Think On These Things: Romans 1 and the Form of Sound Words

Romans 1:1-5 introduces us to a sound word from the apostolic pattern adapted to questions regarding Paul's apostleship and the relationship of that office to the christology we find in the other sound words. It reads [with my comments in brackets like these]:

"Paul, a servant [Gk. doulos, "slave"] of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated [This is the root of the Hebrew word for "pharisee" -- "separated" ones] unto the gospel of God,
(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

We can observe here many similarities with the Philippian chiasmus.

First, Paul has made himself a "slave" of Jesus Christ, who had made Himself a slave to God. I do not know whether Paul thought it through or no, but this is dangerous language to use in Rome. Slaves could be crucified. Extra-biblical teachings of Church traditions indicate that this was in fact Paul's fate, but Luke leaves them in Rome at the end of the book of Acts preaching without chains unhindered. So I cannot say if this is what happened or not. But perhaps here the Holy Spirit indicates that the tradition is correct.

Paul adds the words "for obedience to the [Christian] faith." Recall that Paul had commanded obedience of the Philippians in his absence as well his presence, as obedience to the apostles was one and the same as obedience to Christ. Christ was obedient, even to the death of the cross, haing made himself a slave. Paul seems to have done the same toward Christ and the Gospel.

The Lord Jesus, at Paul's conversion, spoke of "how much he [Paul] must suffer for my Name's sake." This obedience is "for His Name," where Paul refers back to the Holy Spirit of Christ, who commissioned Paul and set him apart for the Gospel ministry.

Second, Paul was commissioned by the Holy Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead. This means Paul's ministry will succeed necessarily. For the ones to whom he preaches have and analogous problem -- death. They are dead in their trespasses and sins, and cannot be made alive apart from the miraculous power of the Spirit of Holiness. God is able to raise the dead. If one does not believe this, there is no point in preaching the Gospel because those to whom it is preached are just as dead as corpses in the nearby graveyard.

The Gospel has the power to make the dead live. Just as when a little boy was asked what a cemetery was, to which question he promptly answered, "Cemeteries are where the dead people live." That is the point of Paul's ministry. His ministry is where the dead people live, and the Church grows by the resurrection power of God the Holy Spirit.

Luke describes this separating of Paul and Barnabas by the Holy Spirit in Acts 13, using exactly the same langauge as in Romans 1. This means we could prove Paul knew Luke even if Acts had not told us so. Here is the record in Acts: 13: 1-4:

"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus."

In Romans, Paul mimicks just the same language as Luke uses to describe the command of the Holy Spirit, saying, "Separate to me..." and Paul notes that his ministry comes by "the Spirit of Holiness," "By whom we have received grace and apostleship." The Lord Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God in the resurrection, which was his vindication in the sight of the nations, according to another chiastic "sound word" of First Timothy.

Romans 8:10-11 elaborates on the power exerted by the Holy Spirit to raise up Christ from the dead, in a promise that the same Holy Spirit who lives in believers will raise them also. He says:

"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

That is, this is what Paul elsewhere calls, "Christ in you, the hope of [resurrection] glory."

When the Holy Spirit raised Christ, He vindicated the Lord Jesus, proving that all Christ's claims were in fact true. Hebrews tells us that when God [the Spirit] raised up Jesus, The father declared "Thou Art My Son, THIS DAY have I begotten thee." Thus, Paul says that by this resurrection, the Spirit who inspired that Psalmic text "Preached the Gospel" -- declared with power -- in the sight of all the nations. This is also therefore Paul's task, as an apostle in whom the Spirit continues to preach with power the death and resurrection of Christ (and do many mighty miracles). These are works of power, which the Spirit performed among the nations to confirm and establish the gospel, overcoming all its "counter-cultural features" which would have otherwise rendered it counterproductive.

The power by which Paul and the apostles worked miracles was the same power which raised Christ from the dead, and which will raise up all in Christ in the future.

Paul was separated (consecrated) to a holy calling. The Lord self-consciously plays on the word "Pharisee" -- one separated from "sinners" to God paying special attention all their lives to the law of God. Saul went from a "pharisee of pharisees" who persecuted the Church -- those in whom the Holy Spirit lives -- to a "dominical pharisee," one set apart by the same Jesus Paul used to persecute. Before, he used the law against the Church, and now the law-strucutured Gospel in favor of the Church. Paul did not stop being a pharisee; he stopped being a persecutor of the Church, and was consecrated to Christ as an apostle. He went from an Old Israel pharisee, to a New Jerusalem Rabbi. The apostles were "the twelve," meaning the New Israel in seedling form (for Israel had 12 tribes).

Paul has resolved to preach "Christ crucified," but this creates a problem for Jews. Dead bodies are unclean. This makes crucifixion's end unclean. Paul overcomes the whole business by teaching the resurrection of Christ alongside his crucifixion, never failing to preach the one without the other. His was no mere crucifix theology. The importance of this death is that the death of Christ put to death sin and death in those who trust in Him. And his resurrection, Paul says, is OUR vindication, not merely Christ's own.

The Gospel of God, for which Paul had been separated was found in the prophets, who preached the same thing as Paul. The Gospel has been preached all along from Genesis to Revelation, all of which speaks of Jesus. Paul is a fully-trained Rabbi in this Old Testament (and New Testament) faith. Christianity is not a new religion, but an old one with a New fulifillment in Jesus of Nazareth. None of the earliest Christians stopped being Jews in order to be Christians. They viewed the Christians as the TRUE Jews and the ones who rejected Christ as the false ones, who worshipped in "synagogues of Satan."

True Judaism is found in Jesus, the seed of Abraham, by Abraham-like faith. He is the heir of all things promised to Israel, and all those in Him are likewise heirs by God's grace apart from those things which separated them from the Gentiles. Likewise, Paul did not stop being a Pharisee, but became a TRUE pharisee, an apostle and teacher of the TRUE Israel and Gods' people.

This is how Paul and the Holy Spirit view him, and also the prophet Bar-nabas (though not an apostle). Bar-nabas is "son of encouragement," for he strengthened the brothers in Jerusalem and subsidized the apostles' ministry, just as many holy women had subsidized the ministry of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus was at work mightily in Paul's friend to strengthen the saints of God. Therefore, they called him "Bar-nabas."

The Son is here called "Jesus Christ our Lord." This maintains the two-fold aspect of Christ's super-exaltation spoken of in Philippians. Of the Lord Jesus, Peter had said, "Men of Israel, be assured of this, God has made this Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." It was not sufficient that God should raise up Jesus merely to rule Israel as the Messiah (that is, the Christ), but also that He must rule the Gentiles as Lord (Kyrios) in the place of Caesar. It was upon acceding to the throne in Israel when it was declared of the king, "Thou art my son; this day have I begotten [crowned] thee."

God MADE this Jesus both Lord and Christ. How? He did this by raising Him from the dead, undoing the work of the nation of Israel and of Rome forever, and thus set Jesus as king of every king. He died "King of the Jews." He was raised "Kyrios Iesous." Paul has now combined these into one Grand title, "Jesus the Christ, and our Lord." This is the meaning of "hyperupsosen" in Philippians 2, and again, "the [royal] name [title] that is above every name,"
so that at the Name "Jesus Christ the Lord" every royal knee of every nation and empire will bow. That is the sense of Paul's forceful declaration.

Rome deemed Paul a threat. He was. He taught and WARNED every man (Col. 1:24-26). His warnings comprised "threats combined with encouragements to turn from sin to Christ." When people repented, he taught them, using a form of sound words, and in expounding upon them in lectures (as in the lecture hall of one Tyrannus). Preaching the gospel simply refers to presenting the Lord Jesus as He is already presented in the form of sound words and all the canonical qualifications thereupon, But these form a central core of the basic christology Jesus Himself taught His people. The Gospel accounts expand these. So does Acts.

Luke affirms that Acts recounts what Jesus "continued to do and to teach" by means of His Holy Spirit in the apostles and prophets He had commissioned for the Gospel ministry. Luke says it thus:

"The former treatise [Gospel of Luke] have I made, O Theophilus [ben Ananus?], of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he **through the Holy Ghost** had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: [Jesus taught them as a resurrected Rabbi for 40 days, teaching them "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

This was a seminary education par excellence. Luke hints toward the later end of His Gospel that "the kingdom of God" refers to just how Jesus fulfills all the Older Testament, the nature of the kingdom He rules, and where it is headed. The Lord did this in the resurrection with the two on the road to Emmaus, and in his earthly ministry when he took his apostles aside to teach them particularly of the kingdom of God.

The "form of sound words" summarized these "forty day" teachings of Jesus, as the Holy Spirit enabled the collective apostolic memory. This particular sound word, which Paul has used and adorned slightly [contextualized] by the Holy Spirit to fit the context and event of his epistolary message. Here, prior to his resurrection, the Lord Jesus "was made [born] of the seed of David according to the flesh." Luke recounts Mary and Joseph as both from the tribe of Judah (king David's and Solomon's tribe).

Jesus is the promised king who, according to the Davidic covenant, would never fail to sit on the throne of Israel. But Jesus did not inherit that covenantal promise until his resurrection. Throughout the Gospels, he is thus called "Son of David." And the Lord Jesus said of Messiah, quoting Psalm 110, "If David calls Him [Messiah] "Lord" how then can He [Messiah] be David's son ["Seed" or descendant, as the promise of the Davidic covenant requires]?

Because the Lord Jesus lives forever to intercede for Gods' people, his priesthood replaced the Aaronic-Levitical priesthood, who offered the same sacrifices repeatedly. This showed they had no power to accomplish what was promised. This is exactly what Hebrews 9-10 argues. If you fire a gun to shoot a bird and kill it, you do not keep firing. The job is done. If you have to keep firing, your bird is not dead. You need a gun that works. One really accurate shot and its KFC all around.

The once-for-all sacrifice of the Great High Priest has continuing efficacy to cleanse God's people from all sin. The fact that Christ was raised WITH THE WOUNDS incurred upon his hands and feet shows that his sacrifice continues to expiate the sins of his people at all times. The angelic prophecy said, "And you shall call his Name "Jesus," for He shall save (not always be saving by repeated sacrifices) His people from their sins. When he ascended to the throne of the Lord, he sat down at the right hand of Power. The levitical priests ministered standing. Jesus sat down.

"The Lord said to My Lord SIT thou at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." You do not sit until the job is finished. It is finished. The fact that God commands Christ to SIT proves that this command was given only after Messiah had made atonement as High Priest ONCE for all.

He is the seed of David after the flesh, who inherited the kingship of Israel in his death, and much more in his resurrection. Therefore, Pilate said, "What I have written, I have written." And "the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." In this way, the Gospel writers expand upon the Davidic sonship of Christ, by showing the Lord Jesus "(Davidic) King of the Jews,"which is what is meant by the phrase "One greater than Solomon," for Solomon was the son of David.

The phrase "seed of David" expands the earlier notion of Paul that the gospel is that "Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures." Jesus sits on a throne, at the Father's right hand. This is the throne of the Lord over Israel, according to Psalm 110. And the glory of Christ with which He shines is by the Spirit, the shekinah of the Holy of Holies.

Finally, Paul links the descendancy of Christ from David with His kingship over Israel, saying of Jesus, "which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power. The phrase, Son of God, emphasizes kingship, which passage "thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee" represents a coronation pronouncement.

Thus, Paul's introduction of Christ after the seed of David (from David's royal line) is followed by the sonship claim, establishing the crown rights of King Jesus over all Israel by way of the Davidic covenant. Though Paul, a true Pharisee, knows fully well the Scriptural details of this kingship, he and Barnabas were set apart by the Spirit to the Gentiles for ministry, so Paul mentions this, but the bulk of his letter treats Gentile concerns.

Let us not forget the obvious: Rome is the capitol of the Gentile world, where Caesar's throne was. The obedience to the faith -- called in the Word "the faith of Jesus" -- Paul promotes for the sake of God's Name doing all things for His glory.

When Paul refers to the Spirit of Holiness, he appeals to a strong desire among both the Pharisee and Sadducee: first, to that which was sought by the Pharisees -- for the whole point of remaining "separate" was for the sake of keeping one's self holy and preventing defilement. This stands behind the citation "come out of her my people, touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you, says the Lord."

Note that this is call to come out and be separate, to separate one's self from what is not holy. This expresses well how the pharisees saw themselves. They took special care to keep themselves from ceremonially defiling agents and influences. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, walked straight up to a coffin and put his hand on it!! This brought the entire grieving procession to a screeching halt. He raised the dead son of a widow of Nain this way (Luke 17). No one quite knew what to make of this. It was completely unheard of for several reasons, not the least of which was a former dead man standing up out of a coffin and feeling chatty.

Second, the spirit of Holiness refers to God's special presence in the Holy of holies. The Sadducees counted themselves something like appointed guardians of the temple. They oversaw its daily operations and security as Rome appointed them. This was not always an easy task when pilgrims flooded Jerusalem from the diaspora three times each year. But they thought of the Temple as their special provenance, and the Glory of God lived there.

This same Spirit of Glory raised up Jesus, the Lord of glory. Thus, in Him is fulfilled that for which the Pharisees and Sadducees hoped. Paul does not want his audience to miss this point, an by citing this very early -- did I mention heavily Jewish -- sound apostolic word, Paul names or implies most every element which made up the central theological and religious features of Second Temple Judaism of the first-century.

Here, Jesus is a distinctly Jewish Messiah, presented to the nations as their only hope and True Caesar. It doesn't get any more countercultural than this, or more counterproductive unless one actually has God on his side to win the nations for the Gospel. But Paul was commissioned by the Spirit of holiness, whose power could raise the dead.

So on he went in great confidence, for His Name. After all, when did the opposition of the whole world ever stop a determined Jew? If you wish to stop Jewish prophet, you must either be 1. God, 2. another Jewish prophet 3. A very large, Mediterranean fish, or 4. A talking donkey.

The opposition to the apostles and the Gospel only promoted their cause all the more. This had to be infuriating to Rome, an Empire used only to victory. Thus exulted Paul, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" And John also, saying "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world [i.e. empire]."

The Son of God was declared so with power by resurrection from the dead. If death cannot stop Jesus, from continuing to do all that He began to do and to teach, then what chance did an empire stand? Can it overcome death too? Paul's reasoning was perfect. So on he preached.

Think on these things.