IV.
Detailed Analysis
4. The “inclusive exclusion” of the believers
(v. 23)
This verse signals Paul’s shift from discussing the state of
things in universalistic language to discussing the immediate experience of the
Christian community; however, instead of forming a contrast, the experience of
the believers mirrors that of the whole of creation, and the ecclesia finds
itself groaning along with creation (or, perhaps, giving voice to the voiceless
nature). Dunn, for whom the Spirit “defines the process of salvation,”[i]
argues that this “groaning” is both “the result” and “expression” of the
salvific process.[ii] Thus,
the two groans Paul speaks of in this passage, the one rising from nature
itself and the other inwardly intoned in the throats of the believers, are “of
a piece.”[iii]
This is because the division between the believing Christians and the rest of
creation is not a perfect division. The boundary that separates them is
absolutely contingent, and one could argue that, whether human beings are
merely implied by the word “creation” or deliberately included, it is essential
that the boundary itself is negotiable, since the liberation of nature depends upon
the ability for salvific affect to traverse the boundary. Therefore, upon
considering this verse, Ernest Best rightly observes, “If man [sic] is saved,
then through him the universe itself might be saved.”[iv]
If the ecclesia experiences exclusion from creation in the present time, then
it is for the ultimate goal of total inclusion. The Christians are a strategic
exclusion who, by virtue of the connecting currents allow and necessitate the
liberation of all creation—they are an inclusive
exclusion. The destabilizing and decentering effects of this arrangement
can be further discussed in elaboration on the following two verses.
5. Hope defers the ultimate resolution (vv.
24-25)
In the final verses of this passage, Paul inverts the
comfort promised in v. 18 into a less definitively categorizable optimism that
locates the source of comfort not in certainty but in a radical, collective uncertainty: “For in hope we were saved”
(v. 24a). The ecclesia is not saved absolutely, but in hope. The codependent
interplay between the past tense (“saved”) and the looking-forward (“in hope”)
is what Dunn has called the “not-yetness” of redemption.[v]
More fundamentally, once one acknowledges the inherent tension in this passage,
between salvation (the believers experience the first fruits of salvation in
the present) and the eschatological appeal through which salvation (and
therewith resolution) is indefinitely deferred (the present becomes an
indistinct meeting of myriad forces and activities, all of which are beyond the
subject’s control or understanding), one can develop this tension into the
dialectical movement that animates Pauline Christianity. For Paul, this
dialectical tension is useful as a strategy that wrests the believers from any
foundation from which to oppose him and divests them of individual voices from
which to articulate alternate paradigms or conditions for salvation. There can
be no human-guided resolution because no human being has been saved. What else
to do but “wait for it with patience” (v.25b)?
“Conversion and baptism,” opines C. K. Barrett, “are not an
end but a beginning.”[vi]
Pauline Christianity, then, is a story without an end, a story with no ultimate
resolution, and Paul’s method of storytelling is to magnify and multiply
narrative tensions constantly through an endless series of again-begun
beginnings. Thus, despite the longstanding consensus that Romans attempts to
reconcile the Jews to the Gentiles, the process of reconciliation is more
complicated than any reductive attempt at summary might make it seem. It is
complicated by Paul’s foundational vision of community, which is located in a dislocative landscape of hope.
[i] “Spirit Speech,” 85.
[ii] Ibid., 87.
[iii] Ibid., 87.
[iv] The Letter of
Paul to the Romans, 98.
[v] Romans 1-8,
491.
[vi] A Commentary on
the Epistle to the Romans, 161.
