Monday with Mounce 1

Passage: Romans 1:5

Key terms: Genitive

Paul begins his letter to the church at Rome by saying that through Jesus Christ “we have received grace and apostleship unto obedience of faith among all the nations” (1:5).

There are several interesting challenges to translating this verse. “Nations” (ethnos) can refer to any group of people with a common culture (hence “nations, people”), but in a Jewish context it can refer to all nations other than the Jewish nation (hence “Gentiles”).

“Unto” (eis) cannot be translated with a preposition or even a single English word. “To bring about” (ESV) or some such periphrastic construction is necessary. Welcome to translation.

But the most difficult question has to do with the phrase “obedience of faith” (hypakoen pisteos); “faith” is in the genitive case.

The Greek genitive case has much the same flexibility that the English “of” carries. Wallace identifies over sixty ways the genitive can function. There are two basic options here.

1. “Obedience, that is, faith.” Paul could be saying that the purpose of his apostolic ministry is to bring the Gentiles to the point of faith (as opposed to works); this faith is the obedience for which the gospel calls. In grammar this is categorized as an epexegetical genitive, where the word in the genitive is explaining (“exegeting”) its head noun.

2. “Obedience that stems from faith.” This is the idea that once a person comes to faith in Jesus, their lives will start to change and move from disobedience to obedience, putting off the old and putting on the new. This would be a source or subjective genitive.

Does Greek help us make a decision? Well, only partially. Wouldn’t it be great if a knowledge of Greek made all the answers clear to us? It would make all the hours of learning the language seem more worthwhile. But as you will hear me say over and over again in this blog, grammar usually shows us the possible meanings, but it is context that determines which of the options is right for any particular passage.

True, by showing us the options, Greek grammar thereby limits possible meanings. There will be some possible meanings in English that simply lie outside the scope of what Greek allows. So in that sense grammar helps us interpret a passage. But for the most part grammar simply shows us the available options.

So what is it? It is interesting that the TNIV thinks that it means both. They translate: “to call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience.” One of the great dangers is to think of grammar as an apple pie cut into a set number of pieces, thinking that every passage must fall into one of the prescribed categories. This is how we tend to teach intermediate grammar, but it is not always helpful. For a native speaker in any language, grammar is much more on a continuum; and their use of a case in any one place may sit squarely on the cut between the two pieces of pie. That is what the TNIV is saying; “obedience of faith” doesn’t fit in any one piece of grammatical pie, and they are probably right.

The purpose of Paul’s ministry is to be the herald, to announce how people can live in relationship with the King. This means we come to a point in understanding that there is nothing we can do to establish the relationship; it is by God’s grace and at his initiation. “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling” sings the old song. It is by faith and not our works.

But is it possible to experience God’s cleansing sent to us through faith without our hearts being changed? Of course not. In the New Covenant our old heart is removed and a new softer, pliable heart of flesh is put in its place. But if our heart is changed, is it possible for our lives also not to change? Of course not. Changed people live in a changed way. This is why judgment (outside of John) is always done on the basis of our lives (i.e., works). Our changed lives of obedience show the reality of the heart changed through faith.

Language is almost never precise; it is almost always approximate, and we must be careful at not assuming too great a degree of precision. “Obedience of faith” is a summary description of the apostolic work of Paul, who understands that Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14).

This is the obedience of faith. It is an obedience that first shows itself in a response of faith, and an obedience that necessarily moves into a life of ever-increasing faithful obedience.

Bill Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek, and served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Visit www.billmounce.com for more info or read his blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.supportministry.com.

Comments

[Bill]

Thanks very much for that. It's very nice to remember that a simple genitive case is not always so simple. Now, can you please prepare another post to explain why every translator feels the "obedience of faith" is supposedly that of Paul's converts instead of Paul himself?

To me, the Greek sentence construction looks much more strongly as if Paul is saying the grace and apostleship he received sent him, himself, INTO the obedience of faith IN the nations. In other words, it was Paul's faithful obedience to God's gift of apostleship that made him go among the gentile world in the first place.

Furthermore, I do not see any context in the first chapter that suggests Paul's thoughts about his audience are anywhere near the topic of gentile converts displaying obedience. In fact, it is generally the character of all Paul's letters to emphasize faith and spiritual realities first, building towards behavioral exhortations by the close.

Beyond that, I find it completely outside Paul's theology to suggest that the purpose of his calling was to produce obedience. Oh, we might extrapolate to say that was his purpose in some sense, or in effect. But I don't recall elsewhere seeing Paul say so, in such terms. Indeed far from it, if memory serves.

Again, can you please tell me if there is any grammatical justification for the decision made by all major translators to attach the "obedience" as the property of the "nations"?

Is it normal to make the object of one prep.phrase the subordinate property of a different object of the next prep.phrase?

I would really appreciate any further help here. Thanks.

[Doug Mounce]

Great start to the week, thanks! Also like the follow-up; suggests that this will be an interesting site.

[tc robinson]

Thanks Dr. Mounce for tackling a difficult Greek construction the first day in the office.

What exactly does the ESV's rendering mean? Your point about how Paul understands his calling comes through clearer in the TNIV's "to call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience."

[Laura]

Thank you for tackling the versatile and often confusing genitive and for highlighting the importance of context.

[Richard]

I am glad to see you said "The purpose of Paul’s ministry is to be the herald, to announce how people can live in relationship with the King."

Recently I was reading Rom 1 and the introduction to the Psalter and I was struck by the echos of Psalm 2 in Rimans 1:4, 5.

In Romans 1:4 Paul makes reference to Jesus and his having been crowned king by means of his resurrection and so we can draw a straight line from Romans 1:4 through Acts 13:33 to Psalm 2:7.

Notice the link between Psalm 2:8 and Romans 1:5, in the former we read “ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” and in the latter Paul states that his role was “to bring about the obedience of faith…among all the nations”. So Paul sees his responsibility, his commission, to be the bringing about the fulfillment of Psalm 2:8, that is bringing the nations (read Gentiles) under the rule of Jesus as King.

[Bill Mounce]

Doug Mounce asked about the ESV's rendering. Actually, the ESV's policy was to leave ambiguous statements ambiguous unless it would lead to misunderstanding. There is no way to make a simple translation of this phrase that covers both possible meanings, and the Greek ambiguity is reflected in the English "obedience of faith," so we left it like that.