Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Romans

John Reumann, James D. G. Dunn, John W. Rogerson

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781467454384
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

This extract from the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible provides Reumann's introduction to and concise commentary on Romans. The  Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible presents, in nontechnical language, the best of modern scholarship on each book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Reader-friendly commentary complements succinct summaries of each section of the text and will be valuable to scholars, students, and general readers.
 
Rather than attempt a verse-by-verse analysis, these volumes work from larger sense units, highlighting the place of each passage within the overarching biblical story. Commentators focus on the genre of each text—parable, prophetic oracle, legal code, and so on—interpreting within the historical and literary context.
 
The volumes also address major issues within each biblical book—including the range of possible interpretations—and refer readers to the best resources for further discussions.

Romans

John Reumann

INTRODUCTION

The Letter of Paul to the Romans, as his longest extant document (7,094 words in Greek), stands for reasons besides length at the head of the Pauline corpus. Romans has overshadowed all Paul’s other letters in giving voice to “the divine Apostle,” as the church fathers called him, and over the centuries has proved to be, in the opinion of Luther and others, the gospel in its purest form. Its contents have again and again been decisive in the history of theology for dominant perspectives from Paul (Fitzmyer 1968: #79).

These include such classical themes as justification (3:20–26), salvation (1:16; 5:9–10; 8:24), reconciliation (5:10–11), expiation or atonement (3:25), redemption (3:24), freedom (6:20; 7:3; 8:1–2), sanctification (1:7, saints; 6:22; 15:16), transformation (12:2), new life in Christ (6:4–5, 23; 8:29), and glorification (8:18, 21, 30), not to mention gospel (1:16), sin and the human condition (3:23 as the summary of 1:18–3:20), predestination (8:29–30; 9:11–29), the Spirit (ch. 8) and spiritual charismata (1:11; 12:6–8), Israel (chs. 9–11), the law (2:12–27; 3:19–31; ch. 7; and elsewhere), life in Christian community and within the (pagan) state (chs. 12:1–15:13), and the coherent combining of such themes (8:29–30) through God’s plan or “salvation history” (Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and the Christ to come) and in terms of God and the divine righteousness. Indeed, the text of Romans has taken on a life of its own after leaving the hands of Paul and his scribe (16:23).

The study of Romans in this new millennium—Anno Domini is a confession about the significance of Jesus Christ of which Paul would have approved, though he would have reckoned the decisive turn from Jesus’ death and resurrection, not Jesus’ birth—often continues the theological interests of the 1,940-plus years since Paul wrote to the Christians in the empire’s capital and the historical concerns of the last two hundred years or so. But now literary, sociological, and rhetorical interests also inform some recent approaches (Byrne: 2–8). Attention must therefore be given to Paul’s circumstances as he wrote, the situation in Rome (insofar as we can ascertain it), and the text and its afterlife as a document that has struck readers differently over the centuries and today. These aspects so interrelate that we must move back and forth among them in introducing Romans for today.

1. Paul’s Circumstances

During a stay in Greece, his work in Macedonia and Achaia well in hand (Rom 15:23, 26), Paul found the time right to begin his proposed mission to Spain, via Rome (15:24, 28). He writes to the Roman Christians while being hosted by Gaius (16:23), in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor 1:14), a city that had been a stormy center for his mission work (cf. 1 Cor 16:5–7; 2 Corinthians), along with Ephesus (Acts 19; 1 Cor 16:8). Acts 20:3 speaks of a three-month stay, probably during the winter months (likely in AD 57–58) when travel was difficult. The Pauline strategy of starting urban churches, whence the message might advance into the hinterlands, was working, with the evangelization of Macedonia and Illyricum (modern Albania, Rom 15:19), likely out of Philippi; of Achaia, out of Corinth and Cenchreae (16:1); and of the province of Asia, out of Ephesus and through converts like Philemon and his house church in the Lycus valley (Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis, Col 4:13–17).

More particularly, things were in readiness to deliver to Jerusalem the collection for the poor among the Christians there (Rom 15:25–27), a project on which Paul had spent much effort over several years (1 Cor 16:1–4; 2 Corinthians 8 and 9). It went back to an agreement with the leaders in Jerusalem (Gal 2:10) but had become for Paul a way not only of sharing but also of acquainting his primarily Gentile communities with Jewish Christianity in Judea’s sacred city. Gentile Christians would share material resources in thanks for spiritual blessing originating in the place where Jesus died (15:27). Paul looked on the trip to Jerusalem with certain fears, danger from unbelievers in Judea or that the gift would not be accepted (15:30–31). But this show of solidarity accomplished in Jerusalem, he hoped to go on to Rome for joyful and refreshing rest, prior to proceeding to Spain (15:32).

Thus Paul, perhaps in his early fifties, writes that “from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ” (15:19)—rhetorical hyperbole but reflective of his strategy of having mission teams and congregational cells advance the word in an arc across the Eastern Mediterranean. Now new ventures beckon, an ambition to preach in lands where Christ has not already been named (15:20–21). In Spain he would start afresh. But to contact Rome meant approaching a place where the foundations of Christianity were already laid. That put him in conflict with his own principle, not to encroach on others’ fields of labor (2 Cor 10:14–16). Apostle to the Gentiles though he was, Paul knew it was a delicate matter to gain entrée at Rome.

2. The Situation at Rome

No one knows how Christianity in the capital city was begun or when. Perhaps it was passed on by Jewish-Christian merchants and travelers from Palestine, among the sizable Jewish population in Rome. Acts 2:10 suggests that Jews and proselytes from Rome were in Jerusalem at Pentecost. The historian Suetonius reports that the Emperor Claudius, “since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, expelled them from Rome” (in AD 49; 42 on Luedemann’s all-too-early chronology; Claudius 25.4). The reference is most likely to conflicts in the Jewish community over Christ, or perhaps among Jewish Christian groups over whether to extend their mission to Gentiles. Some of the expellees moved east, among them Aquila and Prisc(ill) a, with whom Paul worked in Corinth (Acts 18:1–3) and whose house church in Ephesus is mentioned in 1 Cor 16:19. They are among those greeted in Rome 16:3–4, now that they are back in Rome after the death of Claudius in 54. This couple provides one example of Jewish Christians from Rome whom Paul could have met in the Aegean area, and whom he could greet in Rome as he writes (16:5–15).

If many or most Jewish Christians in Rome were expelled from Rome for a time, does that mean that in the interim the Christian community there became predominantly Gentile? Proselytes in the synagogue and fresh converts from paganism then took over the church in Rome. Once Jewish Christians were allowed back, however, there was an integration problem if not a power struggle. The situation can be related to those described in Romans as “weak in faith” (14:1, 2) and “the strong” (15:1), in the main Jewish Christians and Gentile believers respectively. The former were punctilious over food, drink, and their calendars (14:2, 5, 21), the latter robust in lifestyle. Paul spends a considerable amount of papyrus on these matters (14:1–15:13) and urges the two groups to “welcome one another” (15:7). Cf. Donfried, Wiefel, Bruce, Wedderburn, and others in The Romans Debate.

There is another detail in Romans that has been tied to events in the empire. At 13:1–7 Christians are urged to be good citizens, subject to the state, paying direct taxes and indirect tolls. While some have seen the verses to be directed against dangers from Zealot political rebellion (but there weren’t Zealots as yet), another background has been proposed. Nero, in his period of exemplary rule, gave heed to cries of protest against unjust collection of taxes by the publicani and was said by Tacitus (Ann. 13.50–51; cf. Suetonius Nero 10.1) to have even considered abolishing indirect taxes. This would have been in AD 58. Paul’s advice, along traditional Jewish lines, urges Christians not to get caught up in the unrest of the times over taxation. Cf. Fitzmyer 1968: 30–36; Byrne: 11–13.

Such reconstructions of the situation give Romans a pertinent setting in the social, political, and ecclesial happenings of the day. To know the historical occasion clarifies passages and makes the theological content more meaningful. But others contend that theological sense does not depend on historical conjecture (Childs: 248–50, 262–63). All this relates to a broader discussion over whether Romans is a rather timeless compendium of teachings or a quite specific treatment of issues in the Rome of Paul’s day (cf. Karris, Jervell, and others in The Romans Debate). References to the “strong” and the “weak” could simply be a replay of an earlier issue in Corinth (1 Cor 8:8–13; 10:23–30). The matters are complicated by some textual issues. On Christianity in Rome see the article by G. F. Snyder in ABD, 1:968–70.

3. Paul’s Greek Text

It is a minor matter that very few sources omit the references to Rome in 1:7 and 15—either by accident or deliberately to give the epistle a more general application (TCGNT, 505). Much more serious is the way the doxology found at 16:25–27 in most Bibles and in some of the best manuscripts appears in many manuscripts at the end of ch. 14 (see the NRSV note at 14:23); in p ⁴⁶ at the end of ch. 15 (see the NRSV on 15:33); in several sources after both 14:23 and 16:23; or is omitted by some sources (TCGNT, 533–36). Thus Romans existed in antiquity in a short fourteen-chapter form, known to Origen and preferred by Marcion; a fifteen-chapter form, suggested by what is preserved in the Chester Beatty Papyrus, … 5:17–15:33 plus 16:25–27 and then 16:1–23; and the long form, through 16:27 (Fitzmyer 1968: 44–54).

This textual evidence has led to conjectures that Paul himself had, after writing chs. 1–16 to Rome, produced a shorter “general treatise,” minus references to Rome and chs. 15–16 (so Lightfoot, among others, though this bisects the discussion of the strong and the weak in 14:1–15:13). More influential was the view expounded in 1948 by T. W. Manson (reprinted in The Romans Debate, 3–15) that a fifteen-chapter letter went to Rome and ch. 16 was sent to Ephesus as a letter of recommendation for Phoebe, along with a copy of chs. 1–15, to sum up Paul’s position as he left the East. Variations of this view had wide currency in the second half of the twentieth century (Beare 1962: 113; Klein 1976: 752; Fitzmyer 1968: 53:10–11). Influential in turning the tide toward the now dominant view that all sixteen chapters were addressed to Rome was Gamble’s 1977 study of the textual history of Romans. In particular he used arguments (57–95) from then emerging studies of the epistolary conclusion of Greek letter forms. Romans 16 is necessary for the elements that usually round out a Pauline letter (Fitzmyer 1993: 57–64).

Among the implications that follow from taking ch. 16 as the ending to what Paul wrote to Rome are that Phoebe (vv. 1–2) is going to Rome, likely as the bearer of the letter, and that Paul knows many more Christians in Rome by name (vv. 5–15) than just Prisca and Aquila (vv. 3–4). He would also seem to know a lot more about dissensions among Roman Christians (vv. 17–20) than is often supposed. Quite specifically, the five to seven house churches mentioned or implied in vv. 5–15 then become part of the mix of the strong and the weak, along ethnic and theological lines (Lampe in Donfried: 216–30). But it goes too far from the evidence to see two separate, hostile congregations in Rome, with Andronicus and Junia being Jewish apostolic founders (v. 7) and Prisca and Aquila being associated with “the churches of the Gentiles” (vv. 3–4) (Watson, in Donfried: 203–15 = 94–105 in Watson 1986; critique by Campbell in SJT 42 [1989]: 457–67). The old debate over whether Paul writes to Jewish or Gentile Christians is then resolved: the house churches were predominantly Gentile, some members were once synagogue proselytes, but there was a Jewish-Christian minority. It is not impossible that in some house churches (former house synagogues?) Jews might be present or on the fence, but Paul does not primarily address them (as Nanos has argued, seeing “the weak in faith” as people of God who had not yet recognized Jesus as the Messiah of Israel). So runs much current thinking, pointing toward specific aims on Paul’s part in writing to a community of varied groups he did not found, where leaders are not identified, even in ch. 16.

4. Purpose(s)

Some aims that have been claimed in the past have receded in support in recent years. One is that Paul was in Romans providing a “last will and testament” on his theological heritage (Bornkamm 1971, in Donfried: 16–28), in part because Romans transcends the polemics in Galatians and “elevates his theology … into the eternally and universally valid” (28). It may, if none of the imprisonment epistles were written by Paul from Rome, turn out to be Paul’s final word, but did the apostle intend it thus? For he was looking forward to joy in Rome and work in Spain, not just to the past or the eternal. Another is that the “secret addressee” of Romans was the church in Jerusalem, where Paul planned to deliver the collection but feared how it would be received; hence, it was argued, he writes what he might say to James and the others there and to line up the church in Rome as part of “the entire Gentile world” that will stand behind him in Jerusalem (e.g., Jervell, in Donfried: 53–64). Paul is concerned about Jerusalem, but he would have said more and different things about the collection and congregational representatives accompanying it if he were seeking solidarity with Jerusalem and not mutual welcome of the strong and the weak in 14:1–15:13. (Other arguments are found in Fitzmyer 1993: 74–76.)

Paul’s purposes in writing to Rome were plural (cf. Wedderburn; Lung-Kwong).

1.Obviously he writes to introduce himself and what he calls “my gospel” (2:16; cf. 16:25). That means particular emphases in Paul’s presentation of the good news, distinctives like justification now, in the overlap of the ages, on sufferings, or law (cf. Byrne: 22–26). As in Gal 1:1, 6, gospel and apostleship go together (Rom 1:1, 5, 9), but that does not imply that Paul thinks he must himself provide an apostolic foundation that was lacking in the Roman community, as Klein (753–54) claimed. Nor does it mean that he was confronting a sort of “truth squad” of Jewish-Christian counter-missionaries who everywhere opposed his work and message (so Stuhlmacher, in Donfried: 333–45; Stuhlmacher 1994: 143). Paul must, however, answer false rumors about himself and his teaching (3:7–8; 6:1–2; 9:1–2) and thus he writes with apologetic purpose (Dunn 1988: lvi) and persuasively (Byrne: 13–18).

2.Paul seeks mutual understanding and sharing (1:11–12) in order to have support in Rome for his proposed trip to Spain (15:14–29, esp. 24, 28–29) (Jewett 1988 and in Donfried: 266; Dunn 1988: lv: the missionary purpose helps account for the universal emphases).

3.As regards Jerusalem, Paul asks Roman Christians to pray for his safety and that the collection “may be acceptable to the saints there” (15:25–27, 30). That Paul seeks money or support from Rome vis-à-vis the Jerusalem authorities is not stated, and the logistics of getting funds and congregational representatives from Rome to Jerusalem in time preclude it. Besides, they would not be from a Pauline congregation.

4.The extraordinary attention to the strong and the weak in 14:1–15:13 suggests that Paul not only knows of disputes among the Roman Christians over food, drink, and special days (14:2, 5, 17, 21) but also writes to persuade the groups in Rome to greater acceptance of each other. “Welcome one another” (15:7). While this aim can be termed “pastoral” (Dunn: lvi–lviii), it is also ecclesial, about church unity, and goes some way toward ameliorating the absence of ecclesiology that Fitzmyer (74) laments. But did Paul have a “universal” church concept? Cf. Dunn 1997: #20.2, pp. 540–41. J. C. Miller sees Paul shaping “a community of the new age.”

5. Resources

For accomplishing these tasks Paul had the Scriptures of Israel and interpretative tools, other Jewish writings and traditions, the Christian (oral) gospel and its creedal slogans, liturgical and catechetical traditions, and ethical parenesis, including at points sayings from Jesus. In addition, there were Paul’s own experiences “in Christ”—call, preaching, sufferings, and reflection on his Jewish heritage in light of Christ over some twenty years. Use of the OT (Cranfield: 2:862–70) in its LXX form shapes Romans at 1:17 (Hab 2:4), 3:20 (Ps 143:2), and 4:3 (Gen 15:6) and is particularly concentrated at 3:10–18, chs. 9–11, 12:16–20, and 15:3, 9–12. The rabbinical exegetical device of gezerah shawah, interpreting “reckoned” in Gen 15:6 by the use of the same verb in Ps 32:1–2, is applied at Rom 4:3–8. Formulae about righteousness are quoted at 3:24–26a and 4:25 (Reumann: 35–40), along with other instances like 1:3–4. Rom 12:9–21 strikes many as preset general ethical instruction, including reflections of what Jesus taught (12:14; cf. Matt 5:44, 38–39, 43–44; 12:17). Byrne (20–26) speaks of “ ‘knowledge’ (symbolic universe)” which Paul has from Judaism (such as “the eschatological perspective of Jewish apocalypticism,” stressed by Beker); “the shared Christian pattern of belief” (such as what some call the “story” or narrative about Jesus), and the “experience of the Spirit”; and Paul’s own distinctives like “the eschatological ‘now’ ” (3:21), and “ ‘justification’ associated with the great judgment” that “can already be received through Christ” now (3:24, 26).

6. Literary and Rhetorical Aspects

How has Paul cast such resources into a coherent whole? Admittedly there are sometimes breaks in the sentence structure (anacoluthon) at 2:17–24; 5:6–8, 12–14; 9:22–24, where the scribe could not keep up with the flow of words. What some a generation ago thought to be glosses inserted by a later scribe, such as 2:16 or 6:17b, now may be regarded as keys to Paul’s own thought (Klein: 752). Overall, the opening (1:1–15) and closing (ch. 16) are like a typical letter. But the body of the letter is so long that some call Romans a “letter essay” (Stirewalt, in Donfried 1991: 147–71; but note the cautions at 131–32 from Wuellner). Romans is not, like the next longest Pauline epistle, 1 Corinthians, organized around a series of questions to which Paul responds. The coherence of Romans has sometimes been questioned, leading Schmithals, for example, to claim that it combines three letters (summary and response by Wedderburn, in Donfried: 195–202): in addition to ch. 16 to Ephesus, Schmithals’s Letter A = 1:1–4:25; 5:12–11:36 + 15:8–13; and B = 12:1...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface (James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson)
• Abbreviations
• Romans
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