The book of Romans was written by Paul during his third missionary journey, probably from Corinth during the winter of 57-58 A.D. It is probable that the Church in Rome was started from Christians that were converted on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2. Others may have migrated there, and some were close associates of Paul himself.
Unlike some of the other apostles, Paul was no ordinary fisherman: as he says, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, born in Tarsus (making him a Roman citizen), and he had studied under Gamaliel in Jerusalem. He was a Pharisee, which meant he would have been highly educated in Hebrew and Greek culture, history, religion, philosophy, and so on. According to some, the book of Romans is the most profound writing that exists anywhere. It is similar to Ephesians in which he explains some of the great themes and doctrines of the Christian faith. It can be divided into five major sections: 1-3, the sinfulness of man and their need for the Gospel; 4-5, justification through faith; 6-8, victorious Christian living; 9-11, God’s sovereignty and election demonstrated through Israel; 12-16, other practical Christian instruction. The main theme of the book is “The just shall live by faith.”
This book not only covers the essential themes and doctrines of the Church, its impact on world history is unequaled. As many of us know, during the dark ages, the Church became politicized, and as a result, it compromised with the world. It became entrenched in tradition and pagan practices so that the Gospel message was severely obscured, if not entirely absent in many cases. In the late 1400’s, a boy was born to a family of poor coal minors. After growing up in poverty, he decided to go to school to be a lawyer. While walking on campus, he was caught in a severe thunder storm in which he was afraid for his life. Falling on his face, He called out to the saint of coal minors, and told her if she saved him, he would become a monk.
The storm miraculously stopped, and he was true to his word. He joined a monastery, and studied theology. However, the more he did, the more troubled he became. He repeatedly wrote in his diary, “how can a man find favor with God?” He would fast 10-15 days at a time, sleep outside in freezing temperatures with no blanket, and beat his body to try to get rid of his sinful tendencies. He went to confession so many times a day that the priest finally told him to either go out and commit a sin worth confessing or stop coming here so often. He finally decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome in search of peace, and on his journey, he became sick while crossing the Alps, almost dying from a high fever. Some monks nursed him back to health, and one of them told him he needed to read the book of Habakkuk. One verse caught his attention, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind, “The just shall live by faith.”
He continued his journey to Rome, and came to the Church of St. John’s Lateran. Here were steps that were said to have been miraculously transported from Jerusalem from Pilate’s judgment hall. People would climb one step at a time on their knees, saying prayers as they went. The pope had promised an indulgence for everyone who did this. While doing this, he remembered the verse from Habakkuk, left the stair case, and returned to the university to further study justification by faith. This would ultimately lead him to nail his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, and started the protestant reformation. This obviously was Martin Luther. The Protestant Reformation is one of the most important events in modern history, and we are still experiencing the effects of it today.
John Wesley was also affected by the book of Romans. While at a meeting with a group of Moravians, the speaker was reading out of Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans, and Wesley writes the following: “While he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine.” Like Luther, John Wesley, his brother Charles, and George Whitefield all went through similar experiences where they were trying to find favor with God by their good works. Through a series of different circumstances, they all came to the same conclusion that they needed to be justified by faith, they needed to be born again. The three of them would begin preaching this message of justification by faith, and were used powerfully by the Lord during the First Great Awakening, a large revival that swept through England and the American colonies during the 1700’s. Having said this, let’s jump into Romans 1.
Paul begins by identifying himself, and calling himself a bondservant of Jesus Christ. The word bondservant means a slave, and refers to one who, in complete and utter devotion, binds himself to his master for life (Exo 21:2-6). Paul was a bondservant of Christ before anything else.
He was called to be an apostle; one sent with delegated authority. This calling wasn’t something he chose for himself, but was called to be an apostle after meeting the Lord on the road to Damascus. He was separated to the Gospel of God. Paul was a Pharisee which means one separated, and it could be he was saying he was no longer separated to the law and traditions of the elders, but now separated unto Christ.
The Gospel was promised before through the prophets in the Scriptures. David wrote of the Messiah, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.’” (Psa 40:7-8) Jesus told the religious leaders, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” (Jn 5:39) The Old Testament Scriptures have as their main purpose to reveal Jesus to mankind.
Verse 3 states “Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and speaks to Jesus’ deity before He took on human flesh in the seed of David. This is important because there are cults out there that like to teach that Jesus is either not God, or that He was later elevated to God status. There are essential doctrines that one must adhere to in order to call themselves a true Christian, and both the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ are among them. Both the Old and New Testament Scriptures refer to the Messiah as God from eternity past, and this passage in Romans is one of them. A savior who is not God cannot forgive sins, and a savior who was not man could not have offered his body as a sacrifice for you and me. His claim to deity was declared with power at His resurrection through the Holy Spirit. His resurrection was the proof that all of this is true.
Paul and the other apostles had received grace and apostleship through obedience to the faith (obedience that comes from faith). He refers to the Romans as called to be saints, something he will discuss more later.
He greets them with a similar greeting in his other letters, ‘grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’. True grace and peace cannot come any other way. He tells them he was grateful that their faith was spoken of around the world. He was praying for them constantly, and that he would be able to come see them. He wanted to impart to them some spiritual gift that they would be established, and that he and they would be mutually encouraged. The Lord doesn’t need us to give spiritual gifts, but at times He does use us in this way (1 Tim 4:14). He had wanted to come to them, but had been hindered by something. It could be the Lord allowed him to be hindered from coming to them so that he could write the book of Romans. As an apostle to the Gentiles, he felt obligated to preach to them, as well to those in Rome.
Next, Paul tells us he is not ashamed of the Gospel. What is the Gospel, you might ask? The word Gospel means a good message or good news. Paul gives us one of the most definitive explanations of the Gospel in the entire Bible in the book of Romans. In a nutshell, the Gospel is: although man has fallen short of God’s righteous and holy standards and is deserving of His wrath, God has provided a way of escape through faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul then tells us why he’s not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. The word for power is dunamis, and means God’s miraculous power or might, and is where we get our word dynamite. It takes the miraculous power of God (Holy Spirit) to bring a spiritually dead man back to life.
The word “believe” refers to putting one’s faith in a person or thing, and in context, refers to entrusting one’s spiritual wellbeing to Jesus Christ for salvation and forgiveness. ‘Believe’ in one form or another appears almost 300 times in the NT, and in the gospel of John alone it appears 98 times. It’s the same word that is in John 3:16, “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Paul states it was to the Jew first, and also for the Greek (Gentile). It was to the Jew first, because the Jews are God’s chosen people. Paul will get into this later in Romans, but God still has a plan for them even though many of them are in rebellion and unbelief currently.
For in it (the Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The original language makes it even more clear; it’s the righteousness that God gives to man based on his faith in Him. William Barclay said this word means “to treat, or account or reckon a person as something. If God justifies a sinner, it does not mean that he finds reasons to prove that he was right – far from it. It does not even mean, at this point, that he makes the sinner a good man. It means that God treats the sinner as if he had not been a sinner at all.” Wow! To treat me, a sinner, as though I had never sinned is quite remarkable. From faith to faith signifies it is faith from beginning to end.
Then Paul quotes from this verse in Habakkuk, “The just shall live by faith.” The entire verse actually reads: “Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.” In other words, it’s our own pride that says we are good enough to approach unto God, but it’s our faith that makes us just (innocent) before Him. We are not only saved by faith, but we live by it as well, a topic he will also cover later in the book. Paul has given us his thesis for the book of Romans, and he will spend the next several chapters defending and proving it.
In what ways are we ashamed of the Gospel? Maybe if someone asks us, we would admit we are a Christian, but when it comes to actively sharing our faith, we tend to shy away from it. Like Paul, we shouldn’t be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation. God has taken us when we were spiritually dead, and by His dunamis power made us alive again. He wants others to have this same quickening experience as well. If we truly understand the depths of our own sin and experienced the mercy and grace of God, we should want to tell others about Him and what He has done for us. In this troubled world that we live in in which people are being senselessly murdered for what they believe, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what we need more than ever. Charlie Kirk wasn’t ashamed of the Gospel: he lived it, proclaimed it boldly, and died for it. Next time, I hope to cover the remainder of the chapter.
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