This is a short excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. Wipf and Stock, 2014. All rights reserved.
Consider Romans 1:1–4 for a moment. This is Paul’s salutation to the churches in Rome. In this salutation, Paul does something that he doesn’t do in other letters, he defines what, or more precisely who the gospel is. According to Paul in this passage, Jesus is the gospel. Of all the ways that Paul could describe Jesus, he describes him around two features of his identity: (1) the seed of David, and (2) the Son of God. This is a bit unusual. There are a number of ways that Paul could describe Jesus in this section of the letter. Paul could talk about the one who died on the cross, the one who gave his life for many, the one who is from Nazareth, the one who was born of a virgin Mary, etc. Why does Paul opt to point to Jesus being the son of David and the Son of God?
Normally, in our modern context which is characterized by christological heresies that either diminish the divinity or humanity of Jesus, we would read into this text that Paul is defending orthodox Christology—Jesus is 100 percent man and 100 percent God. This may be what Paul is doing, but it’s not likely. It’s much more likely that Paul is pointing to the kingship of Jesus. Paul is underlining the fact that Jesus is the one through whom God became king. Where do we see this?
To begin, we know that the church in Rome was made up of both Jews and Gentiles as Paul’s reason for writing to the church in Rome is to resolve the theological disputes among them regarding criteria for people to be eligible for membership among the covenant people of God. Paul points out right away that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh,” (Rom 1:3) and is thereby accentuating the fact that Jesus is the long awaited messianic king which in turn demonstrates God’s faithfulness to Israel in fulfilling his promise that through the family of Abraham the world would have access salvation (blessing). God has been faithful to Israel and his faithfulness to Israel has resulted in the redemption of the world.
This isn’t the only piece of information that Paul’s gives us. As already noted, Paul also says of Jesus that he “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead . . .”( Rom 1:4). What importance does this have? If the first piece of information regarding God’s faithfulness to Israel is more for the Jews, then this statement is more for the gentiles (although both statements are certainly intended for both the Jewish and Gentile audience). Keeping in mind that Paul is writing to the church in Rome, we become mindful that this is Caesar’s city. This is the place from which Caesar rules the known civilized world. Not only this, but Caesar’s claims about himself were quite lofty—Caesar claimed to be the Son of God. This, according to Caesar, is what gave him the right to rule the world and advance his kingdom to the utter most extremities of the earth.
What becomes clear, then, is that Caesar, for Paul, personifies the rule and reign of death over the creation. It is through physical might, violence, aggression, and world colonization that the human rulers of the broken world reign. Paul, in pointing out that Jesus is the Son of God, is doing much more than making a claim about the divinity of Jesus. Paul is saying that it is Jesus, not Caesar, who reigns. Jesus is the rightful Son of God. The proof is in the pudding—Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus’ resurrection attests to the fact that he reigns over death. Paul will even flesh this out a later on in the letter to the Romans.
In this little introduction then we find Paul underlining Jesus as King. He is the Messianic, Davidic, Jewish King that personifies God’s faithfulness to Israel as well as to the world. This reality also accentuates that Jesus has usurped the reign of sin and death by making a parody out of the Roman cross. Jesus, not Caesar, is the King. God has taken back what was rightfully his since the beginning. God’s World Renewal Plan has come to a climax with Jesus. This is what Paul is saying in this segment of Scripture.
