This appendix is optional. It exists for readers who want historical and covenant context behind the fulfilled / New Creation lens used in these chapters. It is not a demand that every reader become an eschatology specialist.
Romans is written while the old covenant world is still present but losing authority. Paul speaks of “this age,” judgment, wrath, and the passing of night into day. This language is covenantal and historical, not cosmological.
Paul’s argument is not “be nicer people.” It is: what defines the people of God now that Messiah has come? Circumcision, food laws, and ethnic boundary markers cannot define the new humanity. The Spirit does.
Wrath and judgment language in Romans belongs to the covenant lawsuit context: God confronting covenant unfaithfulness and clearing the ground for the New Covenant world.
Romans culminates in life in the Spirit: no condemnation, adoption, inheritance, and love. This is not postponed to the end of time. It is the lived reality of those in Christ.