Resolving the ‘Romans controversies’ - with Brian Rosner

Well, we give it a serious go in 30 minutes.

What is the “righteousness of God”?
Is it faith in Christ or the faithfulness of Christ?
Who is the “I” in Romans 7?
What exactly is Paul saying about Israel and the Law?
How does Romans use the Old Testament?
And is the gospel mainly about individual salvation or shaping a new community?

Ridley College’s Brian Rosner has just released a major theological overview of Romans ‘Strengthened by the Gospel’ — and along the way he thoughtfully engages nearly every major scholarly controversy.

If you’ve ever taught Romans, struggled with Romans, or simply wanted to understand Romans more deeply you will enjoy this fast moving discussion through the controversies of Romans. 

To purchase Strengthened by the gospel: https://reformers.com.au/products/9781433572555-strengthened-by-the-gospel-a-theology-of-romans-brian-rosner

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stakes For Romans
• 3:14 Awe At The End Of Romans 9–11
• 6:14 Purpose: Strengthened By The Gospel
• 9:39 Defining God’s Righteousness
• 14:47 Reading Romans As A Snowball
• 17:37 Body, Flesh, Mind, Heart Explained
• 21:52 Sin As Power And Bondage
• 25:12 Individuals And Community Together
• 29:07 New Perspective: What To Keep

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:39

All the controversies of Romans resolved. Well, we will give it a go in 30 minutes. It is The Pastor's Heart, it's Dominic Steele, and the author of a new theological overview of the book of Romans, Brian Rosner, is with us. So what is the righteousness of God? Faith of Christ or faith in Christ? Who is the I of Romans 7? What exactly is Paul saying about Israel? What's the law in Romans? Paul's use of the Old Testament. We sought the new perspective. And is Romans mainly about individual salvation or a community-shaping gospel? It should be easy. Brian Rosner has this new book, Strengthened by the Gospel, a theology of Romans, giving a super helpful theological overview of the Apostle Paul's great letter. And on the way through, Brian deftly addresses just about every major controversy that is swirling in New Testament scholarly debates. He's from Ridley College in Melbourne. He's with us today. Brian, you said in the preface you've been teaching on Romans for 35 years. You've written this theological overview. I'm to ask you about your pastor's heart. But I just thought I'd start with this little quote that I found on page 143. The conclusion to Romans 9 to 11 demonstrates that the ultimate goal of understanding and believing the gospel is not to figure out God, but to arrive at awestruck incredulity and joyful confidence in God. It is to be blown away in wide-eyed, transfixed adoration. The aim is not to achieve accurate eloquence, but to become lost for words in the praise and wonder of God. Amen. Yeah. That's your pastor's heart.

SPEAKER_00: 2:31

I think so, yeah. So it's interesting, isn't it, that that uh uh little reflection is at the end of Romans 9 to 11.

SPEAKER_01: 2:37

Yeah, well, that's because when I preached tonight, I feel like I'm just so flat out trying to not get lost in the weeds, you know. And you not just didn't get lost in the weeds, but you stood back and looked at the awe and wonder of God.

SPEAKER_00: 2:51

Well, that's where Paul ends, isn't it? So it's probably Paul's most profound theological essay, if you like, Romans 9 to 11, treating those big topics of Israel and election, reprobation, etc. Um, but he does end with this remarkable doxology, the most beautiful doxology in his letters. He quotes Isaiah 40 and says, Who has known the mind of the Lord? And I felt like saying, well, I just thought we we got the mind of the Lord. But in the end, it it's it's not undermining what he said. He he thinks we have accurate knowledge of God, but clearly we don't know the the God completely. And and the goal is to be lost uh in wonder and praise. I think the gospel takes us there to the grace and greatness of God in a in such a helpful way and helps us to remain humble, um, which is um an ongoing challenge for all of us.

SPEAKER_01: 3:40

Now we're gonna do the interview equivalent of 2020 cricket, and uh I'm just gonna bowl you up ball after ball and uh get you to respond. The purpose of Romans is multifaceted, you say. Um, does that mean you can't decide?

SPEAKER_00: 3:53

Uh, not at all. So I think the purpose of Romans is best found in what we call the letter framing. So the uh the address, the introductory thanksgiving, and in the closing uh greetings. Because Paul says in 111 and 115, uh, I want to strengthen you, hold that word, with uh the spiritual gift of me preaching the gospel to you. And then in Romans 16, he says, Um, um, may God strengthen you with my gospel. And I'd put in brackets, which I've just explained to you. So I think that that sums it up beautifully. Paul, when he's um, when when he goes to a church he hasn't evangelized, he wants to preach the gospel to them nonetheless, because the gospel's not just for non-Christians, it's for Christians, and it leads to strengthening us to face evil, uh, to remain humble, to love one another, uh, to follow the example of Christ and and to have the hope of glory. All of those things are rooted in the gospel. So I think it's a mistake to kind of have a simple formulated gospel. There's nothing wrong with that, but we need to get the depth and breadth of the gospel in order to be strengthened by it. Um the same he says the same thing in 1 and 2 Thessalonians with that little word to strengthen, and then in Acts as well. When he goes to churches he's already been to, he strengthens them with the gospel. And strengthen is your big word in the title.

SPEAKER_01: 5:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and and you land on it in 1625. Yeah, it's just all through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Yeah, well, I think uh that that's the clue. That the the verb to strengthen, horizo, it it it just turned it, it um it only appears in 115 and then in 1625. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

What is the righteousness of God?

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

So the righteousness of God is that little phrase that occurs in what many regard as the thesis statement of the letter in 116-17. He says, the righteousness of God, dicaiosinethau, is um is revealed in the gospel. So that could mean a few different things. It could mean God's attribute of righteousness and justice can be seen. It could mean God acting righteously in condemning and in saving us, or it could be a gift of righteousness, like imputed righteousness, a new status. And in short, I I think uh basically the answer is yes. So I think it's quite a pregnant phrase, if you want to put it that way. But probably the Old Testament background pushes you in the direction of the saving righteousness of God. Imputed. Uh no, no, the the action of saving us is a righteous action of God. So in the Psalms, those two are words uh uh deliverer, save, and uh acting righteously are paired quite often. You do have imputed righteousness in Romans 5, so it's a gift of righteousness there. So I think it's all there, but certainly understanding the righteousness of God is the key to the letter, because you get in Romans 1 to 4 righteousness needed under the wrath of God, provided through the death of Jesus. You get the precedent of Abraham and David in chapter 4, and then in 5 to 8, you've got righteousness, the effects of righteousness. 9 to 11, you've got the uh uh the rejection of righteousness, Israel only partially believing in the Jewish Messiah, and then righteousness in everyday life is 12 to 16. I'm not the only one who says that, but it it structures the letter quite beautifully.

SPEAKER_01: 7:15

And you do say that you should read Romans like um a snowball where the argument builds as opposed to reading it in half chapter chunks like we do.

SPEAKER_00: 7:26

Yeah, there's a temptation, isn't there, when reading a book like Romans, which is so dense and rich, you you just, as the phrase goes, you get you lose the wood for the trees. And in the case of Romans, you lose the bark, you lose the trees for the bark. I mean, you just get so much of the details. And people tend to think because it's got this really helpful structure, one to four, five to eight, nine to eleven, twelve to sixteen, all you need to know Well, I can preach on one to four this term, uh five to eight, term one next year. Yeah, but I think it's a cumulative thing.

SPEAKER_01: 7:58

So um for example, you're saying don't do that, you're saying preach it all at once.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

Uh, not necessarily. I think you can you can chunk it up if you want to, but always refer back to uh earlier passages. So, for example, Romans 12, famous passage where transformed by the renewing of our minds. That clearly takes your thinking back to Romans 1, where the depraved mind, so it's it's a reversal. Yeah. So the renewed mind is the solution to the depraved mind of Romans 1.

SPEAKER_01: 8:26

Anthropological terms describing the human being, uh body, flesh, mind, soul, spirit, conscience. You see them in pairs.

SPEAKER_00: 8:36

Yes, I see them in pairs, and the first thing to say is I see them as holistic descriptions of the human being. So I don't think we should think in terms of a partitive description of the human. It's not like we have a body, we have a soul, we have a spirit. Uh the Old Testament anthropology follows this as well. It's more holistic, it's kind of perspectival. So we have a body is the perspective on our existence, which is uh the fact we're in relationships and we're physical. Uh we we are we we are flesh, which means that we're weak and uh we're prone to evil desires, we're frail. Um, what was the next pair? So uh soul.

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

Oh, yeah, sorry. Body, flesh, mind, heart, soul, spirit.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

Yeah, so soul and spirit, just to jump to that one. Um, soul just is our life, really. It means we're living beings, and spirit is the perspective on us that means we can relate directly to God. It means we're spiritual beings. So the it's an interesting, I mean, the pairing is something I got from Jimmy Dunn's theology. I think it's a helpful way of uh bringing them all together. The really amazing thing is that most of these terms occur in Romans 1 and 2. So you read Romans 1 to 4 for the teaching about judgment and justification, but there you have some remarkable teaching about uh anthropology. And the heart and the mind are related. I mean, the heart tends to be more uh the affections, it's also kind of volitional, and the mind is the ref the fact that we're reflective beings. So they're different angles on human existence.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

Still in the first part of the book, you talk of sin being personified.

SPEAKER_00: 10:47

Yeah, so um so sin, this is really broad brushstroke. Sin in chapters one to four is guilt, from which we need to be forgiven, and justification is our new status before God as part of the people of God, the new people of God. And then Romans 5 to 8, you do get a sort of personification of sin. You could almost put capital S. And there is some dispute in scholarship. So there's a school of thought which talks about the apocalyptic theology of Paul, which thinks of sin as somehow a cosmic power. I think that's probably unnecessary to go there. I think Paul's just forcefully communicating about the way sin enslaves us. And but we we do need to take seriously that the gospel message is not just about dealing with our guilt, but dealing with our bondage. So freedom liberation is part of the gospel message. You see that very clearly in Romans 6.

SPEAKER_01: 11:43

Human beings being thought of as individuals or as in corporate terms.

SPEAKER_00: 11:47

Okay, this is fast bowling, really.

SPEAKER_01: 11:49

We are fast bowling here. Other places they let you so individual colours to the wall.

SPEAKER_00: 11:58

Individual or corporate, the answer is yes. Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, and look, I'm a both end kind of guy. So look, uh, it clearly individual uh is an important perspective. Let me back up slightly. So the new perspective came along and was really, really concerned that um what they perceived to be a reformed Protestant emphasis was too individualistic. It was Western. So uh Paul's interested in individual salvation. They said, well, actually, he's more interested in the salvation of peoples, Jews and Gentiles. That's the big thrust of Romans. And the answer is um, sure, he he is interested in individuals in community, if you like. The fact that he's still interested in individuals, even though the Jew-Gentile issue is so prominent in Romans, especially if in Romans 16. I mean, he lists uh more than a dozen individuals. And in Romans 14 and 15, where he talks about disputable matters, it's very clear that uh he wants to uh um he he tells individuals, the strong and the weak, on the issues of diet and calendar, the Jewish scruples, that we're all accountable directly to our Lord. And again, that's a very individualistic approach. So I think uh it's a mistake to think just in either category. Uh we are we're in uh as individuals, we're we're um uh our personhood is is in connection with others. We don't exist in isolation, so there's an acknowledgement in the Bible of that. But it's also a mistake to think that the the the ancient world and the Bible only works in communal categories. There is still um a very clear individualistic emphasis. Each of us are responsible to God for our sin, for our response to the gospel, etc.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

You just mentioned the new perspective. I'm of the generation that got thoroughly confused about that. I was a theological college chair, in that it had come out, was raging, and yet hadn't properly been refuted. Do you know? And uh uh um just help me there.

SPEAKER_00: 14:04

Yeah. So the new new perspective in scholarship is to some extent parse. So there's been a kind of uh coming together of the two views, not completely. And my perspective on the new perspective in the book and uh and other public yes, here I am, is that what it denies is not it shouldn't be denied. So in its worst form, it's said that justification is not about our vertical relationship with God, it's about our becoming part of the new people of God, the church. And I mean, both both are true. So my little uh definition of justification is it uh gives us a new status before God, justified, um, instead of being under his wrath as sinners, as part of a new people of God. And you see that in Romans 3. So, Romans 3, the famous passage we all love, 3, 21 to 26, is about our justification, our declaration in the law court of God, um, our being innocent, our vindication uh through the death and resurrection of Christ and ascension. And uh the second half of Romans 3 goes on to say, Is God the God of the Jews only? No, he's the God of the Gentiles. So you can see there the people of God emphasis coming through. I mean, that's just one aspect of the new perspective.

SPEAKER_01: 15:22

Now, I'm sure I knew this, but I hadn't put it together quite as pithily as well, I hadn't in any way, in compared to the way you have here. But just the number of terms that you have used in Romans to be saved is to be justified, forgiven, counted as righteous, redeemed, set free, adopted into God's family, reconciled, united to Christ, made holy, given eternal life, granted honor and glory. Isn't that beautiful? It is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 15:49

So that that's what I would say to uh um our the ministers listening and to the evangelists. There's nothing wrong with talking about salvation as justification, but you can also talk about it as redemption, reconciliation, liberation. So that the Paul's gospel is um it covers the whole Christian life as well as the entry into the Christian life. And uh hence, uh just harking back to my title, um, having the gospel applied to our lives strengthens us to live um in lives that please God. Now you can see that just one example. So um uh Romans 14 and 15, you've got disputable matters, and Paul's approach to such things is is not to despise or judge other believers. And how does he get there? Well, he appeals to the Lordship of Christ, the kingdom of God, the ongoing mission of the church, all of these, uh the example of Christ, death on the cross. So all of those things are gospel truths. So gospel truths is the way to work out how to live.

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

The word faith, used by Paul 140 times, um, but quite a lot of those times in Romans, and um uh does faith not only include belief and trust, but does it also include some form of obedience and faithfulness?

SPEAKER_00: 17:10

I I think um my my thumbnail definition of faith would be belief plus trust plus action. It does issue in action, but it that in no way undermines the fact that uh salvation is a gift. So it's a reception, it's a trust, and it does lead to action. So so, in a sense, grace too. Grace is this uh lavish, undeserved kindness and generosity of God, but it does transform us. It doesn't just leave us with the gift. Don Carson used to say that in the gospel, gift and demand go together. So I think um whether you attach that demand to the notion of faith or to grace or to something else, it it doesn't really matter, but certainly you've you've got to make clear in preaching the gospel that we're to count the cost and to follow Christ.

SPEAKER_01: 18:03

Now I want to push into the eye in Romans 7. Okay. Um you were you were pretty brief on page 150 on this, um, but you said you agreed with Will Timmys.

SPEAKER_00: 18:15

Um tell us about Will Timmys and his article and Well Will Will's got a whole book with Cambridge University Press, his doctorate with my friend Peter Head. So so basically, um Romans 7, as listeners probably know, there's dispute over who is the I. So Paul says I put it in the present tense. So it sounds like he's talking about his present experience, but other people have said well now we will have some people who are not ministers listening.

SPEAKER_01: 18:41

So just um give us a couple of lines.

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

Yeah, so um um I the the thing I want to do, I cannot do, and I'm sold under sin, that that kind of thing. Really quite negative, disturbing things.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

And I'm looking at my life and feeling unhappy about my life.

SPEAKER_00: 18:57

I I yeah, I think um so the trick with my sin, yeah. Yes, but it the the way to understand the eye there is to read it in context, which shouldn't surprise you. So the context is very helpful when you're reading in the light of Romans 6 and in the light of Romans 8. So you especially you shouldn't read Romans 7 without Romans 8. So even if you say this is Paul talking about his pre-Christian existence, Romans 8, Galatians 5, Ephesians 6 has conflict in the Christian life. There's still struggle and warfare. But I think Romans 7 is talking in really bleak terms about our fleshly existence, which is ongoing, um, and the fact that we are tempted to sin, and sometimes we can feel as if we're in bondage to sin. But the good news of the gospel in Romans 6 is that we are released from the mastery of sin, and we ought not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. And then in Romans 8, you've got to read that as a complement to Romans 7, which shows us that the Spirit's work, as the Spirit's not mentioned in Romans 7, the Spirit's work in our lives can give us confidence and uh uh make us more optimistic about the future. So it's a lovely balance between our status, which gives us the grounds to combat sin in our lives, but a realistic appraisal of just how difficult our fleshly existence is and how prone we are to sin.

SPEAKER_01: 20:25

And Will Timmys persuaded Tom Shriner to change his mind on who the I was in Romans 7. Yep. And Tom Shriner, co-author with you or of you of this series, and giant in New Testament scholarship. Yeah, I mean, it did feel a decade ago like anyone who said that the I was me and my current Christian life was kind of blinkered, not listening to scholarship, um, just running on prejudice. Yep. But now we have three heavyweights at least. We'll just well, I'm not a heavyweight, but you, Tom Schreiner, Will Timmins, all saying it's me.

SPEAKER_00: 21:12

Yeah. Um, look, it's one of those exegetical problems that I wouldn't go to the stake for. So if you I I say to this to students sometimes, uh, if you put a gun to my head and said, Brian, what who do you think uh the I is in Romans 7? I'd say, what do you think? So so so basically I don't think properly understood there's an enormous amount at stake. Because you both views have conflict in the Christian life.

SPEAKER_01: 21:40

And you do you do expect conflict in the Christian life, even if you take the other view of Romans. Correct. Yeah. Correct.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

Yeah. Yeah. So because then it's between the flesh and the spirit, which which is where we arrive. Yeah. Yeah. Now Will Timmins, I mean, it's it's a very technical discussion, but it's worth reading. There is, I think, a Gospel Coalition article if people wanted to have a look, where he kind of lays it out in um um kind of um his CUP monograph for dummies.

SPEAKER_01: 22:07

Now, because I'm not paying Which I was happy to read. But because I'm not paying attention in detail to this, um where's the discussion up to in the wider field of New Testament scholarship?

SPEAKER_00: 22:19

Um it it's still all over the place. Yeah. There's there's still discussion of these matters ongoing. So it's not even among evangelicals. So I think this this is the disputed matter of interpretation that will will be ongoing. But but my concern is, as I've already said several times, that we maintain the dual emphasis of our precarious fleshly existence, prone to evil. Um, I mean, the Lord Jesus Himself said to his disciples, you being evil. So we we have that propensity, but also the confidence and uh outlook which says we have a new status, we have new resources, and by God's grace. With his help, we can, as Paul says in Romans 6, um, not allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies.

SPEAKER_01: 23:07

Does pistus christou refer to faith in Jesus Christ or the faithfulness of Jesus Christ?

SPEAKER_00: 23:13

Okay, so pistus Christu literally is faith of Christ. Yep. And as you know, and in Romans three, Paul says that we're justified by pistus Christus, by faith of Jesus Christ. Now it could mean faith in Jesus Christ, or it could mean we're justified by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And there's a couple of reasons people prefer the latter. They look in Romans 3 and they say, well, Paul's already said several times that we're justified by faith. So he must be saying something different here. And then you get usage is another big category in scholarship in interpretation, and you get um a little phrase, the uh faith of Abraham. And clearly that's not faith in Abraham, that's Abraham's faith. So people say, look, uh Paul's saying we're justified by Christ's faithfulness. Okay, stepping back, um, I I think um one way to say it would be one person's redundancy, which is what people are saying it would be redundant to repeat faith in Christ, is another person's emphasis. I just think Paul's uh really underscoring that the means of salvation we're saved by grace through faith and trust. Yep. But again, it's true to say, theologically, it's true, that Jesus' faithfulness and obedience is fundamental to our salvation. Romans 5 says that. Talks about the the obedience of Christ being so important in the plan of salvation. Philippians 2 talks about him in similar terms. It doesn't use the term faithfulness, but um um concepts are bigger than terms. It it is a synonym for what we're talking about here. So faith in Christ. I think it's faith in Christ, yeah. But again, I wouldn't go to the stake. I know we want you to go to the stake on this one.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

Okay. What about the law in Romans? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_00: 25:11

Oh, um much in every way.

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

So the law condemns Well wisdom and prophecy or I think we get a bit of each.

SPEAKER_00: 25:19

And yeah, you're um alluding to my book on Paul and the law, and it works for Romans, I think. So basically, you've got very clearly that we're not under the law as a legal code. Yep. And that's in Romans 2, and then we're not under the law, Romans 6 says that as well. Uh, does that mean the law is of no use to us? Well, clearly not, because Paul says in Romans 3.21 that the law and the prophets testify uh to the righteousness of God in the gospel. So the law has a prophetic function. Yep. And you see that, uh, law and the prophets, for that matter. You see that in chapter four. So Paul quotes the law, Abraham, Genesis 15, 6. Uh Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he also quotes uh Psalm 32 from David and the prophets. But then I think once you get to the second half of the letter and there's more talk about conduct, you can also see the law playing a role as wisdom. And people get nervous when they hear that. They think, oh, I don't have to obey the law. No, it's not like that at all. So it let's think of the law not to murder. That most of us are going to get through life without murdering pretty happily. Yep. But the way you're so far so good. The way you apply that, and the way Paul applies it, and Jesus for that matter, is to say, well, actually, the law against murder, we should uh take internalize that and have an expansive application, meaning that we shouldn't be um overly angry with a brother or sister, we shouldn't slander them, and on the other side, we should act in love. So I think the law is part of God's word, inspired, helpful for our instruction and training, but we're not under, thankfully, the condemnation of the law uh because we don't um obey it completely.

SPEAKER_01: 27:09

Now, Israel, um Romans 9 to 11. Uh, I mean Israel very sensitive at the moment, but um uh we'll take it. I'm from a Jewish background, so good. Yeah, yep. Well, what did it do for you as you were working on these these chapters?

SPEAKER_00: 27:25

Uh yeah, look, it's um there are two crux texts on uh the relationship of Israel to the church. Uh Roman, the end of Romans 11, Paul has that little phrase, thus the the Redeemer, um, no, the deliverer will come from Zion, and thus all Israel will be saved. And you've got to ask, what's the referent of Israel? Who who is Israel there? And uh I'm of the view that Israel is still ethnic Israel. So I don't think Paul's references to Israel, the other one's um Galatians 6, 16, I think it is, where he talks about uh peace be upon uh the Israel of God. So I think there's some sense, as Romans 9 to 11 says, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, and the word of God has not failed. So the promises to ethnic Israel are such that God will be faithful to his historic people. Now, what does that mean? This is where it gets a bit fuzzy, but clearly at the end of Romans 11, he seems to think that at the end time, somehow, all Israel, which I think is a technical term for a remnant of Israel, will believe in the Jewish Messiah. Um, how that relates to the Middle East, um, we're not gonna go there. Um, I I think the Middle East should be treated as a separate topic. Um, uh as citizens in our countries, we should think and talk about the crises in the Middle East apart from those um biblical promises. Um that's basically where where I land.

SPEAKER_01: 29:00

So, Brian, I just want to say thank you so much for what you've done here. Um, I have found it good for me, both in terms of my knowledge, but also for my pastor's heart reading it. I'm I'm looking forward to going over it in more detail in my personal Bible reading over the next few weeks, and I'm looking forward to having it as a companion when I next come to teach on Romans. That's great.

SPEAKER_00: 29:22

Thanks, Dominic. It's actually part of a 20-volume series that Tom and I edit. So it's kind of we cover the whole New Testament, just giving preachers and people in seminary and college classes a little overview of a little overview introduction.

SPEAKER_01: 29:34

And I could see, I mean, I've gone through in the pulpit Romans twice, and uh I thought, oh, if I'd had this before I'd done either of those ones, it would have been better. And so I'll definitely have it as a companion for my next preaching journey. It's very kind of encouraging. Thanks, Dominic. I mean, and uh I mean, must have done you good doing the work.

SPEAKER_00: 29:57

Oh, it's a great privilege. I mean, Romans is is magnificent and it's it's very humbling, and as we started out by saying, it does lead you to sit back and uh be awestruck uh in the uh uh presence of our gracious and great God.

unknown: 30:13

Great.

SPEAKER_01: 30:13

Brian Rosn has been my guest. He's from Ridley College in Melbourne. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on The Pastor's Heart, and the book is Strengthened by the Gospel, a theology of Romans.