This essay was originally given as a farewell lecture at Ridley College  commemorating Brian Rosner’s time as principal of the college.

Today, as I bid farewell to my time as principal of Ridley  College, I want to tackle the purpose of Paul's Epistle to  the Romans and the hope that is found in the strength of  the Gospel.

Let's start with the purpose of Romans. There's been a  long-standing debate among scholars about why Paul  wrote this letter. Initially, during the Reformation, Romans  was read as “a compendium of Christian theology,”^[i]  often  citing Philip Melanchthon. He described it as a  compendium of doctrines such as total depravity,  justification, sanctification, election, and so on.  This view has been supplanted by the conviction that  Romans, like all Pauline letters, arose in response to  concrete historical circumstances. It is an occasional  epistle, just like 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, etc.

The debate in more recent years has been whether the  relevant historical circumstances are those centred on the  life of the apostle or his target audience, or a combination  of the two. A growing number of scholars have moved  away from seeing Romans as occasioned by Paul’s own  stage of life and missionary plans, to focusing on Romans  as occasioned by a pastoral need in the Roman church.  This shift in scholarly opinion is reflected in a shift in the  attention given to various sections in Romans. The  Reformation approach viewed Rom 1–8 as the most  significant section of the letter. The New Perspective on  Paul yielded a strong focus on Rom 9–11, and now the  pastoral lens puts Rom 12–16 at centre stage, with the  hypothesis that Romans was occasioned by a dispute  between Christians from Jewish and gentile backgrounds. Half a century ago, Paul Minear set out his proposal that  Romans was written to bring about “the obedience of  faith,” among divided Roman congregations. This  perspective, Minear acknowledged, “leads us to study the  letter backwards.”^[ii] Minear’s impulse to read Romans backwards has recently been revived by Scot McKnight,  whose 2017 monograph, Reading Romans Backwards,  presents the pastoral hypothesis as the most important  interpretive key for unlocking Romans.

Should we read Romans backwards?

McKnight reconstructs the historical circumstances in the  Roman Christian community based on Rom 14–15, and  then uses this as a lens through which to view the earlier  chapters of Romans. According to McKnight, “to read  Romans well, we need to read it backwards.”^[iii] Hence the  nifty, if confusing, title.

Proponents of the pastoral purpose of Romans argue that  a concrete situation of factional conflict between Jewish  and gentile believers in Rome was the reason that Paul  wrote Romans, namely, to restore unity. This conflict  purportedly had its genesis in the expulsion of many or all  ethnic Jews from Rome in 49 C.E. under an edict of the  emperor Claudius, which also swept up Jewish followers  of Christ (Acts 18:2). Romans was written in the mid 50s. A presumably majority Jewish Christian community in  Rome became a majority gentile one. With Claudius’ death  and the lapse of his edict, Jewish believers returned and  found themselves a minority. Differences of law- observance between the factions is then the presenting  issue Paul addresses in Rom 14:1–15:13. Specifically, they  disagreed over whether believers should keep Jewish diet  and calendar regulations, eating only kosher food and  observing Sabbath and Jewish holidays. Paul calls them the  strong and weak in faith.

Despite its popularity, in my view, this reading of Romans  is open to critique. Recently, Mark Simon and I wrote an  article, with the not-so-subtle title, “Not Reading Romans  Backwards: A Critique of the Pastoral Purpose of  Romans.” – out in Trinity Journal, next year. In it we  critique the mirror reading of Romans that says that the  church is suffering disunity and Paul writes to address  such divisions.

John Barclay and Nijay Gupta have provided some  objective criteria by which to test mirror readings of  Paul’s letters.^[iv] Things like undue selectivity, over- interpretation, taking sides in the debate or reading into  the debate one’s own theological battles and biases, and  fixating on particular vocabulary as if it were the very  words of the opponents.

If the minister says be grateful, does that mean we are a  group of grumbling ingrates?

We apply such tests to Romans and conclude it has in fact  a greater concern, e.g., about holiness and sexual  immorality than with Jew-gentile disunity. Further, the  omission of any mention of healing intra-church divisions  in the epistolary frame is a strong indicator that the  pastoral concerns of 14:1–15:13 do not constitute the  major reason for Romans.

Reading Romans from the Outside-In

Pauline letters typically reveal their themes and major  concerns in the epistolary frame, the opening greetings  and thanksgiving, and in the letter closing. These sections  of Romans provide explicit indicators of Paul’s reasons  for writing. Jeffrey Weima highlights how Romans 1:1–7  stresses “the legitimacy of Paul’s apostleship and  trustworthiness of his gospel”^[v] and his desire to  incorporate the Roman gentile Christians into his  apostolic sphere.^[vi] The thanksgiving in Romans 1:8–15  emphasises Paul’s apostolic obligation to foster the  Roman Christians’ growth in faith and to impart a  spiritual gift to them. The final chapters of Romans  include a description of Paul’s mission and future plans  (15:14–32) and a letter closing (15:33–16:27), both of  which function to cultivate the Roman Christians’  acceptance of Paul’s apostolic authority over them and the  gospel he has presented to them in the body of the letter.^[vii]

Indeed, a good case can be made for the gospel as the  main theme of the letter. “Gospel” (euangelion) appears  three times in the letter opening (1:1, 3, 9), twice in its  closing (15:16, 19); and the verb “to preach the gospel”  (euangelizo) occurs once in each (1:15 and 15:20). The gospel is also the subject of what is widely regarded as the  thesis statement of Romans (1:16-17).

If “Romans is an exposition of the gospel and its many  implications,”^[viii] the question arises: what did Paul hope to  achieve by presenting his gospel to people who had  already responded positively to the gospel, namely, the  Christians in Rome (1:7)? After all, Paul himself states in  Romans 15:20: “I make it my ambition to preach the  gospel, not where Christ has already been named.”

Paul writes to strengthen the Christians in Rome with  the gospel

Paul’s purpose in presenting the gospel in Romans was  not just to enlist the support of the Christians in Rome  for his gospel mission in Rome and further afield and to  defend that same gospel and mission from potential  misunderstandings and opponents. Paul wrote for the  benefit of his readers themselves. Two texts in the letter  frame make this clear.

Romans 1:11-15 and Paul’s Desire to Strengthen the Christians in  Rome

In 1:11-15 Paul tells the Roman Christians what he would  like to do for them when he visits them in person: “I long  to see you … [and] have often intended to come to you”  (vv. 11, 13). To recognise the importance of this passage  for understanding the purpose of Romans we must  remember that in the ancient world letters regularly  functioned as a substitute for the author’s personal  presence. It is safe to assume that at least part of what  Paul would hope to achieve when visiting the Roman  Christians in person, he aims to accomplish in his letter.

Three times in Romans 1:11-15 Paul expresses his desire  to come to Rome to see the Christians there in person (vv.  11, 13, 15). He gives four reasons for wanting to do so  (vv. 11, 12, 13, 15): to impart a spiritual gift to them; to  experience mutual encouragement; to reap a harvest  among them; and to preach the gospel to them. The first and last reasons in vv. 11 and 15 are subject to  different interpretations. Some take the “spiritual gift”  that Paul wants to impart to the Christians in Rome to be  the sort of spiritual gift he lists in Romans 12:6-8 and 1  Corinthians 12:1-4, 7-11, 28.^[ix]  However, the combination  of words that Paul uses for “spiritual gift” in Romans 1:11  is not his usual way of referring to “the spiritual gifts”,  nor does Paul anywhere in his letters envisage a person  bestowing a spiritual gift.

It is more likely that the spiritual gift which Paul wants to  impart is his understanding of the gospel. The beginning  and end of the paragraph, Romans 1:11 and 15, are  essentially saying the same thing: Paul wants to strengthen  the Roman Christians by imparting to them the spiritual  gift of him preaching the gospel to them. This will result  in “reaping a [spiritual] harvest” among them (v. 13), an  image reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 9:11 where Paul refers  to preaching the gospel as “sowing spiritual seed” (NIV).  As Doug Moo states, the gospel has “a broad range of  significance in Paul. It is, of course, the instrument that  God uses to bring people into the new realm. But it is  also the instrument that God uses to produce growth in  those who already know Christ.”^[x] Paul wrote Romans not  only to defend his apostolic authority and to enlist the  support of the Romans Christians for his mission, but  also to strengthen his readers with a full presentation of  his gospel.

Romans 16:25-26a and Paul’s Desire to Strengthen the Christians  in Rome

Romans 16:25-26a, the first lines of the letter’s closing  doxology, is an inclusio with the opening of the letter.^[xi] 2

Specifically, “my gospel, that is to say, the preaching about

Jesus Christ” (my own translation)^[xii] recalls Paul’s assertion  in 1:2. And Paul’s gospel being rooted in the “prophetic  writings” (graphon prophetikon) of the Old Testament in  16:26 similarly echoes Paul’s words in 1:2 that the gospel  was “promised beforehand.”

Paul’s hope that God would “strengthen” the Christians in  Rome takes us back to Romans 1:11, the only other use  of the verb  sterizo  in the letter. Here Paul hopes to  strengthen the Roman Christians with the spiritual gift of  his preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to them (1:11,15). Paul is effectively saying: May God strengthen you  through the gospel that I have just presented in this letter,  which is a substitute for what I had hoped to do if I could  have come and visited.

Apart from the two occurrences in Romans, Paul uses the  verb “to strengthen” four times in his letters: 1 Thess 3:2;  1 Thess 3:11a, 13a; 2 Thess 2:16-17; and 2 Thess 3:3. In  these texts, God is the one who strengthens, encourages  and comforts believers with “the gospel of Christ,” thereby equipping them for every good work and word,  and to live holy lives, protected from the evil one. It is no  coincidence that Paul’s presentation of the gospel in  Romans strengthens believers in many of the same ways.

What is the gospel according to Romans?

If Paul’s main purpose in Romans is to strengthen the  Roman Christians with the gospel, what is the gospel  according to Romans? This might sound like a boring,  tedious, repetitive agenda. But this is true only if we have  such an abbreviated, formulaic, limited view of the  gospel. Romans provides a surround sound, technicolour,  deep and wide version of the gospel. The summaries are  not wrong, but they are just summaries.

The word “gospel” is not unique to Paul or the New  Testament. In the ancient world it was used to mean a  message of good news in the political propaganda of the  Roman Empire. Paul does not define the gospel very  often in his letters, perhaps because most of his letters are  written to churches or individuals that have heard Paul  preach the gospel in person, with the exceptions being  Romans and Colossians.

The two in Romans 1 are best taken as complementary,  given their close proximity. Whereas Romans 1:1-6  focuses on the content of the gospel (i.e., Jesus Christ),^[xiii] 1:16-17 explains its main functions (i.e., to reveal the  righteousness of God and to save everyone who believes).  The third, Romans 16:25-27, as we noted in the  introduction, is effectively a restatement of the first. Notwithstanding their incomplete and selective nature, the  three passages form a handy introduction to the main  contours of the gospel as Paul presents it in Romans.  The gospel is the “gospel of God” (1:1; cf. 15:16)^[xiv],  from  and about God, revealing his power, righteousness (1:16- 17) and wisdom (16:27). Its content relates to  Christology: Jesus Christ as the powerful “Son of God”  and “Lord” (1:4) and “his resurrection from the dead”  (1:4).^[xv]  It’s main function is soteriological; it is “the power  of God for salvation” (1:16). It is no novel innovation  but represents the fulfilment of prophetic promises (1:2- 3, 17; 16:26); it has a universal reach, including “all  nations” (1:5), both Jews and Gentiles (1:16); and it calls  for “the obedience of faith” (1:5; 16:26). Those who respond in faith (the called) belong to Jesus Christ (1:6)  and are declared righteous before God (1:16-17). In short,  the gospel is a public announcement about Jesus Christ  that saves those who respond in faith. Romans continues  on to deepen each of these elements as an encouragement  to strengthen existing believers.

How does the gospel strengthen believers?

As it turns out, power and strength are key concepts in  Paul’s exposition of the gospel in Romans.^[xvi]  The gospel is  about the powerful Son of God (1:4) and God’s power to  save those who believe the good news (1:16). The Lord  has the power to make believers, both Jews and gentiles,  stand before him justified and forgiven (14:4). God’s  power liberates us from the law, the flesh, sin, death, and  Satan (Rom. 6-8; 16:25). This gospel spreads “by the  power of the Spirit of God” (15:19). There are no  “powers” capable of separating those who believe from  God’s love (8:28-30). Just as the gospel displays God’s  power, God’s work in the history of salvation makes his  power known (9:17, 22).^[xvii]

Paul also teaches that believers receive a kind of gospel  power to exercise their gifts, build others up, love their  enemies, and so on. And they “abound in hope … by the  power of the Spirit” (15:13). It is important to note that,  when exercised in social contexts, divine power is “not  power ‘over’ others but power ‘on behalf of [others].”^[xviii] Believers overcome evil [not by force, but] by doing good  (12:21). The power of God is most clearly seen in God’s   sending his Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh” as a sin  offering (8:3). The cross shows that power is not to be  exercised selfishly or oppressively but in love and the  service of others.

What then about the failures? If the gospel story provides  power to live godly lives, why is the church sometimes  abusive? Tribal? Obsessed with hedonistic materialism?  Not better at inclusion? The problem is not the story, but  those attempting to live by it who go off script or lose the  plot. I find it of great help and comfort that the Bible  calls out the bad behaviour of God’s people and also  provides the resources for their renewal, and mine too.  Tim Keller writes: “While the church has inexcusably  been party to the oppression of people at times, it is  important to realise that the Bible gives us tools for  analysis and unflinching critique of religiously supported  injustice from within the faith” (60). This capacity for self- critique sets the Christian narrative identity apart from  others. It is worth remembering that every Sunday in  church services around the world, the people of God  begin by confessing their own sins.

What then is the hope we have in the Gospel?

• Not only does God justify, redeem, and reconcile us through the gospel, he also gives us the strength and hope we need for the Christian life through the  gospel.
• Only the gospel gives us a realistic view of human evil. It gives us a clear-sighted view of our fleshly existence, our moral incapacity and weakness, and the  means of dealing with our guilt and shame.
• Only the gospel sets us free from sin’s power when we present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life in union with Christ
• Only the gospel gives us a mind set on the Spirit which is life and peace.
• Only the gospel punctures our pride helping us to recognise that God has given us gifts for the service of others.
• Only the gospel gives us an unforgettable example of sacrificial love. calls us to walk in love found in Christ’s unforgettable example of sacrificial love in  dying for us.
• Only the gospel places us in a transformative, countercultural community of people of all ages and backgrounds with the same life story of dying and  rising with Christ.
• Only the gospel enables us to love our enemies knowing that the God of all justice will one day put the world to right.
• Only the gospel enables us to pray with confidence and supports our weak and faltering prayers with the intercession of both Christ and the Spirit.
• Only the gospel gives meaning to our suffering and the comfort of the sure hope of the glory of God.
• Only the gospel gives us a secure identity as God’s beloved children.
• Only the gospel gives us a story worth living.
• Our only hope is found in the strength of the Gospel.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as  you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by  the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 (NIV)

For a full treatment of the theology of the gospel in  Romans, see Brian Rosner,  Strengthened by the Gospel: A  Theology of Romans  (Crossway, forthcoming, 2025).

Brian Rosner has served since 2012 as the Principal  of Ridley College (ACT) in Melbourne. His current  research and writing projects include a monograph  on Paul and the law, various publications on the  theme of being known by God and a book on  preaching 1 Corinthians. He is also passionate about  promoting the gospel in the public sphere.

 

^[i] Philipp Melanchthon Dispositio orationis in ep. ad Rom. Vol 15 of Philippi Melanthonis opera quae supersunt, ed. C. G. Bretschneider. (Halle: Schwetschke, 1848).

^[ii] Minear, The Obedience of Faith, 6.

^[iii] Scot McKnight, Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019), 179, italics in original.

^[iv] See Brian S. Rosner and Mark Simon, “Not Reading Romans Backwards:  A Critique of the Pastoral Purpose of Romans,” forthcoming, where we  consider the works of Minear, Watson and McKnight, who advocate a  narrow, pastoral purpose in Romans in terms of bringing unity to a  divided church

^[v] Jeffrey A. D. Weima, “The Reason for Romans: The Evidence of Its Epistolary Framework (1:1-15; 15:14–16:27),” Review & Expositor 100.1 (2003): 20.

^[vi] Jeffrey A. D. Weima,  Paul the Ancient Letter Writer: An Introduction to  Epistolary Analysis  (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016), 18– 19.

^[vii] Weima, “The Reason for Romans,” 25, 30.

^[viii] David G. Peterson,  Commentary on Romans , BTCP (Nashville: Holman  Reference, 2017), 50.

^[ix] e.g., C. K. Barrett,  The Epistle to the Romans , Rev. ed,. BNTC (London:  Continuum, 1991), 25-26.

^[x] Douglas J. Moo,  A Theology of Paul and His Letters , BTNT (Grand Rapids,  MI: Zondervan Academic, 2021), 51.

^[xi] cf. Weima, Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter  Closings, JSNTSS 101 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 219: “The  doxology is, in fact, especially striking for the way in which it  recapitulates the concern of Paul evident in the epistolary framework of  the letter.”

^[xii] The conjunction kai is epexegetical and “of Jesus Christ” is an objective genitive.

^[xiii]  In 10:16-17 “the gospel … [is] the word of Christ,” an objective genitive  meaning “the message about Christ.”

^[xiv] Commentators disagree whether the phrase is a genitive of source or an  objective genitive. The following verse (1:2) indicates that the gospel was  promised by God (a divine passive) in the holy scriptures, favoring a  genitive of source. Either way, both meanings are clearly taught  throughout Romans.

^[xv] cf. 2 Tim. 2:8: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the  offspring of David, as preached in my gospel.”

^[xvi] See Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Places of Power in Paul’s Letter to the  Romans,” Interpretation 76.4 (2022): 293-302.

^[xvii] All of the “power” references in this paragraph use the noun  dunamis  (“power”) ,  the verb  dunateo  (“to be able”), or the adjective  dunatos  (“able,  capable, powerful”).

^[xviii] Gaventa, “Places of Power,” 301.