Bible Study Romans 1
:1
Romans is ultimately a book about God: how he acted to bring salvation, how his justice is preserved, how his purposes are worked out in history, how he can be served by his people.
1 Paul introduces himself to the Roman church with three parallel designations that, respectively, identify his master, his office, and his purpose. All three lack articles, a style typical of the introductions of letters.6 “Slave of Christ Jesus” is patterned on the familiar OT phrase “slave,” or “servant,” of Yahweh.
Paul’s final description of himself in v. 1, “set apart for the gospel of God,” may allude to his being set aside for his great apostolic task even from “the womb of his mother” (cf. Gal. 1:15). But the word order here makes it more likely that the “set apart” clause is simply a further definition of “called.”13
his purpose is general and principial, to allay possible suspicion about “his” gospel as new and innovative by asserting its organic relationship to the OT.
In a relative clause dependent on “gospel” (euangelion), Paul further defines the gospel as something promised in the OT. In a manner typical of Paul’s emphasis throughout Romans, he draws a line of continuity between the new work of God in his Son, the content of the gospel (vv. 3–4), and the OT.
He therefore touches on what will become two key themes in Romans: the promise (cf. Rom. 4), and the grounding of God’s salvific revelation in his previous purposes and work.
the meaning is much the same: the focus of the gospel is a person, God’s Son.
The importance of Jesus’ lordship emerges in a number of creedal statements. To be saved one must acknowledge Jesus as Lord (Rom 10:9). The believer’s initial submission to Jesus as Lord is reflected in Paul’s exhortation in which he reminds the Colossians that they “received Christ Jesus as Lord” (Col 2:6).
It is the Son who is “appointed” Son. The tautologous nature of this statement reveals that being appointed Son has to do not with a change in essence—as if a person or human messiah becomes Son of God for the first time—but with a change in status or function.
The universal scope of the gospel is expressed in Paul’s definition of his task as “call[ing] people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith” (v. 5). The promised Messiah did not come for the benefit of the Jewish nation alone. The gospel is good news for all who will respond in faith. But faith inevitably issues in obedience. Faith is not intellectual assent to a series of propositions but surrender to the one who asks us to trust him. To surrender is to obey
But at the beginning of the NT period, the promises of salvation given to Israel had not yet been fulfilled. The gospels emphasize, however, that Jesus of Nazareth is the man whom God has chosen as his Messiah. He is the true son of Abraham and the true son of David (Matt. 1:1), the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham and David. Israel in the OT is the son of God’s favour (Exod. 4:22) and God’s servant (*e.g. Is. 41:8–9; 42:1, 19; 43:10; 44:1–2, 21; 45:4). The gospels teach that Jesus is God’s servant and son (Mark 1:9–11 par.; cf. Matt. 12:18–21). Jesus is the true Israel, succeeding where Israel failed. Jesus is the son liberated from Egypt (Matt. 2:15). He is the one who resists the temptations of Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–11 par.). When Jesus chooses the Twelve, therefore, he reconstitutes Israel (Mark 3:13–19 par.).
The description of the readers as “called” (Jude 1) is a designation also used by Paul; it can stand as a name for Christians by virtue of an essential characteristic: they have been summoned by God to be his people and have responded to the summons (Rom 1:6–7
The frequency with which Paul uses such expressions indicate that the lordship of Jesus was a central part of his theology. The constant collocation with the term Christ indicates that the lordship of Jesus was closely associated with his messianic status.
In the tradition. It is also likely that the lordship of Jesus was no Pauline innovation. Paul’s use of the title in his greetings and farewells indicates that it was part of the common confession of early Christians. The lordship of Jesus is also expressed in a number of confessional or hymnic statements in Paul, some of which may have been handed down to Paul via the tradition (Rom 1:3–4; 10:9; 1 Cor 8:5–6; 12:3; Phil 2:11).
One of the primary distinguishing features of the New Testament over against other Jewish and Hellenistic literature is the fundamental and comprehensive role which it ascribes to faith. According to the Synoptic Gospels, the forgiveness of sins and the healing which are marks of the presence of the kingdom of God are given to faith alone.2 In John’s Gospel believing secures eternal life and makes one a child of God (1:12; 3:15–16; 36, 5:24; 6:35; etc.). According to the letter to the Hebrews, faith brings the age to come into the present, and the believer into the presence of God (4:3; 10:22; 11:1). James presupposes that faith effects salvation, even as he underscores that such faith is never without its works (2:14–26). In all the New Testament writings, faith in Christ and in God’s work in him is determinative for the human relationship to God.
God—the Father. God the Father is the initiator of the action in the story. He is the sovereign ruler, carrying out his purpose through the mission of his people and specifically of those called to be witnesses and apostles. The gospel is the gospel of God (Rom 1:1). God the Father is the one God and Creator of the universe (1 Cor 8:6; cf. Eph 4:6), and human beings are made in his image (1 Cor 11:7). He expects their worship and their willing obedience to his way of life for them (cf. Rom 1:21)
Collectively believers in Christ are a chosen nation (2:6), because of their relationship to Him, the chosen cornerstone (2:4). In addition, these epistles often speak of Christians as called by God (kaleō, klētos). This divine “summons” is God’s working to bring people into a relationship with Himself. It involves a call to live holy lives, since He who called them is holy (1:15). It is a call out of darkness into His amazing light (2:9). It calls them to innocent suffering like Christ’s (2:21), but also to inherit blessing in following His example (3:9). Ultimately, it is a call to God’s eternal glory in Christ (5:9). By living out the Christian character that God has put within them, believers make their calling and election sure and receive a rich welcome into Christ’s eternal kingdom (2 Peter 1:10–11; cf. 1:3–4). Their calling is assured because they are beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ (Jude 1) by God the Savior who is able to guard them from falling and to present them blameless before His glorious presence with great joy (Jude 24–25).
For Paul, the point was that the new creation launched with Jesus’ resurrection was the renewal of creation, not its abolition and replacement; so that the new-creation mode of knowing was a deeper, truer, richer mode of knowing about the old creation as well. And with that deeper knowing came all sorts of consequences, which we have tried to plot in the preceding chapters.
In particular, the communities which came into being through the gospel were to embody that new world in the ways which our disjointed categories have separated out. They were indeed to be a kind of philosophical school, teaching and modelling a new worldview, inculcating a new understanding, a new way of thinking. They were to train people not only to practise the virtues everyone already acknowledged but also to develop some new ones, and with all that to find a new way to virtue itself, the transformed mind and heart through which the creator’s intention would at last be realized. They were indeed, despite their lack of priests, sacrifices and temples, to be a new kind of ‘religion’: to read and study their sacred texts and to weave them into the beginnings of a liturgical praxis. In that worship, they believed, heaven and earth came together, God’s time and human time were fused and matter itself was transfigured to become heavy with meaning and possibility
tn Or “willing, ready”; Grk “so my eagerness [is] to preach …” The word πρόθυμος (prothumos, “eager, willing”) is used only elsewhere in the NT in Matt 26:41 = Mark 14:38: “the spirit indeed is willing (πρόθυμος), but the flesh is weak.”
tn Or “willing, ready”; Grk “so my eagerness [is] to preach …” The word πρόθυμος (prothumos, “eager, willing”) is used only elsewhere in the NT in Matt 26:41 = Mark 14:38: “the spirit indeed is willing (πρόθυμος), but the flesh is weak.”
Both to the wise, and to the unwise. It appears that the wise and unwise refer to the same people as Greeks and Barbarians. “Wise” referred to the educated. “Unwise” referred to the uneducated
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Those who are interested in figures of speech will find it interesting that Bruce and Lenski consider the words “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” to be a figure of speech called “litotes.” This figure of speech is an understatement, used for effect in this case. In some cases it is used to avoid censure. Paul is actually meaning that he glories in the gospel. He is proud of the gospel and counts it an honor to proclaim it.
Paul’s missionary practice reveals the same emphasis, for whenever he went to a new town in some hitherto unvisited part of the Roman world he always went first to the Jewish synagogue (Acts 13:14; 14:1; 17:1–2). Of course, there would be good tactical reasons for doing so: since he was concerned to declare that Jesus was the Messiah, it was only natural that he should speak first to people who had some notion of who and what the Messiah might be. The fact that they had rather different expectations from Paul himself usually became clear fairly quickly, and he found himself thrown out of one synagogue after another. But that did not prompt him to abandon the strategy, for in addition to its practical advantages he also had a strong theological reason for operating this way: ‘the gospel … is God’s power to save all who believe, first the Jews and also the Gentiles’ (Romans 1:16).
The nature of the “righteousness” described here and the force of the genitive θεοῦ (“of God”) which follows have been much debated. (1) Some (e.g. C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:98) understand “righteousness” to refer to the righteous status given to believers as a result of God’s justifying activity, and see the genitive “of God” as a genitive of source (= “from God”). (2) Others see the “righteousness” as God’s act or declaration that makes righteous (i.e., justifies) those who turn to him in faith, taking the genitive “of God” as a subjective genitive (see E. Käsemann, Romans, 25–30). (3) Still others see the “righteousness of God” mentioned here as the attribute of God himself, understanding the genitive “of God” as a possessive genitive (“God’s righteousness”).
“See, the enemy is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness x—
The genitive ἀνθρώπων could be taken as an attributed genitive, in which case the phase should be translated “against all ungodly and unrighteous people” (cf. “the truth of God” in v. 25 which is also probably an attributed genitive). C. E. B. Cranfield takes the section 1:18–32 to refer to all people (not just Gentiles), while 2:1–3:20 points out that the Jew is no exception (Romans [ICC], 1:104–6; 1:137–38).
But in his missionary letters Paul frequently mentioned God’s wrath (orgē). As the apostle told the Romans, the reality of God’s wrath was the reason people needed to receive His righteousness (1:17–18).
Wrath is the response of God to sin. It has both a present and a future aspect. Paul referred to both in his letter to the Thessalonians. First, he assured the Thessalonians that they would escape the future expression of God’s wrath, reminding them that “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). This was a reassuring repetition of his previous description of Jesus, as One “who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1:10).
But God’s wrath is also a present reality from Paul’s point of view. He saw his kinsmen, the Jews, as suffering the wrath of God because of their hostility to the church and their opposition to the spread of the gospel. According to Paul, “the wrath of God has come upon them at last” (2:16).
What Paul meant by that declaration is not entirely clear. But some insight may be provided by his comments in Romans about the expression of God’s wrath in the present time. There he said that “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). This “suppression of the truth” is similar to what he had told the Thessalonians the Jews were guilty of doing in their opposition to the gospel (1 Thess. 2:15–16). God’s wrath manifested itself, according to Paul, in the fact that He permitted people to indulge their sinful practices in increasingly greater degree. Three times in the following verses Paul intoned the refrain “God gave them over”: to “sinful desires” (Rom. 1:24), to “shameful lusts (v. 26), and to “a depraved mind” (v. 28).
While people may think of themselves as desiring to know God and have a relationship with Him, Paul believed just the opposite is the case. Instead of seeking God and His truth, Paul saw people as suppressing the truth about God available to them (Rom. 1:18–19). Rather than people being concerned to find God, Paul held that “no one seeks God” (3:11). Rather than being solicitous of God and friendly toward Him, Paul stated that collectively and individually they are “God’s enemies” (5:10).
Paul’s portrait of the human condition was an altogether grim one, made doubly so by his belief that it was an impossible situation to change apart from God’s initiative. As he told the Corinthians, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). For Paul, the human condition is characterized by a rejection of God and His revelation, being routinely marked by hostility toward Him. As a result, people are subject to the tyranny of sin that is impossible to escape outside of Christ.
because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
Grk “is manifest to/in them.”
While people may think of themselves as desiring to know God and have a relationship with Him, Paul believed just the opposite is the case. Instead of seeking God and His truth, Paul saw people as suppressing the truth about God available to them (Rom. 1:18–19).
God’s power (dynamis) is mentioned often in Paul’s letters. It is a characteristic displayed in many ways, including the evidence throughout creation, the witness of natural revelation: “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” (Rom. 1:20). Creation bears testimony to the reality of God’s power and makes people accountable to acknowledge Him properly.
God’s power was also evident in the miracles Paul and others performed as a validation of their role as God’s representatives (the word dynamis was used to refer both to God’s power itself and to a miracle, a visible example of this power; cf. Acts 14:3). When Paul dealt with the Galatians about the issue of the law, he asked them, “Did God give you his spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” (Gal. 3:5). When the Corinthians struggled with contentions about Paul’s apostleship, he reminded them that “the things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders and miracles—were done among you” (2 Cor. 12:12).
Paul was heir to a religion in which the action of God in the world was an accepted fact. He possessed the Jewish Scriptures which, whatever their precise extent, certainly began for him with the creation of the world by God (Rom 1:20), the stories of the first man (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45) and woman (2 Cor 11:3; cf. 1 Tim 2:13–14), Abraham (Rom 4; Gal 3:6–9; 4:21–31) and the patriarchs (Rom 9:6–13), and so on. People had religious experiences, like Abraham who believed in God, and God made himself known to them in a variety of ways. The lasting monuments of this activity were the Scriptures, understood to be divine oracles enshrining what God had said to Moses and the prophets (Rom 3:2).
Another concept associated with glory is the idea of approval or praise. Paul reminded the Thessalonians that when he ministered among them he was not looking for “glory from men” (1 Thess. 2:6), that is, people’s praise or approval. The only approval or praise that mattered to Paul was from God (1 Cor. 4:5). On the other hand, giving glory to God distinguished people who had a relationship with Him from those who did not. When Paul described those who rejected the truth about God, he said, “they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21). In contrast to this was an individual of faith like Abraham, who “gave glory to God” (4:20). People thus give glory to God by what they say and do, that is, by expressing praise and thanks to Him and by representing Him in reflecting His character and doing His will.
Or “by means of unrighteousness.” Grk “in (by) unrighteousness.”
Revelation must express the purpose of God propositionally. If all that is in view is the noun (i.e., God), it may be that one could glean something by general revelation alone, for “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:18–23). If, however, verbs (i.e., God’s purposes) are to be revealed, they must be clarified in verbal statements, for mere isolated acts and events—or even patterns of events in a historical continuum—are at worst meaningless and at best ambiguous. “Event” must be accompanied and interpreted by “word” if it is to revelatory.
23 ἢλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν, “they changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of beasts and of reptiles.” The argument now becomes almost wholly Jewish by drawing on the standard Jewish polemic against idolatry. The language here has been determined particularly by Ps 106[LXX 105]:20
People participated in an unfortunate exchange. Their “wisdom” led them to barter the majesty of the immortal God for “images made to look like mortal man” (v. 23). In fact, they even exchanged the glory of God for images of birds, beasts, and creatures that crawl along the ground.17 This threefold classification (cf. Gen 1:20–25) as well as terms such as “image” (Gen 1:26) suggest strongly that Paul was describing the wickedness of humans in terms of the Genesis account of the fall of Adam and Eve.
In these passages, Paul has not ‘revised’ or ‘rethought’ the standard Jewish belief about pagan idolatry, a belief rooted in the sneers of the prophets and the scorn of the Psalms. He has reaffirmed it. We are monotheists, he insists, not pagan polytheists!
1:24–25 People cannot turn their backs on God with impunity. They exchanged the majesty of God for images made by their own hands, so God “gave them over … to sexual impurity.” The verb has a certain judicial quality. The NIVSB note on 1:24 says, “God allowed sin to run its course as an act of judgment.” God’s wrath mentioned in Romans 1 is not an active outpouring of divine displeasure but the removal of restraint that allows sinners to reap the just fruits of their rebellion. F. Godet writes that God “ceased to hold the boat as it was dragged by the current of the river.” The TCNT says that God has “abandoned them to impurity.”
In 2 Corinthians Paul referred to Satan as “the god of this age” who “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (4:4). The “god of this age” attempted to frustrate every endeavor to rescue those under his thrall, and Paul recognized his continuing attempts to oppose the work of the gospel both to those associated with the church and those outside. As Paul reminded the Romans, it is a program that has proceeded with considerable success as people have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). For Paul, idolatry testified to Satan’s deception. He told the Corinthians that “the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God” (1 Cor. 10:20).
What Paul meant by that declaration is not entirely clear. But some insight may be provided by his comments in Romans about the expression of God’s wrath in the present time. There he said that “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). This “suppression of the truth” is similar to what he had told the Thessalonians the Jews were guilty of doing in their opposition to the gospel (1 Thess. 2:15–16). God’s wrath manifested itself, according to Paul, in the fact that He permitted people to indulge their sinful practices in increasingly greater degree. Three times in the following verses Paul intoned the refrain “God gave them over”: to “sinful desires” (Rom. 1:24), to “shameful lusts (v. 26), and to “a depraved mind” (v. 28).
He continued to believe that there were differences between slaves and masters; otherwise, his advice to both is contradictory (Eph 6:5–9; Col 3:22–4:1). He continued to believe there were differences between males and females. Otherwise, his indictment of homosexuality is inconsistent (Rom 1:26–27), his commands to husbands and wives incomprehensible (Eph 5:22–33; Col 3:18–19) and his restrictions on women a relapse from his better days (1 Cor 11:2–16; 14:33b–36; 1 Tim 2:9–15). The value and worth of all human beings is proclaimed by Paul, but this verse must not be served up so that it fits with modern ideologies. We must hear Paul’s own word—be it ever so foreign to us.
1:28–32 For the third time in five verses Paul wrote that when people disregard God’s revelation in nature, he gives them over to the normal consequences that follow. Here in v. 28 he is said to give them over to “a depraved mind” (cf. vv. 24 and 26). Truth rejected leaves its mark. One’s ability to think clearly about moral issues is undermined. Turning from the light of revelation disqualifies a person to think correctly about the issues of life. God’s will and his ways with humans are crucial factors in understanding the moral world in which we live
Hanson suggests that Revelation 6 describes various judgements that are a result of rejecting God including the sufferings of the faithful in the churches. More precisely, Jesus has been rejected and disaster ensues because they have not listened to his testimony. Likewise, Paul writes of God giving the wicked up to their lusts and impurity (Rom. 1:24, 28). Rowland writes: ‘In Rev. 6:4 the second horseman removes peace from the earth, so that people slay one another: here is the consequences of the strife, envy and covetousness that Paul has spoken in Rom. 1:28’.
Paul warned that as the end of the age approaches, such evil men and imposters (v. 13) would only get worse and their numbers would increase. The cause for this was that they were deceiving and being deceived by what they themselves were teaching. Thus the error was propagating itself in homogeneous communities that were being founded for the self-serving reinforcement of one another and the doctrines they were advocating (4:3–4).
He suggested that there was indeed a new revelation of God’s wrath, in that in Paul’s day one could observe an increase in human corruption, in the outworking of God’s anger as humans more obviously reaped the rewards of their own ill-doing. This seems to me an improvement at the level of exegesis, but no better in terms of content. For a start, Paul’s polemic against idolatry and its dehumanizing effects was hardly new within second-temple Judaism. For another thing, I do not think we should accept Dodd’s proposal (as Barrett seemed inclined to do) that Paul intended the phrase ‘God’s wrath’ to denote the ongoing and immanent process of moral degeneration described in Romans 1:18–32. For Paul, ‘wrath’ is the execution of divine punishment on sinners, indicated in 1:32 itself (‘they know that God has rightly decreed that people who do things like that deserve death’). There may indeed be a sense in which the essentially future verdict casts its shadow ahead of itself, a kind of grisly dark side of the inaugurated eschatology of justification (the verdict of the end already announced in the present). But, apart from anything else, when Paul says ‘the divine wrath is revealed’, and connects that quite tightly with the revelation of the gospel in 1:16–17, we should resist, unless forced to do otherwise, the suggestion that this ‘revelation’ is something which was taking place simply in the world around.