Over the last three posts on Romans 1.1-7 we’ve looked at some of the background issues facing the study of Romans: Who was the author and what are his aims in writing? Who were his recipients? And what was the situation that caused Paul to write them when and how he did? And, to what extent do his theological claims challenge the Roman Empire’s political claims? But, as we’ve seen, the introductory part of a letter in the ancient world wasn’t just about social niceties, but also about bringing the readers on board with the letter’s message. And so with this in mind, it’s no surprise that these verses also contain a synopsis of the gospel to which both Paul and his Roman readers have devoted their lives. This section of the introduction will be the focus of today’s study.
Text
Here are the relevant verses once again:
[1.1] Paul, a slave of Jesus the Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for God’s gospel, [2] which he proclaimed in advance through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures [3] concerning his Son, descended from the seed of David according to the flesh, [4] declared to be God’s Son with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord, [5] through whom we have received grace and the mission to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, [6] among whom you yourselves are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
Experience
The first thing I noticed when I focused on these verses summarizing Paul’s gospel message was that it’s a little strange, even by Paul’s standards. There’s an awkward formality in it that makes me wonder if there’s something happening ‘behind the scenes’. But apart from those concerns, when I read it, I feel Paul’s excitement and energy come through. The themes of power and the focus on the resurrection of the dead also stand out. Finally, I notice again the curious term “the obedience of faith” and wonder what else the scholarship has to say about it. All this provides a few interesting questions to explore later on.
Encounter
This brief passage introduces us to a surprising number of characters in the story of the gospel:
On the one side there is God, alongside the prophets and king David, and God’s Son, who is identified as Jesus, the Christ (Messiah) and Lord. This immediately identifies the gospel as an inherently Jewish story. This is a notable emphasis considering his audience is largely Gentile. On that note, the other side is “all the Gentiles,” which is to say, all the nations of the world, including enough of the book’s recipients that Paul includes them in it.
Explore
These preliminaries lead us to a few questions that will guide the study:
- Is there anything intentional behind the awkward structure of these lines?
- How does Paul define the gospel to which he has dedicated his life?
- Why might Paul have emphasized the gospel’s Jewishness to a predominantly Gentile audience?
- What is “the obedience of faith” that Paul identifies as the ultimate aim of his ministry?
Form and Language
The oddities of the language here are well-documented, particularly that it employs a large number of Semiticisms, that is, phrasings that are not natural to Greek but reflect the grammar of a language like Hebrew or Aramaic. Because of this, it is commonly believed among New Testament scholars that Paul is citing an existing statement of faith that would have been known to the Christians in Rome (Jewett (2013) 11; Eberhart). Considering he is more or less a stranger to their community, it makes sense that he’d begin by assuring them they’re all working from common ground and shared faith.
This could also explain some of the quirks we saw in the cultural orientation of the language that we looked at in part 2. Paul begins with primarily Gentile language (’apostle’, ‘gospel’) to his primarily Gentile audience, then breaks into this pre-existing liturgical material with a strong Jewish orientation (i.e., the references to the prophets and Scriptures, and the messianic apocalyptic language of the Son of God, the line of King David, the resurrection of the dead, and the Holy Spirit).
If he is relying on familiar material here, using a heavily Jewish creed or hymn to define his mission to a group of mostly Gentile Christ-followers would also introduce one of the book’s major themes: defending to Gentiles the essential Jewishness of the gospel.
The Gospel
What then can we say about this gospel? The text makes six claims about it, worth exploring in greater detail: 1. its source in God the Father; 2. its content, Jesus Christ; 3. its attestation in the Scriptures; 4. its universal scope; 5. its goal, which is the ‘obedience of faith’; and 6. its ultimate objective, which is to glorify Jesus (cf. Stott 53).
1. God’s Gospel
As we’ve seen previously, ‘gospel’ was a military term for a report of good news from the battlefield, up to and including the triumphal procession back into Rome. By imperial times, the right to a triumph was reserved for the Emperor alone. So here Paul is challenging the imperial propaganda machine by offering an alternative (and illicit) story of triumph: the triumph of God over the enemies of faith.
2. The Gospel about Jesus
This narrative of God’s victory is all about Jesus. On the one hand, since Paul is writing to Jesus-followers, this isn’t surprising. But on the other hand, this same Jesus is a man who had been killed in the most shameful way possible as an enemy of the state and false messiah. There is nothing obviously victorious about this. So to call this story good news — especially with the term’s military overtones — is itself radical and unexpected. We can’t lose sight of that within our familiarity with the story.
3. A Gospel Attested in the Scriptures
This gospel is attested in the Hebrew Scriptures. What God has done is not out of the blue, but is consistent with the whole history of God’s revelation and interaction with humanity. It fulfills the stories of Adam, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Moses and the Exodus, of the reigns of David and Solomon, and the harrowing and hopeful message of the Prophets. God has done a new thing, but it is a new thing that is wholly in keeping with what has happened before and recorded in the Scriptures of the Jewish people (Eberhart; Nanos).
Again, this means that the gospel has a decidedly Jewish orientation. Jesus is not framed as a great philosopher, guru or wonderworker, but as the messianic Son of God. This has two sides. First, he is biologically descended from King David, and therefore fits the contemporary Jewish narrative of who their messianic champion would be. But secondly — and more importantly — his Sonship has been powerfully revealed by the Holy Spirit through his resurrection from the dead (Eberhart; Rock; Schreiner 42; Kirk 48; Barrett 22; Dunn 253; Gorman). In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, the resurrection of the dead was the quintessential apocalyptic sign: On the great expected Day of YHWH, God would vindicate all the faithful Israelites who were oppressed in their earthly life by raising them from the dead. The shocking proclamation of the gospel was that God had done just this, but rather than raising all of faithful Israel at the end of time, God has raised faithful Jesus in the middle of time (Wright; Kim 16; Dunn 253). The apocalyptic age has begun, but is begun in one man, the faithful suffering servant of YHWH, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God vindicated by raising him from the dead (Kirk 46; Gorman). (This is, as it happens, the theme of all the major sermons or speeches recorded in Acts: e.g., 2.14-36; 3.12-19; 7.44-60).
4. The Gospel’s Universal Scope
While this is an inherently Jewish gospel, its scope is universal, bringing all of the nations into the fold of God’s people. This too is a ‘new thing’ that is rooted in Jewish messianism. As early as the early chapters of Isaiah, conceptions of a true and just king included a global reach (Isaiah 2.1-5; 11.1-12; 13.4, etc.; cf. Psalm 2.8-9). In Jewish messianic expectation, the enthronement of the messianic king included his authority over the nations as part of his inheritance (Kirk 42).The relationship between the Jewish particularity and universal scope of the gospel will be a major theme of Romans.
5. The Obedience of Faith as the Gospel’s Goal
This is good news that demands a response from those who hear it, namely “the obedience of faith.” A lot of ink has been spilled on how exactly we should parse this phrase: “faithful obedience;” “obedient faith;” “obedience consisting of faith;” obedience belonging to faith;” etc. Therein lies the problem of this kind of grammatical construction: all it does is signal a connection between two nouns; it doesn’t offer any insight into what that relationship might be. The good news (no pun intended) for us is that nine times out of ten, it doesn’t really matter. Paul’s point is that his life’s mission is for Gentiles to respond to God’s gospel about Jesus in a way that is both obedient and faithful. If remember how strongly the concept of faithfulness is connected to the patronage system, from the perspective of the party with lesser power and authority, the two terms become nearly synonymous. If you are faithful, you will do as the patron, in this case Jesus, says. This idea is found all through the New Testament (e.g., Matthew 17.5; Mark 9.7; Luke 9.35; John 14.12; Philippians 2) and shouldn’t be shocking. You can’t call someone your “lord” and then not obey him! The expression is only problematic because of Reformation-era theological presuppositions opposing faith and works. Outside that framework, there’s nothing remotely strange about it (Eberhart; Gorman).
6. The Glorification of Jesus as the Gospel’s Ultimate Aim
The final thing Paul says about the Gospel here is that it is “for the sake of his name.” That is to say, it’s about Jesus’ reputation. This idea seems strange to our sensibilities, but makes sense within the honour-shame / glory-dishonour society of the first century. To once again remind ourselves of how the patronage system worked, if a relationship was in ‘good faith’, the lower status party would gain resources and opportunities (’grace’) from the higher-status person in exchange for loyalty, and public praise from the client. Just as the Old Testament described the relationship between Israel and God in terms of a vassal contract, Paul describes the relationship between Christ and the faithful in terms of patronage: Christ gives grace to his disciples who respond with faith, obedience and public praise, thus rightfully making known his status in all the world.
Challenge
One of the main goals of the ‘challenge’ step is to interrogate the narrative of the text by asking ‘What story isn’t it telling?’ The story Paul is telling is essentially that God’s apocalyptic victory over the forces of evil has been won through the life and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. As we’ve seen, this is a story profoundly rooted to the hopes and expectations of Second Temple Judaism, especially in its apocalyptic and messianic strands. But as we know, Apocalyptic has, from ancient times until today, born a lot of bad fruit in the world. Then and now alike, those most committed to its us-and-them sensibility and longing for a violent upheaval to restore perceived injustices in the world have succumbed to the temptation to try to hurry that divine upheaval along. Just a decade after Paul wrote this letter, another would-be messianic movement would rise up against Rome, whose brutal suppression would end with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the formal expulsion of Jews from Judea. It’s telling that the rabbinic Judaism that emerged from that disaster largely rejected apocalypticism. (Though, it’s returned many times in the centuries since!)
Since it seems clear that Christianity began as an apocalyptic movement, and seeing the dangers of Apocalyptic, we would do well as Christians to interrogate the genre’s claims and sensibilities. Thankfully, as we saw last summer, Jesus himself did just this, often using the language and tactics of Apocalyptic but turning them on their head. He preached of the coming of God’s Kingdom, but as something already present even within the world’s suffering and evil. He preached of a final sorting of good and evil but also insisted that it’s his job alone and we’ll be shocked and who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. He preached judgment, but this judgment is to be experienced as good news for the nations. And on and on. We as Christians have inherited all of this apocalyptic language, but we must — like Jesus himself — make sure we’re using it in creative, growth-oriented, justice-promoting, and welcoming ways.
Expand
The gospel to which Paul has devoted his life is rooted in Judaism, but not in a way that limits its vision or welcome. Rather, its specificity pushes it out into the universal. It is about Israel, but Israel now (as we will see as the letter goes on) potentially includes every tongue and tribe and nation. There is no ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ dynamic in Christianity, only the longing for ‘all of us’. And while its language is taken from Jewish apocalypticism, the gospel also turns apocalyptic ideas on their heads, making it a creative rather than destructive, inclusive rather than othering movement.
Summary & Conclusions
Here at the start of Romans, Paul makes six major claims about his gospel: 1. its source is in God the Father; 2. its content is Jesus Christ; 3. it is not ‘brand new’ but is attested in the Scriptures; 4. its scope is universal; 5. its goal is the ‘obedience of faith’ from Jew and Gentile alike; and 6. its ultimate objective is to appropriately glorify Jesus. The rest of the letter will expand on these themes, justifying the first four and explicating what the fifth and six claims look like in practice in the life of the Church.
* For full references, please see the series bibliography
Matthew Root 