Sermon Tone Analysis

Andrew Hodge                                                                                                      13th April 2007

 

 

New Testament Survey NTES 111

 

 

Seminar 8

 

 

Epistle to the Romans

 

 

/Romans/; Irving L. Jensen /Jensen’s Survey of the New Testament /1981, Moody Press, Chicago Chh 10-11; Guthrie, Donald  /New Testament Introduction  /Apollos, Leicester, England 4th Ed  1990 Ch 9; /Libronix DLS/

 

 

/Discuss the Church at Rome and the date of the Book’s writing:/

/            /Jensen is emphatic that the book was written by Paul toward the end of the third missionary journey in 56 AD in Corinth (Chart 1 pp 20, 248).

Rome was a city of more than one million people, and Nero had been the god-Emperor for two years.

He was to remain in power for another 12 years until his suicide.

Anti-Christian persecution did not begin in earnest until about 64 AD.

There was a significant number of Jews there and apparently “a dozen synagogues located throughout the city” (Jensen p 249) with a “considerable following of Gentiles more or less in active sympathy with their religion” (ibid).

These groups furnished a fertile field for the spread of Christianity.1

The Book, addressed to the saints in Rome (1:7), was therefore read by Jew (2:17) and Gentile, the latter group probably being in the majority (1:13).

There is no scriptural record of any evangelism in Rome prior to this time, hence the Christians there are likely to have been saved elsewhere and migrated eg under the ministries of Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Mark, Peter, Luke and others on various journeys, or in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2:10).

This is entirely different to the situation of the ‘disciples’ in Ephesus who had only heard of the baptism of John (Acts 19:1-7) and were not aware of the existence of the Holy Ghost.

Because the Book is inspired, it is pitched appropriately at the target audience, even though Paul may not have had a clear idea of exactly who that was, in spite of the fact that he was personally aware of who many of the members were (Ch 16).

The Church was clearly young and in need of a clear exposition of the salvation foundations that their fellowship and worship was based on.

Although Paul had not visited Rome at this time, he (nor God) would have wasted time and effort on a group of people not prepared to receive and benefit from such a Letter.

Knowledge such as written in Romans was an essential if the testimony of the Church there was to withstand the persecutions about to be released.

It would be only eight years from the writing that Nero would blame the great fire (64 AD) on the Christians; the cruelties then suffered by the saved were terrible, but their testimony to Christ held true and the Church increased in faith and in numbers.

 

1 D. Edmund Herbert  /An Introduction to the Pauline Epistles  /pp 166-167 quoted in Irving L. Jensen /Jensen’s Survey of the New Testament /1981, Moody Press, Chicago p 249 footnote 1/ /

Paul’s view of the Church established in Rome is partly given by the way he introduces himself in 1:1, to a congregation he had not yet visited.

Up front, he establishes who and what he is: a servant of Jesus Christ and an Apostle, validated by God (1:2) and by Christ Himself (1:5).

These are big claims for someone for whom it was not true ie it is the truth, therefore Paul can claim it.

Before greeting them, he launches into the Gospel (1:3-6), showing to them, as he did to the Corinthians, that he was “determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2; cf Galatians 6:14).

This establishes the common basis for belief, and the credibility that the Letter should have in the eyes of those who read it.

In a sense Paul’s use of his Roman name confirms his role as a missionary to the Gentiles and “It was on their reaction to this very personal statement that the success or failure of this letter would hang”.[1]

Possibly, although Paul is careful to include both Jew (1:2) and Gentile (1:7) in his opening.

/ /

/ /

/Evaluate the purpose for which the Book was written:/

/            /Jensen writes (p 234) the “The characteristic common to all the New Testament epistles was the spiritual bond in Christ, between the writer and the reader(s)”.

It follows that if the modern day theologian cannot be included in this spiritual bond, then he *cannot *contribute any opinion regarding the purpose of the Book, its interpretation or its meaning.

This is a /sine qua non /of acceptable hermeneutics consistently ignored by those unsaved who push themselves forward as theologians, because they are by definition blind to this fundamental.

Jensen (ibid) summarises the purpose of the Epistles as “The subject…..is Jesus Christ.

Their message is that He is the sinner’s Saviour, the Christian’s sanctifier, and the King who one day will return to rule over His kingdom forevermore”.

Romans is the Book which perhaps above all others, speaks of the Saviour we need and the righteousness we can have in Christ, setting us apart for our ‘reasonable service’ (12:1).

However improbable, God purposed to use saved sinners to commence and build His Church, bringing the dead to life for one of the greatest challenges ever given to mankind.

The Body of the Church is not left to its own devices: it’s Head is Christ Himself and the members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, all bound together by a focus on God and His plan.

Romans describes the basics of how Church building blocks are produced - why the unsaved need to be saved and join into God’s work.

The remainder of Paul’s epistles show “the positions, relationships, privileges, and duties of the members of its glorious and mysterious fellowship” (Jensen p 243).

The method of arranging the NT Books according to their Doctrinal content (Jensen pp 242-243) and shown in graphic form (Chart 62 p 244) are particularly useful in putting the NT Books including Romans into their place in God’s progressive revelation as He uses the NT.

Jensen describes Romans as “Paul’s masterpiece, a key that unlocks the door to vast treasures of scripture” (p 247).

This has been so in my own life, although I have barely scratched the surface of this profound Book.

Romans details both the simple fundamentals and the spiritual depths of what it is to be saved in Jesus Christ.

On this foundation is built much of the remaining doctrines that Paul writes about, and without a clear understanding of these fundamentals, appreciation of the other doctrines is limited or impossible.

Romans therefore paves the way for Paul’s visit to this Church by preparing the spiritual ground for appreciation of the more mature doctrines that he would bring with him.

In many respects the last two thousand years have proved how successful this Book has been in achieving this purpose with every generation.

A secondary reason for writing this Epistle is for Paul to communicate his intention to tour Spain and to enlist the Roman Church’s support for this (15:23-24), to express his desire to share any or all of his spiritual gifts, for their edification (1:11) and to preach the gospel there (1:15).

It might be imagined with what power Paul preached the Gospel given the power already present in the Gospel in this Book!

Guthrie explores other reasons why the Book could have been written, some of which he agrees with, and others he discards: the Book is a polemic against Judaism and antinomianism; conciliatory - between Jew and Christian; doctrinal (this is clearly so but not in the limited meaning used by Guthrie); to sum up Paul’s experience to date (written at the end of the third journey, Paul picks on Rome to tell them how he was now thinking [!]); to meet the immediate needs of the believers in Rome being oppressed by Jews and those seeking to cause division (16:17-18).[2]

 Guthrie cannot bring himself to conclude that the Book was written by inspiration of God on the basis of any of the scriptural reasons stated above.

/ /

/ /

/Characterise the structure problems in the Book (Ch 16):/

/            /It has been hypothesised (Guthrie pp 412-416) that Ch 16 was not an original part of Romans but was rather sent to Ephesus because:

#.

Paul had never visited Rome and yet greets 26 individuals by name and others to which he wished to be remembered.

It is unlikely that he would have known the Roman Christians that well - which he had not visited (but may have met elsewhere).

#.

Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned in 16:3.

Shortly before the writing of Romans their house-church was in Ephesus.

In this short interval they would have had to shift to Rome, then back to Ephesus (2 Timothy 4:19).

#.

Epaenetus is the “firstfruits of Achaia” - said to be appropriate if he were in Ephesus but not if he were in Rome.

(But if he were brought to the Lord in Achaia - Greece- by Paul on either the second or the third journey [16:5], then moved to Rome….).

#. “Phoebe is commended in 16:1–2 and it is maintained that Paul would have been more likely to send such commendation to a church he knew well than to a church he had never visited.”[3]

#.

The warnings in 16:17-19 are thought to be against antinomianism and therefore more appropriate against those known in Ephesus

#.

Ch 15 is more characteristic of the ending of an epistle (but note that it is not characteristic of Paul to do this).

Against these are:

#.

The only other time Paul appended a long list of greetings was to the Colossians, whom he had also never visited.

He was unlikely to have singled out a special group in a Church that he knew well.

Paul felt that all Christians were his friends.[4]

#.

Priscilla and Aquila were likely successful business folk and had branches in Rome and Ephesus.

Neither their house Church nor their business in Rome would have had to shut down merely because Emperor Claudius forced them to leave Rome.

#.

If Paul had no authority to commend Phoebe to the Romans then he also had no authority to write to them as he did in Chh 1-15.

Guthrie has other objections which I do not clearly understand (p 415).

He finally concludes that: “this Ephesian destination theory is a ‘badly supported hypothesis’ is fully justified.

There is no Ms support for the contention that the epistle ever circulated without the concluding chapter, in spite of the complicated textual history affecting the ending of the epistle.”[5]

Guthrie mentions a second problem relating to the concluding two chapters of Romans regarding the length of early versions of the Book.

Apparently a number of early manuscripts of Romans which circulated ‘very early’ in its textual history did not contain Chh 15 or 16.

Guthrie begins his conclusion concerning this with “Another view, which seems more in harmony with the facts, is that the doxology is a resume of the main subject-matter of the epistle,1 a procedure which would be quite in accordance with Paul’s mind.”[6]

Guthrie’s final comment (ibid) is weak, but in it he gives the following as a reference: “/Cf./ the careful discussion of F. R. M. Hitchcock, /A Study of Romans XVI/ (1936), p. 202.

K. Barth finds it impossible to conceive of Paul adding a ‘solemn liturgical conclusion’ after 16:24 (/op.

cit./, p. 523), but this is no more than a subjective opinion with which many scholars would not agree.

It may, in any case, be doubted whether ‘liturgical’ is an exact description, unless it be used in the sense in which all doxologies share a liturgical character.

No canon of criticism can be made out excluding the possibility that Paul would so conclude.

Yet Barth is not drawn to the theory of a separate Ephesian destination of chapter 16 on the grounds that the whole epistle would be incomplete if not addressed to particular men with human names (/op.

cit./, p. 536).”[7]

It seems to me that all of the above is mens’ rationalistic presuppositions attempting to find rationalistic explanations for an essentially spiritual document.

My own presupposition is that God wanted Paul to express greeting to specific individuals perhaps as a form of encouragement based on previous acquaintance, and that there is no formula for finishing off an Epistle except for the one God prescribes.

/Survey Paul’s build-up for the evidence for the need for righteousness (1:18-3:20):/

/            /Every single one of the historical dispensations from Innocence to the Age of Grace (and it will be so for the Millennium) ends with Man’s failure in his own effort to achieve the righteousness of God.

3:10 “There is none righteous, no, not one”; 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”.

This failure was so great that after innumerable opportunities, given in His love, mercy and longsuffering, to stop and change - from the Fall to the present day - God brings humanity to a crossroads, right here in the Book of Romans.

They remain either “given up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts” (1:24) or choose salvation from the death of sin by accepting God’s free gift in Christ.

No more options.

The perfect answer to the sin of men has been provided by God Himself.

Choose Him or die.

The current state of unsaved mankind is told in 1:18-3:20.

It is one of wilful and ignorant rebellion against the saviour of men and the creator of all, Whose existence is glaringly obvious from what is around us.

Mankind is therefore “without excuse” (1:20) and deserves eternity without God in hell.

Jensen breaks this section down into four parts:

* The pagan world condemned (1:18-32).

Jensen states that these are the classic Bible passages referred to to answer questions such as “Are the heathen lost?” and “Is it fair that those who never heard the gospel should be eternally condemned?”

(p 252).

He further states that “God gives them sufficient knowledge of himself to induce reverent worship and obedience” (ibid).