Romans 1

1. Background

Paul is writing to Christians in Rome from Corinth just as he is preparing to bring the offering of money to the church in Jerusalem. Chapter 16 tells us Phebe from Cenchraea (where Paul is writing) will be carrying the letter to the Romans.

The foremost issue of the letter and its reason for composition is the question of whether or not Gentile Christians should be circumcised and follow the law of Moses in order to be saved. Paul’s major point throughout the entire letter is that Christians are saved from sin through Christ alone and not by keeping the works of the law, including receiving circumcision.

2. What we learn about God.

God desires His own to be separated away from the common.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. “

Though God’s desire for people and things to be separated unto Himself isn’t the main idea of the chapter, it still adds to the flavor of the overall message. The gospel’s fruit separates the holy from the sinful through the transformation of sinners into Christ. The work of the gospel continues to separate or sanctify believers through the Holy Spirit’s transforming work. Paul identifies himself as an especially called-out servant separated to God’s purpose. God has always had His called-out people or things separated for His own pleasure and use.

Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; Go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.

Isaiah 52:11

Belonging to God in this special way is what makes something or someone “holy.” Holiness is the state of something or someone that belongs to God in its entirety without the taint of sin. For human sinners, our holiness does not come from ourselves but is imputed by Christ, who died to give us His holiness. Therefore, anyone in Christ can offer themselves as a holy offering to the Lord totally separated for His service. Such is Paul’s case, “a servant of Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”

We cannot call ourselves to the apostleship, however through Christ and the gospel we can offer our lives as a holy gift to the Lord’s service.

God desires the Gospel to be preached, especially where it has yet to be preached.

“I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” v16

This is not just Paul’s desire, for his own desires come from the working of the Holy Ghost in his life. Paul explains why he hasn’t been able to visit the Romans as of yet. It is because other places have a greater need for the gospel. And where the need is greater, there also lies a greater debt to those who need to hear it.

This is also telling of God’s heart in the matter. When He inaugurated the Gospel plan by becoming flesh and working in Israel, He had at that time also held the need of the world in His heart. He would train men who could take the message for Him. This was done not out of the need to supplement a lack of ability to take it Himself, but according to His design. He desires for those who have been blessed by the Gospel to also be its preachers.

As it comes down to the question, where then should I preach? While there are other scriptures to consider, do not forget to consider this one as it reveals to us the heart of God. He wants the neediest to hear.

“Righteousness by faith” implies that God wants an intimate relationship with you.

“For there is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” v17

Often, when we talk of being righteous, we overload our thinking with feeling overwhelmed by weight of religious rules. The flood of guilt consumes all of our thinking when we try to make application of God’s righteous laws. We reduce righteousness to doing the right things to keep God happy with us or, worse, to foster self-righteousness in order to feel accepted or superior to others. But what we may be missing is the simple implication of why God wants righteousness for us. Everyone has their own motive for being righteous, but what is God’s motive for imparting His righteousness to us? The answer is He wants to have us in an intimate and exceedingly joyful relationship. He wants us to find joy and satisfaction in Him. Therefore, righteousness in us, namely His righteousness, is an absolute requirement for joy in God. To fail in having God’s righteousness in you would result in judgment that comes from a God is always right.

It is right for God to send the unrighteous to hell because of moral laws that reflect His character and demand a just penalty for sin. Yet, the mercy and compassion of God seek to restore our joy in Him by imputing righteousness to us through Christ.

Behind this verse is the heart of God when you ask the question, “What is God wanting when He gives righteousness to others?” He is looking for a relationship that only faith in Christ and trusting God’s word can build.

Sometimes, we use the word “faith” in a way that doesn’t describe biblical faith at all. To have faith in God does not merely mean we simply acknowledge with wavering lips that He exists somewhere in the heavens. No, this faith, the biblical faith is a faith that trusts and risks everything on the reputation of God.

Let me explain in a much smaller category. When you want to buy a used car, you want to look for a salesman who is trustworthy–someone with a faithful reputation. You want to believe that this person will not cheat you, but give you a fair deal. Unless you are a master mechanic, you will have no choice but to have faith in the person you are buying from. In this scenario, you are practicing something that is much closer to biblical faith.

God wants you to risk everything on Him–your marriage, your children, your job, your life. We were created for his pleasure:

Revelation 4:11 (KJV) “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

And God made us so that we would find our chief joy in Him:

Psalm 16:11 (KJV) “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

So this is how righteousness by faith works. When we trust Christ, He gives us righteousness with God, so that we may pursue the joy of God for which we were created to pursue.

The quotation from Habakuk in verse 17 says, “the just shall live by faith”, summarizes but also reminds us that God has been working this plan since the beginning, it is not a new thing Christians invented.

At first, because you do not know God, this faith may look shaky, but faith builds in intimacy and produces the relationship that God wants to have with you. God is wanting and yearning for the relationship that He created you for–by faith in Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

God is angry over our sin.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” v18

To ignore God’s anger and focus only on the love of God is to distort Him and ultimately worship a false god. God’s love would not be complete without understanding His anger and, specifically, what makes Him angry.

Just as people often misuse the biblical idea of faith in modern vernacular, so the word “sin” is often misused. It is not adequate enough to say sin is doing bad or naughty things because that would not explain the magnitude of God’s wrath and judgment that is manifested in the world today. It also doesn’t help anyone understand why there is a hell and place of torment day and night.

Sometimes the Bible describes God as a King and Jesus preached the kingdom of God is here and therefore people should repent. In this scenario, sin is anything that does not submit itself to God’s kingdom. The call to repent is to humble oneself before the King and give Him our full allegiance.

In Romans chapter one, sin is all “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that suppresses the truth”. The truth that all men should know is God is there, He has created all, and they have not honored Him, rather they have suppressed this truth. If you cannot yet grasp what sin is yet, you can still be able to discern that the Bible is not merely talking about naughty acts of sin, but something deeper in the heart, some attitude that stands against God and His truth.

Paul gives to the Romans examples of truth suppression they would understand immediately. For instance, as the Roman Christians would walk the streets of Rome they would see idols in the shapes of “birds, animals, and creeping things” v23. The pagan population would purport these images to be the divine which is a gross sin against the truth of who God is.

Paul is speaking in general terms to encompass all of humanity at this point. God’s punishment for sin was to simply let them be consumed by their own lusts. God’s most severe judgment is to remove His hand from the sinner and allow them the “freedom” they so desire. The result is their hearts and minds are consumed by lust.

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:…For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections” v24, 26

An example of this type of judgment is the result is homosexuality to which Paul refers to as “unseemly”, and “vile affections”. These words stand in stark contrast to our own modern society’s normalization of it. As a reminder, Paul is still speaking in general terms, and though he does not pull punches when it comes to naming the sin, he is still writing the book of Romans in hope that any sinner would respond to the Gospel, repent, and turn to God. The larger point being made is the normalizing of sin is a sign of God’s wrath and judgment as He gives people over to their own lusts.

Verse 28 goes on to describe that under this wrath and judgment, sexual deviations of all sorts will rise and more of what was once considered vile will become “normal” in the society that is being judged by God. As this society continues its spiral to eventual destruction more and more obvious sinful behavior will become normalized. Paul gives a list of examples in 29-32.

If you’re curious to as why God’s judgment is to simply let people do as they please, the answer is suggested throughout the whole chapter. God only needs to remove Himself from our lives to seal one’s doom. From the beginning, God is good and He is life. But once He has removed Himself, there is only evil and death under the “freedom” of our own devices. Under this judgment, everyone has chosen of their own volition to rebel against God, therefore God’s anger against them is an open-and-shut case. But the coming of Jesus and the Gospel means there is the hope of eternal life even for the vilest and unseemly sinner.

3. How Does this Passage Point to Jesus and the Gospel?

The letter of Romans is all about the Gospel. It is God’s power unto salvation against the forces of sin.

The Gospel separates the common from the uncommon.

Paul introduced himself as a person separated to the service of the Gospel. Previously, Paul was commissioned to attack the church and deliver Christians to punishment and death. But after he met Jesus on the road, he was transformed and “separated” as a special vessel unto God for preaching the Gospel (see Acts 9:13-15).

How did God separate Paul to this service? Through the Gospel, namely the blood of Jesus Christ. As Jesus died on the cross, He became sin for Paul and others who would believe. His death and shed blood was given to God as a substitutionary sacrifice for all sin of mankind. When Paul believed on Christ, the blood of the cross was applied to Paul’s account and cleansed him of all sin past and future. Paul was separated from sin to the service of God called by this new sin-free identity in Christ. This doesn’t mean Paul lost his volition to make his own choices, but Paul chose to live out his identity and a living sacrifice every day (see Roman 12:1-2).

Without Jesus and the cross, this new identity in Christ, free from sin would have never been made available to him. Paul’s conversion widely read all over the world teaching sinners how they two can be cleansed from sin and serve the living God.

Jesus sought out foreigners and began the mission into the spiritually lost world.

Jesus’ ministry was unique in that He was offered in Jerusalem for the sins of the world, rejected by His own, and risen from the dead, according to Scripture. Yet, in the three years of His ministry, He intentionally sought out foreign audiences outside the influence of the Jewish community and ministry of God’s word. This means Jesus intentionally sought out those who were in utter darkness without any hope of hearing a salvation message.

Consider the Samaritan woman’s voice:

John 4:9: “Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”

Consider the demon-possessed man in Gerasene:

Mark 5:1-2: “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,”

These examples, among others, show Jesus’ intent to be the first to take God’s message of salvation to those who would otherwise be without any hope at all. Jesus ultimately shows us God’s heart towards those in extreme need to hear the Gospel. The need legitimizes our radical use of time and effort to reach the neediest places. Just as Jesus would have spent days traveling, so may we spend our lives pursuing God’s joy to the nations.

4. Application

There is so much in this chapter about being separated for God’s special use. Even the idea of taking the Gospel to where it is needed the most would assume great gospel by those who would take it. They would need to be greatly prepared and “separated” in their hearts to perform the task.

The truths of this passage would point us to be committed to an intimate relationship with God. Like all relationships, they require work and faithfulness. I want to be useful to the Lord and take the Gospel to where it has the most need, but I cannot do that without being a properly separated vessel for God’s use. The power to sustain the servant’s life comes from daily walking with God.

Living this life would mean managing the minutes of my day to seek God and spend as much time in the Word as possible. As I take inventory of my time, am I spending the time needed to be devoted? If nothing is as important as being empowered by God, then what can I stand to lose to make sure I’m constantly attending to Him?