3. The Salvation of “All Israel” (11:25–32)
25For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, about this mystery, in order that you might not be wise in your own estimation1: that a hardening has come partially on Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. 26And in this way all Israel will be saved, just as it is written:
The deliverer will come from Zion
to turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27and this is my covenant with them,
28According to the gospel the Jews are enemies on your behalf, but according to election they are beloved because of the fathers. 29For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. 30For just as you at one time disobeyed God and now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31so also they have disobeyed for the sake of mercy for you in order that they also might now2 receive mercy. 32For God has shut up all3 to disobedience in order that he might have mercy on all.
In vv. 25–32 Paul rehearses this salvation-historical drama for a final time.4 But he draws our special attention to this restatement by introducing it as a “mystery.” And, in contrast to his earlier sketches of the drama of God’s work with the Gentiles and Israel, he now focuses especially on the last act of the drama, the heart of the mystery: the restoration of Israel. “And in this way all Israel will be saved” (v. 26a) is the center of this paragraph. Verse 25 stresses the temporal limits on the present situation to explain how “all Israel will be saved”: in a final act after the hardening of Israel is removed and the destined number of Gentiles enter the kingdom. Verses 26b–32 back up Paul’s climactic prediction about Israel’s salvation by showing that (1) it is confirmed by Scripture (vv. 26b–27); (2) it is rooted in God’s unswerving faithfulness to his promise and his election (vv. 28–29); and (3) it manifests God’s impartiality to all people, as the capstone of the drama of salvation history (vv. 30–32).
But 11:25–32 is not only the climax of 11:11–32; it is also the climax to all of Rom. 9–11.5 This is revealed particularly in the themes that Paul develops in vv. 28–32. Here we find juxtaposed the two apparently conflicting factors that give rise to the argument of these chapters: Israel’s current hostile relationship with God (v. 28a; cf. 9:1–3) and God’s expressed and irrevocable promises to Israel (v. 28b; cf. 9:4–5; 11:1–2).6 Paul suggests that the resolution of this tension is to be found in a divinely given insight (“mystery”) into the way in which God’s purposes are working themselves out in salvation history. Israel’s present hostility toward God, manifested in her general refusal of the gospel (cf. 9:30–10:21), is itself part of God’s plan, for it is the result of God’s act of hardening (“hardening has come” in v. 25b; cf. 11:7b–10; 9:17–18). But this hardening is both limited (“partially” in v. 25b; cf. 11:3–7) and temporary (“until” in v. 25b), designed both to allow Gentiles to “come in” (vv. 25b, 30; cf. 11:11–15) and to stimulate Israel herself to repentance (v. 31; cf. 11:11). It is by means of this salvation-historical process that God’s faithfulness to his promises to Israel is manifested. That faithfulness presently takes the form of a preservation of a remnant (11:3–6). But in the future God’s unwavering commitment to Israel will be spectacularly revealed in the salvation of the nation as a whole (v. 26a). At the same time, Paul suggests, this salvation of Israel in the last days will vindicate God’s impartiality (v. 32). For Israel’s present hardening could suggest an imbalance in God’s treatment of ethnic groups, as if he preferred Gentiles to Jews. The last day, however, will reveal that God has treated all equally: “imprisoning” all in disobedience—Gentiles before Christ; Jews since Christ’s coming—so that he could have mercy on all—Gentiles in the present age; Jews (making up for their small numbers now), in great numbers at the end of the age.7
This profound theological mystery has a specific practical purpose. Paul continues to address the Gentile Christians in Rome in these verses (he uses the second person plural throughout [vv. 25, 28, 30–31]; cf. v. 13). And he leaves no doubt about what he wants his readers to learn from this mystery: to stop thinking so highly of themselves in comparison with Jews (v. 25a). We who are Gentiles should likewise take these verses as a reminder that we are only part of the great salvation-historical plan of God and that that plan has its climax in the salvation of Israel.
25 The “for”8 at the beginning of this verse ties vv. 25–32 to v. 24: hope that natural branches will be grafted in again is well founded, for Paul has been given the knowledge of the mystery that.…9 But since the hope expressed in v. 24 is a theme that pervades vv. 11–24, this “for” ultimately connects vv. 25–32 with the whole preceding argument.10 Paul draws attention to the importance of the mystery he is about to reveal with the formula “I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters.”11 Paul uses the word “mystery” with a technical theological meaning derived from Jewish apocalyptic. In these writings “mystery” usually refers to an event of the end times that has already been determined by God—and so, in that sense, exists already in heaven—but which is first revealed to the apocalyptic seer for the comfort and encouragement of the people of Israel.12 Paul also speaks of a mystery as something that had been “hidden” from God’s people in the past but had now been revealed in the gospel.13 Usually the mystery involves an event or insight associated with Christ’s coming and the preaching of the gospel, but here and in 1 Cor. 15:51 it refers to an event at the end of history.
Considering Paul’s other uses of the term “mystery,” we are justified in thinking that Paul here assumes the notion of revelation: “I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, about this mystery that has been revealed to me.…” How was this mystery revealed to Paul? Some scholars, particularly those who find a tension between the teaching about Israel in 11:25–32 and the earlier parts of Rom. 9–11, suggest that Paul received a prophetic insight into this matter as he wrote these chapters.14 But this view assumes more tension in Paul’s argument in these chapters than is warranted. Better is the suggestion that Paul came to understand this mystery through study of the OT in light of the gospel.15 But, while meditation on the OT was probably an important source for Paul’s understanding, as the OT quotation in vv. 26b–27 suggests, the apocalyptic flavor of the word “mystery” points to the involvement of a special divine revelation as well.16
Paul interrupts his discussion of this mystery with a reminder to his readers that his purpose is ultimately a very practical one. He divulges this mystery, he says, “in order that you might not be wise in your own estimation.”17 As vv. 17–21 show, Paul’s concern is with Gentile Christians who are boasting over Jews and Jewish Christians because of their assumption that they—the Gentiles—had ousted the Jews as the focus of God’s purposes in history. “Wise in your own estimation,” then, will refer not to a sense of superiority engendered by spiritual giftedness or accomplishments,18 but to an attitude of ethnic pride and exclusiveness.19
Paul now returns to the “mystery,” using a hoti (“that”) clause to specify its contents. This clause runs through the end of v. 25, but it is not clear whether it includes the first part of v. 26 or not.20 This question is somewhat moot, however, since “in this way” at the beginning of v. 26 shows that v. 26a is closely related to v. 25b. Paul, then, describes the mystery in three separate clauses:
1. “a hardening has come partly on Israel”
2. “until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in”
3. “[A]nd in this way all Israel will be saved”
What is not clear is the relative weight to be assigned to these clauses. Or, in other words, what is the real “core” of the mystery? The fact of Israel’s hardening?21 The fact that Israel’s hardening is only partial and temporary?22 The fact that “all Israel will be saved”?23 Or some combination of these?24 An important clue in answering this question is the sense of something new in Paul’s argument that his use of the word “mystery” suggests. This consideration would seem to rule out the fact of Israel’s hardening since Paul had plainly taught it earlier (11:7b–10). It also suggests that the focal point of the mystery is not the salvation of all Israel since this was an expectation widely held among Jews in Paul’s day. What stands out in vv. 25b–26a, what Paul has not yet explicitly taught, and what entails a reversal in current Jewish belief, is the sequence by which “all Israel” will be saved: Israel hardened until the Gentiles come in and in this way all Israel being saved.25 Some OT and Jewish texts predict that Gentiles will join the worship of the Lord in the last day; and some of them suggest that it is the Lord’s glory revealed in a rejuvenated and regathered Israel that will stimulate the Gentiles’ interest.26 But wholly novel was the idea that the inauguration of the eschatological age would involve setting aside the majority of Jews while Gentiles streamed in to enjoy the blessings of salvation and that only when that stream had been exhausted would Israel as a whole experience these blessings.
Turning to the individual stages of the mystery, we find Paul reaffirming his interpretation of Israel’s present obduracy in terms of divine hardening.27 But he also reminds us of God’s continued faithfulness in preserving a remnant by indicating that the hardening has come only “partially”28 on Israel. And not only is Israel’s hardening partial—it is also temporary. For, Paul reveals, Israel’s hardening will last only “until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.” Indeed, some scholars have questioned whether Paul implies any change in Israel’s condition of hardening, it being suggested that Paul is teaching only that Israel’s hardening will continue “right up to” the last day. No removal of that hardening is then envisaged.29 The Greek construction Paul uses could mean this, but it more naturally suggests a reversal of the present situation: Israel’s partial hardening will last only until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in—and then it will be removed.30 But decisive for this interpretation is the context, for Paul has throughout vv. 11–24 implied that Israel would one day experience a spiritual rejuvenation that would extend far beyond the present bounds of the remnant (“their fullness” contrasted with “their defeat” in v. 12; “their acceptance” contrasted with “their rejection” in v. 15; the “holiness” of even the broken-off branches in v. 16; the hope that these branches might be grafted in again in v. 24).31
The temporal limit of Israel’s hardening is the “coming in” of the “fullness of the Gentiles.” “Coming in” probably refers to entrance into the kingdom of God, the present messianic salvation.32 “Fullness of the Gentiles” is harder to decipher. As we noted in discussing the term “fullness”33 in v. 12, the word consistently has a qualitative meaning in the Bible—“fulfillment,” “completion,” “fullness.” Some scholars therefore think that “fullness of the Gentiles” means simply the “full blessing” that God intends to bestow on the Gentiles,34 or perhaps the “completion” of the Gentile mission.35 But the imagery of “coming in” does not fit this concept very well. Furthermore, Paul is probably borrowing here another concept from Jewish apocalyptic: the idea of a fixed number of people whom God has destined for salvation.36 These considerations suggest that the Gentiles’ “fullness” involves a numerical completion: God has determined to save a certain number of Gentiles, and only when that number has been reached will Israel’s hardening be removed.37 The “fullness of Israel” (v. 12) is therefore matched by a “fullness of the Gentiles.” Interpreted along these lines, Paul’s brief sketch of salvation history in v. 25b resembles very closely Jesus’ prediction of the sequence of events that would follow his death and resurrection:
For there shall be great distress on the earth and wrath on this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword and they shall be taken captive into all nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until [achri] the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled [plēroō]. (Luke 21:23b–24)
26a The first clause of v. 26 is the storm center in the interpretation of Rom. 9–11 and of NT teaching about the Jews and their future. Three issues must be settled: the meaning and reference of houtōs (“in this way”); the reference of pas Israēl (“all Israel”); and the time and manner of all Israel’s salvation (sōthēsetai).
We have four basic options in the interpretation of the word houtōs. First, it might have a temporal meaning: “And then [after the events depicted in v. 25b] all Israel will be saved.”38 But Fitzmyer seems to be right: “a temporal meaning of houtōs is not otherwise found in Greek.”39 Second, houtōs could introduce a consequence or conclusion: “And in consequence of this process [v. 25b] all Israel will be saved.”40 This use of houtōs is attested in Greek and in Paul, but it is rare, and there seems no good reason to abandon the usual meaning of the word, which is to denote the manner in which an action takes place.41 A third option understands houtōs to have this meaning and connects it with the “just as it is written” formula that follows: “It is in this way that Israel will be saved: namely, just as it is written.…”42 But Paul never elsewhere pairs houtōs and “just as it is written.” Therefore the fourth option—taking houtōs to indicate manner and linking it with what comes before—is to be preferred: “And in this manner all Israel will be saved.”43 The “manner” of Israel’s salvation is the process that Paul has outlined in vv. 11–24 and summarized in v. 25b: God imposes a hardening on most of Israel while Gentiles come into the messianic salvation, with the Gentiles’ salvation leading in turn to Israel’s jealousy and her own salvation. But this means that houtōs, while not having a temporal meaning, has a temporal reference: for the manner in which all Israel is saved involves a process that unfolds in definite stages.44
But what is the “all Israel” so destined to be saved? We can best answer that question by examining the interpretive possibilities, beginning with the word “Israel” and then moving on to the word “all.”
Pauline usage makes it possible to define “Israel” as (1) the community of the elect, including both Jews and Gentiles; (2) the nation of Israel; or (3) the elect within Israel. The first of these options received some support in the very early church and became especially widespread in the post-Reformation period45 but has received less support in the modern period.46 Moreover, this lack of support seems to be justified.47 Paul has used the term “Israel” ten times so far in Rom. 9–11, and each refers to ethnic Israel.48 This clearly is the meaning of the term in v. 25b, and a shift from this ethnic denotation to a purely religious one in v. 26a—despite the “all”—is unlikely. But another factor is even more damaging to the idea that Paul uses Israel in v. 26a to refer to the church generally: the hortatory purpose of Rom. 11:11–32. Paul’s view of the continuity of salvation history certainly allows him to transfer the OT title of the people of God to the NT people of God, as Gal. 6:16 probably indicates (cf. also Phil. 3:3).49 And this same theology surfaces in Romans itself, as Paul argues that Abraham’s “seed” consists of faithful Jews and Gentiles (4:13–18). But the difference in purpose between Rom. 11 and these other texts makes it unlikely that Paul would make the semantic move of using Israel to denote the church here. In both Galatians and Rom. 4 Paul is arguing that Gentiles, as Gentiles, can become recipients of the blessings promised to Abraham and full members of the people of God. Paul’s application to Gentiles of OT people-of-God language is perfectly appropriate in such contexts.50 But Paul’s purpose in Rom. 11 is almost the opposite. Here, he counters a tendency for Gentiles to appropriate for themselves exclusively the rights and titles of “God’s people.” For Paul in this context to call the church “Israel” would be to fuel the fire of the Gentiles’ arrogance by giving them grounds to brag that “we are the true Israel.”51
The choice between the other two options is more difficult to make. Paul uses “Israel” in Rom. 9–11 of both the nation generally and of the elect from within Israel, as 9:6b succinctly reveals: “not all who are from Israel [the nation] are Israel [the elect].” If Paul uses “Israel” here in the latter sense, he would be affirming that all elect Jews would be saved.52 Some have dismissed this interpretation because it would turn Paul’s prediction into a purposeless truism: after all, by definition those who are elect will be saved. But this objection is not decisive. As we have seen, Paul’s focus is not so much on the fact that all Israel will be saved as on the manner in which it will be saved. A more serious objection to this interpretation is that it requires a shift in the meaning of “Israel” from v. 25b to v. 26a since the Israel that has been partially hardened is clearly national Israel. For this reason, and also because of the usual meaning of the phrase “all Israel” (see below), I incline slightly to the view that Israel in v. 26a refers to the nation generally.
What, then, is the significance of Paul’s emphasis that it is all the nation of Israel that will be saved? A few scholars have insisted that this must indicate the salvation of every single Jew.53 But Paul writes “all Israel,”54 not “every Israelite”—and the difference is an important one. “All Israel,” as the OT and Jewish sources demonstrate, has a corporate significance, referring to the nation as a whole and not to every single individual who is a part of that nation.55 The phrase is similar, then, to those that we sometimes use to denote a large and representative number from a group; that is, “the whole school turned out to see the football game”; “the whole nation was outraged at the incident.” A more difficult issue is whether “all Israel” refers to the nation as a whole as it has existed throughout history (a “diachronic” sense)56 or to the nation as a whole as it exists at one moment in history (a “synchronic” sense).57 In favor of the former is the “all,” which, it could be argued, is hardly justified if Paul has in mind only the nation at one moment of time, excluding the many millions of Jews who have lived at other periods. But usage of the expression “all Israel” and the perspective from which Paul writes favor the synchronic sense. No occurrence of the phrase “all Israel” has a clearly diachronic meaning. And Paul, we must remember, is not consciously thinking in terms of the passing of many centuries before these events are completed, but of a potentially very short time.58
We conclude that Paul is probably using the phrase “all Israel” to denote the corporate entity of the nation of Israel as it exists at a particular point in time. We must note, however, that the interpretation that takes the phrase to refer to the elect among Israel throughout time deserves consideration as a serious alternative.
We turn, finally, to the question of the time and manner of “all Israel’s” salvation. Many points that I have already made in the course of my interpretation of vv. 11–24 and of vv. 25–26a in particular make clear that Paul places this event at the time of the end.
(1) The prediction of v. 26a seems to match the third step in the salvation-historical process that Paul describes throughout these verses (“their fullness” [v. 12]; “their acceptance” [v. 15]; the grafting in again of natural branches [v. 24]; cf. also vv. 30–31). Since Paul makes clear that this reintegration of Israel is in contrast to the situation as it exists in his own time—when Israel is “rejected”—it must be a future event.
(2) The specific point in the future when this will occur is indicated by Paul’s probable connection between Israel’s “acceptance” and the eschatological resurrection of the dead (v. 15).
(3) The implication of v. 25b is that the current partial hardening of Israel will be reversed when all the elect Gentiles have been saved; and it is unlikely that Paul would think that salvation would be closed to Gentiles before the end.
We may add to these points two others drawn from v. 26 itself. First, the OT quotation that Paul cites in v. 26b–27 to confirm the truth that “all Israel will be saved” probably refers to the second coming of Christ (see below). Second, the hope of a spiritual rejuvenation of the nation of Israel is endemic in the OT prophets and in Jewish apocalyptic. This rejuvenation is often pictured as a regathering of Jews that reverses the judgment of Israel’s exile and that ushers in the eschatological age. Paul—and the rest of the NT—teaches that the coming of Christ has brought the fulfillment of many of these prophecies about Israel’s renewal. But Paul’s language in Rom. 11 seems deliberately calculated to restate this traditional hope for Israel’s renewal. His point seems to be that the present situation in salvation history, in which so few Jews are being saved, cannot finally do full justice to the scriptural expectations about Israel’s future. Something “more” is to be expected; and this “more,” Paul implies, is a large-scale conversion of Jewish people at the end of this age.59 The corporate significance of “all Israel” makes it impossible to reckon the actual percentage of Jews living at that time who will be saved. But the contrast between the remnant and “all Israel” would suggest a significantly larger percentage than was the case in Paul’s day. Nor is it possible to be precise about the exact timing of the conversion of Israel in comparison with other events of the end times,60 although the fact that it will take place only after the salvation of all elect Gentiles suggests that it will be closely associated with the return of Christ in glory.
How will this eschatological salvation of “all Israel” happen? Several scholars have argued recently that the absence of any specific christological language in Rom. 11 is very significant for this question. They think that this absence is deliberate and that Paul is implying that Israel will be saved in a “special way,” a different way than the faith in Christ required of Gentiles for salvation.61 The most extreme form of this view finds in Rom. 11 the exegetical basis for a “bi-covenantal” theology, according to which Gentiles are saved in their (“new”) covenant by faith in Christ while Jews are saved in their (Mosaic) covenant by their adherence to torah. Such a view, allowing as it does for both the Jew and the Christian to affirm the integrity of each other’s religion, has proved quite attractive to our “post-holocaust” and pluralistic age. But Paul knows nothing of it. He teaches that salvation can be found in one place only: within the one community made up of those who believe in Jesus Christ. There is only one tree, and one becomes attached to this tree by faith: Jews can be grafted back in only if they do not persist in unbelief (v. 23).62 Nor can the absence of the name of Christ in Rom. 11 justify the conclusion that this faith need not be faith in Christ. Paul has defined the faith he is talking about here quite adequately in the first ten chapters of the letter: it is faith in Jesus Christ (see esp. 3:22, 26; 10:4–13). As Paul has made clear in the immediately preceding chapter, faith is inextricably tied to Jesus and his resurrection victory (10:9), and it is this faith that brings salvation to Gentile and Jew alike (10:10–13).63 Jews, like Gentiles, can be saved only by responding to the gospel and being grafted into the one people of God. Paul has certainly not forgotten his great summary of the theme of his letter as he writes chap. 11: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for all who believe, for the Jew first, and then for the Gentile” (1:16).64 The end-time conversion of a large number of Jews will therefore come about only through their faith in the gospel of Jesus the Messiah.65
26b–27 As Paul has done in the conclusions of each of the other main parts of his argument in Rom. 9–11 (cf. 9:25–29; 10:21–21; 11:8–10), he reinforces his teaching with a composite quotation from the OT. He quotes Isa. 59:20–21a in vv. 26b–27a and a clause from Isa. 27:9 in v. 27b. Both parts of the quotation follow the LXX closely, with one notable exception: where the LXX of Isa. 59:20 says that “the redeemer will come for the sake of [heneken] Zion,” Paul says “the redeemer will come out of [ek] Zion.”66 And not only does Paul’s reading differ from the LXX, it differs also from the Hebrew text and from every known pre-Pauline text and version.67 How are we to account for this variation? Paul may have inadvertently assimilated this text to others in the OT that speak of Israel’s deliverance as coming “from Zion” (cf. Ps. 13:7; 53:7; 110:2).68 He may have deliberately changed the wording to make a point: to show that Christ, “the redeemer,” originates from the Jewish people (cf. 9:5);69 to show that the final “missionary” to the Gentiles, Christ, comes, like the present missionaries to the Gentiles, from Jerusalem (cf. 15:19);70 or to show that Christ will save Israel by coming from the “heavenly” Zion at his parousia.71 Or Paul may, in fact, be faithfully quoting from a form of the LXX text that we no longer have.72 The last alternative must certainly be taken seriously, but it is perhaps on the whole best to think that Paul is assuming the tradition that surfaces in Heb. 12:22, according to which “Zion” is associated with the heavenly Jerusalem, the site of Christ’s high-priestly ministry.73 If so, he probably changes the text in order to make clear that the final deliverance of Israel is accomplished by Christ at his parousia.74
While, therefore, the “redeemer” in Isa. 59:20 is Yahweh himself, Paul probably intends to identify Christ as the redeemer.75 It is when Christ comes “out of” heaven that he will “turn away ungodliness from Jacob” and thus fulfill the covenant with Israel.76 In light of Paul’s reference to the patriarchs in the next verse and his extensive use of the OT traditions about God’s covenant with Abraham, we are justified in assuming that he would identify this covenant with the promise-covenant that God entered into with Abraham and his descendants. Paul, of course, insists that this covenant has been fulfilled in the first coming of Christ and his provision for both Jews and Gentiles to enter, by faith, into the people of God (Gal. 3; Rom. 4). But, in a pattern typical of the NT, Paul suggests that this covenant with Abraham still awaits its final consummation—a consummation that will affect Israel in particular.
Paul uses a clause from Isa. 27:9 to interpret this covenant in terms of the forgiveness of sins. Some similarity in wording between this verse and Isa. 59:20–21 probably helped draw Paul’s attention to this verse; but more important is the context from which it is taken. For Isaiah 27, like Isa. 59:20–60:7, predicts that Yahweh will deliver “Jacob” from her exile/sins, bringing the scattered people back to their own city.77 Isaiah 27 notes that the judgment God has brought on Israel (in the Exile) is different from the judgment God brings on other nations: for Israel’s judgment, it is implied, will be both temporary and sanitive (vv. 7–8). The prophet therefore foresees “days to come” when “Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit” (v. 6); when God will regather his people and the exiles will return to “worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (vv. 12–13). The parallel between this scenario and Paul’s teaching in 11:11–32 that the hardening of Israel is temporary and intended to lead to her ultimate deliverance cannot be missed. Moreover, by focusing on “the forgiveness of sins” as integral to the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel, Paul ties this final deliverance to the cross, where the price for these sins has been paid (cf. 3:21–26). With this quotation, then, Paul not only suggests when Israel’s deliverance will take place; he also makes clear how it will take place: by Israel’s acceptance of the gospel message about the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.
28 The lack of any connecting word between vv. 27 and 28 (asyndeton) suggests that a break in Paul’s argument occurs here. With the obvious shift in thought between vv. 32 and 33, then, verses 28–32 becomes a discrete paragraph. The immediate purpose of this paragraph is to ground and elaborate Paul’s prediction of Israel’s final salvation. Paul does this by highlighting God’s purpose of showing mercy to Israel, the central theme of vv. 28–32 (it is the climactic point in each of the arguments: cf. vv. 28b, 31b, and 32b). It is because God has chosen Israel to be his “beloved” that he will bring salvation to the people in the last day. But the paragraph also rounds off Paul’s discussion in chap. 11. His assertion of Israel’s election (v. 28b) brings his argument back to where it began (vv. 1–2), while vv. 30–31 summarize the process of interaction between Gentiles and Israel that Paul has throughout vv. 11–27 highlighted as the vehicle by which God manifests this election. Finally, however, these verses serve to recapitulate and wrap up the argument of chaps. 9–11 as a whole. Paul’s assertion of Israel’s dual status in v. 28 succinctly summarizes the dilemma that drives the whole argument of these chapters: the Israel now at enmity with God because of the gospel is nevertheless the Israel to whom God has made irrevocable promises of blessing. In broad terms, as 9:30–10:21 has elaborated the former, negative side of this dilemma, so 9:6b–29 and 11:1–27 have explained the second, positive, side.78
Though v. 28 is not formally connected with the previous context, an implicit connection is forged by the need to supply the subject of v. 28 from v. 27: “them,” the (unbelieving) Israelites. The two clauses of v. 28 are parallel in structure:
“According to the gospel” |
“enemies” |
“because of you” |
“According to election” |
“beloved” |
“because of the fathers” |
“Enemies according to the gospel” succinctly summarizes the point that Paul has made in 9:30–10:21: through their failure to respond to the revelation of God’s righteousness in Christ, the heart of the gospel, Israel as a whole has failed to attain the eschatological salvation manifested in the gospel. “According to” will then express the standard by which Israelites can be judged to be “enemies.”79 The word “enemies” can have an active sense—“those who hate God”80—or a passive meaning—“those hated by God.”81 Most commentators favor the latter because of the parallel word “beloved,” which obviously has a passive meaning. However, we must be careful not to insist on a parallel in meaning where Paul may intend only a parallel in form;82 and the word “enemies”83 often has an active sense in Paul. Perhaps, then, as in the somewhat parallel 5:10, it is best to give the word both an active and passive sense, captured adequately in the English word “enemies.”84 This meaning effectively captures the dual note Paul has sounded throughout Rom. 9–11 when speaking of Israel’s failure: “hated,” hardened,” and “rejected” by God (cf. 9:13, 17–23; 11:7b–10, 15, 25); for their part, disobedient, unbelieving, and stubborn (9:31–32; 10:3, 14–21; 11:11, 12, 20, 23, 30–31).
The importance of not insisting that the formally parallel elements have the same meaning is especially clear in comparing the two “because of” phrases. For the latter one clearly has a causal sense—Israel is “beloved” because of the fathers (the patriarchs; cf. 9:5)—while the former must have a final sense—Israelites are “enemies” for the sake of you [Gentile Christians]; for instance, as Paul has argued previously, God has “hardened” Israel so that salvation could be extended to the Gentiles (cf. vv. 11, 12, 15, 17).85 In saying that God’s love for Israel is “based on” the patriarchs, Paul is not of course suggesting that the patriarchs have done anything to merit God’s love for themselves or their descendants. As Gal. 3 and Rom. 4 make clear, the significance of Abraham and the other patriarchs in the plan of salvation rests not on their own actions but on the gracious promises that God has made to them. So it is not because of the patriarchs in and of themselves that the Jews are still beloved; it is because of the promises God made to them. As it is by the standard of the gospel that the Jews are now judged to be enemies of God, so it is by the standard of “election” that they are loved by God.
Some think, because of the way that Paul describes election in 9:6b–13—an act by which God brings people into relationship with himself—that Paul must be referring here to the remnant.86 But a switch in subject in mid-verse, from the Jews who are God’s enemies in light of the gospel, to Jews who are beloved by God as elect members of the remnant, seems unwarranted.87 It is better, then, to understand the election Paul speaks of here to be the same corporate election of the people of Israel as a whole that he referred to in vv. 1–2.88 This election, as I argued at that point, is that choosing of Israel as a nation which the OT frequently emphasizes, a choice that does not mean salvation for every single member of the nation, but blessings for the nation as a whole. All Jews, therefore, are “beloved of God”; but, as Paul has made clear, this status will eventuate in salvation only for those whom God individually chooses for salvation in this age (the remnant) and in the last days (“all Israel”).
29 Paul now grounds the last part of v. 28: the Jews, despite their rejection of the gospel, remain God’s beloved “because89 the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” The “call” of God clearly refers to the election according to which the Jews are beloved.90 The “gifts” may then be combined with “call” as one idea—“the benefits of God’s call”91—or be taken as a distinct category—“the gifts and the call of God.”92 The relationship between this paragraph and 9:1–5 suggests that Paul would intend “gifts” to summarize those privileges of Israel that he enumerated in 9:4–5. God’s “call,” then, is probably to be seen as one of the most important of those gifts: “the gifts and especially, among those gifts, the call of God.”93 The rare word “irrevocable”94 emphasizes the point that Paul made at the beginning of his argument: “The word of God has not failed” (9:6a). However, while this initial statement of God’s faithfulness to his promises was defensive—just because Israel has not believed, “it is not as though” God is not faithful—this second assertion is positive—Israel still has a place in God’s plan because God is faithful. In this way Paul marks the movement of his argument. He began with a defense of God’s word and constancy against a Jewish assumption of assured access to God’s grace (9:6b–29); he ends with a defense of Israel’s continuing privileges on the basis of God’s word against a Gentile assumption of superiority.
30 Verses 30–31 explain how God’s continuing elective love of the Jews will be manifest.95 The argument recapitulates the process that Paul has described several times already, according to which God works out his purposes of salvation in history through an oscillation between Jews and Gentiles (cf. vv. 11–12, 15, 17–24, 25). Paul uses the familiar “just as”—“so also” logic to argue that the sequence of “disobedience”—“mercy” experienced already by the Gentiles (v. 30) will also be experienced by the Jews (v. 31). Paul again uses formal parallelism to enhance this similarity in treatment, with a chiasm linking the end of v. 30 and the beginning of v. 31 (see the discussion below):
v. 30 |
v. 31 |
“Just as” |
“so also” |
“you” |
“they” |
“at one time” |
“now” |
“disobeyed God” |
“have disobeyed” |
“for (dative) the sake of mercy for you” |
|
“and now” |
“in order that [now] |
“you have received mercy” |
“they might also receive mercy” |
“because of (dative) their disobedience” |
As the second person plural verbs and pronouns show, Paul continues to address the Gentile Christians in Rome. He reminds them in v. 30 of their own experience. They were at one time “disobedient” to God, as Paul has shown at length in 1:18–32 (and cf. 2:8, where “disobedience” is one reason why God’s wrath falls on both Jew and Gentile alike). Paul undoubtedly characterizes the Gentiles’ sin in terms of disobedience because this renunciation of God is equally applicable to both Jews and Gentiles (see the reference to Israel’s “disobedience” in 10:21). “But now you have received mercy.” “But now” signals, as so often in Romans and in Paul, the salvation-historical movement from the old era to the new. It is not so much, then, the conversion of each of the Gentile Christians that Paul alludes to as the shift from the era when Gentiles were “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12b) to the present era in which God’s righteousness has been manifested “for all who believe,” whether Jew or Gentile (1:16; 3:22; 10:11–13). Yet Paul’s particular emphasis in this verse is on the last phrase, in which he reminds the Gentiles that the mercy they have experienced came as a result of the disobedience of “them,” the Jews.96 As Paul has already made clear, it was Israel’s “trespass,” her “rejection,” that made it possible for the gospel to be preached to and received by the Gentiles (vv. 12, 15, 17).
31 To form the hinge of his argument, Paul now looks at the situation he has described at the end of v. 30 from the perspective of the Jews. Note the chiastic arrangement:
because of their disobedience” |
|
“they have disobeyed |
for the sake of mercy for you” |
This diagram assumes that the phrase I have translated “for the sake of mercy for you”97 modifies the first verb in the verse, “disobeyed.”98 But this point is highly disputed. Many, perhaps most, commentators argue that it should go with the verb “receive mercy”99 at the end of the verse, yielding a translation such as that found in the NIV: “so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.”100 Supporters of this arrangement cite three main arguments: (1) it makes for better parallelism between the two verses, for each would have a dative modifier of the verb “receive mercy” in the second clause; (2) it would enhance the parallelism in a second way, allowing the two phrases, “[through] their disobedience” (v. 30b) and “[through] mercy to you,” to have the same (instrumental) meaning; (3) it fits better the scenario that Paul has sketched earlier in the chapter, where the mercy ultimately received by the Jews comes as a result of their jealousy of the Gentiles’ salvation.
None of these arguments is at all decisive. The first is perhaps the strongest; but, as our diagram above suggests, Paul may well be utilizing the well-known device of chiasm in his arrangement of the last clause of v. 30 and the first of v. 31. The second presumes that two units that are structurally parallel must also be parallel in meaning. But we have already seen that this need not be the case (see v. 28). Taking “mercy to you” as an instrumental modifier of “receive mercy” certainly fits with the scenario Paul has outlined earlier (the third argument); but it fits equally well to take it as a dative of advantage with the verb “disobeyed.” “They have disobeyed for the sake of mercy for you” would then match “their trespass means riches for the world,” “their defeat means riches for the Gentiles” (v. 12), and “their rejection means reconciliation for the world” (v. 15). Since, then, the arguments in favor of taking “mercy to you” with “they will receive mercy” are not compelling, we should follow the most natural reading of the syntax101 and take the phrase with the verb “disobeyed”: “they disobeyed for the sake of mercy for you.”102
As Paul has shown in his earlier sketches of the process of salvation history, however, the Jews’ disobedience is not God’s final word about them. “They have not stumbled so as to have fallen” (v. 11). The Jews’ disobedience, precisely because it leads to the inclusion of the Gentiles, has the purpose103 that they, too, might receive mercy. What is surprising about this purpose statement is the adverb “now.”104 For it seems clear from other places in the chapter that Paul does not think that Israel is “now” experiencing the mercy that he hopes (and predicts) they one day will (cf. vv. 12, 15, 24, 25–26). Some commentators, indeed, think that this “now” here is one clue among many others that Paul is not thinking in this chapter of a great future conversion of Jews.105 But I am convinced that the verses I have cited are conclusive for the futuristic interpretation. That being so, it seems best to treat Paul’s “now” as an expression of imminence, expressing his conviction that this final manifestation of God’s mercy to Israel could take place “now, at any time.” It need not mean that the event will infallibly take place within a few years,106 but it reveals that typical NT perspective which views the new era of fulfillment as already having dawned and all the events belonging to that era as therefore near in time. The salvation experienced by the Gentiles means that Israel is “now” in the position to experience again God’s mercy.107
32 Paul now makes a final comment on this process by which God has used the disobedience of the Gentiles and the Jews to bring about mercy to both Jews and Gentiles.108 The image of God “enclosing”109 in disobedience reminds us of Paul’s language about God “handing over” Gentiles to the consequences of their sins in chap. 1 (cf. vv. 24, 26, and 28).110 And as there, this “enclosing” probably involves God’s decision to “confine” people in the state that they have chosen for themselves. But God’s punishment, while still a punishment, has an ultimately redeeming purpose: to bestow mercy.
Interpretations of this verse go astray when it is wrenched from its context. One glaring and serious example of such a misinterpretation is the view that Paul is here teaching a salvific universalism: as God has confined every single person in sin, so he will have mercy—save—every single person.111 But such a conclusion is obviously contradictory to Paul’s teaching elsewhere to the effect that there are people who will not in the end be saved. Paul may, then, mean simply that God’s mercy is potentially available to all.112 But a reference to an offer of mercy here does not square well with Paul’s emphasis throughout Rom. 9–11 on the God who is sovereignly working in salvation history to accomplish his purposes—and not least in the showing of mercy (cf. 9:15–16). When we put this verse in its context we get a very different result. Paul is commenting on the process that he has outlined in vv. 30–31 (and several other times in this chapter). That being the case, “all” might refer to the unbelieving Jews about whom he has been speaking in v. 31.113 But we can hardly eliminate from Paul’s reference the Gentiles in the church at Rome whom Paul has been addressing throughout this section.114 Considering the corporate perspective that is basic to chap. 11, then, it seems best to think that “all” refers to “all the groups” about which Paul has been speaking; for example, Jews and Gentiles.115 Paul is not saying that all human beings will be saved. Rather, he is saying that God has imprisoned in disobedience first Gentiles and now Jews so that he might bestow mercy on each of these groups of humanity. How many from each of these groups will ultimately be saved Paul does not say.
In our comments on v. 28, we noted how vv. 28–32 wrap up the argument of chaps. 9–11 as a whole. But these verses also bring to a climax a line of thinking that appears to create tension with what Paul teaches earlier in these chapters and, indeed, in his writings elsewhere. For in chap. 9 Paul seems to teach that God elects individuals on the basis of his pure grace, without any consideration of ethnic origin—a perspective consonant with Paul’s vision of the church of Jew and Gentile as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham (Rom. 4; Gal. 3). Yet in chap. 11 Paul seems to smuggle back into salvation history the principle of ethnic privilege that he excludes in chap. 9 and elsewhere: Jews, just because they are Jews, can look forward to a time when a great number of them are saved.
Many scholars despair of reconciling these two viewpoints and conclude that Paul expresses contradictory viewpoints on this matter.116 They believe that Paul’s thinking on this issue may have developed over time (even from the time he wrote chap. 9 to the time he wrote chap. 11!)117 or that his teaching in chap. 11, as elsewhere, is directed to specific practical purposes with little concern about consistency.118 But this conclusion—one that calls into question Paul’s right to inform on this or on any issue—is unnecessary. For this negative opinion about Paul’s consistency in his teaching about Israel’s election fails to give due attention to larger theological presuppositions and frameworks of reference that enable us to solve the apparent contradiction at the conceptual level.
A critical frame of reference in Paul’s treatment of Israel’s salvation is a distinction between corporate and individual election.119 Those traditional explanations that treat Rom. 9–11 as an exposition on predestination have overemphasized the individual perspective. But some contemporary approaches err in the opposite direction. The situation Paul confronted required him to integrate the two perspectives, or, better, to interpret one in the light of the other. Paul inherited from the Scriptures and his Jewish heritage the teaching of a corporate election of all Israel. But his experience of and understanding of the gospel required a revision, or addition, to this perspective. That not all Jews were responding to the gospel did not itself overturn the traditional understanding of Israel’s election; for that tradition never insisted that Israel’s election required the salvation of every single Israelite. On the other hand, the relatively small number of Jews responding to the gospel must at least have pushed the boundaries of that tradition. But it was the great influx of Gentiles—as individuals, not as a “people”—that broke those boundaries altogether. Thus Paul, like some other Jewish thinkers before him (e.g., the Qumran covenanters120), had to develop a concept of individual election within, or alongside of, the corporate election of Israel.
Once we recognize that Paul must deal with both individual and corporate election in Rom. 9–11, it is no “harmonizing expedient” to ask which perspective Paul might have in mind in a given text. Paul has framed his discussion in Rom. 9–11 with reassertions of the continuing validity of Israel’s “corporate” election (9:4–5; 11:28b–29; cf. also 11:1–2). But Paul’s key task is to explain how individual election qualifies the nature and significance of this corporate election.121 This he does in 9:6–29. This text does not revoke Israel’s election,122 but shows that it does not have a necessary salvific significance. Within the corporate election of Israel, there is operating, Paul shows, an election of individuals. This individual election in Paul’s day is being extended to Gentiles and restricted to a remnant among Israel. But his focus is on his own time in salvation history.123 “Only the remnant will be saved” is not Paul’s final word on the salvation of Israel.
Nor does Paul’s teaching about the freedom of God to elect whomever he chooses mean that God cannot take into consideration ethnic identity; only that ethnic identity is never the basis for God’s choice.124 There is, therefore, nothing contradictory to chap. 9 if Paul in chap. 11 affirms that God, in faithfulness to his own pledged word, will choose to save a great number of Jews in the last days. Paul’s reassertion of this traditional hope contradicts his teaching in Rom. 9 only if that chapter claims that the election of Israel is exhaustively fulfilled in the remnant of Paul’s day or if it teaches that God cannot take ethnic identity in account in his decision about whom to save. But Paul affirms neither of these there.
It is true that Paul’s teaching about a final ingathering of Jewish people has no parallel elsewhere in his writings. But this may be explained by the contingent character of all Paul wrote. In most of the situations where Paul taught about Israel or the Jews he was concerned to establish the right of Gentiles to enter fully into the people of God—usually against a Jewish-oriented attempt to exclude them or to impose inappropriate restrictions on them (e.g., Rom. 3–4; Galatians; Phil. 3). Only in Rom. 11, apparently, did Paul face a situation in which he needed to remind Gentile Christians of the continuing significance of Israel’s election.125
F. CONCLUSION: PRAISE TO GOD IN LIGHT OF HIS AWESOME PLAN (11:33–36)
33O the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments
And inscrutable his ways!
34For who has known the mind of the Lord?
And who has been his counselor?a
35Or who has given to him in advance, so as to give back to him?b
36For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Paul appropriately concludes one of his most profound and difficult theological discussions with a hymn in praise of God for his purposes and plans. Many readers of this response to the theological argument of Rom. 9–111 think that Paul is communicating a sense of frustration: confronted with the mysteries of election and the future of Israel, Paul confesses that the truth of these matters can be known finally only by God himself. Certainly in these chapters Paul touches on matters, such as the interplay of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, that are ultimately beyond our ability as humans to understand fully; and Calvin’s warning about our limitations at this point are well taken. But we must not push this line of interpretation too far. For Paul, after all, claims to have received revelation into a “mystery” concerning the future of Israel that gives us access to the mind of God. Throughout Rom. 9–11, while certain points remain hard to understand, Paul is claiming to be transmitting truth to which his readers are to respond. And Paul certainly teaches elsewhere that in Christ, and through the Spirit, we have access to “the secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 2:6–16).2 We should, then, perhaps understand Paul’s praise to be motivated not so much by the hiddenness of God’s ways but by the (admittedly partial) revelation of those mind-transcending ways to us.
This expression of praise falls into three strophes: v. 33, containing three exclamations about God’s wise plan; vv. 34–35, featuring three rhetorical questions that emphasize human inability to understand God’s ways; and v. 36, containing a declaration about the ultimacy of God that calls forth a final doxology. This arrangement of the material, the short, roughly parallel lines, and some unusual vocabulary suggest that we should treat the passage as a hymn.3 Paul probably composed it himself, borrowing extensively from OT wisdom traditions, apocalyptic, and Hellenistic Jewish teachings.4
33 The particle “O” shows that the first line in Paul’s hymn is an exclamation, an emotional assertion of awe.5 Paul’s awe is stimulated by his contemplation of the “depth,” or the inexhaustible magnitude,6 of three divine qualities.7 These qualities are not intrinsic “attributes” of God, but are what some theologians have called “communicable” attributes of God: aspects of God’s character that have partial parallels among human beings and that involve God’s interaction with the world he has created. “Riches” might refer generally to the infinite resources of God, but, in light of 11:12, probably connotes especially God’s kindness as it is expressed in the blessing he brings on undeserving sinners—both Jew and Gentile alike.8 God’s wisdom is an extremely rich biblical theme. But Paul is undoubtedly thinking of God’s wisdom as it has been revealed and expressed in his plan for the salvation of human beings.9 “Knowledge of God” clearly means God’s knowledge of us and not our knowledge of God.10 The occurrence of the cognate verb “foreknow” in 11:2 (cf. also 8:29) suggests that God’s knowledge here is that special relational “knowing” which comes to expression in his election of individuals to salvation (and perhaps also of Israel to her corporate blessing).11
The second and third lines of Paul’s hymn are both introduced with another exclamatory particle, “How!”12 Paul’s stylistic care is evident here again. The two lines are syntactically parallel—predicate adjective-article-subject-possessive pronoun (the copulative verbs are assumed)—and both predicate adjectives begin with the same letters (anex-).13 The first of these adjectives, anexeraunēta, is rare but seems to mean “unfathomable,” “unsearchable.”14 Paul applies this description to God’s “judgments,” which will not refer here, as the word usually does in Paul, to God’s judicial decisions, but to his “executive” decisions about the direction of salvation history.15 The word “ways” in the last line has essentially the same meaning; they, too, Paul exclaims, are “inscrutable.”16 In synonymous parallelism, then, the second and third lines of Paul’s hymn extol God’s providential control of salvation history as something beyond human understanding.17
34–35 The second strophe in Paul’s hymn comprises three questions, the first two of which come from Isa. 40:1318 and the third (in v. 35) from (perhaps) Job 41:3.19 It is possible that each question relates, in reverse order, to one of the exclamations in v. 33. “Who knows the mind of the Lord?” would then expand the inscrutable ways of God, “Who has been his counselor?” would draw out the implications of his unsearchable judgments, and “Who has given to him in advance, so as to give back to him?” would suggest an implication of God’s riches (= his kindness and mercy).20
The questions in these verses are obviously rhetorical, expecting the answer “no one.” The first two stress that no human being can understand what God is doing in the world. But, as the wisdom tradition from which these questions are drawn teaches, what no human being can understand, “wisdom” can.21 And since Paul sees Christ as the embodiment of wisdom, we are probably justified in adding to our expected answer “no one” a qualification: “no one, except Jesus Christ, who has revealed to us in his own person the plan of God for salvation history” (see the reference to the mystery in 11:26). The third question moves from the issue of our knowledge of God’s plan to the way in which we experience it. No one, Paul claims, is ahead of God in giving,22 as if23 to earn a recompense24 from him. Paul thus reminds us that it is only by God’s grace that we can experience the “depth of riches” that his plan is designed to communicate.25
36 Paul’s affirmation of the centrality of God in all of creation may relate specifically to v. 35—no one is in a position to demand anything from God, for26 he is …27—but probably reflects on all of vv. 33–35. The concept of God as the source (ek), sustainer (dia), and goal (eis) of all things is particularly strong among the Greek Stoic philosophers. Hellenistic Jews picked up this language and applied it to Yahweh; and it is probably, therefore, from the synagogue that Paul borrows this formula.28 An ancient and widespread interpretation finds a reference to the Trinity in the three prepositional phrases. But this view is now, correctly, almost universally rejected. Paul is clearly speaking of God the Father; and his purpose is to underline the uniqueness and sovereignty of God that has been the focus of these verses. What should be our response to our contemplation of God’s supremacy in all the universe? Like Paul’s, doxology.29
V. THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE GOSPEL: CHRISTIAN CONDUCT (12:1–15:13)
In this final main section of the body of the letter, Paul shifts his focus from instruction to exhortation; from “indicative” to “imperative.” Commands are rare in chaps. 1–11 (see 6:11–13, 19; 11:18, 20). Of course Paul would have been the first to emphasize that all that he teaches in Romans has an eminently “practical” significance. For if we take to heart the truth of the gospel that he has presented, we will have a transformed worldview that cannot but affect our lives in uncounted ways. Paul has made this clear already in chap. 6, where he shows how our union with Christ in his death and resurrection leads to our “walking in newness of life” (v. 4) and demands that we “present ourselves to God as those who are alive from out of the dead” (v. 13). But Paul knows that it is vital to flesh out these general principles about the transforming power of the gospel. This he does in 12:1–15:13, as he urges Christians to manifest the power of the gospel in specific areas of day-to-day life.1
Romans 12:1–15:13 is therefore integral to the letter and to its purposes. It is not an appendix, a last-minute “add-on” relatively unrelated to the real—theological—heart of the letter.2 For, as we have seen, Romans, while thoroughly theological and carefully argued, is not a doctrinal treatise. It is Paul’s grandest exposition of the gospel. The gospel unleashes God’s power so that people, by embracing it, can be rescued from the disastrous effects of sin, being pronounced “righteous” in God’s sight and having a secure hope for salvation from wrath in the last day. But, as Paul has made clear in Rom. 6, deliverance from the power of sin is inseparable from deliverance from its penalty. Union with Christ in his death and resurrection provides both. For Jesus Christ is the Lord; and thus to believe in him means at the same time a commitment to obey him (cf. “the obedience of faith” in 1:5 and 16:26; note also “obedience of the Gentiles” in 15:18). The “imperative” of a transformed life is therefore not an optional “second step” after we embrace the gospel: it is rooted in our initial response to the gospel itself. To eliminate this part of Romans would be therefore to omit an indispensable dimension of the gospel. The transition from Rom. 11 to Rom. 12—which mirrors similar transitions in Ephesians (4:1) and 1 Thessalonians (4:1)—is not, therefore, a transition from “theology” to “practice,” but from a focus more on the “indicative” side of the gospel to a focus more on the “imperative” side of the gospel.3 “What God has given to us” (Rom. 1–11) gives way to “what we are to give to God.” But even as we put it this way, we must quickly add the qualification that what we are to give to God cannot be produced independently of God’s continuing gracious provision. God’s “giving” to us is not simply a past basis for Christian obedience; it is its continuous source. “Indicative” and imperative” do not succeed each other as two distinct stages in Christian experience, but are two sides of the same coin.
One of the most striking features of Rom. 12:1–15:13 is the way in which its various themes resemble teaching that Paul gives elsewhere. The following chart outlines some of the main parallels:
The need for transformation by |
|
the renewing of the mind (12:1–2) |
Eph. 4:17–24 |
The unity of the body of Christ |
|
despite its diversity of gifts (12:3–8) |
1 Cor. 12; cf. Eph. 4:11–17 |
The central demand of love (12:9–21) |
1 Thess. 4:9–12; 1 Cor. 13 |
—as the fulfillment of the law (13:8–10) |
Gal. 5:13–15 |
The need for spiritual wakefulness |
|
in light of the Day of the Lord (13:11–14) |
1 Thess. 5:1–11 |
Reconciliation between “weak” and “strong” |
|
Christians over issues of food (14:1–15:13) |
1 Cor. 8–10 |
Significantly, the only section of 12:1–15:13 not included in the list above, Paul’s demand for submission to government (13:1–7), has significant parallels with the teaching of Jesus (cf. Mark 12:13–17 and pars.) and with early Christian instruction (cf. 1 Pet. 2:13–14). Other parallels with Jesus’ teaching and the teaching of the early church are found throughout these chapters.4 Many scholars conclude from these parallels that Paul in Rom. 12:1–15:13 is simply rehearsing typical early Christian ethical emphases with little concern for the specific situation of the Roman Christians.5 Moreover, this emphasis on the gospel’s provision for obedience in daily life fits with Paul’s overall purpose in Romans, the explanation and defense of “his” gospel. Against those who might object that the abandonment of the law as a code of conduct (cf. 6:14, 15; 7:1–6) leads to license, Paul argues that the gospel itself provides sufficient ethical guidance for Christians. Through the renewal of the mind that the gospel makes possible, Christians can know and do the will of God (12:2); and by following the dictates of love, they can accomplish all that the law itself demands of them (13:8–10).6
There is some truth in this picture, as the lack of reference to specific issues and the abbreviated, almost proverbial nature of some of the sections (e.g., 12:9–21) indicate. But there is also evidence that Paul is writing with at least one eye on the situation of the church in Rome.7 Romans 14:1–15:13 is almost certainly addressed to a specific problem in the Roman Christian community;8 and the lack of a clear parallel in Paul’s other letters to his exhortation to obey government authorities (13:1–7) suggests that this passage, too, may have particular relevance to the Roman Christians. As is the case, then, with Romans as a whole, Paul in these chapters adapts his general description of the gospel and its implications for the situation he addresses in Rome.9
Paul’s exhortation falls into two parts: injunctions relating to Christian conduct generally in chaps. 12–13 and guidelines for a specific problem affecting the Roman community in 14:1–15:13.10 Paul’s general exhortations in chaps. 12–13 are framed by texts that bring out the eschatological context in which Christians are to display their redeemed character.11 Paul here presupposes the “realm transfer” imagery that he has used especially in Rom. 5–8 to describe the Christian’s situation: transferred from the old realm of sin into the new realm of salvation, we are people who belong now to “the day,” but who must still struggle against the forces of darkness since we still await the culmination of our salvation (13:11–14). Our task, then, is to conduct ourselves as those who belong to the day and to resist the pressure to conform to the old realm from which we have been saved (12:2). The exhortations that fall between these two texts take up various issues of importance for the early Christian community, including, no doubt, the Roman community. The exhortations display various specific points of contact with one another but do not fall into any neat arrangement.12 Paul begins by encouraging Christians to assess their place within the community and their ministry to it accurately and soberly (12:3–8). There follow a series of short, proverbial, injunctions that loosely develop the theme of Christian love (12:9–21). Paul then enjoins obedience to governmental authorities (13:1–7) before turning back again to love, which he elevates as the virtue that provides for the true and complete fulfillment of all the commands of the law (13:8–10).
A. THE HEART OF THE MATTER: TOTAL TRANSFORMATION (12:1–2)
1Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, and well pleasing to God, your true worship. 2And do not conform to this age, but be transformed through the renewing of your mind, so that you can approve what is the will of God, that is, what is good, well pleasing, and perfect.
Romans 12:1–2 is one of the best-known passages in the NT. Its fame is justified: here Paul succinctly and with vivid imagery summarizes what the Christian response to God’s grace in Christ should be. The verses have a pivotal role in Romans. On the one hand, they look back at the argument of chaps. 1–11. While Paul ultimately has in view all of these chapters, verbal and thematic links point to two texts as particularly significant. The first is Rom. 1, whose downward spiral of false and foolish worship (cf. v. 25) and corrupted minds (cf. v. 28) now finds its reversal in the Christians’ “reasonable” worship and renewed mind.13 The second is Romans 6, whose brief mention of the need for Christians to “present” themselves (vv. 13 and 19) as those “alive from the dead” (v. 13) is here reiterated and expanded.14 At the same time, 12:1–2 stand as the heading for all that follows in 12:3–15:13.
1 “Therefore”15 must be given its full weight:16 Paul wants to show that the exhortations of 12:1–15:13 are built firmly on the theology of chaps. 1–11.17 The English verb “exhort” captures well the nuance of the Greek parakaleō in contexts such as this.18 Its semantic range lies somewhere between “request” and “command”: an exhortation comes with authority, but the authority of a preacher who is the mediator of God’s truth rather than the authority of a superior issuing a command.19 “Through the mercies20 of God” underscores the connection between what Paul now asks his readers to do and what he has told them earlier in the letter that God has done for them. All that Paul has written in the letter thus far may be summed up under the heading of the mercy of God in action. Paul has just summarized that universal mercy of God (11:30–32) and expressed praise to God for it (11:33–36). Now he calls Christians to respond. The preposition “through” is better translated here “because of” (TEV) or “in view of” (NIV): it indicates not the means by which Paul exhorts but the basis, or even the source, of the exhortation.21 Ultimately Paul is simply the instrument through whom “the mercy of God” is itself exhorting us. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:20, he is an “ambassador for Christ,” one through whom God himself exhorts his people.22 What Paul calls for in v. 1—and, by extension, in all of 12:2–15:13—is no more (and no less!) than the appropriate and expected response to God’s mercy as we have experienced it. Yet this response is no simple “tit for tat” bargain, as if we grudgingly “pay God back” for what he has done for us. For God’s mercy is not a matter of past benefits only, but it continues to exercise its power in and through us. That God’s mercy does not automatically produce the obedience God expects is clear from the imperatives in this passage. But God’s mercy manifested in his Spirit’s work of inward renewal (see v. 2) does impel us toward the obedience that the gospel demands.23
We experience God’s mercy as a power that exerts a total and all-encompassing claim upon us: grace now “reigns” over us (5:21). It is therefore entirely fitting that our response is to be one that is equally total and all-encompassing: the presentation of our entire persons as a sacrifice to God.24 Some scholars think that Paul’s use of the aorist tense to state this demand indicates that he thinks of this presentation as a “once-for-all” act.25 But the aorist tense itself does not indicate this; and there is no reason in the context to think that Paul would view this presentation as an offering that we make only once. Paul simply commands us to make this offering, saying nothing about how often it needs to be done.
Paul’s use of sacrificial imagery here fits a pattern found throughout the NT. Christians no longer offer literal sacrifices; for Christ has fulfilled and thus brought to an end the OT sacrificial system. But the centrality of sacrifice in ancient religion made it a natural and inevitable vehicle for the early Christians to express their own religious convictions. At the same time, the NT use of cultic language has an important salvation-historical and polemical function, claiming for Christianity the fulfillment of those institutions so central to the OT and to Judaism.26 Christians offer no bloody sacrifice on an altar; but they offer “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Pet. 2:5), such as the “sacrifice of praise to God, which is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Heb. 13:15). In Rom. 15:16, Paul describes his own missionary work in cultic terms (see also Phil. 2:17; and note Phil. 3:3 and 4:18). In Rom. 12:1, however, the sacrifice we offer is not some specific form of praise or service, but our “bodies” themselves. It is not only what we can give that God demands; he demands the giver.27 “Body” can, of course, refer to the physical body as such,28 and the metaphorical associations with sacrifice make it an appropriate choice here. But Paul probably intends to refer to the entire person, with special emphasis on that person’s interaction with the world.29 Paul is making a special point to emphasize that the sacrifice we are called on to make requires a dedication to the service of God in the harsh and often ambiguous life of this world. The sacrificial context makes it likely that the verb “present,” unlike its somewhat parallel occurrences in 6:13 and 19, means “offer as a sacrifice.”30
Paul qualifies the sacrifice that we offer with our bodies with three adjectives.31 Each of the three continues the sacrificial metaphor. Many commentators, noting the many points of comparison with Rom. 6, give “living” a theological sense, “as those who have been brought to new spiritual life” (cf. 6:11, 13).32 This would make good sense if the adjective modified “our bodies.” But it does not; it modifies “sacrifice.” This being the case, it is more likely to refer to the nature of the sacrifice itself: one that does not die as it is offered but goes on living and therefore continues in its efficacy until the person who is offered dies.33 “Holy” is a regular description of sacrifices; it implies here that the offering of ourselves to God involves a being “set apart” from the profane and a dedication to the service of the Lord.34 Such a sacrifice is “well pleasing to God.”35
At the end of v. 1, Paul adds an appositional phrase that qualifies the whole exhortation that Paul has just given: offering ourselves as a sacrifice is our “logikēn worship.”36 The meaning of the word logikēn is notoriously difficult to pin down. The word logikos (the lexical form of the adjective logikēn) does not occur in the LXX and only once elsewhere in the NT, where its meaning is also debated: 1 Pet. 2:2, where Peter exhorts his readers to “long for the pure logikon milk.” The word does, however, have a rich background in Greek and Hellenistic Jewish philosophy and religion. Arguing that God and human beings had logos (reason) in common, some of the Greek philosophers of the Stoic school emphasized that only logikos worship could be truly appropriate worship. They contrasted this “rational” worship with what they considered to be the superstitions that were so typical of Greek religion.37 Hellenistic Jews took over this use of the term, applying it sometimes to the mental and spiritual attitude that was necessary for a sacrifice to have any merit before God.38 Still later, the word was applied directly to sacrifice in the gnostic Hermetic writings.39
Considering this background and the context, we arrive at four main possibilities for the connotation of logikos here: (1) “spiritual,” in the sense of “inner”: a worship that involves the mind and the heart as opposed to a worship that simply “goes through the motions”40; (2) “spiritual” or “rational,” in the sense of “appropriate for human beings as rational and spiritual creatures of God”: a worship that honors God by giving him what he truly wants as opposed to the depraved worship offered by human beings under the power of sin (see Rom. 1:23–25);41 (3) “rational,” in the sense of “acceptable to human reason”: a worship that “makes sense,” as opposed to the “irrational” worship of God through the offering of animals;42 (4) “reasonable,” or “logical,” in the sense of “fitting the circumstances”: a worship that is appropriate to those who have truly understood the truth revealed in Christ.43
This last connotation, while probably implied, does not go far enough, ignoring too much of the rich background of the term that we have sketched. The third is also a questionable explanation, assuming as it does that the OT sacrificial system, for instance, was, or would have been, viewed by Paul as an irrational form of worship.44 Choosing between the first two alternatives is difficult and perhaps not necessary. Certainly Paul does not suggest, as the reference to “bodies” makes clear, that true Christian worship is a matter only of inner attitude.45 But the inner attitude is basic to acceptable worship, as Paul makes clear in v. 2 by stressing the “renewing of your mind.” And it is just this involvement of the mind, renewed so that it can again understand God aright, that makes this worship the only finally appropriate and true worship. In light of this, and recognizing that each of the usual translations “spiritual” (NIV; NASB; NRSV) and “reasonable” (KJV) misses an important part of the meaning, it would be best to follow TEV and translate “true worship.”46
The word “worship” (latreia) continues the cultic imagery of the verse.47 Paul probably chooses the term deliberately to create a contrast between the Jewish and Christian form of worship. For Christians, there is no more “cult” or “sacrifice” in any literal sense.48 While the Jew looked to the Jerusalem temple and its cult as the center of worship, the Christian looks back to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. Christians are all priests (1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6), forming together the temple where God now reveals himself in a special way.49 But Paul does not “spiritualize” the cult; rather, he extends the sphere of the cultic into every dimension of life.50 Thus the Christian is called to a worship that is not confined to one place or to one time, but which involves all places and all times: “Christian worship does not consist of what is practiced at sacred sites, at sacred times, and with sacred acts.… It is the offering of bodily existence in the otherwise profane sphere.”51 Chrysostom comments: “And how is the body, it may be said, to become a sacrifice? Let the eye look on no evil thing, and it hath become a sacrifice; let thy tongue speak nothing filthy, and it hath become an offering; let thine hand do no lawless deed, and it hath become a whole burnt offering.” Regular meetings together of Christians for praise and mutual edification are appropriate and, indeed, commanded in Scripture. And what happens at these meetings is certainly “worship.” But such special times of corporate worship are only one aspect of the continual worship that each of us is to offer the Lord in the sacrifice of our bodies day by day.52
2 By using the vague conjunction kai (usually translated “and”; cf. KJV and NASB), Paul leaves open the exact relationship between vv. 1 and 2. The two verses could be coordinate, issuing two parallel but separate exhortations.53 But v. 2 is probably subordinate to v. 1, giving the means by which we can carry out the sweeping exhortation of v. 1.54 We can present our bodies to the Lord as genuinely holy and acceptable sacrifices only if we “do not conform to this world” but “are transformed by the renewing of the mind.”55 The salvation-historical framework that is so basic to the development and expression of Paul’s understanding of the Christian life (see particularly Rom. 5–8) comes to the surface very plainly here.56 “This world,” literally “this age,”57 is the sin-dominated, death-producing realm in which all people, included in Adam’s fall, naturally belong. But it is “to deliver us from the present evil age” that Christ gave himself (Gal. 1:4); and those who belong to Christ have been transferred from the old realm of sin and death into the new realm of righteousness and life.58 But this transfer, while decisive and final, does not isolate us from the influence of the old realm. For while belonging to the new realm, we continue to live, as people still in the “body,”59 in the old realm. Paul’s command that we “not conform to this world,” then, builds on the theology of Rom. 5–8 (and of Rom. 6 especially) and calls on us to resist the pressure to “be squeezed into the mold” of this world and the “pattern” of behavior that typifies it (see 1 Cor. 7:31).
Because the verb “conform” is in the present tense, many scholars think that Paul wants his readers to “stop conforming” to this world.60 But Paul’s generally positive attitude toward the Romans’ spirituality (cf. 15:14) makes this doubtful.61 Also uncertain is the voice of the verb and its significance. It could be passive—“do not be conformed” (KJV; NASB; NRSV)62—or middle, with a reflexive idea—“do not conform yourselves” (TEV)—but, perhaps most likely, whether middle or passive in form, it has a simple (“intransitive”) active significance—“do not conform” (NIV; REB; NJB).63
The second, positive, imperative in the verse, however, has a clearly passive meaning: “be transformed.” The neat verbal paronomasia found in most English translations (conformed/transformed) is not present in Greek, where verbs from two separate roots are used. Most older commentators and many recent ones are sure that this change in root signifies a change in meaning also. They argue that the verb translated “conform”64 connotes a superficial resemblance, whereas the verb translated “be transformed”65 refers to an inward and genuine resemblance. As Morris puts it, then, “Paul is looking for a transformation at the deepest level that is infinitely more significant than the conformity to the world’s pattern that is distinctive of so many lives.”66 However, as Barrett notes, “conformity to this age is no superficial matter.” More important, the lexical basis for the distinction is not solid.67 Therefore the shift in root probably reflects no difference in meaning; and, somewhat ironically, the use of the same root to translate both verbs in English reflects closely enough the meaning of the Greek terms. The tense of the verb is again present; and in this case the fact that the renewing of the mind is a continuing process justifies us in thinking that Paul uses this tense to stress the need for us to work constantly at our transformation.
“The renewing of your mind” is the means by which this transformation takes place. “Mind” translates a word that Paul uses especially to connote a person’s “practical reason,” or “moral consciousness.”68 Christians are to adjust their way of thinking about everything in accordance with the “newness” of their life in the Spirit (cf. 7:6).69 This “re-programming” of the mind does not take place overnight but is a lifelong process by which our way of thinking is to resemble more and more the way God wants us to think. In Rom. 1:28 Paul has pointed out that people’s rejection of God has resulted in God’s giving them over to a “worthless” mind: one that is “unqualified” (adokimos) in assessing the truth about God and the world he has made. Now, Paul asserts, the purpose70 of our being transformed by the renewing of the mind is that this state might be reversed; that we might be able to “approve” (dokimazō) the will of God. “Approving” the will of God means to understand and agree with what God wants of us with a view to putting it into practice.71 That Paul means here by “the will of God” his moral direction is clear from the way Paul describes it: this will is that which is “good,” “acceptable [to God],” and “perfect.”72
Paul’s teaching about the Christian’s source for finding the moral will of God in this verse deserves attention. Paul has made clear earlier in the letter that the Christian no longer is to look to the OT law as a complete and authoritative guide for conduct (see Rom. 5:20; 6:14, 15; 7:4). What, Paul’s first readers and we ourselves today might ask, is to be put in its place? Paul answers: the renewed mind of the believer. Paul’s confidence in the mind of the Christian is the result of his understanding of the work of the Spirit, who is actively working to effect the renewal in thinking that Paul here assumes (cf. Rom. 8:4–9).73 And it is important to note that Paul’s confidence in our ability to determine right and wrong is not unbounded. He knows that the renewal of the mind is a process and that as long as we are in these bodies we need some revealed, objective standards against which to measure our behavior.74 Hence Paul makes clear that Christians are not without “law,” but are under “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2; 1 Cor. 9:19). This “law” has its heart in Jesus’ own teaching about the will of God, expanded and explicated by his appointed representatives, the apostles. But Paul’s vision, to which he calls us, is of Christians whose minds are so thoroughly renewed that we know from within, almost instinctively, what we are to do to please God in any given situation. We need “law”; but it would be to betray Paul’s call to us in these verses to substitute external commands for the continuing work of mind-renewal that is at the heart of God’s New Covenant work.75
B. HUMILITY AND MUTUAL SERVICE (12:3–8)
3For I say through the grace that was given to me to every person among you, that you not think beyond what is necessary to think but that you think with sober thinking, as God has measured to each a measure of faith. 4For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, 5so also we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us, let us use them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the analogy of faith; 7if service, in service; if one is a teacher, in teaching; 8if one is an exhorter, in exhorting; one who shares with others, in simplicity; one who presides, with diligence; one who shows mercy, in gladness.
The main point of this paragraph is the command in v. 3: Christians are “to regard themselves with sober judgment.” The discussion of the diversity of gifts and their uses within the one body of Christ in vv. 4–8 provides the basis for this command. Understanding that Christians belong to one another in one body and have in common the same grace of God (v. 5) and faith (vv. 3, 6) will help to stifle exaggerated ideas about one’s own status or ministry. And recognition of the significant contribution made by each member of the body of Christ will prevent one from thinking too highly (or too lowly) of him- or herself.1
What place does this teaching have within Rom. 12? And what prompts Paul to include it here? No specific relationship with vv. 1–2 is evident,2 but this call to Christian humility and unity is certainly one important manifestation of the transformation in thinking that should characterize the believer. Perhaps Paul is especially concerned that believers not take too individualistic an approach to transformation. Thus he wants us to recognize that the transformation of character is seen especially in our relationships with one another.3 Paul may, then, have included this teaching here simply because it was an important part of his understanding of Christian behavior, as the parallels with 1 Cor. 12 and, to a lesser extent, Eph. 4:1–16, suggest.4
But the parallel with 1 Cor. 12 could also suggest that Paul is directing his comments to the same kind of people as those with whom he had to deal in Corinth: “pneumatics,” Christians who overvalued certain more evident or spectacular manifestations of the Spirit.5 This supposition gains force when we remember that Paul is writing from Corinth. Nevertheless, Romans itself gives little evidence that this issue was important to Paul at this point; at the most, perhaps, the Corinthian experience led Paul to recognize the potential for spiritual pride and consequent disunity in the Spirit’s gifts to the church. We must also reckon with the possibility that Paul emphasizes the importance of each Christian judging himself accurately in order to prepare the way for his rebuke of the weak and strong parties in Rome (14:1–15:13).6 However, vv. 3–8 do not speak to the issue of judging one another that is the key issue in Rom. 14:1–15:13. Therefore, a concern for Roman bickering does not seem to have been the main motivation for these verses. Probably, then, Paul writes what he does here mainly because it was integral to his understanding of the way in which the gospel was to transform the lives of Christians. Here, he suggests, is one specific example of the will of God for the Christian who has been transferred into the new age.
3 By connecting this new paragraph to vv. 1–2 with a “for,” Paul suggests that the exhortations he now gives are concrete instances of the transformed way of life to which the believer is called. In light of Paul’s reference to his apostolic status in the phrase “through the grace given to me,”7 “I say” must refer to an authoritative request, parallel to “I exhort” in v. 1.8 Paul addresses this admonition not to any specific group or kind of person in the Roman community, but to “every person” among them. (Contrast 11:13–32, where Paul scolds the Gentile Christians for arrogance.) Paul’s admonition is built on a wordplay that is difficult to bring out in English, although I have tried in the translation above, quite awkwardly, to do so. The key term, which Paul uses in both its simple (“think”) and in two compound forms (“think beyond”; “sober thinking”), is phroneō.9 This verb, which is a favorite of Paul’s and which we have met before in Romans,10 connotes not so much the act of thinking in itself (the intellectual process) but the direction of one’s thinking, the way in which a person views something.11 In this verse, it is clear that Paul is using the verb to denote the way in which a person views him- or herself. In contrast to the overestimation of ourselves to which we are so prone, Paul insists that we are to view ourselves in a “sober” manner12—in accordance with a true and objective estimate, the product of the “renewed mind” (12:2).
But a true and objective estimate of ourselves requires that we have an accurate and objective standard against which to measure ourselves. And this, Paul says, we have, for God has “measured to each one13 a measure of faith.” The meaning of the phrase is uncertain, with two possibilities deserving consideration.
(1) In light of the discussion of the spiritual gifts that follows, the phrase might refer to the differing “measures” of faith God has assigned to each believer.14 This interpretation matches the closest parallel expression in Paul (2 Cor. 10:13), and fits the context (see esp. “proportion of faith” in v. 6b). But its interpretation of “faith” is strained. This faith might refer, as it has throughout Romans thus far, to the basic Christian response to the gospel.15 But it is difficult to think that Paul would consider this faith as given by God in different measures to Christians.16 Recognizing this, many supporters of this interpretation think that the faith Paul refers to is, or relates especially to, the differing capacities God gives to people for their service of the community.17 But this interpretation of the word “faith” is questionable; and, in any case, Paul has not prepared us for the use of this word in Romans.
(2) If faith is, then, basic Christian faith as given equally by God to all, then the “measure of faith” could refer to this shared faith as the standard by which Christians are to regard themselves. Our faith is the measure.18 On this view God has not given a different measure to each Christian but has given to each Christian the same measure. Dunn and others criticize this interpretation because it does not recognize the distributive implications of the verb merizō, “measure” or “apportion.” But this second interpretation faces fewer difficulties than the first and should be accepted. “Measure of faith,” then, should be compared in this paragraph not to the many different “gifts” that God distributes to believers, but to the one common grace from which they stem (v. 6). It is that faith which believers have in common as fellow members of the body of Christ that Paul here highlights as the standard against which each of us is to estimate himself.
4–5 In these verses Paul uses the imagery of the human body to bring out both the diversity and the unity of the Christian community. Paul’s comparison of the church to a body is familiar from his other letters. He first uses the comparison in 1 Cor. 12, and it is found in its most developed form in Ephesians and Colossians. Scholars have labored long and hard to pin down the exact source of Paul’s “body of Christ” metaphor.19 But so natural is the imagery and so widespread was it in the ancient world that Paul may well have picked up the comparison from his general environment, molding it into its final form, of course, under the influence of his theology.20 Paul’s use of the metaphor in this text has most in common with 1 Cor. 12:12–31. In both these passages Paul compares individual Christians to “members” of the human body. And it is not only the basic metaphor that 1 Cor. 12 and this text have in common; Paul also applies the metaphor to the same basic issue. As in 1 Cor. 12, where Paul uses the body metaphor to (among other things) rebuke the arrogance of some members of the body who prided themselves on possessing more important gifts (vv. 22–26), so here in Rom. 12 Paul uses the metaphor to back up his exhortation that believers not think more highly of themselves than they should.21
Paul sketches the basis for his comparison in v. 4 (“just as”): “we have22 many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function.”23 Verse 5 then draws the conclusion (“so also”): “we, who are many,24 are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”25 Paul, working from the assumption of the unity of the body,26 argues for the need to recognize a healthy diversity within that one body. The overall thrust of the letter and the specific exhortation in 14:1–15:13 might suggest that Paul has especially in view the conflict between Jew and Gentile. But he gives little evidence of this in the context. It seems rather that, as in 1 Cor. 12, it is the diversity of gifts and the temptation to comparison and false pride that comes with that diversity that is his chief concern.
One matter that is not clear in this passage is whether Paul is thinking of the local church or of the church universal. The omission of “apostles” from the list of gifts that follows (contrast 1 Cor. 12:28 and Eph. 4:11) might suggest that he has the local church only in view (where there would, at that point in time, be no apostles in the technical sense of that word). But we must qualify “local church” to mean the Christian community in Rome, for chap. 16 makes clear that the Christians in Rome, all of whom Paul addresses in the letter (cf. 1:7), met in several “house churches.” Our oneness in Christ, Paul reminds us, extends beyond those with whom we meet weekly for worship, embracing all who call on the name of the Lord.
6 Paul continues to echo his teaching in 1 Cor. 12, as he turns next to discuss the way in which gifts exemplify diversity in unity. But if the general logical progression is clear enough, the syntactical progression is not. The problem is twofold: (1) what is the relationship between v. 6 and v. 5? and (2) what verbs, if any, are we to supply in vv. 6b–8? The participle that opens v. 627 could indicate that the verse is subordinate to v. 5: “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, … having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.”28 But in most English translations and commentaries v. 6 begins a new sentence. But, to turn to the second question, how are we to understand this new sentence? We can allow the participle to stand as the ruling verb throughout vv. 6–8. In this case, after mentioning the diversity of gifts in v. 6a, Paul in vv. 6b–8 cites illustrations of them: as NRSV translates, “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” With this understanding of the syntax, vv. 6–8 have a purely “indicative” function: Paul is describing the way in which God, in his grace, has distributed different gifts to his people as a means of building the unity of the body.29
The difficulty with this view is that it does not sufficiently account for the phrases that Paul appends to each gift (“in proportion to faith,” “in service,” etc.). These seem out of place in an enumeration of gifts. These qualifications of each gift appear to reflect an underlying hortatory sense: for example, “if a person has the gift of prophecy, let him or her use it in proportion to faith.”30 In agreement, then, with most commentators, we should assume an ellipsis in vv. 6b–8 that must be filled with an imperative verb (as in NASB and RSV; see my translation above) or series of imperative verbs (KJV; NIV; TEV; REB; NJB).31 Paul is then not just listing gifts; he is exhorting each member of the community to use his or her own gift diligently and faithfully to strengthen the body’s unity and help it to flourish.
But before turning to exhortation, Paul reminds us of the wonderful blessing of the varied gifts that he has given the church. “We have different gifts,” Paul asserts, and his assumption that these gifts are operative in the Roman church, which Paul has neither founded nor visited, shows that the operation of gifts was widespread, if not universal, in the early church. Believers possess different charismata (“gifts”); but each one is the product of God’s charis (“grace”), which all believers have in common. Again Paul stresses the combination of diversity within unity that makes the church so rich and strong.32 But if the gifts are to bring these positive benefits, they must be used rightly—not for self-aggrandizement (cf. v. 3) but in accordance with their true nature. It is this that Paul focuses attention on in the series of exhortations in vv. 6b–8.
Two of the gifts Paul mentions in these verses—prophecy and teaching—are also found in other lists of gifts in Paul.33 The gifts in v. 8, however, have no linguistic equivalent in the other lists, although the ministries they denote could well correspond to, or overlap with, some of the gifts listed elsewhere. These texts suggest that Paul, and presumably the early church generally, recognized a small number of well-defined and widely occurring gifts along with an indefinite number of other less-defined gifts, some of which may not have been manifest everywhere and some of which may have overlapped with others.
Paul places the seven gifts he mentions into two groups of four and three each.34 It may be significant that the first example is that of the gift of prophecy, since it occurs in second position in 1 Cor. 12:28 and Eph. 4:11 (where “apostles,” not found here, come first). As 1 Cor. 14 especially reveals, Paul prized this gift very highly. NT prophecy could include predictions of the future (cf. Acts 11:28; 21:10–12), but this was not its essence. More broadly, rather, NT prophecy involved proclaiming to the community information that God had revealed to the prophet for the church’s edification (see esp. 1 Cor. 14:3, 24–25, 30). The truth revealed by the prophet did not come with the authority of the truth taught by the apostles, for prophetic speech was to be scrutinized by other prophets (1 Cor. 14:29–32).35
But Paul suggests in this verse the need for each prophet to use the gift rightly: each is to prophesy “in accordance with the analogia of faith.” Analogia is a term drawn from the world of mathematics and logic, where it denotes the correct proportion or right relationship.36 Prophesying, Paul is saying, is to be in “right proportion” to faith. As in the similar phrase in v. 3b, the question here is what “faith” means. Perhaps the most obvious possibility is that Paul refers to the special “charismatic” faith God gives to each prophet. Paul would then be urging that prophets be sure to prophesy in accordance with the degree of faith that they have received: they are to transmit to the church all that God has given them to say, but no more than what God has given them to say.37 As we argued in v. 3, however, this interpretation of faith does not have a solid basis in Paul. The majority of interpreters think that faith here is not our act of believing but that which we believe:38 Christian teaching.39 It would certainly make good sense for Paul to insist that prophets assess what they are saying against the standard of Christian truth. And “faith” can have this objective sense in Paul.40 But the meaning is relatively rare and is not found elsewhere in Romans. On the whole, then, we are inclined to side with Cranfield, who argues that faith refers, as usual, to basic Christian faith and that “the analogia of faith” is essentially the same as the “measure of faith” in v. 3: the standard implied in one’s own belief in Christ. Prophets, Paul is saying, are to make sure that their utterances are in right proportion to their faith in Christ.
7 The second gift is that of “serving” or “ministering.” Words from the root diak- were originally used to denote “waiting at table,” a connotation that was preserved into the NT period (see Luke 17:8). The words refer to service to others of a personal nature and often carried, in both the Greek and Jewish worlds, nuances of subservience and lack of status.41 But Jesus described his own intention in terms of service and urged his followers to emulate him (Mark 10:45 and pars.). “Service” then became a standard way describing the work that Christians do on behalf of others and to the glory of God; the translation “minister” brings out this religious connotation. Paul uses “service” words to denote Christian “ministry” in general,42 the ministry of Christ,43 his own specific ministry and that of others,44 the specific ministry of collecting money for the saints in Jerusalem,45 and a special office or function within the church (the diakonos, “deacon”).46 Paul never elsewhere mentions “service” as a distinct gift, and some commentators think therefore that he uses it very generally here, of any kind of ministry that a Christian might have.47 But the other gifts in these verses involve specific functions. Probably, then, Paul thinks of a specific gift of service that qualifies a person to fill the office of “deacon,” a ministry that apparently involved especially organizing and providing for the material needs of the church.48 In urging Christians who have this gift of “service” to use it “in service,”49 Paul is emphasizing the importance of recognizing the gift and using it in accordance with its true nature. The gift of “service” should not become an occasion of pride (v. 3) but should be the foundation for heartfelt and sacrificial “serving” of others. Perhaps Paul is also concerned that those who have a certain gift might seek to minister in areas outside their sphere of giftedness and so neglect the gift that they have been given.
Paul mentions the gift of “teaching” in two of his other lists of gifts (1 Cor. 12:28, 29; Eph. 4:11), and in both places it is listed immediately after “prophecy.” Here Paul refers to “the teacher” rather than to the gift of teaching. Why he changes from abstract nouns in describing the first two gifts—“prophecy,” “service”—to personal designations for the last four is not clear.50 While both prophecy and teaching are speaking gifts that are intended to exhort the church, they are distinguishable. “Prophecy,” as we have seen, has a revelatory basis: the prophet speaks the words that God “puts into his mouth.” Teaching, on the other hand, involves the passing on of the truth of the gospel as it has been preserved in the church.51 Again, Paul is concerned that those who have the gift of teaching faithfully use that gift.
8 The word translated “exhorter”52 could also be translated “comforter,” or “encourager” (NIV; TEV). But coming immediately after “teacher,” the word probably denotes the activity of urging Christians to live out the truth of the gospel.53
Paul changes his syntax yet again in his enumeration of the last three gifts54; and again it is hard to find any reason for the change. “The one who shares”55 could denote one who distributes the resources of the church as a whole56 or one who shares his or her own resources with those less fortunate.57 A decision between the two is difficult, but perhaps the qualification “in simplicity” fits better the situation of one who is sharing one’s own goods. “Simplicity” translates haplotēs, a word that means “singleness” (of purpose; hence “simplicity”; cf. 2 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22).58 However, when used of giving, the meaning of the word shades over into “generosity,” that is, a giving that displays a singleness of heart and intent (2 Cor. 8:2; 9:11, 13).59 Either meaning fits the present context very well. But it might be better to stick with the basic and well-attested meaning “simplicity.”60 Paul is encouraging the one who gives to others to do so straightforwardly and without ulterior motives.
The fifth kind of gifted person Paul exhorts is ho proïstamenos. The word may denote a person who presides over something or a person who comes to the aid of others.61 Noting that Paul sandwiches this gift between two others that refer to giving, some commentators argue for the latter meaning.62 But the meaning “give aid” is not well attested for this verb, and Paul does not appear to use the verb with this meaning elsewhere. Probably, then, we should translate “one who presides.” But presides over what? Paul does not say, and this leads a few scholars to think that Paul may intend to denote any person who is in a position of leadership, whether that be in the home or the church.63 Others try to do justice to the context by arguing that Paul is referring to those persons who presided over the charitable work of the church.64 But Paul twice elsewhere uses this verb (once absolutely) to denote the “leaders” of the local church (1 Thess. 5:12; 1 Tim. 5:17). It is probably this ministry, usually associated with the elders/overseers (see 1 Tim. 5:17) that Paul has in mind here.65 Paul exhorts the leaders in the community to pursue their calling with “eagerness” or “diligence.”66
Paul turns finally to the one with the gift of “showing mercy.”67 Pinning down the exact nature of this ministry is not easy; as Dunn points out, this is the only place that Paul uses the verb “show mercy” of human beings. Noting that the word “mercy” is used in the NT to describe the very important Jewish pious activity of almsgiving—providing materially for the poor (cf. Matt. 6:3)—Dunn suggests that Paul might be thinking specifically of this ministry here.68 But the connection of the word “mercy” with Jewish almsgiving is not widespread enough to justify this restriction of the reference. Probably, then, we are to understand the ministry very generally and include within it any act of mercy toward others, such as visiting the sick, caring for the elderly or disabled, and providing for the poor.69 Those who are active in such ministries of mercy should be especially careful, Paul advises, to avoid a grudging or downcast attitude, but they should strive to minister with “cheerfulness.”70
C. LOVE AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS (12:9–21)
9Let love be sincere.
Abhor what is evil;
cling to what is good.
10In brotherly love, be heartfelt in your love to one another;
in honor, go ahead of one another;
11in zeal, do not be lazy.
Be set on fire by the Spirit;
serve the Lord.1
bear up under tribulation;
be devoted to prayer.
13Participate in meeting the needs of the saints;
pursue hospitality.
14Bless those who persecute you;2
bless and do not curse.
15Rejoice with those who rejoice;
weep with those who weep.
16Think the same thing toward one another;
do not think highly of yourself, but associate with the lowly;
do not become proud in your own estimation.
17Do not repay evil for evil.
Take thought for what is good in the sight of all people.
18If possible, to the extent that it depends on you, be at
peace with all people.
19Do not avenge yourselves, beloved ones, but give
place to wrath; for it is written, “I will avenge,
I will pay back,”a says the Lord.
20But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give
him something to drink; for by doing this you will be
heaping coals of fire on his head.”b
21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with the good.3
Four features of this passage are particularly noteworthy. (1) Its style. Paul fires off a volley of short, sharp injunctions with little elaboration. The omission of finite verbs in most of these injunctions in the Greek text makes the abruptness of these injunctions even more pronounced.4 Related to the rapid-fire style of this section is (2) its loose structure. There are few conjunctions or particles to indicate the flow of thought, and it is often not clear on what principle (if any) Paul has organized his various admonitions. And the connections among several of the sayings appear to be verbal rather than logical.5 The apparently haphazard arrangement makes it especially difficult to pinpoint (3) the theme of the passage. Many commentators content themselves, therefore, with a very general heading: for example, “Maxims to Guide the Christian Life” (S-H). Finally, (4) the text reflects several diverse texts and traditions: the OT (vv. 16c, 19c, 20), the teaching of Jesus (vv. 14, 17, 18, and 21, especially),6 early Christian instructions to new converts, and various Jewish and even Greek ethical and wisdom sayings.7
Some scholars offer a simple explanation for these features: Paul is using a style known as “parenesis.”8 Found in both Greek and Jewish writings, parenesis “strings together admonitions of a general ethical content.” Parenesis is characterized by eclecticism (borrowing from many sources) and by a lack of concern for sequence of thought and development of a single theme.9 That this passage resembles and may even deserve categorization as parenesis is clear. But parenesis is so broad a category that, even if we make this identification, several key issues remain unresolved.
One such issue is the relationship between these admonitions and the Roman congregation. Parenesis is usually thought to have a very general audience; and this could also fit 12:9–21 very well since many commentators think that Paul in chaps. 12–13 is providing a general summary of his ethical teaching. However, several scholars have recently argued that the admonitions in this section have the situation of the church in Rome very much in view.10 Such a focus would explain why Paul excludes certain important ethical topics (e.g., holiness in sexual relations) while focusing on issues that affect personal relationships: love and care for fellow Christians (vv. 10a, 13), humility and a common mind-set (vv. 10b, 15–16), and love toward our enemies (vv. 14, 17–21). I think the evidence suggests that we steer a middle course between these positions. Paul’s selection of material suggests that he may have at least one eye on the situation of the Roman church. But there are no direct allusions; nor does he use the vocabulary characteristic of his discussion of the weak and the strong in 14:1–15:13. Moreover, the parallels between the sequence of exhortations here and in other Pauline texts also suggest that Paul may be rehearsing familiar early Christian teaching. Note especially how Paul, as in 1 Cor. 12–13, follows a discussion of gifts with a reminder of the importance of love.11 And, as we have seen, many of Paul’s specific exhortations find parallels in other early Christian material. These parallels do not suggest that Paul has taken over one or more “blocks” of traditional material but that he is weaving together from many different sources central emphases in the early church’s catechetical instruction.12
A second issue that requires further examination is the matter of structure. Many scholars are convinced that the text is not as loosely organized as has been previously thought, particularly when style and not just content is considered. The most persuasive proposal has been set forth by D. Black,13 and I reproduce his scheme as best I can in my translation of the text above. According to Black, “let love be genuine” (v. 9a) is the heading for the entire section. There follows in vv. 9b–13 a chiastically arranged series of exhortations, in a 2-3-2-3-2 pattern.14 Verses 14, 15, and 16 each display internal stylistic and verbal unity but are relatively unrelated to each other. The text concludes with another chiasm devoted to the issue of the Christian treatment of enemies. At the extremes of the chiasm are vv. 17a and 21, which share the key word “evil.” Moving in one step, we find in vv. 17b–18 and v. 20 exhortations about the way Christians are to treat non-Christians. And at the middle of the chiasm is v. 19, which contains the key prohibition of vengeance. Black’s rhetorical analysis follows many more traditional analyses in dividing the text into two major sections, vv. 9–13 and 14–21.15 But some uncertainty about this division was always present because the content of these sections did not seem to match this division. Particularly troublesome is the way in which Paul seems to move from inner-Christian relationships (vv. 9b–13) to relationships with non-Christians (v. 14), back to inner-Christian relationships (vv. 15–16), and back again to relationships with non-Christians (vv. 17–21).16 Black’s analysis provides something of an answer to this problem by recognizing that the middle of the passage, vv. 14–16, consists of three relatively independent exhortations.17
Two final and related unresolved matters are the issues of theme and relationship to context. Black’s structural proposal highlights the opening call for genuine love in v. 9a as the overall topic of the section. And most scholars would agree that love, which Paul spotlights again in 13:8–10 as the fulfillment of the law, is basic to the section.18 But it is basic not in the sense that every exhortation is a direct exposition of what love is, but basic in the sense that it is the underlying motif of the section. Paul is not always talking specifically about love, but he keeps coming back to love as the single most important criterion for approved Christian behavior.
What relationship does this section have to what has come before it? A few scholars think that vv. 9–21 continue the discussion of community relationships in vv. 3–8,19 perhaps with special reference to the community’s exercise of gifts.20 But v. 9, which is not tied syntactically to vv. 3–8, creates a break, both in style and in content. We are, then, to view vv. 9–21 as a further elaboration of that “good” which the person who is being transformed by the renewing of the mind approves of (v. 2).
9 The opening words are not explicitly linked to anything in the previous context, and there is no verb in the Greek. Paul says, literally, “sincere love.”21 These words are the heading for what follows, as Paul proceeds in a series of participial clauses to explain just what sincere love really is. Yet the addition of an imperative verb in all major English translations—for example, NRSV: “let love be genuine”—is not off the mark. As in the similar phrases in vv. 6b–8, Paul’s purpose is to exhort, not simply to describe. Love for others, singled out by our Lord himself as the essence of the OT law (Mark 12:28–34 and pars.) and the central demand of the New Covenant (John 13:31–35), quickly became enshrined as the foundational and characteristic ethical norm of Christianity.22 The love of Christians for others was grounded in, and enabled by, the love of God expressed in the gift of his Son (see esp. John 13:34 and 1 John 4:9–11).23 Paul has already in Romans reminded us of this love (see 5:5–8). The early Christians chose a relatively rare term to express the distinctive nature of the love that was to be the foundation of all their relationships: agapē.24 This is the term Paul uses here, the definite article (in the Greek) signifying that he is speaking about a well-known virtue.25 In fact, so basic does Paul consider love that he does not even exhort us here to love but to make sure that the love he presumes we already have is “genuine.” In urging that our love be genuine, Paul is warning about making our love a mere pretense, an outward display or emotion that does not conform to the nature of the God who is love and who has loved us.26
In the second part of v. 9, we find two more exhortations, each put in the form of a participial clause. Why Paul chooses to express these admonitions with participles continues to be debated,27 but it may be that he does so in order to indicate the close relationship of the exhortations with the original demand for “genuine love.”28 “Genuine love,” Paul is saying, will “abhor what is evil” and “cling to what is good.”29 Both verbs are very strong: “abhor” could also be translated “hate exceedingly,”30 and “cling” can be used to refer to the intimate union that is to characterize the marriage relationship.31 “Genuine” Christian love, Paul is suggesting, is not a directionless emotion or something that can be only felt and not expressed. Love is not genuine when it leads a person to do something evil or to avoid doing what is right—as defined by God in his Word. Genuine love, “the real thing,” will lead the Christian to that “good” which is the result of the transformed heart and mind (v. 2).
10 The two exhortations in this verse share a focus on the relations of Christians to “one another.” They also share a similar structure: each begins with a reference to the virtue about which Paul gives instructions—“with reference to brotherly love,” “with reference to honor”32—moves on to the reciprocal emphasis (“one another”) and concludes with the imperatival element.33
After introducing all the exhortations in vv. 9–21 with a call for sincere love, Paul now narrows his focus, admonishing Christians to be “devoted” (philostorgoi) to one another in “brotherly love” (philadelphia). Both key terms in this exhortation, which share the philo- stem, convey the sense of family relationships.34 Paul here reflects the early Christian understanding of the church as an extended family, whose members, bound together in intimate fellowship, should exhibit toward one another a heartfelt and consistent concern.
The general meaning of the second exhortation in this verse is clear enough: Christians are to be anxious to recognize and give credit to other believers. But its exact meaning is debated. The verb Paul uses here means “go before,” often with the additional nuance that one goes before to show the way to someone else.35 Taking the verb in this basic sense, many early translations and commentators as well as more recent ones think Paul means something like “surpassing one another in showing honor.”36 Others, however, suggest that the verb might here have an unusual sense, “consider better,”37 and so translate “in honor preferring one another.”38 Each interpretation has its weaknesses; I, however, prefer the former since the second assumes an otherwise unattested meaning for the verb. Paul is then calling on Christians to outdo each other in bestowing honor on one another; for example, to recognize and praise one another’s accomplishments and to defer to one another.
11 As the verse division suggests, the first exhortation in this verse, “in zeal, do not be lazy,” could well be taken with the exhortation that follows, “be set on fire by the Spirit.”39 But, as we have seen (see the introduction to this section), the style of this exhortation has more in common with the exhortations in v. 10. Probably, then, we should relate Paul’s warning about laziness in zeal to his call for us to love and esteem one another in v. 10.40 Paul does not specify the object of the unflagging zeal that he calls for, but we should perhaps think of the “rational worship” to which we are called.41 The temptation to “lose steam” in our lifelong responsibility to reverence God in every aspect of our lives, to become lazy and complacent42 in our pursuit of what is “good, well pleasing to God, and perfect,” is a natural one—but it must be strenuously resisted.
The idea of “zeal” is continued in the image of “being set on fire”43 in the second exhortation. Paul might here be urging Christians to maintain a strong and emotional commitment to the Lord in their own spirits.44 But the spirit to which Paul refers is more likely, in light of the parallel reference to the Lord in v. 11c, the Holy Spirit.45 On this view, Paul is exhorting us to allow the Holy Spirit to “set us on fire”:46 to open ourselves to the Spirit as he seeks to excite us about the “rational worship” to which the Lord has called us.
The exhortation to “serve the Lord” might at first sight seem like an anticlimax, too obvious and too broad to have any real application. But a closer look at the context suggests otherwise. The encouragement to be “set on fire by the Spirit” is, as church history and current experience amply attest, open to abuse. Christians have often been so carried away by enthusiasm for spiritual things that they have left behind those objective standards of Christian living that the Scriptures set forth. This, it seems is Paul’s concern; and he seeks to cut off any such abuse by reminding us that being set on fire by the Spirit must lead to, and be directed by, our service of the Lord. It is not the “enthusiasm” of self-centered display (such as characterized the Corinthians) but the enthusiasm of humble service of the Master who bought us that the Spirit creates within us.47
12 The three admonitions in this verse are closely related in both style and content. For hope, endurance, and prayer are natural partners. Even as we “rejoice in hope,”48 gaining confidence from God’s promise that we will share the glory of God, we recognize the “down side”: the path to the culmination of hope is strewn with tribulations. Paul, ever the realist, knows this; and so here, as he does elsewhere, he quickly moves from hope to the need for endurance.49 At the same time, we realize that our ability to continue to rejoice and to “bear up under” our tribulations is dependent on the degree to which we heed Paul’s challenge to “persist50 in prayer.” (Note that Paul moves from hope to endurance to prayer also in Rom. 8:24–27.)
13 Paul concludes his first series of exhortations with a call for Christians to put into practice the love and concern for one another that he has mentioned earlier (v. 10).51 In the first exhortation Paul uses the verbal form of the very familiar NT koinōnia, “fellowship.” Paul, however, is not urging us to have fellowship with the saints, but to have fellowship with, to participate in, the “needs” of the saints. These “needs” are material ones: food, clothing, and shelter.52 Therefore, the fellowship we are called to here is the sharing of our material goods with Christians who are less well-off.53 Some scholars think that Paul might be thinking specifically of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (cf. 15:25, 26) to whom Paul was bringing money collected from the Gentile churches (cf. 15:30–33).54 But, while we should not of course exclude these Christians from Paul’s reference, there is nothing to suggest that he has them particularly in mind here.55
Another dimension of Christian love is the practice of hospitality. The need to give shelter and food to visitors was great in the NT world, there being few hotels or motels. And the need among Christians was exacerbated by the many traveling missionaries and other Christian workers. Hence the NT frequently urges Christians to offer hospitality to others (see 1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:8; Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet. 4:9). But Paul does more than that here; he urges us to “pursue” it—to go out of our way to welcome and provide for travelers.
14 A break in the passage occurs here, marked by a change in both style—from the imperatival participles of vv. 9–13 to the imperatives of v. 1456—and topic—from relations among Christians in vv. 10–13 to relations of Christians with non-Christians in v. 14. There is a verbal connection with v. 13: “pursue [hospitality]” and “persecutors” translate the same Greek verb.57 More important, however, is the thematic connection with v. 9: blessing persecutors is one manifestation of that “sincere love” which shuns evil and clings to the good. And it is certainly one of the most striking exhibitions of that transformed way of thinking which is to characterize believers (v. 2). In the Scriptures, “blessing” is typically associated with God; he “possesses and dispenses all blessings.”58 To “bless” one’s persecutors, therefore, is to call on God to bestow his favor upon them. Its opposite is, of course, cursing—asking God to bring disaster and/or spiritual ruin on a person. By prohibiting cursing as well as enjoining blessing, Paul stresses the sincerity and single-mindedness of the loving attitude we are to have toward our persecutors.
While persecution in various forms—from social ostracism to legal action—was almost unavoidable in the early church, we have no evidence that the Roman Christians were at this time going through any special time of persecution. Paul is probably, then, issuing a general command, reflecting once again a staple item in the list of early Christian exhortation (see 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Pet. 3:9). It was Jesus himself who first enunciated this demand of the kingdom, and there is good reason to think that Paul deliberately alludes here to Jesus’ own saying. Note the similarities:
Matt. 5:44: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Luke 6:27–28: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
Paul seems to combine these two forms of Jesus’ saying from the “Sermon on the Mount/Plain,” suggesting perhaps that he quotes here a pre-Synoptic form of one of Jesus’ best-known and most startling kingdom demands.59 For Jesus’ command that his followers respond to persecution and hatred with love and blessing was unprecedented in both the Greek and Jewish worlds.60 Paul’s dependence on Jesus’ teaching at this point is bolstered by the fact that he appears to allude in this same paragraph to other portions of Jesus’ teaching on love of the enemy from this same “sermon” (cf. vv. 17a and 21).61 Paul does not, of course, identify the teaching as coming from Jesus. But this may indicate not that he did not know its source, but that the source was so well known as to require no explicit mention.
15 Paul changes both style and topic yet again, suggesting (as we noted in the introduction to the section) that this part of Paul’s parenesis combines several relatively independent sayings. In style, the imperative verbs of v. 14 give way to imperatival infinitives in v. 15.62 And Paul shifts from exhortation about the relation of Christians to those outside the community (v. 14) back to their relation to fellow Christians (vv. 15–16). Indeed, identifying with others in both their joys and their sorrows is an appropriate way for Christians to demonstrate the sincerity of their love to non-Christians as well as Christians.63 But Paul’s exhortation here seems to pick up his assertion about the mutual and intimate relations of the members of the body of Christ in 1 Cor. 12:26: “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer together; and if one member is honored, all the members rejoice together.”64 Love that is genuine will not respond to a fellow believer’s joy with envy or bitterness, but will enter wholeheartedly into that same joy. Similarly, love that is genuine will bring us to identify so intimately with our brothers and sisters in Christ that their sorrows will become ours.
16 The transition from v. 15 to v. 16 is a natural one: the mutual sympathy that Paul calls for in v. 15 is possible only if Christians share a common mind-set.65 The “one another” language of v. 15 picks up the same theme from v. 10, while the use of the root phron- (“think”) in all three admonitions in this verse reminds us of Paul’s demand for the right kind of “thinking” among Christians in v. 3. These parallels make it clear that v. 16 is about the relations of Christians with one another.66 Paul’s first exhortation uses language that he uses elsewhere to denote unity of thinking among Christians.67 However, his wording here suggests not so much a plea for Christians to “the think the same thing among one another,” but to “think the same thing toward one another.”68 Paul’s point might then be that Christians should display the same attitude toward all other people, whatever their social, ethnic, or economic status.69 However, while Paul might emphasize here the outward display of our “thinking,” it does not force us to adopt a meaning for the basic phrase that is different from its sense in its other occurrences in Paul. He is calling us to a common mind-set. Such a common mind-set does not mean that we must all think in just the same way or that we must think exactly the same thing about every issue, but that we should adopt an attitude toward everything that touches our lives that springs from the renewed mind of the new realm to which we belong by God’s grace (see v. 2).
As Paul recognizes elsewhere (see esp. Phil. 2:2–4), the biggest barrier to unity is pride. Therefore, Paul next warns us about “thinking exalted things,” that is, “thinking too highly of ourselves.”70 Our overly exalted opinion of ourselves, leading us to think that we are always right and others wrong and that our opinions matter more than others, often prevents the church from exhibiting the unity to which God calls her. The positive antidote to such pride, Paul says, is association with “the lowly.” It is not certain what Paul means by this positive exhortation. The adjective “lowly” could be neuter, in which case Paul might be urging Christians, in contrast to being haughty, to devote themselves to humble tasks.71 But “lowly” could also refer to persons, in which case Paul would be exhorting believers to associate with “lowly people,” that is, the outcasts, the poor, and the needy.72 A decision between these two options is impossible to make; both fit the context well and both are paralleled in the NT. But in either case Paul emphasizes the degree of our involvement with “the lowly” by using a verb that could be translated “be carried away with.”73
The word phronimos in the final exhortation in the verse continues the rhetorically striking use of the root phron-. The person who is phronimos is characterized by “thinking” and is therefore “wise.” The quality denoted by the word is therefore a positive one.74 It becomes negative only when the standard by which we judge our wisdom is our own. It is this subjectivity and arrogance that Paul warns us about here: “do not be wise in your own eyes.”75
17 After two verses that exhort Christians about their relations to one another, Paul concludes his delineation of the manifestations of “genuine love” (v. 9a) with admonitions about the attitude Christians are to adopt toward non-Christians (vv. 17–21).76 As in v. 14, where Paul first touched on this topic, his focus is on the way Christians are to respond to non-Christians who persecute and in other ways “do evil”77 to us. Thus the prohibition of retaliation in v. 17a expands on Paul’s warning that we are not to curse our persecutors in v. 14b. Here again, Paul’s dependence on Jesus’ teaching is clear. For not only did Jesus exhort us to love and pray for our enemies; in the same context he also warns us not to exact “eye for eye, and tooth for tooth” (Matt. 5:38).78
In a pattern similar to that in vv. 14 and 16, the negative prohibition “Do not repay evil for evil” is paired with a positive injunction: “Take thought for what is good in the sight of all people.” The verb “take thought” is probably emphatic: “Doing good to all is something to be planned and not just willed.”79 The translation “in the sight of all people” is disputed; many commentators, doubting that Paul would allow non-Christians to set the standard for what Christians do, prefer to translate “Take thought to do good things to all persons.”80 But there is no clear parallel for this interpretation of the Greek word involved. Cranfield suggests a different alternative: that Paul is urging us to display “in the sight of all people” the good things that we do. Non-Christians do not set the standard for “the good”; they are the audience. But this, also, is an unusual way to translate the Greek.81 We should, then, take Paul’s words at face value: he wants us to commend ourselves before non-Christians by seeking to do those “good things” that non-Christians approve and recognize. There is, of course, an unstated limitation to this command, one that resides in the word “good” itself. For Paul would certainly not want us to have forgotten that the “good” that he speaks of throughout these verses is defined in terms of the will of God (v. 2).
18 The close relation between this exhortation—“If possible, to the extent that it depends on you, be at peace with all people”—and the last one in v. 17 is obvious: both urge Christians to pursue behavior that will have a positive impact on “all people.” Jesus himself commended “peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9) and urged his followers to “be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50, where “one another” probably refers to people generally rather than to the disciples only). Although much less clear than the allusions in vv. 14, 17, and 21, this may, then, be another allusion to the teaching of Jesus.82 We do not know whether there was any special need to exhort the Roman Christians to live at peace with their fellow-citizens. Paul’s reasons for including this admonition here, along with the similar one at the end of v. 17, may be more related to the logic of what he has been saying. For his encouragement to Christians to bless persecutors (v. 14) and not repay evil for evil (v. 17a) assumes that Christians are in conflict with the world around them. To a considerable extent, Paul recognizes, such conflict is inevitable: as the world hated Jesus, so it hates his followers (John 16:33). Paul acknowledges that much such conflict is unavoidable by adding to his exhortation to “be at peace” the double qualification “if possible, to the extent that it depends on you.”83 But Paul does not want Christians to use the inevitability of tension with the world as an excuse for behavior that needlessly exacerbates that conflict or for a resignation that leads us not even to bother to seek to maintain a positive witness.
19 After this excursus in which Paul exhorts Christians to relate positively to the world (vv. 17b–18), Paul returns to admonish us about the way we are to react to the pressure that the world brings upon us. “Do not avenge yourselves” moves one step beyond “do not repay evil for evil” (v. 17a). Confronted with someone who is wronging us, we might be tempted to harm our adversary by doing a similar wrong to him. But the temptation becomes more subtle when we seek to “baptize” such a response by viewing it as a means by which to execute a just and deserved judgment on our oppressor. Perhaps because he understands the strength of this temptation, Paul reminds us that we are “beloved”: people who have quite undeservedly experienced the love of God.84 Rather than taking justice into our hands, we are to “give place to wrath.” Paul does not explicitly say whose wrath this is, and it is possible to think that he refers to the wrath of the adversary, or our own wrath,85 or the wrath executed by governmental authorities (see 13:4).86 But Paul certainly intends to refer to the wrath of God, as the definite “the wrath” and the OT quotation that follows show.87 It is not our job to execute justice on evil people; that is God’s prerogative, and he will visit his wrath on such people when he deems it right to do so.88 The prohibition of vengeance is found in both the OT89 and Judaism,90 but it tends to be confined to relations with co-religionists.91 Paul’s prohibition of vengeance even upon enemies is an extension of the idea that reflects Jesus’ revolutionary ethic.92
Paul buttresses his exhortation to defer to God in matters of retributive justice with an OT quotation highlighting God’s determination to exact vengeance. The words are from Deut. 32:35,93 but the theme is quite widespread, and it might be that Paul has in view some of the other texts enunciating this theme as well.94 This may explain the cumbersome addition at the end of the quotation, “says the Lord,” since these words appear in some of the prophetic announcements of God’s vengeance.95
20 Paul continues quoting the OT: the exhortation in v. 20 is a straightforward rendering of Prov. 25:21–22a.96 Paul was probably drawn to this text for several reasons. First, the reference to the “enemy” may have attracted his attention since the teaching of Jesus on which he depends throughout these verses exhorts us to “love our enemies” (Matt. 5:43 = Luke 6:27). Second, feeding and giving water to our enemy is similar to the action Jesus recommends as the expression of this love: turning the other cheek; giving our shirts to those who ask for our coats; giving to those who beg from us (cf. Luke 6:29–30). And, third, such a response to our enemies is a practical way of putting into action our “blessing” of those who persecute us (v. 14) and a specific form of “doing good in the sight of all people” (v. 17b).
The text indicates that acting in this way toward the enemy will mean “heaping coals of fire on his head.” What is intended by this imagery is not clear, either in Proverbs or in Paul. The Greek for the phrase “coals of fire” occurs only two other times in the LXX, neither of which is metaphorical (Isa. 47:14; Prov. 6:28). However, when used metaphorically in the OT, the words “coals” and “fire” usually refer to God’s awesome presence, and especially to his judgment.97 Paul may then view our giving of food and water to the enemy to be means by which—if such actions do not lead to repentance—the enemy’s guilt before the Lord will be increased, leading in turn to an increase in the severity of his or her judgment. Paul, of course, would not mean, on this view, that we are to act kindly toward our enemy with the purpose of making his or her judgment more severe. Paul would simply be noting that our good actions can have this result.98
Understood in this way, this view of the text cannot be cavalierly dismissed as “sub-Christian,” for there is biblical precedent for the idea.99 The major difficulty with the view is that it does not fit well in the context. In vv. 17–21, Paul has been urging that Christians avoid a spirit of retaliation; yet, however qualified, this first interpretation comes close to encouraging just such an attitude. Moreover, the teaching of Jesus from which Paul draws so much of what he says in these verses contains no such idea. Most modern commentators have therefore concluded that Paul views “coals of fire” as a metaphor for “the burning pangs of shame.”100 Acting kindly toward our enemies is a means of leading them to be ashamed of their conduct toward us and, perhaps, to repent and turn to the Lord whose love we embody.101 While the linguistic basis for this view is not all that one would wish, it is probably the best alternative. Paul is giving us a positive motivation for acts of kindness toward our enemies. He does not want the prohibition of vengeance (v. 19) to produce in us a “do-nothing” attitude toward our persecutors.102 However, Paul is not claiming that acts of kindness toward enemies will infallibly bring repentance; whatever degree of shame our acts might produce, they may be quickly pushed aside and produce even greater hostility toward both us and the Lord.
21 Paul rounds off his series of admonitions about the Christian’s response to hostility with a final, general summons: “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with the good.” The double use of the word “evil”103 links this verse with v. 17a in a chiastic arrangement. Evil can overcome us when we allow the pressure put on us by a hostile world to force us into attitudes and actions that are out of keeping with the transformed character of the new realm. Paul urges us to resist such temptation. But, more than that, sounding a note typical both of this paragraph and of the teaching of Jesus that it reflects, he urges us to take a positive step as well: to work constantly104 at triumphing over the evil others do to us105 by doing good. By responding to evil with “the good” rather than with evil, we gain a victory over that evil. Not only have we not allowed it to corrupt our own moral integrity, but we have displayed the character of Christ before a watching and skeptical world.106 Here, Paul suggests at the end of this important series of exhortations, is a critical example of that “good” (agathos) which Paul exhorts us to display in this section of the letter (see 12:2).