Amongst all the commentaries on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Leenhardt's has won a distinguished place. First published in 1957, his analysis is marked by freshness and lucidity combined with a firm grasp of the inner essentials of the Epistle. The result is both scholarly and readable.
Leenhardt brings a fresh assessment of righteousness, not as an intrinsic attribute of God but as a description of God's relationship with humanity, and traces this back to God's saving acts within the covenant relationship of the Old Testament. Through careful attention to the original Greek, he also reinterprets the central Jew-Gentile dichotomy that characterises much of the previous scholarship on Romans. Throughout, his bold overarching thesis is combined with an even-handed approach free of oversimplification. The result is a work that has become an enduring voice in Pauline studies.