---

1. Jews and Gentiles

• I believe that the primary purpose of the letter is to deal with tensions between Jews and Gentiles. 
• Makes sense on a textual level
  • However we want to understand the letter’s purpose, it must make sense of chapters 9–11. These chapters about the Gentiles being grafted in are too often understood as a side note by Paul, but if you just read through the letter, I think it is fairly obvious that these chapters are the pinnacle which the previous chapters are leading to and which the application portion (chps. 12–15) flow out of.
    • Systematic Theology
    • Last Will and Testament 
    • Self-Introduction
• Makes sense on a historical level
  • Written in mid-50s (probably 55–58 CE)
  • Jews were expelled from Rome in 49 CE by Emperor Claudius 
  • When Claudius died in 54 CE, the Jews were allowed to return

2. The Righteousness of God

• Paul’s thesis is found in 1:16–17
  • “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’”
• Paul is expounding upon the good news (i.e. “gospel”) that God has offered salvation to everyone who has faith, first the Jew and then the Gentile (there’s Jew-Gentile relations again). 
• Paul is not ashamed of this good news because it reveals God’s righteousness. 
• Since Martin Luther, Protestants have tended to interpret the phrase “the righteousness of God” as “imputed righteousness.” That is, it refers to God’s righteousness that he “imputes” or gives to those who have faith.
  • This is a possible way to render the Greek.
  • It makes the focus of the letter personal salvation and cannot make sense of chapters 9–11 except as a side note. 
• A better way to understand the phrase is that Paul is saying that the good news reveals the reality that God is righteous.
  • God is righteous in two ways:
    • Fulfill the covenant with Abraham of a multiethnic family.
      • The significance of Abraham in Paul’s argument is drastically underappreciated. 
    • Deal with the problem of sin. 
• This makes the most sense of chapters 1–11. Paul begins by speaking about how God has dealt with the problem of sin for both Jews and Gentiles so that in chapters 9–11 he can talk about how this has allowed God to create a new multiethnic family and fulfill his covenant with Abraham.

3. Faith in Jesus vs Faithfulness of Jesus

• The phrase “faith in Jesus” shows up throughout Romans (e.g., 3:22). 
• Greek: πίστις Ἰησοῦ
  • Jesus is in the Genitive case 
  • Objective Genitive: Faith in Jesus
  • Subjective Genitive: Faithfulness of Jesus
• I, with most scholars, believe that the best translation is “the faithfulness of Jesus.”
  • See 3:22 
• This also makes sense of the thesis statement in 1:16–17.
  • The righteousness of God has been revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus for those who have faith.
    

4. Cosmic Sin

• In Romans, sin is not just individuals missing the mark, but it is also a cosmic force that does things and works through power structures. 
• Note the change from 1:18–3:20 and 5:12–21

---