Romans

In Romans 5 Paul has concluded that those who are in Christ are declared righteous by the faithful act of Jesus, the second Adam. Although the Law caused sin to increase, those who are in Christ experience an abundance of grace in Christ Jesus. We are freed from the power of sin and death, and are free from the law which brought death (5:20-21). Richard Longenecker argues structures Romans 6:1-7:13 is structured around three potential objections to Paul’s argument so far (Longenecker, Romans, 604-5).

First, if we are in fact saved by grace without obedience to ritual or law, then why should we not “sin that grace may abound”? This appears to have been a problem for Paul since he addresses in in several of his letters. Paul did not teach his followers they were free from all moral restraint. In fact, Paul will include several chapters in Romans on what the Christian life ought to look like. Although someone might accuse Paul’s followers of living as though they had no moral boundaries, this was not the point of his Gospel.

Second, can Christians do things formerly considered “sin” because they are no longer under the law? A Gentile Christian may have thought that since they were free from the Law, they could behave in ways that violate the Law and not consider that behavior a sin. By way of analogy, if a person travels to another country. Some practices might be legal that were illegal in their home country. It would not be illegal for an American teenager to drink alcohol in Germany because the legal drinking age is sixteen. But if the same teenager was in Michigan, they would be breaking the law since the drinking age is 21. Perhaps there are some things the Jewish Law considered sin that are now, in the present age, no longer sinful. Paul argues that one of the functions of the Law was to make sin so clear that the need for salvation is obvious.

Third, if this is the case, someone might object that the Law itself is sin since it causes people to sin. If I make a rule that causes people to sin, am I not responsible for their sin? Paul treats this objection in 7:7-13 by anticipating his conclusion in chapter 8; those who are in Christ are in fact free from the law so that we can serve in the new way of the Spirit.

The natural inclination of most people is to abuse freedom. Think of those “pay what you want” snack boxes at work. At least in my experience, even in Christian organizations they always come up short. This seems to be another problem which cropped up for Paul regularly, especially when former pagan Gentiles became part of the church. Some behaviors in the Roman world were out of step with the ethical mandates of Judaism, so Paul’s gospel could be taken as a “license to sin.”

How do these potential objections to Paul’s Gospel of grace come up in contemporary discussions of what it means to be a Christian?

In order to show how justification “works,” Paul alludes to Genesis 3, Adam’s rebellion against God in the Garden. Genesis 3 indicates the penalty for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is death, and Genesis 5 demonstrates that result since all of Adam’s descendants die. This is the only genealogy which includes the phrase “and then he died.”

Sometimes there are discussions of whether Paul was referring to Adam him as a name or the first human. In verse 12 he uses the word for man, in verse 14 he uses the proper name. The current discussion of a “historical Adam in the “misses the point that for Paul Adam existed. He completely accepts the story of genesis 2-3 and would not consider anything other than a real Adam.

Does death come to all because all people sin (or personal, actual sins)? Or do all people die because of Adam’s sin?  How is Adam’s sin passed along to his descendants? The difficulty with Romans 5:12 is the meaning of the phrase ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον. How should the preposition ἐφʼ be translated in this context? Fitzmyer has eleven possibilities, Longenecker reduces this to four viable options (Fiztmyer, Romans, 413-17; Longenecker, Romans, 587-8):

• “In whom,” referring Adam.
• “On the basis of which,” referring to sin. The NIV 2011 seems to follow this option, “and in this way death came…”
• “Because of this,” equivalent to a causal conjunction.
• “For this reason” or “so that,” equivalent to a consecutive conjunction, this seems to be what the ESV has done, “so that death spread…” In addition, by translating the verb “spread” the ESV gives the impression sin is like an epidemic spreading throughout the human race.

As a result of Adam’s rebellion, “death spread to all men.” The verb διέρχομαι can refer to crossing through a territory or moving toward a destination. Occasionally it can refer to passing through something like a sword (Luke 2:35). Longenecker points out the word “death” in 5:12 has an article. Paul is personifying death as a malevolent enemy of humanity (Longenecker, Romans, 587). Adam’s rebellion against God unleashed a powerful enemy into the world, one that will overcome all humans.

Paul’s view of the effect of sin on humanity differs from some other voices in Second Temple texts. Sirach 25:24 shifts the blame from Adam to Eve: “From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die.” Notice the title of this post refers to one man, Adam. For Paul in Romans 5, only Adam is responsible for sin. 2 Baruch 54:15, for example, connects Adam’s sin and the death of all of his descendants. Yet a few lines later, the writer says Adam is not the cause of our sin, because each person becomes “their own Adam.”

2 Baruch 54:15 For, although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment. And further, each of them has chosen for himself the coming glory.

2 Baruch 54:15 Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam.

Paul’s claim is therefore that all humans somehow participate in the sin of Adam and are therefore destined to die. He does not build a theological statement compatible with later, post-Reformation theology. As a Jewish thinker, Paul understands that all people participated in the sin of Adam without working out the details of the doctrine of imputation.

For Paul, those who are “in Adam” die; those who are “in Christ” will live. All people are “in Adam” by default. The problem is how one becomes “in Christ.”

Since we have access to the Father, we can boast in the “hope of the glory of God” (5:2b). Hope in Paul’s letters tends to be eschatological, looking forward to the future resurrection from the dead.  Our hope in this context is in some way present (we are presently boasting in the hope of glory). In the next chapter Paul will describe our salvation as a resurrection from the dead; we were dead in our sin, but we have been crucified with Christ so that we are now alive in him.

Boasting is usually a negative idea for Paul, in chapter 4 one who is justified by works can “boast” about their good works, Ephesians 2:8-9 salvation is by grace through faith so that no one can boast. But here Paul says we can take pride in the certainty we will participate in the future glory of the resurrection.

Our present/future justification means we can rejoice in our suffering (5:3-4). The verb translated “rejoice” is the same as boasting in the previous verse (καυχάομαι). Suffering is typically not something a Roman person would boast about, and a Jewish person might associate suffering with the curse of the law. But Paul says those who are in Christ ought to boast in both our future hope and our present suffering. Why?

Suffering (θλῖψις) produces endurance (ὑπομονή). Suffering can include any kind of oppression or affliction, whether that is natural (from and illness) or from some sort of persecution. What sort of suffering would the Roman church have faced at this point in history? Some were expelled from Rome because of their Christian faith, likely the Jewish Christians were alienated from their families, and the Gentiles appear to have rejected their family gods and the gods who made Rome great, even denying that Caesar is Lord is dangerous.

Endurance produces character (δοκιμή). By enduring suffering, we develop character. The noun refers to the results of testing something, perhaps to discover if it is genuine or to assess its value. Like testing gold in fire, a person’s character as revealed by suffering.

Character produces hope (ἐλπίς). Our developing character produces hope, knowing that the suffering is entirely worthwhile. By way of an analogy, people who train for an athletic context suffer physically from their training. Someone training to run the marathon in the Olympics must change their entire lifestyle in order to compete at that level.

Our hope will not disappoint (καταισχύνω). This verb is sometimes used for disgrace or dishonor, or even humiliate (t.Judah 12:5). If hope refers to our status as justified at a future judgment before God, we can be confident that when we do stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the hope we have in the death of Jesus as payment for our sin will not come up short, leaving us facing a penalty for our sin.

In contrast to being humiliated by an unpaid debt at the final judgment, our debt is fully paid by the death of Jesus so that we can stand before the judgment seat of Christ without the possibility of being ashamed by an unpaid sin debt.