Untitled Sermon
ROMANS
Introduction
Paul’s letter to the Romans, claimed 17th-century Puritan Thomas Draxe, is ‘the quintessence and perfection of saving doctrine’. This high estimation of the theological significance of Romans is echoed throughout the history of Christianity. Augustine’s mature theology derived its key categories from Romans, along with other Pauline letters. Romans, judged Luther, presented the ‘purest gospel’ of the Scriptures. Calvin built his Institutes on the logical progression of Romans. Karl Barth developed his theological programme through interaction with Romans. And millions of Christians have found in Romans a particularly compelling presentation of the way of salvation, the nature of sanctification (see Holiness), and the requirements of Christian obedience.
But all this interest in theology can obscure an important fact that must be kept in mind if Romans is to be properly understood. Romans is a letter. Paul writes to a specific audience in a certain historical context with a definite and limited purpose. The occasional nature of Romans explains why the selection of theological topics is so limited. Far from being, as Melanchthon called it, a ‘compendium of Christian doctrine’, Romans concentrates on certain issues to the exclusion of others. A correct understanding of the theology of the letter must therefore derive from a recognition of the overall purpose of the letter. That purpose is, however, debated, and the general shape of the theology of Romans is, for that reason, given quite distinctive shapes by different modern interpreters.
Occasion, purpose and theme
Paul writes Romans on his third missionary journey from Cenchrea, near Corinth, probably in about AD 57. He has undoubtedly heard about circumstances in the church at Rome from friends and missionary companions such as Priscilla and Aquila (see 16:3–5). But Paul did not found, nor has he ever visited, the Roman Christian community, so he treads warily in the letter, seeking by diplomatic language to get his points across without causing needless offence (see 1:11–12; 15:14–15). The reason Paul writes so densely theological a letter to a church he has never visited remains controversial. At least four theories deserve attention.
1. Paul uses the occasion of the letter to sum up his own theology. Romans, as G. Bornkamm put it, is ‘Paul’s last will and testament’ (the title of his essay, found in K. P. Donfried, The Romans Debate).
2. Paul uses the occasion of the letter to rehearse the speech he is planning to give in Judea when he brings the money he has been collecting from the Gentile churches to the poor Jewish believers (see 15:25–33).
3. Paul’s plans to evangelize in Spain require him to establish a new logistical base in the western Mediterranean. He writes Romans to explain and defend his theology in order to create a basis for financial support from the Roman church (15:24).
4. Paul has heard of a split in the Roman community between Jewish and Gentile believers. He develops a theology in the letter that will serve as a basis for his plea that the two groups ‘accept each other’, which is the real point of the letter (14:1–15:13).
Each of these proposals has merit, although we think that a combination of the latter two provides the best explanation for the letter. But what is important in these proposals for understanding the theology of Romans is their common feature: the issue of Jewish—Gentile relationships, along with its theological backdrop, the issue of continuity and discontinuity in God’s plan of redemption. Paul had fought over this issue throughout his ministry (notably in Galatia). His collection for the saints in Judea was intended to bring Jew and Gentile together. His theology created controversy because of his concern to include Gentiles. And the Roman community was apparently split between Jewish and Gentile Christian factions. And so the great theological ‘occasion’ of Romans is this quite basic matter of the relationship between the testaments, an issue of vital importance in the early church and of great significance in the construction of a truly biblical theology. (See Israel, Nations.)
Granted this basic occasion, interpreters have debated over the years the real centre of Paul’s theology in Romans. In a general way, the history of this debate could be traced in terms of a movement from an emphasis on the earlier parts of the letter to one on the latter parts of the letter. The Reformers, and Luther especially, highlighted the doctrine of justification by faith in Romans 1–4. In this approach, still very popular among some scholars and many lay people, Romans is basically a letter about individual salvation. In reaction to what they perceived to be an overemphasis on the legal category of justification, interpreters such as W. Wrede and A. Schweitzer at the beginning of the 20th century insisted that the real heart of Romans was to be found in chapters 5–8. Here Paul uses the category of ‘participation’ in Christ to present Christian experience in more personal terms. Some contemporary scholars, such as E. P. Sanders, thinks that this is a better starting point for a fair evaluation of Paul’s theology. The Holocaust and the creation of modern Israel focused renewed attention on Romans 9–11. These chapters, which had sometimes been relegated to the status of an appendix on predestination (see Election), were now viewed by some scholars as the centre of the letter. Romans was therefore not so much about individual salvation as about the history of God’s dealings with different people groups. And, finally, the renewed focus on Romans as a letter has brought with it the realization that Paul has some very practical goals in view, goals which are spelled out in the ‘practical’ section of chapters 12–16, and especially in 14:1–15:13. Here, many scholars believe, is the real climax of Romans: a plea that Jewish and Gentile Christians accept each other and so glorify God by living as the one people of God that he has brought into being through Christ.
How are we to evaluate these proposals? Three brief responses will suffice for our purposes here. First, Paul’s practical concern to bring unity to the Roman Christian community is obvious. But he expresses concerns about other matters as well in 12:1–13:14, and these should not be minimized. Moreover, this focus does not obviate interest in determining the theological centre of the argument. On this matter, then, secondly, an unwarranted reductionism is to be avoided. Romans is a long and complex letter, no one part of the letter, nor any one of its themes, should too easily be elevated above all others. Indeed, we think that only a concept as broad as ‘the gospel’ can legitimately be regarded as the theme of the letter. Thirdly, we must say something concerning the most basic, and theologically significant, point of debate about the theological centre of Romans. Simply put, this debate is between those who think that Romans is basically about the salvation of the individual human being and those who think that it is basically about the incorporation of one people (Gentiles) into another (the Jews) to form a new people of God. It is no doubt true that some interpreters have underestimated the importance of the ‘people’ question in Romans. They have been so concerned with deriving systematic theological categories directly from Romans that they have neglected Paul’s historical situation, in which the issue of the nature and basis of Gentile inclusion in the previously Jewish-centred people of God was the major theological question. But these interpreters, in turn, can easily miss the fact that Paul seeks to deal with this question by stripping it to its essentials: the plight of and divine provision for every individual human being. Paul’s gospel, the theme of the letter, is ‘the power of God for [the] salvation’ (1:16, NIV) and, as such, has a basically individualistic orientation. But that gospel, Paul is at pains to emphasize in Romans, is ‘first for the Jew, then for the Gentile’ (1:16). Confronted with a church divided between Jew and Gentile, and against the backdrop of a missionary enterprise that was quickly turning the church into a Gentile-dominated group, Paul in Romans has to focus especially on the salvation-historical and corporate implications of his gospel. This is why, in addition to the sinfulness, justification and salvation of the individual that Paul delineates in Romans 1–8, he also deals at length with the question of Israel and God’s plan for history in Romans 9–11. And this is why he also makes constant reference to the Jew—Gentile controversy and to its theological counterpart, the relationship of the OT to the NT. Indeed, Romans derives much of its power and enduring relevance from its focus on these critical theological issues of the continuity and discontinuity in the plan of God.
Individual themes
Salvation history
Before considering any single theological theme, however, we need to consider the theological framework within which Paul expresses many of these themes: salvation history. The salvation-historical approach emphasizes that God has accomplished redemption as part of a historical process. Jesus Christ is the centre of history, the point from which both past and future must be understood. With Christ as the climax of history, history can be divided into two ‘eras’, or ‘epochs’, each with its own founder—Adam and Christ, respectively—and each with its own ruling powers: sin, the law, flesh and death on the one hand; righteousness, grace, the Holy Spirit and life on the other. All people start in the old era by virtue of their participation in the act by which it was founded, the sin of Adam (*cf. Rom. 5:12, 18–19). But one can be transferred into the new era by being joined to Christ, the founder of that era, thereby participating in the acts through which that era came into being, Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (*cf. 6:1–6). This corporate element in Paul’s thinking is vital to an understanding of his argument at a number of points in Romans.
The division of history into two ages was popular in Jewish apocalyptic, and Paul probably drew his conception from that background. But his understanding of God’s work in Christ introduces a key qualification into the scheme. Although Jewish apocalyptic conceived of the transition from old age to new as taking place in the field of actual history, Paul’s conception is necessarily more nuanced. For, contrary to Jewish expectation, the Messiah has accomplished the work of redemption, the Spirit has been poured out, yet evil has not been eradicated, the general resurrection is still future and the final state of God’s kingdom has not been established. In other words, the new era has begun, has been inaugurated, but it has not yet replaced the old era. Both ages exist simultaneously, and this means that ‘history’, in the sense of temporal sequence, is not ultimately determinative in Paul’s salvation-historical scheme. Thus, the ‘change of aeons’, while occurring historically at the cross (*cf. 3:21), becomes real for the individual only at the point of faith. (See Time.)
The human predicament
In the structure of Romans, ‘plight’ comes before ‘solution’. That is, Paul delineates at some length the sinful condition of all human beings (1:18–3:20) before going on to show what God has done to deal with this dire problem (3:21–26). Given the purpose of this letter, Paul is especially concerned to show that Jews and Gentiles are equally helpless victims of sin’s power and the condemnation it brings. Gentiles have turned from the revelation God has given them in nature and are accountable (1:18–32); Jews, likewise, have disobeyed God’s revelation in the Torah and are equally guilty (2:1–3:8). And so, Paul concludes, all people are ‘under sin’, slaves of a harsh and cruel master. For Paul, the basic problem that human beings face is not simply that they commit sins; it is that they are held as captives by sin, conceived of as a power. The ‘solution’ to this ‘plight’ then follows as a matter of course. People do not need a teacher, to tell them what sin is and is not; they require a liberator to free them from their slavery.
Another distinctive element in the presentation of sin in Romans is Paul’s corporate focus, typical of his salvation-historical perspective. All people are held captive by sin because they share a common experience in the original sin of Adam. As a corporate figure, Adam’s sin is seen by Paul to be at the same time the sin of all human beings. The death and condemnation that came as a result of that sin therefore apply to all people (5:12–21).
The ‘righteousness of God’ and justification
Despite its long pedigree in Protestant, and especially Lutheran, theology, ‘justification by faith’ is not the overarching theme of Romans. There is simply too much in Romans that cannot, without distortion, be subsumed under the heading of justification. But while it is not the theme of Romans, justification by faith is nevertheless of critical importance in the letter. As most contemporary interpreters, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, now recognize, justification is a metaphor for salvation drawn from the legal world. A judge ‘justifies’ a defendant by declaring that person to be innocent of the charges brought against him or her. So in Romans Paul presents God’s justification of the sinner as the opposite of the condemnation under which the sinner suffers because of sin (2:12–13; 3:9–20; 5:16–19; compare 5:1 with 8:1). Six aspects of justification in Romans deserve mention.
1. God justifies people through faith and not through ‘works of the law’ (a literal translation of the Greek in 3:20 and 3:28). ‘Works of the law’ refer to obedience to the OT law, the Torah. Interpreters of Paul have traditionally thought that, while highlighting works done in obedience to the Mosaic law because of the context, Paul intended by the phrase also to exclude all works. The Reformers therefore used these texts as key evidence for their contention that justification was ‘by faith’ and not ‘by works’. Many contemporary scholars, however, think that the phrase must be restricted to the Jewish context and that Paul’s point is that justification cannot come through the OT law or its covenant (see especially J. D. G. Dunn, in BJRL 65, pp. 107–111). The contrast, then, is not between two different human responses (faith versus works) but between two different divine provisions (law versus Christ). While the traditional view can sometimes be faulted for missing the Jewish elements in Paul’s presentation of justification, we think it is still the best interpretation of his language.
2. Closely related to the first point is Paul’s insistence that justification is available for all human beings, Jew and Gentile, on the same basis of faith (1:16; and esp. 3:27–30). Were access to God based on Torah, Gentiles would be virtually excluded, for they have not been given Torah. Faith, however, is a response to God’s gracious work in Christ that is open to all people.
3. God justifies people by a completely free act of his will: in a word, by ‘grace’ (3:24). Indeed, it is because God relates to the world by grace, freely and without any compulsion of any kind, that justification must be by faith rather than by works (4:3–6). That God relates to the world he has created as a totally free agent is a theological postulate in Paul, and comes to expression at critical points in Romans (3:24; 4:4–6; 5:1, 15–16; 9:14–18; 11:5–7).
4. Justification by faith is rooted in the OT. In the initial statement of the theme of the letter, Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 to confirm his insistence that a person can be justified by faith ‘from first to last’: ‘It is the person who is righteous by faith who will live’ (1:17, author’s translation). But especially important is Abraham, whose experience Paul describes in some detail in Romans 4. Critical to Paul’s argument is Genesis 15:6, which asserts that Abraham’s faith was ‘counted’ as righteousness before he was circumcised (4:9–12) and without any basis in his obedience to the law (4:13–16). As he does throughout Romans, Paul seeks to demonstrate that his gospel is firmly rooted in the OT.
5. Justification is the product, or extension, of ‘the righteousness of God’. It is important to stress that ‘justify’ (dikaioō) and ‘righteousness’ (dikaiosynē) are closely related in Greek. ‘The righteousness/justice of God’ is a key theological phrase in Romans, occurring eight times (1:17; 3:5, 21, 22, 25, 26; 10:3 [twice]) and only once elsewhere in the letters of Paul (2 Cor. 5:21). The phrase has been a focus of theological debate. Most Protestant interpreters think that in 1:17, 3:21–22 and 10:3 it refers to a status of righteousness given to the human being by God (note the NIV rendering ‘righteousness from God’). But the phrase ‘righteousness of God’ has its roots in OT eschatological expectation, where it is virtually synonymous with ‘salvation of God’ (see esp. Is. 46:13; 51:4–6). Since Paul claims that the righteousness revealed in Christ is testified to by ‘the Law and the Prophets’ (3:21), it is more likely that ‘righteousness of God’, at least in 1:17, 3:21–22, and 10:3, refers to an activity of God: his acting to put people in right relationship to himself. What the prophets anticipated has taken place in Christ: God has intervened in human history to establish his salvation.
6. Justification by faith in based in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In the supremely important 3:21–26, Paul explains that people can be justified freely (v. 24) because God has presented Christ as ‘a sacrifice of atonement’. This phrase translates a Greek word, hilastērion, that has been another centre of controversy. ‘Propitiation’, which suggests the idea of God’s wrath being appeased, has been the traditional rendering. But many contemporary scholars, partly because they have difficulty with the notion of God’s acting to appease his own wrath, argue for the translation ‘expiation’, which refers more broadly to the wiping away of sins. In fact, however, Paul’s language is again rooted in the OT. Hilastērion occurs in the Greek OT (the Septuagint) as a description of the ‘mercy seat’, the place in the tabernacle where the blood of sacrifice was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). In a bold metaphor, Paul claims, in effect, that Christ is now the final, eschatological ‘mercy seat’, the place where God draws near to human beings for their redemption.
While not the centre of Romans, justification by faith is nevertheless a critical component of Paul’s presentation of the gospel in Romans. The doctrine expresses, in the sphere of anthropology, a crucial element in Paul’s understanding of God’s work in Christ: its entirely gracious character. Not only, then, does justification by faith guard against the Jewish attempt to make works of the law basic for salvation in Paul’s day; it expresses the resolute resistance of Paul, and the NT authors, to the constant human tendency to make what people do decisive for salvation.
The law
The word nomos (‘law’) occurs more times in Romans (74) than in all the other letters of Paul combined (47); Paul devotes an entire chapter to it (ch. 7), and it recurs in relation to almost every topic he treats (*cf. e.g. 2:12–16; 4:13–15; 5:13–14, 20; 6:14–15; 8:2–4; 9:31–10:5; 13:8–10). The ‘law’ that Paul discusses in Romans is the OT law, the body of commandments that God gave to Moses at Sinai. To be sure, Israel’s experience with the law of Moses is in many ways paradigmatic for the experience of all people with ‘law’ of various kinds (see esp. 2:14–15). But Paul’s focus is on the Jewish law, the Torah. He deals with this topic as a central issue in the larger debate in the early church about continuity between the OT and Judaism on the one hand and Christianity on the other. That Gentiles were to enter the new covenant people of God was relatively uncontroversial. But the basis on which they were to enter was greatly debated. Since they were now considered to be part of the people of God, should they not be expected to obey the rules that God had set forth for his people in the law of Moses? What was the status of Torah now that the Messiah had appeared? Different factions in the early church took dramatically different viewpoints on this issue. Paul was immersed in the controversy from the beginning of his apostolic ministry, and the issue has now appeared in the Roman church. This is evident particularly in Romans 14:1–15:13, where the ‘weak’ are mainly Jewish Christians who insist on continued observance of much of the Torah, while the ‘strong’ are mainly Gentile Christians who see no need to keep Torah any longer. And because both sides are represented in the community, Paul’s teaching on the law in Romans is more even-handed than it is in Galatians, where he must emphasize one side of the matter because of the polemical context. He makes several points.
1. The law, though good and holy (7:12) does not deal with the problem of human sin. Human beings are weak and sinful, unable to obey the law that God has given them. The history of Israel (7:7–25) reveals this problem particularly clearly.
2. Not only does the law not deal with of the problem of sin; it exacerbates it. The law, by confronting human beings with a detailed list of God’s requirements, increases their accountability. It has therefore had the effect of revealing even more clearly the degree to which people fall short of God’s demands (3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 7:7–12).
3. Because of the close connection between the law and sin, Christians must be released from its authority (6:14–15; 7:1–6). Many interpreters think these texts refer to deliverance from the condemnation pronounced by the law. But Paul seems to go further, suggesting that the law of Moses is no longer a binding authority on people who live in the age of fulfilment.
4. However, their not being under the Torah does not mean that Christians are free to do whatever they want. Grace itself constrains people to follow God (6:15–16), and obedience to the love command satisfies all the demands of the law (13:8–10).
Israel
Paul’s generally negative perspective on the law could be taken to imply that he is equally negative about the role of Israel in God’s plan of redemption. But in response to Gentiles who seemed to be asserting such a negative view (see 11:17–24, 25), Paul in Romans 9–11 asserts a positive one. Paul writes these chapters to vindicate God’s word to Israel in the light of the widespread rejection of the gospel among his Jewish contemporaries (9:1–6). He first makes clear that the exclusion of many Jews from the people of God because of their refusal to embrace Christ does not contradict God’s promise to Israel, for he has always determined to save only some (the ‘remnant’) from among physical Israel (9:6b–29). Nor does the inclusion of Gentiles violate God’s word, for he had always intended to do this also. But does this inclusion of Gentiles now mean that the old idea of Israel is obsolete? Many interpreters argue so, insisting that Paul replaces physical Israel with spiritual ‘Israel’, the church. Thus what Paul predicts in 11:25–26 is the ultimate salvation of all, Jew and Gentile, who constitute the ‘new Israel’. But this interpretation ignores the way in which Paul continues carefully to distinguish Gentiles from Jews (and Israel) in this part of his argument. Probably, then, 11:25–26 predicts a turning to Christ of many Jews (‘all Israel’ in a corporate sense) at the time of Christ’s return in glory. God is faithful to his promise to Israel, saving many Jews during this period of history as they are integrated into the church (11:1–10) and intending to bring even greater numbers to faith in Christ at the end of history (11:11–32).
The Christian life
Justification brings people into the family of God, and God will eventually glorify those whom he has justified, saving them from wrath and delivering them from sin and suffering (5:1–11; 8:18–30). But what about the period between these events? Paul deals with this question in Romans 5–8. He wants first to assure believers that their justification secures their final salvation: they need not fear the verdict of the last day (see esp. 5:9–10; 8:29–30). But he also wants to assure them of God’s provision for them during their earthly pilgrimage. In Christ, they have been removed from the lordship and mastery of sin. Sin no longer compels the believer to act in ways contrary to God’s will. A new obedience, prompted by the believer’s submission to Christ as Lord, is now possible and, indeed, required (ch. 6). Nor does the law, used by sin to stimulate disobedience to God, have any hold on the believer (ch. 7). Positively, God sends the Holy Spirit to assure believers of their new status (8:14–17), to stimulate hope (8:18–25) and to empower for works of service (8:5–13).
Theology and ethics
No analysis of the theology of Romans would be complete without recognition of the very practical outcome of the theology that Paul unfolds in the letter. Paul summons believers, ‘in view of God’s mercy’ (set out in chs. 1–11), to offer their bodies as sacrifices to God (12:1). Comprehension of the benefits God has secured for us in Christ should stimulate a life of sacrificial obedience, some aspects of which Paul spells out in 12:3–15:13.