Romans (2nd ed.)
in Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
Pages
1040
Publisher
Baker Academic
Published
9/1/2018
ISBN-13
9781540960054
This substantive evangelical commentary on Romans by a leading biblical scholar is one of the most popular in the award-winning BECNT series and has been praised as a great preaching commentary. This new edition, updated and revised throughout, reflects Thomas Schreiner's mature thinking on various interpretive issues. As with all BECNT volumes, this commentary features the author's detailed interaction with the Greek text, extensive research, thoughtful verse-by-verse exegesis, and a user-friendly design. It admirably achieves the dual aims of the series--academic sophistication with pastoral sensitivity and accessibility--making it a useful tool for pastors, church leaders, students, and teachers.
Collections
This book appears in the following featured collections.
- Basic Library Booklist by Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary
- Recommended New Testament Commentaries for Evangelical Pastors by Thomas R. Schreiner
- TGC: Scholarly Commentaries by The Gospel Coalition
Reviews
Schreiner interprets Romans with detailed precision and thoughtful theological insight. He thoroughly surveys and interacts with the scholarly landscape, providing robust support for his exegetical conclusions while analyzing the arguments of his conversation partners with charity and humility. On syntactical issues in key and hard passages, he walks the reader through the text by giving well-rounded theological and exegetical reasons for his decisions. Interestingly, Schreiner also outlines the twists and turns of his own biblical and theological journey with this letter during his decades of studying it.
[Full Review]
I do also want to say that I believe Schreiner is wrong on 10:5. He denies the Mosaic Covenant is a typological covenant of works on page 540, even though he seems to go in this direction at the bottom of 541 and top of 542. His reason for doing so is that the Mosaic Covenant was given to a people "redeemed from Egypt by God's grace". Because God "saved his people and then gave them the law" it is not legalistic. Yet this misunderstands what people mean when they say the covenant is a covenant of works. Yes, the making of the covenant and God's redemption of Israel is out of grace (as all covenants are; God has no obligation to covenant with any man), yet the covenant itself is based on the principle of works in order to stay in the land. This "get in by grace, stay in by works" scheme is the exact same thing that Schreiner opposes in N.T. Wright! So he knows such a scheme is legalistic in Wright, but he fails to see that the Sinai covenant itself was intentionally a legalistic (i.e. works based) covenant typological of Israel as the New Adam and ultimately of Jesus, the Son of God and His obedience. Apart from that, great commentary; just supplement with Moo.
Of all the Romans commentaries I've read (and I've read nearly all of them since Cranfield), I consider this one to be the most accurate of them all. I have one disagreement with Schreiner on Romans 8:4, on which I think Doug Moo has the correct interpretation, but apart from that, I think this to be the best commentary available. While Moo's commentary is certainly meatier and will provide you with more information, Schreiner will always point you in the right direction, and for that reason, I go with quality over quantity.