Fusing the Horizons: Suffering
ROMANS 8
LIFE IN CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT (5:12—8:39), cont.
Living by the Spirit (8:1–17)
In 8:1–15 Paul contrasts the new life in Christ with the best that law-informed flesh could do in 7:7–25. As 7:7–25 reflected life under law in the flesh introduced in 7:5, so 8:1–17 reflects the new life of the Spirit introduced in 7:6. Paul paints this contrast graphically, in the binary terms standard in his culture. Thus, for example, Jewish wisdom divided humanity into the righteous and the wicked, the wise and the foolish; likewise, Stoic philosophers divided humanity into those who were perfectly wise and those who were foolish.1 Yet all Jews recognized that most or all people sinned (see comment on 3:9), and even “advanced” Stoic philosophers recognized that they did not perfectly conform to the ideal wise person.2 In other words, Paul uses the familiar imagery of ideal types.3 The issue is not that a person of the Spirit might sometimes succumb to fleshly temptation. Rather, the issue is that a person either had God’s Spirit in them, hence lived a life oriented toward God, or a person had nothing more than themselves to depend on, hence could live only according to the flesh.
Whereas the person in bondage to sin in 7:15–25 recognizes that the law is good and thus that the person stands justly condemned for sin, there is no condemnation in Christ (8:1). This lack of “condemnation” recalls how condemnation belonged only to those in Adam, not to those in Christ (5:16, 18), for God took care of condemning sin in Christ in our stead (8:3). In Christ one is freed from the body of death (7:24), for one ruled by the life-giving Spirit rather than by the flesh (8:4–13) will be raised (8:2, 10–13).
After addressing the inadequacy of the law to make flesh righteous in 7:7–25, in 8:2 Paul shows how the law can be involved in making people righteous. The law of sin and death from which one is freed (8:2) refers to the law of sin working in one’s body (7:23, 25). This was Paul’s graphic way of saying that the law amplifies sin (7:8), hence brings death (7:5). Merely having the law in the mind made one conscious of, but did not free one from, sin (7:16, 22–23). Liberation would come only by the law of the Spirit (8:2), the promised Spirit of God that would inscribe God’s law in the hearts of his people so they would keep his ways (Ezek 36:27). The Spirit was the “Spirit of life,” who would raise the dead (Ezek 37:14; Rom 8:10–13).4 (As noted earlier, Jewish people sometimes used “life” as shorthand for the life of the coming age.) Those who are in Christ share in his death and resurrection, and by the fruit of the indwelling Spirit fulfill the moral intention of the law (8:4; cf. 7:4; Gal 5:18, 22–23).5
The heart of the problem with the law (8:3) was what it was not designed to do: it righteously teaches right from wrong, but it does not transform a person to be righteous, to undo the power of sin Adam introduced into humanity. It was “weak” because it depended on “flesh” to fulfill it—and flesh could never fulfill God’s righteousness (see the excursus on “flesh” after 7:14–25). Only Christ by dying could introduce righteousness (see 5:17–19). Although “concerning sin” need not be meant so narrowly, it probably evokes the biblical language of the levitical sin offering (over 80 percent of LXX uses of the phrase) to depict Jesus’s mission (cf. 3:25; 5:8–9). For God to “condemn sin in the flesh” was for him to execute judgment on it in Jesus’s person (cf. Jesus “becoming” sin in 2 Cor 5:21). By Jesus identifying with Adam, God destroyed sin in Jesus’s crucifixion, raising him as head of a new humanity,6 i.e., his body (see comment at 7:4; 12:5).
What flesh could not accomplish, however, God did in Christ; the Spirit within believers would cause them to live out righteousness (8:4). That Paul attributes this empowerment to the law of the Spirit is not surprising, for the new covenant differed from the old covenant precisely in that God’s people would now obey it (Jer 31:32–33) by God’s own Spirit (Ezek 36:27). Contrary to his detractors (3:8), Paul is not antinomian; he expects the righteous life attested in the law, but expects it by depending on God’s Spirit rather than human flesh. (Paul is thinking not of all individual commandments but of the righteous character that such commandments were intended to inculcate and point toward in an ancient Israelite context.)
In contrast to the law-informed mind defeated by the flesh in 7:22–23, Paul speaks here of a “frame of mind” (habitual way of thinking) guided by the Spirit (8:5–7). Philosophers spoke of focusing the mind on divine matters rather than bodily passions; Paul speaks of a new perspective on reality informed by God’s Spirit active in one’s life rather than dependence or obsession with one’s own ways (8:5).7 For Paul, the mind-frame of the flesh produced death (8:6); that is, the mind dominated by bodily desires (7:23) stood under the body’s sentence of death (7:24). But the frame of mind dominated by the Spirit involves life and peace (8:6): both eternal life (5:21; 6:23) and peace with God (5:1) established through Christ. Paul would also know that the mind trusting in God has “peace” in the Hebrew version of Isa 26:3.8
The fleshly mind was at enmity with God (8:7), i.e., not reconciled through Christ (5:10). The inability to submit to God’s law (8:7) has already been summarized in 7:16–23. The inability of the flesh to please God (8:8) challenged attempts to succeed by merely human works (cf. the conjunction of law, flesh and sin in 7:7–25); God is holy, and whatever works are not born from God’s own Spirit cannot not satisfy his holiness.
Lest his audience misunderstand his point, Paul emphasizes that all who belong to Christ have the Spirit dwelling in them, hence are “in the [sphere of the] Spirit” rather than “in the [sphere of the] flesh” (8:9). “In the flesh” here does not simply mean “in the body” (as in Gal 2:20), but walking according to the flesh (8:4–8, 12–13). All who are in Christ have the Spirit (the “Spirit of Christ”),9 hence they are able to live righteously (8:2–4, 13–14).
In 8:10–11, Paul shows that believers can trust God for the raising of their mortal bodies just as Abraham trusted in God’s resurrecting power at work in his own “dead” body (4:19). Their bodies might be “dead” (under sentence of death,10 7:24) because of sin, but the Spirit is life (as in 8:2, 6) because of the righteousness brought by Christ (5:17, 21) and expressed in believers’ lives (8:4). (The contrast here is not between the body and human spirit, but between depending on one’s physical, mortal self and depending on God, as in 8:2–9.) Since the Spirit dwells in them (as noted in 8:9), the Spirit through whom the Father raised Jesus would also raise them (8:11; Ezek 37:9–14).
Those who follow the way of flesh will perish, as flesh does; by living like the old way of flesh has been crucified with Christ, however, believers have confidence that they will be raised (8:12–13; cf. 6:2–11; Gal 6:8).11 Some ancient thinkers advocated that concern for bodily things tied the soul down to mortality, but meditation on heavenly matters prepared the soul for its life after separation from the body. Paul may borrow such language, but for him it is not the mind of itself (cf. Rom 8:5–7) but God’s Spirit that is the agent of life, and the hope is not disembodiment but finally bodily resurrection.
To be “led” by God’s Spirit (8:14) means at least partly to have the Spirit-inspired perspective that produces righteousness and life (8:4–6, 13; cf. Gal 5:18 with 5:16–23). Undoubtedly it also means that God’s Spirit speaks to one, assuring one of one’s relationship to God (8:15–16). The wording may particularly evoke the image of the exodus: God not only gave his people the law (8:2), but “led” them by his glory in the wilderness.12 He led them in this way during the interim period between their redemption from Egypt and their entrance to their “inheritance” in the promised land, language he further evokes here (8:17).13 Believers can trust God to lead their lives (not only morally, but more generally) in this period of interim existence.
The spirit of slavery (8:15) contrasts with the Spirit of the exodus just evoked in 8:14. As God adopted Israel in the exodus (9:4; Exod 4:22), so in 8:15–16 the Spirit assures believers (including Gentile believers) that they are God’s children.14 The Spirit is associated with believers as God’s children in the future, because the Spirit will raise their bodies (8:10–11), hence revealing them as God’s children (8:19–23, especially 23). But the Spirit provides believers a foretaste of that destiny (8:23), confirming their state as God’s children in the present. Because the Spirit was often associated with prophecy,15 the Spirit of Christ both inspires believers to cry out with Christ in their relationship to the Father in him (8:15), and inspires them to hear God’s fatherhood toward them (8:16).16 It seems doubtful that Paul is simply teaching Aramaic to Greek-speaking Christians in Rome in reciting, “Abba”; rather, he is evoking Jesus’s own prayer (perhaps even the specifically preserved one, as Jesus faced suffering; Mark 14:36). Those who have been baptized into Christ (6:3–4) share his son-ship, hence his inheritance (8:17).17 They confirm that status by sharing his sufferings, guaranteeing that they will also share his resurrected glory (8:17). (If one side of the cross involves Jesus taking believers’ sin, the other side involves them sharing his sufferings for righteousness.)
Fusing the Horizons: Faith and Righteousness
When Paul opposes “law-works” to “Jesus-faith,” he is not against obeying the law. It is in fact Jesus-faith that he claims produces true righteousness from the heart. The problem is not obeying the law, but seeking to be made right with God by it, apart from dependence on God’s mercy. In fact, most Jewish thinkers would have agreed with Paul that people depended on God’s mercy, although they did not usually radically contrast this appearance with human merit the way Paul did.
Jesus-faith means that believers must depend on (and be loyal to) what God has accomplished in Jesus to make them right with him. God has accounted such dependence as righteousness, so that those loyal to Jesus are acquitted and in right relationship with God. But just as God “accounts” or “reckons” such faith as righteousness (eleven times in ch. 4), those who trust Jesus should learn to trust enough to believe God’s verdict, and “reckon” righteousness to their own account (Rom 6:11). They should believe their new identity in Christ and live accordingly.
When Christians do not live out the character of God’s Spirit living in them (cf. the “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal 5:22–23), we fail to take saving faith to its logical conclusion. We do not do righteousness to get God’s gift; rather, righteousness is God’s gift in Christ, and we demonstrate active faith in Christ as we live accordingly. We do not stop sinning in order to be “saved”; rather, we are “saved” from sin through faith. To the extent that we really believe, however, we should live accordingly. While Paul usually presents this ideal in terms of two contrasting options (e.g., Spirit versus flesh, 8:3–11), the life of Abraham shows that the faith through which he was initially reckoned righteous (Gen 15:6) was imperfect (e.g., 16:2). Nevertheless, over the years it grew to the place where he could offer up the promised seed in obedience to the God he trusted (22:10–12). Initial justification and transformation is obviously crucial, but it is only the beginning of God’s plan to display his righteousness in those who depend on him.
Zeal in itself is no guarantee of pleasing God (cf. 8:8; 10:2–3). Even actions offered by one generation or person in sincere devotion to God can become for another routine legalism once severed from the motivation of the Spirit. That is why churches born out of passion for God can become legalistic or complacent in the next generation when they continue their forebears’ behavior without cultivating their relationship with God.
Many are skeptical of Paul’s claim here. Church history reveals that the church, at least on a large-scale political level, has often lived no differently than nonbelievers (and in some cases worse). But then, Paul’s theology may have been largely untested because it has been largely untaught; emphasizing either moralism or justification without transformation truncates Paul’s message of unity with Christ. Western Christendom today has imbibed the radical Enlightenment’s skepticism of the supernatural, suspicious of miracles and other divine interventions. For Paul, however, the genuine Christian life is “supernatural” (i.e., divinely empowered) from start to finish, a life by God’s own Spirit. Apart from acknowledging and embracing the Spirit, the best imitations of Pauline religion are just “flesh.”
Present Suffering, Future Glory (8:18–30)
The sufferings of the present age18 were not comparable with the future glory (8:18), which would somehow be proportional to it (cf. 2 Cor 4:17).19 The glory could evoke God’s presence in the wilderness (cf. 8:14; 9:4);20 it especially involves God’s eschatological revelation of glory (Isa 66:18–19), particularly the glorifying of his people (Rom 5:2; 8:21, 30; 9:23; 1 Thess 2:12; Isa 55:5; 60:1–2; 62:2).21 Paul elsewhere describes the resurrection body as involving “glory” (1 Cor 15:40–43; Phil 3:21).22 It may also imply the restoration of Adam’s lost glory (3:23; 1 Cor 11:7), i.e., complete restoration to God’s image in Christ (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:45–49). As wrath would be “revealed” to the wicked (2:5), so would glory be “revealed” in the righteous (cf. Isa 40:5; 1 Pet 4:13; 5:1).
Paul elsewhere speaks of eager longing for events designated for Christ’s return (8:23, 25; 1 Cor 1:7; Gal 5:5; Phil 3:20). In 8:19, however, all creation awaits that time; creation has suffered since Adam abdicated his role as God’s vizier and caretaker of creation (cf. 8:20; Gen 1:26–28).23 Creation longs for God’s “children” to be revealed (8:19); in what sense is this yet to happen? The Spirit testifies to believers that they are already God’s children (8:15–16), but this reality will be consummated when the Spirit resurrects their bodies (8:11–13). (Rhetorically, Paul includes three apok- words in 8:19, two of them also including d and k sounds.)
Whether we think that God or Adam “subjected” creation here, Paul’s earlier emphasis on Adam’s sin probably informs the cosmic effects of the fall here.24 This is especially likely if “vanity” or “futility” (mataiotēs) refers back to humanity rebelling against the creator in Rom 1:20–21.25 When God’s children are restored, this subjection to vanity will be reversed. Though created in God’s image (Gen 1:26–27) to govern the earth (Gen 1:28), humanity corrupted God’s image through idolatry (Rom 1:23). When the image would be fully restored in Christ (8:29), those in the new Adam would be better stewards of the new world (4:13; 5:17).26
Perhaps the dependence of creation’s restoration on the revelation of God’s children means partly that just as Israel’s restoration would signal the world’s salvation (11:12), it was only Christ’s return for his people that would transform the cosmos (cf. Isa 65:17–18; 66:22).27 The glorification and liberation of God’s children (8:21) would also liberate creation from “corruption” (8:21), i.e., mortality (cf. 1 Cor 15:42, 50; Gal 6:8). Adam introduced death into the world; Christ’s redemption brought life (Rom 5:17–18), and the effects are to be cosmic.28 “Slavery” (also 8:15) reflects the old order in Adam, including slavery to sin (6:6, 12–21) and perhaps the law (7:6, 25).
Longing for this liberation from perishability, creation’s present sufferings (8:18) are in a sense birth pangs of the future world (8:22). As Israel “groaned” because of slavery, a groaning God counted as a prayer for redemption (Exod 2:23), so in the present age creation (8:22), believers (8:23), and the Spirit (8:26) groan in the face of sufferings for the redemption of the body (8:23).29 “Redemption” refers to the freeing of slaves; the goal of freedom here was liberation from death (7:24), accomplished at the resurrection (8:11).30 But this image of groaning also links with the image of travail (8:22) here; travail was a common image for suffering in Scripture, also applied to the sufferings of the end time.31 Many Jewish people compared the expected end-time tribulation with birth pangs for the new world. For believers living between the Messiah’s first and second comings, that era of eschatological suffering was present (cf. Mark 13:7–8; Rev 12:2–5).32
Just as the messiah and his kingdom both had come and remained yet to come, believers are already adopted (8:15) and redeemed (3:24), yet in 8:23 they await the application of this reality to their bodies. Waiting for what is yet unseen exercises hope (8:24–25; cf. 2 Cor 4:18), which is deepened through tribulation and consequent endurance (Rom 5:3–4).33 The hope is not simply imagination, however, for it is grounded in a firm guarantee: just as the “first fruits” was the actual beginning of the harvest, so the Spirit within believers is their initial experience of the future age (8:23; cf. 8:11).34
Not only do creation and believers groan with eagerness for liberation, but Christ’s own Spirit groans with believers in their suffering, eager for their deliverance (8:26).35 Whatever the other benefits of the Spirit’s intercession (8:26–27), the Spirit works within believers during their sufferings to prepare them for conformity with the image of the crucified and resurrected Christ (8:28–29), i.e., to share his glory (8:30). The Spirit “helps”36 believers in the weakness of their current bodily state (cf. 6:19; 8:3; 2 Cor 12:9); just as Israel’s groans in suffering counted as prayers (Exod 2:23), so the Spirit offers an inarticulate prayer when believers are pressed by the hardships of the current age.37 The prophetic Spirit leads (8:14) and assures believers that they are God’s children (8:16), and also inspires prayer to God (8:15), though the “prayer” in 8:26 may be one that believers do not always even recognize. As the Spirit intercedes within believers (8:26), Jesus intercedes for them at God’s right hand (8:34).38 The Spirit who knows God’s heart (1 Cor 2:11) prays “according to God” (Rom 8:27), an idiom used elsewhere (cf. 15:5; 2 Cor 7:9–11) for what accords with God’s will. Believers never have to worry about the efficacy of this intercession, because it is born from God’s own presence within them (8:27), working to bring about his purpose (8:28). (Jewish people often spoke of God who “searches hearts.”)39
Still holding in tension the present sufferings (8:18, 22) with the future glory (8:18, 21, 30), Paul affirms that God40 causes all these present difficulties to produce good for those who love him (8:28). Some philosophers spoke of cooperating with fate or even maintaining happiness with it;41 Paul goes beyond this, not resigned to impersonal fate but trusting the benevolent design of God, even when it seems hidden from external human experience of the present. Those who love him are special to him (cf. 1 Cor 2:9; 8:3; Deut 7:9; Sir 1:10). These are “called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28),42 and his purpose is to conform them to the image of his Son (8:29), thus bringing them to glory (8:30). The “good” that God seeks for those who love him, then, is above all their ultimate glory.
God uses his Son Jesus as the paradigm for making believers into God’s children (8:29). Although Jesus was already God’s Son beforehand (8:3), the title applied in a special way after the resurrection (cf. 1:4; Acts 13:33). The resurrection of believers will also display them as God’s children in a new way (8:21–23); as the first to rise (1 Cor 15:20, 23), Jesus was the “firstborn” (Rom 8:29; cf. Col 1:18; Heb 1:6; Rev 1:5), also a designation of priority in honor. In conjunction with the context of present sufferings, being “conformed” to Jesus’s image involves a present process through, among other things, sharing Christ’s suffering (cf. 12:2; 2 Cor 3:18; Phil 3:10).43 Nevertheless, it is the future consummation of that conforming, achieved with the glorification of the body, that Paul emphasizes in 8:29 (cf. 1 Cor 15:49; Phil 3:21). Like Wisdom or the “logos” in Hellenistic Judaism, Jesus is God’s chief image through which God can stamp his image on others (cf. 2 Cor 4:4).44 But Jesus is also the new Adam, restoring the divine image marred in Adam (cf. Gen 1:26–27). Glorification (Rom 8:30) also involves restoration of lost glory (cf. 3:23). In both cases, the description suggests that the restoration is greater than the fall (cf. 5:15–20).
When modern readers encounter terms like “chose” and “predestine” (Rom 8:29–30) we tend to read them in light of later theological debates, such as the Greek fathers’ defense of free will against fatalism, Augustine’s defense of God’s sovereign grace against Pelagius, or the debates of the Reformation era.45 Paul’s own audience would think of Israel as the people God had chosen,46 and recognize that Paul’s argument was designed to show that God was so sovereign that he was not bound to choose (with regard to salvation) based on Jewish ethnicity. Paul might ground predestination in foreknowledge (8:29) to allow that God takes faith into account (in advance) in salvation (a question much debated by theologians). Whether or not this is the case, he apparently refers to God’s choice mostly to emphasize the initiative of God’s grace rather than human works (9:11). Perhaps more importantly, Paul will use even the term “foreknow” for Israel (11:2),47 thus connecting this claim with his larger argument. The specific formulation of Paul’s discussion of God choosing people is still driven by his overall plan in Romans to argue that God saves Gentiles as well as Jews through Christ (see comment on 1:16).
In 8:30 Paul uses rhetorical climax (cf. 5:3–4) to point to the certainty of sharing Christ’s glory based on what God has already accomplished. Paul presents all the elements in 8:30 as a fait accompli,48 since from the standpoint of God’s foreknowledge it is already done, though from the human standpoint glorification in particular remains clearly future (8:18, 21).
Secure in God’s Love (8:31–39)
Before illustrating his point about God’s gracious choice (8:29–30) from history (9:6–13), Paul in a rousing way gives the implications of his previous discussion. The present sufferings cannot be compared with future glory (8:18), and none of these sufferings can separate believers from God’s love (8:35–39). Paul generates emotion in this passage with rousing rhetorical questions (8:31–35), affliction lists (8:35, 38–39), and a conspicuous chiasm (an inverted parallel structure, 8:35–39).
Believers need not fear external criticism against their relationship with God (8:31, 33), for example, for not keeping some external details of the law like physical circumcision (2:26–29). The confident question of 8:31 evokes especially Ps 118:6: God is for me, so what can humans do to me?49 In 8:32, Paul echoes his earlier assurance that if God loved his people to the extent of Christ dying for them, how much greater would be the benefit of his resurrection (5:8–10)? He also echoes God delivering over Jesus (4:25; cf. 1 Cor 11:23; Gal 2:20),50 believers being God’s heirs (8:17), and perhaps believers’ rule of the coming world (4:13; 5:17). In 8:33–34a Paul echoes Isa 50:8: God vindicates (“justifies,” using dikaioō) me; who will contend with me? Who dares to bring a legal case against me?51 If God as judge has already acquitted believers in Jesus (who died for them, and even more52 rose), accusers raise accusations only at their own peril. The mention of God’s “chosen” recalls 8:29–30 and emphasizes God’s favor. Paul concludes 8:34 by showing that believers’ vindication is surely settled, for Jesus (whose death and resurrection justified believers, 3:24; 4:25; 5:9) intercedes just as the Spirit does (8:26). Jesus’s location at God’s right hand indicates his exaltation (Ps 110:1), presumably including over hostile powers (Rom 8:38–39), and emphasizes his complete access to the one with whom he intercedes.
Now Paul offers a brief but fairly obvious chiasm:
A Nothing can separate believers from Christ’s love (8:35a)
B List of sufferings (8:35b)
C Believers thoroughly overcome (8:37)
B′ List of sufferings (8:38–39a)
A′ Nothing can separate believers from God’s love in Christ (8:39)
Paul emphasizes God’s love in 8:35, 39, and Christ’s love in 8:37 (which in Paul’s thinking is linked with his death for others, Gal 2:20). Paul has already shown the great price God’s love for humanity cost him in Christ (5:5, 8). Here the context involves God’s eternal purposes for his children; nothing can thwart these purposes, which are already as good as done (8:29–30; cf. 9:11, 15–18). God justifies (8:33), so he will glorify (8:30); nothing can condemn believers (8:33–34). In some other contexts Paul enjoins perseverance and warns against falling away (e.g., 11:22; 1 Cor 9:27; 10:5–12; Gal 4:11, 19; 5:4; Col 1:22–23), but the rhetorical function of the present context is assurance in Christ.
Ancient writers used affliction lists for various purposes. Philosophers often used them, as Paul did for his own ministry (e.g., 1 Cor 4:9–13; 2 Cor 4:8–10; 6:4–10; 11:23–33), to demonstrate the integrity of their character exhibited in testing.53 The present sufferings include deep poverty and persecution (8:35);54 for the latter point (which will be a critical matter for the Roman church within a few years) Paul in 8:36 cites Ps 44:22, from a psalm of complaint (as in Rom 15:3). Whereas believers are “reckoned” righteous in God’s sight (Rom 4:24), here they are “reckoned” as sheep for slaughter.55 Whereas the experience of such wholesale slaughter bespeaks utter defeat, Paul in 8:37 declares that believers “prevail completely”(BDAG ύπερνικάω), experiencing utter victory.56 This is because even the harshest circumstances cannot dislodge believers from God’s love and the incomparably greater hope of glory that awaits them (8:18; hope made firm through affliction, 5:3–4). They are special to God; he is with them and has a purpose for them, working even their sufferings for eternal glory (8:28).
Having noted concrete afflictions like hunger and martyrdom, Paul turns now more generally to the powers and the cosmic dimension of the suffering. Because “rulers” (archai) and “powers” (dunameis) occur in the context of angels and other superhuman powers, many scholars believe that Paul refers here to heavenly ranks of spiritual authorities that stand behind the earthly ones.57 Some have taken “height” and “depth” to refer to astrological58 or, more simply, astronomical terms; in any case, the antithesis functions together as a Hebraic merism for all creation (Isa 7:11)—the greatest extremes could not separate God’s presence (Ps 139:7–12, especially 139:8). Paul’s climactic obstacle is “anything else created”—a reminder that if everything other than God is God’s creation (Rom 1:20, 25) and if God is for his people, nothing can be against them. Indeed, creation itself longs for and will celebrate the deliverance of God’s people (8:19–22).
Fusing the Horizons: Suffering
Paul’s theological approach to suffering would encourage his Roman audience. They had faced the trauma of many of their number being expelled (49 CE), a situation that had ended perhaps less than five years earlier (54 CE), and would soon face deadly persecution (c. 64 CE). These believers also shared broader human experiences like grief for loved ones.
Suffering recalls our attention to God’s faithfulness and promises. Believers in many parts of the world experience suffering on a dramatic level. Many have faced deadly persecution, such as (among many other possible examples) in northern Nigeria, Iran, and the Indian state of Orissa. Others have suffered from genocide and horrific ethnic conflicts, such as in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Even in the face of such intense suffering, though, believers have often learned to cling deeply to God for hope (cf. 5:3–5). My wife was for eighteen months a refugee during war in Congo- Brazzaville, and her journal records her experiences of hope in God that gave her strength to face the anguish.
Moreover, the possibility of chaos is not far from any society. For example, an infrastructure collapse would threaten massive death in heavily urbanized, economically interdependent societies. Yet even without such large-scale catastrophes, all believers face suffering—the death of a family member, struggles with a severely autistic child, miscarriages, and so on.
Counselors warn against giving a glib assertion that “all things work for good” to a person who is suffering. Instead, we should begin to learn to trust Paul’s message of God’s sovereign care and destiny for us before we suffer. At times we may be content learning such ideas without incorporating them in our lives; when we face suffering, however, with only God to cling to, the genuineness of our faith is tested. Then, with God’s help, we have opportunity to show our faith, to further develop an intellectual affirmation into a life of deeper trust.
1. E.g., Seneca Dial. 7.11.1; Arius Didymus Epit. 2.7.11i, p. 78.12–18. This Stoic idealization occasioned criticism (e.g., Cicero Fin. 4.24.66–68; Lucian Hermot. 76–77). Stoics, however, spoke of life according to nature or wisdom, not according to the eschatological Spirit.
2. E.g., Seneca Ep. Lucil. 87.4–5; idem Dial. 7.18.1; Erskine 1990: 74; Engberg- Pedersen 2000: 61–62, 72–73; cf. similarly Confucius Analects 14.30.
3. See Keener 2008a: 211, 213–15 (also noting the same division in Qumran, 214; cf. Flusser 1988: 64–65; additionally new life in CD 16.4–6). One might speak even of two races of humanity (see e.g., Arius Didymus Epit. 2.7.11g, p. 72.5–18; Philo Alleg. Interp. 2.4).
4. Cf. T. Ab. 18:11A; m. Sot. 9:15; perhaps Sib. Or. 4.46; Jos. Asen. 16:14/7–8; still, the same wording could apply to Gen 2:7 (T. Reu. 2:4). See especially Philip 2005: 137–38; Raharimanantsoa 2006: 393–96.
5. For the Spirit enabling righteousness, though not as strongly as here, cf. 1QH 4.29–32 (in contrast with flesh); 16.11–12; but the primary background is Ezek 36:27.
6. Sending Jesus in the “likeness” (cf. 5:14; 6:5) or image of sinful humanity (cf. Phil 2:7) probably suggests (in a manner consistent with 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6–8) that Paul views Jesus as preexistent (Hurtado 2003: 196; cf. Byrne 1997); in Paul’s theology, Jesus was fully human, but was himself sinless (2 Cor 5:21). To paraphrase Athanasius, in this context Jesus came in humanity’s likeness (8:3) so humans might ultimately share again the divine likeness (8:29).
7. See Keener 2008a: 215, 219–21; on the mind in philosophy, see 212–13; its openness to the divine in 219–21; for the mind in Romans, 225–29. Cf. e.g., Philo Unchangeable 111 on the pleasure-enslaved mind that loves the body and the passions.
8. Keener 2008a: 224; for philosophers’ perspectives on the mind with regard to death and peace, see Keener 2008a: 222–24.
9. The label certainly implies Jesus’s deity (vs. later sources like Gen. Rab. 2:4, even Isa 11:2 refers to the divine Spirit; cf. Acts 16:7; Turner 1994: 436). Fee 1994a: 331, finds proto-Trinitarianism in 8:9–11. Some philosophers spoke of deity dwelling in humans (Epictetus Disc. 1.14.13–14; 2.8.14), but sometimes in pantheistic terms; Paul’s imagery is more Jewish (cf. e.g., T. Sim. 4:4).
10. For “dead” meaning about to die, cf. Gen 20:3; b. Pesah 110a; even “half-dead” meant apparently or nearly dead (Luke 10:30; Callimachus Hymn. 6.59; Cornelius Nepos Generals 4.5.4; Livy 23.15.8; Quintus Curtius 4.8.8; Suetonius Aug. 5).
11. In light of the preceding context of Romans (see 5:15–21), each person chooses solidarity with Adam or with Christ: living according to the flesh inherited from Adam leads to the death that Adam introduced, whereas sharing the way of Christ’s obedient death leads to resurrected eternal life. One puts to death bodily deeds by recognizing one’s death with Christ (6:3–4, 11).
12. E.g., Exod 13:21; 15:13; Bar 2:11; Wis 10:17–18; 1 En. 89:22; Sib. Or. 3.255; 4 Ezra 14:4. For the Spirit and the exodus, cf. Isa 63:11; Hag 2:5; Mek. Besh. 3.82–83.
13. For exodus language in this paragraph, see e.g., Keesmat 1999. After Paul’s day it became clear that the interim between Jesus’s comings may have stretched longer than that between stages of salvation in the exodus; nevertheless it offered an analogy for an interim time.
14. A traditional title of Israel (e.g., Hos 11:1; Ps. Sol. 17:27; Sib. Or. 3.702–4; Sipre Deut. 43.16.1; 45.1.2; 96.4.1; 308.1.2); for the language of God’s children in Jewish and other sources, see Keener 2003b: 400–2.
15. Menzies 2004: 49–101; idem 1991: 53–112; Turner 1996: 86–104 (including inspired wisdom and praise); Keener 1997: 10–13, 31–33. On the Spirit “inspiring” the “Abba” cry and other speech here, see Dunn 1999: 82, 85–87, 89–91.
16. Given the context of inheritance, “witness” might evoke witnesses to a will (Gaius Inst. 2.104–8), but in any case constitutes strong assurance, and may be conventional early Christian language (cf. Heb 10:15; 1 John 5:7–8; John 15:26; Rev 19:10), which Paul also associates with conscience (Rom 2:15; 9:1).
17. On eschatological “inheritance,” see Hester 1968; comment on 4:13. Paul’s repetition of “children” from 8:16 is anadiplosis (for rhetorical reinforcement); on the relationship between adoption and inheritance, see e.g., Walters 2003.
18. Paul thinks of the “birth pangs” of the coming age (8:22), probably related to the Jewish expectation of suffering before the end (see comment on 8:22).
19. For the principle, cf. also Wis 3:4–5; 2 Bar. 15:8; 19:7; 48:50; m. ’Abot 5:23; Sipre Deut. 307.3.2–3; 310.4.1.
20. Exodus depicts the pillar and cloud (Exod 13:21–22), but Jewish tradition spoke also of God’s “glory” (1 En. 89:22) and “presence” (shekinah; Mek. Shir. 3.67–70).
21. Cf. also Sib. Or. 3.282; 4 Ezra 7:98.
22. In 1 Cor 15:40–41, he evokes the image of heavenly bodies as understood among his contemporaries (see discussion in Keener 2005b: 131).
23. Although Paul may personify creation here, its label “creation” sanctifies the cosmos by relating it to its creator (as Jewett notes) rather than the Gentile approach of treating earth as “mother” (though Paul does allow it “birth pangs,” 8:22). Stoics spoke of nature’s “sympathy” or working together (Murray 1915: 43); if Paul uses any element of the idea, he adapts it to reflect God’s sovereignty.
24. Cf. e.g., Gen 3:17; Jub. 3:28; 4 Ezra 7:11–12; Sipre Num. 18.1.1. For God as subjecter (cf. Pauline usage in 1 Cor 15:27–28; Phil 3:21), see e.g., Schreiner; for Adam, e.g., Talbert; for both, Byrne.
25. The only other use of a cognate in Romans. Since that context involves idolatry (1:23), a common use of “vanity” in Scripture (e.g., 1 Kgs 16:13, 26; 2 Kgs 17:15; Isa 44:9; Jer 2:5; 10:3, 15; Jonah 2:8; Wis 13:1; 15:8) and early Jewish sources (3 Macc 6:11; Sib. Or. 3.29, 547–48, 555), the idea may be that instead of recognizing God’s greatness in creation (Rom 1:20), fallen humanity worshiped it, making images from it (1:23). With humanity’s restoration to God’s image in Christ (8:29), creation would also resume its rightful role. Creation’s “corruption” (phthora, 8:21) might echo the wrong worship of “perishable” (phthartos, the only other cognate in Romans) created things (1:23).
26. In a context addressing creation, even “glory” (8:21) may allude to transformation into Christ’s “image,” since Paul employs it as something of a synonym for image in 1 Cor 11:7 (cf. 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4; 4Q504 f8R:4).
27. See also 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1; 1 En. 72:1; 91:16; Jub. 1:29; 4:26; 2 Bar. 44:9. In Paul’s theology, believers have proleptically entered the new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).
28. Many ancients thought that the heavens were imperishable, an image naturally transferable to the future age. Livable conditions would not exist in our universe without entropy and decay, and advanced life depends on the death of other life, all of which preceded humanity. Aside from such information being unavailable in Paul’s day, however, he was speaking theologically of the sort of restoration depicted in figurative language in Isa 11:6–7; 65:17–18, 25; 66:22.
29. “Groaning” is not limited to exodus or childbirth contexts (see e.g., Sib. Or. 3.417, 438, 558, 602, 752), but the present context suggests these allusions.
30. For end-time redemption, see e.g., 1QM 1.12; 15.1–2; 18.11.
31. Cf. 1QH 3.3–18; 1 En. 62:4; later, b. Sanh. 98b; Shab. 118a; possibly 1 Thess 5:3. For judgment imagery more generally, see e.g., Ps 48:6; Isa 13:8; 21:3; 26:17; 42:14; Jer 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:6; 31:8; 48:41; 49:22, 24; 50:43; Hos 13:13. Against the supposition that its common figurative use deprived the image of its original strength for Paul, see Gal 4:19, 27.
32. The Qumran sectarians also apparently believed that they were living in the end-time tribulation, a period initially designated for a forty-year generation (CD 20.14–15) but that was then stretched to fit the duration of their exile (1QpHab 7.13–14).
33. Cf. possibly Hab 2:3, in the immediate context of Paul’s controlling text in Rom 1:17.
34. For the Spirit and eschatology in Paul, see e.g., Cullmann 1956: 117; Dunn 1975: 308–18.
35. For God’s eagerness for his people’s deliverance, cf. Isa 30:18; b. Sanh. 97b.
36. The term “help with” applies to supporters to whom work is delegated in Exod 18:22; Num 11:17; in the latter, the Spirit enables this support. Probably more relevant are texts about God sustaining his people (e.g., Pss 3:5; 18:35; 40:11; 41:12; 119:116; Isa 26:3), perhaps especially Isa 42:1 (involving the Spirit). Paul employs an intensive form of the verb here; God is so worthy that only his Spirit can inspire adequately worthy worship and intercession (cf. Origen Prayer 4; Gregory of Nazianzus Or. Bas. 31.12).
37. Against some commentators, this is an experience different from tongues, which Paul values (1 Cor 12:10; 14:18) but regards as articulate. Some experiences were considered so sublime or sacred they were unutterable (cf. 2 Cor 12:4); Paul may transfer that sacredness to how God feels and responds to the sufferings of his children.
38. Cf. perhaps the paraklētos of John 14:16; 1 John 2:1; discussion in Keener 2003b: 956–61.
39. E.g., 1 Chron 28:9; t. Sanh. 8:3; on his full knowledge of hearts, Ps. Sol. 9:3; 14:8; Let. Aris. 132–33; Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.166; idem Ant. 4.41; Philo Providence 2.35; see further in Keener 2003b: 532.
40. “All things work” appears the likeliest reading, but no Jew would believe these “all things” were random (cf. Philo Spec. Laws 4.187; Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.294; m. Ber. 9:5; Eichrodt 1983: 19–20; even many philosophers believed that a divine Mind ordered “all things”). The context is clear that God is sovereign in working through the present sufferings; cf. also Gen 50:20 (although Paul’s outcome in this context is esp. eschatological).
41. See e.g., Seneca Dial. 1.1.5; 1.2.4; 1.3.1; 1.5.8; 7.8.3; 7.15.4; idem Ep. Lucil. 96.1–2; 123.3; Musonius Rufus frg. 38, p. 136.1–8; Epictetus Disc. 1.14.16; 4.7.9; idem Ench. 8; Crates Ep. 35; Marcus Aurelius Med. 6.16; Diogenes Laertius 6.2.63.
42. The “called” include Gentiles (9:24–26), including the saints in Rome (1:6–7); the called will be glorified (8:30). God’s “purpose” depends on his grace, not works (9:11).
43. The divine likeness in humanity could be intelligible to some philosophers (Seneca Dial. 1.1.5; Musonius Rufus 17, p. 108.15–16; Diogenes Laertius 6.2.51; Porphyry Marc. 13.233–34; 16.267; 26.413–14, 419–20; Iamblichus Myst. 7.4), but given Paul’s many explicit biblical quotations, the dominant and nearest source Paul shares with his audience would be Scripture (see esp. Rom 5:12–21; cf. Sir 17:3; Wis 2:23; Philo Creation 69; 4 Ezra 8:44; L.A.E. 37:3; Apoc. Mos. 10:3; 33:5; T. Naph. 2:5; m. ’Abot 3:15). “Image” also connoted sonship (Gen 5:1–3; cf. Seneca Dial. 1.1.5; Menander Rhetor 2.6, 407.9; Philostratus Hrk. 52.2; Gregory of Nazianzus Theo. Or. 4.20).
44. See Wis 7:26; Philo Creation 26; idem Spec. Laws 3.207; idem Planting 18; idem Dreams 2.45. For the coalescing of this image with the first man, see Philo Alleg. Interp. 1.43; for the stamping of the first man’s image on others, see m. Sanh. 4:5; b. Sanh. 38a.
45. Most ancient Jewish authors did not pit God’s sovereignty against human choice (cf. e.g., Josephus J.W. 2.162–63; idem Ant. 18.13; m. ’Abot 3:16); a sovereign God could sovereignly allow much choice and still accomplish his purposes. Cf. also the balance in, e.g., Augustine Simpl. 10; Jerome Pelag. 1.5; for the change in Augustine’s position, see e.g., Reasoner 2005: 97–100. In Scripture, God works in and around choices (see e.g., Exod 13:17; 1 Sam 9:8, 16). If God did not sovereignly make some choice possible, one might expect all people to follow his requirements and moral will; yet environment and genetics determine much, and any degree of choice might be impossible without God sovereignly enabling it.
46. See e.g., Neh 9:7; Jer 33:24; Sir 46:1; 2 Macc 1:25; Jub. 1:29; 22:9–10; 2 Bar. 48:20. This should not be taken to exclude individual predestination (emphasized, e.g., in Qumran; for the righteous remnant, cf. 1QS 1.10; 2.5; 9.14; 11.7; 1QM 10.9–10; 12.1, 4; 15.1–2; 17.7), though most Jewish people did not treat the human and sovereign divine elements as mutually exclusive.
47. In Romans (cf. also Jub. 15:30); the terminology could also be applied more widely (1 En. 9:11).
48. Perhaps something like the completed action implied in the so-called “prophetic perfect” in Hebrew prophecy (e.g., Isa 53:4–6), although Hebrew tenses do not match English temporal tenses.
49. More generally, God often affirms that he is with and for his servants (e.g., Gen 26:3, 24; 28:15; 31:3; Jer 20:11; cf. T. Iss. 7:7); God fights for his people in Exod 14:14, 25. In view of the quotation in Rom 8:33–34, cf. perhaps especially Isa 50:7.
50. Paul employed this verb paradidōmi earlier for Jesus’s death in a context referring to Abraham, but not expressly mentioning the Aqedah. Many scholars, however, do see an allusion to Abraham offering up Isaac here; whether or not they are correct, such an analogy at the least displays the costliness of the sacrifice.
51. Paul changes LXX Isaiah’s krinō to katakrinō, but he seems to have been using these interchangeably (cf. Rom 2:1, 3, 12, 16, 27; 3:4–7; 5:16, 18; 8:1, 3). Paul may use hupophora (where one asks what can be said against one’s case; Rhet. Her. 4.23.33).
52. “Yea, rather” is not so much an afterthought but a common rhetorical technique (e.g., Rhet. Her. 4.26.36; Pliny Ep. 7.31.7; cf. Rowe 1997: 141). For the thought, cf. 5:9.
53. See Fitzgerald 1988: 43–70; idem 2000: 16–17.
54. “Nakedness” could mean little-clothed (2 Cor 11:27; Tob 1:17; 4:16; Euripides El. 308; Livy 45.39.17; Epictetus Disc. 3.22.45–47). “Sword” can apply to execution (13:4) or war, but he probably applies the text in 8:36 to unjust, violent oppression (esp. for faith); later R. Akiba applied it to Jewish martyrs (Bonsirven 1964: 56; cf. more generally Sipre Deut. 32.3.4).
55. For sheep destined for slaughter, see e.g., Isa 53:7; Jer 25:34; Zech 11:4, 7.
56. For remaining unconquered in suffering, see Seneca Ep. Lucil. 27.3; 67.16; idem Dial. 7.8.3; Epictetus Disc. 1.1.23; 1.18.21–22; 2.18.31; for martyrs triumphing by martyrdom for truth, Xenophon Apol. 29 (Socrates); Rev 12:11; 15:2. Many contend that “overwhelming” conquest here alludes to sufferings not simply being vanquished, but working for good (Rom 8:28).
57. For angels of nations, see e.g., Dan 10:20–21; Deut 32:8 LXX; Jub. 15:30–32; 1 En. 40:9; 61:10; 89:59—90:19; 1QM 14.15–16; 15.13–14; 17.5–8; Mek. Shir. 2:112ff. For angels over nature, see e.g., Jub. 2:2; 1 En. 20:2; 60:12–22; 66:1–2; 2 En. 19:3–4; 1QM 10.11–12.
58. E.g., Knox 1939: 106–7; MacGregor 1954: 23.