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HUMANITY’S GLORY AND GLORIFICATION IN ROMANS

Paul’s use of δόξα and δοξάζω are not topics at the forefront of current Romans scholarship. But they should be. The motif reveals to a greater degree than is normally recognized Paul’s theological indebtedness to his Jewish heritage, the significance of Adam for Paul’s anthropology and Adam-Christ typology, and his view of the relationship between humanity and creation. Moreover, the motif of glory should be a discussion point because, as hinted at in the previous chapter, in scholarly and lay circles alike, Paul’s references to Christians’ glory and glorification are too often understood either on the basis of preconceived cultural notions of glory as splendor or radiance or on the basis of assumed lexical definitions of glory as the presence of God manifested in light phenomena. Unfortunately, this notion of glory has affected the message of redemption in Romans and thereby also the meaning of “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” in Romans 8:29b. Romans 8:29b can be understood only when the motif of glory in its surrounding context (especially Rom 5:2; 8:17, 18, 21, 30) is properly understood within the larger context of Romans and within the parameters of its use in Jewish literature set in the previous chapter.

This is a large order to fill for one chapter—but not an impossible order. The chapter will include three sections. We will first look at how δόξα and δοξάζω are commonly defined in Romans and how, at times, such definitions are inadequate. Once this assessment is laid out, I will briefly note five considerations that must be kept in mind as we examine Paul’s use of the terms in Romans. We will be in a position then to systematically analyze the texts in Romans in which Paul refers to the glory or glorification of humanity (Rom 1:23; 2:7, 10; 3:23; 5:2) and Israel (Rom 1:23; 9:4, 23). The exception at this point will be a close analysis of those in Romans 8 (Rom 8:17, 18, 21, 30), which will be more closely examined at a later point. I will offer what I refer to as Paul’s “narrative of glory”—an underlying narrative of eschatological renewal, of humanity, Israel, and creation—implicit in Romans. This narrative of glory will serve as the primary context in which to discuss Romans 8:29.

3.1. HUMANITY’S GLORY AND GLORIFICATION IN ROMANS: CURRENT APPROACHES

In the last half-century alone, three works have shared the title (In) Hope of (God’s) Glory.1 Yet in few such books whose titles include the term do the authors provide a clearly articulated definition of glory—a striking fact considering its frequency of occurrences within the Pauline corpus and the emphasis placed on glory or glorification as a Christian’s hope or purpose.2 Glory and its cognates are words used often in Pauline scholarship but, at least in proportion to their usage, rarely investigated.3

Within Pauline studies glory is typically either defined as or assumed to be a visible splendor, radiance, or brilliance that often, though not always, connotes the manifest presence of God and is derived from δόξα, the Septuagintal gloss for כבודa.4 Precedents do exist for this traditional interpretation: for example, the Damascus Christophany (Acts 9:3); Paul’s clear use of δόξα as visible splendor (2 Cor 3); later Jewish traditions of Adam losing his garment of glory (Gen. Rab. 12.6) and/or the light of God with which he was at first clothed (Apoc. Mos. 21);5 and, as seen in the previous chapter, the Septuagintal and early apocalyptic occurrences where δόξα, δοξάζω, glory, or glorification are associated with light imagery and theophany.

The most discussion these words receive is in dictionaries or focused studies.6 Perhaps most helpful, if even on a cursory level, is L. H. Brockington’s 1955 essay “The New Testament Use of δόξα.” Brockington suggests that “there are four ways in which δόξα is used in the New Testament which may be said to be directly due to corresponding usage in the LXX: (1) the conception of brightness; (2) the power and wonder-working activity of God; (3) the saving power of God; (4) the conception of God-likeness.”7 Brockington argues that the New Testament use of δόξα is primarily dependent on Old Testament theophanic traditions, but his emphasis on the differing ways in which the tradition was rendered throughout the New Testament is helpful.8

James Harrison’s more recent approach to understanding Paul’s use of δόξα also deserves mention. In Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome (2011), Harrison aligns himself with the growing emphasis on the sociopolitical context confronting the churches in Rome. In doing so he emphasizes the Roman imperial notion of gloria and suggests that Paul and his readers would primarily have associated glory with the quests of Roman nobles for gloria ancestra (“glory of the ancestors”),9 which defined their social status within the empire. Harrison writes,

For Paul in Romans, glory was a gift of divine grace dispensed to his dependants [sic] through the dishonour of the crucified Christ who had become their hilasterion. . . . It challenged the anthropocentric boasting of the Roman nobiles, as much as it challenged the cosmic and ancestral myths of the imperial ruler. Paul’s radical inversion of the traditional understanding of Gloria ultimately changed the face of Western civilization by enshrining humility as the distinguishing sign of a truly great and successful man.10

Paul’s glory is not derived from what Harrison describes as “reserves” of ancestral glory11 (i.e., glory gained through service to the state12) but from the God of Israel. For Paul, Harrison argues, the glory of Israel’s God is the only status shaper of any eternal significance. Harrison provides a rigorous and comprehensive treatment of philosophical, political, benefactor, and virtue-based notions of glory in imperial Roman culture. His treatment of δόξα in Romans in light of such imperial uses was both long overdue and insightful to all who wish to read the text against the backdrop of its first-century political and social context. I will return to his treatment of δόξα throughout my investigation.

Along with Harrison, Robert Jewett’s treatment of the term in his Romans commentary is notable.13 Unlike Harrison, Jewett emphasizes not the ancestral traditions but the paradigm of honor and shame that permeated the social strata of the empire. Together, both scholars have helpfully highlighted Paul’s use of the term from an increasingly important socio-historical perspective.

With Harrison’s treatment of δόξα noted above, another highly significant study for our purposes here is the influential work of Carey Newman. He examines Paul’s use of δόξα in Paul’s Glory-Christology (1992), where he investigates “how and why Paul came to identify Jesus as glory.”14 Newman argues that Paul interpreted the Christophany as the appearance of God’s eschatological glory in the resurrected Christ. Newman begins by tracing the development of כבד יהוה as a “technical term to refer to God’s visible, mobile divine presence” throughout the Old Testament,15 and examines its development as a technical term through four traditio-historical strands: Sinai, theophanic, royal and prophetic.16 These four strands, Newman suggests, coalesce in Paul’s interpretation of the Christophany. He writes:

In Paul’s convictional interpretation of the Christophany, the various strands of the Glory tradition coalesce. Paul echoed the Glory tradition in his interpretation of the Christophany as a (i) theophany of δόξα, (ii) a Sinai-like revelation כבד יהוה, (iii) as the Davidic Messiah’s exaltation to Glory, (iv) as a fulfilment of the prophetic promise that God would inaugurate the new age with a revelation of his כבד, (v) as a prophetic call in which he was confronted by the Glory of God, and (vi) as an apocalyptic throne vision in which he saw the principal agent of God, the manlike כבד יהוה of Ezekiel 1:28. Paul’s identification of Christ as δόξα centers upon the convergence of multiple construals of the Glory tradition in his interpretation of the Christophany.17

For Paul, Newman says, “the Christophany is a revelation of the end-of-time, resurrection presence of God—his δόξα.”18 The glory of God—the visible, manifest presence of God—rests in Christ, thus “proleptically inaugurating the eschatological age of blessing.”19 Though Paul never says so explicitly, “Christ = δόξα,”20 and Newman argues a case for this on the basis of 1 Corinthians 9:1-2; 15:1-11, where Christophany points to resurrection, and therefore end-time glory; Galatians 1:11-17, where Paul indicates that the Christophany was a throne vision where he “encountered the special agent, Jesus, who is to be equated with the Glory of God”;21 and Philippians 3:2-21, where the Christophany is the model for the Christian life—a life that begins and ends in eschatological glory.22 Newman further suggests that glory functions in Paul’s rhetoric as a “sociomorphic portrayal of transference” and as “physiomorphic description of Christian progress,”23 and that, at least in two places, we see Paul “self-consciously [echoing] the [glory] tradition” in a reinterpretation of his narratival and symbolic world now interpreted through his Christophany: 2 Corinthians 3:4–4:6 and 1 Corinthians 2:8.

3.1.1. Inadequacies of Carey Newman’s glory Christology. No publication has yet been produced on Paul’s use of δόξα that surpasses Newman’s investigatory depth or breadth, and much of his work is to be highly praised.24 In particular, I fully support his conclusions that in his Christophany, Paul understood Christ as the “visible, manifest presence of God”; that Paul reinterpreted his narratival and symbolic world in terms of his Christophany; and that Paul employed his Christophany to serve to validate his apostolic authority, message, and suffering in 2 Corinthians 3:4–4:6. Nevertheless, I suggest that his conclusions are not prescriptive for how δόξα should be interpreted when used to refer to the glory or glorification of believers or when δόξα is used more generally in Paul’s letters, and particularly in Romans.

The most pressing issue is that, while Newman traces the lexical use of the כבד-δόξα word group through the Old Testament, his study deals almost exclusively with its use in relation to God. He acknowledges outright that “the כבד word group possesses a fluid semantic range. This study, however, focuses upon just a small slice of the כבד’s meaning: namely, those places where כבוד (both denotatively and connotatively) is used as a symbol of ‘divine presence.’”25 More specifically, Newman focuses on כבודa יהוה, which he argues is a technical term signifying “the visible and mobile presence of Yahweh.”26 He does not examine how either δόξα or δοξάζω function for humanity in the LXX, and, while he acknowledges the nontechnical uses of glory in the Old Testament, he does not elaborate on them. The trajectory of development of what Newman titles the “Glory tradition” is exclusively a development of how the כבוד יהוה was interpreted and utilized throughout the passages of Israelite and Jewish history.

The logical result of this is that, when Newman turns to Paul’s use of δόξα and Paul’s reinterpretation of the glory tradition in terms of his Christophany, the primary “Glory tradition” Newman uses is that of the development of the כבוד יהוהa.27 First, this glory tradition is labeled “the Glory tradition” and not just “a glory tradition” because it is the glory tradition from which Newman primarily draws his conclusions. Second, in Newman’s final statements in the work he concludes: “In Paul’s interpretation of the Christophany, God’s glory appeared in the once crucified, but now resurrected person of Jesus.”28 In this Newman’s case is strong. However, his final sentence betrays him: “I submit this thesis best explains Paul’s use of δόξα.” No doubt this definition has its place, particularly in Paul’s interpretation of his Christophany experience, but this does not demand that every use of δόξα denotes the eschatological presence of God. Basing Paul’s use of δόξα on this definition/tradition does no justice either to the multifarious uses of δόξα throughout the LXX or to the clearly linear use of δοξάζω when used in reference to humanity in the LXX.29

Further, Newman argues that δόξα and δοξάζω function as sociomorphic and physiomorphic transfer signifiers, but his evidence for such a reading is scant at best. Humanity’s exchange of the glory of God in Romans 1:23 and falling short of the glory of God in Romans 3:23, Newman argues, are references to a “ruptured relationship” with God, a relationship that is restored in their “glorification” in Romans 8:30.30 He suggests that the passive συνδοξάζω in Romans 8:17 and the aorist δοξάζω in Romans 8:30 both refer to a “metaphorphosis into Glory and therefore [relate] the verb to a paradigmatic field of words and constructions for spiritual transformation.”31 Justification for the suggestions that, first, they refer to “spiritual transformation” and, second, they refer to transformation into “Glory,” that is, divine presence, is nonexistent, however, other than to say that it is a result of “incorporation into Jesus,”32 which itself is a loaded statement left entirely unpacked. No discussion is provided for why the verbal forms should be understood as such. And, more importantly, no justification is given for why the verb forms in Romans 8:17, 30 are not categorized with those instances where, according to Newman himself, the “verb is used to mean ‘honor’ or ‘magnify’” (e.g., Rom 11:13; 1 Cor 12:26).33 This is particularly significant given that δοξάζω is never once used in the LXX to refer to humanity’s “spiritual transformation.”

Other than the short and relatively unsubstantiated mentions of δόξα or δοξάζω in the Romans texts noted above, Newman’s conclusions on Paul’s use of δόξα rest almost exclusively on Paul’s references to δόξα outside Romans. Most explicit references to any key δόξα or δοξάζω texts in Romans primarily appear in his chapter on the word’s semantic range but bear little weight otherwise. Similarly, he acknowledges that δόξα can denote “social status” or “honour”34 but does not suggest that the use of δόξα in either Romans 2:7 or Romans 2:10 belongs here, despite their associations with τιμή in the same verses. He suggests, rather, that they belong with forty-two other occurrences of δόξα that are “left for consideration.”35 Neither verse, however, is ever mentioned again.

Additionally, Newman’s study rests heavily on the function of δόξα in 2 Corinthians 3, as it should; 2 Corinthians 3 has more occurrences of δόξα than any other New Testament passage, and here Paul explicitly mentions the reflection of God’s visible splendor on Moses’ face in Exodus 34:29-35. In 2 Corinthians 3:7-11, Paul draws a contrast between the glory associated with the ministry of the law, presented as a visible manifestation of God’s glory on Moses’ face, and the glory associated with the ministry of the Spirit:

Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory [δόξα] so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory [δόξα] of his face, a glory [δόξα] now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory [δόξα]? For if there was glory [δόξα] in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory [δόξα]! Indeed, what once had glory [δόξα] has lost its glory [δόξα] because of the greater glory [δόξα]; for if what was set aside came through glory [δόξα], much more has the permanent come in glory [δόξα]!

Newman is correct to suggest that Paul “contrasts the Sinaitic revelation to Moses with his Christophany” in order to argue for a “superior role and message based upon a superior revelation.”36 By doing so, Newman says, Paul legitimizes his apostolic authority, preaching, and suffering on the basis of the revelation of δόξα in Christ: “The Christophany as a revelation of final, eschatological δόξα appropriates to Paul the legitimizing power inherent in the Sinaitic Glory construal in order to defend his apostleship.”37 Paul’s invocation of the Exodus narrative as a basis for his own Christophanic revelation is at the heart of Newman’s thesis. There, in Christ, is the visible, radiant, manifest presence of the one true God.

That being said, however, two points are worthy of note. First, while δόξα in 2 Corinthians 3 does clearly refer to God’s visible splendor as it was revealed on Moses’ face, Paul’s point is not to emphasize God’s presence. Paul uses it as background context to describe the authority of the Spirit’s ministry as superior to that of the law. Thrall suggests that glory in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 refers to a “manifestation of (divine) power,” “divine presence,” or “divine nature.”38 Here in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11, “divine power” is most fitting. The old covenant (παλαιά διαθήκη, 2 Cor 3:14) is abolished in Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ καταργεῖται, 2 Cor 3:14); the glory (i.e., the authority) of the law is replaced with that of the Spirit’s glory and not the Spirit’s visible presence but the superiority of the Spirit’s ministry (or power) in the world. The glory is presented in the context of the Sinaitic glory tradition, where Moses reflects the δόξα of God as God’s visible splendor, symbolic of his presence, but the point is to describe the glory of the law as that which held less authority/power than the glory of the Spirit’s ministry. This is to say that, even in 2 Corinthians 3:4–4:6, Paul uses various denotations of δόξα.39

Second, given the terms’ variegated uses throughout the LXX and Newman’s own admission that they are used in various ways throughout Pauline literature, one cannot justifiably interpret the theology of glory or glorification in Romans on the basis of Paul’s reflections on the Christophany in 2 Corinthians 3—a different passage in a different letter with an altogether different purpose, message, and background.40 How glory and glorification function in Romans must be determined first and foremost on the basis of their purpose and function within the message and context of Romans.

These inadequacies are substantial enough to warrant a rereading of how δόξα and δοξάζω function in Romans. I do not wish to minimize Newman’s study but rather applaud his work on this overlooked but significant topic for Pauline studies. Though I suggest that Newman’s glory Christology is not applicable to most occurrences of δόξα and δοξάζω in Romans, it is applicable elsewhere, and it goes a long way in understanding Paul’s interpretation of his Christophany.

3.2. HUMANITY’S GLORY AND GLORIFICATION IN ROMANS: CONSIDERATIONS

If we are to understand Paul’s use of δόξα and δοξάζω in Romans, then we need to understand the terms against the background of the letter’s sociopolitical environment and literary context. We need to consider (1) the importance and denotation of glory/honor within the first-century Roman imperial environment, (2) the significance of Psalm 8 in understanding human glory in Romans, (3) Adam in Paul’s image and morphic language, (4) the presence of echoes of Adam in Romans 1; 3, and (5) Adam’s paradigmatic function in Romans. Considerations two through five all relate to the fact that the image and glory of Adam, or of humanity in Adam, is a key interpretative piece of Paul’s Christology and anthropology in Romans. The second and fourth considerations will require extended treatments.

3.2.1. Glory in Romans and glory/honor within the first-century Roman imperial environment. Jewett argues that “competition for honor was visible in every city of the Roman Empire in which members of the elite competed for civic power through sponsoring games and celebrations, financing public buildings, endowing food distributions, and so on. The public life in the Roman Empire was centered in the quest for honor.”41 Paul’s letter to Rome, Jewett further states, “employs honor categories from beginning to end.”42 Harrison similarly interprets δόξα in Romans through a sociopolitical lens, recognizing the importance of ancestral glory traditions familiar to every Roman household. He writes, “Paul addressed [the issue of glory] especially for the benefit of Roman believers living in the capital in the late 50’s and integrated his presentation with the eschatological traditions of glory that he inherited from the Septuagint and from Second Temple Judaism. Thus Paul’s understanding of glory, while being profoundly theological, was also political in its polemic.”43 Glory for believers, according to Harrison, was rooted only in Israel’s God, the “truthful Judge” and the “grace of the crucified Benefactor,” and it was received only through humility and boasting in tribulations—a starkly different understanding of glory from that of Roman nobility.44 In Romans, “we see Paul retelling the story of Israel and its fulfilment in Christ . . . as a powerful counterpoint to the ancestral stories of glory that framed the Roman understanding of history, republican and imperial.”45 Given this, we should not be surprised to discover that Paul’s references to glory in Romans imply references to one’s honor or status.

3.2.2. Psalm 8 and the glory of humanity in Romans. In chapter two I demonstrated that the motif of glory, when applied to humanity in the LXX, is consistently applied in terms of honor/power/authority/character and is not a visible manifestation of the presence of God. Within this motif, Psalm 8 functions as a particularly important and representative example. Its significance is based both on its semantic use of δόξα for humanity in the LXX and on its christological application by Paul and other early church writers. In particular, I suggest that Psalm 8 is a key text that stands behind Paul’s use of δόξα and its cognates in Romans. Psalm 8 as a unit and the vocational use of δόξα within it underscore both Paul’s use of the term in Romans and the unfolding narrative of anthropological redemption presented therein. These claims are significant and thus warrant further defense.

Psalm 8:5-7 (LXX) reads: τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὅτι μιμνῄσκῃ αὐτοῦ ἢ υἱὸς άνθρώπου ὅτι ἐπισκέπτῃ αὐτόν ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι παρ᾽ άγγέλους δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφάνωσας αὐτόν καὶ κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ.46 Most notable is that the psalmist’s use of δόξα falls into the semantic domain of honor/praise as a result of a status of kingly rule and not a visible splendor or radiance. Psalm 8 is a psalm of praise that extols YHWH for the way in which he ordered creation and placed humanity in a position of sovereignty over every created thing. The psalmist reflects in Psalm 8:3-4 on the enigmatic thoughtfulness of YHWH toward humanity, which presumably is as weak and powerless and equally as mortal as the rest of creation. The outworking of this thoughtfulness is then expressed in Psalm 8:5-8 as the constitution of humanity as a sovereign who rules over the creation in the name of the Creator.47 The psalmist paints a picture of YHWH as the majestic Creator-King, a King reigning within his kingdom as sovereign over all that is, yet a King who does not rule unmediatedly. YHWH has created humanity in order that humans might reign as vicegerents over his creation, maintaining via their dominion the goodness and beauty of which the cosmos inherently consists (Gen 1:4, 9, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). As Gerald Wilson notes, YHWH has allowed “his power to be displayed through those creatures he has graciously chosen to extend his authority into the world.”48 As those with the unique image-bearing vocation, humans share in the glory of God as they rule over his good creation.49

The appearance of Psalm 8 in early Jewish literature is limited at best. For this reason, Mark Kinzer, who has provided one of only two treatments of the text in Second Temple and rabbinic literature, suggests that the limited presence of Psalm 8 in early Jewish texts has led to an assumption that “the key to understanding the early Christian interpretation of Psalm 8 is found exclusively in internal developments within the Christian community.”50 But Kinzer, along with Wenceslaus Urassa, suggests otherwise.51

Both scholars suggest that echoes of Psalm 8:5-8 LXX are found in 1 Enoch, particularly with regard to the identity of the Son of Man figure and his enthronement on the “throne of glory” (1 En. 61:8).52 Urassa concludes that “the son of man in I Enoch has much to do with ADAM in relation to both ethical and anthropological reinterpretations of the dominion text in Genesis.”53 Likewise, Kinzer suggests that Psalm 8 lies in the background of 2 Enoch 58:3 (recensions J and A);54 1 Enoch 71:14; and 3 Enoch at several points.55 Psalm 8:5-8 LXX is also echoed in 4 Ezra, particularly at 4 Ezra 6:45-46, 53-59, where Ezra alludes to Adam’s, and thus Israel’s, right to rule over creation. From here Urassa notes that Philo, in De Opificio Mundi, “midrashically paraphrased Ps. 8 to interpret Gn. 1:26f,” and that, though he never mentions Psalm 8, Josephus’s “literary style and interpretation of the creation account could shed some light on its later interpretations in the NT.”56 In addition to these, Kinzer suggests that Psalm 8 is echoed in Qumran’s references to the “glory of Adam”57 and that an echo of Psalm 8 exists in the Apocalypse of Moses 10:1, 3; 11:1. Urassa notes the presence of the psalm in the Midrash Tehillim,58 but Kinzer spends an entire chapter making his way through the diverse rabbinic literature and its echoes of the psalm.59 Both scholars demonstrate the broad use of Psalm 8 in Jewish literature outside the New Testament.

From his survey of the literature, Kinzer draws two conclusions. First, though the son of man in the psalm is applied to Adam, Enoch, Abraham, and Moses throughout Jewish literature, “those individuals were usually presented as in some way fulfilling the vocation of Adam.”60 Second, Kinzer notes, “Gen 1 and Ps 8 were not read as descriptions of the present human position before God and the created order. . . . They were read protologically and eschatologically. Ps 8 was thus seen to promise heavenly wisdom, glory, and immortality for those who were cleansed from the polluting sin of Adam and his descendants.”61 These two conclusions will be significant for reading the echoes of Psalm 8 in Paul, to which I now turn.

The psalmist’s use of δόξα in Psalm 8 falls indisputably within the semantic domain of honor/rule in the LXX. Paul’s use of δόξα in Romans, then, I contend stems directly from his reading of Psalm 8 in the light of a new understanding of Israel’s plight. The question of plight (and solution) was initially prompted by Ed Sanders and was recently readdressed by N. T. Wright.62 Wright contends that on the road to Damascus,

Saul of Tarsus was there confronted with the fact of the risen Jesus, and with the immediate conclusion that he was therefore the Messiah, that he had been exalted to the place of glory and authority at God’s right hand—and that monotheism itself had therefore to be reconfigured around a man of recent memory who had not delivered Israel from the pagans, had not intensified Israel’s own Law-observance, had not cleansed and rebuilt the temple, and had not brought justice and peace to the world after the manner of Isaiah’s dream. This was, in its way, as cataclysmic a reversal of expectations for Saul of Tarsus as the fall of Jerusalem would be for the next generation. It compelled, as did that shocking event, a radical rethink, all the way back to Adam.63

Israel’s real problem, Saul realized, was sin and death—a problem that started at the beginning of Israel’s history, was recorded for the generations in Genesis 3, and had affected Israel just as it did the Gentiles. This revelation led Paul to rethink and reread his own Scriptures, and in so doing Genesis 1–3 began to tell a new story. Psalm 8 told a new story as well. When read in the light of Genesis 1–3, it told a story of intentions and failures; yet when read in the light of the Messiah’s resurrection, it told a story of hope and redemption. If this is the case, then, according to Kinzer’s conclusion above that the psalm was read either protologically or eschatologically, Paul’s reading of the psalm followed the patterns of the day.

The following pages are dedicated to Paul’s retelling of these stories in Romans. But first we must establish, as much as is possible, that Psalm 8 has any place in Romans at all. Since this is a matter of detecting scriptural echoes/allusions rather than direct quotations, it is of course impossible to attain complete certainty. Nevertheless, the joint criteria of Hays and Tooman,64 which I established in chapter one, can bring us a long way in establishing the presence of Psalm 8 in Paul’s letters.

Four factors lend weight to the possibility that Psalm 8 stands behind Paul’s use of δόξα in Romans: (1) Paul uses Psalm 8 in 1 Corinthians 15:27, a verse thematically similar to the key δόξα passages in Romans; (2) Paul’s post-Damascus understanding of redemptive history is dependent, at least in part, on the role of Adam in Genesis 1–3; (3) the thematic and linguistic relationship between Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:5-8 LXX, particularly the link between the glory of mankind in Psalm 8 and the image of mankind in Genesis 1, both of which are set within the context of humanity’s rule over creation; and (4) the noncoincidental overlap of δόξα and εἰκών in Romans and other Pauline texts.65 These four factors establish at least the possibility that Psalm 8 stands behind Paul’s use of δόξα within Romans. Their significance for my larger argument encourages us to examine them further.

The first indication that Paul echoed Psalm 8 in Romans is that he demonstrates his awareness of the psalm and its significance for the same narrative of redemption in 1 Corinthians 15:27—a verse in a thematically similar context to the key δόξα passages in Romans.66 As Keesmaat suggests: “Given . . . Paul’s use of Psalm 8 in 1 Cor. 15:27, it is quite possible that Paul linked the glory of humanity with humanity’s rule over creation. As Romans 8 progresses we discover that this is indeed the case.”67 In 1 Corinthians, Psalm 8 is evidence of the restoration of God’s intended order of rule within his kingdom by the resurrection of his Son. The presence of death in 1 Corinthians 15:21 (δι᾽ άνθρώπου θάνατος), which came through Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:22 (ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες άποθνῄσκουσιν), is counteracted by the resurrection of the Son. In his resurrection from the dead, the Messiah subjected all enemies, including death, under his feet (1 Cor 15:24b-27), thereby restoring the kingdom of God to his Father (1 Cor 15:24a). Paul interprets Psalm 8 christologically, yet he makes clear that the kingdom of God, and presumably the “subjection of all things under his feet,” is not the inheritance of the Son only. Dominion will be for all those whose bodies will be “raised in glory” (1 Cor 15:43) with the Son and who will thus “bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49).68 If this is an accurate reading, then Psalm 8, even if implicit, is a viable background for Paul’s similar texts in Romans.

Second, it is undeniable that Paul relies on the figure of Adam in Genesis 1–3 for the formation of his understanding of YHWH’s redemption of his people. This dependence is seen in Paul’s Adam Christology. New Testament scholarship has produced a wealth of discussion on this topic—a wheel not needing reinvention here.69 Within Romans, Adamic echoes potentially exist in Romans 1:23; 3:23; 7:7-11; 8:29,70 while Romans 5 includes the only explicit mention of Adam. For the sake of this study I draw attention to the role of Adam in Romans 5 as the one through whom sin and death came into the world (Rom 5:12, 17) and as the man with whom Paul contrasts the Messiah (Rom 5:17-21; see 1 Cor 15). Here Paul depends on the role of Adam in the creation narratives of Genesis as a, if not the, foundation for his anthropology, hamartiology, and soteriology in Romans.71

Third, Craigie notes that the thematic and possible textual relationship72 between the creation poetry of Psalm 8:5-8 LXX and the creation poetry/narrative of Genesis 1:26-28 is identified by numerous authors and commentators on the texts.73 Several elements of overlap are prominent: (1) Both pieces are set in the context of kingship with ties to ancient Near Eastern kingship narratives.74 (2) In both poems, mankind has dominion over creation. (3) In both texts it is Adam or mankind (ἄνθρωπος) in focus. Schaefer remarks that “literally the second query in [Ps 8] v. 4 could be translated ‘[what are] the children of Adam that you care for them,’ evoking not Abraham or Israel, but everyone tainted by sin.”75 (4) Most importantly for this study, in both poems Adam/humanity is given authority to rule over this inclusive creation: άρχέτωσαν (Gen 1:26 LXX); κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς (Gen 1:28 LXX); ἄρχετε (Gen 1:28 LXX); κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ (Ps 8:7 LXX), serving in both texts as the depiction of his being “made in the image of God”76 or “crowned with glory” by God.

Given these similarities between the two poems, it is possible that the forming of Adam “in the image of God” in Genesis 1:27 and the crowning of Adam “with glory and honor” in Psalm 8:6 LXX are different but coterminous metaphors.77 Both suggest the bestowal of God’s authority on Adam/humanity to rule over the creation within God’s kingdom and on God’s behalf. The metaphorical synonymy is not negated by the facts that δόξα is not found in Genesis 1:26-28 and εἰκών is not found in Psalm 8:5-8 LXX. Whether the psalm is textually based on Genesis 1 or vice versa presently remains unclear,78 but the thematic and linguistic evidence warrants the strong possibility of either textual relationship.79 It is certainly possible that a first-century Jewish writer such as Paul would have seen the connection between the two poems, both of which he utilized in his letters.80

Fourth, it is no coincidence that in certain key passages where Paul uses δόξα in Romans it is in close proximity to his use of εἰκών (Rom 1:23-25; 8:29-30; see 1 Cor 11:7; 15:40-49; 2 Cor 2:7–4:6; Col 1:11, 15, 27; 3:4-10) or, more generally, to texts that already are listed as possible echoes of Adam (Rom 3:23).81 Romans 1:23; 3:23; 8:29-30, based on both Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:6-9 LXX, establish Paul’s story line of redemption within Romans, telling his readers what Adam/humanity was meant to do, what Adam/humanity did wrong (informed by his rereading of Gen 3:1-19), and, because of what the Son has done, what those who share in the Son’s inheritance do now in part and will do in the future in full (Rom 8:17, 29). I shall argue this more completely below.

These four reasons will not convince everyone. Grant Macaskill, for example, has argued in Union with Christ that scholars should recognize less readily the presence of Adam and specifically the glory of Adam in Pauline texts. He dedicates a chapter to examining the Adamic backgrounds to union with Christ, from which he draws three conclusions: (1) the lack of Adamic glory in Second Temple texts should make New Testament interpreters hesitate to assign Adamic glory to New Testament texts that are not clearly based on solid evidence; (2) the diversity of Adam traditions within Jewish literature should challenge Paul’s readers to allow for the same level of diversity; and (3) the Adamic glory traditions within Jewish texts are never the primary motifs but are integrated into the larger narrative of Israel’s history, a fact that should lend itself to Paul’s use of Adam in the same manner.82

Macaskill rightly critiques those who want to collapse the diverse traditions of Adam that exist in Jewish literature into Paul’s reading of Adam. As I will make clear in my argument, I do not believe that Paul reappropriates in the person of Christ a tradition that speaks of Adam’s loss of an innate splendor in the fall. That being said, Paul does bring together Adam, image, glory, Christ, and morphic language (noted below), which must be reckoned with. A more defensible position, I suggest, particularly with regard to the glory of Adam or humanity in Psalm 8 but also elsewhere, is recognizing the possibility that the glory can be understood in terms other than splendor. As I made clear in the previous chapter, within the LXX the glory or glorification of humans is rarely presented as splendor. Rather, it is almost exclusively presented as man’s honor or exalted status and is very often associated with a position of authority or rule.83 When Adam’s glory is understood as honor that is associated with a status of rule and is viewed coterminously with his vocational rule as bearer of the image of God, then Psalm 8 and its significance for Pauline Christology and anthropology become unmistakable.

One further note: Macaskill also warns against “assigning Adamic connotations to Psalm 8 in the mind of a Jewish reader.” He does so on the basis of the rabbinic use of Psalm 8 in Pesiqta Rabbati 25:4, in which the glory is not ascribed to humanity or Adam but to the Torah given to Israel. Based on this, Macaskill concludes that the psalm’s “christological significance was not primarily seen as Adamic.”84 In the context of Pesiqta Rabbati 25:4, this conclusion is correct. Yet as Kinzer concluded above, though the son of man in the psalm is applied to Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and the Torah (the connotation Macaskill picks up on) throughout the literature, “those individuals were usually presented as in some way fulfilling the vocation of Adam.”85 Moreover, the textual similarities alone, which I noted above, warrant assigning the primary connotations of Psalm 8 to those of Adam.

These four factors—Psalm 8 in 1 Corinthians 15:27; Paul’s rereading of Genesis 1–3; the relationship between Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:5-8 LXX; and the overlap of δόξα and εἰκών in Paul—by no means confirm Paul’s use of Psalm 8 within Romans. Nevertheless, they solidify the possibility that when Paul used δόξα in Romans, especially in the texts in proximity to εἰκών but not necessarily limited to them, Psalm 8 and the crowning of Adam with glory and honor was a possible textual backdrop. Within Romans, therefore, it is—at a minimum—possible that humanity’s hope for glory (Rom 2:7, 10; 5:2; 8:18, 21; 9:23) and glorification (Rom 8:17, 30) means humanity’s hope to share in the exalted status with Christ in his rule over creation, having received the crown of glory originally given to Adam in their coglorification with Christ, the new Adam. This is confirmed by two things: the inadequacy of understanding δόξα as a visible light associated with the manifest presence of God or imperial notions of glory, and the plausibility of the presence of Psalm 8 in Romans.

3.2.3. Adam in Paul’s image and morphic language. Adam is mentioned explicitly only seven times in Paul’s letters: in the contexts of Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-28, 45-47; and 1 Timothy 2:12-15. From this only two conclusions are typically drawn: (1) Adam is not as important to Paul’s theology as he is often made out to be; he is hardly mentioned; and (2) Adam is critical to Paul’s theology; he is mentioned explicitly in Romans and 1 Corinthians in passages that are central to and/or climactic in and/or theologically significant to Paul’s letters. I suggest the latter expression is more accurate, not least because the figure of Adam is arguably present in intertextual echoes elsewhere in Paul’s letters, most importantly for our purposes in Romans 1:23; 3:23; 8:29, which I will discuss below.

Those familiar with the question of the presence of Adam naturally and rightly think of the work of James Dunn. But in more recent years, the mantle has been taken up by George van Kooten in his 2008 Paul’s Anthropology in Context, where he traces Paul’s “image” and morphic language in contrast with “image of god” and morphic language of both Jewish and Greco-Roman literature.86 Van Kooten concludes, in part, that image and form are fundamentally connected in both sets of sources, and that Paul’s use of image and form (or morphic language) are similarly connected. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly here, van Kooten suggests that Paul’s image and morphic language are part and parcel of Paul’s Adam Christology. Van Kooten suggests:

The extent of the semantic and conceptual field of the divine image is larger than might be assumed at first glance; the scope of Paul’s Adam Christology is extensive. The extent of this field is so large, and especially its inclusion of morphic language so important that, without much exaggeration, one could characterize Paul’s Christology and anthropology as “morphic.” This semantic taxonomy of only a part of Paul’s Adam Christology shows that this type of Christology is indeed very dominant in Paul.87

In his hearty agreement with Dunn’s emphasis on Paul’s Adam Christology but in recognition that even Dunn has overlooked this image-form taxonomy, van Kooten writes:

I wish to contribute to this search by focusing on the semantic field of the image of God, which is part of Paul’s Adam Christology. It seems that the semantic-conceptual field of the notion of the image of God is larger and more coherent than is often realized. I shall argue that the notion of the image of God not only comprises the terminology of “image” (εἰκών) but also that of μορφή (“form”) and its cognate terms μορφόομαι (“take on form, be formed”), σύμμορφος (“having the same form, similar in form”), συμμορφίζομαι (“be conformed to, take on the same form as”), and, last but not least, μεταμορφόομαι (“be transformed, be changed into the same form”).88

For van Kooten, Adam lurks behind the surface of numerous texts that are often not recognized as Adamic, namely those in which Paul’s image-form taxonomy occurs (e.g., Rom 1:23; 8:29; Phil 3:21, among others). I will take up van Kooten’s argument at various places throughout the chapters in this book.

3.2.4. Echoes of Adam in Romans 1 and 3. I will discuss briefly the evidence for viewing Romans 1:23; 3:23 as implicit allusions to Adam on the basis of Tooman’s and Hays’s criteria, leaving that of Romans 8:29 to chapter five, where a more comprehensive treatment will be given.89 Despite its reception since antiquity and its continued wide acceptance in modern scholarship, many now reject the Edenic fall narrative as the backdrop of Romans 1:18-32 and specifically of Romans 1:23. Those who reject an allusion to Genesis 3 in Romans 1:23 do so on the basis that neither Adam nor the fall is mentioned in Romans 1:18-32. Some thus opt for a middle ground: Paul is not describing Adam’s fall as it is recorded in Genesis 3, but he would no doubt see the correlation between it and the fall of humanity more generally. Moo writes, “That Paul may view the ‘fall’ of individual human beings as analogous in some ways to the Fall of the first human pair is likely, but the text does not warrant the conclusion that he is specifically describing the latter.”90

Stanley Stowers raises a serious objection to the implicit reference to a fall narrative in A Rereading of Romans.91 What is described in Romans 1:18-32, Stowers suggests, is neither the fall of humanity nor specifically of the primal pair but the “sinful degradation into which the non-Jewish peoples have declined owing to their worship of many gods and idols.”92 “Since they have refused to acknowledge him,” Stowers continues, “the true God has punished these idol worshipers by allowing their enslavement to the passions (pathē) and the desires (epithumiai) of their bodies. Thus they live in societies characterized by evil and vice.”93 Romans 1:18-32 is about the “human degeneration into the non-Jewish peoples,”94 and not the primal pair’s fall into sin, nor that of humanity at large. Three critiques must be made at this point.

First, Stowers finds partial support for his rejection of the Adamic fall narrative in John Levison’s Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism. With Levison, he argues that Adam is not echoed in Romans 1:23 because it was not until post-70 CE when Jewish writers such as those of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch began assessing anew the consequences of Adam’s transgression. The new assessment, Stowers writes, “stems from a profound pessimism generated by the catastrophe to Judaism caused by the destruction of Jerusalem. Paul lived on the other side of this divide. The Judaism of 4 Ezra and Baruch would have been unimaginable to the apostle.”95

This assumption, however, raises a number of questions. (1) If Jews began to reconsider the consequences of Adam’s sin after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, what prevented the same conclusion in 586 BCE? (2) Stowers and Levison both rightly acknowledge the variety of Jewish interpretations of Genesis 1–3, none of which are deemed dependent on the others. Why, then, is Paul’s interpretation of Genesis 1–3 expected to align with a previously held Jewish interpretation? Why is Paul’s Damascus Road experience not enough of a Tendenz particular to Paul as a zealous Pharisee who now understands that Jesus is the anticipated Messiah—a Messiah who has not only died by crucifixion but also resurrected from the dead? (3) Would a personal encounter with a resurrected human not challenge a person’s preconceptions of reality equally as much as (if not more so than) the relatively anticipated military defeat and thus redestruction of holy places? (4) Is the argument for what “would have been unimaginable to the apostle” dependent on extant sources, as both Levison and Stowers assume it to be? (5) Can one assume that the writers of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch were wholly unfamiliar with Paul’s writings on Adam, sin, and death? Space does not permit discussion of these questions, but they are important to note nonetheless. Both Stowers and Levison are correct to point out the variety of Jewish interpretations of Genesis 1–3 but are mistaken in the argument that Paul’s interpretation must therefore align with one of the preexisting interpretations.

Van Kooten also finds fault with Levison’s treatment of the various occurrences of Adam in Jewish literature, describing it as showing “traces of reductionism where he emphasizes, again and again, that all views on the ‘image of God’ are wholly incorporated into the Tendenzen of a particular author, so that the notion almost ceases to have any substance of its own.”96 Van Kooten finds unity in the midst of diversity in the various “image of God” texts in three motifs: (1) a shared “antithesis between the image of God and other images,” (2) a “divine anthropology,” and (3) “a physical understanding of God’s image.”97

Second, Stowers’s rereading of Romans 1:18-32 fits within his larger rereading of Romans, in which he concludes that the “encoded readers” of Romans are not a combination of Jewish and Gentile believers, as traditionally understood, but Gentile believers alone.98 The purpose of Romans, according to Stowers, is to inform Gentile followers of Christ that their attempts at self-mastery through obedience to the Jewish law will not profit. Righteousness (or “self-mastery”) comes through the one perfect law-keeper, Jesus Christ.99 But this reading of the audience has not gone uncritiqued. Several reviewers have found it provocative and insightful but ultimately unpersuasive.100 On the basis of the reviews of Hays and Barclay in particular, I am unpersuaded that the “encoded readers” are entirely Gentile, a crucial argument in Stowers’s overall argument.101 Hays systematically critiques Stowers’s examination or lack of examination of key Romans texts102 as evidence of Jews forming some part (even if minor) of the encoded audience.103 Stowers’s argument is shared by Mark Nanos, who published just after Stowers and also argued that Paul’s “implied audience” was “primarily, if not exclusively, Christian gentiles.”104 Because Nanos’s provocative work on Romans will not affect my argument at large, I will not elaborate at this point, other than to suggest that many of Hays’s critiques of Stowers apply equally to Nanos’s argument as well.

Additionally, Stowers’s argument was picked up by Caroline Johnson Hodge, whose work will be noted throughout this book and especially when I turn to Romans 8 in particular. I am critical of a number of her arguments, many of which are reliant on Stowers’s rereading of Romans as a letter to an exclusively Gentile audience. Issues that are in the first instance potential weaknesses in her work are made explicit flaws by her almost entire lack of any significant response to the critiques presented against Stowers, particularly Hays’s critiques of an exclusively Gentile audience in Romans. She briefly highlights the conversation,105 and on the partial Jewish audience in Romans, in particular, she writes only that the arguments put forth in favor of a mixed audience “have been unconvincing.”106 Due to her self-acknowledged recognition that the nature of the audience is the “pivotal issue for determining one’s reading of Paul”107 and forms the fundamental basis for her entire argument, her lack of response to critics simply will not do.

Third, and more important for our purposes here, Stowers’s reading of Romans 1:23 as a description of humanity’s degradation into non-Jewish idolaters does not necessitate a rejection of an implicit echo of Adam. Stowers may be correct that this is Paul’s intended description in the passage. Nevertheless, nothing warrants the impossibility of using the Genesis narrative as an illustrative primal text for humanity’s degradation into Gentile idolaters. In fact, van Kooten does just this:

In Romans 1, Paul criticizes those who have degenerated into idol-worshippers. . . . Whereas exchanging the glory of God for images of idols is a sign of mankind’s decline, its restoration takes place when man is conformed to God’s image [Rom 8:29]. The antagonism between the image of God and idols seems already to be part of the Old Testament background to the notion of the image of God. . . . It is not unlikely that the assertion that man is created “in God’s image” (Gen 1.26-27) could bear anti-idolatrous overtones, as the term “image” is one of the words used to refer to idols.108

Van Kooten recognizes that Paul can make his point about Gentile idolatry on the basis of the primal text. Joseph Fitzmyer, too, acknowledges that Paul is using the Hebrew Scriptures to characterize pagan idolatry. Referring to Paul’s allusions to Psalm 106:20 and Jeremiah 2:11, allusions whose presence in the text he does not reject, Fitzmyer writes, “[Paul] is simply extrapolating from such incidents in the history of the chosen people and applying the ideas to the pagan world.”109 With Fitzmyer, and in reference not to Genesis 1–3 but to the possible echoes of Jeremiah and Psalm 105 (LXX), Philip Esler also notes that “there was nothing to stop Paul applying to non-Israelites derogatory descriptions previously used of Israelites, especially when the language in question concerned idolatrous activities by Israelites.”110 Fitzmyer and Esler ultimately reject an echo of Genesis 3 in Romans 1:18-32, but their recognition that Paul writes to Gentiles and that he uses ancient Israelite texts as his basis demonstrates the weakness of Stowers’s argument. Against Stowers, reading Romans 1:23 as the Gentiles’ degradation into idolatry does not thereby bar an echo of Genesis 1–3 from the verse.

Scholars traditionally reject arguments for the implicit Genesis narrative in Romans 1:23 because the evidence of a fall narrative from Genesis 3 is lacking,111 and rightly so; the embrace of idolatry, whether by humanity as a whole or Gentiles in particular, is not labeled in Genesis 3 as it is in Romans 1. But this does not mean that the Genesis narrative is therefore nonexistent in Romans 1:23; nor does it mean that because what is described in Romans 1:23 as idolatry does not in some way reflect or bear witness to any Genesis narrative. In fact, it is precisely in the creation narrative of Genesis 1:26-28 rather than the fall narrative of Genesis 3 that the echo of “Adam,” aka “humanity” in Romans 1:23, exists (see esp. Gen 5:2 LXX: καὶ ἐπωνόμασεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῶν Αδαμ; אדם in Gen 1:26, without distinction of male and female). Here, both textually and theologically, I suggest Paul’s point has been overlooked.112

Textually, the allusion to Adam as humanity in Genesis 1:26-28 is difficult to miss, at least on the grounds for determining intertextuality laid out by Richard Hays and William Tooman:

1. Volume. With its associated elements of distinctiveness and multiplicity, volume is represented by the threefold reference to the animal world in both Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26, 28. Πετεινόν and ἑρπετόν occur in both Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26, 28, and while Paul uses τετράπους in Romans 1:23 rather than κτῆνος, which is found in Genesis 1:26, 28, τετράπους is found immediately before it, in Genesis 1:24. Moreover, lexical correspondence is demonstrable in three other words: εἰκών and ἄνθρωπος in Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26, 27, and at least a strong possibility of correspondence between ὁμοίωσις in Genesis 1:26 and ὁμοίωμα in Romans 1:23. The volume of shared lexemes, then, between Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26-28 is weighty: five words correspond between Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26-28, with an additional word (τετράπους) bearing extremely close proximity.113

2. Thematic correspondence. Genesis 1 implies no wickedness in humanity, in contrast to Paul’s description of humanity’s sinful state in Romans 1. Nevertheless, the two texts share the same theme of a creation context: “since the creation of the world [κτίσεως κόσμου],” Paul writes in Romans 1:20. Given the lexical overlap noted above, it is difficult to assign this contextual/thematic correspondence to coincidence.

3. Recurrence. Paul later refers to the “first man,” Adam, explicitly in Romans 5:12, 17. Moreover, he refers in Romans 8:19-22 to the impact on creation of humanity’s rejection of its created purpose, thus picking up (albeit implicitly) the theme of the curse placed on the ground in Genesis 3:17 as a result of the sin of the “first man” and, theologically, as a result of his rejection of his created purpose: to be the image ( Gen 1) and glory (Ps 8) of God.

If Hays’s and especially Tooman’s criteria—with Tooman’s having received little to no criticism—for determining intertextual echoes/allusions are demonstrably fulfilled, which they are, then the textual burden of proof for objecting to an allusion to Adam in Romans 1:23 lies on those who object to its possibility. Käsemann recognizes the correspondences without elaborating on them but rejects the idea that Paul could here be alluding to Genesis 1:26-28 on the basis of the fact that Paul applies the term εἰκών to the animals as well. Käsemann nevertheless acknowledges that “the association certainly may be derived from the creation story.”114 Yet, as van Kooten persuasively demonstrates, there is an antagonism between the image of God and the images and/or forms of idols throughout the Old Testament as well as in other Jewish literature.115 This lack of distinction is illustrated by Sibylline Oracles 3.8: “Men, who have the form which God molded in his image” (ἄνθρωποι θεόπλαστον ἔχοντες ἐν εἰκόνι μορφήν).116 The strict metaphysical distinction Käsemann wants to keep between the image of God and those of idols is not a distinction held within early Judaism. With Harrison, “Jewish auditors familiar with the Genesis narrative would have spotted Paul’s clear allusion to the subjugation of the created order (Gen 1:26b: birds, livestock, creeping things) that mankind, as the image of God (Gen 1:26a), was commanded to undertake.”117 Stowers, in all his argumentation against the presence of Genesis 1–2, fails to mention the textual correspondences between Genesis 1:26-28 and Romans 1:23.118 He writes only that “the commonly cited Jewish parallels ought to be viewed as peculiar versions of the larger phenomenon of ancient primitivism,” or what he calls “decline narratives.”119

The textual evidence for an allusion to Genesis 1:26-28 in Romans 1:23 is unmistakable, however. Moreover, once the textual link is identified, the theological link between Romans 1:23 and Genesis 1:26-28 is also made clear. As noted above, the traditionally suggested allusion is to an implied fall narrative of the primal pair—a narrative rooted in Genesis 3 and a narrative that, in agreement with Stowers, Esler, and Fitzmyer, does not exist in Romans 1. Paul’s point in each of the texts is not to emphasize the fall of humanity (though humanity’s sin is nonetheless implied, as is made clear in Rom 3:23) but rather to emphasize the fact that, in its rejection of God, humanity failed to be the image of God in its created purpose as those who are meant to rule over the created order. Byrne rightly recognizes the heart of the verse:

Behind the line of argument here would seem to be the biblical tradition, stemming from Gen 1:26-28, where human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are given dominion over the rest of creation (fish, birds, animals, reptiles), a motif given more poetic expression in Psalm 8 (esp. vv 5-8). Idolatry represents the summit of “futility” (v 21) in that it has human beings submitting themselves in worship to the creatures over which they were meant to rule. This perverts the whole raison-d’être of the non-human created world, subjecting it to “futility” (8:30).120

The point of Romans 1:23 is not the fall into sin of the primal pair from Genesis 3, particularly through idolatry, which thus affected either Gentiles specifically or humanity more generally, but humanity’s (אדם) “exchange of the glory of the immortal God” in terms of its failure to fulfill its created purpose or identity as creatures made in the image of God, having dominion over creation as vicegerents of the Creator God—hence Paul’s obvious allusion to Genesis 1:26-28 and not Genesis 3:6. Dane Ortlund rightly argues that Paul’s reference here is not to God’s own glory, which then implies an “exchange of worship,” but that “it is probably human glory (the divine image) that is in view.”121 Humanity’s rejection of its created purpose throughout history took the form of idolatry—a form found in both Gentile and Jewish history—and resulted in a humanity that existed in their actions and desires as shadows of their created selves (Rom 1:24-32). Though the fall narrative of Genesis 2–3 is not implicit in Romans 1:23, Genesis 1:26-28 certainly is. Moreover, though the name “Adam” is not mentioned in Romans 1, the created purpose or identity of corporate humanity (“adam”; אדם) in Genesis 1:26-28 is undoubtedly of central importance in Romans 1:23.

An Adamic (i.e., all humanity in Adam) echo also exists in Romans 3:23: πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ.122 When this echo is recognized, scholars generally assume a link exists between the δόξα in Romans 3:23 and Jewish traditions of Adam losing his garment of glory (Gen. Rab. 12.6) and/or the light of God with which he was at first clothed (Apoc. Mos. 21).123 That Paul was even aware of these Adam traditions, however, is dubious, especially given that the date of writing of Genesis Rabbah was significantly past the mid-first century and that the existence of a Hebrew Vorlage for Apocalypse of Moses is based entirely on speculation. The texts were possibly written as late as 400 CE.124 If Paul referred to Adam’s “fall from glory” narrated in the two nonbiblical texts, he relied on either an oral or nonextant written tradition on which these two nonbiblical texts were also based. This is not to say that all scholars who hear an echo of Adam assume a connection to the Jewish texts. As noted above, Newman and Harrison correctly suggest that the glory of humanity in Romans 3:23 is not a reference to these later accounts of Adam’s loss of glory but to a “ruptured relationship” between God and humanity;125 but in this assessment, they stand quite alone.

I do not, however, suggest that the figure of Adam is thus absent in Romans 3:23. If the textual echo of Genesis 1:26-28 were lacking from Romans 1:23, such a conclusion would be warranted. But Genesis 1:26-28 is present in Romans 1:23, and Romans 3:23 is a restatement of Romans 1:23 in summarized form: πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ.126 The thematic connection between Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 is unmistakable, with the only differences being that in Romans 3:23 Paul replaces άλλάσσω with ὑστερέω and the reference to humanity’s rejection of its created purpose as “sin.” As in Romans 1:23, Paul does not mention Adam specifically, but the textual and thematic correspondences between the two verses warrant reading them as referring to the same rejection of humanity’s created identity: God’s glory. Moreover, given the previously demonstrated correlation between image and glory in Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:6-9 LXX, and the thematic relationship between humanity being crowned with glory in Psalm 8:6 and “lacking” the glory of God in Romans 3:23, it is also within the scope of possibility that not only is humanity in Adam from Genesis 1:26-28 behind the text but so also is the humanity crowned with glory and honor from Psalm 8. The glory that humanity lacks (because of their sin) is the glory of God. It is the glory that forms the identity and purpose of humanity—to have all things under their feet (Ps 8:7 LXX). The links between the motif of human glory in the LXX, as illustrated in Psalm 8, and image, as in Genesis 1:26-28, warrant the strong possibility that here in Romans 3:23 it is the Adamic glory (honor associated with their status as vicegerents over creation) that humanity now lacks. I will return to the nature of this glory in the final section of this chapter.

3.2.5. Adam’s identity as paradigmatic. Here in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23, the image and glory of Adam is presented as the paradigmatic image and glory ascribed to all humanity in Genesis 1:26-27 and Psalm 8:6-9 LXX. Paul describes Adam’s (humanity’s) created identity and vocation negatively by describing humanity’s rejection of that image in Romans 1:23 and lack of that glory in Romans 3:23. As noted above, this is the function of the echo of Adam in both texts: humanity in Adam was created to be and to act as God’s royal representatives on earth—an identity that humanity rejected.

The function of the Adamic echo shifts slightly in Romans 5:12-21, where the echo is first presented in an Adam-Christ typology and where the fall narrative of Genesis 3 is first presented.127 Here Paul’s focus turns from the image and glory of humanity in Adam from Genesis 1:26-28/Psalm 8:6-9 LXX to the sin and death that resulted from the one man, Adam (Gen 2–3). Romans 5:12 reads: “sin entered the world through [δι’] one man,” which indicates, according to Douglas Moo, that “Paul’s focus is on [Adam’s] role as the instrument through whom sin and death were unleashed in the world.”128 Paul continues in Romans 5:12 by saying that “death came to all people because [ἐφ᾽ ᾧ] all sinned.” Esler notes that when this final phrase (ἐφ᾽ ᾧ) is taken as a causal conjunction (rather than as an introduction of a relative clause129), as most modern scholars see it,130 then “Paul’s idea seems to be that while Adam’s sin unleashed death, so that he was the ultimate cause (‘many died through one’s person’s wrongdoing,’ Rom 5:15), nevertheless all other human beings still needed to subject themselves to it, and did so.”131 In this way, then, Adam’s sin was paradigmatic as well.

The sin, death, and condemnation that resulted from the sin of one man, Adam, Paul then sets in direct contrast with the grace, life, and righteousness that resulted from the obedience of the one man, Christ (Rom 5:15-19). In this way, the one man, Adam, is “a type of the one to come,” Christ (Rom 5:14). Again, Esler helpfully notes: “Here τύπος carries the meaning of ‘type’ in the sense of a person from the primordial time who provides a pattern for a phenomenon in the New Testament period, an example or rule, an ‘advance presentation’ intimating end-time events.”132 And yet, more seems to be involved in Paul’s Adam-Christ typology here than recognition of the two individuals as mere patterns. In Romans 5:19 the relationships between Adam and Christ and those associated with each “one man” become more obviously corporate: “For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Humanity’s sin, which was individual in nature in Romans 5:12, has now become corporate in nature: “Adam’s disobedience placed the mass of humanity in a condition of sin and estrangement from God; the text does not imply that they became sinners merely by imitating Adam’s transgression; rather, they were constituted sinners by him and his act of disobedience.”133 This corporate relationship that Paul hints at in Romans 5:19 will become foundational in his description of baptism into Christ in Romans 6 and the incorporation of believers in Christ as the Son in Romans 8.

But the relationship between humanity’s personal responsibility for its sin in Romans 5:12 and the corporate relationship that seems to stand behind Adam and humanity in Romans 5:19 should not be pressed further than the text allows. All humanity in Adam was created to serve as God’s representatives; the image and glory invested in the first Adam are the same image and glory with which all humanity was invested. Adam represents what humanity was intended to be and what they, through sin, elected to be.

3.2.6. Conclusion. Based on these considerations and by way of introduction to the final section of this chapter, I suggest that Paul utilized the Greek Scriptures to tell the story of God’s faithfulness to Israel, and he did so in a way that directly corresponded with the culture in which his readers lived. The denotation of δόξα and δοξάζω in Romans, both in reference to God and to humanity, was intelligible in first-century Rome to both Jewish and Gentile Christians because it shared the same denotative function in reference to both God and humanity as was used throughout the LXX and in first-century sociopolitical Roman parlance. In reference to God, δόξα and δοξάζω in Romans primarily denote the honor, esteem, power, or governing status of God as a result of his identity as Creator and King.134 And in reference to humanity, δόξα and δοξάζω primarily denote the honor, esteem, power, and governing status of people as a result of their identity as renewed humans in the new Adam. This argument will be fleshed out on multiple levels over the course of this chapter and those that follow. Here I offer only an observation-deck analysis of δόξα and δοξάζω in Romans. In subsequent chapters the analysis will be done on ground level.

Following a similar categorization scheme as the one in the previous chapter, here is what is clearly visible in Romans, even from a distance:

Table 3.2

		Honor, Praise Given/Received in Ascription	Honor, Status, Power, Character Possessed by	Visible Splendor (as Theophany, Presence of God, etc.)
δόξα	God	Rom 3:7; 4:20; 11:36; 15:7; 16:27	Rom 6:4
	Humanity		Rom 2:7, 10
δοξάζω	God	Rom 1:21
	Humanity

Left to be determined, then, are the denotations of δόξα and δοξάζω with reference to God in Romans 1:23; 3:23; 5:2; 9:23a and to humanity/believers in Romans 8:17 (συνδοξάζω), and Romans 8:18, 21, 30; 9:4, 23b.

3.3. PAUL’S ANTHROPOLOGICAL “NARRATIVE OF GLORY” IN ROMANS

I have argued that Paul uses δόξα and δοξάζω to refer to the glory of humanity in Psalm 8 in relationship to Genesis 1; 3. I now turn our attention to Paul’s specific use of the terms throughout Romans. I will argue here that throughout the letter there is an implied narrative of glory, a narrative that begins with humanity forsaking the glory of God, that is, humanity’s purposed identity and vocation (Rom 1:23; 3:23) and God’s people receiving again the glory of God (Rom 2:7, 10; 5:2; 8:17, 21, 30; 9:23). This narrative of glory forms the heart of the meaning behind Paul’s dense phrase “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”

Samuel Byrskog also attempts this narrative construction of glory in Romans in his 2008 article “Christology and Identity in an Intertextual Perspective: The Glory of Adam in the Narrative Substructure of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” Byrskog traces Adam’s fall from glory in Romans 1–3 to humanity’s redemption to glory in conformity to Christ in Romans 8:18-30. He does so with the purpose of “asking about the existence of a narrative substructure that holds together the allusions and the explicit references to Adam in Romans and opens up avenues to a more dynamic thinking about Christology and identity.”135 Byrskog concludes that Christian identity and Christology find their link in Paul’s Adam Christology, a conclusion that I too will share.136

Why then is this examination of humanity’s glory and glorification in Romans necessary? While Byrskog explores the same intertextual links between Romans and Genesis 1–3, and rightly suggests that the echoes in Romans 8:18-30 refer to the renewed glory that was lost in Romans 1:23; 3:23,137 he makes one major assumption: that the source material for Paul’s references to Adam’s glory is the Greek Life of Adam and Eve. Because of this, he presupposes that humanity’s original glory is the splendor or radiance with which Adam was clothed in Life of Adam and Eve 21.6. Moreover, Byrskog links image and glory but never articulates what it means to be “made in the image of God.” Though I appreciate a vast amount of Byrskog’s essay on the narrative substructure of glory in Romans, it should not be assumed that Paul drew from the same tradition as the writer of Life of Adam and Eve 21.6, and thus further work is required.

This narrative substructure of glory in Romans that Byrskog rightly notes will quickly become clear. Throughout the letter δόξα is used fifteen times: Romans 1:23; 2:7, 10; 3:7, 23; 4:20; 5:2; 6:4; 8:18, 21; 9:4, 23; 11:36; 15:7; 16:27. Δοξάζω is used six times: Romans 1:21; 8:30; 11:13; 15:6, 9 (and συνδοξάζω in Rom 8:17). I suggest that the “glory of God” in Romans 1:23; 3:23; 5:2; 9:23 refers not only to the glory possessed by God but also to the glory possessed by humanity via their participation in the glory of God,138 in much the same way that δόξα in Romans 2:7, 10; 8:18, 21, and perhaps Romans 9:4 refers to a glory possessed by humans. And, with the exception of Romans 8:17, 30, which we must defer for the moment, δοξάζω always refers to the giving of honor or praise on the basis of a status, presumably that of dominion/sovereignty. This case will be made for Romans 8:17, 30 as well. Similarly, nearly every instance of δόξα can be understood likewise.139 When we read δόξα in Romans through the lens of a post-Damascus rereading of Psalm 8 (and its relationship to Gen 1; 3),140 the texts begin to tell a remarkable story—a story of the enthronement, abdication, and reenthronement of God’s people as God’s representatives within his kingdom. God’s people do have a hope of glory—not just to reflect the glorious presence of God but to be the fullest expression of true humanity in their vicegerency with the Son of God. This narrative substructure of glory will become clear on examination of the critical δόξα texts in Romans, to which we now turn.

3.3.1. Adam/humanity forsake the glory of God. What, then, is the glory of God that humanity exchanged and thus lacked? For most scholars it is, without question, the visible manifestation of the presence of God. Moo describes τὴν δόξαν τοῦ άφθάρτου θεοῦ in Romans 1:23 as the “splendor and majesty that belong intrinsically to the one true God”141 and τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεου in Romans 3:23 as the “magnificent presence of the Lord.”142 Dunn maintains his understanding of glory from Romans 1:23 to Romans 3:23, having defined δόξα in Romans 1:23 as “the awesome radiance of deity which becomes the visible manifestation of God in theophany and vision.”143 Käsemann describes this glory as “the radiance . . . which awaits the justified in heaven”;144 according to Fitzmyer, it is “the radiant external manifestation of his presence.”145 Richard Gaffin, who shares this view, writes, “Having so drastically defaced the divine image, they have, without exception, forfeited the privilege of reflecting his glory.”146 The list could go on. This is not to suggest that these are not viable options. Indeed, they make good sense, given the Damascus Christophany and the clear use of glory as visible splendor in 2 Corinthians 3, a text to which I will turn anon.

Two cautionary points must be made here. First, given the multiple denotative variations of δόξα as it pertains to God and the entire lack of denotative variations of δόξα when applied to humanity in the LXX, as demonstrated in chapter two, one should not assume that the glory of God in Romans, and especially in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23, refers to the visible, manifest presence of God with which humanity was originally endowed and thus lost. Second, given the dubiousness of Paul articulating the motif of the loss of an Adamic glory only found in later Jewish texts, as argued above, the rationale for understanding “the glory of God” in Romans 3:23 as Adam’s prefall visible splendor is thus entirely speculative.147 Though the paradigmatic representative of male and female (אדם in Gen 1:26) stands behind πάντες in Romans 3:23, as it did the third-person plural of άλλάσσω in Romans 1:23, Adam’s loss of an outer garment of glory does not. Humanity in Adam abdicated their throne and the glory with which they were crowned, the glory of God in which they shared.148 “Falling short of” or “lacking”149 the glory of God meant for the apostle exceedingly more than Adam losing his luster. It was Adam/humanity losing his/their crown.

Rather than these two commonly held assumptions, I suggest this: because Genesis 1:26-28 is echoed in Romans 1:23, and because Genesis 1:26-28 is textually and thematically parallel to Psalm 8:5-9 LXX, and because Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 refer to the same event, all of which I have demonstrated above, we can therefore argue that Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:5-9 LXX together form the textual and thematic backdrop to the narrative echoed in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23: the creation of humanity in God’s image and with the endowment of God’s glory as God’s representatives within his kingly realm. Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 both describe humanity’s intended identity and purpose as God’s vicegerents by describing its exchange of and thus loss of God’s glory—the glory that the son of man in Psalm 8 is intended to possess.

Romans 1:23 fits within the larger discourse framed by Romans 1:18-25.150 Here Paul sets the stage for humanity’s rebellion against God and rejection of its created purpose and consequently the need for the redemptive work of death and resurrection on the part of the Messiah.151 Romans 1:18-25 is the part of the story in which mankind rejects its created purpose, namely to worship and serve the Creator, by instead worshiping and serving the creation (Rom 1:25). Man “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of the image of mortal man and animals and reptiles” in Romans 1:23, thereby abdicating the throne of dominion originally established for him at the time of creation (Gen 1:26-28; Ps 8:7 LXX).152 As Ortlund writes, “We stopped resembling the Creator and started resembling the creation. We became sub-human.”153 From creation onwards, every person could know God and honor him as such (Rom 1:19-21) but chose instead to disregard their created duty and gave glory where the least glory was due (Rom 1:21-25).154

This abdication of the throne is again expressed in Romans 3:23, in which the “they” of Romans 1 is explicitly “all (humanity)” (and “all humanity” will be viewed as “in Adam” in Rom 5). Everyone sinned (πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον), which is to say that everyone “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of corruptible animals” (Rom 1:23), and everyone now bears the consequences of this sin by lacking the glory of God (καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ).

The narrative substructure of glory, and particularly Adam/humanity’s rejection of glory, which Paul begins in Romans 1:23 and continues in Romans 3:23, resurfaces again in Romans 5:12-21. Δόξα and δοξάζω are both absent from Romans 5:12-21, but that Adam’s disobedience was his abdication of his throne is not. Rather than δόξα and δοξάζω, Paul uses βασιλεύω (Rom 5:14, 17 [2x], 21 [2x]; also Rom 6:12), a word with implicit significance here due to the fact that it occurs only here in Romans and occurs in this passage with notable frequency. Roy Ciampa notes that few scholars have acknowledged the importance of this fact.155 In this text, Paul uses βασιλεύω to describe death’s dominion, which existed in place of Adam’s (and all humanity in Adam’s) intended dominion over creation.156 In Romans 5:12-21 it is not Adam who reigns but ὁ θάνατος (Rom 5:14, 17), οἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης λαμβάνοντες (Rom 5:17), ἡ ἁμαρτία (Rom 5:21), and ἡ χάρις (Rom 5:21). Nevertheless, Adam’s intended reign is implied in Romans 5:12 by the link between the presence of sin to Adam and the presence of death to sin. Had humanity in Adam not “exchanged the glory of the immortal God” (Rom 1:23) and come to “lack the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), humanity would reign, and sin and death would be nonexistent.

Though the subjects of the narrative are identified rather cryptically as “they” in Romans 1:23 and “all [humanity]” in Romans 3:23, in Romans 5:12 those subjects become explicit: “all who sinned,” that is, all humanity in Adam. It was no longer merely “man” (ἄνθρωπος) in Psalm 8:5 LXX who was crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over creation, but the Adam (ἄνθρωπος) of Genesis 1:26. And it was under Adam’s feet that God had put all things (πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ) in Psalm 8:7 LXX. In Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 we see that, though this was the case at creation, Adam/humankind grievously rebelled. By exchanging the glory of God for that of the created world, Adam/humankind ultimately abdicated his God-given throne and invited sin and death to reign in his stead (explicit in Rom 5:12, 17, 21). He rejected his created role as God’s vicegerent over creation.

What then does this say about Paul’s use of glory in Romans 1:23; 3:23? First, it is not a visible shining light that Adam loses in Romans 3:23, or “the awesome radiance of deity which becomes the visible manifestation of God in theophany and vision,” as Dunn describes it.157 Second, rather, it is the glory with which mankind is crowned—the glory man has as mediator between God and his creation, as God’s keeper of creation, as his vicegerent on his royal throne. This is the glory, the honor, that man rejects and forsakes for another (Rom 1:23, 25), and the glory of God in which all humans were created to participate but have chosen instead to forsake by rejecting their created purpose.

3.3.2. The glory of Israel. Israel, too, has a leading role in Paul’s narrative of glory in Romans. Paul mentions Israel’s glory in Romans 9:4, Israel’s rejection of that glory in Romans 1:23, and Israel’s redemption to glory in Romans 9:23. Because Paul reveals more about the nature of Israel’s glory in Romans 1:23, I begin there with Israel’s rejection of glory before examining their original possession of glory in Romans 9:4 and restoration of glory in Romans 9:23.

In Romans 1:23 Paul alludes also to the golden calf episode of ancient Israelite history, as it is recorded in Psalm 105:20 LXX and Jeremiah 2:11. As noted above, not all agree that Paul implicates Israel in Romans 1, which then raises the question of why Paul alludes to this Israelite narrative. According to Fitzmyer, Paul alludes to these texts in order to apply the ideas to the pagan world.158 And, as I noted above, Stowers and Eisenbaum, among others, reject the idea that Paul is implicating Israel in this section. But as Jewett notes, “Since every culture displays evidence of suppressing the truth by the adoration of perishable images, demonstrating that the perverse will to ‘change the glory of the imperishable God’ is a universal problem, the gospel elaborated in this letter has an inclusive bearing.”159 His assessment is preceded by Käsemann’s similar conclusion: “Precisely the point of the verse is that Paul extends to the whole human race what Jer 2:11 restricted to the people of God.”160 No strong evidence supports the idea that only the pagan world should be read in these verses.

Like Adam, Israel possessed God’s glory but also rejected that God-given glory. Paul implies that Israel rejected their God-given glory by “exchanging the glory of the immortal God.”161 Whereas Adam’s rejection of his created purpose is echoed in textual links to Genesis 1, Israel’s rejection of their purpose is echoed in textual links to Psalm 105:20 LXX and Jeremiah 2:11, which refer to Israel’s creation of the golden calf in Exodus 32. In each of these texts, the nature of the glory that Israel exchanged is revealed: it was a glory possessed by Israel, and it was a glory associated with rule/dominion. Let us quickly examine these texts.

In both Psalm 105:20 LXX and Jeremiah 2:11, Israel is described as exchanging their glory for that of idols. Psalm 105:20 LXX reads ἠλλάξαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν ἐν ὁμοιώματι μόσχου ἔσθοντος χόρτον, and Jeremiah 2:11b says ὁ δὲ λαός μου ἠλλάξατο τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ ἐξ ἧς οὐκ ὠφεληθήσονται.162 The glory in question here is possessed by Israel: in Psalm 105:20 LXX it is clearly “their glory” (τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν), and in Jeremiah 2:11: “[my people’s] glory” (τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ).163 William Holladay notes that this is a tiqqun sopherim in the Hebrew manuscripts of both Psalm 106:20 and Jeremiah 2:11, indicating that the glory in both texts was possibly originally followed by a first-person suffix. He argues, however, that an original third-person suffix may be valid, given the example of Psalm 3:4 and the surrounding context of the passages.164 LXX manuscripts witness this possible alteration.165 It is possible that the psalmist and Jeremiah both describe Israel’s worship of idols as an exchange of their glory for that of the idols.

Following this, Morna Hooker suggests that the glory in Romans 1:23 is Israel’s, as it is in the background texts. She writes, “δόξα may here . . . refer not only to the glory which God possesses in himself, but to that same glory in so far as it was originally possessed also by man.”166 And further, “Paul . . . does not say that man ever lost the image of God. . . . The things which man did lose were the glory of God and the dominion over Nature which were associated with that image.”167 In Romans 1:23, τὴν δόξαν τοῦ άφθάρτου θεοῦ refers to a glory that comes from the immortal God and is possessed by Israel.

Moreover, in each text Israel is described as becoming subject to the nations (Jer 2:14-16; Ps 105:41-42, 46 LXX) because of their “exchange of glory” (i.e., worship of idols). The reader can assume on this basis that Israel’s glory was their honorable position as rulers over the land they were to possess (Lev 20:24; Num 33:53; Deut 5:31-33; see esp. Deut 28:63-64; 30:5, 16-18; Josh 23:5).168 Israel forsook that created purpose by submitting themselves to idols and thus to other nations (see Sir 49:5). As with that of all humanity in Adam in Romans 1:23, the nature of Israel’s glory was their honorable status associated with dominion and authority.

Paul includes Israel’s rejection of glory in Romans 1:23 (and implies it in Rom 3:23) but writes positively about Israel’s possession of glory in Romans 9:4, 23. In these texts we see the diversity of the semantic functions of δόξα at play, even in Paul’s theology. Beginning in Romans 9:4, it is unclear how Paul intends ἡ δόξα to function. He writes: οἵτινές εἰσιν Ἰσραηλῖται, ὧν ἡ υἱοθεσία καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ αἱ διαθῆκαι καὶ ἡ νομοθεσία καὶ ἡ λατρεία καὶ αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι. Unlike Romans 1:23, ἡ δόξα in Romans 9:4 has no explicit textual echo by which to decipher Paul’s meaning. Most consider ἡ δόξα in Romans 9:4 a reference to the splendor of God, “the epiphany of the Shekinah in the historical and cultic sphere,” according to Käsemann.169 Alternately, Jewett suggests that it is a continuation of Paul’s remarks on the future eschatological glory awaiting believers from Romans 8:17, 18, 21, 30.170 Susan Eastman does so as well by implication; connecting the adoption and glory of the “sons of God” in Romans 8:19 to that of Israel in Romans 9:4, Eastman writes: “The future ‘sons of God’ are characterized by ‘adoption’ and ‘glory’ (8:17, 18, 21, 23). But in Rom 9:14, Paul says of the Jews, his kinsfolk according to the flesh, that to them belong ἡ υἱοθεσία καὶ ἡ δόξα.”171 Moo attempts to hold the two in tandem, suggesting that there is the “ultimate continuation of [God’s presence with the people of Israel] (into the eschaton) that is the issue.”172 And, in contrast with the suppositions of most scholars, BDAG locates δόξα in Romans 9:4 under the category of “honor as enhancement or recognition of status or performance, fame, recognition, renown, honor, prestige.”173

Contra Jewett and Eastman, the glory in Romans 9:4 does not refer to an eschatological glory, at least not an eschatological glory defined by that of Christ, as in Romans 8. With Newman and the majority of scholars, it is most likely that here, unlike elsewhere in Romans, Paul refers to God’s theophanic manifestation in splendor in the exodus narrative. The primary reasons for this are twofold. The first is its occurrence in an unusual articular form, implying that it refers to something more specific than a general sense of honor or an exalted status: to Israel belongs “The Glory.” It is here that Newman’s glory tradition is appropriate. The second reason is its placement within what Newman describes as a “litany of salvation-historical markers” particularly representative of the exodus tradition.174 The exodus motif is difficult to miss or dismiss. I suggest that, with Newman and unlike in most places in Romans, Paul’s reference to Israel’s glory in Romans 9:4 is in fact a reference to the visible manifest presence of God in Israel.

This leaves then only the reference to Israel’s glory in Romans 9:23 to consider. In Romans 9:22-24, Paul writes:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory [καὶ ἵνα γνωρίσῃ τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ σκεύη ἐλέους ἃ προητοίμασεν εἰς δόξαν;]—including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Paul’s transition to the inclusion of Gentiles in Romans 9:24 makes clear that the “vessels of mercy” who are “prepared beforehand for glory” in Romans 9:23 refer to both Jewish and Gentile believers. As Esler rightly notes, “Paul now expressly states that the vessels of mercy include Israelites and non-Israelites”—the “children of God” and the “children of the promise.”175 While it would make sense to treat this verse in the following section where I treat the renewal of humanity’s glory in Christ, Paul’s focus on God’s dealings with Israel in the preceding context makes this a better fit. Jews are guaranteed a future glory; God has prepared them for it beforehand (προετοιμάζω; see Wis 9:8; Eph 2:10).176 Though the original glory was exchanged (indicated in the echoes of Ps 105 LXX and Jer 2 in Rom 1:23), they nevertheless have an eschatological glory awaiting them.

Further on in Romans 9, in Romans 9:23 Paul uses δόξα twice, once in reference to the “riches of God’s glory” and once as that for which the “vessels of mercy” have been prepared beforehand. The phrase τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ occurs also in Ephesians 3:16, and a similar phrase, τὸ πλοῦτος αὐτοῦ ἐν δόξῃ, occurs in Philippians 4:19. Jewett suggests that the phrase in Romans “appears to be drawn from the tradition of liturgical participation in the numinous cloud or bright fire that was thought to surround the divine tabernacle (Exod 40:34f.) or throne (Ezek 1:26-28).”177 I suggest, rather, that greater precedence exists for reading δόξα here not as anything associated with God’s theophanic presence but as his honor, power, or character. The two terms, πλοῦτος and δόξα, are brought together throughout the LXX (e.g., 1 Kings 3:13; Eccles 6:2; Ps 3:4). I categorized this use as “a person’s honor or status associated with his character, power, or wealth” in the concordance in the preceding chapter. Most appropriately, in 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 it is written: “Yours, O LORD, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Riches and glory come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.” The phrase “the riches of God’s glory” then refers to the magnitude of his power or character in salvation, his status as the one “exalted as head above all” who rules over heavens and earth; this is the glory of God made known to those who receive his salvation.

If this is the case, then the glory for which the “vessels of mercy” are prepared is perhaps not what Jewett calls the “divine glory,” by which he means the presence of God,178 or what Schreiner says “refers to the goal that is attained through God’s foreordination: future splendor in the eschaton.”179 Nor can Newman’s suggestion that it refers to “God’s benefit” find support.180 Rather, it is the “riches and glory (i.e., honor)” that the Chronicler says come from this King who saves.

Before turning to the renewal of glory to all believers more generally in Romans, one further point is necessary here in regard to the eschatological glory anticipated by Israel. Though certainly not present in Romans 9:23, precedence exists in the Qumran Scrolls for reading Israel’s anticipated eschatological glory with the fulfillment of Adam’s original glory—a glory that, according to the Scrolls, bears closer affinities to an exalted status than to a garment of light.181 In the Words of the Heavenly Lights (4Q504), a liturgical text of prayers for the week, part of the first day’s prayer reads:

Rememb]er, O Lo[r]d that . . . Thou hast fashioned [Adam], our [f]ather in the likeness of [Thy] glory; Thou didst breathe [a breath of life] into his nostrils and with understanding a knowledge [Thou didst give him]. . . . Thou didst make [him] to rule [over the Gar]den of Eden which Thou didst plant . . . and to walk in the land of glory . . . he guarded. (4Q504 frag. 8)182

Genesis 1:26-28 is rewritten for the Qumran community and brings together the motifs of God’s image and glory. How exactly God’s glory here should be interpreted is unclear, but, given the range of uses of glory vis-à-vis God noted above, it is not impossible that God’s glory is his honor or exalted status. Moreover, even if the author intends the reader to understand God’s glory as visible splendor, we are aware already of the fact that such splendor symbolizes the presence of a particular God: the unsurpassed God who rules over heaven and earth. Van Kooten adopts this balanced approach: Adam’s restoration to glory, or his creation in the image of God’s glory, “is an effulgence of God’s glory, demonstrating the elevated status of human beings above the rest of creation.”183

Adam’s glory fulfilled in Israel’s eschatological glory is seen in several other texts:184

For these are those selected by God for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong all the glory of Adam. (1QS 4:22-23)

 

You raise an [eternal] name for them, [forgiving them all] sin, eliminating from them all their depravities, giving them, giving them as a legacy all the glory of Adam and plentiful days. (1QH^a 4:14-15)

 

Those who remained steadfast in it will acquire eternal life, and all the glory of Adam is for them. (CD 3:19-20)

 

Those who have returned from the wilderness, who will live for a thousand generations, in safety; for them there is all the inheritance of Adam and his descendants for ever. (4QpPs 37 3:1-2)

Macaskill rightly warns that these texts may not refer “to Adam as a person” but “to humanity more generally. None of the texts ultimately requires us to see a reference to the glory that Adam lost through sin, even if that is a possibility.”185 Rather, he states, “the phrase may point to the idea of the future rule of God’s people over the nations of the world and the eschatological reversal of their fortunes.”186 His reading of these texts is similar to that of van Kooten: though the glory of God in which “Adam” is created is understood as the “glorifying presence of God,”187 both scholars nonetheless recognize existing implications that bear on the “future rule of God’s people,” that is, Israel.

These motifs of glory will carry over into the following discussion of the renewal of glory in humanity throughout Romans. We will see that Romans 9:23 shares affinities with Romans 8:29-30, where God’s adopted children are predestined (προώρισεν, Rom 8:30) to glorification (ἐδόξασεν, Rom 8:30)188—a glorification that (I will argue in the following section) refers to believers’ exalted status.

3.3.3. God’s children reinstated to glory. We turn now to the glorious climax, or more appropriately, the climax of glory in Paul’s δόξα narrative in Romans. Paul uses δόξα and its cognates in seven key eschatologically focused verses: Romans 2:7, 10; 5:2; 8:17, 18, 21, 30. My comments here are intended primarily to demonstrate that Paul’s use of δόξα and δοξάζω in these texts leading up to and in Romans 8 follows both the lexical and the narrative pattern I have argued for thus far.

Eschatological glory for God’s people is first indicated in Romans 2:7: τοῖς μὲν καθ᾽ ὑπομονὴν ἔργου άγαθοῦ δόξαν καὶ τιμὴν καὶ άφθαρσίαν ζητοῦσιν ζωὴν αἰώνιον, and subsequently in Romans 2:10: δόξα δὲ καὶ τιμὴ καὶ εἰρήνη παντὶ τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ τὸ άγαθόν, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι. In both verses the contrast is stark between the traditional denotation of human glory as the reflection of the visible presence of God—or “splendor,” as Schreiner describes it189—and the understanding I am advocating, namely believers’ share in God’s honor or power as his image bearers.

The interpretative key undoubtedly lies in the triads of glory, honor, and immortality in Romans 2:7 and glory, honor, and peace in Romans 2:10. Commentators generally elaborate very little on the denotation of δόξα at this point, though most assign some element of synonymy with “honor.”190 According to Colin Kruse, it is “the reward for a good life,” which I find ambiguous and unhelpful.191 Most helpful is Jewett, who writes, “Paul is deliberately employing honorific categories that will appeal to his audience. . . . Both glory and honor are central motivations in the culture of the ancient Mediterranean world, where young people were taught to emulate the behavior of ideal prototypes. . . . That one should seek such honor and glory was simply assumed in Rome.”192 In an approach similar to Jewett’s, Harrison contrasts the two triads with those mentioned by Sallust, a first-century Roman historian. Harrison writes:

One of the interesting sidelights of Sallust’s presentation of Gloria is his use of the word in triads that speak of political and social status. In contrast to Paul’s eschatological triads of “glory, honour, and immortality” ( Rom 2:7) and “glory, honour and peace” (2:10), Sallust articulates a different set of triads: “glory (gloriam), honour and power” (Cat. 11:1); “riches, honour and glory (gloriam)” (Cat. 58.8; 20.14); “honour, glory (gloria) and authority” (Cat. 12.1).193

Several discussions later, Harrison notes that

Paul does not diminish the importance of the believer seeking “glory” (δόξαν), honour (τιμὴν) and immortality (άφθαρσίαν)” (Rom 2:7). For Paul, the Romans are correct in highlighting the importance of the quest for glory over against certain representatives of the Greek ethical tradition (e.g. Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom) who dismissed the acquisition of δόξα as misguided and ephemeral. But the allocation of δόξα for the believer is an eschatological gift and Paul differentiates his triads from Sallust and Cicero precisely by the addition of the parallel terms of “immortality” (Rom 2:7: άφθαρσία) and “peace” (Rom 2:10: εἰρήνη). Thus, according to Paul, the significance and worth of glory is not determined by the estimation of the Roman elite—as Sallust, Cicero and the Scipionic elogia proposed—but rather by the God who judges the secret thoughts of all (Rom 2:16).194

Given these parallels, it is difficult to imagine a Roman Gentile convert thinking in the first instance that δόξα refers to anything other than what it was considered by Sallust, Cicero, or any other Roman nobleman of societal honor and authority.

Further support for reading δόξα here as something other than believers’ eschatological reflection of God’s radiance is found in Paul’s use of δόξα in 1 Corinthians 2:7: άλλὰ λαλοῦμεν θεοῦ σοφίαν ἐν μυστηρίῳ τὴν άποκεκρυμμένην, ἣν προώρισεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων εἰς δόξαν ἡμῶν. On its own, δόξαν ἡμῶν could mean “the visible presence of God that we will reflect upon entering the heavenly realms” and that is made possible by God’s wisdom. Oddly enough, Newman here suggests that our “glory” is our “benefit.”195 However, it is not on its own, and the context demands an alternate reading.

The denotation of δόξα in 1 Corinthians 2:7 is made clear by the thematic emphases of 1 Corinthians 2:8 and Paul’s reference to Jesus as the “Lord of glory.” Here Newman suggests that the phrase κύριον τῆς δόξης stems from its only other known use: the apocalyptic throne vision of 1 Enoch 40:3.196 Newman may be correct. Yet even if he is, it does not therefore imply that Paul is referring to Jesus as the embodiment of the theophanic presence of God. Jesus as the Lord of glory can equally refer to Jesus as the risen and exalted King who in his exalted status embodies the supreme Ruler on the throne in the apocalyptic vision. Van Kooten notes the work of B. Burrowes, who argues that it was neither Jewish literature nor the Damascus Christophany that led Paul to an understanding of Jesus as the image of God but the Hellenistic ruler ideologies. Burrowes’s insights prove helpful here as well:

Paul’s conception of the Christ as the image of God derives from the Hellenistic ruler ideology. . . . In his vision of Christ, Paul experienced Jesus as the risen and enthroned kurios, since his most basic confession of faith is “Jesus is Lord” (Rom 10:9, 1 Cor 12:3). The exaltation of Jesus to universal lordship would naturally have brought comparison to secular rulers, specifically to the Roman emperors and the Seleucid kings of Antioch. In Hellenistic political philosophy, the ideal king was an image of the divine in the exercise of his power and in his moral character. As the only true Lord in contrast to the mere Roman and Seleucid pretenders, it is Jesus who is the true and faithful image of the divine.197

Much the same can be said for Jesus as the glory of God. “Lord of glory,” within Roman kingly and political ideologies, would naturally imply to Gentile converts the true King who has true power, honor, supreme dominion, as Harrison implies in his rhetorical question: “What would Paul’s gospel of the ‘Lord of glory’ (1 Cor 2:8; 2 Cor 4:4, 6) have meant for Romans attached to the old republican perspectives of glory and for those who were grateful clients of the new imperial Lords of glory at Rome?”198 Such Gentile converts may have recognized a further connection to Jewish apocalyptic throne visions, but even then, “glory” associated with a supreme deity on a throne would not lose its regal connotations. Moreover, Paul’s emphasis in 1 Corinthians 2:8 is on the contrast between the “rulers of this age” and the true ruler, whom they crucified.

Paul’s use of δόξα in 1 Corinthians 2:7, 8 fits first and foremost within this political and royal semantic field, and it is this same semantic field in which believers’ eschatological δόξα fits in Romans 2:7, 10, as is made clear by the parallel triads of Sallust.

In Romans 2:7, 10 Paul only hints at believers’ eschatological glory as the regained glory of God formerly exchanged or lost. He then refers explicitly to it in Romans 5:2: καυχώμεθα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ. The glory of God, Paul says, is believers’ hope, their eschatological telos. But it is not at first obvious just how one should understand God’s glory. In the realm of scholarship at this point, two oddities stand out. First, as in Romans 2:7, 10, Carey Newman makes very little of Paul’s phrase here, including it in the forty-two occurrences of δόξα that require further consideration and that, other than one undiscussed mention of believers’ hope of glory in Romans 5:2, are never again mentioned.199 Second, Robert Jewett randomly links τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ with the כבוד יהוה traditions of the Hebrew Bible, referring to it as the glory of God “manifest in radiant holiness and in transcendent power to create and redeem,” having not made such a link in either Romans 1:23 or Romans 3:23.200

The most common interpretation is that of a moral perfection or righteousness that classifies God and that classified the original “Godlikeness” of the prefall Adam. Moo describes it in this way: it is “that state of ‘God-like-ness’ which has been lost because of sin, and which will be restored in the last day to every Christian.”201 Schreiner develops this by saying:

the already-not yet character of Paul’s eschatology emerges in this paragraph. . . . We still await future glorification, which will involve moral perfection and restoration to the glory Adam lost when he sinned. Believers are clearly not yet morally perfect, for otherwise they would possess God’s glory now, and the growth in godly character described in verses 3-4 would be superfluous.202

Schreiner rightly notes that the glory of God in which believers hope is connected to the glory Adam lost, but that glory, as we have seen, is not a moral perfection. It is, rather, the exalted status gifted by God to all humanity and which Paul describes in the Adam motif in the following section, Romans 5:12-21, as having been rejected. As Dunn notes, “With the re-emergence of the theme ‘the glory of God’ Paul already before 5:12ff. reverts to the Adam motif—the divine purpose in salvation being understood in terms of a restoration (and completion) of fallen humanity to the glory which all now fall short of.”203 In fact, believers’ hope of glory in Romans 5:2 stands as a thematic overview for the entire section to come, leading Moo rightly to note that “it is the topic of ‘hope’ and ‘glory’ that Paul elaborates on in 5:12-21 and 8:14-39.”204 To understand what the glory is in which believers hope in Romans 5:2, one must first understand the texts in which Paul further illustrates that glory: Romans 5:12-21 and Romans 8:17-30.

Given all that Paul has already said about humanity’s relationship to the glory of God in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23, and presumably, though certainly less explicitly, in Romans 2:7, 10, the glory of God in which believers hope is not necessarily God’s visible, manifest presence, nor is it God’s moral perfection. It is Adam/humanity’s honor or power associated with their status as the Creator’s representatives called to steward his creation.

Romans 5:12-21 is often “treated as the ugly stepsister of the family of major sections in the letter to the Romans,” according to Ciampa.205 When valued as an expression of Paul’s theology, it is viewed primarily as the basis of Paul’s Adam Christology, and for good reason. Often overlooked, however, is that Paul primarily addresses the reason why God’s people have hope in the glory of God (Rom 5:2). Adam was called to rule and to establish dominion on the earth and, as mentioned previously, allowed sin and death to reign in his stead (Rom 5:14, 17, 21).206 But the story does not end there. Whereas Adam was disobedient, Jesus was obedient (Rom 5:19); and his obedience made it possible that God’s people would again reign over the earth. Paul writes in Romans 5:17: εἰ γὰρ τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι ὁ θάνατος ἐβασίλευσεν διὰ τοῦ ἑνός, πολλῷ μᾶλλον οἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης λαμβάνοντες ἐν ζωῇ βασιλεύσουσιν διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Here is Paul’s point in Romans 5:12-21: that believers will reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. It is a point often overlooked. In Jesus, God will restore humanity to their originally created vocation; humanity will again have the honor associated with dominion; they will again share in the glory of God of Romans 5:2.207 Fitzmyer is one who misses the message: “Whereas in v 14 Paul spoke of the reign of death, now he replaces that with the reign of life, i.e., justified Christians enjoy the regal freedom of life eternal.”208 What replaces the reign of death is not life but those who receive God’s abundant grace. As Dunn writes, “The opposite to the coldly final rule of death is the unfettered enjoyment of life—the life of a king.”209 Romans 5:17 is Paul’s conclusion to the saga of Adam’s rejection of his created vocation, his exchange of the glory of the immortal God (Rom 1:23).210 God’s people will again reign over the earth as Adam was meant to do, and, as Paul will make clear in Romans 8, they will do so as adopted children of God, sharing in the inheritance of the Firstborn Son.211 To overlook this message in Romans 5:17 is to overlook the narrative of glory; to overlook this narrative of glory is to overlook the point of Romans 5:12-21; and to overlook the point of Romans 5:12-21 is to overlook what it is to boast in the hope of sharing in the glory of God in Romans 5:2—the theme to which Paul returns most climactically in Romans 8:17-30.

Finally, we turn to humanity’s renewal of δόξα in Romans 8. Though Paul first introduces humanity’s reinstatement to glory in Romans 8:17, followed closely by Romans 8:18, I begin this section in Romans 8:21. This verse is significant not only because it is difficult to translate but because it is the precise point at which Paul identifies the relationship between God’s children and creation.212 In fact, it is the reason Paul includes this otherwise ostensibly random focus on the cursed creation here at all. Romans 8:21 reads, beginning at the end of Romans 8:20: ἐφ᾽ ἑλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται άπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ, translated by the Kingdom New Testament as “in the hope that creation itself would be freed from its slavery to decay, to enjoy the freedom that comes when God’s children are glorified.”213 Tracing Paul’s logic from present to future in Romans 8:17-21, we can deduce that:

(Rom 8:20) though creation is currently subjected to decay,

(Rom 8:19) it waits for God’s children to be revealed,

(Rom 8:18) because their glory will then be reinstated,

(Rom 8:17) a glory that they have as God’s heirs and co-heirs

with Christ,

at which point and, indeed, because of which,

(Rom 8:21) creation will again be free from its bondage to decay.

We can also deduce from Paul’s logic that:

(Rom 8:21) if creation will be freed from its bondage

when

(Rom 8:18) God’s children are reinstated to glory,

then

(Rom 8:20) creation was unwillingly subjected to decay

when

(Rom 1:21-23; 3:23 implicitly) God’s children first forsook their inheritance

of glory.

According to Newman, humanity’s eschatological glory in Romans 8:18, 21 refers to “a qualitatively new relational sphere of existence for the ‘sons,’” which follows from the “ruptured relationship” implied in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23.214 No doubt, a ruptured relationship is part of humanity’s rejection of its created purpose, but a number of reasons exist for us to reject this thesis. (1) While Paul does emphasize the restored relationship between humanity and God through adoption in Romans 8 (esp. Rom 8:15),215 he does not equate humanity’s δόξα with that restored relationship. In fact, what Paul does equate humanity’s eschatological glory with is its inheritance as children of God in Romans 8:17, a theme to which I will return at length in chapter six. (2) Humanity’s eschatological glory as a restored relationship fails to explain the direct link between creation’s restoration in Romans 8:21 and the restored relationship between God and man; what explicit impact does humanity’s reestablishment in the presence of God have on the renewal of creation? (3) Newman’s definition fails to explain why Paul includes a treatment of the restored creation here at all. In fact, if this is Paul’s implicit understanding of δόξα, then his inclusion of the present groaning and future liberation of creation is inexplicable in its literary context.216 (4) As I demonstrated in chapter two, the primary use of δόξα vis-à-vis humanity in the LXX is almost always in reference to a person’s exalted or honored status, often associated with rule or authority. (5) As noted above, the reference to humanity’s δόξα in Romans 2:7, 10 bears far greater associations with the denotation I am suggesting than Newman’s in Romans 8:18, 21, whose understanding of δόξα in Romans 2:7, 10 failed to make it into any denotative category.217

In response to (2) and (3) above, at least, if δόξα is understood as humanity’s exaltation to a renewed status of honor associated with its created purpose of having dominion over creation, then creation’s renewal as a result of humanity’s restored δόξα makes sense, and Paul’s inclusion of the restoration of creation at this point is no longer ostensibly random.218 Humanity’s renewed δόξα results in creation experiencing its own freedom from bondage, because in their glorification, creation itself is free to be what it was created to be, and humanity plays an integral role in making that happen. It is what humanity was created to do. Reasons (4) and (5) are self-explanatory; and, in regard to (1), because of the multiple critical and complex themes in Romans 8:17, 30, not least the significance of humanity’s inheritance and the role that an interpretation of it plays in one’s interpretation of δόξαζω, I hold off on many comments associated with the term in these two verses. I will return to them in full in chapter six.