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Romans 1 is the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul the Apostle, but written by an amanuensis, Tertius, while Paul was in Corinth, in winter of AD 57-58. Acts 20:3 records that Paul stayed in Greece, probably Corinth, for three months. Paul wrote to the Roman Christians in order to give them a substantial resume of his theology.
Contents
Text
Structure
The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows:
Greeting
The letter is addressed "to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints" but not to "the church in Rome" as such. Methodist founder John Wesley suggested that the believers in Rome "were scattered up and down in that large city, and not yet reduced into the form of a church". As with many of the Pauline epistles, Paul's first thoughts are of thanksgiving:
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world (Romans 1:8).Verse 16
Verse 17
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.Citation from Habakkuk 2:4
The Septuagint has ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται.
The phrase comprising the last three Hebrew words of Habakkuk 2:4 is cited in Greek three times in the New Testament, all in Pauline epistles — Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; and Hebrews 10:38 — "demonstrating its importance to the early church," asserted Dockery.
Moody Smith, Jr. showed that in this verse, by exegesis of Galatians 3:11 (also quoting Habakkuk 2:4), Paul took the ek pisteos with the verb zesetai not by the subject of the sentence, ho dikaios. This is supported by Qumran interpretation of the text, as well as Paul's contemporaries and more recent commentators, such as Lightfoot.
God's Revelation in Nature
In verses 19-20, Paul writes:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.This is one of the important statements in the Bible relating to the concept of 'natural revelation': that other than revealing Himself in Christ and in the Scriptures, God reveals Himself to everyone through nature and history, and all human beings have the capacity to receive such revelation because they continue to bear the divine image. It echoes what Paul and Barnabas has said to a crowd in Lystra in Acts 14:16-17:
The living God ... made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness
Paul begins to explain from verse 18 onwards why the gospel (Greek: το ευαγγελιον του χριστου) is needed: it is to save humankind, both gentiles and Jews, from the wrath of God (Greek: οργη θεου). The wrath of God is explained by Lutheran theologian Heinrich Meyer as "the affection of a personal God, ... the love of the holy God (who is neither neutral nor one-sided in His affection) for all that is good in its energy as antagonistic to all that is evil".
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:Verse 27
New American Bible Revised Edition
and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.Equivalent to "was due" , which is better, though the word expresses a necessity in the nature of the case - that which must needs be as the consequence of violating the divine law.
Greek concordance and lexicon define this word as: "a reward, recompense, retribution"; "remunerating, a reward given in compensation, requital, recompense; in a bad sense." See also Epistle to the Romans#The judgment of God (1:18–32)