Blessings: to Paul, of the Gospel, of Who Christ is
Romans 1:1-7 · Hal Molloy · Oct 16, 2005
Romans (2005-07), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262334282990

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, we've had two introductions so far in the Book of Romans. And Jim, the very first week, did a historical introduction to the Book of Romans and who, what, when, where, who wrote the Book of Romans, and why, and where did he write it from, et cetera, et cetera. And then last week, Bob did an overview in the Book of Romans in terms of going through each of the chapters in terms of what is the message of the Book of Romans.

And as you go through the Book of Romans, you see that the theme of the Book of Romans is the righteousness of God. What's interesting is that in the New Testament, the word righteousness is used about 96 times, in around there. And in the Book of In the Book of Romans, the word righteousness appears about 32, 33 times. So about one-third of the usage of the word righteousness is in the Book of Romans. What we're going to do, as we look at the first 17 verses in Chapter 1, We titled this, The Righteousness of God Revealed. And as we go through these 17 verses, you're going to see, and as we've seen, there's just an enormous amount of blessings that are revealed in these first 17 verses. And I find it interesting in the order that it's written, in terms of, here are all these blessings in the first 17 verses, and then in the next two chapters, there's this condemnation.

And whether you're a Gentile, you're condemned. Whether you're a Gentile and you're a very moral person, you have no righteousness of your own, and you're condemned. And whether you're a Gentile and you are immoral, you're condemned. And whether you are a very religious person, like the Jews, you have no righteousness of your own and you're condemned. And then Paul ends up that the whole world is unrighteous and condemned. Prior to this whole two chapters on condemnations, there's these 17 verses on blessings. So we're going to look at that. Turn in your book, in your Bible, to Romans chapter 1, and we'll read through the first seven verses.

It says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called I'm reading from the King James. So it says, called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is made of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ. To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is Paul, a servant of Christ, called an apostle, or called to be an apostle, whichever translation you have, separate into the gospel of God.

Here's the question. What blessings does Paul possess? Look at verse 1. Tell me what blessings does Paul possess? Okay, being an apostle. He set apart. Okay, he's a bondservant of Christ. So, three things. He's a servant or a bondservant of Christ. He's an apostle, or called apostle, and he's separated. He's separated unto the gospel. Let's take a look. What does it mean to be a servant of Christ?

The word servant there is doulos. Interesting thing about doulos. Usually the word doulos means a slave, one who's a slave, but one who is born into slavery by birth. So you're born into it by birth, and the only way you can get out of that slavery is by death, is usually the term for doulos. There's other words for slaves or servants, dikanos, but doulos has that connotation. So here's the question. Paul calls himself a bondservant, a doulos of Christ. The question is, how did he become, if we take the definition that one must be born into slavery, how did Paul become a bondservant of Christ?

Did he have to be born into it? Okay, and so then the question is, you know, how does – let me ask this question. How are we born? Into what servitude are we born into at birth in Adam? Okay, into sin, into this nature, and it's a result of our birth. How do we get out of that servitude? Death. By death. So how do we get into the servitude in terms of being a servant of Christ? by birth. Which birth? Our spiritual birth.

So, in Romans 1.23, this is being born again, not of corruptible seed, like we were born the first time, but of incorruptible, the Lord Jesus Christ, incorruptible seed.

I want you to turn. We're skipping ahead a little bit in the book of Romans, but I want you to turn to Romans chapter 6. I want you to see this slavery. Look at verse 17. And it says, but God be thanked that whereas you were, notice it, you were the servants of sin. And there's a definite article there. You were the servants of the sin, of the sin nature. You have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made what? free from the sin nature, being made free from sin, you became something that you were never before.

What? The servants or the slaves or the doulos of righteousness. Okay? So, in our first birth, our physical birth, we were born into spiritual slavery. In our second birth, by believing and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and his work, we were born again and we were born now into a new slavery. We're bondservants of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're slaves of righteousness.

Question, did you or I have anything to do with becoming that slave? Did you ever consider yourself as a slave, as a slave to Christ, as a doulos to Christ, as a bondservant to Christ, as a bondservant to righteousness? Did you make that determination in your mind that, oh yeah, I'm going to become a slave to Christ, I'm really going to live my life for Christ, I'm going to become a slave to Christ? No. Passive voice, it happened the moment you believed. And that's your position. That is our position. Okay.

Going on with the three blessings. He's a called apostle. Now, the King James is called to be an apostle. The word to be is not in the Greek text. It's not in infinitive. But the word called is an adjective, and all it does is describe the apostle. So he's a called apostle. And so for the word called, the definition may be, in this case, he's an appointed apostle. Paul was an appointed apostle by the Lord Jesus Christ. An apostle simply means one who is sent.

In this case, I think Paul is using it in the narrow sense, when he talks about the twelve plus himself. In the narrow sense of an apostle, what's the definition of an apostle? What characteristics do the twelve and Paul have? that makes them an apostle in the narrow sense. Because Scripture talks about apostle in the broad sense, like Barnabas was an apostle, and a list of other apostles, but it's in the broad sense.

But in the narrow sense, you remember what the criteria is? they had to see the risen Christ. And Paul saw the risen Christ. He spent three years in the desert with the glorified risen Christ. And then the third thing, it says, separated unto the gospel.

And this now, this word separated, It modifies apostle. It's what is called a participle. It's used as an adjective. It just modifies apostle. And it's a separated. He's a separated. And it's separated unto the gospel. So the neat part about this is that God selected Paul. It's a passive voice. Paul had nothing to do with it. He was acted upon. Passive voice.

And over in Galatians 1.1, it says, Paul, an apostle, not of men, and notice what he says, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead. So, it wasn't by any person, no council ever got together and knighted Paul as an apostle, and he himself didn't make himself an apostle, but he was separated by God or appointed by God, or selected by God, as an apostle. So, it wasn't his choice, it wasn't man's choice, but it was God's choice.

And the thing is, this little Parsifal is in the perfect tense. The perfect tense has the idea of permanence. He was permanently an apostle, and for the purpose of, as he says, unto the gospel of God. Okay, look at verse 2. Now, verse 2 starts off with the little word, which, which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. When it talks about the word, which, It's a relative pronoun and it's standing for something. What does which stand for in verse 2?

The gospel of God. Okay, the gospel of God. So Paul is separated into the gospel of God in verse 1. which he had promised. So you could substitute which by the Gospel of God. The Gospel of God that he had promised before by his prophets. I forgot to add a few things here in terms of Paul's separation. but he was separated from the Jews' religion and to the gospel, from law to grace. And when it talks about the gospel of God, God is the source of the gospel. Man is not the source of the gospel. Okay, so as you look at verse 2, I want you to look at verse 2 and verse 3. And tell me, what are the blessings of the Gospel? What blessings do you see there? Verse 2 and verse 3. What can we say about the Gospel? in verse 2 and verse 3.

Okay, number one, it was promised by God in the Holy Scripture, and it was by His prophets, right? In the Scriptures. What else can we say about the Gospel? It concerns God's Son. So, two things we can say. That God promised the Gospel beforehand by His prophets, in the Holy Scriptures, and the Gospel is centered on God's Son. Those two things.

Is that a blessing? Because what then about the Gospel being good news? and good news that he's going to deal with our sin problem. Think about this. When it says he promised the gospel before him by his prophets, can you think about in the Old Testament any promises about the gospel in the Old Testament?

Isaiah 53 talks about the Lord Jesus Christ growing up as a tender plant and talks about that He was wounded for our transgressions and that our sin was laid upon Him or iniquity was laid upon Him. But Isaiah 53, that whole chapter, talks about the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ. I just want to go through one. Isaiah 53 is one, but there are a multitude of prophecies by the prophets in the scriptures that we could look at. I want you to turn to Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. And I want to keep your finger there because we're going to turn over to Luke chapter 4. But look at verse 1.

It says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings or good news unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them who are bound. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn." Now, who do you think that's talking about? Is it obvious who it's speaking about? Is it obvious that it's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ?

I want you to turn over to Luke chapter 4 and verse 16. Keep your finger in Isaiah 61. We're going to go between these two. In verse 16 in Luke chapter 4, And he, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering the sight of the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

Now, keep your finger there, go back to Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2 and tell me where he stopped reading in Isaiah when he was reading this in the temple. Where did he stop? Look at Isaiah 61 and verses 1 and 2. Where did the Lord Jesus Christ stop reading? Okay, so in verse 2, he did read to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and he stopped.

Notice the second part of verse 2, in the day of vengeance of our Lord, to comfort all that mourn. He did not read that. Why? Go back to Luke chapter 4. So verse 19, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, And this is what he did. He was reading, and he closed the book.

And all eyes were upon him. And he gave it to the minister and sat down. In the eyes of them that were of all of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. I mean, they were glued on to him. So they understood the scripture and they understood that the Messiah that was to come, that he was going to deliver them from their enemies. And here are these Jews under Roman bondage And they were looking for the Messiah, and the Messiah was going to be like a King David, come with sword, and just wipe out their enemies, and take vengeance upon their enemies. But here Christ came, and He closed the book before reading that statement, and look at verse 21, and He began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Isn't that interesting?

So the point is that Isaiah 61, 1 and the first half of verse 2 was fulfilled at His first coming. And the thing is this, they did not understand His second coming, that He would come again. And when He comes again, then He's going to take vengeance upon their enemies. So the last part of verse 2 in Isaiah 61 will be fulfilled at His second coming. While we're here, Turn over to Luke chapter 7, because I want you to see this, how this was fulfilled.

Look at verse 19. Luke chapter 7, and John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another." So here John is wondering whether or not that Jesus is the Messiah. In verse 20, when the men were come unto him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?

And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues and of the evil spirits, and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way and tell John what things you have seen and heard, how the blind see, how the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel, or the good news, is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." Do you see how that is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61? The first part of Isaiah 61 is going to heal the sick and the brokenhearted. And all of that was fulfilled on his first coming. when it talks about these two blessings of the gospel that are stated, that it was promised beforehand, and then the second part of that is the gospel is centered in God's Son.

Please wait. Well, let's see. What am I going to wait for? because I hit the wrong button, I'm upside down. The little word gospel, or the little preposition there, the gospel concerning his son, concerning is a preposition, peri, we get our word perimeter, a periphery, and it means around and about, and that's what it means.

So the Gospel is around His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, who's in the center? Lord Jesus Christ. If it's around him, he's the center. So the gospel is centered in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about him, and he's the very center of the gospel. Okay.

I want you to look at verse, turn back to Romans, look at verse 3. Verse 3 says this, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is made of the seed of David according to the flesh. Now you notice I have a little parenthesis around Jesus Christ our Lord with a little asterisk.

The little asterisk down here says, not in the critical text. So if you're reading the New American Standard. It's not in your text. If you're reading the NIV, I don't believe it's in your text. Anybody have an NIV? Why? It's not there. Yeah, just regarding some. So the question is, you know, which is right? King James, New American Standard, NIV. And so it comes down to a textual issue. OK.

And the the critical text, five percent of our manuscripts are, if you will, the critical text. They're older manuscripts. So the New American Standard and the NIV use the older manuscripts to do their translation. The King James. uses the Byzantine or the newer manuscripts. And of all of the manuscripts, 95% of the manuscripts are the newer ones. And 5% are the older ones.

So the question is, which one is right? Or can you say that one is right, and we should be using one and not the other? So the argument amongst theologians go like this. Well, since it's older, it must be better because it's older and it's closer to the original. Those theologians who favor the newer manuscripts say, hey, the reason why 95% of the manuscripts are, we have 95% of the manuscripts because the manuscript that was used to do the translation was a very good one and therefore it was duplicated and the others were not duplicated.

We're not going to resolve that problem today, but I'm just going to go with the new manuscript that says, Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and let's assume that it's there, was made of the seed of David. So, here's the question. What blessings are associated with who Jesus Christ is? So what can we say as we look at this in terms of who Jesus Christ is? I want you to just focus here for a minute. Just observe. Tell me what we can say. Can we say that Jesus Christ is God's Son? Is that an observation? Sure can. So, he's God's son. And when it talks about God's son, the emphasis is always on his deity, always on his eternality, when it talks about God's son.

So that when you look at Isaiah 9.6, where it says, For unto us, what? A child is born, Unto us a what? A son is given, right? Unto us a child is born. Talking about his humanity, talking about his... and unto us a son is given. Notice that the son is not born, but the son is given. the Son existed for all eternity, and the Son is given. So, when Scripture talks about His Son, it's talking about the eternal Son of God, and His eternal existence, His deity. Okay, then there's Jesus, Jesus Christ. Now, here's the question.

Is Jesus Christ the Lord's name? So my name is what? Hal Molloy. So is his name Jesus Christ? So if you were to send him a letter in those days, would you say Jesus Christ and put the address Nazareth or whatever? Now, okay, and the reason is this, that his name is Jesus, right? Because the angel told Mary she'll call his name Jesus. And the word Jesus comes from the Hebrew word Yeshua, which means Jehovah saves. So Jesus means Savior. That's his name.

But, when we talk about Jesus Christ, that He is the Christ, and the Christ is the emphasis here on the Messiah, the One who has been promised. So, that's His title, that's not His name. who is the Messiah. He's the anointed one. So as you go through all the prophets, when it's talking about the coming of the Messiah, it's talking about this anointed one from God, the one promised by God.

He's Lord, right? And Lord has to do, and the emphasis is on authority. He's overall. As you look at Matthew 28, the Lord Jesus Christ says, all authority is given to me. in heaven and in earth, all authority. So Lord has to do with authority. Lord has to do with the fact that he's our master. He's our sovereign. And here we are as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are ambassadors for Christ. And as an ambassador, an ambassador represents two things.

An ambassador represents the country from which he or she comes from, and what country do we represent as ambassadors for Christ? United States? England? Czechoslovakia? Where's our citizenship? Our citizenship is in heaven, right? So that's the country we represent. Our citizenship is in heaven. And then there's an ambassador. An ambassador represents his or her sovereign. and our sovereign is the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 3, look in your Bible, in verse 3.

Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. Now, here's my question. Here we are in the book of Romans and Paul is going to lay out all of the basic fundamental Christian doctrines in the book of Romans. Why does he introduce Christ as the seed of David according to the flesh? So as I looked at this, I said, Lord, why is this there? So as you go through scripture, in terms of looking at the seed of David, so here's my question.

Is it to emphasize Christ as the promised Messiah? Because the promised Messiah was to come through the seed of David, okay? Is it there to emphasize His humanity to provide for man's salvation? Or is it to emphasize that Christ shall reign upon the throne of David? Because that's a theme when it talks about Christ being the seed of David, that he's going to rule on the throne of David. Is that why the Spirit of God put the seed of David in verse 4 or verse 3?

Here's what I think the answer is. or is it to emphasize that Christ is the promised seed to provide God's righteousness to man? And this is really beautiful, I think, in terms of looking at it from this point of view, that God promised the seed Can you think of where God promised His seed in the Old Testament?

Genesis 3? 15? And He told Adam and Eve about the seed? Okay. And you'll find through the Old Testament, the seed, the seed, the seed. Where else? the day that he illuminate on the seed. When we get to Genesis chapter 12, to Abraham, right? And he makes a promise to Abraham. So turn over to Genesis chapter 12. Oh, it's nice to hear a baby's voice.

Look at verse 1, Genesis 12 verse 1, Now the Lord hath said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Now, in these three verses, there's a promise of a land, a seed, and a blessing. Can you see the promise of the land and the seed? I mean, it's not very obvious. You can see blessing there, but it's not very obvious, is it, that there's a promise of a land and a seed?

Okay. But look at the last part of verse 3. In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. How? How are all the families of the earth going to be blessed? Okay? Now, what I want you to do is turn over to Genesis 22 and verse 18. And he's still talking to Abraham. And he says this, and in thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. Notice what he says, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So in Genesis 12 verse 3, it says all the families of the nations shall be blessed. It doesn't tell you how. But when you get to Genesis 22, it tells you how all the families of the earth are going to be blessed. It's through Abraham's seed, right? Are you following the logic here with me? It's through Abraham's seed.

Now, quickly turn over to Matthew 1.1. Because we're talking about David's seed. How about David? How molloy were you bringing up Abraham when this is all talking about David, that Christ is from the seed of David? And look at verse 1 in chapter 1 of Matthew. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, what? The son of who?

Abraham. Okay. So we have the link now between David and Abraham. So look what's happening. It says that all nations would be blessed through Abraham's seed. David is from the seed of Abraham, right? So it's talking about this blessing through the seed. So now here comes the question.

What is the blessing? What blessing are all nations going to be blessed with? What is that blessing? Think about this. What was Abraham blessed with? When you read Genesis chapter 15, it says, believed God, and it was what? It was counted as what? As righteousness. Abraham was blessed with the righteousness of God.

So that blessing, the righteousness of God, would come down through the seed. Through the seed of Abraham, seed of David, And who is that seed? So turn over to Galatians chapter 3 verse 16. Galatians 3 verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He didn't say, and to thy seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So when it's talking about, in Genesis 22, about all families, or all nations shall be blessed through thy seed." He's talking about seed singular, and that seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it beautiful how this works down through Scripture?

And that blessing is the righteousness of God, that we would be blessed with the same blessing that Abraham had, and that was God's righteousness. And just to see that, you're in Galatians. Now turn over to Galatians chapter 3, verse 6 through 9. Starting in verse 6, even as Abraham believed God and was accounted to him for righteousness, Know you, therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the sons of Abraham." So we are sons of Abraham, and that is spiritual sons, not through physical birth.

And verse 8, And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. What's that blessing? This is a test. God's righteousness, that we would be blessed with the righteousness of God. So in verse 9, so that they who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. we have the very blessing of Abraham, God's righteousness. Included in your handout, if you want to go into a little bit more detail in it, you have all the covenants laid out here. And you'll see with the Abrahamic covenant, where it says, all nations shall be blessed, and that is the seed, and it comes down through the Davidic covenant, and it comes down through David. So if you want more detail, you can look at that. Okay. This has been quiet today. I don't know why, but are there any questions?

Abraham's righteousness, was that because he believed God? Was that apart from the law? Or was that Abraham kept the law because of that? Okay, so the question is this. Abraham's righteousness, was it because he kept any law? Or was it just simply because he believed? And the answer is the latter. is that God made him a promise that he would have a son. And Abraham, in his old age, and Abraham was 75 years old when the promise was made. And it wasn't fulfilled until Abraham was like 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old. But Abraham believed God in that promise and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And Moses hadn't come along yet, so the law, you know, we didn't have the law at that time. So Moses came along like 500 years later.

So it was just believing and trusting God. The same thing is true with us. We believe what God has said concerning the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we do that, it's accounted to us for righteousness, just like Abraham. Okay, let's pray.

Our Father, we just are so thankful for your word. And Father, we just do stand in awe as we look at your scripture and look at your plan down through the ages, how perfect it is, and how you saw our need before we ever saw our need in terms of your righteousness. And the fact that we had no righteousness of our own, no matter who we were, whether we'd be Jew or Gentile, religious or non-religious, or moral or immoral, there was no righteousness that we had in our own, that you had to impart your righteousness to us. And Father, we thank you that it's just by simple trust and faith in the seed that you have provided for the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray.