Drawn to some of the recent discussion on another thread, I have also in recent times been exploring the meaning of ‘the gospel’ as understood by Paul in Romans, and the NT generally. I owe a great deal to N.T. Wright, who has pioneered a historical/narrative understanding of the N.T., though building on the work of theologians over the past half-century and more. Wright draws attention to the popular understanding of the gospel, which owes its present shape to the reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries and beyond, through to the present day.
Probably the best way into Wright’s thought is through a book like ‘What Saint Paul Really Said’, but once your appetite is whetted, you may want to go onto his ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’ series. Wright does not dismiss the work of the evangelical reformers; he is a reformed evangelical himself! However, he does present a way of understanding the gospel which I have tried to interpret and incorporate into my own thinking. In this, it is possible to keep the popular view, but as contained within a much more dynamic understanding of the gospel, and one which, arguably, is better integrated with OT and NT.
In ‘What Saint Paul Really Said’, N.T.Wright draws attention to how ‘the gospel’ is popularly understood in Romans. This is shown up by the way chapter 1 of Romans is often presented, where the ‘theme’ of the letter is taken to be verses 16 & 17, as a kind of definition of the gospel. Here, the gospel is seen as an inner, personal transaction of ‘righteousness’ which takes place when we exercise faith in Christ. But as Wright points out, ‘the righteousness of God’, a key phrase throughout the letter, is not something he gives to us as a commodity, or as part of his being, but is a way of describing how he has been faithful to the covenant, and fulfilled its purpose in Jesus.
Pursuing this line of enquiry, which rests on an understanding of the background of 2nd Temple Judaism and its 1st century expectations, our focus in reading Romans changes. Instead of seeing it as a personal manual of salvation, an explanation of how the gospel works in my life or yours (which is, not unreasonably, what we nevertheless do want to know), we start with seeing Romans as a great statement of God’s faithfulness to the covenant - which is the broader meaning of ‘righteousness’. This was what Israel wanted to know in the 1st century, in the light of a history in which God’s faithfulness to the covenant in the present seemed obscure, and lacking completion. This approach integrates the letter - especially when we get to 9-11, which can then be seen not as an afterthought, but at the heart of the argument.
Bearing these thoughts in mind, we can come to a fresh understanding of the gospel as it is set out in the opening verses of Romans chapter one. The focus is now on the Son of God, the meaning of which at this stage does not need to be pressed beyond its significance for Jesus as messianic representative of Israel. The key event concerning Jesus as set out in these opening verses was his resurrection from the dead. He is a descendant of David, and the bearer of the promises made to David, but already we are seeing that his identity goes beyond the simply human. He is Jesus Christ our Lord - where Lord has inevitable connotations of deity - being the same word, Kurios, that is used for YHWH in the Septuagint OT. Paul cannot avoid talking about Jesus without placing him, as Wright says, ‘on the divine side of the equation’. Further, this declaration of who Jesus is and what he has done leads Paul to describe his own appointed task as the herald of the gospel, calling all people everywhere to ‘the obedience of faith’ in Jesus.
Paul does not envisage a gospel in which obedience and faith can in any way be separated. But this is often the outcome of the way the gospel has been presented in its popular form. In one popular means of presenting the gospel, a response of faith is urged on the hearers, once it has been explained how Jesus can change our lives. The implications of obedience tend to become a later issue - and a contentious issue to some, who had assumed that the gospel was something entirely for their personal benefit, not a challenge to their way of life which entailed obedience to Jesus as Lord.
So this is how it works out. In the gospel, we are looking at the larger narrative, the rumbling issue of sin and death which had been the underlying problem for the people of God throughout the OT, and has its origins in the fall story. Paul recapitulates this history in various ways in Romans; he does it in chapter 1, sketching out the entire history of mankind in his skilful summary of contemporary gentile sin, which also back-handedly includes notorious historical instances of Jewish sin, almost without us (and them) realising it! He makes similar recapitulations of the history of sin in chapter 5 (12-21)and chapter 7 (where in 7-12, the working of the law echoes the outworking of disobedience to the original command of God in Eden).
Jesus ultimately came to do battle against sin and death as the powers that held all humanity, not just God’s people, in thrall. Jew and Gentile were in fact on the same side of this equation, each in the same dock of God’s justice, according to the courtroom metaphor which is a thread of Romans. In this larger narrative, the gospel is the good news of Jesus’s victory over sin and death, which is now to be proclaimed everywhere, as set out in Romans 10. Of course, by ‘sin’, Paul is not simply tackling a problem which determines what happens when we die - though that indeed is the longer-term issue. The problem is the system which has prevailed over creation since the fall - which has affected the lives of all people ever since, which now has been reversed in the person of Jesus himself, and has the potential of being reversed in and through our lives when we give our lives in obedience to him. The resolving of the sin problem is what creation has been longing for (Romans 8), and the solution begins in the people of God. Israel’s special role was not to be a superior people by privilege, but to be the people through whom God’s salvation would eventually come to the earth, to creation - through the perfect Israelite, Jesus.
The gospel is therefore a proclamation first and foremost, of a person, Jesus, who uniquely overcame death, and uniquely through his suffering on the cross plumbed the depths of the sin problem which had afflicted all mankind, not just Israel. Jesus emerged triumphant through his resurrection from the dead. He now reigns, not as a national political ruler contending with other national political systems (though his message is highly challenging to all political rulers and systems), but reigning over the powers of sin and death. He now offers the renewing life of God through the outpoured Spirit to all people who will come to him. This is the message of Romans, reaching the particular climax of chapters 6,7 & 8.
And this is how it works. The message of Jesus is proclaimed - his birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, outpoured Spirit, eventual return to earth. Proclamation may take many forms. It can be something shouted from the rooftops or preached in churches. It can be something shared over a cup of coffee in Starbucks. It can be described on a website. It can be whispered into our hearts as we read the bible. Faith is generated in the hearts of those who hear and are responsive to him, though strictly speaking the bible more consistently speaks of this as those who have been appointed by God to believe in him. You may be able to recall how God has whispered faith into your own heart at key times in your life concerning Jesus. The response which is called for is not then more faith (which has already been created by the message), but obedience.
This was the gospel, the evangelion, which came to 1st century Israel, and in turn, the Roman empire. But the message of Romans is, in the end, universal - hence its power to change lives throughout the ages, and indeed to change continents, to change history. It is probably the most influential piece of literature ever to have been written. Of course it is rooted in history, and has a historical context. Identifying that context has helped me to get a better grasp of its universal message, and its dynamic effect for people today, as Jesus is proclaimed.
Re: The gospel in Romans
I think, for better organisation and to save myself from effectively double posting, it will be better to bring the discussion of Paul’s gospel here to Peter’s thread once and for all.
Romans is not a simple epistle though it can and perhaps should be read as one! Many recent studies have looked at Paul’s use of rhetoric in an attempt to better understand his narrative. Within the complex development of themes in Romans, a key question is what Paul means by ‘the gospel. Indeed this is a very important question to answer for the NT as a whole!
My own understanding is admittedly idiosyncratic. I strongly believe that there is much continuity between Paul’s gospel and much of the content of what we have now as our 4 Gospels. I openly admit at the outset that I am no sort of scholar, but rather am someone who is quite frankly fascinated by ‘scholarly discussion’ so one can take my submissions on this theme with quite a large pinch of salt!
I find in support of my basic idea the fact that Paul made a point to come to recheck his gospel before Peter (Gal 2:2). On a mundane level, one can well imagine that the gospel as preached by Paul to the diaspora Jews and to gentiles may have been modified yet Paul is insistent that it is not so.
But, the waters have been muddied quite significantly by many generations of experts who have been seemingly unable to fill out the content of what is meant by ordinary NT words like ‘proclamation’ (kerygma) and ‘teaching’ (didaskalein) that are some of the NT one-word-designators of the content of what was the gospel. These experts are quite sure that the traditions about Jesus that are recorded in our 4 Gospels has little connection with the teaching and preaching of the earliest followers. I ask, is this in any way a reasonable conclusion? Peter tells Jesus that he believes Him because Jesus has ‘the words of life’. If I believed that the Messiah had come, would I discard all that He had said and done and instead substitute some summary of my own making? The thought is preposterous and yet this seems to be the consensus of many NT scholars.
There has indeed been something of a reaction more recently against the extremes of scepticism but much more still needs to be done.
Getting back to Romans, there is every indication that Paul is contending against some specific misappropriations of the gospel. Paul’s argument is detailed and very pointed. Paul begins with a personal declaration that he is called to be an apostle and is set apart for the gospel of God and he concludes by reiterating this calling in Rom 1:15-17. The rest of chapter 1 is in the third person but in Rom 2:1, Paul comes to the second person with an emphatic “therefore you”. From 2:6-16 is a discussion of God’s impartiality and ends with “on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus”. Then again we have a 2nd person “you” section from Rom 2:17-25 and back to the 3rd person till Rom 3:4. Then Paul begins a “we” section where he is incensed at false accounts of his teaching as being “why not do good that good may come” (the inclusio on this ends at 6:1-2, we should sin more that grace may more abound) and after castigating these false witnesses, who do seem to be among the intended readers in Rome, Paul delineates through a study of Abraham how it is faith in the one who raised Jesus from the dead that now makes us partakers of the grace in which we now stand.
Now, these sections of I, we, you and they passages are easy to delineate in the first 11 chapters of Romans but from the 12th onwards Paul desists from the rhetorical separation and pulls his readers in as his tone becomes intimate and inclusive. Interestingly, from Rom 12 onwards definite hints of Jesus’s own words are easy to spot as Paul tells the Romans how to live in true community together and how to reflect the Lord in their love and mutual cooperation.
It is fairly clear that while the gospel has been preached in Rome resulting in a community of faith there, yet some distortions have crept in, some of which are being blamed on Paul himself. Paul is setting the record straight while also instructing the believers on the correct way of thinking about issues such as faith, works, the law, and grace.
As with all of the epistles, we are in a situation where without having any precise information, we are trying to interpret in effect hearing one side of a conversation. Had someone in Rome written to Paul about the content of the teaching there, or had some acquaintance come from Rome who had given a somewhat detailed picture to paul that occasions this letter? We don’t really know!
Furthermore and more to the point, the gospel has already been preached by someone to the Romans. We do not expect that the content of that preaching would be repeated nor can then be derived from letters that are written to people after they have believed in Jesus and whose problem now is in how their faith works itself out in the practicalities of life and in community with their fellow believers. What we will get if we are not careful is a lopsided view of the gospel that leans heavily on areas that the intended audience has ‘got wrong’.
I apologise for not specifically addressing any of Andrew’s points yet but I do hope to get to that in my next rejoinder…
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: The gospel in Romans
This is potentially a very complex discussion and I’m not sure how we’re going to manage it. I think all I will do here is signal the fact that we will not properly understand Paul’s argument in Romans if we suppose, as church tradition has tended to do, that it has to do essentially or primarily with the salvation of individuals. There are aspects of the argument that relate to personal salvation, but the ‘good news’, both in Romans and in the Gospels (I agree that there is fundamental continuity between Paul and Jesus), is addressed in the first place to Israel.
This is, I believe, the thrust of the analysis of the use of the word ‘gospel’ in my post “The meaning of ‘gospel’ in Romans” - it belongs to a historical narrative about the people of God facing judgment as a consequence of persistent sin and rebellion against YHWH. The fundamental question that Paul addresses is:
How does God remain faithful to his promise to Abraham that his descendants will inherit the earth if the physical descendants of Abraham, condemned by the law, are destined for destruction?
This is a political question in the sense that it concerns the destiny of a nation or group of people. The whole letter is an answer to this question, but the heart of it is given in Romans 3:21-22:
My argument would be that this historical and political narrative must be given priority as the interpretative framework for Paul’s argument in Romans. Peter’s approach - and the conventional approach - is to assume that the primary theological framework is the universal one about sin and salvation. The danger with starting here is that we will diminish or distort the national, political, corporate, and narrative aspects of the argument - we too quickly lose sight of the fact that Paul is constructing his argument from inside a historical narrative about Israel, the outcome of which is still not certain.
I think we do better to take the view that in this letter Paul draws on universal themes (the intrinsic sinfulness of all humanity) secondarily in order to account for the sinfulness first of the Jews and secondly of the pagan world, which is his primary argumentative focus. The good news that he propounds in Romans is addressed to Israel and has to do i) with the deliverance of the people of God from the consequences of its rebelliousness, and ii) with the impact that that deliverance will have on the nations. God’s deliverance of his people is achieved through the death and resurrection of Jesus (I don’t want Peter to think that I am minimizing this), but it is worked out concretely in the story of the faithful remnant (cf. Rom. 9:27) that suffers in the hope of eventual vindication against its opponents, believing that the God of peace would soon crush Satan under their feet (16:20).
Once we get our minds inside this narrative about the historical deliverance of a people, we can begin to work out what it means at a more personal level to encounter the grace of God by which he sustains and extends a ‘new creation’.
Re: The gospel in Romans
Various objectives have been suggested concerning the immediate purpose of Paul’s letter to the Romans:
- The relationship between Jew and Gentile in the people of God, and in the church at Rome specifically, is one. The Jews were expelled from Rome under Claudius, and readmitted following his death in AD 54, and it has been conjectured that readmission of specifically Jewish believers to the church at Rome created tensions - such as one can imagine in any church when those who had been in leadership, or had a particular theological perspective, are removed for a few years, then want to come back. There is a good case to be made for regarding Romans 15:7-9 as the overall theme of the letter, and the detailed contents subordinate to this end. The gospel was in one sense very much about the breaking down of dividing walls between Jew and gentile.
- Paul’s on-going struggle with the ‘Judaisers’ is another area of concern, and his detailed explanation of what it means to be a Jew, using Abraham as his key example, illustrates his understanding of the continuity in the people of God before and after the coming of Jesus. He upholds the law, against charges that he denigrated it. It’s interesting that in Romans he also urges compromise over issues like eating meat considered to be ‘unclean’ - for the sake of the Jewish conscience - while elsewhere he urges freedom to eat all foods. As always, we have to read very carefully what he says, what he doesn’t say, and why he says it, in these key areas.
- Yet another objective was Paul’s ambition for his Spanish mission, in which Rome would be an important base for his onward journey - 15:20-29. samlcarr draws attention to something like a proto-gnostic accusation - 3:8, 6:1, or it could just have been Judaisers accusing him of antinomianism.
- Finally, Paul also wants to encourage the church at Rome - and to be encouraged by them - 1:11.
In the process of addressing these objectives, Paul gives us the finest and fullest outline of his theology that we have, but it seems unlikely that his purpose was to present a systematic theology. His theology was always occasional and applied, in the light of the needs of particular churches.
It also seems slightly contrived to think of Romans as Paul setting out the gospel he preached for the church’s inspection and approval - though no doubt this would have been an important consequence of the letter.
Paul’s exposition of the gospel in Romans, as I suggested in the comment which opened the thread, is not as a personal manual of salvation - which, because we tend to read it in a solitary, personal way, is the way we have tended to take it. I suggest that the thrust of the message of Romans, which is the gospel in its broader context, is as Wright proposes: Paul wishes to declare that God has been faithful to the covenant, but in ways that Israel had not been expecting, and was largely unable to receive. This has a corporate emphasis. Sin and death which had characterised the people of God under the Torah were no longer the characteristics which identified the people of God under grace, where faith had become the key ‘boundary marker’, as well as the life of the Spirit as the characteristic of that faith.
This line of thought is very far from encouraging an individualistic view of salvation. But then I don’t really see that the evangelical reformers promoted an indivualistic gospel either. Certainly not Luther, who in common with all the early reformers was an initiator of a corporate movement. As far as I can see, the evangelical movement has always had a corporate emphasis - not least because the focus on the new birth (particularly among the 18th century evangelicals) is an emphasis on experience of the Spirit, which tends to lead to a corporate rather than individual expression of faith (the Spirit, of course, being the author of ‘koinonia’).
I would suggest it is culture rather than a version of the faith which creates individualism - the culture of modernism in particular, in which from Descartes onwards, man/woman as individual, rather than a corporate being, has been the focus of interest. The individualistic outcome is then a result of compromise with modernism, rather than being individualistic in itself. (‘Individualistic’ should also not be confused with ‘individual’; clearly, the gospel must have an individual response before it leads to a corporate shape).
Also, ‘tradition’ is at heart the reflection of the faith community on its theology over the centuries. It was modernism that tried to suggest that tradition is synonymous with superstition. We should take tradition very seriously.
Samlcarr’s comment on Paul’s awareness of the canonical gospel accounts of Jesus is important, since the line of enquiry adopted by Wright tends to integrate the theology of the canonical gospels and the theology of Paul. In fact, the separation of ‘gospel’ as in the four gospel accounts, and ‘gospel’ as an explanation of what it means to receive the work of Jesus in our lives, tends break down once we adopt the ‘righteousness as covenant fulfilment’ line of interpretation. This is probably a good reason for taking it seriously. Like samlcarr, I too think Paul was very aware of the accounts of Jesus in the canonical gospels.
I agree with Andrew, that it might be better to pursue the different angles on ‘gospel’ on different threads. I think then there is a greater likelihood of ideas being developed, rather than a leapfrogging between a variety of propositions.
Completing the work.
Andrew and Peter are both more optimistic than I am that Paul’s gospel can be understood by looking at Romans. I am thankful for a chance to try to work out my thoughts on Romans a bit more fully, and I am also thankful that both are willing to allow an amateur to create a fair bit of amateurish confusion!
Romans is a very rich letter. it is special because it is a letter written by Paul to a fellowship that he seems to know something about but not one that he personally planted. Conversely, while they certainly know of Paul, most of the Roman fellowship are not personally acquainted with him.
The intricate way in which his letter is structured speaks for itself as a work of genius. The very scope of Paul’s argument is tremendous and as we follow Paul along the spiral of his logic we are brought from zero right to the gates of God’s overall purpose for us.
Having spoken of the contrast between those who follow the law and those who do not, Paul leads us to two important concepts, first is our status as slaves either to sin - death or to faith - life. From this stepping off point Paul then brings us to God’s overweening grace in providing a way for sinners to receive forgiveness and become righteous. He then takes us further to the concept of sonship in Christ, having died to sin and been reborn in Christ we are now able to live righteous lives of willing obedience in which we too will suffer for that obedience just as our Lord did (Rom 8:12-17) and this present suffering then will just as surely lead to our glorification, Rom 8:18-26.
Andrew has argued that there is a consistently eschatological meaning to what Paul argues for the gospel in Romans. In “Rom. 10:15-16: Paul quotes Isaiah twice: first, the image of the herald in Isaiah 52:7 who proclaims ‘good news’ that YHWH reigns and is returning to Zion following the devastation of Jerusalem; secondly, the question in 53:1: ‘Who has believed what we have heard?’ Paul’s complaint is that Israel has not listened to the ‘good news’ that the ‘servant’ through his suffering has brought about an atonement for Israel. It is important to note that the servant was ‘stricken for the transgression of my people’, not for the whole world…”
There is no doubt that in some sense the eschaton has been inaugurated by Jesus. But, to ground the entire discussion of God’s wrath in Romans in the destruction of Israel by Rome, an event that most will admit is still in the future when Paul writes this epistle, seem to me to be a bit too narrow. It is in the eschaton that Paul argues that ‘the nations’ have been brought into the promise of salvation and this is indeed a startlingly new thought for the Jewish believers to accept. I also find it doubtful that Paul is thinking of the scope of salvation in Jesus as being limited to just the Jews…
In chapter 10, Paul is specifically horrified that a majority of the Jews have chosen to reject the Messiah. He explores various possibilities, did they not properly hear?
Rom 10:15 As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
Paul sadly feels that the hardness of their hearts is to blame. So the eschaton has begun indeed but the work of bringing all the nations to salvation and finally the Jews too is far from complete and this is how Paul concludes this key section:
10:25 Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
Harking back a bit, “faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” is just one more of the little indicators that the proclamation of the gospel involves precisely exposing people to the tradition that we have of the words of life of Jesus our Messiah!
Live to serve : Serve to live