Introduction

FOUR YEARS AGO, my second son, David, went off to a secular college. He had been brought up in the church and attended Sunday school and youth group faithfully. He was raised in a Christian household, where the Bible was read and studied and the things of the Lord were regularly discussed. Yet he had not been at college long before he was deluging me with questions. “How do we Christians respond to the Buddhist view of God? What am I supposed to think about one of the nicest guys on campus—who just happens to be gay? What is wrong with New Age religion? How can I prove that there is such a thing as absolute truth?” Thrown into the cauldron of contemporary pluralism, David was floundering. He did not doubt his own faith, but he had serious problems figuring out just what his Christian convictions meant in the rough-and-tumble of intellectual debate.

David is not alone. Most Christians today are brought into direct touch with other religious options—at work, at school, at social gatherings—in ways that did not happen so often in the past. Meeting the challenge of Islam seemed easy when we learned rote responses out of a book; it may not seem as easy when we enter into discussion with a live Muslim who lives next door. What such conversations often expose is the pitifully shallow understanding of our own faith.

Many evangelical Christians sit in churches in which they are spoon-fed stock answers to current issues. They are against abortion, believe homosexual activity is a sin, and are against environmentalism. All too few put down roots into the soil of Christian theology deeply enough to know why they hold such views and to be able to distinguish between which ones are genuinely Christian and which the product of a politically oriented view of Christianity. For instance, opposition to abortion and homosexuality are, I think, genuinely Christian views. But, as a Christian environmentalist, I am distressed to hear brothers and sisters in my own church aping certain prominent radio preachers, lumping all environmentalists into the category of New Age tree huggers, and dismissing the whole movement as a secularist plot.

What we badly need is solid grounding in the Christian worldview. We need to know how to think “Christianly” about everything in our culture, not just what we happen to have been taught. If we are to be prepared to respond to the array of religious options in our culture and to live consistently Christian lives, we must operate from the broad perspective of the Christian understanding of God, the world, and human beings. If the church is to have a meaningful and persuasive voice in the “culture wars,” it will also have to enunciate clearly, lovingly, and persuasively the Christian interpretation of reality.

What does all this have to do with Romans? Lots. For Romans is, finally, about worldview. As most Christians know, Romans is “doctrinal.” That description scares many off, who are afraid that Romans will be both dry and difficult. It is certainly difficult at times. And preachers and teachers—to our shame—can sometimes make it pretty dry too. But think about what Romans teaches us: what human beings really are like and what they need, what God has done to provide a way of escape from our estrangement and mortality, and what a lifestyle that grows out of a Christian worldview looks like. Such topics should certainly not be dry or boring!

In fact, Romans is one of the most interesting and engaging books in the Bible—precisely because it shapes the way we think about so much of the universe we inhabit. I am convinced that the contemporary church desperately needs to grapple with what is going on in Romans. In the pages that follow, I hope I can help Christians to probe this wonderful book and bring its eternal message into our own situation. I intend to show how the truths that Romans teaches affect the practice of the faith. But, true to the nature and purpose of Romans, I have especially focused on what Romans tells us about how we are to think.

Thus far we have talked about Romans as a great doctrinal treatise, which it is. But we will badly misunderstand that doctrine unless we root it in the specific setting of the first-century church. Paul did not sit down one day and decide to write a textbook on doctrine. He wrote a letter. He wrote it to a specific church to handle some problems the church was facing. As we will argue below, those circumstances combined to turn Romans into a book that tackles basic issues of the Christian worldview. But only by recognizing the cultural setting for this statement of the Christian worldview will we be able rightly to understand and apply it. So in the pages that follow we will sketch the circumstances that we need to know if we are to apprehend accurately what God wants to teach us today through his inspired words in this letter to the Romans.

Paul

ROMANS CLAIMS TO be written by Paul the apostle (1:1)—or, we might more accurately say, composed by Paul, who uses Tertius as his “amanuensis,” or scribe, to “write down” what Paul dictates to him (see 16:22). The apostle tells us clearly what his situation is when he composes the letter. His reference to Cenchrea in 16:1 suggests he is staying in Corinth at the time, for Cenchrea was the seaport next to Corinth. He has finished an important stage of his missionary work; as he puts it in 15:19, “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.” The geography Paul describes here includes all the churches he has planted on his famous three “missionary journeys” (Acts 13–20), in south Galatia (Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe), and in the Roman provinces of Asia (Ephesus), Macedonia (Philippi, Thessalonica), and Achaia (Corinth).

Now Paul is ready for a fresh challenge, to plant churches in completely new territory. He has decided that territory will be Spain (Rom. 15:23–24, 28). But before he goes there, he intends to return to Jerusalem to hand over to the church there the money he has been collecting from the Gentile churches (15:25–27). Then on his way from Jerusalem to Spain, Paul plans to stop off in Rome (15:23–24, 29).

From these references, it is clear that Paul writes Romans while in Corinth during the third missionary journey (Acts 20:2–3). This is probably in A.D. 57, give or take a year. What is most significant for our understanding of Romans is the sense Paul gives us of having reached an important transition point in his missionary career. He has been preaching the gospel for almost twenty-five years; he has planted thriving churches over much of the northeastern Mediterranean part of the Roman empire; he has hammered out his theology on the anvil of pastoral problems and debates with opposing factions. He thus writes Romans during a lull in his ministry, at a time when he can reflect on what he has come to believe and what it may mean for the church.

These circumstances help explain why we find so much general doctrinal discussion in Romans. Yet without taking anything away from this point, we must also recall that Romans is “Romans”—that is, Paul sends it as a letter to Christians living in Rome. Surely their circumstances are as important in determining the shape of this letter as are Paul’s.

Rome

WHAT DO WE know about these Christians in Rome? The book of Acts tells us nothing about the founding of the church. But Luke does tell us that Jews from Rome were among those who saw the pouring out of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (2:10). We may surmise that some of them were among the three thousand converted on that day (2:41) and that they brought their new belief in Jesus as Messiah back with them to Rome. So the church in Rome, as the church father Ambrosiaster later claimed, probably had its origins in the synagogue.1

There were many synagogues in Rome by the first century A.D.; enough Jews had emigrated to Rome to make up a significant portion of the population.2 But if the church was Jewish in origin, it probably added a significant Gentile element at an early time. Many of the initial Gentile converts would have come from the ranks of the “God-fearers,” those Gentiles who were not full-fledged Jews because they were not circumcised, but who attended the synagogue and followed the teachings of Judaism.

The Jewish character of Christianity in Rome suddenly and drastically changed. In A.D. 49 Emperor Claudius, out of exasperation with squabbles among the Jews about Chrestus (probably a reference to Jesus’ claims to be the “Christ”), issued an edict that required all Jews to leave Rome.3 Jewish-Christians (like Priscilla and Aquila; cf. Acts 18:2) would have been included. Overnight, therefore, the church in Rome became virtually 100 percent Gentile.

By the time Paul writes, Jews were allowed back into Rome (see, again, Priscilla and Aquila, Rom. 16:3). But they came back to a church dominated by Gentiles. One can imagine the kind of social tension that such a situation would create. Jews, who stand in the heritage from which Christianity has sprung and who were at one time the leaders of the community, now find themselves in a minority. Several key emphases of the letter make good sense against this background: the preoccupation with the Jewish law and its place in the life of Christians (e.g., Rom. 7), Paul’s scolding of the Gentile Christians for their arrogance (11:18–23, 25; cf. 13–14), and, most of all, his admonitions to the strong and the weak (14:1–15:13).4

The Letter to the Romans

HAVING BRIEFLY SURVEYED the circumstances of Paul and the Roman church, we are now in a position to turn to the letter itself. Six issues relevant to the way we read the letter need to be clarified: its integrity, form, audience, purpose, theme, and structure.

Integrity

IN A LITERARY context, a book’s integrity refers to its textual coherence. In other words, we inquire about whether the sixteen-chapter text of Romans that we have in our Bibles is a single letter written by Paul on one occasion. A number of scholars have questioned this point, and they have some evidence in the manuscripts to back up their questions. While only a few late and insignificant witnesses leave out any substantial portion of Romans, several early and important manuscripts rearrange the text. One, for instance, puts the doxology (16:25–27) at the end of chapter 15 (the early papyrus p⁴⁶), while several others put it after chapter 14 (the uncials A, P, and Y, as well as several minuscules).

These differences have led to various theories about the original form of Romans. The most popular of these holds that Paul’s original letter to the Romans consisted of 1:1–15:33. Chapter 16 was added when Paul sent a copy of the letter to the church at Ephesus. This theory explains the many greetings in chapter 16, which seem strange in a letter written to a church Paul has never visited but makes perfect sense in a letter to a church he knows intimately.5 But few modern scholars follow this theory—or others like it. No significant manuscript of Romans omits chapter 16. The differing placements of the doxology probably reflect the efforts of editors to “generalize” the message of Romans for the church.6 Paul can greet so many people in Rome because he has encountered so many of them during the time of their exile. Virtually all modern commentators treat the text printed in our modern Greek testaments and translated into our English versions as substantially the original text Paul wrote to the Roman Christians.

Form

ROMANS IS A letter, but what kind of letter? Ancient people wrote many different kinds of letters, ranging from brief family notes (“Dear Dad: Send money”) to long, literary compositions intended for publication. Paul’s letters clearly fall between these extremes. All of them—even those to individuals, like 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon—have broad pastoral purposes. But none of them has the self-conscious literary preoccupation that marks the “public” letter. They are all written to specific people or churches and deal with issues specific (if not limited to) those addressees.

Yet Romans (we can also add Ephesians) is the letter least ostensibly specific. Its opening (1:1–15) and closing (15:14–16:27) mark it clearly as a letter. But what is remarkable is the way the body of the letter develops by its own internal logic. Paul does not seem to be dealing with issues and problems presented to him by the church but to be mounting an argument that proceeds by its own inertia. Paul clearly thinks his argument has relevance to situations in the Roman community. This becomes explicit in chapter 11, as he uses his argument about Israel’s place in salvation history to berate Gentiles in Rome for arrogance. Moreover, 14:1–15:13 is directed to a specific situation in Rome. But even this text, which has a parallel in 1 Corinthians 8–10, focuses more on principles than on specifics.

The body of Romans, then, is in the form of a tractate or treatise. In it Paul addresses basic theological issues against the backdrop of early Christianity and with reference to some affairs in the Roman community. But these contexts do play a large role in dictating the topics he treats. The tradition of viewing Romans as a kind of mini-systematic theology founders on just this selectivity. What systematic theology would omit a significant discussion of Christology, or eschatology, or ecclesiology—as Romans does? And what systematic theology would focus so relentlessly on issues such as Jewish-Gentile relationships and the place of the Mosaic law in the history of salvation?

In other words, Romans is theological through and through—but it is occasional, not systematic theology. The first-century situation of the church at large and the church in Rome in particular leads Paul to develop his theology on certain particular issues. But in God’s providence, those situations are such that Paul ends up addressing issues of perennial theological significance.

Audience

THE CHURCH AT Rome, as we have seen, was made up of both Jews and Gentiles, with Gentiles having recently become the majority group. Paul’s letter seems to reflect just this balance.

Paul reflects the Gentile dominance by treating the church as a Gentile community. He addresses himself to “you [Gentiles]” (1:6; cf. comments on 1:5) and treats the Roman church as one that belongs within his province as “minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles” (15:15–16; cf. 1:13). He directly addresses Gentile Christians in 11:13–25. Yet he also gives evidence that he has Jewish Christians in view. He greets several of his “relatives” in chapter 16 (vv. 7, 11); and Priscilla and Aquila (16:3–4) are also, of course, Jewish. He calls Abraham “our forefather” (4:1) and claims in 7:1 to be addressing “[those] who know the law.” And, of course, the letter is shot through with motifs especially significant for Jewish Christians: the failure of the old covenant (ch. 2), the Mosaic law (3:20, 31; 4:15; 5:13–14, 20; 6:14, 15; ch. 7; 9:30–10:8), and Israel’s place in salvation history (chs. 9–11).

A few scholars have tried to minimize one side of this evidence or the other, arguing that the letter is addressed only to Jewish Christians7 or only to Gentile Christians.8 But such conclusions can only be achieved by suppressing one side of the evidence or the other. With the large majority of modern scholars, therefore, we conclude that Paul’s audience in Romans includes both Gentile and Jewish Christians, with Gentile Christians in the majority.9

Purpose

WHY DOES PAUL write this particular letter to the Roman church? Since he gives no clear answer to that question in the letter itself, scholars have had a field day in supplying their own answers. We may group the options within two categories: theories that focus on Paul’s own circumstances, and theories that focus on the circumstances of the Roman church.

Theories focusing on Paul’s circumstances. The three main theories in this category are related to places that Paul mentions, or that are implicit, in Romans 15.

Corinth. As we have seen, Paul writes from Corinth. We have also noted that Paul’s stay in Corinth marks a significant transition point in his ministry. He has a kind of “breathing space” after the hectic years of ministry in the east and before he heads on to Jerusalem, Rome, and Spain. One explanation of Romans, then, is that it is a kind of summary of Paul’s theological beliefs that he draws up during that hiatus in missionary work.10 We may agree that Romans reflects the mature thinking of an apostle seasoned by years of ministry and controversy. But this theory does not explain why Paul sends this letter to Rome.

Jerusalem. The next stop on Paul’s itinerary is Jerusalem, where he plans to deliver to the Jewish Christians the money he has been collecting from the Gentile churches he founded. Paul is clearly concerned about this ministry and how it will be received (15:30–32). He wants it to be a tangible witness to the unity between Jews and Gentiles in the church. Thus, as J. Jervell has suggested, Paul is so preoccupied with this issue that he delivers in Romans the speech he hopes to make in Jerusalem.11 Again, there is something to this idea. The collection is important for Paul, and it may have played a role in setting the agenda of Romans. But the collection is not that important. Why would Paul choose Rome as the recipient of such a speech?

Spain. Paul’s ultimate destination is Spain. As he clearly hints in 15:24, he is coming to Rome, among other things, to get the Romans to help him with that mission. But Paul has never been to Rome. Moreover, he is a controversial figure in the early church. As both a faithful Jew and God’s “point man” in opening the Gentile mission, he has been constantly under suspicion. Jewish Christians thought he was giving too much of the old tradition away, whereas Gentile Christians thought he was still too Jewish. A lot of false rumors about what he teaches and does swirl around him (cf. 3:8). Paul therefore probably knows he is going to have to clear the air if he expects the Romans to support him. Thus, it is argued, he writes Romans to clarify just what he believes.

Romans, in other words, is his “doctrinal statement,” sent on ahead to demonstrate his orthodoxy and worthiness of missionary support.12 Most scholars agree that this purpose plays some role in Romans. I, myself, think it is a significant reason for Paul’s writing. But it still does not explain everything about Romans. Indeed, any explanation of the letter that does not take into account some of the specifics about the Romans themselves is finally inadequate.

Theories focusing on the Romans’ circumstances. Modern scholars insist that Romans, as a real letter, must have been written to respond to the needs of the Roman congregation. That much can be granted, though some scholars—I think, illegitimately—confine those needs to practical ones. Could not the Romans have had a general need to be informed about various Christian beliefs—a need Paul satisfies by writing a theological treatise? One cannot dismiss the possibility that Romans is a theological tractate simply by appealing to its epistolary form.

Nevertheless, the evidence of the letter itself suggests that at least one specific circumstance in the Roman community plays a significant role in Paul’s purpose in Romans. I refer to the section on the strong and the weak (14:1–15:13). Contemporary scholars generally agree that the debate between these two groups in Rome reflects the community’s division between Gentile and Jewish Christians. Paul implies that these two groups are divided over whether believers need to obey certain provisions of the Mosaic law. (See comments on this section in the commentary.) A popular theory about the letter’s purpose today, then, is that Paul writes Romans to help heal this division. Romans 14:1–15:13 represents the heart of the letter; the theology of the earlier chapters simply prepares the way for this climactic appeal.13

The very presence of this section in the letter makes it clear that we must include Paul’s desire to reconcile these two parties in Rome as part of his purpose in Romans. Moreover, the theological focus on Jews and Gentiles in many parts of the letter also fits this purpose well. But Paul raises other theological issues in Romans, not so clearly related to this dispute (see esp. chs. 5–8). In addition, if this were Paul’s only purpose, it is difficult to explain why he includes the exhortations in chapters 12–13.

Paul’s purpose in Romans, therefore, cannot be restricted to any one of these suggestions. He has several “reasons for Romans.”14 But the various purposes share a common denominator: Paul’s missionary situation.15 The past battles to define and defend the gospel, the coming crisis in Jerusalem, the need to secure a logistical base for his outreach in Spain, the importance of unifying the Roman Christians around a common vision of the gospel—all these specific purposes conspire to lead Paul to rehearse his understanding of the gospel.

What is the “good news” of Jesus Christ? Why do people need to hear it? How can they experience it? What will it mean for their future? And what does the good news have to do with everyday life? These large and basic questions form Paul’s agenda in Romans—an agenda dictated by a combination of circumstances and purposes. These same purposes force Paul to concentrate attention especially on one particular question: What does the gospel mean for the flow of salvation history? Or, broken down into some of its specific components, does the Old Testament and the good news about Jesus fit into one coherent plan of God? What happens to the law of Moses or to God’s promise to Israel? The breaking of the “ethnic boundary” of Israel by the introduction of Gentiles into the people of God makes this question critical to Christian self-definition.

The salvation-historical issue, with all its various facets, was at the center of the early Christian movement as it sought to define itself over against both Judaism and paganism. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, at Rome as elsewhere, have different opinions on these matters. Paul must therefore address in Romans the very nature of the gospel. Because he does so, it has a purpose that transcends its immediate circumstances. By tackling such fundamental theological issues, Paul writes a letter that makes an enduring and vital contribution to Christians’ understanding of who they are and what they believe. As Luther therefore said:

Theme

WE HAVE INEVITABLY begun to discuss the theme of Romans in examining its purpose. But we now want to address this matter more directly. Two preliminary points should be made. (1) We must beware the danger of reductionism, that is, the assumption that Romans must have a single, overarching theme. We frequently oversimplify biblical books by sticking a convenient tag on them. Philippians is “about” joy; Ephesians is “about” the church; 1 Thessalonians is “about” eschatology, etc. While these tags may help us recall some of the key features of these books, they can also become a straightjacket that forces everything in the letter into one narrow channel. A letter need not be about only one thing. Only if we can honestly and fairly fit most of the content of a book under a certain theme should we propose it as a serious option.

(2) In talking about the theme of Romans, we are also opening up an important and controversial issue in current assessments of the letter—and indeed, of all of Paul’s theology. The issue could not be more fundamental: What is Romans basically about? Is it about the individual sinner’s restoration to fellowship with God? Or is it about the extension of God’s grace to Gentiles in the new era of salvation history? Is Romans oriented vertically (God-man) or horizontally (Jew-Gentile)?

Of course, casting the issue in such stark alternatives grossly oversimplifies it. Almost all scholars acknowledge that both play some role in the letter. But these two alternatives do help us to conceptualize the issue by establishing the ends of the spectrum of opinion. Our answer to this question will dictate our reading strategy and have a big impact on our interpretation of text after text. The smaller pieces of the puzzle only make sense in light of the big picture.

A quick historical sketch will introduce some of the key options and issues. The Reformers and their heirs have located the essence of Romans in the individual’s relationship to God. “Justification by faith” was often isolated as the key idea of the letter. Many of us have absorbed this way of thinking about Romans. If asked what Romans is basically about, we tend to respond in terms of the old “Romans Road” of salvation: how a person can move from wrath to glory by accepting the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross by faith.

This way of reading Romans received its first serious challenge in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when a few scholars began arguing that justification is not really an important issue in Romans. It is little more than a “battle doctrine” that Paul formulates in debate with Jews. The real theme of Romans lies not in the justification language of chapters 1–4 but in the “mystical union” concept of chapters 5–8.17

But a more serious blow to the individualist approach to Romans is the claim that Paul simply would not think in such personal categories. In a famous article, Krister Stendahl argued that generations of scholars have read into Paul, and Romans, a modern preoccupation with the individual that is simply not present in Paul’s day. Luther’s question was, “How can a sinner get right with a wrathful God?” But that is not Paul’s question. Typical of the corporate way of thinking at that time, he wants to answer the question: “How can Jews and Gentiles cohere in one people of God?”18

Stendahl’s general approach has been widely adopted in recent scholarship on Romans. The heart of Romans is not found in either chapters 1–4 (“justification by faith”) or chapters 5–8 (“mystical union with Christ”) but in chapters 9–11: Who now constitutes the people of God? This approach is part of a larger revolution in approaches to Paul and Judaism, dubbed the “new perspective on Paul.” One of the best advocates of this approach is James D. G. Dunn, and his commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary series is the most reasonable attempt to explain Romans from that new perspective.

What are we to make of all this? As I write, these questions are still being sharply debated; no consensus has emerged—perhaps because each “side” in the debate has some truth. The modern scholars who focus on the “people” issue in Romans have rightly put their finger on a key motif in the letter. Paul is constantly bringing in the issue of Jew and Gentile, from the theme of the letter on (“first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” [1:16]). Hardly a topic goes by without Paul’s bringing in this facet of the issue. Romans 9–11 are clearly directed to this issue. It will simply not do, as a few older commentators did, to try to fit these chapters under an “individual” approach by making their topic predestination.

But many modern scholars have gone too far in this direction, unfairly minimizing the great amount of material in Romans that is about the individual. When Paul sketches the human predicament in chapters 1–3, he shows how it specifically affects both Jew and Gentile. But the predicament, at bottom, is a human one—not a Jewish or a Gentile one. The salvation offered in Christ through faith (3:21–4:25) is also profoundly individualistic: Each person must accept the gift for himself or herself. Similarly, in chapters 5–8 it is the individual who is rescued from death in Adam by the obedience of Christ and who is promised glory with God in the last day. The individual, of course, is always part of a larger body—whether “in Adam” or “in Christ.” I have no desire to minimize the importance of the corporate element in Paul. But Paul is ultimately concerned with the individual.

What, then, is Romans about? I am uncomfortable with both of the “stock” answers. Justification by faith is, I think, an absolutely vital teaching in the letter, but I don’t think it is broad enough to “cover” the content of Romans as a whole. Gentile inclusion is likewise a vital part of the letter—but it is more of a motif that runs through the whole than a theme. The best candidate for the theme of Romans, I would argue, is the “gospel.” Paul highlights this concept in the opening and closing sections of the letter (1:1, 2, 9, 15; 15:16, 19), and it is the key word in his own statement of the letter’s theme: “I am not ashamed of the gospel …” (1:16). We require a theme as broad as the gospel to encompass the diversity of topics the apostle handles in the letter. Moreover, as I have argued, Romans grows out Paul’s missionary situation, and the gospel he preaches is the heart of that missionary work.

Structure

J. C. BEKER has warned about forcing “architectonic” structures on New Testament letters that were never written with such logical precision in mind.19 His warning is well-taken. We can easily force material out of the shape that the original author intended by insisting that it fit into the mold of our “outline” form. But for all their drawbacks, outlines do help us get a picture of where a book is going. And Romans, precisely because it is so logical in orientation, invites us to seek its underlying structure and movement.

My own outline of Romans reflects my decision about its theme. I therefore use the “gospel” as the overarching rubric. Most scholars agree on the divisions of the text that you find below, although they do not, of course, agree on the titles I have given the sections. The greatest disagreement over text division comes with chapter 5. Many think this is the concluding part of the first main section of the letter rather than (as I have made it) the beginning of the second main section. Please see comments on chapter 5 for why I have divided it this way.