Romans
Introduction, Part 2
In
the introduction we are oriented to the theme of this epistle, and the theme of
this epistle has to do with a vindication of God’s righteousness. That word
“righteousness” is from the Hebrew word tsedak
and the Greek word is diakaiosune
[dikaiosunh]. In both languages the word for righteousness can also
mean justice. Righteousness has to do with the standard of something, the
qualification of something. So when we talk about the righteousness of God we
are talking about the standard of His character. When we talk about justice we
are talking about the amplification of that standard to His creatures. In the
epistle to the Romans the issue is vindicating or demonstrating the
righteousness of God toward His creatures: how is God righteous is His dealings
with His creatures and how can God’s creatures meet the righteous standard of
God since we are not perfect and God’s standard is absolute perfection? That is
introduced in verses 16 and 17 of chapter one at the end of the introduction,
and that introduces the basic theme.
The
second division has to do with justification itself and that covers the area
from 1:18 to 5:21. God’s righteousness is revealed in His condemnation of the
whole human race because of sin and the provision of justification to all by
faith alone in Christ alone. This first basic division from 1:18 to 5:11
focuses on what we refer to as the doctrine of justification by faith. Then the
third division of the book has to do with sanctification. Sanctification grows
out of justification. They are related, and how they are related is the topic
of a lot of discussion. What we mean by sanctification is not positional
sanctification, which is what happens in the sense of legally or forensically
at the moment of salvation but it has to do with the spiritual life as a
believer. So when we hear the word “sanctification” just think spiritual
growth, the Christian life; and that is covered in chapters 6, 7 and 8. It is
important to understand that distinction: that sanctification grows out of
justification but it is not identical to justification. These chapters have to
do with how God’s righteousness is lived out in the lives of those who have
been justified—how God produces experiential righteousness in those who
have already been declared righteous.
The next section is that God will
vindicate His righteousness in His relationship to Israel. At the end of
chapter eight Paul makes the well-known statement: “For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created
thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.” To make that a little more succinct, what Paul says is, I am
convinced that nothing in heaven or earth, nothing that any creature does, can
separate us from the love of God. The love of God is absolutely dependable, He
is absolutely faithful, and He will never leave us or forsake us. Objection:
What about the fact that He seems to have left or departed or cut off His grace
from Israel? The answer to that, then, is the focal point of chapters 9-11
where Paul writes a demonstration that God is faithful in terms of His
righteousness in His past dealings with Israel in chapter nine. Then he focuses
on God’s present dealings with Israel in chapter ten, demonstrating that though
many Jews have rejected Jesus as Messiah that is not because God somehow made
them but that it is as a result of their own individual volition. Nevertheless
God has not cut off Israel from His promises and the promises and the covenants
from the Old Testament still belong to Israel. Then chapter eleven deals with
God’s future dealing with Israel, that the current status is not complete, the rejection
is not final, and that God eventually will pour out His grace to Israel and all
Israel will be saved.
Then there is a major shift that takes
place in chapter twelve which focuses on application, though there is a lot of
application in the first eleven chapters. What happens in chapters twelve
through sixteen is the implications for day-to-day living from what we have
heard in terms of what God has done for us in justification and what God has
provided for us in sanctification. Chapters 12:1-15:13 really Has to do with
the implications of God’s righteousness in the life of the believer who is
already justified; how God’s righteousness is going to be displayed in the life
of the justified believer. There are three sections there. Chapter twelve focuses
on how that is displayed in the assembly, the local church; how it is displayed
in relationship to human government in chapter thirteen; then in chapter
fourteen how that is displayed in relationship to weaker believers and stronger
believers. There is a conclusion where things are summarized and Paul gives
more information about his plans to visit Rome, and then almost the entirety of
chapter sixteen has to do with greetings to various individuals that he knows
in Rome.
The introductory section in 1:1-17
contains Paul’s basic greeting, as he does in almost all of his epistles. He
introduces himself and gives a reference to his authority—what gives him
the right to introduce address this group of believers the way he does and this
always goes back to his apostolic authority. Romans 1:1 NASB
“Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called {as} an apostle, set apart for
the gospel of God.” So we have the identification of Paul as the writer of this
epistle. He describes the gospel in summary fashion, the foundation of the
gospel in vv. 2, 3, 4: “which He promised beforehand through His prophets in
the holy Scriptures.” The first thing he is going to do is ground what he is
going to say, not in the Gospels, not in the New Testament, but in the Old
Testament. One of the interesting things about Romans is that of all the
epistles that the apostle Paul wrote, and all the times that he quotes from the
Old Testament, half of his quotations from the Old Testament are in Romans.
That tells us again, just as in the study of Hebrews, that you have to have
some understanding of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, to understand what
Paul is saying. He is developing everything that he says in Romans on the basis
of what was revealed in the Torah in the Old Testament and the prophets. [3]
“concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the
flesh, [4] who was declared the Son of God
with power by the resurrection from the dead…” So he is going to establish this
on the basis of two important things: the fact that Jesus is born in the line
of David and that He is declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from
the dead. Both of those ideas are loaded with an Old Testament frame of
reference.
For
forty days after the resurrection Jesus taught the disciples concerning the
kingdom of God. What did He say about the kingdom of God? This sort of
summarizes the focal point of the message of Peter and the other apostles in
the book of Acts. It always goes back to establishing Jesus’ credentials as the
descendant of David, the one who is the focal point of all of the Old Testament
prophecies related to the Messiah. We see this again in Paul’s introduction. The
foundation was, who was Jesus? Was He who He claimed to be? Was He born of Mary
in Bethlehem, fulfilling over a hundred messianic prophecies in the Old
Testament, or not?
Then
in verses 5-7 Paul Talks about the readers who are in Rome “called to be
saints.” That is just the salutation. Then he talks in the remainder of his
introduction of his desire to visit them in Rome—verses 8-15. He praises
them because their faith is known throughout the whole world, the Roman empire,
so they have already developed a reputation; there is a sizeable number of
believers there. Romans 1:7 NASB
“to all who are beloved of God in Rome…” He doesn’t say to the church in Rome
because by this time there were a number of different churches or congregations
in Rome. He is addressing all of them; he doesn’t use the word “church” until
he gets to chapter 16. He mentions their faith, the reputation that they are
developing throughout the Roman empire, and that he continually prays for them,
vv. 9, 10 and his desire to come to them to impart doctrine to them from the
utilization of his spiritual gift as an apostle. Then he concludes the
introduction in vv, 16, 17 with this quote from Habakkuk 2:4. He states in v.
16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel” –which is a figure of speech for
saying “I’m proud of the gospel”—“ for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” So
he establishes right off the bat the universality of the gospel; it is for
everyone, Jew and Gentile. Then he says in verse 17, which is the key verse for
understanding the epistle: “For in it [the gospel] {the} righteousness of God
is revealed from faith to faith…” It is important to pay attention to how Paul
talks about what is revealed as we go through Romans, and here we see that the
righteousness of God is revealed. Then in verse 18 we see that the wrath of God
is revealed. So we see that as he begins the first section in verse 18 he
starts with the judgment of God, which is the outworking of His righteousness.
So His righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, “as it is written, “BUT THE
RIGHTEOUS {man} [justified ones] SHALL LIVE BY
FAITH.”
Then
we come to the first major section of the epistle, which focuses on this whole
doctrine of justification. Justification by faith alone is the hallmark
doctrine in Romans. We find it also developed in Galatians. Galatians was
Paul’s first epistle and we see that all of the ideas and the doctrines in
Galatians are developed and expanded much more in this epistle to the Romans.
The epistle to the Romans is considered to be one of the finest pieces of any
kind of literature of all of history. It is one of the tightest, most logically
developed arguments in any kind of religious literature that will be found.
What Paul does is start with what is revealed in the Old Testament and he puts
it together logically to show how what is revealed in Jesus in the Gospels is
the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies and that the Christian
proclamation that justification, how a person becomes just in his standing
before God, is by faith alone and isn’t something that came along, and was new
with Jesus or Paul, not something that is just Christian, but it is grounded in
the Old Testament. In chapter four he is going to take us all the way back to
the Torah, to Genesis chapter 15:16, to show us that Abraham was justified by
faith alone before there was the law and before there was circumcision; and
that justification by faith alone was not something new with Christianity but
that the Law was never intended as a way for man to be justified before God. So
he begins in this first section, from verse 18 down to verse 32, to establish
the condemnation of all mankind because they have rejected God.
He
starts off by saying, Romans 1:19 NASB “because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” This is the
revelation of His invisible attributes. But what happens is that they have
rejected Him. The revelation is clear enough that all mankind are accountable,
no one is without excuse. [21] “For even though they knew God, they did not
honor Him as God …” They “suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.” Verses 21
to the end of the chapter is a summary of what transpired after Adam’s fall; it
is a historical summation of mankind prior to the call of Abraham when there
was the human race who had the testimony of God’s existence in a clear enough
accountable fashion and yet they rejected it. Then summary is: “Therefore God
gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies
would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie,
and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…” This is what
happened in that period before the flood and from the time of the flood to the
tower of Babel, and then God, as it were, just throws up His hands because the
whole human race is no good, and He is going to focus on one
individual—Abraham—and his descendants. So the summation in vv.
18-32 is that the Gentiles—before there were any Jews and before Abraham
was called—rejected the revelation of God.
Then
starting in chapter two he is going to deal with two classifications of people.
We often think that somebody can come before God and say, Well I live a good
life, I’m a moral person, I follow the Ten Commandments, the Torah, or whatever
moral standard there is; I can have justification, I can be vindicated before
God’s righteousness. What Paul shows in a masterful piece of logic in chapter
two is that neither the moral person nor the religious person has standing
before God because the essence of sin is of such a level of corruption that
nothing that man can do can overcome the basic constitutional defect that we
have because of sin. So in the first 16 verses of chapter two he shows that
God’s righteousness condemns the moral man, the most moral person who tries to
find his standing before God based on his own morality. He shows that basically
even the most moral of person is still a hypocrite because he cannot perfectly,
consistently fulfil or live out the standards that he claims to hold to.
Concluding
about the moral man, Romans 2:8 NASB “but to those who are selfishly
ambitious and do not obey the truth” anyone who doesn’t obey the truth “but
obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. [9] {There will be} tribulation
and distress for every soul of man who does evil…” He goes on in verse 12 “For
all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law…” that is,
even though they don’t have the Torah, the Old Testament, the oracles of God,
the prophets, nevertheless, he argues, they have a standard in their soul that
is a residual of being created in the image and likeness of God, and they know
what right is and what wrong is. And they can’t consistently do what they
believe to be right. Therefore when they do not do that which they know to be
right because of the inherent conscience that is in their soul from God then
they stand condemned. Even though God is the one who will justify the good no
one is good, no one really lives up to that. We may have a level of relative
goodness and a level of relative righteousness when we compare ourselves to
some other people, when we compare ourselves to the absolute perfect standard
of God none of us measures up, not even the best.
Then
he goes to the second argument in 2:17 to 3:8 to show that God’s righteous
standard also condemns the Jews. The Jews had three things that they relied
upon that set them apart from the rest of the human race. That did set them
apart from the rest of the human race and they were part of God’s blessing for
the Jews but it didn’t justify them, it just put them in a position of greater
accountability. The first thing that they had was the Law, the Torah, the
Mosaic covenant. They had all of the covenants, the promises of God, the
entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures; not just the first five books but the Law
and the prophets. Yet, even with that standard given to them none of them can
live up to that divine standard, there is always failure, they cannot boast in
being completely obedient to the Law.
The
second thing that they would rely on was circumcision. Circumcision wasn’t the
sign of the Mosaic covenant; it was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. Abraham
was the one who was to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant that God had
made with him, and so in the historical development of Judaism there was a
reliance upon the fact that because God blessed Abraham then all of those who
came from Abraham were also in this privileged position and would automatically
be justified or saved before God because of their relationship to Abraham. So
Paul concludes that it wasn’t really outward circumcision, outward circumcision
was just supposed to be a symbol of inward circumcision or separation unto God;
and unless there was that inner circumcision then there was no righteousness in
the life of the individual. Romans 2:29 NASB “But he is a Jew who is
one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit,
not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”
The
third thing that the Jews would rely on was the fact that they possessed the
oracles of God; they were the custodians of divine revelation. One again, Paul
shows that that is not enough to give them justification. It put them in a
position that they had more knowledge and to whom more was given more was expected,
and one again they failed. The conclusion, then, is given starting in v. 9 down
through v. 20: All have sinned: Gentiles, the moral person cannot live up to
God’s righteousness, and the Jews cannot live up to God’s righteousness.
Therefore he concludes in Romans 3:23 NASB “for all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God.” There is no human being who has ever lived who
can reach a level of righteousness that meets God’s approval. So if man can’t
meet God’s approval on his own how can we be justified before God? That is what
Paul begins to answer, beginning in verse 21. So from verse 21 down through the
end of chapter five we see the explanation of justification by faith alone.
He
begins at verse 21. This is really the core of this epistle. The foundation for
this epistle is understanding 3:21 down through 5:21, and so he talks about the
fact that the righteousness of God apart from the Law is revealed. Notice 1:17
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, then in verse 18, the
start of this section, the wrath of God is revealed. The wrath of God is a
phrase for His judgment, the execution of His judgment on mankind. The wrath of
God is revealed against Gentiles, against the moral person, and against the
religious Jew—all have sinned. The he says, now the righteousness of God
apart from the Law is revealed (v. 21). So how does God reveal His
righteousness apart from the Law? He talks about three key words here. The
first word is justification, Romans 3:24 NASB “being justified as a
gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Freely:
there is nothing done to earn it, to purchase it, to buy it.
In
verses 21 down through 31 Paul emphasizes the fact that justification is by
faith alone. He emphasizes that we are justified freely by His grace (v. 24),
through “redemption,” the second key word. Redemption is the purchase of a
slave; the entire purchase price is paid to free a slave. Romans 3:25 NASB
“whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation…” This word hilaskomai [i(laskomai] is a word
used in the Greek to describe the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant in the
Old Testament, related to the day of Atonement on the Jewish ritual calendar.
So these words—justification, redemption, propitiation,
righteousness—are the key words that we have to understand. The principle
is that man is now justified by faith alone. It excludes boasting, the Law:
[27] “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of
works? No, but by a law of faith.” So we have to be careful here because Paul
uses the term “law” in two different ways: one in reference to the law of Moses
and one in reference to simply believing the gospel—he calls that the law
of faith. In the same way he will refer to works in terms of meritorious works
in terms of trying to gain the approbation of God or be justified on the basis
of these works, but sometimes he also refer to faith as a work, but it is
non-meritorious; faith is merely doing something you believe, not in the sense
of trying to gain favour with God. The object of faith is what has the merit
and that is Jesus Christ.
So
his conclusion in verse 28: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith
apart from works of the Law.” And it is not just the ritual of the law, it is
obeying all of the 613 commandments that are in the Torah. And in chapter four
he gives an illustration which comes from the Old Testament, from Abraham: that
Abraham was justified by faith. In Genesis 15:6 Abraham believed God and it was
accounted to him as righteousness. That is not when he believed God and it was
imputed to him as righteousness, he had already done that before God called him
out of Ur of the Chaldees; but it was that Abraham believed God and because he
believed God the righteousness of God is imputed to him and it is on the basis
of faith that he has received righteousness from another source. It is not his
righteousness. Paul goes on to give a couple of illustrations from David, from
the Psalms in 4:5-8. Then in vv. 9-12 he shows that Abraham was justified, and
his statement of justification is prior to his circumcision. So it is prior to
the law, it is prior to circumcision, it is prior to the giving of the Torah,
and this shows that justification is by faith alone; it is not related to the
law, to circumcision, or the possession of the oracles of God. In 4:13-16 Paul
goes on to show that it is not on the basis of the Torah, but in vv. 17-25 he
argues that it is on the basis of faith alone. Verse 22 reiterates Genesis
15:6, it was accounted to him or imputed to him for righteousness.
In
chapter five we get into the benefits of justification. Chapter five covers the
six basic benefits of justification. In the first verse we have peace with God.
Because we are justified and God declares us just, we have peace with God
therefore. There is no harmony between man and God rather than enmity. Second,
we are able to rejoice in hope. Romans 5:2 NASB “through whom also
we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand;
and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” Third, the blessings related to
spiritual growth. We can glory in tribulations and suffering because we know
that this produces perseverance, character, hope, and that all defines
spiritual growth. Fourth, we have a tangible expression of the love of God that
is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, v.5, and then in v. 8 NASB
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.” The fifth benefit of justification is that we
don’t have to worry about condemnation anymore. Romans 5:9 NASB
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from
the wrath {of God} through Him.” Sixth, [10] “For if while we were enemies we
were reconciled to God …”
In
the last part of chapter five, vv. 12-21, he talks about how God’s grace in
justification overcomes the deficit that we have because we are born in Adam
with the imputation of Adam’s original sin. Romans 5:19 NASB “ For
as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so
through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” So it is not
on the basis of our obedience but on the basis of Christ’s obedience and His
righteousness that many will be made righteous. That concludes the first part,
which deals with justification by faith. His righteousness has been revealed in
terms of condemnation of all mankind and justification by faith alone is
available to every single human being.
Then
in chapters 6-8 we have sanctification. Sanctification is the outworking of our
justification. Only the justified person is now free to live and to express the
righteousness of God in his life. So in chapter six Paul talks about
sanctification in relation to sin. In chapter seven he deals with our
sanctification in relation to the Law. In chapter eight he talks about our
sanctification in relation to the Spirit. The foundation is given in vv. 2, 3
on chapter six—that we die to sin. At the instant of our salvation we are
identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and at that
instant the tyranny of the sin nature is broken. Prior to justification we
can’t do anything but sin, everything comes out of this corrupt nature. We can
produce morality or immorality but it is all out of that corrupt fallen nature;
it doesn’t cut any ice with God. The unbeliever only has one option and that is
to operate on the basis of his sin nature, but once we are justified we have a
new nature given to us. The power and the tyranny of the sin nature is broken
and so now we have to live in light of that freedom from sin. Romans 6:7 NASB
“for he who has died is freed from sin.” Three commands are given in vv. 11-13:
a) reckon or consider yourselves to be dead to sin; b) Don’t let sin reign in
your mortal body; c) Don’t present your members as instruments of
unrighteousness to sin. These are three mandates to the believer and he can now
do this, he has the freedom to do this, because he has died to sin.
In
verses 15-23 Paul is saying that believers are transferred from the position of
being enslaved to sin to being enslaved to righteousness, and only when we live
in light of that righteousness can we have the real life that we have in
Christ. Romans 6:23 NASB “For the wages of sin is death, but the
free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is a verse
that we have heard relates to salvation, but it doesn’t. This is in the
sanctification section of Romans. Romans 6, 7, and 8 isn’t talking about how we
are justified, it is talking about how the justified person lives. This verse
has to do with experiencing the full abundant life that God has for the
believer. The wages of sin is death, i.e. the believer living in disobedience
and the end result is not spiritual death, it is carnal death, a non-productive
life. But there is a productive life, a fullness of life in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Chapter
seven describes a relationship to the law, that we have been freed from the law
and that the law cannot provide justification. In the Old Testament they were
under the law and Paul tried to live under the law, but he experiences the
frustration that you cannot consistently and fully fulfil the law. The law is
designed to expose sinfulness. 7. Because whenever you sin, break the law; you
realize you can’t keep it. Romans 7:7 NASB “What shall we say
then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come
to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting
if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” So the law exposes the fact that we
can’t keep it, that that is not the path to justification; yet, the law is
still good. [12] “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and
righteous and good.” Then in verses 13-25, you can’t live out your
justification on the basis of the law because there is always this conflict in
the life of the person just trying to do it on his own, he doesn’t do what he
wants to do and he does what he doesn’t want to do, and that is the ongoing
conflict in the life of the believer not living on the basis of the provision
of the Holy Spirit.
Notice
in chapters 6, 7, and 8 where there is the emphasis on the spiritual life the
Holy Spirit doesn’t come into it until chapter eight.
Chapter
six talks about the fact that we are freed from sin. Well not that we are freed
from sin how do we live to righteousness? Do we do it by the law? Chapter seven
says, no you can’t do it by just pulling yourself up by your moral bootstraps.
You have to rely on the Holy Spirit, and that is chapter eight. So we can’t
answer the question of how that is raised in chapter six until we start dealing
with the realities of the Holy Spirit in chapter eight where we are told,
Romans 8:1 NASB “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus… [4] …who do not walk according to the flesh but
according to the Spirit.” So we are talking about those who are in Christ
Jesus, not unbelievers, in this passage—justified believers who are
either living according to the Spirit or walk according to the flesh. There are
those two options. If they are living according to the flesh then the result is
going to be temporal death, carnal death; if they are walking according to the
Spirit then they are going to experience the fullness of God’s blessings in
their life.
Romans
8:6 NASB “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set
on the Spirit is life and peace.” The verses here down to verse 17 focus on the
benefits of walking by means of the Spirit, and then in verses 18-39 it is the
goal of sanctification which is our ultimate glorification. It concludes:
Romans 8:38, 39 NASB “For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
That
raises the question: what about Israel? It seems like God has turned His back
on Israel. So now in chapters 9-11 Paul is going to talk about how God’s
righteousness is vindicated in His dealings with Israel. In chapter nine he
emphasizes that God has not changed, He has not rejected Israel completely. In
verse four he says that the Israelites still have the adoption, the glory, the
covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, the promises [9] “whose
are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over
all, God blessed forever.” So that is the foundation; God has not completely
left Israel. There is a purpose for God’s seeming rejection of Israel. It is
because Israel rejected God, rejected Jesus as the Messiah when He came, but
nevertheless God still has a plan and a purpose for Israel. He deals with the
two objections, covered in verses 14-19 where the objection is: well God isn’t
really righteous, is He. He answers that and shows that God is indeed righteous
and as the sovereign God He raises up the people for one purpose, others for
another purpose. This isn’t talking about salvation or justification but the
purpose and the plan of God. The second objection is given in verses 19-29
which deals His plan for His people Israel and as God has the right to raise up
Gentiles for His honor and His glory, and that if He wants to demonstrate His
wrath to those who have chosen to be disobedient then He can do so (vv. 21,
22). Then he focuses on the fact that it is Israel’s rejection of God that has
led to blessing to the Gentiles. The conclusion is then given in vv. 30-33,
talking about how God has now opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles.
Chapter
ten is about Israel’s present condition and that though many have temporarily
rejected the gospel eventually they will call upon God. Chapter eleven deals
with that in details, that Israel’s rejection now is not total, there are many
Jews who will accept Jesus as Messiah, and there are many Jews who are
justified because of that. The rejection of Israel is not final and there is a
future time when the Jews will turn back to God and accept Jesus as Messiah and
all Israel will be saved.
In
chapter twelve we get into the implications of justification: now that we are
justified how does a justified person live? How does a justified person carry
out their life in relationship to those in the church, to those in society in
relation to government, to those other believers, some who are weak and some
who are strong? That covers chapters 12-14. The big transition begins in Romans
12:1 NASB “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is}
your spiritual service of worship. [2] And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the
will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” This lays the
foundation for application. Now that you understand what took place in terms of
justification—a non-experiential reality—you can see how this is to
make a difference in all of your relationships, everything in your life. In
verses 3-8 he talks about spiritual gifts within the local church and how those
are to be used for the benefit of other believers, and then in verses 9-21
about how Christian love, unconditional love, impersonal love, is to dominate
all the decision making in the Christian life—a rejection of arrogance
and self-absorption and turning to humility and depending upon God to take care
of any personal conflicts that arise.
Chapter
thirteen talks about government. Remember that Paul wrote this at a time when
one of the worst dictators of all time, Nero, was ruling over Rome and yet he
says, Romans 13:1 NASB “Every person is to be in subjection to the
governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those
which exist are established by God.” So even if in our opinion the authority is
evil or wrong we are to respect the principle of authority. That is always hard
for us to deal with, we are always looking at the person and we have to respect
the office even though we may not respect the person in the office. Of course,
respect for authority always goes back to the basic issues in the angelic
conflict. He connects this to paying taxes and customs and respect for those in
authority in government. This is applied in other ways: in verses 8-14 in terms
of how this relates to others in society. We are to love one another and he
applies this in terms of the Ten Commandments. We can only do this by putting
on Christ, verses 11-14.
In
chapter fourteen we deal with how we deal with other believers. Some believers
are going to be all twisted and are going to get the wrong ideas, some are
going to try to impose their standards on everybody else; others are going to
go in the other direction. So here he deals with the issue of how to treat
weaker brothers, and esteeming one another and honouring one another even
though we may be wrong in areas of application, and dealing with the law of
love toward the weaker brother in the last part of the chapter.
Chapter
fifteen at the very beginning Paul talks about the law of liberty, the
principle of liberty in relationship to the application of bearing each others’
burdens and loving one another because we are all justified. So there should be
a greater measure of love for those in the body of Christ. Then we come to the
conclusion starting in verse 14 where he goes back to explaining his reason for
writing again. He talks about his future plan to visit Rome in vv. 22-33, and
then he begins in a long chapter to give greetings to a number of different
people who are within the congregation at Rome. He concludes by saying, Rom
16:25-27 NASB “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to
my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the
mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested,
and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the
eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, {leading} to obedience of
faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.”
That
gives us an overview of Romans.