In anticipation of his projected visit to Rome, Paul wants to present to the Christian Jews at Rome his overview of how justification comes to all through the mercy of God in Christ. Philip Fogarty SJ explains.
Paul’s letter to the Christians of Rome is his longest, and is one of the most studied texts in the history of Christianity. He wrote it from Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, in the winter of AD 57 or 58, while staying in the home of someone called Gaius, the leader of a House-Church (Rm.16: 23).
At this stage, Paul had not been to Rome himself, although he had friends there (16:6-16). So what was the purpose of his writing? The context of the letter can give us some idea.
Objectives
Paul is planning to go to Jerusalem, bringing with him a collection of money that the people of Macedonia and Achaia had gathered for poor Christians there. ‘Now I have undertaken to go to Jerusalem in the service of the holy people of God there, since Macedonia and Achaia have chosen to make a generous contribution to the poor among God’s holy people at Jerusalem… When I have done this, and given this harvest into their possession, I shall visit you on the way to Spain’ (15:25.28). Paul asks the Roman Christians for their prayers, that he may escape the hostility of unbelievers in Judaea as he makes his way to Jerusalem. They see him as a traitor who has gone over to the Church he once persecuted.
He also wants the Roman Christians to pray that his collection may be accepted by the Christians in Jerusalem, in view of the fact that he has been critical of their leaders in one of his earlier letters (Gal 2:3-9).
Gentiles and Jews
Paul is also worried about how he will be received by the Christians in Rome itself. Many of these are Christian Jews, and are concerned about their Jewish heritage and the Mosaic Law, unlike the Gentile converts to Christianity, for whom these are matters of little concern.
That is why Paul is much more conciliatory about the value of the Jewish heritage in his letter to the Romans than he was when writing to the Galatians, for example. When writing to the latter, Paul was preaching against those who insisted on the necessity of circumcision for Gentiles. In contrast, in his letter to the Romans, he is largely, though not exclusively, addressing Christian Jews.
Pagans
In many ways, Paul’s letter to the Romans can be seen as a summary of his thought. In this article, it is possible to deal only with the central theme he discusses: ‘justification’, or ‘righteousness’.
He begins by addressing all God’s beloved in Rome: ‘First I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is talked of all over the world’ (1:8).
He quickly gets to the nub of what he wants to say, as he speaks about God’s anger against both pagans and Jews. Turning first to the pagans, he states that their stupidity and human faults have obscured the divine image for them (1:18-32).
‘Since they would not consent to acknowledge God,’ he writes, ‘God abandoned them to their own unacceptable thoughts and indecent behaviour’ (1:18-32). In this he may have been reflecting what was said in the Old Testament: ‘If they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they been so slow to find its Master?’ (Ws.13:9).
Judgement
The Jews themselves were not exempt from God’s anger. ‘No matter who you are,’ Paul says, ‘if you pass judgment you have no excuse. It is yourself that you condemn when you judge others, since you behave in the same way as those you are condemning. Your stubborn refusal to repent is only storing up retribution for yourself on the Day of Retribution when God’s just verdicts will be made known’ (2:1.5).
Paul does not deny that circumcision has value for Christian Jews, but only if they fully observe the Law. ‘Circumcision has its value if you keep the Law; but if you keep on breaking the Law, you are no more circumcised than the uncircumcised’ (2:25).
Later Paul asks, ‘Is there any benefit, then, in being a Jew?’ Yes, he says, because ‘it was to the Jews that the message of God was entrusted’ (3:1-2). He points out, however, that God’s saving justice, while it was first made known through the Law and the Prophets, ‘now has been revealed altogether apart from Law’. God’s saving justice is now given ‘through faith in Jesus Christ to all those who believe,’ whether Jew or pagan (3:21).
Saving Justice
The saving justice, or righteousness, of God is a central theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans. The words have a legal background, as if people were being brought before God for judgement and God was acquitting them, thereby showing his graciousness.
But how does this ‘acquitting’ take place? Not because people are innocent – for all are sinners but because ‘God made the sinless one into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God’ (2 Cor.5:21).
Jesus was acknowledged as sinless; yet, through God’s choice, he came to stand in a relationship to God which is normally the result of sin. Jesus became part of sinful humanity, and died because of human sinfulness. But God ‘raised from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ who was handed over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification’ (Rm.4:25).
Hence, through our faith in the risen Christ, we become justified, reconciled, righteous, at rights, at peace with God. For Paul, this righteousness takes the place of the righteousness under the Jewish Law that merely served to heighten one’s awareness of sin.
State of grace
‘So then,’ writes Paul, summing up his argument, ‘now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is through him, by faith, that we have been admitted into God’s favour in which we are living and look forward exultantly to God’s glory.
‘Not only that; let us exult, too, in our hardships, understanding that hardship develops perseverance, and perseverance develops a tested character, something that gives us hope, and a hope which will not let us down, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.’ (Rm.5:l-5). For Paul, Jesus has replaced the Law as the centre of God’s revelation to us.
Divine love
Paul now gives us his explanation of what is involved in divine love. ‘When we were still helpless, at the appointed time, Christ died for the godless. You could hardly find anyone ready to die even for someone upright; though it is just possible that, for a really good person, someone might undertake to die. So it is proof of God’s own love for us, that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. How much more can we be sure, therefore, that, now that we have been justified by his death, we shall be saved through him from the retribution of God’ (5:6-9).
Paul then spells it out even more clearly: ‘For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more can we be sure that, being now reconciled, we shall be saved by his life’ (5:10-11). Later, at the end of his great hymn to God’s love (8:31-39), Paul adds that he is certain that nothing ‘will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (8:31-39).
Justification means being put at rights with God, and this happens to us through our faith in Jesus. ‘Condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the Law of sin and death’ (8:1-2). Such is the extent of God’s boundless love and mercy.
This article first appeared in the Messenger (September 2006), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
