How a post-new-perspective, narrative-historical reading of Romans differs from a Reformed reading

In his 2016 NIGTC commentary on Romans, Richard Longenecker provides a summary of what he regards as the key themes that Paul “considered distinctive to his own proclamation of the Christian gospel” (1045-46). They strike me, for the most part, as being expressive of a Reformed outlook. I have quoted the eleven themes in bold below with a brief critique of each point. Then I have set out a quick summary of eleven key issues or arguments that emerge when the letter is read in accordance with a post-new-perspective, narrative-historical hermeneutic.

A critique of the Reformed interpretive paradigm

1. Righteousness as not only a basic attribute of God’s person but also God’s gift to repentant sinners.

We will not understand Romans properly if we treat “righteousness” as a theological abstraction, to be discussed apart from history, narrative, eschatology. It was a matter of being “in the right” at a time when the rightness both of the God of Israel and of those who professed to “serve” him through worship, etc., was in doubt or was contested. The righteousness of God becomes apparent under eschatological conditions, when there must be wrath against the Greek and against the Jew and the “righteous” must live by faith. Righteousness is inseparable from the idea of eschatological vindication.

2. Personal relationship with God as resulting from one’s positive response of faith in God and trust in what he has provided, and not on any supposed meritorious “works of the Law.”

This is the wrong place to start—perhaps the most unhelpful legacy of Reformed theology. The driving soteriological issue in Romans is not an individual’s personal relationship with God, etc., but Israel’s historical relationship with God. The antithetical formulation of good faith and bad “works of the Law” also downplays the importance of concrete “good works.” The Law was not a bad thing, but it was the cause of the eschatological crisis rather than the solution to it.

3. The faithfulness of Jesus as the foundational theme in a “new covenant” relationship with God.

Most people would understand this in personal terms. The “faithfulness of Jesus”—a new perspective emphasis, admittedly—established a “new covenant” relationship with God for Israel. I would also draw attention to the misleading prioritisation of the secondary theme of redemption rather than of the primary theme of kingdom—the coming rule of the root of Jesse, son of David, over the nations (Rom. 15:12). At the heart of Romans is not reconciliation with God but anticipation of a new future for the ancient world.

4. The faith of Abraham as the paradigm for the type of response that God asks for and accepts.

Abraham did not merely believe; he believed a promise regarding an improbable future and on that basis was counted in a right relationship with the God who made the heavens and the earth. For Paul, righteousness and justification were not so much things given to individuals as the acknowledgment that they were right at this critical moment in time to believe in God’s new future for the ancient world.

5. Peace and reconciliation as having been brought about by Jesus Christ.

The reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles was a sign of the coming rule of Israel’s God over the nations and not over his own people Israel only. It is not necessarily the case that peace and reconciliation are central for the formation of the church today. We need to ask what God is doing, what our “eschatology” is. Then it should be clear what needs to be central to community formation.

6. The experience of being “in Christ” and “in the Spirit” as characterizing the new life of a believer in Jesus.

Yes, but in Romans this is immediately and quite sharply focused in the participation of the apostles and churches in the sufferings of Christ, sustained by the Spirit of the Son who cried, “Abba! Father!” When members of this essentially Jewish splinter group suffer persecution, perhaps specifically from their own community, they do so as Jesus’ “brothers,” emulating his faithfulness in the face of rejection, suffering, and death.

7. The reality of having been “adopted by God into his family” as being true for all believers in Jesus.

This may be valid from our point of view, but for Paul adoption meant the inclusion either of gentiles or of Jews who were already “family” in the community of Jesus’ suffering “brothers.” Essentially, people were adopted into the agonising experience of Jesus in Gethsemane (Rom. 8:15). Also, “believing in Jesus” doesn’t really do justice to the consistently eschatological orientation of Paul’s argument in the letter. The belief was that he would rule the nations.

8. The realization of what it means to be God’s righteous remnant—both theologically and ethically; both for Israel and for believers in Jesus.

This only makes sense in the context of the rejection of the larger part of God’s people—wrath against the Jew, wrath against the modern church. If we want to use this language, we have to be willing to say who has been excluded.

9. The recognition that God knows and accepts his own “righteous remnant,” wherever such people exist, whatever our own prejudices and perceptions on the matter.

Yes, if that means that we may find ourselves—if we are not careful—among those who are cast into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Righteousness” is not a vacuous abstraction. It signals a demanding way of life.

10. Basic principles of a Christian “love ethic,” with application of these principles to the civic and societal situations that the Christians at Rome (and probably elsewhere throughout the Roman Empire) were then facing.

11. A further statement with respect to the Christian “love ethic,” with application to the ecclesiastical situation that had arisen among at least some of the Christians at Rome (and possibly also existed among many other believers in Jesus elsewhere).

There is no reference in these two last statements to the intra-Jewish-communal tensions that I think were making life difficult for believers, both externally and internally. The practical instruction of Romans 12:1-15:7 is dictated by the need to demonstrate a clear difference between the synagogues and the gentile-friendly groups of Jewish believers in Jesus in order to protect the church from civic interference and punishment. It seems, however, that Paul did not expect this strategy to work for long. A violent daytime was approaching when they would need to put on the “armour of light” and “Jesus Christ.”

A narrative-historical interpretive paradigm

1. God is the creator of heaven and earth, and his glory is evident in the created order.

2. The good materials of God’s creation should not be made to serve the futilities of human cultures. The blatant and blasphemous materialism of Greek religious practice, in the form of idolatry, lies at the heart of the offence.

3. The severe corruption of personal and social life in its various forms is then concrete evidence of the “wrath of God” against any human culture. This does not mean, however, that every culture or every individual culture is unrighteous and liable to the wrath of God. Paul was aware that there were righteous people among the gentiles. Rome at this stage was a servant of God, not subject to condemnation.

4. Civilisational crises, such as the current climate crisis, may be an outworking or consequence of the wrath of God. It is again the blatant and reckless materialism of our culture, in the form of over-consumption, that lies at the heart of the offence. This should give urgency and substance to a creational monotheism.

5. The God of Romans is not the God of creation only; he is also the God of history and can be expected to show himself to be “righteous” or “in the right” in history. A key question that the church today must first ask and then answer is, as COP 28 draws to a close: where is the creator God in the climate crisis?

6. The God of history has seated his Son at his right hand and has given him all authority and power. I don’t see why that shouldn’t remain a critical confession of faith, though the kingdom narrative may be a thing of the past. The story has moved on. We are in a global, planetary era.

7. The people of God should provide a benchmark of righteousness against which their worlds may be judged. Perhaps, though, in the current situation, we have left it too late. We may not be the remnant that we think we are.

8. Personal “salvation” consists, in the first place, in becoming a member of the redeemed people of God on the basis of belief or faith in the whole story, at some moment in history.

9. When the church faces a crisis, it is or will be justified by its faith in the God of history, who will always preserve a priestly people for himself, in keeping with promises made to the patriarchs. The language of justification has been over-personalised and needs to be restored to history.

10. The church lives by the dynamic and powerful Spirit of God, who is not least the Spirit of prophecy. It is prophecy that informs and energises and sustains the narrative-historical perspective.

11. The church as a prophetic community embodies in its corporate identity and life a foreseen future. But we desperately need to wake from our sleep, abandon the self-indulgent activities of the night, and put on an “armour” appropriate for the daytime of the coming crisis.