Under Construction: Why Evangelists Need to Extend the Romans Road
When I was young, my family lived off a rough dirt road on the edge of town. After it rained, the muddy mix turned that path into a washboard, jolting our car up and down as we drove across the repeating bumps. Our experience improved a few years later when the city finally smoothed and paved the road. It no longer felt like we were entering the wilderness while driving home.
That unsettling wilderness feeling can plague nonbelievers when they consider traveling the path toward salvation. Evangelists often try to smooth the road by looking for simple guides explaining the journey. In 1952, Bill Bright offered the four spiritual laws: 1) God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life; 2) Humans are sinful and are separated from God; 3) Jesus Christ is God’s only provision to deal with sin; and 4) a person must receive Christ through faith in order to be saved.
Others have suggested following the Romans Road, which takes various passages from Romans to explain similar concepts: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23); the wages of sin is death (6:23); God shows his love for us that while we were sinners, Christ died for us (5:8); and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (10:13). Other verses are often added to this litany—Romans is full of such passages!
This kind of shorthand for explaining the Gospel has been helpful and effective for bringing thousands of people to salvation. We should rejoice at such success! As a result, myriad versions of these statements have been printed into bookmarks, short tracts, and door hangers for evangelism. Most of these tracts, however, end with the call to place one’s faith in Jesus and receive salvation.
But Wesleyans should chafe at such a conclusion. Like watching a season-ending cliffhanger on Netflix, we should find ourselves asking, “Isn’t there something more?”
John Wesley certainly thought so! He described the Christian life in terms of a house. A person enters through the front porch, which is repentance. The door is justification. But the house itself, to which repentance and justification give access, is holiness of heart and life.
Stopping Short on the Romans Road
The evangelistic tracts that end with justification are essentially inviting new believers to linger in the doorway; these pamphlets fail to invite pilgrims inside to experience the good life within the house! Yet Scripture itself points to God’s purpose for humanity as extending beyond initial justification—we are created to be transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), becoming holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). As Eph. 1:4 declares, this was God’s plan from the beginning: God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” Justification by faith is only part of the good news. A larger story is at work in the Gospel.
Misinterpretation of the theology of the Protestant Reformation may be in part to blame for this truncated gospel message. In the sixteenth century, debates about abuses within the Catholic church led to the proclamation of the five solae of salvation: sola gratia (by grace alone), sola fide (by faith alone), solus Christus (by Christ alone), sola scriptura (revealed by Scripture alone), and soli Deo gloria (to the glory of God alone). The Reformers wanted to make clear that Scripture, and not the tradition of the popes, was the highest authority for faith and Christian life; the work of Christ—and not the mediated work of priests or the sacraments—brought salvation, which humans receive by grace through faith, not by any works of their own. Ultimately, God alone receives the glory, since humans cannot be glorified for what is ultimately the work of God.
Because the Reformers focused so intently on addressing their disagreements with the Catholic church, their emphasis on justification by faith overshadowed the ongoing transformation of the believer through a life of good works.
Constructing the Full Road
Some modern interpreters, however, have tried to restore balance to our understanding of the Reformers’ teachings. In The Doctrine of Good Works: Reclaiming a Neglected Protestant Teaching (2023), Thomas McCall, Caleb Friedeman, and Matt Friedeman argue that the Reformers affirmed the need for good works in the life of the believer. They state, “…a commonplace with respect to the doctrine of good works in Reformed theology is the affirmation that good works are necessary as the evidence for salvation” (14). Furthermore, these good works “are a means (or “medium”) of God’s sanctifying work…” (119). That is, God brings about the transformation of believers through the good works they practice, empowered by the Holy Spirit. In addition to the evidence from the Reformers themselves, the authors explore the evidence of Scripture. They conclude:
From Genesis to Revelation, then, we find that Scripture depicts good works as being an essential part of God’s intent—original, redemptive, and final—for humans. And this is good news, for it means that God desires not only to declare us ‘righteous’ but also to make us righteous in the here and now so that our lives become a true testament to his saving power (98).
Another way to look at the good news for the believer is to consider what being justified “by faith” meant in the biblical world. Matthew Bates argues that the word “faith” has been misinterpreted. Rather than our translation of the English “faith,” which often emphasizes assent to a particular belief, Bates contends that the biblical concept of faith promotes the idea of fidelity or allegiance. The gospel proclaims Jesus as king, and those who offer faith in Christ are proclaiming their fidelity, or faithfulness, to the one true king. Living in the kingdom means confessing our loyalty to the king and living according to the ways of this king. This does not mean that we in any way earn salvation; loyalty comes after the initial offer from God. As Bates argues, “The offer of salvation is free, but it absolutely does come with strings attached. Obedient loyalty to the king is required as a condition of acceptance” (Salvation by Allegiance Alone, 2017, p. 104).
But this is not some onerous existence where we struggle to live up to the expectations of a demanding king. Rather, God sends the Holy Spirit to empower us for transformed living. Through the Spirit we are enabled to turn away from the works of the flesh, which are contrary to the Spirit (Gal. 5:17). As we keep in step with the Spirit, we are led to produce its fruit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). This is good news indeed!
Thus, when we use tracts that end the story of salvation with justification and neglect the ongoing allegiance of the believer to the One true king, we truncate the gospel message. It is absolutely true that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). But it is also absolutely true that this eternal life begins here and now. We are not to sit on our hands, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the good life beyond the veil. Rather, believers are “created in Christ to do good works” now (Eph. 2:10).
If we wish to travel the Romans Road, we need to construct the full road. Adding to our tracts passages that more fully describe the Spirit-empowered Gospel life could include one or more of the following:
Rom. 8:5-6: “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”
Rom. 12:1-2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Rom. 13:8: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”
Of course, if the tracts you regularly use don’t follow the Romans Road but describe the four spiritual laws or a variation of this path, then additional passages beyond Romans may be added. These could include the call to holiness and the fruit of the Spirit, as outlined above, or even Paul’s prayer and promise in 1 Thess. 5:23-24: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”
Advantages of Extending the Romans Road
One could raise the concern that adding to the Romans Road becomes onerous, complicating an otherwise simple ministry tool. But there are at least three reasons why evangelists could see their ministry strengthened by adding the concept of holiness to the Romans Road.
First, the transformed life provides powerful motivation for evangelism. Those who proclaim the Gospel to unbelievers are not merely selling “fire insurance” for a potentially far-distant meeting with one’s Maker. Rather, evangelists presenting the extended Romans Road declare that this life is better now when one experiences the transforming love of God. One look at Galatians 5 shows the difference between communities living according to the flesh—with its quarreling, debauchery, strife, drunkenness, and additional self-centered actions—and communities living according to the Spirit—with its other-focused love, generosity, kindness, and peace. If we truly love our neighbors, then we will want them to experience this new life now.
Second, the transformed life provides strong theology by emphasizing the power of God. Sin and the flesh are not stronger than God’s love. Too many preachers have taken passages like Rom. 7:7-25 to mean that believers remain enmeshed in sin until the day they die: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (7:19). Yet John Wesley makes it clear that Jesus is the one who saves us from this struggle against sin as we have faith in him and are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Paul’s use of “I” in Romans 7 is rhetorical, not actual. That is, Paul puts himself in the place of a person who is at first ignorant of the law (Torah), then under the law trying to serve God, but unable to do what God requires—and this is all before that person knows Christ. Wesley declares: “To have spoken this of himself, or any true believer, would have been foreign to the whole scope of his discourse; nay, utterly contrary thereto, as well as to what is expressly asserted…” (Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, comment on Rom. 7:7). The struggle against inborn sin that Paul describes is only resolved when God in Christ brings that deliverance. This is when Paul pens Romans 8, proclaiming the Holy Spirit transforms the life of the believer so that the experience of chapter 7 no longer holds the same sway. The God who is over all things receives greater glory when we recognize that his power is truly effective to conquer sin today.
Third, the transformed life strengthens evangelism as communities embrace the call to holiness and provide an active witness to a different kind of life. Good works provide evidence of the power of God at work in this world. When the church feeds the poor, protects the vulnerable, visits the sick and imprisoned, and provides for the needs of the community—loving their neighbor as Jesus has called us to do (Matt. 22:34-40)—this different way of life speaks volumes to a world struggling in darkness. In the early church, the lived testimony of a joyous and generous church resulted in the Lord adding daily to their number those who were saved (Acts 2:42-47). Holiness is a form of evangelism. In our current spiritual climate, this message often resonates more fully with young people, who long to connect with a narrative that is bigger than themselves and promotes communities that flourish.
Evangelists who wish to provide a smooth path toward salvation for nonbelievers would do well to construct a more robust Romans Road. Without understanding the transformative power of the Gospel in this life, the wilderness path may be jolting and unsettling, like a dirt road after heavy rains. But the salvation road that extends to include holiness provides a clear route to the kind of life that honors God both now and in the life to come.
Suzanne Nicholson is Professor of New Testament at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky., an elder in the Global Methodist Church, and a member of the Firebrand editorial lead team.