University of Cambridge
How Revolutionary is Romans 13:1–7? The Influence of the Christ-Event and the Jewish Theological Tradition in Paul’s Conception of Governing Authorities
In Paul and the Gift, Barclay demonstrated how the incongruous grace of the “Christ-gift” overrides the Torahic system of worth in the Apostle Paul’s understanding of justification, merit, and ecclesiastical. In this paper, I extend Barclay’s interpretative approach and apply it to an analysis of Paul’s conceptualisation of the role of governing authorities (ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχούσαις) in Romans 13:1–7, a passage that is often exegeted without reference to the subtleties of the Apostle’s overarching theological framework. My thesis is that the Christ- event leads to a recontextualisation, rather than a revolution (cf. Barclay), of traditional Jewish perspectives concerning the role of governing authorities in Paul’s own understanding as presented in Rom 13:1–7. I argue this in three part. First, I outline why “inaugurated eschatology” is the most authoritative and germane framework for understanding how the Christ-event informs Paul’s perspective on governing authorities in Rom 13:1–7. Second, I demonstrate the indebtedness Paul has to his Jewish theological context in this area by briefly noting the thematic consistencies between Rom 13:1–7 and key texts from the Tanakh and Second Temple Literature concerning God’s sovereignty over civil government and their
purpose within the created order. And third, I provide a theological-interpretation of Rom 13:1– 7 to highlight how Paul’s inaugurated eschatological understanding of the Christ-event has recontextualised these traditional Jewish perspectives on the role of governing authorities in his conceptualisation with reference to three areas: accountability, ability, and application. Through this study, I seek to demonstrate the value of applying recent approaches to analysing the relationship between Paul’s shared traditional Jewish and post-resurrection contexts to the contentious, yet burgeoning, area of NT political theology, while also providing nuance regarding how this relationship plays out differently when utilised to study the diverse range of theological issues wrestled with in the Pauline tradition.