Romans. Craig S. Keener
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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.
7. Cf. those disobeying the truth about God (1:25) facing wrath (1:18).
8. On divine impartiality, see most thoroughly Bassler 1982. God not discriminating between Jew and Gentile is a theme of Romans (cf. 3:30).
9. E.g., Sir 16:12; Paul here echoes Ps 62:12; Prov 24:12.
10. For one synthesis of how judgment by works and justification only by faith fit in Paul’s concern for reaching Gentiles, see insightfully Boers 1994: 221–24. Those with the law within fulfill righteousness (8:2–4; Gathercole 2002: 223), and are still evaluated for works (14:10; 2 Cor 5:10).
11. One could debate whether his rhetoric is hypothetical here or hyperbolic in 3:9–23 (where he seems to place every individual under sin), his objective being merely to show that both groups (Jew and Gentile) need Christ. But it is doubtful that he thought of morally sentient adults who had not sinned, of Adamites who did not need to be in Christ (5:12–21), or of people of flesh who did not need the Spirit for life (8:2–10).
12. They even have the Spirit “testifying” like the conscience here (8:16), while apparently retaining conscience’s testimony as well (9:1).
13. Already used in Greek-speaking Judaism (e.g., Josephus Ant. 16.103, 212; idem J.W. 4.189, 193; T. Reu. 4:3; Wallis 1974–75; idem 1975).
14. In moral senses, e.g., Xenophon Mem. 4.4.19; Aristotle Rhet. 1.15.6, 1375ab; Cicero Inv. 2.22.65; 2.53.161; Seneca Ben. 4.17.4; Musonius Rufus 16, p. 104.35–36; Epictetus Disc. 2.16.27–28; Horsley 1978. Philo viewed Moses’s law as a written version of the law of nature (Najman 2003).
15. E.g., Jub. 7:20; t. ‘Abod. Zar. 8:4–8; b. Sanh. 56a, bar.; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 12:1; Gen. Rab. 34:8.
16. Reductio ad absurdum was a familiar line of argument (cf. e.g., Lysias Or. 4.5–6, §101; Seneca Ep. Lucil. 83.9; 113.20; Heath 1997: 93–94).
17. See discussion in Forbes 1986; Watson 2003; Keener 2005b: 221–22.
18. On boasting here, cf. Gathercole 2002: 162–88, 215. Given possible allusions to Isa 42:6–7 here, it is not impossible that this Jewish “instructor” is also seeking to reach (and circumcise) Gentiles (cf. Isa 42:6; those in darkness in Rom 1:21), not unlike the teacher in Josephus Ant. 18.82. But this leader of the blind was himself blind and in darkness (cf. Rom 11:8–10).
19. Cf. analogous challenges to hypocrisy in antiquity, e.g., Seneca Controv. 2.6.5; and many other cases of accumulating rhetorical questions, e.g., Lysias Or. 10.22–23, §118; Cicero Phil. 3.6.15; Musonius Rufus 11, p. 80.22–25; 13B, p. 90.13–16; 15, p. 98.25–27; Lucian Tyr. 10. These add rhetorical force (see Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dem. 54).
20. See e.g., Jer 7:9; Grieb 2002: 32; cf. 1QS 1.23–24; CD 4.16–18; 8.5–8.
21. E.g., Xenophon Apol. 25; Cicero Quint. fratr. 1.1.8.25; idem Fin. 3.9.32; Lucian Hermot. 37; Vit. Aes. 127–28; Hermogenes Progymn. 6, On Commonplace, 12.
22. Cf. Acts 19:37; Josephus Ag. Ap. 1.192–93, 248–49; for Jewish assault on pagan shrines, cf. Exod 34:13; Deut 7:5; 12:3; Philo Embassy 200, 202.
23. E.g., Josephus Ant. 4.207; idem Ag. Ap. 2.237; Philo Moses 2.205.
24. Cf. Lev 22:32; Sipre Deut. 328.1.5; Moore 1971: 2:101; Urbach 1979: 1:357; Keener 1999: 219.
25. For Jewish views of Gentiles, see Donaldson 1997b: 52–74.
26. The Gentile practitioner “judging” the Jewish nonpractitioner may involve merely being a comparison standard for God’s judgment (see e.g., Matt 12:41–42/Luke 11:31–32; Lev. Rab. 2:9; Pesiq. Rab. 35:3; comparable scenarios involving other kinds of figures in ’Abot R. Nat. 6A; 12, §30B), but some Jewish eschatological scenarios did involve the righteous judging the wicked (1 En. 91:12; 95:3; 98:12; 1QpHab 5.4; 4Q418 frag. 69, 2.7–8; Sipre Deut. 47.2.8).
27. That it was symbolic identification rather than ontologically efficacious is clear from where it had been omitted (Josh 5:2–8; cf. Exod 4:25).
28. Some other individuals allowed this concession, at least in some extraordinary cases (Josephus Ant. 20.41; see further Watson 2007: 75–78); but this would be a minority view in Jerusalem and probably even in most Diaspora synagogues.
29. Generally, when Paul contrasts “flesh” and “Spirit,” as in 2:28–29, he refers to God’s Spirit (see e.g., 1:3–4; 8:4–9, 13; cf. Gal 3:3; 4:29; 5:16–17; 6:8; Phil 3:3). The Spirit is the foretaste of the future age (Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), and the symbol is irrelevant compared to the new creation (Gal 6:15).
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