Abstract

The essential Christological and soteriological message of the Letter
of St. Paul to the Romans precedes with the reflection on the biblical idea
of the retributive justice of God. He does not do it to humiliate Jews and
Gentiles because of the sin in which they lapsed, or to make them aware of
their equally hopeless situation before God, or even to force them to humiliate
themselves in grief and repentance before God the Judge. He wants to
explain to the addressees of the letter why God intended to justify them all
together in the same way, without taking into account the primacy of the
privilege of the Jews, nor the permanent godlessness of the Gentiles. Both
were simply sinners, which caused them to find themselves in the same
situation with respect to the righteousness of God’s judgment and punishment.
Therefore, all without exception, as sinners both Jewish and pagan,
will attain justification in the same way, namely by faith in Jesus Christ.