Romans1chapter 1

Romans 1:1-2

Paul opens by naming himself doulos, a slave of Jesus Christ, the same word the Old Testament uses of Moses and the prophets as servants of the LORD, before he is called to be an apostle, one sent with delegated authority. Separated unto the gospel of God echoes his own history, set apart from his mother's womb (Galatians 1:15) and set apart again from the Antioch church for this one work (Acts 13:2), the same Greek root behind the word both times. Verse 2 anchors the gospel Paul is about to preach in Israel's own scriptures, which he had promised afore by his prophets, so the letter's whole argument begins by refusing any reading that would cut the gospel loose from the Old Testament.

Romans 1:3-4

Concerning his Son sets the gospel's subject before any argument begins, and Paul states his identity in two halves, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, the Messiah's promised human lineage, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. The Greek horisthentos means marked out or determined rather than made, so the resurrection does not create Christ's sonship but demonstrates it in power before the world. Chrysostom reads the two clauses as the ancient church's own confession in miniature, true man of David's line and true Son of God vindicated by the empty tomb.

Romans 1:5-6

By whom we have received grace and apostleship names the two words together as one calling, the gift and the office, given for obedience to the faith among all nations, an expression the letter shares with its very last sentence at 16:26, framing the whole epistle inside that one apostolic purpose. Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ folds the Roman church itself into that same Gentile harvest, though Paul had not planted it and had never yet visited it. Godet reads the double naming, grace and apostleship, as guarding Paul's authority against Rome's suspicion that he spoke without a commission, since the grace that saved him is the same grace that sent him.

Romans 1:7

To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints addresses believers by a status given rather than earned, hagios meaning set apart, and klētois again the calling word running through the whole opening. Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ joins the ordinary Greek greeting, charis, to the Hebrew shalom, and sets the Father and the Son side by side as one source of the blessing. Matthew Henry notes that Paul never opens a letter without this pairing, grace first and peace after, since peace with God is always grace's own fruit.

Romans 1:8-10

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all opens with thanksgiving before any correction, and your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world states a reputation already reaching Paul at a distance, in a church he had never seen. For God is my witness calls on an oath formula Paul uses only when a suspicion needs answering, likely the charge that his long absence meant indifference. Making request, if by any means now at length I might come unto you by the will of God submits even his own travel plans to God's will, and the bench notes the prayer was answered years later in a way Paul could not have designed, a prisoner's passage across the sea in Acts 27 and 28 rather than the free visit he was asking for here.

Romans 1:11-12

For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift names a charisma Paul wants to bring, and the bench reads it broadly, the strengthening that comes through apostolic teaching and presence rather than one specific miraculous sign, since the same word covers a wide range in Paul's letters. That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me corrects any sense of a one-way gift before it can form, an apostle who expects to receive as much as he gives. Calvin notes the courtesy of the correction, Paul refusing even the appearance of setting himself above a church that had done nothing yet to earn his esteem beyond its reported faith.

Romans 1:13-15

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren states a delay Paul feels the need to explain, some hindrance the letter does not name, before he might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise universalizes his obligation across every line Greek culture itself drew, so that Rome, the capital of the world he owed the gospel to, is only the next installment of a debt already incurred at his conversion. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also brings his ambition to its point, the world's capital named as a gospel target like any Gentile city.

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ states the letter's thesis as a confession rather than a mere claim, dynamis, the same root behind the modern word dynamite, the gospel not merely useful but itself God's own power at work unto salvation. To the Jew first, and also to the Greek keeps a real historical order, Israel's priority in the offer, without making that order a wall the Gentile cannot cross, a pattern the letter will develop at length in chapters 9 through 11. Verse 17 supplies the mechanism, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, grounded in Habakkuk 2:4, as it is written, The just shall live by faith, the single line that broke open both Luther's conscience and, through his preface to this epistle, Wesley's heart at Aldersgate. The phrase from faith to faith is read by the bench as faith's whole movement, from the faithfulness of God who offers righteousness to the faith of the believer who receives it.

Romans 1:18

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men opens the letter's long indictment with a present tense, apokalyptetai, a revealing already under way rather than reserved wholly for a future day. Ungodliness, asebeia, names the sin against God directly, and unrighteousness, adikia, the sin against neighbor that follows from it, the same two-fold shape the Ten Commandments carry. Who hold the truth in unrighteousness renders katechonton, suppress or hold down, men actively pressing a known truth out of view rather than simply lacking it, and the verses that follow explain exactly what that truth is and how it was suppressed.

Romans 1:19-20

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them states the ground for the suppression charge, a knowledge already given rather than a knowledge withheld. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead grounds this general revelation in creation itself, a case for God's existence and power that the created order makes to every observer without a word of Scripture. So that they are without excuse translates anapologetos, literally without a defense to offer, and Calvin builds his own doctrine of natural revelation on exactly this verse, a true but insufficient light that leaves the pagan world accountable rather than innocent.

Romans 1:21-23

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful names the twin failures at the root of every later sin, withheld worship and withheld gratitude, before any idol is built. But became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened traces the inward collapse that follows, reasoning turned empty and the heart itself losing light rather than merely erring in one belief. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools sets pretended wisdom against actual folly, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things runs Genesis 1's creation order backward, man made in God's image now remaking God in the image of the animals he was given to rule.

Romans 1:24-25

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts is the first of three parallel judgments in the chapter, paredoken, God handing a people over to what they had already chosen, which the bench reads as judgment by abandonment rather than merely by active infliction. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator restates the exchange at its root, truth traded for a lie and worship redirected from Maker to made thing. The doxology who is blessed for ever, Amen breaks into the indictment unannounced, Paul unable to name the Creator even while indicting his rejection without also blessing him.

Romans 1:26-27

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections is the second of the chapter's three judicial abandonments, and Paul states plainly that even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another names the male counterpart in the same clinical terms, receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet, a consequence the bench reads as built into the sin itself rather than added afterward. The passage is taught here exactly as Paul states it, without softening its plain sense and without singling out these sins for a scorn the chapter does not itself apply, since verses 29 through 31 will widen the same indictment to pride, gossip, and disobedience to parents.

Romans 1:28-29

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind completes the chapter's three-fold judgment, and the Greek carries a wordplay the English cannot, they did not approve, ouk edokimasan, so God gave them an unapproved, adokimon, mind. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers opens a catalogue of sins running through verse 31, and the bench notes the list moves from inward corruption outward into speech and relationship. John Gill reads the reprobate mind not as a new sin implanted but as the mind's own faculty of moral judgment collapsing, so that what conscience once resisted, the darkened mind now approves.

Romans 1:30-32

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents continues the catalogue toward its close, haters of God, theostyges, standing near the center of a list that began with sins against neighbor. Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful finishes the list on a note of broken relationship, every natural bond that should hold a family or a society together named as casualty. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them closes the chapter on a charge sharper than the sins themselves, conscious approval of evil in others, synaudokousin, a depth of corruption the bench across the centuries reads as beyond even the doing of the deeds.