NOTES for Rom 1:16-25

Paul singles out and connects with one another the key concepts of the rabbinic tradition of his time, rooted in the writings of the sages of the pre-exilic age. Righteousness is described here as a state in which a person can abide on the condition of deep and stable relations with God. It is precisely a state, connected with the dynamics of these relations, and not a set of certain actions, norms, or rules. All a person's actions, all the norms and rules by which he is guided in life, are needed only in order to preserve stable relations with God and to give God's presence a place in his life. For without His presence there can be no talk of righteousness, whatever a person may do and whatever rules of life he may follow.

The apostle is sure that, if the issue is pagans, and among the Roman Christians there were many recent pagans, God can also be known through contemplation of the world He created; and if a person sees nothing of the kind, it is only because he does not want to see. But the possibility of seeing is not everything; it is important to accept Him and to "glorify" Him, making His presence the center of one's own life. The apostle, like the sages of antiquity, contrasts true knowledge, knowledge as the knowledge of God, with what he calls "reasonings." Paul plays on the contrast traditional in wisdom literature between wisdom as the knowledge of God and righteousness, on the one hand, and the wordiness of fools, on the other, which by no means brings lovers of verbosity closer to God and even, on the contrary, distances them from Him.

For Paul, life in the Kingdom is inseparable from following the Torah, and therefore in his letters, like the Old Testament authors, he often sets two ways against each other: the way of righteousness and the way of ungodliness (vv. 16-18). Of course, Paul's witness was addressed not only to Jews but also to those who had recently been pagans. It implied a certain universalism, and therefore the apostle had to answer, for himself and for others, the question of how far the Torah extends to those who may well have known nothing about it.

Naturally, for the first generation of Christians, all of whom were connected with the Synagogue to one degree or another, knowledge of the Torah was taken for granted. But the apostle addressed everyone who was ready to hear his witness, and in that case the question of those who knew nothing about the Torah and the commandments ceased to be purely theoretical.

Indeed, if without knowledge of the Torah it is impossible to follow Christ and enter the Kingdom, what is to be done with those who, for objective reasons, like many pagans, may have known nothing about the Torah and may not even have heard of it? In answering this question, Paul turns to the image of the inner Torah, interpreting it in relation to pagans as something that, by analogy with natural knowledge of God, could be called the "natural Torah." He says that to those who did not know revelation, God revealed Himself through His creation, so that they have no excuse for ignorance (vv. 19-20). At first glance, there is nothing in this statement of the apostle that goes beyond the idea of natural knowledge of God. But Paul does not consider it from a purely natural or psychological point of view. Speaking of the limits of natural knowledge of God, the apostle connects them not with the limits proper to the human mind, but first of all with the choice made by those who came to know Him at the moment when the presence of the Creator was revealed to them behind the beauty and majesty of creation. Instead of holy awe and gratitude, the response to such natural revelation often turned out to be theories and concepts produced not so much by a desire to know the truth as by a thirst for self-assertion (vv. 21-22).

This is precisely how Paul explains the emergence of paganism as a religion and as a way of perceiving the world, which for him is inseparable from violation of the Torah, in this case the second commandment (vv. 23-25). The Torah is an objective reality. It has existed as long as God's relationship with the human being has existed, and therefore as long as the human being himself has existed. And violation of the Torah is not simply a crime against the moral law given by God, but the destruction of the very relationship that binds God and the human being. It is no surprise that the result of such destruction is the spiritual and moral degradation of which the apostle speaks (vv. 26-32).

For the first time Paul proclaims that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, not through observance of rules or even through keeping the commandments. He will develop this thought later; for now he mentions it almost in passing. Important things, however, are very often said in passing.

The power of God is proclaimed first to the Jew and then to the Greek—that is, to every person of pagan origin, not necessarily a Greek by birth. (Here too, one of the themes of the epistle is outlined, to be developed in greater detail a little later.) For now Paul speaks of the problems of former pagans who have abandoned their former way of life but have not forgotten it and who live among people who continue to follow it.

Many people today may regard the derivation of perversions from idolatry as a questionable exaggeration, especially since perversions did not disappear together with idols. Nevertheless, Paul points to the real connection between falling away from God and departing from moral norms that correspond to human nature. Departure from God meant turning to man-made idols; correspondingly, rejection of the patterns of the natural world He created led to attempts to construct dubious models of behavior. Yes, the human being is free to create new forms of behavior. The trouble is that, in many cases, such experiments mean stepping away from the only path by which one can cross the swamp.