Sola Fide: A Discussion of Abraham's 'righteousness' in Romans 4.1-8 and its implicaitons for the believer.

Yes, this is another multi-part series. I know that some of my readers probably appreciate a single stand alone post, but if I were to attempt that with some of the recent topics I would have to post a short treatise all at one time. Consequently, it is much easier for me to post a page or two at a time and hopefully it allows you to more fully digest the content by taking it in smaller portions.

Part 1: Historical Context:

Unlike some of the other Pauline epistles, Romans is almost undisputedly agreed to have been written by the apostle Paul. Although this is the case, some still argue the integrity of the letter because of the role of a certain Tertius, who is supposed to have been Paul’s amanuensis for this letter. This debate comes into play to determine if we have Paul’s final work or Tertius’ re-mastery of Paul’s ideas. Most likely Paul dictated his letter word for word to Tertius who the copied it down. Structurally, Romans matches up with other Pauline texts that have been accepted as authentic.

Reconstructing Paul’s journeys and the history of the New Testament leads us to conclude quite conclusively that Romans was written sometime between A.D. 55 and 58 from the city of Corinth. If we look at the book of Acts we find numerous evidences that lead us to accept Corinth as the most plausible place of authorship, specifically during his three month visit in Acts 20:2-3. Less certain is the date of writing, but taking Paul’s experience before Gallio the proconsul of Corinth in Acts 18:12-17 to have happened in 51 (according to Cranfield) and adding two years for Paul’s stay in Ephesus (Acts 19:10) plus any significant travel time, the earliest conclusion we can come to seems to be 54 and even more likely sometime between 55 and 58 (Schriener 4).

Perhaps even more pertinent to a discussion of Romans is to observe the audience to which it was written. Due to internal evidence within Romans the conclusion can be made that it was at least written to gentile Christians in the city of Rome, and probably a number of Jewish Christians as well. Some would argue that it was written more for a Jewish audience, however the Jewish population was only just being allowed back into Rome upon the death of Emperor Claudius[1] and so a gentile population would clearly be dominant (Morris 4). Within this context it should be noted that even the gentile Christians would have had a strong grounding in the Old Testament and a familiarity with Jewish customs and ways of thinking. This is because of the influence of the synagogues and Jewish Christians who no doubt played an important part in forming the early Roman church.

As with any letter and especially in the case of one to which we are not privy to have the specific context of, we must ask of the authorial intent. The purpose of Romans seems to be twofold. First, Paul seems to be writing to introduce himself to the Roman church and telling them of his intended visit. In this way his letter is sent out ahead of him to preface his coming and allow for some preparations to be made on his account. Second, Paul writes to address the social-political atmosphere of the church in Rome. As can be seen in a number of other New Testament books, Jew-Gentile relations were high throughout the Christian communities, so Paul writes in order to stress the unity of the body. But in order to do so he first had to establish the credibility of his gospel, which as we notice in 1:11ff was already under substantial attack. This purpose would account for the systematic account of the gospel as well as the prominence of the topics of the Mosaic Law and Israel’s place in redemptive history.

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[1] Emperor Claudius expelled Jews from the city of Rome, but the decree ended with his death in A.D. 54 allowing Jews to return to the city.