This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 19, 1993.

We begin our picture reading this morning in Romans chapter three, Romans chapter three. And we are reading from verse three. I’m sorry, we’re reading from verse nine, excuse me. Romans three, verse nine. Let us listen to the Word of God. What then are we better than they, knowing no wise? For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their way, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now, we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” I’m then turning over to Romans chapter 8. beginning with verse 28.

For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let’s pray together. We would ask Lord that our lay our lives day by day. Would be a preparation for the reception of your word. Especially as we hear that word in the company of your people. Lord, we would not then be a negligent or forgetful people. Instead, Lord, we ask that you would set before us your word day by day. That we would have the habit of reflecting upon it personally and within our families. And also our God.

Yet not be nearly a matter of us preparing ourselves for the reception of your word, but likewise, may we also be those who are intent in living out that word, or living from that word, as you have said it before us. O God, we are indeed a people of the word, and ask that we might demonstrate that in all of our lives. We pray for the sake of Christ, who is the Word of God incarnate. Amen.

It is appropriate It is appropriate that Paul’s letter to the Romans, being that charter document that it is, set before us the membership of Christ’s Church in the broadest terms.

You see, Paul in this letter speaks to the widest issue. As we said in our message last week, his interest is the revelation of God’s mercy to Gentiles and Jews alike in the gospel events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the end that the nations and all Israel might be brought to that obedience of faith that grasps hold of God as its reward, all to God’s own incomparable glory.” Paul’s interest in Romans, one more time. is the revelation of God’s mercy to Gentiles and Jews in the gospel events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to the end that the nations and finally all Israel might be brought to that obedience of faith that grasps hold of God as its reward, all to God’s own incomparable glory. I think that it is evident to us all from this summary statement of the teaching in the Epistle to the Hebrews that we are dealing here with a charter document, one that uses the wide-angled lenses, one comparable to an expansive mural setting before us the majestic scope of God’s intentions in salvation history, in which then Paul’s ministry will play itself out. In Romans, therefore, we are presented with the broad and universal sweep of things, the grandest picture, the most comprehensive It is in this light, then, that we do well to take stock of two pivotal statements in Romans.

And I call your attention, first of all, to Romans 3.23, a brief verse, but powerful, and one that has been committed to memory by many of us. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The second verse that I would call your attention to builds off of what you read in that third chapter, the nineteenth verse. But I have in mind here specifically the eleventh chapter, verse thirty-two. For God shut up all in disobedience, that he might show mercy to all.

These two verses, Romans 3.23 and Romans 11.32, “‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ and then in the New American Standard version of that thirty-second verse of the eleventh chapter, “‘For God shut up all in disobedience, that he might show mercy to all.'” These two verses are representative of the scope and tone of Romans.

They are bold, they are even wonderful statements in which the universal scope of the human condition and of God’s plan of salvation is affirmed. This, very importantly then, Paul here is concerned to emphasize not that which makes humanity diverse, not even that which makes individuals unique. Instead, he is concerned to emphasize what human beings have in common. namely, their sin and their need for redemption. But further, he is concerned to point out what God has done in redeeming his elect, the redemption of whom, from the Bible’s point of view and from Romans’ point of view, is the salvation of humanity. Do you get the equation in Paul’s mind and in his presentation of the truth?

We build on these universal categories, these things which human beings have in common, namely their sin and their need of redemption, but also then what God has done in redeeming His elect, the redemption of whom is the salvation of humanity. When God saves His elect, humanity is saved. That’s the equation in God’s mind. When the elect are saved, humanity is saved.

In God’s estimation from his point of view. Here, then, is the only proper biblical universalism. Now note, note particularly But I did not say that Romans teaches the salvation of everyone. It most clearly does not teach the salvation of everyone. Rather, it teaches that God’s purposes in saving humanity are fulfilled in the salvation of His elect.

Therefore, that text that we quoted this morning, Romans 11.32, that he might show mercy to all, must be balanced by a text like Romans 9.15, where Paul is quoting from the book of Exodus and God’s statement there, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. But even further, it must be balanced with what we have read in Romans 8, verse 29, for whom He did foreknow He also did predestine to be conformed to the image of His Son. God’s electing grace operates then in the interest of His universal design that in the saving of his elect, God judges within himself that he has, in fact, saved humanity.

But this message from Romans about the universal human condition, about universal human depravity, about universal salvation in the salvation of the elect, has steadily lost ground within the Church since the seventeenth century, to the point that, in our present circumstance, it has become the minority position.

What is the majority position? The majority position on the conservative side is the Arminianizing tendency of evangelicalism. On the other side of the balance is liberal universalism. A liberal universalism that, in its boldest forms, has not hesitated to tell us the Church that we must, in fact, disagree with Paul in his estimations of God’s electing grace. Liberal universalism has gone on to tell us that we must not accept as gospel everything that Paul says. After all, Paul is most certainly not infallible. And we, being enlightened, are his betters. But what is it, specifically, that the Armenian evangelicalism and liberal universalism have said?

First of all, that humanity is either partially or wholly good. disagreement, then, with Romans 3.23 and its implication in the widest extent of that implication. The conviction of Arminian evangelicalism and liberal universalism is this, that humanity is either partially or wholly good.

And secondly, insofar as we can speak of salvation, God, in his love, is bound in some sense to save every individual. In the case of the Arminian, God intends to save all, but his intention can be thwarted and frustrated because the individual has the right, in the end, to veto God’s election. In the case of the liberal, rejection or no, it makes no difference, since all are blessed eternally, whatever that might mean. Whatever that might mean.

According to these positions, then, the sovereign electing God of Paul in Romans not only violates the inalienable human freedom and autonomy to which the modern Church, both conservative and liberal, has erected its altars, but further, such a God as Paul presents us in Romans is nothing less than a fiendish bully who arbitrarily satisfies himself in the salvation of some, and then deceptively and cruelly passes this limited salvation off as if it were salvation of all. Such a God, so say these then. is obviously the product of the vestiges of a Jewish pro-primitivism lingering in Paul, which we, in our modern world, are well rid of. We, therefore, of the Armenian Evangelical Church and the liberal Universal Church, are happy to declare to you that no such God as Paul presents in Romans exists. And this is the gospel.

But as if things weren’t bad enough, we have now moved beyond the blasphemies of Arminianism and liberalism. You see, these approaches, we who have now become the modern of the moderns, we who have become postmodern in our consciousness, we who have moved through deconstructionism to constructionism presently, we judge that even these Armenians and liberals were naive, since their approaches were still weighted down with the staid and static ideology that viewed universals in terms of a philosophy that overcame and disregarded, if not negated, individual distinctiveness. Furthermore, these positions—the Arminian, the liberal position—had not moved sufficiently beyond an idealist morality. That is, a morality that attached ethical value to behavior. particularly behavior that supported and enhanced the life of all.

Such positions must be rejected. They must be rejected because they do not see that the only universalism of which we might rightly speak is that which is found in the universal experience of our diversity and our individuality, and that the only morality is that which operates out of and in terms of our individual distinctiveness, that which makes up our personalities, our personages, our color, our sex, our social situation.

Now some of you are ahead of me, and you know what I’m talking about. Others of you will need further explanation. In order to be explicit, with you. I am speaking about that post-modern position that exalts a new holy trinity of political and theological correctness. And that new holy trinity is race, gender, and class. As this new Trinity has taken shape, it is made blatantly clear that the older Trinity of Paul and of historic Christianity is reprehensible, oppressive, and chauvinistic. But further, The advocates of the New Trinity have declared that past theological formulations, be they of Calvin or of James Arminius or even of Harry Emerson Posvick, are merely universal projections of those individuals, inherently tainted, suspect, and in the end, dismissible.

Why? because these individuals are merely giving voice to European, white, male, elitist, heterosexual attitudes. These individuals, then, by definition, are incapable of either speaking about or for anyone but themselves. their imagined universal range of speech is in fiction. I say that these, by definition, are incapable either of speaking about or for anyone else but themselves because the idea that their perceived identity or values could be or should be universal is both preposterous and heretical.

How then can any white, male, bourgeois, heterosexual European be in any sense, in any way representative of humanity? How can he speak in a representative fashion for all of humanity? What does he know, for instance, about the indigenous consciousness of the Native Americans? What does he know about the indigenous consciousness of the African, or even of the European female, or of the underclass, or of the homosexual? all of whom have identities and values inherent to themselves that in fact arise out of their race, gender, and class.

But this being the case, we must push the point further still. For having asked these questions about the ideologies that were expressed in evangelical Arminianism or liberal universalism, having made these judgments even about what someone like Calvin may have come up with, how do we avoid the conclusion that we must apply the same criterion to those who are most strategic and fundamental and foundational to our faith. We have to ask questions then about the author of Romans.

It won’t be merely then that Paul is wrong in his theological formulation. Paul is wrong because he’s Jewish. How can a Jew speak to the universal condition of man? It’s impossible. It’s not right, and it is not possible. Paul is male. He is limited. He is pro-heterosexual, which means he is homophobic. He is a Pharisee convert. How can this individual have anything to tell us unless we subject him to radical, that is, deconstructed interpretation, stripping him of all of his pretentiousness? The pretentiousness by which he presumes to speak to all of us.

We aren’t done, are we? Because if we apply the criteria to Paul, we will also have to apply the criteria to Jesus. Will we not? In the balance, then, is not just Paul and Paul’s gospel of universal sinfulness and universal salvation and the salvation of God’s elect. There is, of course, behind Paul that other Jew. What are you going to do? Behind Paul there is the other Jew, a Galilean, male, born to a trade, a friend of heterosexuality.

Jesus of Nazareth. Not only will there be the claims of this one Jesus, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. There will be the restricted, limited, frame of reference that this Jesus applies, even to himself, to call himself the Son. Well, we’ve graduated from that, have we not? The inclusivist version of the liturgy now suggests to us that we call him the Child. We have then, behind the Apostle Paul, this other Jew, this Galilean, this male, born to a trade, this friend of heterosexuality, Jesus of Nazareth. Not only do we have then Jesus as He expresses Himself, that in the balance, that we have the claims for him, claims made for him by Paul, that in Jesus there was one who is universal, representative. in his identity, with respect to the entire range of humanity, so that neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, nor repentant sinner of any strife, find in him any deficiency whatsoever. And that is the confession of faith. And if you are not willing to say that about him, you are not his.

Indeed, the politically and theologically correct church of our day must not only declare Paul’s gospel to be a fiction, a pure invention, it must declare to be a lie the incarnation by which God came into the world a Jew, a male, a tradesman, pro-heterosexual. to save all of God’s elect. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a charter document. It is posted at the bow of his gospel ship. Though there have been great and mighty efforts to sink that ship, That ship sinks no more than the vessels in which the storm-tossed disciples rode out the waves.

Having as it did within it, that Jewish man, chaste, devout, pious, the very son of God, God incarnate, whose presence means the salvation of all God’s elect, whomever they may be. Jew, Greek, black, white, female, male, free, bond, repentant sinners of any strike.

Our God. Let us stand before the wonder of your word as those who would stand before the wonder of the heavens. May we be breathless before the expansiveness and the comprehensiveness that is set before us in your word. And, O Lord, may we affirm that you are the God of all. May we affirm the manner in which you have revealed yourself and be jealous for that revelation. May we be insistent upon the particulars of that revelation, even the particulars of the incarnation of your son in human flesh. All to the end, our God, that we will be most appreciative of the universal sweet of your intention and the universal sweep of your salvation. Indeed, as Jesus Christ is in fact representative of all your elect, bringing them wonderfully and gloriously into your presence. Here is then our God May you minister to us through the word that we have heard today.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.