The Message of Romans You're NOT Likely to Hear

Matt O'Reilly
2 days ago
6 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

What motivated the apostle Paul?

Paul's letter to the Romans is one of the most preached books of the Bible. And much (most?) of that preaching has focused in on one theme in particular. If you've heard a sermon from Romans lately, there's a good chance this topic was the topic. And if you've not already guessed, the particularly common focus of preaching and writing on Romans is nothing less than justification by faith. For the last 500 years, this has been taken to be the central theme of Romans across the Protestant and evangelical traditions. At the center of that preaching is Romans 3:23-24, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift." Martin Luther famously said justification by faith alone was the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. And it's been seen as the central message of Romans ever since.

Now let me be clear. I'm not suggesting that justification by grace through faith is not an important theme in Romans. It certainly it is.

It's good. It's true. It's there.

However, justification by grace through faith is not all there is to Romans. And it may be that our focus on the doctrine of justification has kept us from seeing as clearly some of the other major themes that show up in this all-important letter. There's one in particular I'd like to highlight for you. And, I think, as we take a look at this under-emphasized aspect of Romans, it may just frame justification in a somewhat different light.

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The Question of Obedience

So, what is this often overlooked theme in Romans? It's Paul's very keen interest in cultivating the obedience of the nations to Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. Now someone might respond: the language of "obedience" only shows up seven times in Romans, and the langauge of "justification" and "righteousness" (same Greek root) shows up almost 70 times. How could obedience be on par with justification in Romans?

That's a great question. But here's the thing. Word frequency is only one indicator of importance when it comes to the theological significance of biblical themes. A word could show up far less often and still be quite important. The clue isn't simply how often it shows up. We also need to consider where a word or theme shows up. And it turns out that Paul's language of obedience in Romans appears in places that suggest it's quite important to him.

Why We Overlook Obedience in Romans

Before we look at the language of obedience itself, let's think about why we easily overlook it. We've already noted that so very much of the preaching and writing on Romans for the last few centuries has focused on justification by grace through faith, which is often set in contrast to the notion that we are justified by works. That is a legitimate contrast, though what Paul means by "works of the law" is contested and needs appropriate attention.

Here's the point. The negative attention on "works" has led us to be suspicious of the language of obedience. The argument might go like this: If we can't be saved by works, then neither can we be saved by obedience. Even more, too much focus on obedience is likely to lead us into the dangerous territory of works-righteousness. Consequently, we tend not to talk a lot about the necessity of obedience.

I don't intend to argue against a straw-man here, nor do I think this is a caricature. It seems to me that plenty of preaching has taken this line of thought as an unspoken assumption, even if it's not always explicitly articulated in exactly this way.

The focus on justification by faith likely makes us wary of the language of obedience.

Paul's Language of Obedience

The problem with this is that "obedience" and "faith" are not contrasting terms in Paul's thinking. In fact, the opposite is true. Paul sees these two terms as deeply related and conguent with one another. Twice in Romans Paul uses the phrase "obedience of faith" (ὑπακοὴν πίστεως, 1:5; 16:26). That phrase could be legitimately translated in multiple ways: "obedience that comes from faith" or "obedience that consists in faith" or "faithful obedience." Leaving aside the question of translation for now, let's recognize that the concepts of "faith" and "obedience" are deeply integrated in Paul's mind. They belong together.

Obedience as the Bookends of Romans

One of most important clues that obedience language is crucial to the message of Romans is that it bookends the letter-as-a-whole.

Romans 1:5, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name"
Romans 16:26, "to bring about the obedience of faith"

At the very beginning of Romans, Paul mentions "the obedience of faith" and at the very end he mentions it again. The technical term for this structural feature is inclusio - a literary device in which a text is framed by the same or similar phrases. It's a way of drawing attention to an important theme in the work in question. It also functions to draw attention to the thematic context in which the material between the bookends should be understood. That is to say, if a text begins and ends with the same theme or concept, then everything that comes in between should be understood in light of and in relation to that bookending theme.

Thus, whatever Paul has to say about justifiction by grace through faith, it should be understood in terms of whatever he means by "obedience of faith." Obedience frames the literary context in which justification is to be interpreted.

If these bookending texts were the only times "obedience" was mentioned in Romans, it would still be important. Frequency isn't the only indicator of thematic significance. We need to consider location and structure, too. And the entire letter to the Romans is structured to emphasize the importance of obedience language to Paul.

Context Clues

The importance of obedience language to Paul also shows up in the contexts in which that language occurs. In Rom. 1:5, the purpose of Paul's very apostleship is to cultivate or procure the obedience of the nations to Jesus. I don't think anyone would dispute the importance Paul put on his own apostolic identity, and the fact that he frames obedience as the purpose of his commissioning as an apostle is of great significance. If you were to ask Paul: why were you set apart as an apostle? The answer in Romans 1:5 is not for the justification of the nations; it's for the obedience of the nations. That's not to set those two themes over and against one another. They belong together in Paul's mind. It's only to draw attention to the possibility that the message of Romans may run in a different direction than it's sometimes portrayed.

In Rom. 15:18, Paul speaks of the way Christ himself is at work through Paul and his ministry to win obedience from the Gentiles. In this context, Paul frames Gentile obedience as the purpose or goal of his preaching of the gospel. He wants to go preach the good news in Spain because he is motivated by his commissioning to bring about the obedience of the nations to Jesus. If you were to ask Paul: why do you preach the gospel? In Romans 15, the answer once again isn't for the justification of the nations; it's for the obedience of the nations.

Where Does this Leave Us?

In light of these observations, I would argue that justification is crucially important to Paul, but that it is important to him in an instrumental sense. Justification is an essential means to the end of Gentile obedience to Jesus. People who are disobedient to God need to be reconciled to God in Christ before they can become people who are obedient to God. Justification is the instrument that makes the end of obedience possible. This is not to denigrate or downgrade the importance of justification; it's to honor the doctrine of justification by putting it in it's proper place. We do not honor God or scripture when we make God-ordained means into ends in themselves.

Beyond the instrumental nature of justification, we would do well to wrestle with the reality that one of the reasons Paul wrote Romans was to cultivate obedience to Jesus among all the nations of the earth. That sentence itself may be seem a shock to us. But if it does, it only serves to highlight how much more we have to learn about Paul and his most famous letter.

I explore the instrumental nature of justification even more in my latest book, Free to Be Holy: A Biblical Theology of Sanctification, available from Seedbed. Grab a copy on Amazon now.

Dr. Matt O'Reilly is Lead Pastor of Christ Church Birmingham in Alabama, Director of Research at Wesley Biblical Seminary, and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. A two-time recipeint of the Stott Award for Pastoral Engagement, he is author of Free to Be Holy and Paul and the Resurrected Body.