Romans: an overview

 Romans 1:  Sets out Paul's position on the Gospel.  That it was Promised beforehand through his prophets regarding his Son.  Paul is "Called" to apostleship, and Paul calls "all the Gentiles to obedience that comes from faith."  "You are among the Gentiles called to belong to Jesus Christ." "To all who are in Rome,  loved by God, and called to be his holy people."

Paul preaches "the Gospel of his Son."  He is "Not ashamed of the gospel".  The gospel reveals the righteousness of God, a righteousness that is by faith.  The righteous will live by faith.

Paul's next task is to identify evil.  Wicked people suppress the truth; a truth that is evident throughout creation.  One such truth is the existence and nature of God:  His eternal power and divine neature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

Having denied God, even though they knew God, they were given over to sinful desires, given over to a depraved mind, filled with every wickedness.  For Paul, wickedness, sinfulness, evil definitely exist and have a destructive effect on people who embrace them.  This destructive effect means they have no understanding, no loyalty, no love, no mercy.

Paul is making a clear distinction between good and wickedness, or sinfulness; between good people and evil people.  In this second section of chapter 1, Paul gives a clear list of how wickedness looks, and what its result is.  Paul sets up a contrast between the righteousness of God and the wickedness of depraved sinners.

Romans 2:  Paul calls his audience to stop doing the wicked things he has just described.  When presented in the previous chapter, their evil seems so clear, but Paul issues a warning that even his audience is prone to hypocrisy and that God will judge them for their wrongdoing.  He presents a clear choice:  trouble and distress for everyone who does evil; Glory honor and peace for everyone who does good.

Paul continues a theme that he introduced in chapter 1:16 - "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."  Paul is facing a challenge in the Roman church in that it is composed of Christian Jews as well as Christians who are Gentiles.  Both Jews and Greeks are well educated and well read, and each can have a propensity to view the other as being an outsider, as a barbarian.  The Jews want the Gentile believers to become Jews.  However, the Greek and Roman Christians believe their society is at the pinnacle of thought, reason, and culture.  They tend to resent the implication that they are blind and backward and must follow the Jews.  Paul himself has a long campaign against the "Judaizers", who want all new Christians to become Jews and follow Jewish customs and traditions.  The majority of this book of Romans is Paul's efforts to reconcile these two groups of Christians, get them to understand their place in God's divine plan, and to have the two groups carry forward together. 

This dichotomy is also central to his theme:  The role of the Law in Salvation.  He sets up a distinction between The Law given to the Jews, and the Spirit given to Christians as part of the new covenant, the gospel of Jesus.

Paul says that the Jews use the law to feel superior to everyone else as "a guide for the blind, a teacher of children."  However, he says that the reality is that the Jews are notorious for their hypocrisy.  "You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?"  Paul uses the Jewish practice of circumcision as a synonym for the entire body of Jewish law.  His meaning is that it is not the outward conformity to rituals that gives the law its power.  Simply going through a physical ritual, or simply claiming Jewish ancestry, is not enough to earn the praise of God - not enough to claim to be righteous.  "If you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised." 

Instead, it is in keeping the law, and not in ritual observance that one becomes righteous.  A person is a Jew who is one inwardly... A circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, not by the written code.  Paul claims in the start of chapter 2 that everyone is prone to hypocrisy;  everyone, including the Jewish Christians are prone to breaking the law and committing sin.  If that's true, then being Jewish and having access to the law doesn't save you, if you break the law.  Instead, one must live "by the Spirit, not by the written code."

Romans 3:  Paul continues to address the Jewish portion of the church in Rome.  "Is there any value in being a Jew?"  Paul asks.  And he answers both 'no' and 'yes'.  Yes, in the sense that the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.  This gives them insight into divine truth.  However, if they "were unfaithful", if they commit sin anyway, have they really gained any advantage.

Paul addresses a contention that the sinfulness of God's people makes God look more righteous.  But he rejects that as being clearly foolishness.  If some say "Let us do evil that good may result" their condemnation is just.  Such a foolish statement is only worthy of condemnation.

So then Paul asks the question again about who has an advantage, and takes the other answer.  Jews don't have an advantage because both the Jews and Gentiles are still under the power of sin. He quotes extensively from the Psalms to show that not even Jews have been successful in avoiding sin.

The purpose of the law is to make us "conscious of our sin."  The law shows us how we fail and fall into wickedness.  Failing to keep the law even though you know it, is no better than failing to keep the law because you did not know it.  Paul concludes "there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace..."

With the coming of the new Gospel, both Jews and Greeks are now placed on an equal footing.  Each one wants to avoid wickedness and its resultant depravity, and each is unable to do so.  The answer is to relying on God's grace to justify themselves "through the same faith".

Romans 4:

Paul continues to address his Jewish audience by looking at the example of Abraham.  Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.  Abraham was given the gift of justification, not because he earned it by following the law, but because it was a gift from God. Abraham could not have achieved this through the Law, since the Law did not exist when this took place. Paul says that the same thing is true of David, that David received the blessedness of righteousness from God as a gift, and not by works.

Circumcision was an outward sign that came later, after Abraham had given righteousness through faith.  Faith was the pivotal requirement, not some outward sign.  This makes Abraham the father of all who believe, whether under the Jewish law or outside of it.  God's promises to the Jews comes by faith.  So all who have the faith of Abraham are the receivers of those promises.  "He (Abraham) is the father of us all." 

Jesus said a very similar thing in Matthew 3:9: "And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham."

Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. And this pathway to righteousness is not for Abraham alone, but also to all Jews, and all Gentiles as well.  God will credit with righteousness all who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Romans 5:  

Paul employs a subtle shift in his terminology.  Before, he referred to God "crediting us with righteousness".  Now, he refers to this process as justification.  Paul says, "we have been justified through faith."  Here he gives a definition to his use of the word faith.  "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness."  Faith is the act of believing God and his promises, particularly for us the promises inherent in God raising Jesus from the dead.  

Paul urges us to "look forward to the hope of the glory of God." (v.2). "Hope does not put us to shame/leave us disappointed, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit".

v.1 "We have peace with God (justification), through our Lord Jesus Christ."  And we have "gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  So, Christians gain justification (being credited with righteousness) through faith (believing in God and his promises) and attain a state of grace "in which we now stand" (sanctification) through the Holy Spirit, to ultimately attain the "glory of God" (glorification) which we look forward to in hope.

v.6 "While we were powerless, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Earlier Paul said, "We have been justified through faith."  Here, he says, "We have been justified by his blood."  While faith was necessary to claim the gift, it was Jesus' actual death and resurrection that provided the means for our justification.  As a result, we shall be saved through God's wrath.

Paul makes the process very clear:

• We were God's enemies.  We were powerless to resist God's wrath.  We were sinners and ungodly.
  
• While in that state, Jesus died for us.  
• This demonstrates God's love for us.
• This action of Jesus dying, and giving up his life blood, justified us.
• This justifying act of dying, reconciles us to God.
  
• Being justified, and then reconciled, we will be saved from God's wrath.
• But we are also saved "through his life."  It was not only his death, but also Jesus' resurrection that gives us a promise of our own future resurrection, our future salvation.  Because Jesus came back to life.
  
• But this will only happen if we have faith in Jesus.  We are justified by his blood, through faith.
• v.11. Through Jesus work "we have now received reconciliation" with God, which restores the rift between  God and Man that happened in the Garden. 

Sin entered the world through one man, Adam, with his rebellion in the Garden of Eden.  As a result, humanity was cast out of the Garden, separating themselves from fellowship with God.  Man was forbidden from eating of the Tree of Life, causing him to eventually suffer a physical death.  Because Adam and Eve and all of their offspring were also restricted from eating from the Tree of Life, all of humanity was eventually doomed to die as well.

Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. At this point, Moses was given the Law.  The function of the law is to point out where humanity fell short of God's perfect expectation.  Adam was a type of Christ, "a pattern of the one to come."

The gift of God was delivered through God's grace.  This gift of God was the gift of reconciliation between God and humanity.  Paul begins an extended comparison between Adam's rebellion and Jesus' reconciliation.

• Because of Adam's sin, many were cut off from the Tree of Life and suffered death. v15
  
• Because of Jesus' gift, many were offered a pathway to reconciliation and received grace.
  
• Judgement followed one man's sin and brought condemnation v16
  
• Jesus' gift covered many transgressions and brought justification
• By the sin of one man, death reigned. v17
  
• By the gift of one man, many will receive "God's abundant provision of grace and gift of righteousness."
• "Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people," v18
• "so one righteous act resulted in justification for all people.
  
• Just as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners v19
  
• "So also through the obedience of one man, the many will be made righteous."
• "Just as sin reigns in death" v21
  
• "So also grace reigns through righteousness."
  

  Romans 6:

At the end of chapter  5,  Paul said that where sin increased, grace increased all the more.  Immediately, he answers the rhetorical challenge: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?"  What Paul is really getting at, from the next verses, is that we have been baptized into Christ, we have "died to sin" and therefore can't live in sin any longer.  Just as Jesus died and was raised from the dead into new life, so also Christians have died to sin, symbolically through baptism, and have been raised to live a new life as well.

Here, Paul becomes difficult:

"We have been united with him in a death like his."  So our baptism becomes a symbolic association with Jesus' death.  

"We will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his."  Therefore we will also be symbolically  associated with Jesus' resurrection.  

"We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body that was ruled by sin might be done away with."  Paul is referring to the animal nature that humanity is plagued with.   Elsewhere, Paul talks about the sins of the flesh.  This old animal instinct that leads us into sin has been destroyed.  When all we were guided by was the instincts of the flesh, they inevitably led us into sin. 

 First, God gave us the law to help distinguish between the various animal impulses.  But we were unable to simply follow the law by force of will alone.   We were still governed by these same animal impulses.  In Paul's terms, we were "slaves to sin." By dying, symbolically through baptism, we put away that old body.  That's what has died, according to Paul.  And by dying, we have been set free from sin."

When Christ was raised from the dead, he became a master over sin.  Instead, he lives to God.  Paul says we need to emulate Jesus:  "In the same way, count yourself dead to sin but alive to God."  How can we do this?

Paul says, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires."

"Do not offer yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness,

"But rather offer yourself to God ... as an instrument of righteousness."

Paul then asks an obvious question:  If grace covers all our sins and grace gives us justification before God, do we even need to worry about whether we sin or not?  Can't we just commit any sin that we feel like, knowing that they will ultimately be forgiven?

Paul answers this by changing the analogy, slightly.  We are all slaves to something, whether that is as slaves to sin (as he mentions in v 6) or slaves to obedience.  We used to be slaves to sin, but have come to obedience ("come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.")  

And here, Paul makes his boldest claim: "You have been set free from sin, and have become slaves to righteousness."   In what way have we been set free from sin?  This is the most surprising assertion from Paul, because it implies that the sin nature that inevitably caused us to sin has now been conquered.  We now have a reason to choose correct behavior, because we choose to be obedient to God.  You don't have to weigh the positives and negatives of any particular action, you simply accept that you are slaves to righteousness and follow that pathway.

At the end of this argument, Paul briefly touches on the nature of sin with something that he introduced in the first chapter.  Doing wicked things deteriorates your soul.  It sears your conscience, and leaves you less able to distinguish between good and evil."You offer yourself to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness."  It further separates you from God and leads to death.  

But doing good things leads to greater holiness.  "Now that you have been set free from sin and have becomes slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life."  Doing good things gives you the benefit of becoming more holy.

 

 

 

•