II.
The Context of Rom
8:18-25
Robert Jewett, in his magisterial commentary on Romans and
in an article that deals specifically with the passage I am discussing, has
argued most convincingly for situating the epistle in the context of Roman
imperial ideology, as reflected in legally solidified, asymmetrical structures
of power that Paul opposed. In the preface to the commentary, Jewett argues
that Paul was attempting to overcome the “imperialistic competition” of the
churches in Rome, “under the premise that the gospel of impartial grace
shatters all claims of superior status or theology.”[i] In
the article, Jewett points to Rom 8:18ff. as an instance in which Paul’s most
basic conception of history and anthropology is fundamentally and radically
opposed to that of the empire: In imperial Rome, beliefs about the rejuvenation
of nature were tied to a cyclical construction of history in which humankind
experiences a succession of aeons—from the Golden Age to the Age of Iron—a
construction that emphasized the link between nature and sovereign power by
periodically attributing the rejuvenation of nature to the ascendency of a new
emperor.[ii]
Though I find Jewett’s analysis greatly helpful, I
nevertheless think it is wisest to regard Paul’s critique of the imperial
system as implicit and embedded in his arguments rather than explicit and
overtly stated—and this is assuming Paul was even conscious of committing such
a critique at all. For Paul wrote Romans during a transitional phase in the
Roman imperial order. Witherington points out that the first years of Nero’s
reign, during which time this letter was almost certainly written, were a
period of relative stability in which the Jews were allowed to return to Rome after
their expulsion by Claudius in 49 CE and the Christian community, made up of
some Jews but primarily of Gentiles, faced less persecution than previously.[iii]
Thus, a straightforward reading of the letter reveals that Paul was most
concerned with the relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish members of
the church, which must have been strained or damaged by the expulsion from Rome
or the subsequent return to Rome of some of the Jewish members. As evidenced in
the text of Romans itself, there was definitely a Jewish community present in
the churches of Rome, and a substantial one at that,[iv]
and Paul’s audience, though primarily non-Jewish, must have contained a
significant Jewish element, as the content and structure of the epistle
reveals.
Indeed, in the larger context of the letter, the passage I
am discussing is the meeting point between two major arguments that deal with
the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. While the traditional understanding
of this letter construed chs. 1-8 to be Paul’s fullest explication of the
Gospel, followed by the tangent of chs. 9-11 and concluded with a series of
miscellaneous exhortations, scholars after World War II have construed the
emphasis of the letter differently, preferring instead to read Paul’s
conciliatory tone in chs. 1-8 as a tentative recapitulation of common ground
before arriving at the major issue in chs. 9-11, with the final chapters
anticipating and attempting to circumvent whatever “ethical fallout” the letter
was sure to bring.[v] This
essay is working under the assumption that the most important section of the
letter for Paul was likely chs. 9-11, and thus understands Rom 8:18ff. as
specifically designed to prepare the reader for the argument in that section.
Dunn points out that this passage, rather than being a superfluous or
tangential digression into eschatology, is integral to the flow of the letter
in that it masterfully concludes the argument of the first eight chapters,
which deals with universal sin and Mosaic Law, and prepares the reader for the
following argument in chs. 9-11 by evoking traditional Jewish motifs and
language (especially suffering and future vindication).[vi]
In the more immediate context of Rom 8, a chapter that can
be tentatively isolated by the references to the Spirit throughout it, Jewett’s
outline[vii]
shows that v. 18 is the second of two minor theses. The first thesis, 8:2,
opens a discussion on the contest between the Spirit and flesh, which
essentially restates in typological language Paul’s argument about sin and the
Law in chs. 5-7. Verses 18-25 are immediately followed by an exaltation of the
Spirit (vv. 26-27, sometimes considered together with vv. 18-25) and a
concluding discussion on the status of the elect and the soteriological
function of love (vv. 28-39).
[i] Robert Jewett, Romans
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), xv.
[ii] “The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Reading
Romans 8:18-23 within the Imperial Context,” in Paul and the Roman Imperial Order, Richard A. Horsley (Harrisburg,
London, and New York: Trinity Press International, 2004), 26-27.
[iii] Paul’s Letter
to the Romans, 11. Witherington notes that it was unlikely that all the Jews were expelled from Rome as
Acts and other ancient sources perhaps hyperbolically report (6).
[iv] For two apposite discussions of the makeup of the
churches in Rome, see C. E. B. Cranfield, A
Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark Limited, 1975), 18-20 and Jewett, Romans, 72-74.
[v] Witherington, Paul’s
Epistle to the Romans, 17.
[vi] James D. G. Dunn, Romans
1-8 (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 486.
[vii] Romans, vii-ix.
