Adam/humanity/forsake the glory of God. What, then, is the glory of God that humanity exchanged and thus lacked? . . . Two cautionary points must be made here. First, given the multiple denotative variations of δοξα as it pertains to God and the entire lack of denotative variants of δοξα when applied to humanity in the LXX . . .one should not assume that the glory of God in Romans, and especially in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23, refers to the visible, manifest presence of God, with which humanity was originally endowed and thus lost. Second, given the dubiousness of Paul’s articulating the motif of the loss of an Adamic glory only found in later Jewish texts . . . the rationale for understanding “the glory of God” in Romans 3:23 as Adam’s prefall visible splendor is thus entirely speculative. Though the paradigmatic representative of male and female (אדם in Gen 1:26) stands behind παντες in Romans 3:23, as it did in the third-person plural of αλλασσω in Romans 1:23, Adam’s loss of an outer garment of glory does not. Humanity in Adam abdicated their throne and the glory with which they were crowned, the glory of God in which they shared. “Falling short of” or “lacking” the glory of God meant for the apostle exceedingly more than Adam losing his luster. It was Adam/humanity losing his/their crown.

Rather than these two commonly held assumptions, I suggest this: because Genesis 1:26-28 is echoed in Romans 1:23, and because Genesis 1:26-28 is textually and thematically parallel to Psalm 8:5-9 LXX, and because Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 refer to the same event, all of which I have demonstrated above, we can therefore argue that Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:5-9 LXX together form the textual and thematic backdrop to the narrative echoed in Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23: the creation of humanity in God’s image and with the endowment of God’s glory as God’s representatives within his kingly realm. Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 both describe humanity’s intended identity and purpose as God’s vicegerents by describing its exchange of and thus loss of God’s glory—the glory that the son of man in Psalm 8 is intended to possess.

Romans 1:23 fits within the larger discourse framed by Romans 1:18-25. Here Paul sets the stage for humanity’s rebellion against God and rejection of its created purpose and consequently the need for the redemptive work of death and resurrection on the part of the Messiah. Romans 1:18-25 is the part of the story in which mankind rejects its created purpose, namely to worship and serve the Creator, by instead worshiping and serving the creation (Rom 1:25). Man “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of the image of mortal man and animals and reptiles” in Romans 1:23, thereby abdicating the throne of dominion originally established for him at the time of creation (Gen 1:26-28; Ps 8:7 LXX). As Ortlund writes, “We stopped resembling the Creator and started resembling the creation. We became sub-human” (Orlund 2014: 117). From creation onwards, every person could know God and honor him as such (Rom 1:19-21) but chose instead to disregard their created duty and gave glory where the least glory was due (Rom 1:21-25).

This abdication of the throne is again expressed in Romans 3:23, in which the “they” of Romans 1 is explicitly “all (humanity)” (and “all humanity” will be viewed as “in Adam” in Rom 5). Everyone sinned (παντες γαρ ημαρτον), which is to say that everyone “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of corruptible animals” (Rom 1:23), and everyone now bears the consequences of this sin by lacking the glory of God (και υστερουνται την δοξης του θεου).

The narrative substructure of glory, and particularly Adam/humanity’s rejection of glory, which Paul begins in Romans 1:23 and continues in Romans 3:23, resurfaces again in Romans 5:12-21. Δοξα and δοξαζω are both absent from Romans 5:12-21, but that Adam’s disobedience was his abdication of his throne is not. Rather than δοξα and δοξαζω, Paul uses βασιλευω (Rom 5:14, 17 [2x], 21 [2x]; also Rom 6:12), a word with implicit significance here due to the fact that it occurs only here in Romans and occurs in this passage with notable frequency. . . . In this text, Paul uses βασιλευω to describe death’s dominion, which existed in place of Adam’s (and all humanity in Adam’s) intended dominion over creation. In Romans 5:12-21 it is not Adam who reigns but ο θανατος (Rom 5:14, 17), οι την περισσειαν της χαριτος και την δωρεας της δικαιοσυνης λαμβανοντες (Rom 5:17), η αμαρτια (Rom 5:21), and η χαρις (Rom 5:21). Nevertheless, Adam’s intended reign is implied in Romans 5:12 by the link between the presence of sin to Adam and the presence of death to sin. Had humanity in Adam not “exchanged the glory of the immortal God” (Rom 1:23) and come to “lack the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), humanity would reign, and sin and death would be nonexistent.

Though the subjects of the narrative are identified rather cryptically as “they” in Romans 1:23 and “all [humanity]” in Romans 3:23, in Romans 5:12 those subjects become explicit: “all who sinned,” that is, all humanity in Adam. It was no longer merely “man” (ανθρωπος) in Psalm 8;5 LXX who was crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over creation, but the Adam (ανθρωπος) of Genesis 1:26. And it was under Adam’s feet that God had put all things (πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτου) in Psalm 8:7 LXX. In Romans 1:23 and Romans 3:23 we see that, though this was the case at creation. Adam/humankind grievously rebelled. By exchanging the glory of God for that of the created world, Adam/humankind ultimately abdicated his God-given throne and invited sin and death to reign in his stead (explicit in Rom 5:12, 17, 21). He rejected his created role as God’s vicegerent over creation.

What then does this say about Paul’s use of glory in Romans 1:23; 3:23? First, it is not a visible shining light that Adam loses in Romans 3:23, or “the awesome radiance of deity which becomes the visible manifestation of God in the theophany and vision,” as Dunn describes it (Dunn 1988a:59). Second, rather it is the glory with which mankind is crowned—the glory man has as mediator between God and his creation, as God’s keeper of creation, as his vicegerent on his royal throne. This is the glory, the honor, that man rejects and forsakes for another (Rom 1:23, 25), and the glory of God in which all humans were created to participate but have chosen instead to forsake by rejecting their created purpose.