Romans Introduction

So, I like what Courtney did last week, where he asked you, why did you come to this class? It's a really good question. He's smarter than me, I wouldn't have thought of that question. So, as I was putting notes together, you know, I was thinking, what do you know about how the Book of Romans is structured? What's chapter one about? Just the chapter itself. What's it about? It's about the main point is that he struggled. Part of it talks about the wrath of God in the field. And the other thing it does is Paul introduces himself and lays out his credentials. So it's pretty simple.

What about chapter two? What's chapter two talk about? God's righteous judgment and then it goes into the Jews and the law? Yeah, his righteous judgment and does he have a right to judge mankind. And chapter 2 and part of 3 actually go through three issues in terms of God's judgment.

Do you know what they are? There's three groups of human beings that are talked about in there. You have to know where they are, what they are, who they are. Jews and Gentiles are two of the three. The Jews are the last group that he talks about. But what's the first group he talks about?

Average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill human being, who isn't very religious, got his own program going. his own set of ethics, his own sense of right and wrong, and man would say, well look, I'm doing pretty well, I'm not harming my neighbor, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and God says, okay, I'm going to judge you based on your principles. The second group of people that are in there, are those that are pretty moral and have their own real strong sense of human-based morality and live like that.

And God says, well, okay, I'm going to judge you based on your rules. The third group are the religious people, and of course he picks the Jews because they're the most religious people on the planet at the time. And he tells the Jews, I'm going to judge you based on the rules I gave you. How do those three groups stack up to God?

They're all doomed. You know why? You know why they're all doomed? They need blood. Have you noticed in chapter one, well hopefully you've read at least one chapter, how does God describe man in terms of, he puts a tag on men. Does he describe them as unfaithful, unrighteous, sinners? What term does he use? Remember? He says when he knew God, he didn't go outside with God.

Okay. Okay. But he puts a tag on him. He puts it like we could say that you're an engineer, or you're this or you're that. He says that all men are ungodly. You know what that says? When he says all men are ungodly, and that's what he holds them accountable for, he's just created a standard. What's the standard? God-likeness, right? God-likeness. So all of this relativity in terms of morality and all of that goes away because he says the standard is me. I'm the standard. If you're going to be righteous before me, you've got to measure up to me. That's a big problem. That's a huge problem. Don't you think? I mean, have you ever thought about whether you measure up to God and God's standard, which is Himself?

I was in Hawaii when I went to a Bible study with a bunch of guys early in the morning. Because it's warm, they hold it outside with the traffic going by. And it was kind of an interesting discussion because they're pretty much. This is a group of guys from Calvary Chapel. And they're they're pretty legal in the way that they look at things. And they think that if they obey the rules, that they're they're OK. The problem is they haven't figured out yet that you have to be godlike. What's that humming sound? So. Huh? You can't hear? You think so?

Anyway, I was I was a little bit and I kept my mouth shut. Courtney would be happy to hear that. Well, It's interesting, they went around the table and they said, now we want to pray for each one of you and we want you to tell us what you want us to pray for. And tell us what your goal is for the year, your spiritual goal. So, I did keep my mouth shut.

But you know, the point is that there isn't a concept that what God is saying to mankind is that you must be righteous as I'm righteous, or you can't stand before me. All of your goodness isn't enough. And if you live vis-a-vis the Sermon on the Mount, it's not enough. What would happen if Lindy could keep all of the Mosaic Law, All 612 of them. And she could walk before God and say, boy, I got them all. What would God say to her?

Nice job. Come into Christ. What would He say? Yeah, nice job. You're still short. What's that? She might. She might be able to do that. But she would be righteous in herself. Do you see that? What the law does is it makes you righteous in yourself. And that's not good enough because it's your righteousness. Do you get that?

I mean God's standard is Him. There is nothing higher. So in chapter 2, when we get to chapter 2, we're going to look at principles according to God's judgment of human actions. And there's principles. He judges according to the truth. He judges according to accumulated guilt. And he's impartial about it. He judges according to a man's worth. He judges without respect of persons. It doesn't matter who you are. He judges according to performance and not how much you know.

It's a hard one. God's judgment reaches the secrets of your heart, so you can't hide anything, and according to reality, not religious profession or hypocrisy. So it's very interesting. Romans for the first three and a half chapters, two and a half up to 321, is a condemnation. what God's determination is about all men.

And it gets them all in the same box by the time we're at the middle of three. We're all in the same box. Now, the reason I think that's important for us to concentrate on is this. We live in a society of relativity today, and we have adopted, like it or not, the fact that I as a human being am the ultimate authority about everything. So if I determine something is good or bad or I can behave in a certain way or not behave in a certain way, I'm the ultimate authority. That's what the world teaches and that's what our kids are learning and that's what the whole mindset of the cosmos is today, and it's always been this way, I can decide for me. Isn't that what you get? Political correctness is all about I get to decide for me. The problem you've got with that is that you're not the ultimate authority for anything. According to Romans chapter 1, 2, 3, into 3, who's the ultimate authority? God is, and we need to understand that as we deal with circumstances and situations in the world that we live in. We have an ultimate authority and it's somebody other than me.

I can't take my mindset about something and interject a little holy water from the Bible and still keep me in the center. I am not in the center. And that's what these first two and a half chapters talk about. We end up, outside of Christ, we end up all in the same box. We are not godly. And God says, in order for you to be with me, you have to be like me. That's really tough. That's really tough. So, condemnation is coming. That's what we find out in these first chapters. that the whole world is condemned.

Everybody. And Paul, Paul is a guy who was a Jew but was raised in a Greek environment. You know the difference between someone with a Greek mentality and someone with a Jewish mentality? How does a Greek think? We admire the great Greek philosophers, Aristotle, Plato, Do you know what Aristotelian thought is all about?

Logic. But it puts me at the center. Plato had this deal where there is a big world out there full of truth and I would be able to pick out of that cloud, the cloud, isn't that great? I get to pick out of the cloud what I think is relevant for me, but I get to decide. And I can be logical, I can accumulate truth, and I'm going to be the one, that's Greek mentality. How do the Jews think? Because they don't think that way. They're not logical. How do they think?

Show me a sign. When you read Peter, James, and John, you will not find logical conclusions, will you? You don't find like the book of Romans where we have point upon point upon point upon point and here's a conclusion and it's irrefutable. Now a Jew would say, bingo, here it is, look it over, bang, there it is. Peter, James and John talk about identification but they don't explain it. They just say here it is. Paul is a Jew raised and trained as a Greek, so he's extremely logical.

Probably the Book of Romans, I've read in places, and I don't know how true this is, but if you went to, say in 1950 you went to Harvard Law School, you would have to go before moot court and debate the Book of Romans. because it's the most logical presentation of any subject, anywhere, anytime. And if you got this down, you really had it together in terms of how you would argue a point. This is extremely logical. It's really good that way.

And if you'll notice, if you know that about the Book of Romans, it helps you understand as Paul moves forward. He's always building a precept on a precept on a precept, and he uses great words like therefore, and I love to ask the word, what's the therefore therefore? It's there based on all of this up to now, and now we're going to the next step. And then he'll use it again, and then we'll have a conclusion.

So we won't have a conclusion until Romans 3.21.

In chapter 3 just quickly and then we'll start with chapter 1. One of the issues with Paul in chapter 3 is that the Jews have an advantage. Do they have an advantage over the rest of humanity? Well you got to pick one. I think he said we don't and then he said yes and then we went. Yeah they had a lot of advantage. They had God's word. They had his law. But I don't think they understood the real reason why his law was given. So they did have an advantage. We'll go slow in the beginning, but I'm going to do that purposely. Somebody read verse 1, chapter 1. That's fine.

Which I didn't get to last week, which builds on what you just said, the logical progression versus the chronological, which is over there, and how Paul basically builds off one of the next, but one of the things which you mentioned, and I don't know where you got some of that, it was on Newell's book on Paul's Gospel, and just read this one thing, because it's for all these, and it's about if you take Paul out of the Bible, all of his epistles, This is all gone, and he had a really good summary.

But nevertheless, Paul is the declarer and the revealer of the gospel to us. Take Romans to Philemon out of the Bible, and you are bereft of Christian doctrine. For instance, if you were to take Paul's epistles out of the Bible, you cannot find anything about the church, the body of Christ, for no other apostle mentions the body of Christ. You cannot find one of the great mysteries such as the rapture of the Church, 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians, or the mystery of the present hardening of Israel, Romans 11. No other apostle speaks of any of those mysteries. Paul alone reveals them.

The great doctrines such as justification, redemption, sanctification, And what is perhaps the most tremendous fact of every real Christian life, that of his personal union to the Lord in glory. Paul is the great divinely chosen opener to us of this truth for this age. This is the beginning of it, and last week going over all that progression. This is the foundational material of everything we know about us as believers, and just the importance of Paul and the epistles.

And if you take him out, you find nothing of this with the rest of the apostles. Yeah. You know, I'll probably get excoriated for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Let's say you come to a church and you don't know Romans very well. You're a fairly new Christian. They say, oh, you better go study the book of Colossians. Or maybe you ought to study 1st and 2nd Corinthians or Galatians. What's the problem with that? No foundation. You don't have the foundation. You don't get the rest of these. You just don't get them.

It's interesting how many Christian leaders don't understand the spiritual order of the New Testament. Just because this was written first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, spiritually this one is first. It has to be. You cannot understand Corinthians without understanding Romans. You can't do it. So I would think that Romans should be taught everywhere all the time. And nobody should go and study Ephesians who hasn't got a handle on Romans. Because there's a progression. Here's an interesting thing about the book of Romans compared to the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians places believers where? In the heavens, right? The book of Romans never leaves the planet. Never leaves the planet. It's all about what God came here to do. So if you start up here, you don't know how you got there. Do you see that?

That's why this is so important for us. If you're going to read through the Bible in a year, read it in this order. This is the best way to read the epistles, right there. Because it builds, it builds, it builds. And you don't have to go back and say, well, I don't know what that really means. Well, it was in the previous book, or two books back, or it was in Romans someplace. You see that? That's why Romans is so important. Alright, can I go on now? Yes. Somebody read Romans chapter 1, verse 1. Paul introduces himself.

Do you know about ancient letters? Like if Addie was going to write me a note, she would say, Dear Mike, Here's the content of the note. You're the greatest person in the world, Addie. That reminds me. I have a letter to give to you. We put what we call the complementary close at the end of what we write. We identify ourselves at the end. In ancient writings like this, the writer identifies himself at the beginning. It's different. Try not to get hung up on this. If I do this wrong it will start buzzing again. So we're going to talk about Paul whose life and ministry are by far the most remarkable of those of any human being. I agree with that. I think Paul is the most unique man that's ever been on the earth other than Christ.

He's something else. And I think he was not much of a man in terms of stature. I think he was a little skinny guy. that wasn't really attractive and why would anybody listen to him? Yet God chose him to be the one that is going to give mankind the unsearchable riches of Christ in terms of the cross and thereafter. It's just amazing what God has called him to do that's just beyond.

So he identifies himself as Paul. Had Paul ever been to Rome? He'd never been to Rome. And that makes this kind of an interesting thing because most of the other places where the churches were established by him, he went there and started the church. He did not start the church at Rome. He hadn't been there. So part of the thinking about the way that this letter is laid out is that he's always wanted to go there, and he knows some people from there, but he is not the apostle of that church, so to speak. He isn't the one who started it. So he's introducing himself, and because he hasn't been there before, he very carefully lays out the Christian doctrine to them. So it's important to understand he hadn't been there yet. And oh, by the way, how does he get there? He gets there in chains. He thought he was going to take Southwest Airlines to Rome, but that didn't happen. He got there in chains, and God promised him that he would be there, but he wasn't sure.

The next thing is he says he's a bondservant of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Notice he says he's a bondservant before he says he's an apostle. Is that important? Do you remember when he was saved? What happened? He was blinded by the glory of God.

And the Lord said, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute. And his answer was, what shall I do, Lord? Notice he called him Lord right away. Right away. Now I've often thought about this thinking, well if I was on the road to Arvada and I met the Lord in all his glory, I think I'd call him Lord too.

So instantly this fire breathing Jew who thinks Christianity is heresy and he's going to snuff it out Instantly, when he sees the glory of the resurrected, glorified Christ, he instantly surrenders to him. That's pretty cool. It shows you what glory will do.

So that's what you get out of Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. So now he's starting to tell people, here's who I really am, called an apostle. Does that mean that somebody said, okay Paul, you're an apostle? How did he get to be an apostle? God called him and he designated him and he set him apart as an apostle. Now what was one of the big requirements to be an apostle?

You had to know him, you had to have met him. Now think about this, the other twelve apostles, what was their relationship with Jesus? They were his disciples. What was their interaction with him? How did they know him? Maybe ask it this way. Did any of the other twelve ever see the glory of Christ? A couple of them kind of saw it. The transfiguration.

But how did they know him? They knew him as the Jewish Messiah. They knew him as crucified, buried and resurrected. And they knew him as the one who ascended. They also knew him and the work of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. That's how they knew him. How did Paul know him? What was his introduction? Bango! Full on heavenly glory right in front of them. So think about the start that Paul gets. He automatically starts post-Judaism. Do you see that? Post-Judaism.

He's an apostle, I think in Newell or somebody said, set apart by the action of God to some special sphere or manner of being and of consequent activity. So he's called to be an apostle. This word called is a really interesting word because every one of us as believers are called to minister to the body of Christ at one point, or not one point, but in some manner. It's a calling. And it's really important that we understand It's a calling. We all have at least one spiritual gift and it's a calling. Paul's calling was as an apostle. And apostles were really powerful guys. There's a lot of neat stuff they could do that nobody else could do. And God did it that way to verify their ministry. Next part, separated unto God's good news.

Somebody look at Galatians 1.15. Read that. I would think with the electronics you could do it faster than that.

Galatians 1.15. Don't be shy, read it.

But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood." So he was separated under God's good news. In Romans he tells us, that he was separated. He was called of God from the very beginning. He recognized that after he was saved that the calling started when he was born. It didn't start necessarily when he was called on the road to Damascus. This word called Kaleo is used as a divine sovereign action 40 times. Forty times. And it's used as a noun eleven times, also in the sense that the gifts and calling of God are not to be repented of.

So, were you called? Is everybody in this room called? What do you think? Alright, if you won't answer, I'm going to do it this way. Let's have a show of hands. How many think you weren't called? How many think you were called? Well, there are several in here that belong in the chicken coop.

So, what's the good news? Paul says, called, separated under God's good news. What's the good news? The Gospels. Okay, what's the Gospel? Jesus died on the cross, then he was buried, and then he rose again. and he was seen by many. The Lord Jesus even said about himself, I came because of the Father, I didn't come because of me. It's interesting that we understand that Paul was the guy that had the gospel. Did Peter have the gospel?

How about Acts 2? Is the gospel in Acts 2? What do you think? You do remember what Acts 2 is all about? It's Pentecost and Peter's great sermon. Is that the gospel? What do you think? Come on, take a chance. Yes or no? Or maybe? Or some of it? What do you think? Is Acts 2 the gospel that Paul's talking about? The answer is no, it's not. No, it's not. Why? Because what is Acts 2 really about? Coming of the Holy Spirit.

And when Peter got up to talk, what was the content, basic content of what he was talking about? Talking about Israel, that this is the Messiah, and that you've crucified him, and he talked about kingdom, and that kind of thing. He didn't talk about, oh here's the gospel, you Jews in Jerusalem, Christ died on the cross for your sins, he was buried and resurrected. He said, you crucified him, but he didn't tell you why.

You see that? Now, were the Jews that believed on the day of Pentecost baptized into the body of Christ? Sure they were. Sure they were. That's when the church started. But the complete understanding of what the gospel was, we had to wait for Paul, for him to tell us what it was. 1 Corinthians 15, that's where it's laid out. But he is called to this ministry, called to the gospel of Christ.

It's interesting that the good news, he's been separated unto the good news. What does that mean? What does it mean to be separated? But what does it mean to be separated to it? Set apart to it. What does that mean? Set apart to it. That meant that that was his job from now on. That's what his whole purpose in his life was going to be. And he separated to it by God. to you, those of you who are married, you were separated under your spouse to the exclusion of all others. And that's the way it should be. It's kind of cool to realize that maybe I was separated, like Paul, under the gospel. That was his sole thing, separated under God, under the gospel.

I'm becoming like the Millennials. I've actually got the Bible on my phone. What's that? Darn Millennials with their Bible apps. Well, I'm downstairs teaching the kids and I'm intimidated because half of them are electronic Bibles. I've got a whole box of Bibles in the back of my car. They're useless now.

Verse 2. Read verse 2. Which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scripture. So the good news was promised through the prophets in Holy Scripture. You know the opening line in the book of Hebrews? What's the first line? Hebrews 1-1. Somebody go to that quickly and read it. Some of you with electronics can get there really fast.

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. Next verse. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. Paul is the guy who expands on that premise, that principle. Everything that the Jews and anybody else learned up until the time of Christ was through the prophets of old in the scriptures.

Now it changes. Now, Paul talks about the promises were through the prophets in scripture, but now it's different. It isn't so much now that we're going to have new scriptures and new writings and new books to study, which we do have, but it changes from surrogates to the person himself. It changes from those who were commissioned by God to write certain things like witnesses to the law and the prophets, witnesses to the sacrifice, witnesses about all the things that were going to be reality when Jesus came.

But now it goes from, I'll put it in the form of a question, now it goes from scripture, system, religion to what? What is it now? Now it's a person. It's really important that we understand that now it's a person. The book of Romans and all of the New Testament from Romans 1 is designed to do one thing and that's to reveal this person to us. To reveal a person to us. So as you read and spend time in the Word, especially the New Testament, we're not there to become theologians. Theologians are like lawyers, we've got too many of them. But we don't have enough people who just know Christ, just Him.

And they got to know Him by reading Paul's epistles and Peter, James, and John. That's how they got to know Him. purposely, knowing when you pick up your Bible to read it this week, you are there to be engaged with and to behold the glory of a person. This is all about a person.

So when he says, which she before promised through the prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son. Not concerning New Testament, not concerning Christianity, not concerning being a good Christian. It has to do with his son, who, by the way, died according to the scriptures, was buried and resurrected. The good news Paul preached, the great facts concerning Christ's death, burial and resurrection are the beginning of the Gospel. And he delivered it, first of all, to us. The gospel is all about not a doctrine, a person. Apart from him there is no news or good news from heaven. Without the Lord Jesus there isn't any good news at all. It's one thing to know a lot about somebody, I've used this example a lot, and Donna doesn't like me to do it. Okay, I'll pick somebody else. I was just at a golf tournament in Hawaii, and there are certain golfers, if you are a golfer, you like them. Like Jordan Spieth is a terrific guy, right?

And for five days in a row, every time he came through my hole, I was this close to him. And so now I know more about him than I knew before, right? I didn't get to meet him. I know he can hit a drive 300 yards. I know he's a really focused guy. I also know he's got a sense of humor because we were on the 14th tee box and we could look over to the 11th tee box. I don't know if you know who Jason Duffner is. He's one of those guys that has a pot belly and he's a really good golfer.

A guy like Jordan Spieth is in great physical shape. So Duffner is over at 11 hitting off on a par 3 over there and Spieth is on my hole and they look at each other so that they don't interfere when they hit off. So Spieth stands up to Duffner and he goes like this. The doctor starts laughing.

So I learned something about Jordan's people. But I can get to meet them. I can learn all I need to know about the Lord Jesus Christ. But I better get to know him. I get introduced to him. I get to behold his glory. I get to know him and God's purpose using the Apostle Paul is to reveal Christ.

That's what he's about. And that's what the Book of Romans starts to do. That's what he's laying out, he says, concerning his son. This is a really cool thing, that the God of the universe would determine, okay, we've had all of this Old Testament and all this wonderful stuff, but now I'm going to set it up so they really do get to know me. concerning his son who was born of David's seed according to the flesh. Why is that important? What does it mean to be born of David's seed according to the flesh?

The Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man. He is 100% God and He is 100% man. As God, there are certain things about him. As a man, there are certain things about him. We're talking here about as a man. As a man, he's born of David's seed according to the flesh.

What does that mean? Why is that important? Well, one thing is that God prophesied in the Bible that he would be in the line of David, and from the side of heaven he would come to David. in order to be king. He was prophesied to be king. The kingly house is David. But before that, it's important.

God's determination in the Garden of Eden to Adam was, if a soul sinned, what would happen? He had to die. Now, we have the second person of the Trinity coming to earth and becoming a man and the way you know he was a man is that he was born of a woman. What did he come to do? He came to die. The thing is that God can't die, can he? But as a man he could. So here he comes to do what? To carry out the penalty that God inflicted on mankind about sin, he came to die. In order to do that, he had to be a man.

He is the seed of Abraham to bring in salvation to the whole household of faith. Christ was the seed of David and actual fulfillment to Israel of all the messianic promises, for he was born into the house and family of David. Both of his parents came from the house of David, right? Joseph and Mary both, right? They both did. So, he's an heir to the throne.

Verse 4, Who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. Christ as the Son of God is declared to have power by his resurrection. Well, let's talk about that. What kind of power is resurrection power?

Huge. Huge. Better word than that? Let me ask you this. Has there ever been a greater demonstration of God's power than the resurrection? How about the creation? How about like in Colossians where it talks about the Lord Jesus sustains everything all the time. He created it and he sustains it. That takes some power, doesn't it? How about the resurrection? How much power did it take? It took more than Courtney's Ford.

It took all the power of the three persons of the Godhead to raise Christ. There has never been a greater demonstration of the power of God than the resurrection. And part of what we'll find out in studying the book of Romans is how much power there really was there because of what Christ did in dying. What his identification was with. Let's see, and it's according to the spirit of holiness. What is holiness?

Hebrews 9.14 says through the eternal spirit he offered himself without blemish unto God at the cross.

You know what the eternal covenant is? I know, but I'm asking you a lot of hard questions, right? What's the eternal covenant? The father and the son agreed that he would go to cross. Right. What is a covenant? Contract. It's a contract, right? And I know contracts, I know residential contracts, because I was a realtor. If you want to buy a house and you want to sell the house, I would put you under contract and you under contract to each other. And you said, I'll do certain things and I'll do certain things. And if we fulfill the contract, you buy the house and you sell it. God the Father and God the Son made a deal. And the deal was, if you become a man and die for the sins of the world, in other words, satisfy God about the sin issue, I will raise you up again. That was the deal. Where are you in that deal? We're not anywhere in it, are we? Where are we? There's no little caveat that says, well, you'll be a beneficiary or anything like that, right?

Why aren't you in that deal? You couldn't make the deal. You know, if you want to buy her house and you don't have any money, you can't make the deal. When we start talking about that salvation is on a grace basis, we can't be part of the covenant. Because God has to offer it to us without any strings. No deal. He just offers it out of the goodness of His heart. So, we'll pick up somewhere in four. Let's close. Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your son. We thank you for the incredible blessings that you bestow on us all the time. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.