Romans
I spent a delightful day in the middle of December. It was a Monday and one of the cold, wet days we had last month. I sat in a comfortable chair with a pot of tea next to me and the heater on. There was a wonderful mix of praise and worship CDs playing and I had a stack of commentaries on Romans. I read through the introductions to these commentaries and as I read about this book, my spirit was lifted to praise in conjunction with the CDs that were playing.
Paul’s letter to the Romans is an extraordinary book. It stands out as the prince of his letters that are preserved in our Bible. It is the only letter that he wrote that is not addressed to a church he had visited or a person he had discipled. (OK, as I think about it, there is Colossians written to a church he had never visited and Philemon which is more of a personal letter.)
John Calvin said about this book: “If a man understands Romans, he has a sure road opened for him to the understanding of the whole Scriptures.”
And William Tyndale, the father of English Bible translators, believed that every Christian should learn Romans by heart. “The more it is studied, the easier it is; the more it is chewed, the pleasenter it is.”
Paul wrote to Timothy, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, but of course he was speaking of what we call the Old Testament since the New Testament, including Paul’s letters, was not yet formed. It was still in process.
Even so, we take Paul’s instruction to Timothy and apply it not only to the Old Testament but the New Testament as well, including this verse from Paul’s letter.
All Scripture is God-breathed but that does not make all Scripture equal. In the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy stands out as the preeminent book. When Jesus was tempted int the wilderness and the devil quoted Scripture to lure Jesus into temptation, the devil quoted the psalms. Jesus responded with a more powerful weapon. Jesus chose the sword of Deuteronomy to defeat the devil.
In the New Testament, aside from the four Gospels, it is the book of Romans that stands out as the preeminent book. Martin Luther called it “rally the chief part of the New Testament and … truly the purest gospel.”
It has had a powerful affect on Christians over the almost 2,000 years of its existence.
Let me tell you three stories of the impact Romans has had.
Aurelius Augustinus had been professor of rhetoric at Milan for two years prior to the summer day in AD 386 when he sat weeping in the garden. His tears came as a result of the torment of indecision that gripped him. As a youth he had prayed, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” This very ambivalence now threatened to overwhelm him. He longed to gibe his life to God and yet simultaneously he did not want to leave his old life. He felt caught between “eternity [which] attracts us from above, and the pleasure of earthly delight [which] pulls us down from below.” As he writes in his Confessions: “Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken.”
He sat there weeping and crying out to God, “How long, O Lord,” when as he writes, “I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter condition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl, I know not which – coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again ‘Tolle, lege; tolle, lege’ (‘Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it’). Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was unusual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having head the like. So, checking the torrent of my fears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon….So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting for there I had put down the apostle’s book when I had left there. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof’ (Romans 13:13). I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.
Following his conversion, the impact of Augustine on the church and the world was massive. Augustine was a Berber from what is today Algeria and became Bishop of Hippo near to Carthage. His writings influenced the church and Western thinking through the centuries up to the modern era. “What the church and the world owe to this influx of light which illuminated Augustine’s mind as he rad these words of Paul is something beyond our power to compute.” (F.F. Bruce) – (who has written an excellent commentary of Romans.)
Martin Luther was also a professor. He was professor of sacred theology at th University of Wittenberg. In November of 1515 he began to lecture on the book of Romans, continuing for nearly a year on this book. Preparing his lectures proved to be a great trial. “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,” he wrote, “and nothing stood in the way but one expression, ‘the righteousness of God’” (found in Romans 1:17). What he understood by this phrase was “the active justice by which God is just and punishes sinners and unjust persons.” He saw God as harsh and punitive and found himself unable to love a God who so punished sinners. “Thus I raged and my conscience was agitated by furious storms. I beat importunately at that passage in Romans, thirsting with a most ardent desire to know what the apostle meant.”
Then suddenly he made a connection between the phrase “the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel” and the phrase that followed, “the just shall live by faith.” He saw that the second phrase explained the first and therefore the righteousness of God must not be understood in a punitive sense.
Luther’s understanding switched from an emphasis on the righteousness of God that demands that sinners be punished to the wonder that in his mercy, he gives to sinners righteousness which they receive by faith. “I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and where as before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.”
Through this insight from the book of Romans, the Reformation was born and the face of Western history forever altered.
A little over 200 years later, on the evening of May 24, 1738, John Wesley, as he wrote in his journal: “went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.” He goes on, “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
Out of that experience the eighteenth century evangelical revival was launched from which not only did the Methodist Church emerge, but great social reforms which revolutionized England.
What is the context for this great book?
Each of the books of the Bible were written for some particular purpose. They were written within history. That is to say they had a specific audience and a specific purpose. The Jewish and Christian Testaments are not the words of God dictated to some individual as is claimed to be the case with Islam or the Mormons. Our Scriptures may be God-breathed, but they came through the minds and hearts of the men and women who wrote them.
Therefore, in order to understand our Scriptures, we must know the context and read them from that perspective.
Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome during his three month stay in Corinth, just before his departure for Jerusalem with the collection that had been gathered by the Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.
Paul had been forced out of Macedonia (modern day northern Greece) and made his way to Corinth. While there he contemplated his future. Where did God want him to go next?
There were three places on his mind. Jerusalem, Rome and Spain. He had traveled throughout the Western Mediterranean using Antioch as his base. Churches had been started. Leaders had been trained and now this great apostle pressed on to what was ahead. He had promised to take up a collection from among the Gentile churches to benefit the poor believers in Jerusalem. This needed to be delivered and Paul hoped it would bridge the gap between Jewish and Gentile believers.
But then he was eager to set off to new lands. It was in his heart to take the Gospel to the Gentile world. Where should he go next? Paul was not one to sit back and rest on what he had done. He has started new churches. Where could he go next? It was to Spain that God directed him and so Paul set his sights on Spain.
Next, I imagine, Paul began thinking of how to go about doing this. If he were to go to Spain, how would he find the support he needed? It is in this process that I think he began to think about Rome.
About 2/3 of the way between Jerusalem and Spain lay Rome and so Paul wanted to visit Rome and the church that existed there.
When he had traveled throughout the Western Mediterranean, he had used Antioch as a base of operations. He needed the support and encouragement of a body of believers. Where could he find such a place if he went to Spain? Rome was the obvious answer.
The church in Rome may have started when Jews in Jerusalem were present on the day of Pentecost. All roads led to Rome and so some of those from the churches started by Paul and others may have made their way to Rome. All we know for sue is that there was a church there. Priscilla and Aquila who Paul befriended in Corinth had been expelled from Rome because of conflict between Jews and the Jewish cult who called themselves Christians, so Paul had some knowledge of those in the church in Rome.
In Rome, Paul thought, he could find a body of believers to encourage him and support him in his trips to Spain.
So Paul wrote this letter to the church there. The church in Rome had not met Paul but they had heard of him and what they had heard was not all positive. So Paul felt the need to explain his Gospel. He needed to set the record straight to defend himself and his Gospel from the accusations made against him. He wanted to establish a personal connection with the church in Rome so they would welcome him and support him.
This letter to Rome was written after Paul’s letters to the Galatians, Thessalonians and Corinthians and the themes he wrote in those letters re fleshed out and developed to their fullness in Romans.
The gospel today too often is a superficial gospel. “Just invite Jesus into your heart,” the evangelist says. Wear a bracelet on your writs with the letters WWJD (What Would Jesus Do).
A friend sent me this via email. I apologize for its American context. “There is a lot of confusion about what it means to be born-again. Actually it is quite simple. You bow your head and pray a little prayer. When you are finished, you are a registered Republican with a firearm.”
The health and wealth gospel preached in the US has been exported to the world with disastrous results. “Have enough faith and be wealthy and healthy,” they claim.
The Gospel is just not that simple and one of the reasons the church today, be it in America or Africa and anywhere else, is so weak is that the gospel has been simplified to the point of superficiality.
Romans is the perfect antidote to a superficial gospel and my prayer is that as we move through sermons on this letter, our experience will be one of deep joy as the roots of our faith go deep into our being, affecting all of our life.
The question Romans answers is, “How will God judge us on the final day?”
And the answer that Romans proclaims is that every person can have assurance of right-standing before God and thereby know that a positive verdict will be given on the Judgement Day.
Let me give an overview of Romans so you can anticipate what we have in store for us. It will take some time for us to get through this book and I anticipate we will finish in five or six years. But before you shudder at the thought of hearing only from Romans for five or six years, let me say that my intention is to preach each year from January up until Lent on Romans. So we will have nine sermons this year and then come back again in January 2004. This year we will only get to the third chapter of Romans but I prefer having a variety in our spiritual diet so we will take Romans section by section over the next several years.
What is it we have in store for ourselves? Paul’s letter starts out with unrelieved darkness. He begins talking about the wrath of God and how universally we are under that judgement. It doesn’t matter if we have been brought up in the church or never heard the gospel. All human beings are sinful, guilty and without excuse before God.
Then in 3:21, we come to one of the great turning points of Romans.
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
And with this “but now” we move into the light and the grace of God. Into the darkness of universal human sin, the gospel has come and this is possible only through the cross in which God has demonstrated his justice as well as his love. This grace is available to all who believe and leaves no room for any person to boast. We are all made equal at the foot of the cross.
Having demonstrated that we all have been made right with God by faith, in 5:1-2 Paul writes
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
In chapters 6-8 he points out that our experience of the work of Christ in us, our freely given right-standing before God, demands a whole new lifestyle. We cannot simply pray a simple prayer and then continue living as we had been living. We cannot give our lives to Jesus and then go on as if nothing had happened.
Our lives must change and change in radical ways. In chapter 8 Paul gives us his theology of the Holy Spirit and the means by which we are able to live a radically different life.
With all of this, why did Israel reject Jesus? That is the subject of chapters 9-11 and then Paul concludes with practical exhortations.
Romans is a rich book and not to be read casually.
Listen to these verses from Romans and anticipate the delight we will have in dwelling on them.
1:16
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
3:22-24
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
5:2-5
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
6:8-10
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
7:21-25
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
10:14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
What a delight it will be to preach from these texts.
I have to admit that I am thoroughly intimidated as we begin this series. There is so much depth and I am afraid of skimming through. I am not even content to wade through this letter to Rome. My ambition is to swim through Romans. I want us to become thoroughly immersed in the letter. My prayer is that we will live different lives because of what we learn in this letter.
This morning we celebrate communion and there is no more fit celebration for us as we begin. Romans will reveal to us why we celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Romans will help us to come to our communion experiences with a deeper appreciation for what God has done for us in Jesus.
I encourage you tp pray for me as I make my way through Romans. Over the next nine weeks, there will be distractions both important and trivial. Pray that I will persevere and not settle for a superficial look at this letter. Pray that the depth of Paul’s letter will make its way into my life so that depth can make its way into the sermons on Romans. And pray that your heart will be fertile and receptive of what God brings to us.
Romans is such an important letter for us because it makes clear, in detail, what Jesus meant when in the course of the Passover Seder meal they were sharing, he broke bread and said to his disciples. “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
And again when after supper he took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
We who have grown up in the church have heard this many times. It is possible to eat the bread and drink the cup without knowing really what it all means. Romans will make clear to us what this all means.
I pray that you will join me and approach the next nine Sundays with anticipation.
