Romans. Craig S. Keener

Читать онлайн книгу.

Romans - Craig S. Keener


Скачать книгу
Roman culture valued seeking honor and glory, but the glory Paul emphasizes here is eternal (8:18; 9:23), equivalent to God’s praise at the judgment (2:29). On the honor sense of “glory” (and seeking only honor from God, as in 2:29), see the information in Keener 2003b: 885–86; for other aspects of “glory,” see ibid., 410.

      Romans 3

      Made Right by Trusting Christ (1:18—5:11), cont.

      God’s Faithfulness (3:1–8)

      It is not God who has broken the covenant, Paul insists (3:1–8). Ancient writers often used rhetorical questions, and some of these, like some of the questions here, could be objections supplied by an imaginary interlocutor, a straw man to be refuted.1 The interlocutor here raises the obvious objection to Paul’s argument: if ethnic Jewishness and outward circumcision did not guarantee covenant membership (2:25–29), what was the value of these matters (3:1)?2 Paul replies that Israel’s benefit is a greater opportunity, although this opportunity also entailed (as Paul has been noting, 1:16; 2:9–10) greater responsibility. The opportunity involved their role in salvation history (a role Paul continues to assign to ethnic Israel, 9:4–5; 11:12, 15) and their greater access to God’s clearest revelation in Scripture (an access today shared also with Christians). God “entrusted” them with his oracles (3:2). (Although Paul says “first” in 3:2, he does not get beyond this initial benefit here [cf. 1:8]; many think he picks the subject up in 9:4–5. Certainly he revisits the present issues more fully in chs. 9–11.)

      The interlocutor again objects in 3:3: surely Israel’s lack of faith does


Скачать книгу