Still, Paul’s desire to visit them and encourage their faith (1:11–12) flows, as apparently everything else in his life does, from his life’s mission and purpose to reach the nations (1:5, 13–15). Paul treats this mission as a divine obligation (Rom 1:14; cf. 1 Cor 9:16–17)29 to reach the entire range of “Gentiles” (1:13). These included both Greeks and “barbarians” (non-Greeks), both those whom Greeks considered wise and those they considered foolish.30 (Greeks usually divided humanity into Greek and “barbarian”; mentioning both together meant “everyone.”31 Romans and Jews sometimes adopted these conventional labels.)32 The dominant culture of the urban eastern Empire was Greek, and that culture also influenced the Greek-speaking eastern immigrant community in Rome (including most of its Jewish population) where the church had first taken root.
Good News of Salvation (1:16–17)
We must offer special, hence more detailed than usual, attention to 1:16–17. Ancient writers often (though not always) stated their themes and purpose in a proposition before their main argument,33 and most commentators of recent centuries believe that Paul does so here. Commentators differ over the central theme involved, though some proposals dominate only particular parts of the letter. Nevertheless, God’s righteousness (most explicitly through ch. 10), faith (most explicitly in chs. 1, 3–4, 10, and 14), and the Jewish-Gentile issue (most explicitly in chs. 9–11) seem to pervade it. Others offer the more general theme of the “gospel,” which integrates a number of these factors (and for which, in Romans, God’s righteousness is a key element).34 That all these themes reflect the language of prophetic promises to Israel (Ps 98:2–3; Isa 51:4–5; 52:10)35 reinforces Paul’s claim that Scripture is the source of his gospel (1:1–2).
The gospel is the object of faith, and its subject is God’s Son (1:9), Jesus Christ (15:19, 20; 16:25). Scholars propose various reasons why Paul claims to be “unashamed” of the gospel. Certainly, interest in honor and shame dominated ancient Mediterranean urban culture, including Rome, and Paul’s message involved folly and weakness to a status-conscious culture (1 Cor 1:18–23).36 The world’s hostility could provide temptation to be ashamed (cf. 2 Tim 1:8, 12, 16; 1 Pet 4:16), but God’s servants could trust that they would not be shamed eschatologically (Rom 5:5; 9:33; 10:11).37 “Unashamed” may also constitute litotes; Paul is positively eager to preach this message (cf. Phil 1:20; Heb 2:11; 11:16).38
God’s “power” for salvation might recall his “power” to create (1:20), act in history (9:17, 22), or provide miraculous attestation (15:19). But it especially recalls his power to raise the dead (1:4, including a central point of the gospel message; cf. Eph 1:19–20), hence to transform by providing new life (cf. Rom 15:13; 1 Cor 1:18). He may also think of the Spirit’s activity in the gospel to convince people of the truth of the message (1 Cor 2:4–5; 1 Thess 1:5).
In the context (Rom 1:5, 13–15), Paul certainly wants to emphasize that the gospel is for all peoples, Jew and Gentile alike.39 Yet there is also a sense in which the good news, rooted in promises to Israel, is “to the Jew first”; it will take Paul all of chapters 9–11 to resolve the tension between these emphases. Paul’s evangelistic prioritization of ethnic Israel fits Jesus’s teaching (Mark 7:27) and the portrayal of Paul’s own ministry in Acts (e.g., 13:5; 28:17), yet he will argue that God saves both Jew and Gentile by the same means.
Paul’s audience in Rome may influence him in speaking of the gospel going next to the “Greeks”:40 they are mostly Gentiles (1:13), which includes Greeks and barbarians (1:14), and of these two groups they are largely the former (1:16). The Roman congregations were mostly Greek speaking at this time (as the earliest Christian inscriptions and leadership lists show). Romans also often considered themselves “Greek” rather than “barbarian,” which was not a flattering designation. But Paul often employs the contrast between “Jew” and “Greek” (2:9–10; 3:9; 10:12), and not only in this letter (see 1 Cor 1:22, 24; 10:32; 12:13; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; cf. Acts 14:1; 18:4; 19:10, 17; 20:21), as equivalent to “Jew” and “Gentile” (Rom 3:29; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:23). “Greek” provided a natural metonymy for the larger category of “Gentile.” Josephus often uses “Greeks” for all non-Jewish urban residents,41 and Jews had longstanding severe conflicts with Greeks, the dominant urban culture in the eastern Mediterranean.42
As the introductory “for” (gar) indicates, Paul now explains why the good news brings salvation to Gentiles as well as Jews: God’s way of implementing his righteousness is through faith (1:17). Scholars read this explanation, however, in different ways, regarding both “God’s righteousness” (dikaiosunē) and “faith” (pistis). Both are clearly key concepts: if we include their cognates, Paul employs each term over fifty times in Romans. Here I must digress to address dikaiosunē more fully.
Excursus: Dikaiosune¯ in Romans
In common Greek, dikaiosune¯ normally meant “justice.”43 In what sense would God’s “justice”44 or “righteousness” (Rom 1:17; 3:5, 21–22; 10:3) put people right with him (cf. 3:26)? Scripture often connects God’s righteousness with his faithfulness and/or covenant love (e.g., Pss 36:5–6, 10; 40:10; 88:11–12; 98:2–3; 103:17; 111:3–4; 119:40–41; 141:1; 143:1, 11–12; 145:7). In the Psalms, God’s righteousness causes him to act justly (e.g., Pss 31:1; 35:24) or mercifully (Pss 5:8; 71:2, 15–16, 19, 24; 88:12) in favor of his servant. When forgiven, the psalmist will praise God’s righteousness (Ps 51:14).45
In the Greek version of the OT, the cognate verb dikaioo¯ did not imply a legal fiction, but recognizing one as righteous,46 including in forensic contexts (cf. Gen 44:16; Isa 43:9, 26; Ezek 44:24): judges must not “acquit the guilty” (Exod 23:7), but must “justify,” i.e., pronounce righteous, the innocent (Deut 25:1).47 God himself would punish the guilty but “justify” and vindicate the righteous (1 Kgs 8:32; 2 Chr 6:23); he himself was “justified,” or “shown to be right,” when he pronounced just judgment,