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    Paul's Letter to the Romans: A pastoral commentary
    Paul's Letter to the Romans: A pastoral commentary
    Paul's Letter to the Romans: A pastoral commentary
    Ebook215 pages3 hours

    Paul's Letter to the Romans: A pastoral commentary

    By Edwin Walhout

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    About this ebook

    Paul’s letter to the church in Rome – where he had not yet visited – is best understood as Paul writing the things he would otherwise have spoken had he been able to schedule a visit there. Many of the issues he had previously confronted, such as the Judaizing tendency to perpetuate observance of the Torah ceremonies, are discussed in some detail by Paul, and further commented on by Rev. Walhout.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdwin Walhout
    Release dateMar 31, 2015
    ISBN9781310144578
    Paul's Letter to the Romans: A pastoral commentary
    Author

    Edwin Walhout

    I am a retired minister of the Christian Reformed Church, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Being retired from professional life, I am now free to explore theology without the constraints of ecclesiastical loyalties. You will be challenged by the ebooks I am supplying on Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      Paul's Letter to the Romans - Edwin Walhout

      Paul’s Letter to the Romans

      A Pastoral Commentary

      by Edwin Walhout

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2015 Edwin Walhout

      Cover design by Amy Cole

      See www.edwinwalhout.com for additional titles by this author.

      Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      CONTENTS

      Chapter 1: SOME INTRODUCTORY MATTERS

      Chapter 2: PROLOGUE Romans 1:1-7

      Chapter 3: PAUL’S HOPE TO VISIT ROME Romans 1:8-17

      Chapter 4: THE WRATH OF GOD Romans 1:18-32

      Chapter 5: NO PARTIALITY Romans 2:1-11

      Chapter 6: THE LAW Romans 2:12-29

      Chapter 7: THE JEWISH ADVANTAGE Romans 3:1-31

      Chapter 8: ABRAHAM Romans 4:1-25

      Chapter 9: PEACE WITH GOD Romans 5:1-11

      Chapter 10: ADAM AND JESUS Romans 5:12-21

      Chapter 11: UNION WITH JESUS Romans 6:1-23

      Chapter 12: THE FUNCTION OF THE LAW Romans 7:1-25

      Chapter 13: THE FUNCTION OF THE SPIRIT Romans 8:1-17

      Chapter 14: THE BIG PICTURE Romans 8:18-39

      Chapter 15: SO WHAT ABOUT JEWISH HISTORY? Romans 9:1-33

      Chapter 16: THE CALL OF THE GOSPEL Romans 10:1-21

      Chapter 17: ECCLESIASTICAL GRAFTING Romans 11:1-36

      Chapter 18: DUTY TO GOD Romans 12:1-21

      Chapter 19: DUTY TO GOVERNMENT Romans 13:1-7

      Chapter 20: DUTY TO ONE ANOTHER Romans 13:8-14

      Chapter 21: DUTY TO WEAKER BRETHREN Romans 14:1-23 and Romans 15:1-13

      Chapter 22: PAUL’S PLANS Romans 15:14-33

      Chapter 23: GREETINGS Romans 16:1-24

      Chapter 24: DOXOLOGY Romans 16:25-27

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Chapter 1

      SOME INTRODUCTORY MATTERS

      1. First, a comment about the title of this book: why a pastoral commentary? This title is chosen to distinguish it from the kind of commentary a professional exegete might write, addressed to those who are well advanced in academic and scholarly pursuits. I want, on the contrary, to write in such a way that will explain simply and clearly why Paul writes the way he does and what he is trying to communicate to the people in Rome. The level of writing, therefore, will be on a pastoral level not on an academic or professional level, the sort of thing a pastor might say in a small Bible-study group of interested church members.

      2. Next, a bit about why Paul wrote this letter. We need to understand something of what was going on in Paul’s life at the time he wrote this letter. Paul was as close to Rome as he had ever been, on what we call his third missionary journey, but circumstances were such that he could not make a personal visit to Rome at the time. He was in Greece, Corinth to be exact, but he had been taking a collection of funds from the Christian people in various cities to relieve the poverty of Christians in Jerusalem. Interesting! He was taking a collection on the mission field for the support of the home church.

      So that is why he could not take the time to make a personal visit to Rome. He wanted to take that collection of money back to the suffering saints in Jerusalem. What we have, therefore, in this letter to Rome, is a rehashing of the kinds of things he would have been saying in person if he could have gone there. Paul had never been in Rome, had never visited the church there, though he obviously knew a good many of the people in the church. He lists many of them by name at the end of the letter. He draws on all of his prior experience of explaining the gospel, and does his best to hit all the main points he thinks the people in Rome need to understand about Jesus, sometimes addressing the questions Gentile believers might be asking, and sometimes addressing the questions Jewish believers might be wondering about.

      We should, accordingly, recognize that he is not first of all addressing specific problems in the church, as he has been in some of his other letters. He may well know that there are typical problems there, as in all churches, but he is writing in general rather than in specific terms. This makes the letter more theological and a bit more abstract than some of the other letters in which he has been personally involved.

      3. One other observation is necessary to understand this letter. Paul had poor eyesight, probably the result of his blindness at the time of his conversion outside the gate of Damascus. Very likely this was the thorn in the flesh that he had complained to God about several times. Because of his poor vision he could not see to write very well and had to resort to dictating what he wanted to say to one of his assistants. In this case, Romans, the writer was Tertius (16:22). For First Corinthians it was Sosthenes (1:1) For Second Corinthians it was Timothy (1:1)

      This will explain much of the style of his writing in this letter to Rome. We can imagine him dictating fairly rapidly, Tertius scribbling hard to keep up with him, Paul pausing occasionally to let Tertius catch up, then going on again sometimes belaboring his thoughts in somewhat different terminology. And then, not finishing the letter in one sitting, coming back to it after a meal or the next day, and picking it up perhaps at a different point. So we need to remember these actual conditions in which the letter was written, and allow for it when we try to understand his main points.

      4. Still another item we do well to remember as we make our way through this letter to the Roman church. Paul himself was not an eyewitness to most of the events of Jesus’ life and ministry. He was a rabbi student in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and he was deathly opposed to Jesus and the early Christians at the time. It was several years after Jesus had ascended to heaven that Paul was converted and became a Christian.

      Paul never did have what we might describe as a Christian education. He knew the documents of the Old Testament very well, having been a diligent student rabbi, but most of what he learned about Jesus’ life would have been second-hand, what others told him. There is very little in any of Paul’s letters that refers to such incidents as we read in the Gospels.

      So when we read the explanations of the gospel in Romans we need to understand that nobody else taught him these things. Simply on the basis of what he knew about Jesus and the Old Testament he came gradually to understand how God had been working in the past and how he is now working in the present. He was guided by the Holy Spirit of Jesus into his understanding of the truth of God and into his unique way of presenting the gospel. It was, after all, ten years after his conversion before he was ready to become a pastor and apostle, all which time he had been led by the Holy Spirit to figure out answers to the questions he himself was raising about the importance of Jesus and what God was doing through Jesus.

      So now with that introduction, let us turn to the actual text of the letter to the Romans. We will not be analyzing each and every word, but trying to trace the sequence of his train of thought.

      Chapter 2

      PROLOGUE

      Romans 1:1-7

      Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

      To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

      1. It was customary in those days when writing a letter to identify oneself right away at the beginning. A person receiving a scroll would not know from whom it came until opening the seal and unrolling it sufficiently to read the name of the person sending it. So the very first word of this letter is Paul.

      Paul understands that whoever was the first person to open this scroll might not know immediately who this Paul was, so he provides his credentials by way of explaining who he is, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. It was just possible that someone in Rome remembered him from years ago when he was a persecutor of the church, so Paul insists right away at the beginning of his letter that he is now a servant, not a persecutor, of Jesus.

      2. Then he adds immediately, called to be an apostle. An apostle is what we today might refer to as a missionary, someone sent out officially to bring the story of Jesus to other people. Paul knows that there is a common perception among some Jewish Christians scattered across the empire that since he was not one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus he could not claim the title of apostle.

      Some of these people were critics of Paul, insisting Paul was bringing only half the gospel, so they rejected the authority he claimed of being an apostle. These critics wanted Paul to insist that it was necessary for Gentile believers to obey the requirements of the Jewish Torah, something Paul refused to do. So Paul is at pains to make this claim to genuine apostleship right away at the beginning of his letter. After all he has been officially sent out by the church in Syrian Antioch.

      3. It’s interesting next to note that already here in his personal profile he makes mention of something he is very well acquainted with, the ancient sacred writings of the Jewish people. The gospel of God is, he writes, that which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures. This is what Paul knows a lot about, having studied those ancient documents very intensely during his student years, and concerning which he spent years trying to put together with what he knew of God’s purposes in sending Jesus.

      So far as we know not many of the original twelve disciples were well educated. Matthew might have been since he was an employee of the Roman occupation forces, a tax collector. John may have gained some education later, since he, along with Matthew, are the only two of the disciples to have written lengthy accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. But now here is Paul, highly educated in the Jewish scriptures, taking over the responsibility of doing what Jesus had commissioned the disciples to do, namely to disciple the nations. Paul could not draw on the actual words and deeds of Jesus, as could all the disciples, but he could see Jesus in a broader historical dimension, how God himself was working out his plan for the salvation of the world. Paul could put Jesus in this larger dimension, whereas, it seems, it was more difficult for others to do so. At any rate, here already in the opening prologue Paul is making that connection with the prophets who wrote the holy scriptures, something he was uniquely qualified to do.

      We might note also at this point that this mention about the Jewish scriptures would have little meaning for Gentile Christians who did not have that particular heritage. But it would be very reassuring to Jewish Christians who depended greatly on the ancient Torah, God’s Law, given in those scriptures.

      4. Continuing the historical perspective, Paul explains that Jesus is the descendant of David, hence in the historic royal line, eligible in this respect to have been considered the king of the Jews. That, Paul explains, is who Jesus is when considered merely from the human point of view, Jesus as a human person, according to the flesh.

      But there is another aspect of Jesus that must also be recognized, namely that he is the Son of God. How do we know Jesus was the Son of God? Paul does not cite the virgin birth or mother Mary, as do the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but he cites the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.

      How would the resurrection of Jesus prove that he was the Son of God? Well, simply from the fact that resurrection is not something that happens without the special work of God. Only God can do that, raise people from the dead, so the fact that he did it for Jesus proves that Jesus was something special for God, special enough to be called God’s Son.

      We must be careful here not to think in terms of the deity of Jesus. It was Jesus as a man whom God raised from the dead. Furthermore we must also be careful not to think that the term Son of God implies the deity of Jesus. It does not. Nowhere in the ancient Hebrew scriptures was the term used except to describe special human persons: Solomon, an unnamed king, the nation of Israel. Besides, in the New Testament scriptures, the term also conveys the same notion: special humans such as Adam, every believer in Jesus, and of course Jesus himself. To be a child of God does not in any way suggest that we are divine beings, so it does not for Jesus either.

      This is in contrast to the prevalent Greek and Roman usage of the term within a polytheistic setting. Father Zeus and Mother Hera have produced numerous progeny, sons and daughters, each of whom is another god. We must not import this meaning into the sacred scriptures of the Christian and Jewish faiths.

      So we do need to recognize that the resurrection of Jesus plays an enormously important role in the thinking and theology of the Apostle Paul. It proves that Jesus, being the Son of God, plays a central part in the plan of God for the salvation of the world. Paul will be insisting that you can’t believe in God without also believing in Jesus whom he raised from the dead, thereby proving that Jesus is God’s Son through whom he is saving the world.

      5. Paul has more to say about himself in this introductory profile. He has received grace and apostleship from God through faith in Jesus. He would have in mind the process whereby God brought him out of his hatred for the gospel to be converted and slowly guided by the Holy Spirit to understand the complexities of how God was bringing his Old Testament promises to fulfillment through Jesus. That is, the process God put him through to change him from a person who hated Jesus to someone who loved him and came to know him as the Son of God.

      Then Paul puts into words the purpose for which God has made him an apostle, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name. The obedience of faith. Not just faith, but also the evidence of that faith which is shown in obedience to the will of God. Later James will be writing that faith without works is dead. And that is implied also here in the language of Paul, the obedience of faith puts the emphasis on what we do, our entire lifestyle, not merely on what we believe. How does faith carry over into action? Paul will be writing much about that later in this letter.

      6. After this account of his personal status Paul then mentions to whom this letter is sent, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints. (1:7) Ordinarily, in those days, a letter like this would name first the writer of the letter and then immediately the person to whom it is sent. But Paul has deemed it necessary to justify himself and his standing at some length in describing who he is and with what authority he comes. So that illustrates one of the characteristics of Paul’s writing, that he has a tendency as he is dictating to express whatever is passing through his mind. He can do this, of course, because he is talking not writing, dictating and not thinking about what words to put down on papyrus. We will notice this often as we work our way through this long letter.

      It may be worth noting also how Paul uses the term saints. He doesn’t mean what Roman Catholic tradition means, special holy people who have done miracles. He means simply people who believe in Jesus, live in that faith to the best of their ability, and are thus sanctified in that faith. Saint is a contraction of sanctified. A saint is any person who is being sanctified through faith in Jesus, not some special holy person.

      7. And then, the third part of the Prologue: the Salutation. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. By grace Paul means something in general like joy or happiness or contentment. Paul wishes them the joy of being in Christ. By peace we may derive something like the Hebrew shalom which would be a rather comprehensive term wishing that everything will be going well in their lives. Paul wants them to have the

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