Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. – Romans 5:1 (NET)
Though this is an obvious understatement, Paul has said
much. Having done so, he begins to reach some immediate conclusions and
logical deductions that are forced by the things that he has presented in what
must be understood to be the building argument of the first four chapters of
the letter to the church at Rome. Those deductions begin with
“Therefore.” He writes “Therefore, since we have been declared righteous
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1).
Having been brought into the covenant people (declared righteous) through the
instrumentality of faith (belief in God and its concurrent unswerving loyalty
to the claims made by that God, per the example of Abraham), a state of peace
between humanity and God is engendered. This peace is attached to the
Lord, who is Jesus, who is the Christ (the Anointed One/Messiah/King).
“Peace” operates on a number of levels. One of those
levels will be overtly addressed by Paul in relatively short order. A
second level of the operation of “peace,” which is more subtle and subversive,
is surely also implied, and we can see through it the juxtaposition and choice
of particular words used at this particular place in the letter. What’s
subtle and subversive in the use of peace? Doesn’t everybody desire
peace? Answering that question and addressing that issue requires us to
ask another question and to see where that might lead us.
About what might a citizen of Rome think when they hear the
word “peace”? It would be much more than an inward state of bliss or
mellow contentment, or a cessation of against-ness, or of a lack of spiritual
conflict. The fact that Paul will go on to describe peace with God, the
need for peace with God, and the way that such peace is generated, might inform
us that these particular dimensions of peace (with which Paul deals in verses
six through eleven of this chapter) would not necessarily spring to mind when
Paul speaks of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It may very well be the case that Paul expects his Roman
audience, as they are fully ensconced within the city of Rome and therefore
live at the seat of Roman imperial ideology and its associated imperial
theology and attendant propaganda, to think of the “pax Romana,” or “Roman
peace” when he writes to them concerning peace. This was an exalted ideal
for Rome, as they imagined themselves to be the bringers of peace and justice
to the world, with this having begun under the revered and exalted Emperor
Caesar Augustus. This peace, of course, was brought about primarily
through military conquest. Following military conquest when Rome deemed
it necessary (some would simply acquiesce to the power of Rome without raising
arms against them), the Roman peace would be secured by the ongoing threat of
the exercise of military power.
Together with that, any thoughts of rebellion were quelled
and quenched by the reminder of Rome’s power of life over death, with this best
(and most horribly) embodied by the Roman cross, as it was the means of
execution reserved for recalcitrant slaves and rebels against Rome.
Crucifixion was employed to send a political message. Even the
crucifixion of a recalcitrant slave would convey Rome’s political might, as it
reminded those that would witness the event, because of its also being used as
a means of execution for those that challenged the power of Caesar, that all
were slaves of Rome.
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