The apostle writes to a well-established Christian community that seems to have existed for decades and had already become famous far and wide for its faith (Ro 1:8). Luke refers to “visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism)” as pilgrims who were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:10). From this it seems possible, or even probable, that converts within this group who became Christians returned to Rome and became the nucleus of the first Christian church there.

Understandably, Paul makes fewer references to himself and to his readers in Romans than in 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians, since he had not founded the Roman church and guided its struggles to maturity as he had the others.

It may be that for some time he had been looking westward toward Rome (see “many years” in Ro 15:23). Now the conviction grew that he must act by beginning to plan for work in the West (Ac 19:21). He had already preached the gospel in the strategic centers of population in the East, and his restless spirit yearned to reach out to places where Christ was not known. He would go through Rome to Spain to plant the gospel there (Ro 15:22–24).

The systematic element includes due attention to doctrine and life—and in that order, because right relations must be established with God before one can live so as to please him and mediate his blessings to others.

The question as to what is most central to Pauline theology has been long debated. Some have said that it is justification by faith. Others have insisted that life “in Christ” is the secret, for it lifts one out of the rigidity and barrenness of legal terminology, disclosing the positive and dynamic relationship the believer may have with God’s Son. Thankfully, we do not have to choose between these two, because both are important in Paul’s presentation. Without justification there can be no life in Christ (5:18), and such life in turn confirms the reality of justification.

God’s righteousness must be reckoned with, both by sinner and by saint, for it is the basis of judgment and the wellspring of salvation. The Son of God is held up to view also from the first, because the gospel centers in him (1:3). He is the one through whom the grace of God is mediated to sinful humanity in justification, reconciliation, and redemption. The man Christ Jesus is set over against the first Adam as the one who has succeeded in undoing the universal ruin wrought by the fall (5:12–21) and who now sustains and preserves all who put their trust in him (5:10). The Spirit’s role is to nurture the new-creation life of the children of God by providing assurance of their sonship (8:16), release from the bondage of sin (8:2–4), effectiveness in prayer (8:26–27), and experience of the love of God (5:5), as well as other joys of the spiritual life (14:17). It is the Spirit who crowns the saints with the confident hope of the bliss of the better state that is to come (8:23; 15:13). The Spirit also provides the dynamic for Christian service (15:19).

It is altogether too narrow a view to see in this portion of Romans simply the antidote to the wretched state pictured in ch. 7.

It gathers up various strands of thought from the previous discussion of both justification and sanctification and unites them under the crown of glorification. Like ch. 5 it presents the blessings of the justified life, grounded in the removal of condemnation. Like ch. 6 it stresses freedom from the bondage of sin and ultimately from the bondage of death. Like ch. 7 it deals with the problem of the law and the flesh, finding the solution in the liberating and productive ministry of the Spirit. The Spirit dominates the chapter (the word occurs nineteen times), which begins with instruction, rises to consolation, and culminates in jubilation. This is high and holy ground indeed for the Christian pilgrim to tread.

The word “law” is again probably to be understood figuratively here (cf. 7:21, 23). It seems improbable (though not impossible) that Paul would refer to the law of Moses as “the law of sin and of death,” even though it provokes sin (7:7–8) and produces death (7:9–11; 2 Co 3:6, 7). For Paul, the law in itself remains holy (7:12). In the present passage, therefore, “law” is used in the sense of a “principle” to indicate the certainty and regularity of operation that characterizes sin (which leads to death) on the one hand and the work of the Spirit on the other. Whereas the word “law” (nomos, GK 3795) emphasizes regularity, “life” (zōē, GK 2437) emphasizes both supernaturalness and spontaneity—hence the superiority of the Spirit’s operation over that of sin