τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ has been variously understood as
referring to the law, to the promises made to Israel, to those utterances in
the OT ‘which stand out as most unmistakably Divine; the Law as given from
Sinai and the promises relating to the Messiah’,1 to the OT as a whole, to
God’s self-revelation in the whole Heilsgeschichte both of the OT and of the
NT. It is perhaps best (pace Kuss, p. 100) to take it in the widest sense. The
Jews have been given God’s authentic self-revelation in trust to treasure it and
to attest and declare it to all mankind.3 The gospel events and all the
Heilsgeschichte which preceded them and attested them beforehand took place not
‘an irgendeiner beliebigen Stelle der Welt’ but in the midst of this people.
They alone have been the recipients on behalf of mankind of God’s message to
mankind. (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (International Critical Commentary; London:
T&T Clark International, 2004], 1:178–179)
