Dar miłości od Boga-Ojca przez Jezusa Chrystusa w Duchu Świętym według Rz 5, 1–11

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present the meaning of the term ἀγάπη (love) in Rom 5:1–11. A rhetorical study is provided here to stress the structural unity and importance of this pericope as a summary of Rom 1:18–4:25 and an introduction to Rom 5:1–8:39. With the help of a semantic and lexical analysis, a further section of the article attempts to demonstrate that love is given to man by God the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. It is noteworthy that the gift of love from the Triune God can be received by faith and supported by hope. It was God the Father’s love revealed through the death of Jesus Christ and the activities of the Holy Spirit that formed the basis for St Paul’s explanation of free justification by faith (Rom 1:16–17) in his Epistle to the Romans. Here, the Apostle emphasized the highest dimension of love that man can experience with the help of the noun ἀγάπη. This is confirmed by the use of significant semantic fields in Rom 5:1–11, namely Triune God (with terms such as θεός = God, κύριος = Lord, Ἰησοῦς = Jesus, Χριστός = Christ, υἱός = Son, πνεῦμα ἅγιον = Holy Spirit), gift (with words like δίδωμι = give, χάρις = grace), love (ἀγάπη), faith (πίστις) and hope (ἐλπίς), which in turn are reflected throughout the entire Epistle to the Romans.