Title

The Resurrection and Paul's Pneumacentric Gospel in Romans

Date of Award

5-1-2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Theology (Th.M)

Department

Exegetical Theology

First Advisor

Marty Culy

Abstract

Romans mentions the Holy Spirit more than any of Paul's other letters, excluding 1 Corinthians, which is primarily about Spirit issues (πνεῦμα) occurs in 1 Corinthians 32 times and 27 times in Romans). For this reason alone, it is fair to say that the Spirit must play an important role in Paul's argument. The content of the letter itself, and the concentration of references to the Spirit in Romans 8 indicate further that Paul was indeed concerned with the Spirit's role in this letter. Nevertheless, very few studies (if any) have made use of this statistical data and the shape of the argument to examine the role of the Spirit in the letter to the Romans. This thesis will fill that gap by studying Paul's theology of the Spirit in relation to his proclamation of the gospel in Romans. It will argue that the central theme or "overarching topic" of Romans is the proclamation of the promised gospel about the Christ, which finds its focus in the event of Christ's death and resurrection and the resulting pneumatic effects for humanity.

In order to ensure that this thesis is not too narrow in scope, it is important to begin by surveying Paul's presentation of the gospel in the rest of his letters. This broad Pauline framework is then used as a basis for defining the gospel in Romans itself. Following this, the thesis summarizes and systematizes Paul's references to the Spirit in Romans into three primary themes. The final chapter synthesizes the data concerning Paul's conception of the gospel and the Spirit's role therein, concluding that the Spirit is the driving force of Paul's argument in Romans, and is the power of the gospel message, without whom the death and resurrection of the promised Christ would not be good news for humanity.

Comments

If you are not a patron of the Concordia Seminary Library this dissertation is available from the "Theological Research Exchange Network" at http://tren.com/.

Link to thesis on SemNet

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