Romans 1 Footnotes

1:6-7 “Called” refers not to God’s selection of some individuals rather than others for salvation but to his identification of those whom he names as his own. Later Paul quoted Hs 2:23; it says God will call them “my people” who were not his people; they will be called children of the living God (9:26). Thus, God himself called the Roman Christians to belong to Christ.

Saints, meaning “holy ones,” does not designate some rank of Christians as superior to others; it describes all those God has set apart for himself. In the NT it designates believers in Christ. All Christians—those who belong to him—are saints(Ac 9:13; Rm 8:27; 15:25-26; 16:2; 1Co 14:33).

1:17 “Righteousness” is blamelessness before God. Contrary to the widely held view that righteousness is a human achievement, Paul’s position is that righteousness is a gift that can’t be earned. God declares guilty sinners righteous and so puts them in right relationship with himself. Those who respond to God’s gracious offer to be made right with him receive the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit’s power, those who have been declared righteous are in the process of being transformed into the image of Christ (8:29).

1:18 God’s wrath is not an uncontrollable, destructive emotion directed against those God dislikes. “Wrath” describes his just, holy response to sin and rebellion. From human perspectives that are shaped in a world permeated by sin and injustice, wrath and love are seen as polar opposites. In God, however, there is no conflict between his great love and his terrible wrath. Most humans know that something is wrong with the world, longing that it be put right. The multiplicity of religions and sects give a variety of explanations of why the world isn’t as it should be. They also prescribe a variety of logically incompatible solutions to right the wrongs. Both God’s love and his wrath are the guarantors that what is wrong will be put right. To deny or minimize God’s wrath is to obscure what he revealed in the death of his Son who bore God’s wrath in our place.

1:20 Paul was clear that no one can claim ignorance of God’s existence and power. But at a glance, this verse seems unduly harsh toward remote tribal peoples who have never heard the gospel. God has clearly revealed many of his attributes in the natural world, giving enough information about himself for people to respond to him in some manner. Certainly people cannot know all there is to know about the Creator from observing nature. However, they can know enough to be held accountable for responding to the knowledge. Paul affirmed that God will render just judgment to each person according to whatever light that person received—whether natural revelation, the Jewish law, or the gospel of Christ. No Scripture hints of a second chance to trust in Christ after death; equally, the NT is clear that salvation resides solely in Jesus (Jn 14:6; Ac 4:12). Since God is willing to go to such great lengths to reveal himself and rescue us from sin, then surely we can be confident of his just, loving attitude toward the unevangelized.

1:24 God does not cause people to sin; rather, he may “deliver them over” to their sinful choices, giving them what they want (see vv. 26,28). When they abandon God’s ways, God abandons them—further intensifying their awful condition.

1:26-27 In addressing the issue of homosexuality, Paul appealed to what is “natural” (physis—used in 2:27; 11:21,24; Gl 2:15) to contrast heterosexual relations with same-sex acts. His reasoning is not solely biological, however. The problem is people abandoning God’s created order—the topic in this context (v. 20). Those engaging in homosexuality are not simply abandoning what is “natural,” biologically speaking; they are rejecting the way God intended all of his creation to operate. Paul was saying that humans are created for natural, heterosexual relationships within marriage between one man and one woman—that’s the only kind of sexual relationship the Bible recognizes as acceptable. This is the context within which God greatly blesses sexual experience (Pr 5:15-19; Sg 5:1).