1. The nature of sin
From the last week, we are reading Epistle to the Romans. Paul had been aspiring to Rome as the ultimate preaching place, the center of the world. However he had to go to Jerusalem at first. So he wrote the letter addressing to Christians in the church of Rome. He intended to introduce himself in advance before visiting the City. But it is not a simple presentation of his personality.

His mission to Jerusalem was to bring money collected from Gentile-Christians in order to harmonize relationship between them and the church of Jerusalem. The Gospel had emerged in Jerusalem then was passed on to Greek and Roman regions. Since then, new born churches became independent from the mother church in Jerusalem. But the church of Jerusalem was not happy of the new tendency of believers. Because conservatives Jewish-Christians remained under strong influence of the Judaism whereas Gentile-Christians won¡Çt share the same stance as them. Consequently, many conflicts occurred between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church of Rome due to different points of view. And Paul found humans¡Ç sin behind those conflicts as the core of problem. Therefore he started to write about the nature of sin, just after the greetings.

To begin with, he said that Gentiles were sinful. Because they were suppressing the truth by their wickedness even though ; - what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (Romans 1:19)

God revealed Himself to them through Mother Nature and inside the inner conscience of humans. Nonetheless they refused to acknowledge it. Paul said, ; - For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.(Romans 1:20-21)

Paul accused them also for worshipping idols which took the place of God. ; - Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.(Romans 1:22-23)

Indeed, Greeks and Romans of that time worshipped statues of human beings and animals as gods. And Paul, by witnessing the fact, blamed that idolatry. However, he remarked that the real nature of idolatry is not the worship of humans or animals but that of the ego of each oneself.

Jesus said ; - Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.(see Matthew 6:21)
It means that humans worship themselves because the most precious thing for each person is herself or himself.
And Paul said that God would judge those humans in accordance with one¡Çs personal desire. Those persons seek at any rate to please the most important existence, themselves. And Paul thought that the sexual desire comes before other desires. ; - Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.(Romans 1:26-27)

¡ÈMen committed indecent acts with other men¡É points to homosexuality, a frequent custom of Greeks. Paul considered it to be a sinful conduct which would pervert the order of Creation. Still today, homosexuality is one of the most controversial issues in the world, as same as abortion. The fact tells us that the sexuality is innate and insolvable problem for all humans, like Original sin.

Idolatry affects human relationship too. Paul made a list of sinful behaviors from Romans 1:29 : wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice etc.

All are generated by the desire of serving and worshipping oneself as if he or she were a god. In short, Paul thought that human egoism became the object of adoration. And we, as ordinary humans, cannot control perfectly that egoism. For example, we envy successful persons, we find secret pleasure in failures of others. Or we can¡Çt take helpful actions toward neighbors without expecting certain return, material or psychological. Thus the egoism was defined as sin.

Behind the ugly facet of the Gentile society, Paul found sin of humans. Those Gentiles ignored God. They named their excessive indulgence ¡Èfree¡É and dared to do anything, regardless of wrath of God. As a result, they were hurting each other. Such an evil attitude caused miseries to neighbors. Ignoring God, the supreme and absolute ruler, they pretended to be gods and conducted freely to satisfy their egoistic desires. But, by losing faith in God, we lose peace in mind. Absence of God must result in chaos of the human world, due to the incompatibility of personal egoisms.

2. The sin of Jews
Paul characterized the sin of Gentile as ignorance of God. Then he turned to the converts of Jewish origin. To begin with, he appreciated their observance of the law commanded by God. Nonetheless, he concluded that such a conduct was not enough to free humans from sin. Then he began to criticized them for behaving in similar sinful way to Gentiles. ; - You (Jewish-Christians), therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.(Romans 2:1-2)

He pointed the finger at the complacency about the faith. Even though they claimed to be specially chosen by God as the Jewish, they shouldn¡Çt be forgiven if they won¡Çt repent. ; - Do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ¡Ä But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.(see Romans 2:3-5)

He blamed them for relying on superficial observance of the law. He said that the very law would judge them. ; - All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.(Romans 2:12-13)

Paul distinguished there clearly ¡Èthose who hear the law¡É from ¡È those who obey the law.¡É For that reason, he advocated certain Gentiles ; - Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. (Romans 2:14-15)

Jewish Christians insisted on practice of circumcision and observance the law to Gentiles who had already converted to christianity. Furthermore, they showed the arrogance by pretending to be righteous, merely because of the Jewish birth. They condemned thus those who were not circumcised. As a matter of fact, that way of thinking was largely shared by Jewish people who lived in Greek and Roman cities. In short, they were looked down on all non-Jewish peoples. But Paul thought that their pride was empty. So much so, he said, ; - ¡ÈGod¡Çs name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.¡É(see Romans 2:24) He was sure that God must condemn them as sinners for the arrogance.

3.The emancipation from sin
Paul reflected on the sin of Gentiles by focusing on the idolatry. Then he found the sin of Jews on the arrogance of judging and condemning neighbors. Today¡Çs invocation verses are Romans 3:23-24, which concerns the same theme, humans¡Ç sin. ; - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Paul analyzed agian the problem of sin of Jewish people ; - Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; (Romans 2:17)

He criticized further such excessive pride and self-satisfaction, ; - you (Jews) , then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself ? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?(Romans 2:21-22)

He pointed to the fact that Jewish people were conducting like Gentiles. Then he said to them that the practice of circumcision couldn¡Çt automatically redeem them. ; - Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.(Romans 2:25)

As we interpret ¡Ècircumcision¡É to ¡È baptism¡É and ¡Èthe Jewish law¡É to ¡ÈGod¡Çs words,¡É this message comes directly to us too. Baptizement has value if we are faithful to God¡Çs words. But if we ignore God¡Çs words, we become as though we had not been baptized. In contrast, those who respect God¡Çs words should be saved, even without receiving baptism. We must recognize that the rite of baptizement won¡Çt promise mechanically the salvation.

That strict and fundamental approach of Paul to the faith should annoyed Romans at the beginning. But his firm and sincere stance toward the faith had the power which moved the church throughout the history. It is true that the salvation has to be preceded by recognition of sinful existence of our own.

Matin Luther*1 initiated the Protestant Reformation by analyzing Epistle to the Romans. After the exhaustive study of it, he concluded that recognition of own sinful nature was the most important issue for Christians. That must be the first step for the salvation. Paul addressed harsh words to Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church of Rome because he found the truth.

And I think that the issue is especially important for Japanese because of our mental background. Traidionnaly, Japanese people are strongly influenced by Buddhism. For that reason, we grasp hardly the meaning of ¡Èsin¡É and ¡Èwrath of God,¡É which are unknown in Buddhist teaching. For example, please take a glance at the cenotaph for A-bomb victims in Hiroshima. It reads in English official translation, ¡ÈLet all the souls here rest in peace ; For we shall not repeat the evil, *2, ¡É But ¡Èthe evil¡É is rather ¡Èthe same mistake¡É literally in the Japanese original version.

The original word implies the point of view of Japanese people. Majority of them think that the war was triggered by a mistake. But, as the whole history shows, humans engaged in wars unceasingly throughout all eras. The fact reveals that wars were generated by sin embedded in human nature, not occurred as mere results of circumstances. For that reason, by reflecting on it, we must delete our inner sin in order to delete wars ultimately. Without those efforts, the world won¡Çt be free from war.

And, for that purpose, we have to read meticulously Romans, which treats exhaustively the theme of human sin. Criticism or even accusations of others won¡Çt make us repent from the heart. Instead, we often react aggressively against those severe words. Paul arrived in Rome and met those christians three years after writing the letter. Acts tells us what happened at that time. ; - Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet:(Acts 28:24-25)

The verses above tell us that Paul couldn¡Çt persuade them to change the attitude. However, as the time passed by, they understood that Paul had behaved for their sake. Then they accepted his teaching at a later time. Though the letter couldn¡Çt convinced them of his eager faith, they finally understood him by meeting himself. They knew thus that Paul lived only for the Gospel, by spreading the Good News¡Ç of Jesus Christ. What will lead people to repent is the real love, shown through faithful persons¡Ç way of living, like Paul¡Çs life.

When we see forgiveness accorded to us thanks to the love of Jesus, we bow before Christ and then must hear today¡Çs invocation verses ; - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

*1 Martin Luther http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
*2 Canotaph http://www.galenfrysinger.com/peace_garden_hiroshima_japan.htm