Paul's letter to the Romans it's one of the longest and most significant things ever written by the man who was formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a Jewish rabbi belonging to a group known as the Pharisees and he was passionate and devout to the Torah of Moses and the traditions of Israel. And he saw Jesus and His followers as a threat.
But then he had a radical encounter with the risen Jesus who commissioned him as an apostle, like official representative to the world of non-jewish people called Gentiles In the Bible. And so we started going by his Roman name Paul. And he traveled all around the ancient Roman Empire telling people about the risen King Jesus.
And forming His followers then into these new communities called churches. And Paul occasionaly write letters to these new Jesus communities to help them foster their faith or answer questions; and the book of Romans is one of these. It was actually written quite late in his career.
Now we know from the book of acts that the church in Rome had existed for some time, that it was made up of Jewish and non-jewish followers of Jesus. But at one point the Roman Emperor Claudius had expelled all of the Jewish people from Rome. And then about five years later all of those Jews including Jesus following Jews were allowed to return.
And when they did they found a church that had become very non-jewish in custom and practice and so this created lots of tension, so that by Paul's day the Roman Church was divided. People disagreed about how to follow Jesus, they were debating about whether non-Jewish Christians should celebrate the Sabbath or eat cosher or be circumsized. And so Paul wrote this letter to accomplish a few things.
He wanted this divided church to become unified. And for a practical purpose he was hoping that the Roman Church could become a staging ground for his mission to go even further west all the way to Spain. And so these circumstances are what motivated Paul to write out his fullest explanation of the gospel the good news that he was announcing about Jesus's life, death and resurrection.
Now the letter is designed to have four main movements but its unified as one long flowing exploration of the gospel. The gospel, Paul says, first of all reveals God's righteousness. And then it also creates a new humanity which fulfills God's promise to Israel.
And so it's this gospel that's going to unify the church. In this video we're just going to explore the ideas in chapters one through four. So Paul opens by introducing himself as an apostle appointed by God to spread the gospel about Jesus; how he's the Messiah of Israel who was raised from the dead as the Son of God, King of the nations.
And Jesus now calls all humanity to come under His loving rule. And Paul says this good news about King Jesus is first of all God's power to save people who trust in Him. And second that it reveals God's righteousness.
Now, righteousness is a rich Old Testament word for Paul; it describes God's character that He always does justice what is right and what is good but also that He is faithful and just to fulfill His promises. And Paul saying that the story of Jesus shows how God has done both of these things. How?
We goes first into a long creative retelling of Genesis chapters 3 through 11. He shows how all the Gentile world all the nations have become trapped in the spiral of sin and selfishness; the human heart and mind are broken Paul says. We've turned away from God to mbrace idolatry, which means finding ultimate significance in created things and then giving ultimate allegiance to these things that are not God.
This results in a distortion of our humanity and destructive behavior. And so what's left is a humanity that stands guilty as charged before a just and righteous God to which the people of Israel might say: well it's a good thing then that God chose our people out from among the nations, He saved us out of slavery in Egypt, He gave us the laws of the Torah like the Sabbath and eating kosher and circumcision; and these altogether show us how to live as God's holy people. But Paul says not so fast; he recalls the storyline of the Torah and of the rest of the Old Testament which shows that Israel was just a sinful and idolatrous and morally broken as the rest of humanity.
Israel is actually more guilty than the Gentiles, Paul says, because they have the Torah they should know better. And so Paul concludes: all humanity Gentiles, Israelites are hopelessly trapped and guilty before God. But.
. . that is not the final word.
The good news about Jesus is God's response. Instead of holding humanity guilty Jesus came as Israel's Messiah to die on behalf of all people as a sacrifice for sins, As our representative Jesus took into himself all of the just consequences of the pain, the sin and the death that we have caused in the world. And He overcame it all by His resurrection from the dead; it's His new resurrection life that he makes available to others.
Jesus became what we are so that we might become what He is. And all of this Paul says is how God justifies those who trust or have faith in Jesus. Now justification is another rich Old Testament term for Paul and it's related to God's righteousness.
It literally means to declare righteous. Because of what Jesus did on our behalf we are given a new status before God: instead of finding us guilty God declares that a person is in a right relationship with Him and is forgiven. Justification results in a new family: the person who trust in Jesus is given a place among God's covenant people.
Justification also results in a new future which begins a journey of life transformation by God's grace. And so all of these things about justification are God's gift to those who through their faith are in Christ. And so this leads Paul in chapter 4 to explore the huge implications that all of this has for who can be a part of God's covenant family.
He goes back to the story of Abraham in Genesis chapter 15: before any of the laws of the Torah were given to Israel Abraham was justified or declared righteous before God. How? Will God promised that Abraham would become a father of a large multi-ethnic family that would receive God's blessing.
But he and his wife Sarah they were really old and they had never been able to have children. But nonetheless Abraham had radical faith and trust in God's promise. And so God declared him to be righteous.
And so Paul says now Abraham has become the father of God's new covenant family and it's spreading all around the world. It's made up of Jews and Gentiles who have the same kind of faith and trust in the One who fulfilled God's promise to Abraham, Jesus the Messiah. So let's pause and summarize Paul's main ideas here in chapters 1 through 4 because they're the foundation for understanding the rest of the letter.
All humanity is hopelessly trapped in sin and needs to be rescued. That rescue however is not going to happen by people trying to obey the laws of the Torah. Rather God's righteous character has moved him to rescue the world through Jesus' death and resurrection.
So that He could create that multi-ethnic family of Abraham based on faith as His own new covenant people. And so Paul is going to go on to show how this new family is a part of something much much bigger that caused them to a whole new way of life together. But it's all going to be rooted in these core ideas explored in chapters one through four of Paul's letter to the Romans.
