Romans: The Story of God Bible Commentary

images/img-37-1.jpg LISTEN to the Story

¹Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — ²the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. ⁶And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

⁷To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listening to the texts in the story: Isaiah 52:1 – 10; Mark 1:1 – 15; 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 8.

In the opening of the “citadel” of Romans 1 – 4, Paul introduces himself to the Roman churches. Paul wastes no time and hits the ground running in this letter by bringing up that which matters most: the gospel and the cause of the gospel, which he endeavours to promote as an apostle. Ultimately, Paul wants to make sure that he and the Roman Gentile Christians are singing off the same sheet of gospel music. Since Paul cannot be in Rome in person, he wants to embed the gospel in their community, to defend himself against any rumor of antinomianism or anti-Israelite sentiment, and to prevent a diverse and potentially fractious Christian community from fragmenting along ethnic lines of Jew versus Gentile. In other words, Paul wants to gospelize the Romans, that is, to conform them to the pattern of teaching that the gospel imparts. Paul pursues this for the sake of unity with the Roman churches and for the promotion of the gospel in a wider pan-Roman theater that reaches from Jerusalem all the way around to Spain.

This densely packed beginning to the letter touches on the biblical story in many ways. First, it calls to mind the Isaianic “glad tidings” or “gospel” about the end of Israel’s exile and the launching of the new exodus found in Isaiah 52:1 – 10. The big rescue that Isaiah looked forward to began with the return of the Babylonian exiles under the Persian king Cyrus, but it was properly fulfilled only in the salvation wrought by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which is why there are so many new exodus allusions across the letter. Second, the messianic hope of many Jews in antiquity was based on the word of the prophets that God would one day send a new David to deliver Israel (see Isa 11:1; Jer 23:5; Ezek 34:23 – 24; 37:24 – 25; Mic 5:2). For Paul, the resurrection is paramount proof that Jesus is the Messiah who is Israel’s deliverer and Lord of the nations. So when Paul says that his gospel is “promised beforehand” in Scripture, he means it is the final act to the story of Isaiah’s gospel and Israel’s messianic hopes.

The opening verses break down with (1) Paul’s self-introduction (v. 1); (2) a description of the gospel (vv. 2 – 4); (3) a description of his apostolic ministry (v. 5); and (4) a greeting to the Roman churches (vv. 6 – 7).

The name “Paul” (Paulus in Latin, Paulos in Greek) was a relatively common name in the ancient world. “Paul” is either a cognomen or a nickname used because the Hebrew “Saul” (šāûl) was foreign to Greek speakers. In the prescript of the letter Paul immediately sets out his credentials to the Romans in three quick-fire descriptions of himself as “servant [slave],” “apostle,” and “set apart.”

Paul first describes himself as a “servant of Jesus Christ” (see “servants of the Lord” in 2 Kgs 18:12 [Moses]; Judg 2:8 [Joshua]; 2 Sam 7:5 [David]; Amos 3:7; Zech 1:6 [the prophets]). The word doulos has the nuance of “slave” and denotes one subject to the authority of another. Paul uses this expression of himself elsewhere in his letter openings (Phil 1:1; Titus 1:1; cf. Gal 1:10). As a “slave of Christ” Paul is expressing his solemn devotion to Jesus in terms analogous to the master-slave relationship with connotations of absolute belongingness and total submission. While all Christians are slaves of Christ (see 1 Cor 7:22 – 23; Eph 6:6), Paul is a special slave with a special office. The title “Jesus Christ” probably first emerged as a shorthand way of saying Jesus is the Christ or Jesus is the Messiah. In fact, “Jesus Christ” is probably an encoded reference to the status and story of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and Lord of the cosmos.¹

A second element that Paul introduces about himself is that he was “called to be an apostle.” The call was not an invitation; instead, it was a radical summons. In the Septuagint “call” (klētos) is equivalent to “choose” (e.g., Isa 41:9; 42:6; 48:12). Paul did not volunteer for service, but he was chosen to be an apostle by a sovereign action of God (see Gal 1:1; 1 Cor 15:10). This arresting sense of divine call is reminiscent of the commissioning of prophets in the Old Testament like Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Paul stands in a line of great prophetic figures whom God chose and utilized for his own redemptive purposes.

An “apostle” means literally “one who is sent.” It is most likely indebted to the Jewish concept of a šālia — the sending of an envoy who represents the sender as if himself in person. In Hebrews, Jesus is called an “apostle” in the sense that he is sent from God (Heb 3:1). Titus and Epaphroditus are each designated as an apostolos (“messenger”) of certain churches (2 Cor 8:23; Phil 2:25). At the end of Romans, Andronicus and Junia are known as “outstanding among the apostles,” which probably indicates their role as missionaries sent out from a Christian community (Rom 16:7). Although Paul was not one of the twelve disciples, he encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and was called to his apostolic work to proclaim the gospel among the nations (see Acts 22:21; 26:16 – 18; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8 – 9; Gal 1:15 – 16).²

The third aspect of Paul’s self-description is that he was “set apart” for an evangelistic task. Ironically, the former Pharisee who gloried in his set-apartness from sinners is now set apart as God’s messenger to the quintessential sinners, the Gentiles. A similar testimony is given by Paul in Gal 1:15, where he described how God “set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace.”

In the church at Antioch, the Holy Spirit led the community to “set apart” Paul and Barnabas for the work which God had called them to undertake (Acts 13:1 – 3). This set-apartness is also related to the priestly service of carrying the gospel to the nations that Paul undertakes (Rom 15:16).

Paul was called to be a servant and an apostle, set apart for a priestly work. These are not merely descriptions, they are tasks; Paul serves, was sent, and was consecrated for the sake of the “gospel of God” (see Rom 15:16; 2 Cor 11:7; 1 Thess 2:2, 8 – 9; 1 Tim 1:11).³ What Paul says about himself is geared toward explaining his role as a herald of the “gospel of God.” No sooner has Paul mentioned the “gospel of God” than he proceeds to describe the “gospel concerning his Son” in 1:3 and the “gospel of his Son” in 1:9. Elsewhere when Paul mentions the gospel, it is usually in association with Jesus Christ as its main subject (see 1 Cor 9:12; 15:1 – 5; 2 Cor 2:12; 4:4; 9:13; 10:14; Phil 1:17; 1 Thess 3:2; 2 Thess 1:8; 2 Tim 2:8). The interchangeability of “Son,” “Jesus,” and “God” as subjects of the gospel is possible because the identity of God is bound up with the “one God” and “one Lord” who are both revealed in the gospel (see 1 Cor 8:6). That means to tell the gospel of God is to tell the story of Jesus. The gospel narrates how God breaks into the world through his Son and the Spirit in order to fulfill the promises that he made to his people.

None of this should surprise us because Romans is the most theocentric letter of the Pauline corpus, with the word theos (“God”) occurring 153 times! Paul is the quintessential Jesus freak, but he is not a mono-Jesus adherent. In fact, God, Son, and Spirit all figure prominently in his opening narration of the gospel story in Romans 1:1 – 4. Theologically speaking, Romans is a discourse about God as he is known through the gospel. As the apostle called, sent, and set apart by God, Paul sets out before the Roman Christians the story of how God’s plan to repossess the world for himself has now been executed in his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before we expound Paul’s gospel further, it is important to establish the background story of “gospel” in its various contexts. From Isaiah 40:9 and 52:7 we learn that the “good news” (the meaning of the two components of eu-angelion, “gospel”) is the announcement that God’s reign is coming because God himself is coming; he will at last redeem his people from exile and slavery and shepherd them; then the ends of the earth will see his salvation.⁴ Also, when Jesus began his ministry in proclaiming the gospel, he did not go around simply announcing that he was about to die for the sins of the world and thereafter people will be able to get into heaven. He was picking up this prophetic story line of national sin-exile-redemption-new creation. When Jesus preached the “gospel of God” (Mark 1:14) and the “gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 24:14), he was saying that these prophetic promises were coming to fruition. The shot clock had counted down to zero, the new exodus was here, God’s reign was at last breaking in, and the proof of this was the healings and exorcisms he was performing (e.g., Luke 11:20).

Furthermore, we should note the usage of “gospel” (euangelion) in the context of the political propaganda and religion of the Roman Empire. The Romans had their own “gospel” about the accession of new emperors to the throne. In AD 69, while laying siege to Jerusalem, the Roman general Vespasian decided to press his claim to imperial power after the deaths of three emperors in a three-year span. Listen to what Josephus says about him: “When news spread of Vespasian’s accession to the throne every city celebrated the good news and offered sacrifices on his behalf” (Josephus, War 4.618), and “On reaching Alexandria Vespasian was greeted by the good news from Rome and by embassies of congratulations from every quarter of the world, now his own . . . the whole empire being now secured and the Roman state saved beyond expectation” (ibid., 4.656 – 57).

Given this linguistic background, it was inevitable that adherents of the “gospel of Jesus Christ” would come into conflict with political apparatus behind “the gospel of Rome” as there can only be one Lord and one Son of God in the world. It is either the Son of David or the son of Augustus (see Luke 2:1 – 4; Acts 17:7). Paul’s gospel was not something exclusively spiritual; rather, it was theo-political, and Jews and Romans both knew it.⁵

Returning to the prescript, Paul states that the gospel is something that God “promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures” (v. 2). In other words, this new announcement is prepromised in the ancient faith of Israel. Paul shows the conformity of his gospel to Israel’s prophetic hopes. This is similar to 1 Corinthians 15:3 – 5, where Jesus’ death and resurrection are “according to the Scriptures,” and Galatians 3:8, where Paul says that “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham.” While we tend to treasure innovation and newness, in the ancient world it was the antiquity and longevity of religious traditions that were prized. For Paul the gospel is the continuation and fulfillment of the story of Israel (see Acts 13:32 – 33; 2 Cor 1:20). What is more, he assumes a particular way of reading Israel’s Scriptures, what we might call a christotelic hermeneutic, as Jesus is the goal of the scriptural promises (see Rom 10:4). The content of the gospel is enumerated in vv. 3 – 4 as:

regarding his Son,
who was born
from the seed of David
according to the flesh
who was appointed
the Son of God in power
according to the Spirit of holiness
by resurrection from the dead:
Jesus Christ our Lord.⁶

It is likely that this is a short summary of the gospel that Paul himself received (perhaps it was an early creed, hymn, prose, or confession of faith given the non-Pauline language). It is probably the case that this gospel summary was already known to the Roman churches so that Paul quotes it to affirm their sharing of a common gospel tradition. In these brief verses we are instantly struck by its forthright announcement about the messianic identity and sovereign name of Jesus. The gospel here is the declaration that Jesus is the climax of Israel’s hopes, he is installed as God’s vice-regent, and his resurrection has inaugurated the beginning of the end of the ages. Note that the gospel is not four spiritual laws, nor a logical syllogism about reconciling God’s holiness and human sin. Instead, it is the announcement that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah of Israel and Lord of the world. To tell the gospel, then, is to tell the story of Jesus.⁷

To regard the gospel as a story is not, as some might think, a recent postmodern fad. Paul had just stated in v. 2 that this gospel story lines up the story of Israel’s Scriptures. But if you believe not Paul, then believe Martin Luther, who said: “The gospel is a story about Christ, God’s and David’s Son, who died and was raised and is established as Lord. This is the gospel in a nutshell.”⁸

Romans 1:3 – 4 is not simply a convenient collection of christological titles; rather, it tells a short story about the identity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the preexistent “Son” who is humanly born in the line of “David” and designated as the “Son of God” through the Holy Spirit, who later raised him from the dead, and this event proleptically inaugurated the eschatological age. The one called Jesus is also the “Lord,” and the claims of his sovereignty are far reaching (see Rom 12:19; 14:4 – 11). Toward the end of Romans we see just how sweeping the consequences of his authority are for the believing community. A Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, is one who confesses that Jesus “is Lord” (10:9 – 12); they are to corporately serve the Lord (12:11), to put on the Lord (13:14), and together to glorify the Father and Lord Jesus Christ (15:6). Resurrection and lordship cast a shadow over the entire epistle to the point that Jesus was raised to reign: “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living” (14:9). When 1:3 – 4 is taken with 15:8 – 9, 12, then, “Christ’s Davidic heritage fulfills the promises and confirms God’s faithfulness to the Jews; his appointment — that is, his resurrection — relates him to the Gentiles as the mode of their inclusion in the family of Abraham and the rule of the Messiah.”⁹

A debate surrounds the Greek word horizō as to whether it means “declared,” “designated,” or “appointed.” Generally speaking, conservative exegetes have been reluctant to accept the translation of “appointed” on the grounds that it might imply an adoptionist christology (i.e., Jesus only became God’s Son during his baptism, resurrection, or ascension). However, the evidence strongly suggests that “appointed” is the proper translation. First of all, “appointed” is the basic lexical meaning of horizō (see Acts 10:42; 17:31).¹⁰ Second, it appears that early Christians interpreted Psalm 2:7 as being typologically fulfilled in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ (see Acts 2:36; 13:33; Heb 1:5). Käsemann was correct to see the emphasis here on “becoming” rather than on “being.”¹¹ However, this does not deny Jesus’ sonship prior to the resurrection, only that the resurrection served to translate the sonship of Jesus into a new eschatological function that he did not previously discharge.¹² A further significance is that this appointment has a quasi-judicial character. Whatever the world said about Jesus, by his resurrection, God has declared him to be his Son. The resurrection marks out Jesus as the one in whom God’s saving promises are made good. On top of that, we are already seeing how central “resurrection” is in Romans.¹³ Paul will later argue that the same Spirit that worked to appoint Jesus as Son is now at work in believers to sanctify them, to adopt them as children of God, and he will raise them up at the last day (see Rom 8:2 – 17).

The phrase “by [his] resurrection of the dead” can also be tricky. The preposition ex is perhaps causal, where it designates resurrection as the immediate cause of the Son’s exalted life and elevation to lordship. The problem with this is that the personal pronoun “his” is not found in the Greek text and is inserted by translators (see NEB; NIV; ESV). More probable, ex is temporal (see KJV; NRSV; NASB; NET) and conforms to the early Christian belief that Jesus’ resurrection was actually the beginning of the general resurrection (see Matt 27:52 – 53; Acts 4:2; 23:6; 1 Cor 15:20, 23; Col 1:18; Rev 1:5). This last option is validated by the fact that anastaseōs nekrōn is a generalizing plural that literally means the “standing up of dead corpses” and hints at the future resurrection of all persons at the end of history. Yet we should not engage in either-or exegesis. Two ideas are implied: the resurrection of Jesus marks out the beginning of the general resurrection, but in the context of disclosing Jesus’ messianic identity as the Son of God.¹⁴

It is precisely “through” the Lord Jesus that Paul says “we received grace and apostleship” (v. 5). The picture here is of the Lord Jesus calling people to a special apostolic ministry. That evidently started during his own earthly life (see Mark 3:13 – 16) and continued with the calling of Paul himself (see Gal 1:15 – 16). In Ephesians, the exalted Christ distributes the offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teaching pastor to the church in order to build it up into maturity (Eph 4:11 – 13). Note too that the “we” implies not only Paul but also his coworkers, who are similarly recipients of apostolic grace. This brings us to the first mention of “grace” in Romans, and it designates the benevolence and favor of God toward his servants. In fact, “grace” and “apostleship” might be intended to be taken together as something like the “grace of apostleship,” to the effect that God’s gracious purposes are being worked out through his apostolic emissaries (see Rom 15:15 – 16; 1 Cor 12:28; 15:10).

The purpose of apostleship is then situated toward two goals. Instrumentally, the goal of apostolic ministry is to “call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.” More literally this refers to the “obedience of faith” (hypakoēn pisteōs), which could designate: (a) faith and obedience; (b) faith that consists of obedience; or (c) faith that leads to obedience. I tend to prefer a variation of the last option and identify faith as defining the manner and mode of obedience, i.e., an obedience produced by the gospel.¹⁵ Faith for Paul includes assent and trust, but it also embraces faithfulness and loyalty as a way of life in Jesus Christ. Elsewhere faith and obedience are interchangeable for Paul (Rom 1:8; 10:16; 16:19). Importantly, Paul closes Romans by referring to the revelation of Jesus Christ that brings Gentiles to the “obedience that comes from faith” (16:26). It is surely significant that Paul begins and ends Romans with reference to the “obedience of faith.” Elsewhere, in Paul’s priestly service of the gospel, what Christ achieves through him is to enable Gentiles to “become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” and to lead “the Gentiles to obey God” (15:16, 18).

Thus Romans, the great epistle of justification by faith, is also the great epistle of the obedience of faith. The Protestant paranoia that a call for obedience somehow dilutes the pure gospel of justification is misplaced, as N. T. Wright comments:

Such anxiety misses the point. When Paul thinks of Jesus as Lord, he thinks of himself as a slave and of the world as being called to obedience to Jesus’ lordship. His apostolic commission is not to offer people a new religious option, but to summon them to allegiance to Jesus, which will mean abandoning other loyalties. The gospel issues a command, an imperial summons; the appropriate response is obedience.¹⁶

Let us not forget that faith, faithfulness, and obedience are prerequisites for “righteousness” (Rom 1:17; 4:5, 11 – 24; 5:17; 6:16; 9:30; 10:4 – 6). Paul wants Christ-believing Gentiles to exhibit a steadfast belief in God and the Lord Jesus Christ (4:1 – 25; 10:9 – 10), but also to display in their way of life an appropriate holiness, love, obedience, service, worship, unity, and the fruit of righteousness. Such an obedience visibly counters allegations that Paul’s law-free gospel leads to lawless behavior (see 3:7 – 8; 6:1 – 2; cf. 1 Cor 9:20 – 21), and it is an obedience that shames the hypocrisy of Jewish teachers in their claims to be teachers of Gentiles (2:1 – 29).¹⁷ That is possible because Christians are driven to obedience, not by the letter of the law, but by dying with Christ and living by the Spirit (see Romans 6 – 8). Twice Paul commends the Roman Christians for their obedience (6:17; 16:19), and in many ways Paul is writing this letter to shore up their commitment and conformity to the apostolic “pattern of instruction” that is central to his own missionary work.

While bringing Gentiles to the “obedience of faith” is a key purpose of Paul’s apostleship, it is instrumental to a final goal of bringing honor and glory for the sake of “his name” (Rom 1:5). But whose name are we talking about here? Is it God’s name or Jesus Christ’s name? Given the surrounding context with the mention of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 4), his bestowing of grace and apostleship (v. 5), and the Gentiles in Rome called to belong to Jesus Christ (v. 6), it is hard to resist the conclusion that the obedience of the Gentiles is for the sake of honoring Jesus’ name. Switching ahead to the end of Romans again, we find Paul saying that Christ served the circumcision (i.e., Israel) to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that, quoting Psalm 18:49, the Gentiles would praise God’s name (Rom 15:9).

Let’s think on this for a moment. The goal of Paul’s apostolic vocation and the purpose of Jesus’ advent to Israel were to make the promises of the Abrahamic covenant a reality by drawing immoral, idol-worshiping, pork-eating Gentiles into faith, obedience, and worship toward the names of God and Jesus. The story of salvation in Romans with its polyphonic symphony of movements about Adam, Christ, Israel, wrath, justice, justification, and reconciliation lead to a redeemed humanity, a restored Israel, and a renewed creation, and these turn out to be the stunning means of the glorification of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (see Rom 11:33 – 36; 15:6; 16:27).

Paul further locates the Romans as among the Gentiles “who are called to belong to Jesus Christ” (v. 6) in the sense that they are effectually drawn into God’s saving purposes (see Rom 8:28; 1 Cor 1:1 – 2, 24). The repetition of “called” (klētos) in vv. 6 – 7 is far from accidental. Paul is “called” to be an apostle (v. 1), and the emphasis means that both author and audience share in a divine call that binds them together.

The formalities of the prescript are drawn to a close with the greetings “to all in Rome” (v. 7).¹⁸ Most likely, while Paul is predominantly addressing the Gentile Christians in Rome (see Rom 1:13; 11:13; 15:15 – 16), he is fully mindful of the fact that what he says here will also be relayed to Jewish Christians in Rome, and so his arguments proceed with due sensitivity, unlike his somewhat uncut and unplugged outburst in Galatians. Perhaps the letter carrier Phoebe will even go around the various Christian assemblies and exhort the Roman Christians with this letter. The Roman believers are “loved by God” and “called to be his holy people,” expressing the privileges and responsibility of their calling. Then, with “grace and peace,” Paul wishes on them a blessing of divine treasures that include a power that totally embraces them and establishes their access to God. All this because God is our Father and Jesus Christ is our Lord.¹⁹ As Chrysostom wrote: “Strange! How mighty is the love of God! We who were enemies and disgraced, have all at once become saints and sons. For when he calls Him Father, he shows them to be sons; and when he says sons, he has unveiled the whole treasure of blessings.”²⁰

In the prescript Paul introduces himself to the Romans as a faithful “servant” of God. He underscores that they both partake of a special divine calling. Paul and the Romans are further bound together by a common set of shared symbols, in effect saying: “Your Christ and Lord is my Christ and Lord; your God is my God; we share the very same gospel; we accept the same Scriptures.”²¹ As Gentiles they are under the jurisdiction of Paul’s apostolate, and yet he does not invoke the weight of his apostolic authority over them (see 2 Cor 10:8; 13:10). Instead, he gently commends himself as a faithful minister of the gospel in the hope that they will be aroused to support the gospel that he proclaims. Our cohort of Roman Christians meeting in Rufus’s modest apartment might well be curious and cautious about the letter opening, knowing that Paul had a reputation for strife, but remain impressed nonetheless with his display of religious authority and rhetorical acumen.

These first seven verses kickstart Romans with a bang, and at the forefront of our meditation of this passage should be two things, the “gospel” and the “obedience of faith.”

Paul does not even get halfway through his greeting to the Romans before he launches into a short précis about the gospel. Evidently the gospel matters to him, and so it should. The gospel drives theology, authenticates the church, and is paramount for discipleship.

When it comes to a living theology, the immediate issues are: Where do you begin and what holds the whole thing together? If Romans is anything to go by, the starting point and integrating point for Christian thought are apprehended in the gospel. Christian thinkers have forever debated what exactly is the starting point of theology. Is it the doctrine of natural revelation, is it the doctrine of Scripture, or is it the doctrine of the Trinity? Where do we start? It’s not a purely academic matter because where you begin can determine where you finish up.

While Romans is mostly certainly not a systematic theology by any stretch of the imagination, it remains all the same the most theological of Paul’s letters in terms of working out a consistent theological train of thought. But note that Paul’s beginning point in Romans is the gospel. Paul does not begin this magisterial epistle with a preface trying to justify whether it is possible to talk about God; rather, he simply begins by setting out the gospel of God and Jesus Christ. It is vitally important, then, that we get the gospel right and get it early. If the Christian life is a journey, the gospel is the first information center that we come to. Moreover, any theology that claims the name “evangelical” is obligated to make the “evangel” central to its structure. The gospel thereby becomes the beginning, center, and boundary of all theological discussion.²²

Paul proves my point. According to him, Christology is about contemplating the person and work of Christ known to us through the “gospel of Christ” (Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 2:12; 9:13; 10:14; Gal 1:7; Phil 1:27; 1 Thess 3:2). Christian ethics requires living a life “worthy of the gospel” (Phil 1:27). A study of salvation prods us to unpack the polyphonic richness of the gospel of salvation (Rom 1:16; Eph 1:13). Apologetics is our attempt to offer a “defense of the gospel” (Phil 1:16). A church is in essence a community of the gospelized. The sacraments are a means of grace communicated through the symbols of the gospel: baptism and Lord’s Supper. Mission is the church’s strategy to “advance the gospel” (Phil 1:12).²³ Every sub-branch of Christian theology is indelibly connected to the gospel like branches drawing nutrients from a vine. Peter Jensen is bang on target when he writes:

The gospel stands at the beginning of the story that explains why there are Christians at all, on the boundary between belief and unbelief — often, for the hearer, prior to a knowledge of the Bible itself. For the person entering from the outside, the gospel is the introduction to the faith, the starting-point for understanding. It then rightly becomes the touchstone of the faith. Since this is where faith begins, it is essential that faith continues to conform to it.²⁴

The gospel also matters ecclesiologically in the sense that it defines what the church is and marks out the boundaries of its faith. In the early church we see precisely how the gospel became the normative fixture for their thinking, their service, and their proclamation. And yet, that led to a healthy degree of diversity-in-unity rather than yielding up a supposedly watertight system of doctrine. Irenaeus considered the gospel “handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.”²⁵ The exposition of the gospel among many Christians in the late second century took on an essentially narrative shape when they summarized their beliefs in the regula fidei (“rule of faith”). Hearing again from Irenaeus, his account of the “ancient tradition” consisted of the belief that,

there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendour, shall come in glory, the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent.²⁶

That statement of course is really an embryonic version of the Apostle’s Creed. Let us remember that the early creeds of the church, far from being cold, stale, and dry dogma, were really a “portable story” that enabled Christian communities to tell the story of the Christian faith to disciples, new converts, and outsiders.²⁷

In light of that, what I would like to see is Bible study leaders sit down with some folk and ask them to describe the main acts in the biblical story. If you do this, pay particular attention to which parts of the story persons emphasize, what precise descriptions they use, how they describe God in this story, what role does Jesus and the church have in the story, and especially what gives their particular telling of the story its momentum and cohesion. After that, look at what is unique in their narration and what they share with others in the group who described the same story line as well.

That is a useful exercise on three fronts: (1) It forces everyone to sit down and think about the big picture (which people rarely do); (2) it also shows how the subtle differences in telling the story varies from person to person based on their background; and (3) it provides an excellent way for introducing the study of a new book, whether that is Judges, Isaiah, Mark, or Hebrews. If story is the most characteristic expression of worldview, then being able to articulate the Christian story is an exercise that should widen our understanding of the acts of God in redemptive history, but it also forces us to think through what the story means to us given our own unique setting and situation. Alternatively, preaching a sermon or series of sermons on the biblical story line can also benefit a congregation in a similar way.²⁸

The varied ways of narrating the regula fidei themselves stem from the variety of gospel presentations in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is the Davidic Shepherd-King and the quintessential teacher of Torah who comes to restore Israel and rescues Gentiles. The Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus paradoxically as the powerful Son of God and the suffering Son of Man who brings redemption. In the Gospel of Luke and Acts, Jesus is the anointed prophet of God who inaugurated the period of messianic salvation and his exaltation brings the forgiveness of sins. The Fourth Gospel concentrates on Jesus as the Word of God made flesh who gives eternal life to his followers. Outside the Gospels, Paul’s message of deliverance is heavily indebted to the motif of reconciliation, in the Johannine epistles we are confronted with the imagery of cleansing for sin, in Hebrews the priestly work of Christ comes to the fore, and in the Apocalypse of John the Seer it is Jesus’ victory over the evil world that is uppermost. While there is an irreducible plurality to the message of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, we can easily find a number of common threads that weaves them all together. The unity of the New Testament is not a single doctrine like “justification by faith alone,” but a constellation or cluster of shared ideas and common experiences that unified the church around one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

The unity of Scripture, the fulcrum of the regula fidei, and the root of the creeds can be traced to their shared testimony about how the triune God has brought salvation to the world through Jesus Christ. The “evangelical” and “apostolic” story of the church, in its multiple tellings, remains the grounds for communion, mission, and fellowship for all times. Thus, when along comes a Marcion, a Valentinus, or any number of theological innovators, Christians are quite within their right to warn, discipline, and exclude persons who want to rewrite the story. God is no cosmic aeon, trying desperately to release our imprisoned souls from the crypt of the physical body; no, in our story we believe in the redemption of the body, not redemption from the body! Jesus Christ is no philosopher giving us a good moral example and teaching about God’s love; no, Jesus Christ is God made flesh and he himself is the way because, as the chorus goes, “these are the facts as we have received them.”

As for church life more generally, it is vitally important that we preach an authentic gospel in evangelism and that Christians receive a good dose of the gospel in their discipleship. If you preach a gospelette, you will get Christianettes. I often tell my students the story that Charlie Chaplain once entered a Charlie Chaplain look-a-like contest and came second! Sadly, even today many Christians cannot tell the difference between the authentic gospel and the flimsy imitation. Too often Christians settle for a bumper-sticker type approach to the gospel with pithy one-liners, like “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Some gospel presentations give me the impression that God is either some kind of self-help therapist who wants me to feel better about myself or else is much like the “leader” of a cult who promises to transport his adherents to the far away planet “Blisstonia” on death.

If we do not imbibe our parishioners, family, and friends with an adequate understanding of the gospel, they will naturally begin to experience the spiritual inadequacies that follow from an inadequate gospel. Whether it is dealing with the continuing struggle against sin, wrestling with a big picture of God, thinking through the implications of Jesus’ lordship, living in the midst of suffering, or engaging in missionary work, none of these things can seriously happen if you are operating with a truncated idea of what the gospel is. I say, take the cheesy wrapping paper off the gospel, delete the gospel twitters, and feel your way through the fabric of Scripture’s testimony to the gospel. Instead of good advice you’ll get good news, big news, shocking news about the God nobody was expecting. The God of creation has not let this world wallow forever in the mire of sin, injustice, and death caused by the disobedience of his creatures. On the contrary, he has been preparing his plan to put the world to right through his people Israel and by his Son Jesus. God himself comes in the Son and through the Spirit to rescue his children, to take the curse of exile away by taking the curse of sin on himself at the cross, to bring a new creation in the midst of death, to execute justice over the seeming invincible reign of tyrants, so that God’s people may once again dwell in the paradise of God’s very own presence.

Let gospel-driven spirituality sink into your preaching, your prayers, your counselling, your worries, your conversation, your Bible reading, your finances, your tears, your marriage, and your occupation and see what happens! Renewal comes when the transformative power of the gospel is let loose on Christians. That is because discipleship according to Paul is the process of being gospelized. When you tenderize a portion of meat, the whole portion becomes tender. If you sterilize a surgical tool, the entire tool is made sterile. If you magnetize a piece of metal, the metal turns magnetic. Similarly, when you are gospelized, you start to reflect in the various facets of your life the realities that the gospel announces and imparts to you: life, hope, joy, peace, faith, and love. A disciple of Jesus Christ should be a walking and talking miniature of the gospel. He or she is filled with its qualities, excited about its meaning, and consumed with a passion for its announcement. Apologies for ripping off Rick Warren, but the Christian life is the gospel-driven life!

The objective of Paul’s ministry among the nations was not to get people to make “decisions,” but to bring the Gentiles to the “obedience of faith.” Obedience is a major part of discipleship, which is why in the great commission of Matthew 28:19 – 20, the risen Jesus tells his followers to teach others to “obey everything I have commanded you.” Obedience is the test of true discipleship. Yet it is probably one of the least emphasized elements of Christian preaching and Christian worship. Apart from the hymn “Trust and Obey,” I have a hard time recollecting any worship songs that celebrate and exhort obedience. I am sure that others have been written, but in my experience they are seldom sung. Probably because we don’t like to be reminded that we are subservient to anyone, much less enlisted into service. But obedience in the Christian life is not of the sort that is forcibly extracted from us as if we were a slave or an unwilling subordinate. It is more like the rescued following the instructions of their rescuer. It flows out of a love for the one who first loved us. It is a willing service to the Lord who served us in humility and lowliness.

Obedience is also a sign that the covenantal promises of renewal have been brought to pass. Our faith and obedience are signs that God’s Spirit is at work in us and the miracle of new birth has taken place. It is faith and obedience that demonstrates our kinship with the saints of old. Paul knew that this was important for the Roman Christians. The presence of faith and obedience legitimates Gentiles as members of God’s people, even though they did not have the outward symbols of Israel’s election. To apply that to ourselves, it means that a desire to obey and a godly sorrow for disobeying are marks that believers have entered the promises of God.

Going further, we can even say somewhat provocatively that Paul plainly holds obedience to be the necessary condition of salvation, even though the efficient cause of salvation remains the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.²⁹ This emphasis on obedience is far from opposed to the gospel promises of salvation by grace through faith. In the Lutheran tradition there is an emphasis on salvation through sola fide (“faith alone”), but also on salvation as producing in believers a nova obedientia (“new obedience”).³⁰ Just as faith is a gift, so too is the power unto obedience. Viewed this way, the call to obedience does not mean that we have to sacrifice our sense of assurance. For the one who calls us to obey and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling is also working in us to will and to work out his good purposes (Phil 2:12 – 13).

Thus, obedience is not conceived of as our independent effort to please God as if we were trying to get there on our own steam. Rather, cultivating the obedience that flows out of this God-given faith is the goal of our spiritual journey. Our obedience is never perfect; it need not be, for we rest and rely on the obedience of Jesus Christ who, as the new Adam and the true Israel, has fulfilled the roles given to humanity in his own person. Jesus was obedient where Adam and Israel failed. He was obedient to death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8). Therefore, Jesus was vindicated and exalted by the Father for his obedience (Phil 2:9 – 11; 1 Tim 3:16), and because we are united to him, we share in his vindication. By faith we are justified in the justification of God’s obedient Son. By faith we are reconciled through the faithfulness of Israel’s Messiah. By faith we are reckoned to be one with him who was himself obedient. It is natural, then, that from this union we will burst forth in a passion to foster God-praising, Christ-honoring, self-denying obedience in our own lives. As Charles Spurgeon said:

We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Men obey not God till they believe him. We preach faith in order that men may be brought to obedience. To disbelieve is to disobey. One of the first signs of practical obedience is found in the obedience of the mind, the understanding, and the heart; and this is expressed in believing the teaching of Christ, trusting to his work, and resting in his salvation. Faith is the morning star of obedience. If we would work the work of God, we must believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Brethren, we do not give a secondary place to obedience, as some suppose. We look upon the obedience of the heart to the will of God as salvation. The attainment of perfect obedience would mean perfect salvation. We regard sanctification, or obedience, as the great design for which the Saviour died. He shed his blood that he might cleanse us from dead works, and purify unto himself a people zealous for good works. It is for this that we were chosen: we are “elect unto holiness.” We know nothing of election to continue in sin. It is for this that we have been called: we are “called to be saints.” Obedience is the grand object of the work of grace in the hearts of those who are chosen and called: they are to become obedient children, conformed to the image of the Elder Brother, with whom the Father is well pleased.³¹

The decision to obey is one that we make day by day and moment by moment. Whether it is lifting your eyes away from the front of a illicit magazine cover in a store, sorting out your finances on what you will give to church and charities, refusing to do something unethical in your workplace, consciously arranging your time so that you are able to serve in your local church, or committing yourself to daily Bible study — all require discipline. But obedience has its blessings and rewards as it draws us closer to our Lord. It makes us more like Christ Jesus, and through obedience we are sharpened and refined as tools in the hands of God.

If we believe this, we must get away from the dichotomy of faith and obedience. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only the believing obey, only the obedient believe.”³² We do not want to be legalistic about it. I know people might fret about what this might do to church numbers, but it is high time that we introduced some real accountability into our church membership on the matter of obedience. We have to find creative ways to encourage and admonish people in obedience. I can suggest one way: to make it a condition of membership that every member of the church must be involved in a prayer group, Bible study group, men’s/women’s group, ministry, or team where they have a buddy or friend to whom they can talk about their spiritual inventory. If you do that, I guarantee that you will see the cockroaches run for darkness lest their sham faith be exposed for what it is. Let me add that there is a pastoral and transparent way of doing this as opposed to a ruthless legalistic way, but I’m sure you get the point. We need our creeds, but they are worthless without our deeds. To pursue an obedient faith in our churches means nothing more than letting our walk match our talk.

1. Michael F. Bird, Colossians and Philemon (NCCS; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 34.

2. For a brief summary of the meaning of “apostle,” see further Paul K. Moser, “Apostle,” in EDB 78 – 79.

3. The sense of the genitive “of God” is ambiguous as it might mean a gospel from God or a gospel about God. Most likely, both senses are intended. The gospel is both a revelation from God (Gal 1:12) and is about what God himself has done in the faithfulness, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah (2 Cor 5:21).

4. Cf. Pss. Sol. 11:1 – 3: “Blow in Zion on the trumpet to summon (the) holy ones. Proclaim in Jerusalem the voice of him who brings good news, for God has had pity on Israel in visiting them. Stand on the height, O Jerusalem, and behold your children. From the east and the west, gathered together by the Lord. From the north they come in the gladness of their God. From the isles afar off God has gathered them.”

5. On Paul and empire in Romans, see Michael F. Bird, “Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies (eds. J. Modica and S. McKnight; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013), 146 – 65.

6. My own translation, which slightly amends the NIV. Note the parallelism between various portions of the text, which suggests that it was probably a piece of poetic, hymnic, or confessional pre-Pauline material. The interesting parallels are (a) Son/Lord Jesus Christ, (b) born/appointed, (c) Seed of David/Son of God, and (d) according to the flesh/according to the Spirit of holiness.

7. See esp. Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

8. Martin Luther, “A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels,” Luther’s Works (ed. E. T. Bachmann; 55 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), 35:118.

9. Christopher G. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David: Paul’s Messianic Exegesis on Romans 2:3 – 4,” JBL 119 (2000): 677.

12. Cf., e.g., Dunn, Romans, 1:14; Moo, Romans, 48; Schreiner, Romans, 38 – 43.

13. Cf. Peter Head, “Jesus’ Resurrection in Pauline Thought: A Study in the Epistle of Romans,” in Proclaiming the Resurrection (ed. Peter Head; Carlise, UK: Paternoster, 1998), 58 – 80; N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (COQG 3; London: SPCK, 2003), 241 – 67; J. R. Daniel Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

14. Paul Beasley-Murray, “Romans 1:3 – 4: An Early Confession of Faith in the Lordship of Jesus,” TynBul 31 (1980): 153 – 54.

16. N. T. Wright, “Romans,” 10:420; cf. Moo, Romans, 52 – 53: “Paul called men and women to a faith that was always inseparable from obedience — for the Savior in whom we believe is nothing less than our Lord — and to an obedience that could never be divorced from faith — for we can obey Jesus as Lord only when we have given ourselves to him in faith.”

17. Cf. “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ” (2 Cor 9:13).

18. Oddly “in Rome” is missing from several textual witnesses either by accident or by the deliberate attempt to make the letter more general rather than local in its focus.

22. See Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013).

23. Michael F. Bird, A Bird’s Eye-View of Paul (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity, 2008).

24. Peter Jensen, The Revelation of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 32.

27. N. T. Wright, “Reading Paul, Thinking Scripture,” in Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics (ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Alan J. Torrance; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 64 – 65.

28. Cf. Trevin Wax, “12 Books that Showcase the Grand Narrative of Scripture,” TGC Blog. See http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2014/07/28/12-books-that-showcase-the-grand-narrative-of-scripture/.

29. Cf. Thomas R. Schreiner, Run to Win the Prize: Perseverance in the New Testament (Nottingham, UK: Inter-Varsity, 2009).

31. Charles Spurgeon, “The Obedience of Faith” (Sermon # 2195). The Spurgeon Archive. See www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2195.htm.