Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive into Paul's Greatest Letter

by Tom Wright

I hope it is clear just how relevant all this is to today’s urgent concerns. There are serious debates just now about human responsibility in and for creation. Some, seeing the awful mess that humans have made of the world, are saying that we should back off, live simply and let nature put itself right. Others still insist that God is going to burn up the present world anyway and take us off to heaven, so that ecological concern is a distraction from the gospel. And others, including many in our own day, are saying that we humans have to do it all, to sort it all out. What role might a Pauline Christian have in all this? Some might respond that perhaps indeed in God’s new creation we will have this authority to set creation free; but we are not yet raised from the dead! The new heavens and new earth aren’t here yet; so there’s not much we can do at the moment, is there? When people say that to me, as they sometimes do, one of the possible answers goes like this. Suppose someone came to me for a pastoral visit, and said something like, ‘You see, I have this problem with sin. I keep on sinning and I can’t stop. But one day God will give me a moral makeover! So I don’t need to worry about it now, do I?’ The proper answer to that would be firmly but gently to confront such an enquirer with a Romans-based inaugurated eschatology. According to Romans 6 and 8, and for that matter Colossians 3, we are already raised with the Messiah, so we are supposed, in the power of the spirit,...