Romans Chapter 1
Originally posted Wednesday, June 11, 2008
General Comment: We now embark on a
journey through the letters of Paul, beginning with Romans. It is not the first
letter Paul wrote, but it is the longest, and perhaps the most difficult. When
Paul's letters were first collected into one "book" (codex - pages of
parchment tied together) Ephesians was the first letter, serving as a
cover letter to all the Churches. There was no addressee until later when the
Salutation was added.
Paul's
letters (Epistles) are addressed to concrete situations within the Churches to
which he writes. Because many of the communities were made up of Gentile
converts there were immediate difficulties in ethical and cultural clashes
between the strong moral roots of Judaism and looser practices of the
Hellenistic culture. This may not be so apparent in Romans because the
Roman church was formed by Jewish Christians and Paul would not have
been aware of internal difficulties resulting from the inclusion of Gentiles.
Besides, his purpose in writing this letter is as a self introduction and a
broad description of the Gospel as he understands it. The letter is a review of
Paul's theology of salvation. At times it is rambling, with extended sentences
akin to stream of consciousness dictation to his scribe, Tertius.
Romans
was written from Corinth (ca. 58 CE) just prior to his trip to
Jerusalem to deliver the contributions taken up from the churches he had
planted.
Romans Chapter 1:1-7
Salutation
The
opening of Romans is similar to many of Paul's letters, following a typical
Greek format of salutation and thanksgiving. His first words are a self
identification to those who do not know him. He is "a servant (slave) of
Jesus Christ, an Apostle set apart for the Good News of God. In
creedal form Paul provides a brief outline of this Good News:
1) It was promised
through the prophets of scripture
2) It concerns God's Son
3) who was descended from David
"according to the flesh" (Royal lineage)
4) Was declared to be Son
of God by his resurrection from the dead (divine lineage)
5) Through Jesus
Christ as Lord Paul has received his apostleship
6) His calling is to
bring about faith among the Gentiles which includes the Romans
Several of
these points are common to what we have read in Acts and the four Gospels.
Others are more problematic. Paul's view of Jesus' birth through the
natural human agency (according to the flesh) and the circumstances
of Jesus' divinity (given through the Spirit at his resurrection) are widely
interpreted and debated as elements of church doctrine (1).
As
we read Paul's letters we will note the usual use of Jesus Christ as a
name and Lord as a title. Among the Gentiles the belief that Jesus was the
Messiah (Christ is Greek for anointed) was not stressed because there was
nothing in Gentile culture to which such an idea could be related. In
Paul's usage Christ is more a surname than a title. For Paul, Jesus is the
"Lord" and that is what he uses throughout his letters. It has two
advantages. First, in Judaism Lord (Hebrew Adnonai) is used as a substitute for
pronouncing the name of God, YAHWEH.
As in John's "higher" Christology" using Lord as a title for
Jesus indicates Paul's understanding that Jesus bears the name of God,
equivalent to John's use of I AM.
Second, in the Roman world "Lord" is the title of Emperors and
pagan deities always implying divinity. Paul will effectively use this
connection in his declaration, "there is only one Lord." Of course
that one Lord is not Caesar
and we should not underestimate how much of a threat this
proclamation of the One Lord who is not Caesar will have in Christian relations
with Imperial power. We cannot rightly understand Paul's character
without understanding his meaning of Lord.
Romans Chapter 1:8-15
Prayer of Thanksgiving
In
the second of the typical Pauline epistle elements he offers his thanks to
God. The content reads like an attempt to "get in their good graces"
through a bit of flattery. We can forgive him for this because he does have to
overcome whatever rumors and misinformation about him that may have accumulated
in their minds. So he thanks God because their faith is well known in all the
churches. He constantly keeps them in his prayers. He longs to see them so
he is praying that he can come to Rome to share a strengthening word. He
believes they will be mutually encouraged by each others' faith. He has
often desired to be with them to preach the Gospel among them in Rome as
he has elsewhere among the Gentiles.
Romans Chapter 1:16-17 The
Power of the Gospel
Sometimes
in Paul's letters it is difficult to know when one passage stops and another
begins. This passage could belong to vs. 8-15 with which it shares the theme of the Gospel.
But here Paul begins to present a number of theological points about the Gospel
which set it apart. He is not ashamed of the Gospel. He will preach it to
anyone in any place without fear or excuse. It does notcontain the power of God it is the power of God for salvation, to the Jew and Gentile
alike who believe. In the Gospel God's righteousness (not ours) is
revealed through God's faithfulness. Because the Gospel is the power of
God for salvation and God's righteousness is revealed through it whenever and
to whomever it is preached, the promise of God's intended coming
renewal of the world, the Kingdom which began with Jesus, is reaffirmed. So,
God's continuing faithfulness expressed in the Gospel is for us and for our
continued faith in the ultimate fulfillment of God's covenant promise. Simply
put (if that is possible) God's faithfulness is meant to call us to a
faithfulness that God will fulfill the promise of renewal (salvation).
Paul
closes this part of the Gospel discourse with a quote from Hab. 2:4. We will not fully understand
the meaning of this text until later. It is set in a time in which Israel
exists as an oppressed people in exile. God has promised deliverance and
renewal of Israel coincident with the destruction of the idolatrous oppressor.
The prophet declares God's faithful promise to the faithful remnant of
Israel, a promise to be faithfully kept in time. Whenever this faithful
remnant of Israel hears the prophecy proclaimed they are called
to continue in their faithfulness to their God and God's ultimate
delivery. Paul may have in mind the Christian churches, including
the one in Rome, existing in an idolatrous and evil time of rejection and
oppression from which God will ultimately deliver them and when all evil will
be destroyed. God's deliverance is an act of God's righteousness. In the Gospel
God faithfully reminds all Christians of this ultimate righteous event of
judgment and calls all Christians to remain faithful in their belief
in the promise.
Romans Chapter 1:18-32 The
Guilt of all Humanity
Paul
now begins to develop the thought behind vss 17-18 with the last phrase of vs. 18 as a transition. Paul has implied that the world is in
a mess - hardly deniable still. He now proceeds to write that all of humanity
has participated in making the mess. God's ultimate wrath (attendant with God's
ultimate renewal) is already revealed from heaven with the appearance of Jesus
who has uncovered the ungodliness of humanity. It is revealed against those who
suppress the truth by way of their ungodliness and injustice (the second
is the result of the first). The truth being suppressed is that ungodliness and
its monstrous offspring, injustice, have been revealed for what they
are by the one who has appeared as their judge and
the architect of a new age in which they will have no place.
In
Paul's historic reflection, this ungodliness came into the world as idolatry.
The natural world held enough of its own truth to make God known in the created
order. Even though invisible, God's presence was implied in nature and there
was no excuse to deny that reality, physically hidden though it was. In their denial
humanity did not honor or thank God or God's faithful beneficence. Instead,
with darkened minds, they represented what could not be seen with human made
images that could. The unrepresentable glory of the immortal was exchanged for
the representable images of nature to which they bowed down, served and
worshipped. The lie was easier to accept than the truth. Because they chose the
lie God "gave them up" to their evil and to evil's consequences. Paul
enumerates examples of their degradation in Temple prostitution, male and
female, homosexuality and "every kind of wickedness." The
wickedness leading to "the due penalty for their error" is not
limited to sexual immorality. It includes as equivalents envy,
murder, strife, deceit, craftiness (deviousness), gossip, slandering,
boastfulness, insolence, haughtiness, ruthlessness, disrespect for parents and
encouraging others to act in a likewise manner. Paul straightforwardly declares
that those who practice any of these deserve to die because they all represent
a rejection of God and the truth God has conveyed to humanity through Jesus (2).
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes
(1) The difficulty arises
from our tendency to read into the past our understanding of later events. We
practice a kind of "retrofitting" the present into the past. We saw
many examples of this in John's Gospel where the heated arguments between
Synagogue and Church at the end of the first century are read back into the
historical debates between Jesus and the Pharisees of his own
time.
(2) It is difficult to
understand Paul's catalog of sins in which all are held to be equally wicked as
any other one. How can sexual immorality and murder be lumped together with envy and
boastfulness? In Paul's Judaism and early Christianity any individual sin put
one in spiritual debt to God, requiring repentance. To sin was to be living in
a state of sinfulness, Sin with a capital "S." In Paul's list
committing any one sin makes one guilty of all sins. Committing of one sin is
representative of having accepted the lie and having exchanged the truth of
the God of the universe for the lie of one's self as Lord of life.
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