In his book Paul and the Resurrection of Israel, scholar Jason Staples points out a deeply entrenched tendency to fly over Romans 1 and 2 on our way to Romans 3. The “our” in this picture is much of the theological traditions of the west. Why do we do this? Because we convinced ourselves that the Scriptures prop up the Law as a way to get to grace. The Law is what we thought saved us, while grace is what does save us. But Romans 1 and 2 pose a real problem to this way of thinking, thus we have trained ourselves to do a fly over so as to avoid the imposition of its claims about the Law.
A couple years back I did an extensive deep dive/study of Paul’s letter to the Roman churches. So many theological issues/disagreements stem from this letter, and it is the most widely read, discussed, debated, studied letter in the NT for the ways we have come to see it as central to our understanding of salvation. In that process I came to recognize how much of the debate also hinges on our understanding of who the audience of the letter is. Is it written to Jews judging gentile inclusion or the gentile world? Gentile converts to Judaism judging the uncircumcised converts? Is it a letter to humanity in general?
Not coincidentally, one of the reasons for the flyover of Romans 1 and 2 seems to be because those chapters tend to make it much more difficult to uphold our theories regarding the audience. The virtual whiplash that occurs when trying to make sense of the harsh nature of Romans 1 and 2, especially when the audience seems to shift multiple times, can be disconcerting to say the least. That’s at least one reason why professor Scott McKnight wrote an entire book about reading Romans backwards rather than forwards, as it seems far easier to at least approach those first two chapters if we have the seemingly far clearer context of its final chapters in tow (ironically chapters that tend to get bypassed and ignored altogether in our rush to prop up Romans 3-9, or even 3-11.
One of the aims of Staples book is to take the progressions of the new perspective relating to our understanding of Law and Grace, stemming from Sanders and well beyond, and point out how, for as much as that has been on the right track, even those necessary reformulations have a tendency to ignore or keep a distance from the real implications of their own conclusions. Staples thesis has been that this is largely because of an unwillingness to really dial down on the terms Israel and Jew as having distinct definitions and reference points within scripture. Failing to recognize this keeps our attempts to reclaim the meaning of Law and Grace (or Law and Gospel) in its world from actually capturing that world’s larger concern for the story of Israel as a covenantal expression set within Exodus and Exile.
How does this relate to chapters 1 and 2 of Romans for Staples? What stood out for me in his chapter called The Israel Problem and The Gentiles (Chapter 3) is the way he brings all the diverging viewpoints together by reshaping the focus of those first two chapters back on to a universal, human concern, simply with a different vantage point in tow (the story of Israel). He is the only scholar I have come across to point out that Paul’s use of the interlocutor (an imagined opponent) is not yet established or in play in these early chapters, and how this becomes important for seeing the way his argument establishes it later on in direct relationship to the audience he is addressing. In other words, Romans 1 and 2 is not addressing gentile idolatry but Israel’s idolatry directly relating to the golden calf. There is no imagined opponent in chapters 1 and 2.
Why is this important? Because recognizing this point of focus allows the reader to follow Paul’s argument as he uses that story of idolatry to then “connect Israel’s sin with Adam’s sin.” This establishes a “pattern” that is able to then parallel the golden calf with Israel’s present exile and the ensuing new covenant emphasis that we find in the prophets. More importantly, by recognizing how the term Israel differs from the term Jew, we can see how Paul’s addressing of a Jewish audience relates to the story of Israel as one in which the tribes have been scattered amongst the gentile world and to which the covenant promise hinges on its restoration. This becomes the backdrop through which Paul is addressing a specific Jewish concern in relationship to the problem of gentile inclusion, and indeed salvation.
As Staples points out, the “therefore” in 2:1 (therefore you have no excuse, every human who judges) is the third in a final series of therefores that bind chapter 1 and 2 together. Meaning, “if one agrees with preceding discourse, then no one stands apart from God’s judgment.” We should not though, as readers, assume this universal human focus is somehow doing away with the story of Israel as necessary to making this point. His point is ultimately summed up in the climatic proclamation, “in this way all Israel will be saved.” Not a reconstituted or spiritualized Israel, but the story of Israel. The promise of the Law, or covenant, being fulfilled in Jesus according to its restated application (new covenant language) in the face of exile in the second temple period. In other words, Paul is engaging in exegesis. When Paul goes on to distinguish between those between Adam and Moses and those after Moses he is leaning on this established parallel between Israel’s sin and Adam’s sin to make his point to his Jewish audience, gentile converts or not, that the revelation, or knowledge of God, is found in the revelation of Torah, now fulfilled in Christ. Paul is not disagreeing with the Jewish conception of God and their relationship to the Law (the story of Israel), rather he is finding in that story the necessary grounds for his proclamation of the Gospel (the grace gift of Jesus), a Gospel that sees salvation expressed in the restoration of Israel’s story, a salvation that is for the sake of the world. First to the Jew (or Judeans), precisely because their expectations hinge on the salvation of Israel, and then to the Gentile, as the world’s salvation depends on the same story.
What often happens is modern readers collapse the notion of a shared, universal appeal to Gods impartial justice in the condemnation of Death and Evil with God’s saving act. The story of Israel thus becomes a scapegoat for grace trumping the Law, with Jews being made synonymous with Israel and occupying the crosshairs of the subsequent enemy fire. In reality, Paul’s argument for impartial justice hinges on upholding and understanding the uniquess of the Law as telling the story of Israel in both its idolatry and subsequent exiles, and in its salvation (fulfillment). Appeals to knowledge of this story relate directly to doing or living this story, but Israel’s knowledge, and subsequently the Jews knowledge of the story of Israel and the story of their covenantal failure, is not synonymous with God’s impartial justice of Death and Evil, rather it is a witness to God’s saving act.
The Stories of my Life 