Places of Power in Paul’s Letter to the Romans

God’s Powerful Rescue Operation

God’s power, active in the person of Jesus Christ, is necessary because other powers are also at work in the world. Initially, Paul writes that “they” (unspecified humans) refused to acknowledge God, as a result of which God “handed them over” (paradidōmi; 1:24, 26, 28) to their own desires. ⁷ All, both Jew and gentile, are “under the power of Sin” (3:9). ⁸ Later, he contends that Sin entered the world through “one person,” bringing Death with it. Sin produces sinning, and sinning further empowers Sin. ⁹ Sin and Death together pervade all people, enslaving and reigning together until the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (5:12–6:11). Sin’s power is such that humans cannot escape it, as is underscored by the virtual absence of the vocabulary of repentance and forgiveness in Paul. Sin can use even God’s own holy, good, and righteous law to produce enslavement (7:7–25). ¹⁰ God defeats Sin and Death in the resurrection of Jesus, but their work has not yet ended, as is clear when Paul calls out those powers that persist in their campaign to separate God’s people from God’s love in Christ Jesus (8:38–39). ¹¹

Understanding the character of the conflict between God’s power and the powers opposed to God is crucial to understanding divine power as Paul depicts it in Romans. While the gospel concerns God’s powerful rescue of humanity from antigod powers, that rescue does not happen in the stratosphere, removed from human life. This is not a story of Olympian deities who are at war with one another for their own self-aggrandizement. Instead, God sends his Son into this world. The Son comes in flesh, the same human flesh that is ruled by Sin and Death (6:9; 8:3), the very particular flesh of a Jewish male (1:3; 9:5; cf. Gal 4:4).

While it is obvious that Jesus’s death is crucial to Paul’s understanding of gospel power, Paul’s interpretation of that death is less than obvious. Individual statements spring to mind, such as “God put [Jesus] forward as the mercy seat (hilastērion)” or “Christ died on behalf of the ungodly” (5:6), but no single statement suffices. Great scholarly energy has focused on 3:21–26, which often serves as the focal point for understanding Paul’s interpretation of the crucifixion, but even that single passage interprets Jesus’s death in a variety of ways. Paul writes that there is “redemption” in Christ Jesus, employing a term associated with freeing of enslaved persons (3:24; see e.g., Letter of Aristeas 12.3; Josephus, Antiquities 12.27; BDAG s.v.). He also writes that God put Jesus forward as hilastērion or “mercy seat,” a cultic term that calls up God’s own presence in the Holy of Holies (e.g., Exod 15:2; 25:22). And God acted to make things right (3:26), that is, for the purposes of righteousness or justice.

These diverse expressions in 3:21–26 together announce God’s action in Jesus Christ. Unaware that centuries of students would attempt to make all his imagery walk in single file, Paul draws on a range of images, without attempting to sort it out. He does, however, unpack these images in the chapters that follow, where Jesus’s death is interpreted in light of the powers of Sin and Death. Just as we need 3:21–26 to understand 1:16–17, we also need chs. 5–8 to understand 3:21–26.

Among the later statements about Jesus’s death is the claim that he was “handed over” (paradidōmi):

4:25 [Jesus] was handed over for our sins and raised for our rectification.

8:32 [God] did not withhold his own son but handed him over on behalf of us all….

Paul draws here on the language of Isa 53:12 LXX, but the connection between Jesus’s handing over and his earlier statement about humans being handed over is less often noticed. Using terminology elsewhere associated with conflict and defeat, Paul characterizes the death of Jesus as a divine act of conceding Jesus to the powers for a time. ¹²

Paul can use these extraordinary terms of Christ’s death because his death brings about Death’s defeat. ¹³ Christ “was raised from the dead by the glory of the father” (6:4). So crucial is this act of resurrection that Paul’s “name” for God becomes “the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:24; 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14). ¹⁴ Sin and Death no longer rule over Christ (6:7, 9), and their defeat brings with it the liberation of humanity from these destructive powers (6:11). In 8:3, Paul puts the matter succinctly: God sent the Son to condemn Sin in the flesh of Jesus. That claim is no simple notice that God disapproved of Sin (something that would seem to be obvious), but that God acted to put an end to Sin’s grasp, to put an end to Sin itself.

This action results in the redemption of humanity, its rescue. As strong as those words are, they are only the beginning. Paul does not characterize humanity as restored or forgiven but as receiving life (5:17), new life from the dead (6:4; 11), becoming recipients of a new spirit (7:6). They are God’s children (8:14), adopted (8:15), heirs with Christ (8:17), already sharing in his glory (8:28–30). This redemption of humanity anticipates the redemption of the whole of the cosmos, since all creation has been subjected to decay.

Despite limning cosmic redemption in such soaring terms, Paul also presents striking reminders that humanity still lives in this world. It is tempting to suggest that he learned from his complex dealings with the Corinthians, who thought they had already escaped from the present world (note the biting irony of 1 Cor 4:8–13). Even before ch. 8, Paul admonishes the Romans to present their bodies as “weapons of righteousness” (6:13), which implies that the battle between God and the powers has not yet ended (as does 16:20). More to the point, he writes in moving language about the sufferings of the present time, the limitation even of human prayer, the need for intercession (8:18–30, 34). While those God has chosen are already glorified and are even “supervictors,” ¹⁵ they remain under siege.

God’s Power and Israel

To this point, most of what I have written concerns the first half of the letter, but Romans does not end with the triumphant cry of 8:38–39, important as that passage may be. Two major sections follow, the first of which treats the relationship between God and Israel in light of the event of Jesus Christ (chs. 9–11), and the second treats the present life of those Romans to whom the letter is addressed (12:1–15:13). Divine power remains on display here, and its workings resemble the power that defeats Sin and Death with the cross, since here divine power plays tricks, first by tripping the beloved Israel (9:32–33) and then by inaugurating communities made strong through the one who came as servant (15:7).

Even the name or title employed for Romans 9–11 is crucial. Characterizations of this passage as treating Israel’s unbelief or Israel’s disobedience distort the passage almost beyond recognition. ¹⁶ Instead, it would be well to take note of the many ways in which Romans 9–11 is about God’s doings.

Consider the following actions directly attributed to God:

God brought Israel into being and sustained it across generations, just as the potter creates the vessel and decides its usage (9:6b–29).

God put in place a “stone of stumbling” that has caused Israel to trip (9:32).

God raised Jesus from the dead (10:9).

God stretches out God’s own arms to Israel and has not rejected Israel (10:21–11:2).

Although part of Israel has already been called into faith in Jesus, God has hardened the remainder, making it impossible for them to comprehend what God has done (11:7–9).

God is powerful enough to graft in again that remainder of Israel (11:23) that has been cut off at present for the salvation of gentiles.

All Israel will be saved by God, since God’s gifts and calling have no end (11:26, 29).

In other words, the story of Israel in Romans 9–11 is best regarded as the story of God’s powerful actions with and through Israel. To be sure, there are statements that attribute responsibility to Israel, such as the assertion that Israel did indeed hear the word but did not obey it (10:18–19), but these statements are contextualized by a series of claims that Israel’s current situation of division (the “remnant” and the “rest” of 11:7) is God’s powerful doing for God’s own purposes. The undervalued doxology that concludes this part of the letter would seem to secure that interpretation, with its celebration of the unknowability of God’s ways (11:33–36). The only possible answer to the rhetorical questions, “Who has been God’s counsellor?” and “Who has made a gift to God?” is “no one” (11:34–35). No human is capable of guiding God’s judgments.

How is it that Paul comes to understand God’s relationship to Israel in this way? The prominent place of Scripture in these chapters suggests Paul has been engaged in intensive study, but Paul’s contemporaries might well have studied those same Scriptures and come away with divergent results. ¹⁷ Instead, it seems clear that what Paul writes in this passage has its origin in his conviction about Jesus Christ; the event of Jesus Christ has disrupted his understanding of God and Israel. He begins with God’s recent intrusion in the person of Jesus Christ and reconstructs Israel’s story through that event. Now, when Paul begins to comment on God and Israel, he does so as one who is “in Christ” (9:1), the same Christ who shares Israel’s flesh and is “out of” (ek) them, a single preposition both connecting Jesus to Israel and distinguishing Jesus from Israel (9:5). He takes a central text about the nearness of the law and inserts Christ, displacing the keeping of the law (10:5–8). He depicts a portion (“the remainder”) of Israel as having been cut out from the “root” in favor (temporarily) of gentiles (11:18–24).

The conclusion to be drawn from this treatment (to say nothing of the discussion of Abraham in ch. 4) is that, when God’s power disrupts a world controlled by Sin and Death, that disruption does not exempt Israel. Disruption takes place, not because of some supposed Jewish “legalism,” or because of Jewish exclusivism, but because of God’s initiative.

The point here is emphatically not to separate God from Israel. For Paul that would be impossible, since Israel exists only because of and out of God’s creative act (9:6–13), but for Paul continuity does not reside in Israel itself. ¹⁸ For Paul, the continuity resides in God; it is God’s gifts and God’s calling that are unending, rather than Israel’s own self-understanding (11:29). The word of God has not failed, but that word remains God’s word, not possessed by humans, not even by the beloved Israel. Small wonder that Romans 9–11 culminates in an outpouring of praise for God’s wisdom and ways of working.

God’s Power in Community

Divine power continues its disturbing path in Paul’s counsel about life in Christ, what is often referred to as the ethical or parenetic section of the letter (12:1–15:13). Here he takes up a variety of topics, including the exercise of gifts within the community, the treatment of enemies, the obligation to governing authorities, love as the fulfillment of the law, the avoidance of misconduct, and a conflict regarding the observance of food laws. Much of what Paul writes here has parallels elsewhere, whether in Israel’s Scriptures, Jesus traditions, or contemporaneous moral philosophy. The result is that this part of the letter can seem a bit of a hodgepodge, which makes it strange to characterize it as “disturbing.”

Within the diverse materials assembled here, however, one repeated concern is with human arrogance. Paul has already explicitly confronted gentile arrogance in 11:13–20, when he calls out boasting over the division of Israel (and see 11:25). Arrogance returns as early as 12:3, when he cautions the Roman auditors against it:

For by the grace given me, I say to every one among you not to think bloated thoughts beyond what is right to think but to think sober thoughts. . .

The lengthy introduction of this statement, which invokes Paul’s own apostolic role and calls out “every one among you,” draws attention to the words that follow. Variations on the verb “to think” further ask for the auditor’s attention before coming to the point: do not overvalue your own opinion. That warning returns explicitly in 12:16. In addition, one way of summing up Paul’s concern in ch. 14 is with the word arrogance. Indeed, it may be that ch. 12 looks the way it does because Paul is preparing to address the conflict about food laws in ch. 14, a conflict which (as Paul sees it) arises because both sides value their own judgment over that of their brothers and sisters, insisting on their own practices even to the harm of others. Arrogance is not Paul’s sole concern in these chapters, but it is never far from the scene.

Paul’s response to arrogance is more than the simple prohibition: “Don’t be arrogant!” (even if 12:3 could be reduced to that). His response is to locate believers in the eschatological community inaugurated by the peculiar power at work in Jesus Christ. First and most obviously, in 12:5 he reminds the auditors of their shared relationship to Christ (drawing on the body language he had already used in 1 Corinthians 12). They each belong to Christ, and, through Christ, they belong to one another (12:4–5), a presupposition for all that follows. They put on Christ (13:14), who is Lord of the living and the dead (14:9), who did not “please himself” (15:3), and out of whose welcome for them they together glorify God (15:7–13).

God’s powerful intrusion into the world creates this shared relationship to Christ. Paul does not write instructions for a good Christian life or a handbook of church polity; he sounds an alarm in the form of the disturbing passage, 13:11–14. The time of salvation is close. Night has passed. Believers live inside this emergency, bearing “weapons of light” and clothed with Christ himself (13:11–14). That emergency declaration carries over into ch. 14, with its reminder that all people will give an account to the risen Christ, making overconfidence about one’s own views both unnecessary and wrong-headed (14:4, 10).

As is perhaps clear, this part of the letter also presupposes that those who are “in Christ” have themselves received a kind of power. Already Paul has hinted in this direction in 6:12–23, but chs. 12–15 are suffused with the assumption that believing communities have been empowered. They are capable of exercising gifts bestowed on them (12:6–8), of acting out of love (12:9–20; 13:8–10), of upbuilding one another (14:9; 15:2), to take note only of prominent motifs. By contrast with earlier claims that no one does what is right (3:10), that every human mouth is closed (3:19), that even the strongest desire cannot produce law observance (7:7–24), this section of the letter begins by attributing to the Romans the ability to discern the will of God (12:2).

Such remarkable activity does not automatically follow from faith or baptism, however, else Paul would not feel himself under constraint to encourage it. More to the point, the discussion in ch. 14 demonstrates how the very power attributed to believers can manifest itself in destructive ways. Paul warns those who understand themselves free to eat whatever they like, regardless of Jewish food laws, because they are the very ones who must be warned against destroying “that one on behalf of whom Christ died” (14:15), “the work of God” (14:19), even though Paul agrees with their position that no food is impure (14:14, 17). Released from the captivity of Sin and Death, humans are empowered, but that empowerment is not an end in itself to be celebrated without regard for others. ¹⁹

Problems with Power

This compact survey of power in Romans will generate considerable discomfort, beginning with the English word power itself. Given the distortions of human power pervasively on display, to say nothing of the corruption of human power evidenced in Christian communities, lifting up discussions of power in Scripture may seem misguided at best, dangerous at worst.

Yet to attend to Paul’s understanding of the gospel requires attending to power. Sin and Death have conquered the human world in such a way that only divine power can respond. Humans cannot free themselves without divine intervention. Crucially, however, the power Paul extols is not power “over” others but power “on behalf of.” ²⁰ The power of God in Jesus Christ is power that comes into human life, becoming human life, even subjecting itself to Sin and Death. Succinctly, Paul writes that Christ “did not please himself” (15:3), that he became a servant (15:8). This is what divine power looks like.

Even those who agree on that general point about divine power may resist the characterization of this power as intrusive, a word I have used several times in this essay. In his magisterial commentary on Galatians, J. Louis Martyn identifies God’s action as invasive, and subsequent research has addressed the martial language elsewhere in Paul’s letters. ²¹ Still, the language of invasion or intrusion rankles if it is understood to mean that God has not already been active in the world. The point, however, is what is it God invades. God is not attacking God’s own creation, although he does write that “we were enemies” in need of reconciliation to God (Rom 5:10; and see 11:28). What God attacks in Jesus Christ is the power Sin and Death exerts over human lives. Humans are not invaded or defeated, they are reclaimed, released, adopted.

A different objection will come from those who expect discussions of power to be discussions of Roman power or at least Paul’s confrontation with Roman power. The agents who appear in this letter, however, are God, the larger-than-life powers of Sin and Death, and the humans (all humans). Whatever we are to say about Romans 13:1–7, a text that has troubled interpreters since the early centuries of the church’s life, it scarcely reads like a confrontation with Roman power. Instead, Paul seems concerned about protecting believers from the consequence of disobedience, especially when it comes to taxes, while characterizing the authorities as installed by God for God’s own purposes; they are not their own but have authority only in a derived sense. ²²

The Roman empire does not go its own merry way, untouched by a gospel that is “only” spiritual. As Paul presents the power of God at work in the gospel, that power disrupts every human life. It disrupted Paul’s own life, as evidenced in his brief comments about the overthrow of his earlier pursuits and values (Gal 1:11–17; Phil 3:2–11). It disrupted his way of seeing and understanding any human being (2 Cor 5:16). Such disruption follows from God’s disruption of the powers of Sin and Death themselves.

A Word to Readers

I have covered a lot of territory here, and the journey may have been so compact as to perplex more than illuminate. Put simply, my claim is that it matters that Paul writes “the gospel is God’s power for salvation.” He does not write “the gospel is God’s way for salvation” or “God’s plan of salvation.” He does not introduce the gospel as “God’s invitation to salvation” or “God’s possibility of salvation.” The presence of that word matters, just as it matters that Sondheim’s lyric is “to dream about you” rather than “and dream about you.” “Power” changes the sentence, and it introduces and pervades the letter, and we have not always asked the questions about that power we should ask. This is not just a nod to the fact that we know God is bigger than we are. Instead, this initial assertion gives an important signal about Paul’s understanding of the gospel as God’s action in Jesus Christ to reclaim the world from powers that hold it captive.

As I write this essay, my hope is that it will find readers who will see in it a helpful way into Paul’s most daunting letter. I would like to bring you around to my view of this letter. Far more important, however, I hope it will make some small contribution to the flourishing of pastors, other church leaders, and their congregations in this daunting time.

I make that statement with full awareness that you do not lack for input. Obituaries for Christianity appear with grim regularity in major news outlets. Most months bring yet another survey about the dire straits of the American church, the disarray over forward steps in the wake of COVID, the despondency of pastors. Too many days abound with clever proposals about what pastors and congregations could be doing now or declarations about what they should be doing now. God forbid I should pile onto the scrum!

In the avid hope of avoiding another armchair proposal, I offer a simple claim that in this time (in all times), we need the whole of Scripture. I do not mean that we need another metanarrative about Scripture, although those have their place. My sense, however, is that just now we need many of the diverse voices Scripture brings, without smoothing off the sharp edges to produce a single big story. We need the Psalms. We need the wisdom of Proverbs and the jarring diagnoses of James. But we also need the peculiar voice of Paul. We need his peculiar interpretation of God’s grace, his practical theology, his pastoral wisdom. We need his insistence that divine power came in human flesh in order to rescue all human life from powers of Sin and Death. That power holds us secure even in the present and summons us forward to a future of shared doxology (Rom 15:7–13). To put it with the economy of P.T. Forsyth: “The devils we meet were all fore-damned in the Satan Christ ruined. The wickedness of the world is, after all, a ‘bull in a net’, a chained beast kicking himself to death.” ²³