Romans Through New Eyes

Abstract

"In the first part of this article I began a survey of Paul's letter to the Romans in the light of "the new perspective" on Paul that has enjoyed popularity with students of the New Testament in recent years. We have examined Romans 14-15 and seen in them the clue to the purpose of the letter as a whole, and now we turn to the beginning of the letter and find we are able to read it with new eyes. The Separate Table Option We notice at once the prominence of the phrase "To the Jew first and also to the Greek". With our "Reformation spectacles" on we gloss over this, or we see it as declaring the universal sinfulness of "Man" before God, but in context it must have sounded a much more militant note. What is being steadfastly denied in these early chapters is not that Man can save himself by his "good works", but that Jews have any special privileges before God. What is being asserted in chapters 1 and 2 is the impartiality of God. His wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men (1 :18). The Jewish reader (and indeed the Christian reader) is assured that God will render to every man according to his works (2:6). Possession of the law is no protection to those who do not keep it, and the "works of the law'' by which no human being will be justified (3:20) are not that patience in well doing that we are assured will be rewarded by eternal life (2:7), but just those practices required by the Jewish religion - circumcision and table separation, for example - that were the focus of Jewish national pride and ensured that the people of God were confined to one nation and to those willing to join it"