Romans 1:7

Letters in Paul’s day began with the sender’s name, then the readers’, then a greeting. Paul keeps that order, and he fills the space between his own name and his readers’ with an account of his calling and of Christ. He most likely wrote from Corinth around AD 57, near the end of his third missionary journey, as he prepared to travel to Jerusalem and then on to Rome and Spain.

The church at Rome was one he had neither founded nor visited. It was made up of Jewish and Gentile believers, the Gentiles probably the larger part, and they faced tensions over the Law and the gospel and over Israel’s place in God’s plan. So Paul tells them who sent him and what he preaches before he says anything else. His authority rests on a direct commission from the risen Christ, and the message he brings is God’s own. These opening verses already hold the themes of the whole letter: the gospel of God, the Son raised from the dead, grace, faith, and the nations brought in alongside Israel.

Paul’s first title is servant. The Greek doûlos comes from a verb meaning to bind, and it means a slave or bondservant, someone owned by a master and devoted to his will. His first word about himself is the One he belongs to, and his whole life and ministry are given to Christ. Elsewhere he says that every believer is Christ’s servant (1 Corinthians 7:22), and he counts all his former gains as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord (Philippians 3:7–8). In taking this name he follows his Master, who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7).

“Called to be an apostle” names his office and where it came from. The word for called, klētós, means invited or appointed, and Paul uses it again for the believers in verses 6 and 7. An apostle, apóstolos, from a verb meaning to send forth, is a delegate or authorized messenger, one sent with a message and with the authority to deliver it, and in Paul’s case often with miraculous signs. His office came straight from the risen Christ, who chose him to carry his name before the Gentiles (Acts 9:15–16). Paul’s sending carries on the mission of the Son, whom God sent into the world that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17).

“Separated unto the gospel of God” gives the purpose. The verb aphorízō is formed from “from” and horízō, “to set a boundary”, and it means to mark off by a boundary, to set apart or appoint. God drew a line around Paul’s life and gave it wholly to one task, as he did when he called prophets such as Jeremiah and Isaiah. Paul says that God separated him from his mother’s womb and called him by his grace, to reveal his Son in him so that he might preach him among the heathen (Galatians 1:15–16), and the Holy Ghost said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). The Son was set apart before him, the one “whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world” (John 10:36).

“The gospel of God” is good news that comes from God and belongs to him, his own saving message. Paul will call it “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16), and the rest of the letter opens it out. Even the name he signs with suits his work, for Paul is his Roman name, and he writes as the apostle sent to the Gentiles.

Verse 2 says where the gospel came from. The verb proepangéllomai means to promise beforehand or announce in advance. The good news about Jesus was a pledge God made long before, part of his plan from the start, and in Christ he has kept it.

God gave the promise “by his prophets”. A prophet, prophḗtēs, is one who speaks for God, sometimes foretelling what is to come and also bringing God’s word to his own generation. Moses, David, Isaiah and Jeremiah all stand among them. Their words were written in “the holy scriptures”. The word graphḗ means a writing, and in the plural the sacred writings as a whole, here the Old Testament. Holy, hágios, marks these writings as set apart and sacred, breathed out by God and so trustworthy (2 Timothy 3:16).

Jesus himself read the Scriptures this way, telling his disciples that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning him (Luke 24:44). Peter told Cornelius that all the prophets give witness to him (Acts 10:43), and he wrote that the prophets searched diligently into the salvation they foretold, testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow (1 Peter 1:10–12). The promises run through the whole Old Testament: the servant who suffers and is glorified in Isaiah 53, the new covenant Jeremiah announced (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and the seed of Abraham in whom the nations are blessed (Galatians 3:16). “For all the promises of God in him are yea” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

This mattered to both parts of the church in Rome. Jewish believers revered the Scriptures and knew the hope of the Messiah from them. Gentile believers learned that the gospel was ancient and came from God, standing apart from the passing ideas of their city. The Scriptures gave them one authority to stand on together. Paul says the same elsewhere: the gospel he preached came by the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it “is not after man” (Galatians 1:11–12). Abraham, he writes later, was fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able also to perform (Romans 4:20–21), and here the same God has kept his word.

Verse 4 sets beside his human descent the other side of who he is. The verb horízō means to mark out or bound, to appoint, decree or specify, and the KJV renders it “declared”. It is a decisive, authoritative act of God. Jesus was openly marked out as the Son of God, a Son by his very nature, and God confirmed it for all to see. The same root stands in verse 1, where Paul was “separated”, marked off for the gospel. God marks out Christ as his Son, and he marks off Paul to proclaim him.

The declaration came “with power”. The word dýnamis means force, might or miraculous power, and here it is the might of God shown in victory over death. It came “by the resurrection from the dead”. Paul names the death, burial and rising of Christ as the gospel he received and passed on (1 Corinthians 15:3–4), and he writes that if Christ be not risen, preaching and faith are both vain (1 Corinthians 15:14). The risen Christ is the firstfruits of them that slept, and in him all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:20–22). He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25). Peter proclaimed that God had made the crucified Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), and to Cornelius he called him “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). God has given him the name which is above every name (Philippians 2:9–11).

The resurrection was God’s seal on Jesus’ life, ministry and sacrificial death, and it turned the disciples’ despair into bold preaching. It also confronted both of Paul’s audiences. A Messiah from David’s line was the Jewish hope, and a crucified and risen Messiah who is Son of God with power stretched that hope beyond what many expected. Among Greeks the resurrection of the dead was a strange idea, and when Paul spoke of it at the Areopagus, some mocked (Acts 17:32).

“By whom” points back to Christ. Through him Paul and his fellow apostles “received grace and apostleship”. The word cháris is graciousness, favor freely given, and here it is God’s favor that both called Paul and equips him for the work. The word apostolḗ means a commission, the office of an apostle. The calling is itself a grace, and grace is the strength to carry it out. Paul says he was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God, though he was less than the least of all saints (Ephesians 3:7–8). The leaders at Jerusalem saw that the gospel to the uncircumcised had been committed to him (Galatians 2:7–9), and Christ sent him to the Gentiles to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light (Acts 26:16–18). He calls himself “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13).

Verse 6 brings the Romans into view. “Among whom are ye also” places them among the nations Paul has just named, and the “also”, kai, joins them with believers everywhere. Then he names them “the called of Jesus Christ”, hoi klētoi, using klētós as a title for a people. It is the word he used of his own call in verse 1, so apostle and church share one calling, each to its own work. Their faith began with Christ’s call, and they belong to him.

Calling runs deep in Scripture. God called Abraham out of his country (Genesis 12:1–3) and said to Israel, “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine” (Isaiah 43:1). Among Greeks and Romans a calling, klēsis, could be an invitation to a feast, a summons to court or an appointment to an office. Paul uses the word for God’s summons to salvation, a call that achieves what it intends: “whom he called, them he also justified” (Romans 8:28–30). God is faithful, by whom we were called unto the fellowship of his Son (1 Corinthians 1:9). He called us with a holy calling according to his own purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9–10), and he chose the foolish and weak things of the world so that no flesh should glory in his presence (1 Corinthians 1:26–31). Paul takes up God’s choosing at length in Romans 9, and he asks those who are called to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called (Ephesians 4:1).

Verse 7 at last names the readers: “all that be in Rome”. The gospel had reached the capital of the empire, and Paul writes to every believer there.

He calls them “beloved of God”. The word agapētós is an adjective meaning beloved or dear, one who is loved. God’s love for them comes first and is freely given, and their identity rests on it. God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:28–39). Believers are beloved in the Son, of whom the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

“Called to be saints” joins klētós with hágios, the word behind “holy” in “the holy scriptures” of verse 2. Saints are holy ones, set apart by God for himself. In the New Testament the word belongs to every believer, a standing God gives through Christ, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). That standing then calls for a holy life, as Peter writes, “be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Paul greets the Corinthians the same way, as those “called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2).

These verses set out the gospel before the letter argues it. God promised it long before and kept his word. It is about his Son, a true man of David’s line and the Son of God declared with power when he rose from the dead. Through him grace goes out to every nation, for the honor of his name.

They also tell believers who we are. Paul was called and set apart, and the same word names every believer in Rome as called, beloved of God and made a saint, belonging to Jesus Christ. That standing rests on God’s love and his call, which hold steady through all our changing feelings. The grace and peace Paul gives the Romans come from the Father and the Son, and they are God’s gifts to all who believe.