Through Struggle: Christian Growth In The Midst of Persecution

          During the time of the Roman Empire, the Roman government sought to eradicate the spreading movement of Christianity.  America’s relative religious freedom and the space of history separate American Christianity from the barbarous persecutions of anti-Christian Rome. This separation can cause a lack of appreciation towards the persecutions Christians experienced in Rome.  The study of church history and the circumstances that brought the church to its current point can inspire gratitude for Christianity’s rich heritage.  Rome was the first, and arguably one of the worst, oppressors of Christians.  Maltreatment began under Nero in 64 AD and continued under emperors such as Domitian, Trajan, Maximinus, and Decius. The last and worst Roman concentration against Christians began in 303 AD under Diocletian.  Diocletian’s reign was polar opposites with his successor Constantine’s, whose toleration and even favor of Christianity gave the church a much needed respite from persecution. During this time of peace under Constantine the church experienced growth and prosperity which laid the foundation for the modern church. God used the reign of Constantine to establish the Christian church throughout the world despite Diocletian’s best attempts to destroy Christianity (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).

Born in 245, Diocletian grew up in an Empire focused on military strength and economic conquest. When he was old enough, Diocletian joined the Roman military quickly climbed in authority and prestige, and eventually became commander of the imperial guard. After the murders of Emperor Numerian and successor Carinus, Rome  began searching for a new ruler. Diocletian’s military prowess gave him political acclaim that led him to the  throne in 284 (Mindeman 206). For the next several years, Diocletian remained active in military fronts and defended Roman borders against invasions in the East from Syria and what is now modern-day Iran (Knox, “Emperor Diocletian”).

            Diocletian’s rule changed the structure of Roman government. Rome had previously been run by one emperor who controlled the whole government and possessed total power. In 294 Diocletian divided the empire into halves—East and West—controlled by four rulers—two Augusti (emperors) and two Caesars who acted as the emperor’s helpers and successors (Mindeman 206).  This new government became known as the Tetrarchy (Grant 17).  Maximian was Diocletian’s associate Augustus in the West and he appointed Constantius I Chlorus as Caesar (who was the father of Constantine the Great). Galerius served Diocletian as Casesar (18). For most of the Tetrarchy’s reign, Christians experienced peace and even appeared in the lower realms of the government. Others spent their time building churches, preaching, and bringing in new believers (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).

            Starting in 303, the Christian church experienced what is arguably the most horrific and intensive persecution that it endured (Rusten 112).  Scholars have debated the numerous causes that led to the start of Diocletian’s persecution, but there are two worth noting.  First, the Roman government relied on divination and pagan rituals as part of their military conquest.  The Romans believed that sacrifices made to their gods would win them military and political favor.  During the sacrificial ceremony, the haruspices (pagan diviners) examined the entrails of the dead animal.  Depending on the condition of and the marks on the entrails, the diviners either affirmed the emperor’s military strategy or advised against it.  Christians present in the imperial government opposed this practice in 299 by making signs of the cross in the imperial house in an effort to keep the Roman gods (demons) away.  When demons no longer worked through the haruspices, Diocletian and Caesar Galerius knew the blame fell on the shoulders of the Christians.  Secondly, Christians once again were blamed for fires that broke out in Nicomedia—Diocletian’s capital (Grant 127).  This blame is reminiscent of the first Christian persecution by Nero in 64 AD (Judge 816). 

            These factors, and Diocletian’s desire for religious unity, sparked five imperial edicts that outlawed and opposed Christianity. The first of Diocletian’s edicts, passed on February 23^rd, 303, ordered all Scripture and Christian churches to be destroyed and all Christian’s property confiscated.  Passed a day later, the second edict denied legal resources and privileges of governmental office to all Christians.  A third edict ordered the arrest of all Christian clergy.  Since Roman prisons became overpopulated, a fourth edict granted release from incarceration to Christians who performed sacrifices to the pagan gods.  Lastly in early 304, the last edict demanded pagan sacrifice from Christians throughout the entire Roman Empire.  The Great Persecution, as it became known later in history, had officially begun (Rusten 113).

            Serious illness forced Diocletian to abdicate his throne to Galerius. After convincing Maximian to join him, the two emperors both stepped down from office in 305 (Knox, “Emperor Diocletian”). Galerius, now emperor alongside Constantius I Chlorus, became responsible for the majority of the persecution that Diocletian started. (Mindeman 206).  After a power struggle amongst Constantine (Constantius I’s son), Maxentius (Maximian’s son), and a third man named Severus, Constantine and Maxentius rose to the position of Caesar (Hicks 264).  In the West, Galerius did everything in his power to destroy the Christian movement but to no avail. In the West, Constantius, who did not support the persecution and gave Christians peace instead, crippled Galerius’ efforts and divided the mission of the Empire (Rusten 113).   

Multiple stories arose out of this time that act as examples of what Galerius’ persecution was like. Early church father Eusebius collected these stories and compiled them in his book The History of the Martyrs in Palestine.  One of these stories tells of Romanus, a deacon in Caesarea, who faced death in 303 or 304 towards the beginning of the persecution.  Romanus was sentenced to be burned after refusing to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods, but Diocletian ordered that the saint’s tongue be cut out instead.  Even after his tongue was gone, Romanus continued to preach the gospel to his Roman persecutors (Eusebius Loc. 231-43).  His death came swiftly afterwards by what Eusebius referred to as “the strangling instrument” (Loc. 245).  Another story involved Timotheus in 305 (Loc. 249 ) who suffered violence at the hands of his own neighbors before being sent to the governor of Palestine (Loc. 255-62).  Timotheus was bound in fetters and whipped before he slowly burned to death after he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods (Loc. 262-265).  Two more people, Agapius and Theckla, suffered tortured and were offered to the mercy of wild beasts (Loc. 269-270).  Perhaps the greatest story out of Eusebius’ book was of 19-year old Epiphanius (Loc. 306).  In 306, Epiphanius physically restrained Urbanus, a governmental official, from making sacrifices to the gods.  His actions warranted the worst tortures imaginable including being beaten, kicked, bridled, stretched, whipped until his innards were visible, disfigured beyond recognition, having his feet wrapped in cotton and oil and set on fire to the point that his flesh “dropped like melted wax” (Loc. 354), and finally being thrown into the sea to drown.  All this time,  Epiphanius stood firm in the faith and never denied his savior (Loc. 328-368).  Indeed, sobering brutality prevailed during the Great Persecution of Diocletian and Galerius.

            Despite Rome’s best attempts to destroy Christianity and introduce a state-wide pagan religion, Christianity persevered.  Until he died in 306 (Grant 228), Constantius I Chlorus favored Christians and saved them from persecution in places like Gaul, Britain, and Spain—an action that surely effected his son’s reign (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 24”).  When Galerius became ill and entered the last stages of his life, he realized that the persecution wasn’t having the desired effect.  The church wasn’t destroyed it was rather strengthened and encouraged by those who willingly died in devotion to God.  Galerius redacted Diocletian’s edicts and passed an edict of limited toleration in 311, which gave back to Christians the right to worship freely (Rusten 113).  The emperor even went as far as to ask the Christians to “pray to their god” for the emperors and Rome itself as an empire (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 25”).  Galerius’ death in 311 brought about the reign of Constantine (Hicks 264).

            Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome, has become one of the most important and influential political figures in Christian history.  His climb to the top of the Roman government is slightly hard to follow.  After the death of his father in 306, Constantine became Caesar under Galerius.  Maxentius became Galerius’ fellow Augustus, but Maximian took back the throne in 307.  Through a series of events involving his son, Maximian was kicked out of the seat of Augustus in 308 at the conference of Carnuntum, which also proclaimed another man, Licinius, as the new emperor in his place.  Maximian died in 310.  After Galerius’ death in 311, the seat of Augustus alongside Licinius rightfully belonged to Constantine (Grant 228).  However, Maxentius wished to take the throne that Constantine had rightfully earned and led troops against Constantine at the Tiber River in the Battle of Milvian (sometimes spelled Mulvian) Bridge in 311.  Legend has it that the night before the battle commenced God told Constantine that victory would be his if he carried the cross into battle.  During the battle the next day, Constantine’s troops, bearing the symbol of the cross, pushed Maxentius’ army back against the Tiber River and into a retreat.  In the ensuing chaos across the narrow Milvian Bridge, Maxentius fell into the river and drowned.  Constantine had successfully defended his title as Augustus (Galli 307).

            Constantine’s rule signaled the end of the Roman persecution and ushered in a completely different era of peace and prosperity for Christianity.  Like his father, Constantine was also tolerant of Christianity and let the Christians live and worship as they pleased.  Relief spread throughout the church when Constantine and his co-Augustus Licinius both left Christianity alone.  Shortly after his ascension to the throne, Constantine fully expanded Galerius edict of limited toleration into an edict of full toleration.  Constantine met with Licinius in Milan inn March 313, and passed the Edict of Milan, which gave “full toleration to the Christian faith ordering that all places of worship taken from the Christians should be restored without delay or charge, that any loss they had suffered should be made good and that Christian ministers should be released from all burdensome municipal offices” (Sell “Study 9:  The Church in Persecution—The Roman Persecutions”).  The Edict of Milan gave Christianity complete freedom throughout the entirety of Rome and acted as a testament to the resilience of the church through trial and persecution.  Unfortunately for the eastern half of the empire, Licinius rebelled against Constantine and began persecuting Christians once again. In 323 Constantine went to war against Licinius at Adrianople and Chrysopolis, effectively taking away his throne (Hicks 172).  With Licinius gone, Constantine did away with Diocletian’s Tetrarchy and became the sole Augustus of Rome.  Constantine moved the seat of government to Byzantium in the East (Galli 308).  The era of persecution ended and the Christian Roman Empire under Constantine began (Schaff “History of the Christian Church Vol II, Chapter 2, Sec. 25”).

            As with anything, Constantine’s staunchly Christian rule over Rome wasn’t perfect.  Though Christianity was preferred by Constantine, pagan practices still existed in the empire.  Not until 324 AD were pagan symbols and sayings taken off Roman coins (Hicks 173).  A large downside to Constantine’s reign was the rise of apostasy within the church. Because Constantine controlled the church politically many saw the church as a stepping stone into politics, and the church was diluted by people who were “politically ambitious, religiously disinterested, and still half-rooted in paganism. This threatened to produce not only shallowness and permeation by pagan superstitions but also the secularization and misuse of religion for political purposes” (Shelley 96).

Two specific negative movements began to appear in Roman churches: Donatism and Arianism. Donatists held to the view that those who had caved under the pressure of persecution during Diocletian’s reign and handed over Scriptures to be burned or offered sacrifices to Roman gods were false Christians that needed to be cast out of the church. Donatists believed that the real church consisted of those who bore the scars of persecution on their bodies and remained true to Christ. Because of their beliefs, Donatism claimed that the legitimacy of church rituals like communion relied on the morality of the person leading them, ultimately denying the power of the church and of God (Rusten 316). It wasn't until the Council of Ardes in 314, which excommunicated Donatus and his followers that the church began to formulate a strategy on handling these false church ideals (318).

            The church later faced Arianism, which denied the divinity of Jesus as being both fully God and fully man (Galli 336). Constantine’s political reign began to wed itself to religious affairs, and in order to combat beliefs like Arianism he called the Council of Nicea in 325—which deemed Arianism as heretical (Hicks 173). The Council of Nicea not only condemned Arianism, it set the standard for important future church councils like Chalcedon, Constantinople, and Carthage.

            Constantine’s reign brought about the finalizing of the New Testament canon.  Because of Diocletian’s persecutions, churches had to quickly decide which books in the New Testament and the New Testament Apocrypha were worth dying for.  While the finalization of the New Testament didn’t happen until the third council of Carthage in 397 AD—roughly 65 years after Constantine’s reign came to an end—the process began when Eusebius, under orders from Constantine, distributed fifty copies of the New Testament around the empire.  With the Scriptures being circulated around the empire once again, churches had to consistently agree on only one version of the New Testament (Duffield 14).

As the Bible circulated freely throughout the empire, various religious communities and organizations, namely monasticism, took shape.  After being baptized into Christianity in 313, an Egyptian named Pachomius began to live as a monk.  By 320, Pachomius began establishing monasteries (Rusten 318) and successfully established eleven monasteries before he died.  Pachomius is seen as the father of monasticism (319).

            As can be seen, Diocletian led one of the most horrific Christian persecutions in history, but God used Constantine to propel the church into a time of peace, restoration, expansion, and fortification.  Diocletian was the last emperor to heavily persecute Christianity, and Constantine was the first emperor to fully embrace the Christian church.  Constantine had, arguably, the largest impact on the church of any political leader. His reign, while not perfect, would influence many leaders after him. Under Constantine’s rule, the church and the Roman Empire left physical trials behind them and entered into a new time period of political upheaval and confusion with the marriage of the church and state.  It’s this relationship that the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in today, and one that began a mere 20 years after Diocletian’s persecution ended.  Opposites indeed.                                

__________________________________________________________________________   WORKS CITED

Duffield, Guy P. and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave. Foundations of Pentecostal Theology.     

     Los Angeles, CA: L.I.F.E. Bible College, 1983.

Eusebius of Caesarea.  Eusebius of Caesarea:  The History of the Martyrs in Palestine.

            Amazon.  Kindle Edition.  2010.

Galli, Mark and Ted Olsen. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Nashville, TN:             

     Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000. 

Grant, Michael.  Constantine the Great:  The Man and His Times.  New Nork, NY:             

     Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.

Hicks, C. "Galerius, Valerius Maximianus". Who's Who in Christian History. Ed. J.D.        '

      Douglas and Philip W. Comfort. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1992.

Judge, E. A. "Nero". New Bible Dictionary. Ed. D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R.       

     Millard, J. I. Packer and D. J. Wiseman. 3rd ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, ILInterVarsity        Press, 1996.

Knox, Dr. E.L. Skip. “Emperor Diocletian.” Boise State.edu. April 14, 2014.                <http://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/westciv/empire/16.shtml>.

Mindeman, G. "Diocletian". Who's Who in Christian History. Ed. J.D. Douglas and            

      Philip W. Comfort. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1992.

Rusten, Michael E. and Sharon. The Complete Book of When & Where in the Bible and     

      Throughout History. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Schaff, Philip and David Schley Schaff.  “History of the Christian Church Volume II,     

      Chapter 2:  Persecution of Christianity and Christian Martyrdom, Sec. 24.”      

      Christian Classics Ethereal Library. March 19, 2013.            

      <http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch02.htm>.

Schaff, Philip and David Schley Schaff.  “History of the Christian Church Volume II,     

      Chapter 2:  Persecution of Christianity and Christian Martyrdom, Sec. 25.”        

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library. March 19, 2013.            

      <http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch02.htm>.

Sell, Henry Thorne. Studies in Early Church History. Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn        

      Electronic Publishing, 1998.

Shelley, Bruce. Church History In Plain Language. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson,          

      2008.

A Look at the Church of Corinth as seen in I and II Corinthians.

As one of two known letters to the early church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians receives the majority of attention.  1 Corinthians spends a lot of its time focusing on teaching and instruction for the early church—which is still applicable today, whereas 2 Corinthians spends more time discussing Paul’s ministry with the church and deals with issues that could be seen as being time-specific.  Whatever the reason, this first letter to the early Corinthian church holds a lot of truth in its teachings that are incredibly transcendent above time and can teach the modern church many wise lessons.  The lessons Paul gives to the Corinthians—and ultimately to all Christians in all time periods—are come from issues and situations that were present in the early Corinthian church, and these instructions tells us volumes about God’s purposeful intention for His church.

            A careful study of 1 Corinthians will show that the church Paul was writing to was struggling with a number of issues—divisions between Christians, immorality, matters of lifestyle and doctrine, idolatry, judgment, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection of Christ.  Paul obviously had an outstanding relationship with the church prior to writing the letter, which gave him the authority to call the church out on the problems they were facing.  This relationship can be seen in the greetings and thanksgiving that start out the letter (1:1-9) and Paul’s answer to questions “about which [the Corinthians] wrote” (7:1).  But despite Paul’s seemingly harsh attitude that he has throughout the letter, 4:14 shows that he saw the Christians in Corinth as “beloved children”.  Paul had a sense of ownership over the church and saw himself as a spiritual mentor to the Corinthians, disciplining them in the way that they should go.  Even though he loves the church dearly, he does not waste any time calling them out and disciplining them.  Paul tells the church time and time again how they should act and how he respects more from them (1:10, 3:3, 4:7, 5:1, 8:9, and 11:17).  Paul clearly loves the church deeply and desires more from them—live according to Christ—and for them—to be satisfied in living in the fullness of the life that Christ offers.

            God’s ultimate intentions for the body of Christ are displayed through the fulfilling life that He offers.  The church is “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” in 1:2 and seen again as a theme in 11:3.  Throughout the first four chapters Paul commands the church adamantly to be unified as one body (1:10 and 3:3).  Unity within the church reappears later in 12:12-31, which is perhaps the most important passage in 1 Corinthians that ties the entire book together.  Other themes appearing in 1 Corinthians that point towards God’s plan for the church are humility (4:7), purity (both sexual and spiritual; 5:1-12), and loving (16:14, which sums up the entire book in one verse, and chapter 14).

            Therefore, God’s intentions for his church can be drawn out of 6:1-11.  The church, the body of Christ, is supposed to be holy and set apart, sanctified and pure, to God as a righteous people.  The world will look at the church and realize that the church is something special.  If the non-Christian world can see Jesus represented in the church’s actions and unity, then the body of Christ is doing its job.

            1 Corinthians is a ton of instructions and commands to the early church in Corinth that paint a picture of God’s intention for the church.  The Corinthian church was not representing Christ in the way that God would have desired and Paul saw and attempted to correct that.  Just like a father disciplines his children to teach them lessons and grow them, so Paul disciplined the Corinthian church to grow them into the body that Christ desired them to be.  Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian church was one of the first examples of mentorship in the early church.  Looking at the growth the Corinthian church experienced through God using Paul as a mentor is a clear picture to modern Christians why mentorship and discipleship is so important.
            As established with 1 Corinthians, Paul had an outstanding relationship with the Corinthian church.  Throughout the first Biblical letter to the Corinthians is the feeling that Paul cared deeply for the church and thought of himself as a spiritual mentor to the church body in Corinth.  Here is where 2 Corinthians comes in, roughly 2-3 years after 1 Corinthians was written and delivered.  Paul’s ministry at Corinth was getting threatened by other leaders—seen in chapter 11—that put Paul’s teaching at Corinth in danger of being put on the back burner and forgotten.  In response, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in order to defend his apostolic ministry to the Corinthian church, which gives the modern Christian reader insight into the nature and purpose of Paul’s ministry.

            Once again, it’s evident that Paul knew the Corinthian church for quite a while and was heavily invested in them.  7:7-9 recounts a previous letter—probably 1 Corinthians—that “grieved [the church] into repenting”.  Paul earlier (7:4) claims that he is “acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort”, thus suggesting that he is very pleased with the way the church is living after the reception of 1 Corinthians. 

            However, Paul knows that he’s not perfect, and he knows that there are other people who the church is more likely to listen to.  Admitting his imperfection in 11:6, Paul says that “I am unskilled in speaking”, and later in 12:7-10 admits that he is weak and imperfect.  Paul his humble and honest in his approach to the Corinthian church, and he realizes that he’s a man riddled with imperfections.  Through his imperfections though, Paul feels the need to defend the ministry he has with the church.  The church was beginning to listen to other apostles (“super-apostles”, 11:5) that were uprooting the ministry Paul had with the church.  It can be concluded from the tone of chapter 11 that these other apostles were preaching a slightly different gospel than Paul was and were leading the church astray.  Paul reminds the church of how good he was to them in 11:7-11, ending with “Because I do not love you?  God knows I do!”

            Paul’s defense of his ministry give insights into the nature and purpose of his ministry overall.  First, Paul was intentional in his ministry, as seen in 1:15.  Paul realized there was a gap in the teaching at Corinth and he desired greatly to fill it.  Second, Paul was loving, which can be derived from 2:4, “to let you know the abundant love that I have for you”, and, once again, 11:11.  Third, Paul saw the churches he ministered to like his own children.  A child has the capability of making a Christian parent immensely proud when they submit their lives to Christ.  This principle was also seen from Paul in 9:2, “for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia”.  Lastly, Paul feels a sense of ownership and jealousy for the ownership of the church, seen in 10:14, “for we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ” (emphasis added). 

            Modern pastors are called through 2 Corinthians to be caring and intentional leaders in their own churches just as Paul was a caring and intentional leader in the church of Corinth.  Therefore, 2 Corinthians is less of a letter of instruction like the first letter to Corinth was and more like a manual to pastors on what it means to care for and lead a church.  Pastors are called to be intentional, loving, fatherly, and committed to their church just like Paul was, but all while still being disciplinary (and sometimes harsh) in their teaching.  Thus, 1 and 2 Corinthians complement each other perfectly. 

            2 Corinthians is a clear image of Paul’s defense of his ministry in the Corinthian church.  This defense gives modern pastors a guideline to follow for personal ministry in their own churches.  Paul’s authority was challenged in the Corinthian church, which is sure to happen in modern pastors as well.  Only in the perfect unity of the church body, as seen in 1 Corinthians 12, will a pastor be able to function as the leader of a church.  And there is only one answer for challenging situations like the ones Paul faced in 2 Corinthians:  Love (1 Corinthians 13).

Romans: The New Law of Righteousness

The stories of the early church apostles in Acts lay the setting for the foundation of the doctrines of theology of the New Testament church, which comprises the rest of the books of the New Testament Scriptures.  Romans is the first of many letters of teaching and encouraging from Paul and also acts as the most important, theologically speaking, book in the entire New Testament.  In Romans, Paul lays out the foundations of Christianity.  Paul recognizes the Jewish sway of his intended audience and addresses Old Testament laws in an attempt to set a new standard of law in the hearts of Christ’s followers:  The law of righteousness.

            Ultimately through the gospel of the life and death of Jesus Christ, this law of righteousness is revealed—a point that Paul quickly brings to light in 1:16-17, and later in 3:5 and 3:21-26.  Humanity’s fallen state is only seen as being sinful when it is placed in the same light of Christ’s perfection.  Compared to Christ’s perfection, the sinful nature of humanity is seen for what it truly is—broken and in need of a savior.  As unrighteous sinners, Paul claims, we are recipients of God’s holy and just wrath (1:18).  A few verses later in 1:29 Paul describes unrighteousness as being “evil, covetousness, malice…envy, murder strife, deceit, maliciousness…”  God’s righteousness is the condemnation of man’s unrighteousness (1:32, 2:5, 2:8).  Therefore, Romans is built on the knowledge that sinners are unrighteous people in need of a righteous salvation.

            The Old Testament Law was meant to bring life to Israel, but because Israel broke God’s Law only death was received (7:10).  Only following the Law can bring about moral righteousness that Paul so eagerly desires (2:13, 3:22, 4:5-12, 6:13, 6:16, 6:18-20, 7:12, 8:4, 9:30, 10:5).  The Old Testament Law required circumcision of Jewish men to set them apart as holy.  However, in the New Testament the gift of salvation is open to Jews and Gentiles, non-Jews not bound by the Law of Moses.  Therefore, Paul teaches that strictly following a moral code and adhering to legalism does not grant righteousness or salvation.

            Righteousness in the New Covenant of the New Testament is brought through faith in the gospel of Christ.  Faith is the standard that the righteous live by (1:17, quoting Hab. 2:4), and does not come through the Law of Moses (4:13) since Christians are bound under a new law because of the sacrifice of Christ.  A Christian’s Law of Righteousness comes only “through the one man Jesus Christ” (5:17) and leads to “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).  Therefore, Christ did not come to negate the Old Testament Law, but to fulfill the Law and set a new standard of righteousness and salvation (10:3-4).  Christ’s fulfillment of the Law is why modern Christians are no longer bound to the Old Testament Law, but are instead bound to the Law of Righteousness found throughout the entirety of the New Testament.   

            Thus, Romans can be summarized by saying that the law of righteousness is following in the footsteps of Jesus and living by the Spirit (Chapter 8), which is through faith in the death of Jesus Christ (Chapter 10).  With these Pauline theological doctrines in place, one can begin to look at the rest of the New Testament in light of the sacrifice of Christ.  Just as Christ gave up His life for many, so Christians are called to daily lay down their lives for the true life that Christ offers (Matthew 16:24).