Paul's letter to the Romans

chapter  1

Paul,  to the Gentile Christians of Rome

Martin Luther interpreted Paul's letter to the Romans as rejecting Judaism because it was essentially a 'religion of works'  rather than a 'religion of faith'.   In actual fact Judaism is not,  and never was,  a religion of works,  in Luther's sense of winning God's favour through meticulous obedience to a divinely-dictated discipline.   If Paul,  himself well-versed in Judaism,  had come to teach otherwise,  he was either grossly self-deceived,  or guilty of mischievous misrepresentation.   In neither case would he deserve our respect.

Critical scholarship is now well aware that it is impossible to rest content with Luther's reading of Romans.   (Critical scholarship is scholarship that proceeds rationally,  by making public its objective evidence and its reasoning,  and welcoming the critical appraisal of other researchers in the field.)   The way has opened up for a new quest of the historical Paul.   This is not so well advanced as the quest of the historical Jesus,  and it is probably too early to claim a substantial critical consensus.   However the aim in these pages is to sketch a credible reading of the letter to the Romans by means of a free paraphrase,  and to offer some notes.   The interpretation of Romans will always be basic to any adequate appreciation of the apostle who wrote the letter.

The present writer needs to say that he does not himself have qualification as a critical scholar,  but has simply tried to choose a reasonable path through the range of possible interpretation good scholars are offering at this time  -  as far as he has managed to catch up with them.   This paraphrase does not,  of course,  have the accuracy or authority of a good translation.   It will,  however,  make Paul easier to read.   Moreover,  most of the available translations have been skewed by a poor preliminary understanding of what Paul was trying to say.   It should also be pointed out that they mostly offer misleading section headings.   (Our own chapter headings are not really adequate either.)
 

We note that Paul is writing to Gentile Christians in Rome.   He is not in a position to approach them as their founding apostle,  and he is especially careful at the beginning of his letter to emphasize what he and they have in common.   Paul defines the gospel very early as centring on the resurrection of Jesus.   For him,  in the light of his mystical experience of the risen Christ,  this is simply a fact,  corroborated according to 1 Corinthians 15:3 by the testimony of the apostles in Jerusalem.
 

In the past,  most commentators took the sentence more traditionally translated:  'I am not ashamed of the Gospel'  to be Paul's introduction to what the rest of the letter is about.   They saw Paul as here announcing that he would be offering a full abstract of the substance of his regular preaching  -  in order to prove himself to the Romans.   Yet nowhere else did Paul attempt a treatise of that kind.   His writing was always ad hoc  -  dealing with practical situations in the churches he addressed.   We will be arguing that his approach to the Romans was in fact of that same pattern,  and that this perspective leads to a far more coherent understanding of his letter.
 

Those who reject the possibility of a good life before God are without excuse:  the created world itself speaks the truth of its Creator.   But finally they lose touch with reality,  and God leaves them to the equally tangible consequences of their folly.   The instructional letters in the Christian canon tend to follow a convention of painting strong pictures of both the good life and the bad.   "This is where you were heading  . . .  but this is where you have arrived by the grace of God  . . .  see that you hold to this and avoid that."
 

It is reasonable to question whether Paul could possibly have intended this as a picture of typical behaviour outside Christian communities.   It would surely be grievously exaggerated.   But the historian Suetonius,  writing the lives of the Roman emperors,  tells stories that make this catalogue of viciousness seem rather mild.   Paul is making his point through the disgust certainly felt,  not just by the Christians of Rome but also by decent Roman citizens,  at the behaviours of the powerful,  and the goings-on in high places.   In particular,  three of the last four Roman emperors up to Paul's time were publicly notorious for orgiastic behaviour both heterosexual and homosexual  -  and incestuous as well.   And of course there was no mutual love in such dealings,  but only the expression of power over other people's bodies.

Since this is the key Christian text available to moralizers who seek biblical sanction for their blanket condemnation of homosexuality,  it is important to get clear what Paul is actually talking about.   Apparently there is no sign in early Jewish literature that they had any awareness of mutual,  loving,  same-sex relationships.   Paul would have taken it for granted that such connections always had the character of base self-gratification and were generally exploitative.   If he had been made aware of other possibilities he would have taken time to think and,  we may hope,  have had something different to say.