Explanatory Notes -- Romans 1:1-15

These Explanatory Notes go along with my more informal storytelling about Romans 1:1-15 on Sunday.
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The Prescript
^1:1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.

Letters in the ancient world usually followed a certain form. Their “prescript” – the opening part of the letter – usually began with a very brief: “Sender to Recipient, greetings.” Paul’s letters are thus somewhat unique in the way that he used this opening part of the letter to highlight key truths about himself (and the audience) that were relevant to what he was about to write about.

He starts by describing himself as a servant of Messiah Jesus. If he has recently written Philippians, that is the other place he started this way. He does refer to himself as a servant of Christ within the letters of 1 Corinthians and Galatians. Although I have not used the word slave here, we should remember that the term doulos had a stronger connotation than servant does in English. Paul belongs to God and is obligated to do God’s bidding. He does not belong to himself.

The fact that “Christ” comes before “Jesus” probably implies that Paul was thinking specifically of Jesus as king. Paul is a servant of King Jesus, the Anointed One of Israel, the Messiah.

He is the “herald” or “apostle” of Jesus the king. An apostle was someone sent with a message from someone else. Paul was sent into the world with a message from the king. First of all, that message was that Jesus had risen from the dead. As an apostle, Paul was an eyewitness of the resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1). There are no more apostles of this sort anymore. Paul was the very last (1 Cor. 15:8). Jesus has not appeared to anyone in the same way since.

This word of Jesus’ resurrection was good news. It was a “gospel.” A gospel was good news of an extraordinary sort. The gospel that Jesus preached was the coming arrival of the kingdom of God (e.g., Mark 1:15). By the time of Paul writing, some twenty-five years later, more details had been filled in. The Jesus movement now knew that Jesus’ death and resurrection were a key part of that coming kingdom – Jesus was in fact the King in that kingdom! Here is the truth that ties these things together. When Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended to the right hand of God. There, God seated Jesus next to him, enthroning him as king.

This wasn’t a last-minute decision by God. God had hidden this plan in the words of the Old Testament Scriptures. More than any other passage, the earliest Christians read Psalm 110:1 in this light. “The LORD (Yahweh) said to my Lord (the Messiah), sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

³concerning his Son, who came from the seed of David according to the flesh ⁴and appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness from the resurrection of the dead – our Lord Jesus Christ.

These two verses form a little snippet of poetry, Hebrew style. Hebrew did not rhyme sounds in its poetry but thought. In “synonymous parallelism,” you said something. Then you said something similar or related. In this case, the poetic snippet presents two different ways in which Jesus was the Messiah: according to the flesh and according to the Spirit.

Paul certainly could have “gone poetic” on the spot. But there is at least one feature of these two lines that is curious. Rather than refer to the Holy Spirit as usual, he uses the phrase “Spirit of holiness,” which is unique here in the New Testament. However, it was not unique within Judaism. It appears both in the Old Testament in Hebrew (e.g., Ps. 51:11) and in other places like the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., 1QS 9.3).

These observations lead us to think that Paul is quoting something here, an early Christian poem or creed. Given the unique way of referring to the Holy Spirit, it was likely first composed in Aramaic. Quite possibly, it is an artifact of the worship of the Jerusalem church.

Ambrosiaster, who wrote in the late 300s, indicated that the churches at Rome had a “Jewish bent.” Raymond Brown and John Meier have wondered if this comment alludes to a more Jerusalem oriented form of early Christianity. That makes sense since Paul did not found the church. It was likely founded by individuals returning to Rome from Jerusalem or traveling there in the normal course of things.

What I am getting at is that it would be rhetorically effective to quote something out of Jerusalem to a church whose primary contact with Christianity was in Jerusalem.

There are two parts to the creed. The first recognizes Jesus’ human qualifications to be Messiah. He is a descendant of David in terms of his humanity – “according to the flesh.” (Note that “flesh” has no negative connotation here.) Here is very early testimony from Paul that Jesus had a Davidic lineage, an important verification of the Gospel tradition in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.

The second part is what would distinguish the early Christian understanding from mainstream Jewish thought. Jesus’ resurrection was understood to be part of his enthronement as cosmic Messiah. Those Jews who were looking for a Messiah expected him to be an anointed human. They did not expect him to die, let alone rise again.

Jesus’ death and resurrection were thus unexpected. But once Jesus rose from the dead, his resurrection was quickly interpreted in the light of Psalm 110:1. He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven where he was enthroned at God’s right hand as Son of God in power. God “begat” him as his Son (Ps. 2:7).

Was Jesus not Son of God before this point? We can perhaps think of him as an heir apparent before that point. He is Son but he has not yet taken the throne. He is not yet Son of God in power. This is an appointment he receives after his resurrection and ascension as he sits at the right hand of God (his “session”).

It is at this point that we most meaningfully begin to call him “Lord.” Acts 2:36 proclaims that Jesus’ resurrection means that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ. The parallelism of Romans 10:9 equates calling Jesus Lord with believing that God raised him from the dead. The hymn of Philippians 2:9-11 similarly speaks of God giving Jesus the name “Lord” as God super-exalts him after his death.

The earliest Christology thus was not an incarnation Christology but a resurrection Christology. The earliest focus of Jesus’ Lordship, royal Sonship, and his identity as Christ found its locus in the resurrection.

⁵through whom we received grace and apostleship leading to the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name, ⁶among whom are you also called of Jesus Christ.
Although most interpreters of Romans currently picture a mixed audience of Jew and Gentile Christian at Rome, the rhetoric of Romans itself seems far more focused on a Gentile audience. The Gentiles are Paul’s specific calling as apostle to the Gentiles (e.g., Rom. 15:16; Gal. 2:8).

Gentiles were thus the focus of his apostleship, powered by the grace of God. Grace of course is God’s unearned favor. There are a few misconceptions of what grace was in the ancient world. For example, you could solicit it. Sometimes grace is pictured as something that God irresistibly initiates with no involvement from us at all. This is not how grace was understood at the time. Similarly, grace could be cut off if the recipient responded in a completely inappropriate way. The core idea is that such favor is unearned. The other ideas are later add ons.

The phrase “obedience of faith” indicates that faith responds. It acts in obedience. It gives its allegiance. It is not passive in the Calvinist sense of irresistible grace. It participates in the grace.

The audiences in Rome are “among” these Gentiles. And they are also called like the other Gentiles to whom Paul has ministered. Paul was called to be an apostle. The Romans have also received a call from God to become part of the people of God.

⁷To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be holy. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This verse ends the prescript of the letter. The first six verses have expanded on the sender, Paul. Now in one verse Paul addresses his recipients and gives his characteristic greeting.

There were almost certainly multiple house churches in the city of Rome. This is certainly the case if Romans 16 was part of the letter sent to them. But even if not, Romans 16 gives us a sense of how many assemblies might be present in a large city like Rome. Some of the Roman churches may have been tenement churches. We have later evidence of churches in Ostia where individuals living next to each other took down the wall separating their houses in order to have a larger space for worship.

Paul indicates that they are beloved of God. This is of course true of all people and all believers. But although God loves us all, God loves us all as we are uniquely. They are also beloved as the churches of Rome.

They are called to believe and become part of the people of God. And they are called to be holy. They are called to be “saints.” The word saints means, “holy ones.” To be holy is to be set apart as belonging to God. And belonging to God implies a certain moral identity too – a life that does not let sin reign (e.g., Rom. 6:14).

The standard letter greeting was a single word, chairein – literally, “to rejoice.” However, from his earliest letters, Paul expanded this to “grace and peace.” The word grace (charis) is related to “greetings,” although giving it a theological twist that corresponded to one of Paul’s signature themes. The word peace corresponded to the Hebrew shalom. Paul’s greeting was thus a mirror of his mission to unite Jewish and Gentile believer into one body of Christ. It brought together a Greek and Hebrew greeting.

This grace and peace came from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Larry Hurtado has called this pairing a kind of “binitarianism.” However, the pair for Paul reflected God and his Messiah. God our Father is the One who is all in all (cf. Rom. 11:33-36; 1 Cor. 15:28). Jesus is his viceroy, his anointed king, the Son of God. He is Lord, enthroned in the heavens. He is the one who authenticates our reconciliation to God, which takes place “in Jesus’ name.”

The Thanksgiving
⁸First, I am thanking my God through Jesus Christ about you all because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.
As we just mentioned, we can pray to God now through Jesus Messiah, for his death and resurrection has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. He is the one who vouches for us, who testifies that we are in right standing again. Paul thanks God the Father through Jesus Christ.

The faith of the believers at Rome was apparently renowned through the whole world. Paul would have heard a good deal about their origins and story from Priscilla and Aquila when they first met at Corinth. That would have been some six or seven years previous. No doubt the couple would have stayed somewhat in touch with the happenings of the city even at a distance.

The Roman churches were a success story of the faith.

⁹For God is my witness, whom I worship with my spirit in the gospel of his Son as I am constantly making mention of you ¹⁰always in my prayers, asking if now somehow, I will succeed in the will of God to come to you.
The thanksgiving section of the letter normally followed the prescript. In it, it was customary in Paul’s letters to give thanks to God for the recipients in some way. Although these were normally features of Paul’s letters, we can assume that he meant what he said. He did pray for them regularly.

He prayed for them within the framework of his understanding of the good news. He prayed for them as he worshiped God the Father in his spirit. He worshiped God with thankfulness for the good news that Jesus was king. Although he did not plan to spend a long time with the Roman church, he believed that they had a role to play in Paul’s mission.

¹¹For I long to see you if I might impart some spiritual gift to you in order to strengthen you. ¹²And that is, to be mutually encouraged with you through both your faith and mine among one another.
Paul anticipated that a mutual edification would take place during his visit. It would be a spiritual gift exchange. Paul thought that God would use him to enrich their faith. And Paul believed that they would enrich his faith as well. This is the way the body of Christ works. We all have spiritual gifts that are meant to build each other up.

¹³Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers [and sisters] that I often planned to come to you and I was prevented until now in order that I might have some fruit also among you just as also among the other Gentiles.
Paul has worked tirelessly spreading the good news in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. But he has apparently had Rome in the back of his mind all along. It was on his evangelistic bucket list. Yet he understood that God first wanted him to make sure that the gospel had permeated Asia, Macedonia, and Greece first. That task was now complete (Rom. 15:23).

1:14 implies that the audience is primarily Gentile. Paul is the apostle to non-Jews. He has had great fruit among the Gentiles of the east. Now he wants to have fruit among the Gentiles at Rome. Verse 14 clearly implies that Paul sees the audience as primarily non-Jew.

¹⁴Both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish I am a debtor ¹⁵so the purpose for me is also to proclaim the good news to you at Rome.
The way that Paul expands on his target audience reinforces that the audience is non-Jewish. “Greeks and barbarians” refer to subcategories of Gentiles. These two groups align with stereotypes of the wise (Greeks) and the foolish (barbarians). This is the way many thought – there are the civilized Greeks and then there is everyone else.

It is time. Now is the time to present the good news to Rome too, even though his immediate audience has already believed. Paul thinks he will travel there freely after his visit to Jerusalem. Acts tells us it will not play out exactly that way. Still, he will see Rome soon enough.