A Gospel Wide Enough for Rome, an Indictment Wide Enough for Humanity

“Servant” is doulos, a slave, the title the Old Testament gives Moses and David as servants of the LORD. Verses 1–7 are a single sentence in Greek, the longest opening in any of Paul’s letters. “Separated” may play on “Pharisee”, a name often explained as “the separated one”: once set apart for the law, now set apart for the gospel.

The parenthesis insists the gospel is not new. “Holy scriptures” without an article, graphai hagiai, is a phrase found nowhere else in the New Testament. Paul writes to a church he has never visited and puts the old Scriptures in his second sentence.

“Made” is genomenos, came to be or was born. The seed of David recalls the promise to David of an heir whose throne would stand for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16). Paul rarely mentions Jesus’ Davidic descent; the only other place is 2 Timothy 2:8.

“Declared” is horizo, to mark out or appoint, the root of “horizon”. “Spirit of holiness” is a Hebrew way of saying Holy Spirit, found only here in the New Testament. “Resurrection from the dead” is plural in Greek, of dead ones: Jesus’ rising is the first of many.

“Grace and apostleship” may mean the grace of being an apostle, one gift in two words. “Obedience to the faith” is hypakoe pisteos, the obedience that faith is. The same phrase appears in the letter’s closing lines (16:26), so the whole of Romans sits between its two occurrences.

“Among whom” means among the nations of verse 5, which suggests the Roman believers were mostly Gentiles. “The called of Jesus Christ” marks ownership: called ones who belong to him.

“To be” is in italics in the King James, added by the translators; the Greek says “called saints”, saints by calling rather than by achievement. The usual Greek greeting, chairein, becomes charis, grace, set beside the Hebrew shalom. No single church is addressed, perhaps because Rome had several house churches (chapter 16).

“First” is never followed by a “second”; Paul’s thought runs on. A church in the capital was bound to be talked about. The Roman historian Suetonius records that Claudius expelled Jews over disturbances about one “Chrestus”, probably a garbled form of Christ, which shows the faith was known there early.

“Serve” is latreuo, the word for worship performed in a temple. Paul’s service is inward, “with my spirit”. “God is my witness” is an oath formula he uses when his sincerity might be doubted (2 Corinthians 1:23; Philippians 1:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:5).

“Prosperous journey” is euodoo, to be led along a good road. Paul reached Rome after arrest, two years in custody, a storm and a shipwreck (Acts 27–28). The prayer was answered; the road was not the one he pictured.

“Some spiritual gift” is charisma pneumatikon, deliberately left unspecified. “Established” is sterizo, to make firm, and the letter ends with a doxology to him “that is of power to stablish you” (16:25), the same verb.

“Comforted together” is a compound verb, symparakaleo, found nowhere else in the New Testament. Paul coins or reaches for a word with “together” built into it.

“I would not have you ignorant” is a formula Paul uses to introduce something he considers important (11:25; 1 Corinthians 10:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:13). In 15:22–23 he explains the obstacle: his work in the east was not yet finished. “Fruit” is a harvest word.

Greeks and Barbarians divided humanity by language, wise and unwise by education. Greek writers sometimes classed Romans among the barbarians, and Paul, writing in Greek to Rome, leaves his readers to decide which half of the first pair they belong to.

“As much as in me is” means for my part, I am eager. A few ancient manuscripts omit “at Rome” here and in verse 7, as though a copy of the letter once circulated without its address, to be read in other churches.

The oldest manuscripts read simply “the gospel”, without “of Christ”. In a city where crucifixion was the death of slaves and rebels, a crucified Messiah was an embarrassment to announce. “Greek” here stands for every non-Jew, the Latin speakers of Rome included.

Habakkuk 2:4 was spoken to a prophet on his watchtower, waiting for God to answer the Babylonian invasion. The Hebrew says the righteous shall live by his faithfulness. Paul quotes it again in Galatians 3:11, and it was this verse that Martin Luther said opened the gates of paradise to him.

“Hold” is katecho, to hold down or suppress, not merely to possess: the truth is known and kept under. “Ungodliness” is wrong toward God, “unrighteousness” wrong toward others, and the pair covers both halves of the law.

“That which may be known” is the knowable part of God, not everything about him. “In them” can mean within them or among them, and both readings have defenders.

The Greek plays on sight: aorata kathoratai, the unseen things are seen. “Godhead” is theiotes, divine nature, a different word from the theotes of Colossians 2:9. “Without excuse” is anapologetos, without an apologia, left with no defence to make in court.

“Became vain” is mataioo, to be made futile, from the word the Greek Old Testament uses for idols, “vanities”. The worshippers grow like what they worship, as Psalm 115:8 says of idol makers. “Imaginations” means reasonings. In Hebrew thought the heart is where one thinks.

“Became fools” is moraino, from moros, the source of “moron”. Six Greek words hold the whole reversal: claiming wisdom, they were made foolish.

Paul echoes Psalm 106:20, where Israel at Sinai “changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass”. The descending list, man, birds, beasts, creeping things, runs the creation of Genesis 1 backwards, and Deuteronomy 4:16–18 forbids images of exactly these.

“Gave them up” is paradidomi, the verb for handing someone over to prison or judgment. Paul will use it again of Jesus “delivered for our offences” (4:25) and of God who “delivered him up for us all” (8:32).

The Greek has “the lie”, with the article, as though idolatry were the lie of all lies. “Worshipped” and “served” cover reverence and ritual. The blessing and Amen are a Jewish reflex: name the Creator, and a blessing follows, even in the middle of an indictment.

“Vile affections” is literally passions of dishonour. For “women” and “men” Paul uses theleiai and arsenes, female and male, the words of Genesis 1:27 in Greek, “male and female created he them”, instead of the ordinary words, pointing back to the order of creation.

“Recompence” is antimisthia, a return in kind; “error” is plane, wandering off course; “meet” means fitting. “Burned” renders a verb for being inflamed. The consequence is described as arriving within the act itself, not added from outside.

The Greek puns: they did not think it worth approving, ouk edokimasan, to keep God in mind, so God gave them to an adokimos mind, one that fails the test. A refused verdict becomes a rejected mind.

The earliest witnesses do not list “fornication” here. In 1611 “debate” meant strife and quarrelling. “Malignity” is kakoetheia, which Aristotle defined as taking everything in the worst sense. “Whisperers” are secret slanderers, and the Greek word, psithyristas, hisses like one.

“Backbiters” are open slanderers, set beside the private whisperers. “Haters of God” can also be read as hated by God. “Despiteful” is hybristes, insolent. “Inventors of evil things” are those who devise new vices, and disobedience to parents was grave in a Roman household under a father’s authority.

In Greek these are all words beginning with a negative a: asynetous, asynthetous, astorgous, aneleemonas, an alliterative run of “without”. “Without natural affection” lacks storge, family love, pointed in a city where exposing unwanted infants was common. The earliest copies do not have “implacable”.

“Judgment” is dikaioma, God’s righteous decree. “Have pleasure in” is syneudokeo, to approve, the verb used of Saul consenting to Stephen’s death (Acts 8:1; 22:20). The last sin on the list is one Paul had committed himself.