Unlocking Romans
Kirk, J. R. Daniel. Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008.
Unlocking Romans first came to my attention in a post by Foolish Tarheel Daniel Kirk’s New Book: Unlocking Romans. Although I was not planning to read anything on Romans now (since I had spent some time on it last year), I was impressed by FT’s recommendation of Daniel Kirk as a person and his work. FT thinks that Kirk’s exegesis is “careful and sensitive” and whose sensitivity spans from “historical, cultural, communal, and theological issues of the first century to missional, practical, theological, and pastoral concerns for both then and now.” With this recommendation and the fact that Daniel Kirk would probably interact with the New Perspective on Paul, I decided to read the book. I was not disappointed.
Starting with the question of “Who is God?,” Kirk says that “no question is more central to the study of Paul than to determine at the outset which God we expect to find as the topic of his letters” (2). Can God be defined in universal terms without reference to the story of Israel? His answer is no.
If this is true, then we need to start asking questions about how God will fulfill his promises to Israel and be faithful to His covenant. Therefore the following statement gets to the heart of the thesis of the book:
“In Romans, the resurrection of Jesus becomes Paul’s key for demonstrating that the promises contained in the Scriptures have been fulfilled in the Christ event…Because Paul’s God is the God of particulars, the God whose righteousness is tied to a particular story in which God has promised to act in a particular way and to bless a particular people, Paul must show that his gospel message makes sense as the fulfillment of that God’s actions fulfilling precisely those promises and blessing that particular people” (8).
Basically, Jesus’ resurrection is the hermeneutical key for understanding Romans. In a sense, this book is proposing that Paul’s hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of resurrection.
As you read the book, Kirk will help you see how Jesus’ resurrection bears on the Scriptures and stories of Israel. Major elements that are reconfigured around the Christ event are: the identity of God, creation, humanity, and Adam, Abraham and the covenants, the law of Moses, the Davidic Kingship, the identity of the people of God, the way of life for this christologically defined people of God, the present plight of unbelieving Judaism, and the final judgment, eschatological salvation, resurrection and the new creation (206-7). Kirk’s exegesis of several passages in Romans will help you think through these elements and their connections, and I believe you will be surprised to see how resurrection does play a major role in them.
One of the things that helped me appreciate the thesis of the book is the fact that I recently read the book of Daniel and some apocalyptic literature like 4 Ezra and 1 Enoch. One of the things that I noticed over and over was the issue of theodicy. I had not realized before how relevant the question of the righteousness of God was to the people living under the oppression of ruthless empires. How can God be faithful to his promises when things are the way they are? The hope of the age to come and God’s vindication of his people plays a major role in their eschatology. Resurrection is the language of this vindication and, therefore, God’s faithfulness (see 2 Macc.). Kirk shows that this is exactly what Paul is doing with resurrection — it vindicates “God as faithful to Israel despite all appearances” (10). It was helpful for me to keep in mind that one of the Kirk’s arguments is that Romans is a theodicy.
The book is provocative in several places, and I am curious to know what people will think of Paul as a “christological revisionist” as he engages in apocalyptic hermeneutics.
Richard Hays in his blurb says that “many readers will come to the end of this book saying ‘yes, of course, why didn’t we see that before?’” I had this feeling several times in my own reading, and I recommend this book for those who would like to know why.
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