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Romans 1:1ā6
1. Paul and the gospel
Letter-writing conventions vary from culture to culture. Our modern way is to address our correspondent first (āDear Joanā) and to identify ourselves only at the end (āYours sincerely, Johnā). In the ancient world, however, the custom was to reverse the order, the writer announcing himself or herself first and the correspondent next (āJohn to Joan, greetings!ā). Paul normally followed the convention of his day, but here he deviates from it by giving a much more elaborate description of himself than usual, in relation to the gospel. The reason is probably that he did not found the church in Rome. Nor has he yet visited it. He feels the need, therefore, to establish his credentials as an apostle and to summarize his gospel. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, he begins.
āServantā is doulos and should really be translated āslaveā. In the Old Testament there was an honourable succession of individual Israelites, beginning with Moses and Joshua, who called themselves Yahwehās āservantsā or āslavesā (e.g. āTruly I am your servant, Lordā),1 while Yahweh also designated Israel collectively āmy servantā.2 In the New Testament, however, it is remarkable how easily the title āLordā has been transferred from Yahweh to Jesus (e.g. verses 4, 7), while the Lordās āservantsā are no longer Israel, but all his people, irrespective of whether they are Jews or Gentiles.
āApostleā, on the other hand, was a distinctively Christian name from the beginning, in that Jesus himself chose it as his designation of the Twelve,3 and Paul claimed to have been added to their number.4 The distinctive qualifications of the apostles were that they were directly and personally called and commissioned by Jesus, that they were eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus, at least (and specially) of his resurrection,5 and that they were sent out by him to preach with his authority. The New Testament apostle thus resembled both the Old Testament prophet, who was ācalledā and āsentā by Yahweh to speak in his name, and the Å”ÄlĆ®ahĢ£ of rabbinic Judaism, who was āan authorized representative or delegate, legally empowered to act (within prescribed limits) on behalf of his principalā.6 It is against this double background that the apostleās authoritative teaching role is to be understood.
Paulās twofold designation as āslaveā and āapostleā is particularly striking when these words are contrasted with one another. First, āslaveā is a title of great humility; it expressed Paulās sense of personal insignificance, without rights of his own, having been purchased to belong to Christ. āApostleā, on the other hand, was a title of great authority; it expressed his sense of official privilege and dignity by reason of his appointment by Jesus Christ. Second, āslaveā is a general Christian word (every disciple looks to Jesus Christ as Lord), whereas āapostleā is a special title (reserved for the Twelve and Paul and perhaps one or two others such as James). As an apostle, he had been set apart for the gospel of God.
How did Paul intend his readers to understand his reference to having been set apart? The verb aphoĢrismenos has the same root meaning as āPhariseeā (pharisaios). Was this deliberate, since Paul had been a Pharisee?7 Anders Nygren, for example, reflecting his Lutheran tradition, writes that
as a Pharisee Paul had set himself apart for the law, but now God had set him apart for . . . the gospel . . . Thus in the very first verse of this epistle we encounter the letterās basic juxtaposition of law and gospel which, from one point of view, is the theme of Romans.8
It is questionable, however, whether Paulās readers would have picked up this play on words. In his own mind Paul is more likely to have seen a parallel between his consecration to be an apostle and Jeremiahās to be a prophet. For in Galatians Paul wrote that God had set him apart (using the same word) from birth, and then called him to preach Christ to the Gentiles,9 just as God had said to Jeremiah: ābefore you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.ā10 We need, therefore, to think of Paulās Damascus road encounter with Christ not only as his conversion but as his commissioning to be an apostle (egoĢ apostelloĢ se, āI send youā, āI make you an apostleā),11 and especially to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
Paulās two verbal expressions, then, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, belong inseparably together. We cannot think of āapostleā without thinking of āgospelā, and vice versa. As an apostle, it was Paulās responsibility to receive, formulate, defend, maintain and proclaim the gospel, and so combine the roles of trustee, advocate and herald. As Professor Cranfield has put it, the apostleās function was āto serve the gospel by an authoritative and normative proclamation of itā.12
Paul now proceeds to give a six-point analysis of the gospel, to which he has been set apart.
1. The origin of the gospel is God
āGod is the most important word in this epistle,ā Dr Leon Morris has written. āRomans is a book about God. No topic is treated with anything like the frequency of God. Everything Paul touches in this letter he relates to God . . . There is nothing like it elsewhere.ā13 So the Christian good news is the gospel of God. The apostles did not invent it; it was revealed and entrusted to them by God.
This is still the first and most basic conviction which underlies all authentic evangelism. What we have to share with others is neither a collection of human speculations, nor one more religion to add to the rest, nor really a religion at all. It is rather the gospel of God, Godās own good news for a lost world. Without this conviction, evangelism is emptied of its content, purpose and drive.
2. The attestation of the gospel is Scripture
The gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures (2). That is to say, although God revealed the gospel to the apostles, it did not come to them as something completely new, because he had already promised it through his prophets in Old Testament Scripture. There is, in fact, an essential continuity between the Old Testament and the New. Jesus himself was quite clear that the Scriptures bore witness to him, that he was the son of man of Daniel 7 and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, and that, as it had been written, he had to suffer in order to enter into his glory.14 In Acts we hear Peter quoting the Old Testament in reference to Jesusā resurrection, exaltation and gift of the Spirit.15 We also watch Paul reasoning with people out of the Scriptures that the Christ must suffer and rise, and that he was Jesus.16 He similarly insisted that it was āaccording to the Scripturesā that Christ both died for our sins and was raised on the third day.17 In this way both the Law and the Prophets pointed to the truth of the gospel (3:21; cf. 1:17).
We have reason, then, to be thankful that the gospel of God has a double confirmation, namely the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New. Both bear witness to Jesus Christ, and this is what Paul comes to next.
3. The substance of the gospel is Jesus Christ
If we bring verses 1 and 3 together, by skipping the aside of verse 2, we are left with the statement that Paul was set apart for the gospel of God regarding his Son. For the gospel of God is āthe gospel of his Sonā (9). Godās good news is about Jesus. As Luther put it in his comment on this verse: āHere the door is thrown open wide for the understanding of Holy Scripture, that is, that everything must be understood in relation to Christ.ā18 Calvin writes similarly that āthe whole gospel is contained in Christā. Therefore, āto move even a step from Christ means to withdraw oneself from the gospelā.19
Paul now describes him by two contrasting clauses: who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David (3), and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord (4). Here are references, direct or indirect, to the birth (descended from David), death (presupposed by his resurrection), resurrection from the dead, and reign (on Davidās throne) of Jesus Christ. The parallels here are so neatly and carefully constructed that many scholars have guessed that Paul is making use of a fragment from an early creed. If so, he now gives it his apostolic endorsement. It expresses the contrast between two titles (seed of David and Son of God), between two verbs (he āwas a descendant of Davidā, but was appointed Godās Son) and between two qualifying clauses (kata sarka, āaccording to fleshā, and kata pneuma hagioĢsyneĢs, literally, āaccording to spirit of holinessā).
First, the two titles. āSon of Davidā was a universally recognized title for the Messiah.20 So was āSon of Godā, based particularly on Psalm 2:7. The way Jesus himself understood it, however, as seen both in his personal approach to God as āAbba, Fatherā and in referring to himself absolutely as āthe Sonā,21 already indicates that the designation is divine, not merely messianic. Paul evidently used it like this ā not only in 1:3ā4 and 9, but also, for example, in 5:10 and 8:3, 32. The two titles together speak, therefore, of his humanity and his deity.
Of the two verbs, the first causes little difficulty. It evidently refers to Jesusā descent from David by birth (and maybe by adoption too, since Joseph acknowledged him as his son). The second verb, however, raises a problem. The translation appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead is easy enough to understand. But the trouble is that the New Testament does not teach that Jesus was appointed, established or installed Son of God at or by the resurrection, since he has been the Son of God eternally. This leads to the suggestion that the words āin powerā should be attached to the noun āSon of Godā rather than to th...
