Romans

A Theological and Pastoral Commentary

Michael J. Gorman

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781467464000
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

"Above all, Romans is a letter about Spirit-enabled participation and transformation in Christ and his story, and thus in the mission of God in the world."

This commentary engages the letter to the Romans as Christian scripture and highlights the Pauline themes for which Michael Gorman is best known—participation and transformation, cruciformity and new life, peace and justice, community and mission. With extensive introductions both to the apostle Paul and to the letter itself, Gorman offers background information on Paul's first-century context before proceeding into the rich theological landscape of the biblical text.

In line with Paul's focus on Christian living, Gorman interprets Romans at a consistently practical level, highlighting the letter's significance for Christian theology, daily life, and pastoral ministry. Questions for reflection and sidebars on important concepts make this especially useful for those preparing to preach or teach from Romans—the "epistle of life, " as Gorman calls it, for its extraordinary promise that, through faith, we might walk in newness of life with Christ.

Commentary with Reflections and Questions

1:1–17

OPENING AND THEME: THE GOSPEL OF GOD’S SON, POWER, AND JUSTICE FOR THE SALVATION OF ALL

Ancient letters, like contemporary correspondence, had a certain predictable structure. Paul both follows and modifies that format, and this is evident in the first seventeen verses of Romans. Theologically speaking, Paul Christianizes standard elements of the ancient letter, such as the identification of the sender and recipients and the greeting. Pastorally speaking, he writes with authority and conviction, but also with humility and warmth. Rhetorically speaking, Paul expands the letter’s standard elements because Romans is a pastoral letter-essay. It has a theme and even a thesis, a propositio. Accordingly, although the sustained argument of the letter begins at 1:18, there is much of great significance in 1:1–17.

1:1–15. OPENING

How a piece of correspondence begins is important. The very first words of a letter generally establish or reestablish a relationship. Unknown, except by reputation, to many of the Roman believers, Paul uses the salutation and thanksgiving to set forth his distinctive apostolic identity and to articulate his respect for, and bond with, the Roman faithful. He also whets their appetite to hear the gospel he has been commissioned to proclaim (1:1, 15). This gospel is the letter’s theme, and Paul will spell it out in the following chapters, since he has so far “been prevented” from a personal visit to do so (1:13).¹

1:1–7. Salutation and Theme: Paul, the Romans, and the Gospel of God’s Son

Paul writes this letter alone (1:1), unlike the other undisputed letters. Perhaps this is because he has not visited Rome and needs to establish his apostolic integrity, though we learn in chapter 16 that he is already known by quite a few in the imperial capital. His rather lengthy self-identification (1:1–5) focuses on both his call to apostleship and the gospel he proclaims, while his identification of the Roman recipients (1:6–7) centers on their calling.

Paul and the Roman Believers

Paul is first of all a “servant” (Gk. doulos, “slave”) of Christ, through whom he has received the common believers’ experience of grace (cf. 5:2) as well as the particular grace to be an apostle (1:1, 5). Ultimately the source of each aspect of his identity is God, who has called him and set him apart to be an apostle (1:1; cf. Gal 1:15), one sent with the authority of the sender as the sender’s representative and agent. Paul understands “apostle” to include not only Jesus’ original disciples (1 Cor 15:7) but also those like himself, Barnabas (1 Cor 9:5–6), and even, it seems, a husband-wife team, Andronicus and Junia (Rom 16:7). Having seen the resurrected Lord (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8–9) and having been commissioned by him seem to be the two basic requirements for apostleship, in Paul’s view. He summarizes his apostolic ministry as being a witness to, and agent of, God’s amazing grace and peace (1:7).

The same God has called the Roman believers (1:6–7) to be “beloved” (children) and set them apart to be “saints,” or, better, “his holy people” (NIV) who “belong to Jesus Christ.” To be holy is to be marked out for God’s purposes; it is to be part of an alternative culture, a different way of being human: in the world but not of the world. Paul will have much more to say about this holiness in chapter 6 and especially chapters 12–15. (What he says needs to be heard by contemporary Christians who, in the words of Jesus in Rev 3:16, are sometimes more “lukewarm” than they are holy.)

The word “saints,” then, does not refer to a special class of people but to all who belong to Christ: God’s holy ones (Gk. hagioi). Holiness with respect to humans is the scriptural language of covenant relationship, now reconfigured around Jesus, who makes a new covenant possible. The children of Israel were called to be holy because God is holy (Lev 11:45; 19:2; 20:26). So also Christians are called to be holy, sharing in the holiness of God by being reshaped into the image of Christ, God’s son and our elder brother (Rom 8:14–17, 29). The Roman believers demonstrate the meaning and impact of the gospel (despite Paul’s not being their spiritual parent) as exemplars of “the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles,” or “nations” (1:5; Gk. ethnē). (We will return to this phrase momentarily.)

The Gospel

The link between the writer and the recipients of this letter is “the gospel of God … concerning his Son” (1:1, 3), the letter’s subject matter. The gospel is what ultimately binds all Christians together. It is critical for Paul and for us that this gospel, this good news, is “the gospel of God.” God, not Paul, is its source, its author.² The key terms—Son of God, Lord, grace, peace, faith, obedience—in these first verses of the letter are drawn directly from the language Paul uses to articulate the gospel in Romans and elsewhere. Many of these words could also be found in both the Scriptures of Israel and in the gospel, or ideology, of Rome. Paul’s gospel stands in continuity with the former and in contrast to the latter.

The word “grace” (Gk. charis, meaning “favor,” “benevolence,” “gift”) in 1:5 and 1:7 refers to God’s completely unmerited and unearned favor. But a gift in antiquity required reciprocation. For Paul, as John Barclay has demonstrated, God’s grace is unconditioned (given to the unworthy) but not unconditional. Those who have received such grace are expected to be transformed by the Spirit; grace implies obligation.³

“Peace” (1:7) summarizes the gospel as much as “grace” does (e.g., 5:1; 8:6; 14:17). It represents the Hebrew word šālôm (shalom), meaning not merely the absence of conflict but also wholeness: having right relations with God, one another, and all creation. The architect of true peace is not Caesar or any other political power; it is the God of peace (15:33; 16:20; Phil 4:9; 1 Thess 5:23).

The phrase “the obedience of faith” (1:5) is also particularly important to Romans, which not only begins but also ends with a reference to it (16:26). As the letter unfolds, it will become clear that faith and obedience are not two separate responses to the gospel, one requiring or generating the other, but one unified response of obedient faith. Recent ways of rendering this phrase include “faithful obedience” (CEB), “believing obedience” (KNT), “believing allegiance,” and “covenantal believing allegiance.”⁴

This unity of faith and obedience is grounded in the fact that the gospel is a divine and royal announcement: it is the good news from God (1:1), promised in Scripture through the prophets (1:2), about God’s Son (1:3). Although Paul does not identify which prophets or which specific promises he has in mind, it is clear from Romans that he finds Scripture as a whole, and the prophet Isaiah in particular, as a multifaceted witness to the gospel he proclaims. The prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and Habakkuk also figure significantly in Romans, as does the entire Torah, and the Psalms also have a prominent place. For Paul, the entirety of Israel’s Scripture points toward the arrival and reign of Jesus as Messiah and Lord.

“The obedience of faith” may well be a phrase Paul coined to connect Jesus’ experience to that of believers. Jesus, God’s Son and the focal subject of the gospel, was both obedient and faithful to his Father (3:22, 26; 5:19).⁵ The gospel, therefore, is not simply to be believed but to be obeyed (Rom 10:16). To believe is to share in the Son’s obedience, which (as we will see) means to share in his death and resurrection (Rom 6). Paul proclaims Christ’s obedience/faithfulness in order to elicit a similar obedience/faithfulness from his hearers and readers, both ancient and contemporary.⁶ Jesus is “our Lord” (1:4; cf. 1:7), a title that also clearly implies a call to allegiance and obedience.

Jesus our Lord is also Jesus God’s Son (1:3–4). The Son Paul names here was not merely a Davidic descendant but is revealed, by God’s resurrection of him (cf. Gal 1:1), to be the promised Davidic Messiah, or royal Son of God (a messianic designation). The “Spirit of holiness” (1:4) powerfully at work in Christ’s resurrection is the same Spirit at work in all believers, as Paul will discuss at length in chapter 8.

It is likely that in 1:3–4 Paul is citing part of an early Christian creedal tradition that speaks of Christ’s exaltation. Neither the tradition nor Paul, however, holds an adoptionist Christology, as some interpreters have suggested: the belief that Christ was not the eternal, preexistent Son of God but a man who became Son of God through adoption at some later point (his baptism or his resurrection). The declaration (NRSV) of Jesus’ messiahship/sonship, sometimes understood as his appointment (NIV, NET) to messiahship/sonship, is a way of describing the resurrection as God’s vindication of Christ’s death and the commencement of his royal messianic reign. His nature has not changed, but his role in God the Father’s salvation project has been publicly announced with clarity.

This sort of confession about the significance of Christ’s resurrection and exaltation, as Phil 2:6–11 shows, does not contradict a belief in Christ’s preexistent divine status (see also Gal 4:4), even though preexistence is not explicitly mentioned by Paul (or the tradition he cites and affirms) in 1:3–4. The citation of early Christian tradition and the reference to Scripture (1:2) lend authority to Paul’s proclamation of the gospel and put him on common ground with the teachers and believers in Rome.

Summary

The importance of these first few lines of the letter, with their brief but poignant summary of the gospel, should not be underestimated. The emphasis is on Jesus’ royalty and resurrection. In conjunction with 1:16–17, which focuses on God’s righteousness, they tell us in summary form what the gospel is and what it does. References to Jesus as Son of God and Messiah (Christ) mean that he is the prophetically promised king who has inaugurated God’s salvation, righteousness, and justice in the world.

Such claims are implicitly a challenge to Rome, with its own claims to being the good news of universal sovereignty, salvation, and justice, embodied especially in its own royal figure, the emperor. Such claims about Jesus also implicitly invite Paul’s audience to participate in the universal dissemination of God’s gospel as the truly good news humanity needs and the proper alternative to any other alleged gospel of salvation, ancient or contemporary.

Having identified himself, the content of the gospel, and his letter’s recipients, Paul offers the Romans grace and peace (1:7b). In these first seven verses, then, Paul lets his addressees know that they and he—despite their different callings—share a common gospel experience of grace and a common response of believing allegiance that relates them to God the Father, Jesus the Messiah/Son and Lord, and the Spirit of holiness. The stage is set for Paul to narrate the saving work of the triune God and the human joy of benefiting from and participating in that salvation.⁷ But first, Paul needs to create a more personal rapport with his addressees, which he does in the following verses.

1:8–15. Thanksgiving, Intercession, and Hope

Most of Paul’s letters include a thanksgiving after the salutation. Paul does three main things in this particular thanksgiving, all of which help to establish his relationship with the Roman faithful. He speaks of grat...