural assumption. We have to stop pretending that the world revolves around us. We have to let God be the center of the universe. We have to stop looking at God’s grace from the perspective of our sin and, instead, let sin appear in light of grace. And this grace is everywhere.
Sin wants to be the star of the show. From the perspective of sin, everything is about sin. As Paul describes it, sin is an active suppression of God’s already obvious glory. It’s a rejection of his already offered grace. Sin likes to think that it came first and that grace, then, is God’s stopgap response. Sin acts as if God’s original plan was for us to bootstrap ourselves into holiness by way of the law and then, when this didn’t quite pan out, God offered his grace—but only the bare minimum—to make good the difference and boost us into righteousness.
Sin abuses God’s gifts and subverts them to its own end. It takes God’s law, severs it from grace, and repurposes it as a wedge. Sin doesn’t oppose religion, it hijacks it. It coopts religion itself as a way of alienating us from God. Sin recasts the law as a measure of our ability to get by without God’s grace. It sees the law as an occasion for us to judge others and, so, excuse ourselves.
From the paraphrased text of Romans:
God’s promise is powerful and its power to rescue extends both to insiders and outsiders. God doesn’t care which you are.
If this is what you want, God’s love won’t stop you. He’ll let you make the exchange. He’ll let you bind yourself to things that can’t love you in return. He’ll let you exchange love for lust. He’ll let you exchange grace for money. He’ll let you choose distraction and addiction. And then you’ll simply get what you’ve chosen: envy, anger, gossip, frustration, vanity, etc. You’ll implode. And though your life may go on, you’ll be dead in a very real way.
When you use the commandments to condemn others and congratulate yourself, you’re the one who ends up condemned.
Being lucky enough to hear the law doesn’t make you right with God or bind you to him, only fulfilling the law does.
When outsiders intuitively respond to God’s grace with grace and thereby fulfill the law, their lives reveal the truth of the law. Even without knowing the law, they show what the law is about. The law is written in their hearts and when the end comes their conscience will be clear.
Meanwhile, if outsiders intuitively align themselves with God’s work of binding up the world’s wounds, won’t they be counted as insiders? Without a doubt. And then those outsiders will scold those that knew the plan but still abused the law.
Insider or outsider, this isn’t about making a good impression on people. This is about what’s going on in your heart and in your head. And God knows them both.
This is harsh, but it has to be said. It has to be said so that you’ll finally shut your mouth about how good you are. It has to be said so that the whole world, without exception, can be brought to stand naked and defenseless before the truth. No one can be made right with God by way of the law. The law gives a totally different kind of gift: the law shows you you’re a sinner.
The law was never meant for the sake of itself and so it’s impossible to fulfill it just by keeping it. The law was given for the sake of grace and so, as a result, only grace can fulfill it. Be absolutely clear about this. Grace doesn’t grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn’t God’s way of jury rigging a broken law. It’s the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely—from top to bottom, from beginning to end—by grace.
But God’s grace doesn’t just rescue what’s already good. The whole point is that, trusting God, even our suffering can bind us to him.
Should we commit more sin, then, to invite more grace? Again, this is ridiculous. We’ve died to sin. We can’t continue to live as if it owned us.
Now when sin creeps in and tries to claim us as its own, we’re free to refuse. Even if we make mistakes, we’re no longer slaves to sin, bound to heel at its beck and call. We can put things right and move on and try again.
Should we say, then, that the law is sin? No. But the law isn’t inherently good either. The law is only good when it’s paired with grace. Severed from grace, the law is amenable to abuse. It’s easily repurposed by sin. The law is like an atom that’s short one electron. If it’s not already bound to grace, it will happily lock orbits with any questionable partner that wanders by.
I wouldn’t have known sin without the law. More, I wouldn’t have burned with lust if the law hadn’t said, “Don’t lust!” Sin saw an opening in these prohibitions and slyly seized it. The opening is obvious: we want what we can’t have. Desire loves a vacuum and prohibitions create one. Partnered with sin, the law ironically trains us to want what it forbids us to have. It follows, then, that without the law, sin is dead. It doesn’t have any fuel to burn.
Grace isn’t God’s backup plan in case we can’t keep the law. Grace was, from the beginning, the whole point of the law and the only way to fulfill it.
Adoption, glory, covenants, priesthood, law, ordinances—God entrusted these to the insiders. He entrusted these to Israel. Abraham is literally their father and Jesus, our rescuer, their brother! And yet, despite what God entrusted, they failed to trust God in return. Denying God’s grace, they faltered. Does this mean that God’s promises have also faltered? No! It means that, despite the promise, not all insiders are willing to live by grace. Many want to live and die by the law. Many of Abraham’s children refuse to be counted, by way of faith, as Abraham’s seed.
Being an insider isn’t enough to make you part of the covenant family. Pedigrees and good manners and respectable clothes and properly signed documents aren’t enough. Only a willingness to trust God’s promise can make you Abraham’s seed.
God even told Isaiah: Those who weren’t looking for me, found me! I appeared to those who didn’t even know to call for me! This is hard to hear when you’ve built your life on the idea that you’re special and then, suddenly, you’re not. But God doesn’t leave it like this. He follows up his rebuke with a promise. He’s still there for his people and he always will be.
The grace entrusted to them will be extended to outsiders. This will bless those born outside the covenant. And then, in return, this radical expansion of God’s family may shock some insiders into recognizing what gift they’d had all along. And if their exile is a blessing for outsiders, just imagine what a grace it will be when the insiders return—it will be like a whole nation was raised from the dead!
We need to make sure we don’t get carried away by our sketch of the plan and claim more than we actually know. This waiting is part of faith. For the moment, what we do know is that many insiders have hardened their hearts and that many outsiders have greeted Jesus’s good news with joy. God is weaving all of our actions, good and bad, into his plan:
When you meet together for worship, welcome those weak in faith. Welcome those with worries and doubts and questions. But don’t argue with them. Don’t welcome them in as a chance to prove—again—that you’re right about something.
Some of you think it’s okay to eat anything. Others only eat vegetables. Neither should condemn the other. God welcomes everyone, insiders and outsiders both. Who are you to judge what people wear or eat? Who are you to judge how people think or vote? Let God sort it out.
Stop, then, accusing your fellow Christians. Stop despising what’s different from you.
Since those early days in my scripture study, I have since learned to appreciate Paul’s letters a bit more, but they still often do seem more difficult and less rewarding that reading the stories of Jesus or the more clear sermons in the Book of Mormon. But Miller’s little book here does an excellent job at showing just how profound and coherent Paul’s letter to the Romans really is. Miller sums it up: “Romans is a rare thing in religion: an explanation.” And as I read the text, I realized more and more that Paul wasn’t an aberration in the Bible; he didn’t contradict or preach a different gospel than Peter or John– or even James’ statement that faith without works is dead. What he does is he shows how faith and works and grace and sin all are pieced together in the context of God’s plan. Totally worth the read if you have ever been lost in Paul’s writings.
Two of the major ideas that I found really compelling were (1) realizing that grace comes before sin, not the other way around and (2) reconstructing the Jew/Gentile language as insider/outsider to show just how relevant these passages are for us. As a Mormon, I grew up with at explicit assumption that those outside of our faith (“outsiders” using Miller’s terms) were wrong (“all their creeds are an abomination before me” and “having a form of godliness but denying the power therefore”) and the implicit consequence that they probably weren’t going to be exalted in the celestial kingdom. It took me a while to shed such religious hubris and realize “who am I to judge another?” Miller’s paraphrasing of Paul states this beautifully as well: “When outsiders intuitively respond to God’s grace with grace and thereby fulfill the law, their lives reveal the truth of the law. Even without knowing the law, they show what the law is about. The law is written in their hearts and when the end comes their conscience will be clear.”
Some quotes:
To make sense of Romans, we have to surrender a very natural assumption. We have to stop pretending that the world revolves around us. We have to let God be the center of the universe. We have to stop looking at God’s grace from the perspective of our sin and, instead, let sin appear in light of grace. And this grace is everywhere.
Sin wants to be the star of the show. From the perspective of sin, everything is about sin. As Paul describes it, sin is an active suppression of God’s already obvious glory. It’s a rejection of his already offered grace. Sin likes to think that it came first and that grace, then, is God’s stopgap response. Sin acts as if God’s original plan was for us to bootstrap ourselves into holiness by way of the law and then, when this didn’t quite pan out, God offered his grace—but only the bare minimum—to make good the difference and boost us into righteousness.
Sin abuses God’s gifts and subverts them to its own end. It takes God’s law, severs it from grace, and repurposes it as a wedge. Sin doesn’t oppose religion, it hijacks it. It coopts religion itself as a way of alienating us from God. Sin recasts the law as a measure of our ability to get by without God’s grace. It sees the law as an occasion for us to judge others and, so, excuse ourselves.
From the paraphrased text of Romans:
God’s promise is powerful and its power to rescue extends both to insiders and outsiders. God doesn’t care which you are.
If this is what you want, God’s love won’t stop you. He’ll let you make the exchange. He’ll let you bind yourself to things that can’t love you in return. He’ll let you exchange love for lust. He’ll let you exchange grace for money. He’ll let you choose distraction and addiction. And then you’ll simply get what you’ve chosen: envy, anger, gossip, frustration, vanity, etc. You’ll implode. And though your life may go on, you’ll be dead in a very real way.
When you use the commandments to condemn others and congratulate yourself, you’re the one who ends up condemned.
Being lucky enough to hear the law doesn’t make you right with God or bind you to him, only fulfilling the law does.
When outsiders intuitively respond to God’s grace with grace and thereby fulfill the law, their lives reveal the truth of the law. Even without knowing the law, they show what the law is about. The law is written in their hearts and when the end comes their conscience will be clear.
Meanwhile, if outsiders intuitively align themselves with God’s work of binding up the world’s wounds, won’t they be counted as insiders? Without a doubt. And then those outsiders will scold those that knew the plan but still abused the law.
Insider or outsider, this isn’t about making a good impression on people. This is about what’s going on in your heart and in your head. And God knows them both.
This is harsh, but it has to be said. It has to be said so that you’ll finally shut your mouth about how good you are. It has to be said so that the whole world, without exception, can be brought to stand naked and defenseless before the truth. No one can be made right with God by way of the law. The law gives a totally different kind of gift: the law shows you you’re a sinner.
The law was never meant for the sake of itself and so it’s impossible to fulfill it just by keeping it. The law was given for the sake of grace and so, as a result, only grace can fulfill it. Be absolutely clear about this. Grace doesn’t grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn’t God’s way of jury rigging a broken law. It’s the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely—from top to bottom, from beginning to end—by grace.
But God’s grace doesn’t just rescue what’s already good. The whole point is that, trusting God, even our suffering can bind us to him.
Should we commit more sin, then, to invite more grace? Again, this is ridiculous. We’ve died to sin. We can’t continue to live as if it owned us.
Now when sin creeps in and tries to claim us as its own, we’re free to refuse. Even if we make mistakes, we’re no longer slaves to sin, bound to heel at its beck and call. We can put things right and move on and try again.
Should we say, then, that the law is sin? No. But the law isn’t inherently good either. The law is only good when it’s paired with grace. Severed from grace, the law is amenable to abuse. It’s easily repurposed by sin. The law is like an atom that’s short one electron. If it’s not already bound to grace, it will happily lock orbits with any questionable partner that wanders by.
I wouldn’t have known sin without the law. More, I wouldn’t have burned with lust if the law hadn’t said, “Don’t lust!” Sin saw an opening in these prohibitions and slyly seized it. The opening is obvious: we want what we can’t have. Desire loves a vacuum and prohibitions create one. Partnered with sin, the law ironically trains us to want what it forbids us to have. It follows, then, that without the law, sin is dead. It doesn’t have any fuel to burn.
Grace isn’t God’s backup plan in case we can’t keep the law. Grace was, from the beginning, the whole point of the law and the only way to fulfill it.
Adoption, glory, covenants, priesthood, law, ordinances—God entrusted these to the insiders. He entrusted these to Israel. Abraham is literally their father and Jesus, our rescuer, their brother! And yet, despite what God entrusted, they failed to trust God in return. Denying God’s grace, they faltered. Does this mean that God’s promises have also faltered? No! It means that, despite the promise, not all insiders are willing to live by grace. Many want to live and die by the law. Many of Abraham’s children refuse to be counted, by way of faith, as Abraham’s seed.
Being an insider isn’t enough to make you part of the covenant family. Pedigrees and good manners and respectable clothes and properly signed documents aren’t enough. Only a willingness to trust God’s promise can make you Abraham’s seed.
God even told Isaiah: Those who weren’t looking for me, found me! I appeared to those who didn’t even know to call for me! This is hard to hear when you’ve built your life on the idea that you’re special and then, suddenly, you’re not. But God doesn’t leave it like this. He follows up his rebuke with a promise. He’s still there for his people and he always will be.
The grace entrusted to them will be extended to outsiders. This will bless those born outside the covenant. And then, in return, this radical expansion of God’s family may shock some insiders into recognizing what gift they’d had all along. And if their exile is a blessing for outsiders, just imagine what a grace it will be when the insiders return—it will be like a whole nation was raised from the dead!
We need to make sure we don’t get carried away by our sketch of the plan and claim more than we actually know. This waiting is part of faith. For the moment, what we do know is that many insiders have hardened their hearts and that many outsiders have greeted Jesus’s good news with joy. God is weaving all of our actions, good and bad, into his plan:
When you meet together for worship, welcome those weak in faith. Welcome those with worries and doubts and questions. But don’t argue with them. Don’t welcome them in as a chance to prove—again—that you’re right about something.
Some of you think it’s okay to eat anything. Others only eat vegetables. Neither should condemn the other. God welcomes everyone, insiders and outsiders both. Who are you to judge what people wear or eat? Who are you to judge how people think or vote? Let God sort it out.
Stop, then, accusing your fellow Christians. Stop despising what’s different from you.
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