Romans, Part 1, Intro & Chapter 1, Verses 1-6

Systematic working through the Book of Romans.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

We are starting a project here. I don't know how else to what else to call it right now, but just we're gonna see how far this can go. We'll give it a good test run here, at least till we get into Romans 5 and 6. We're gonna do this. So, and then if it's going well, then we'll just keep going with it. If it's going that well, we'll go through all nine letters that Paul wrote. So the idea is just to systematically and repeatedly go through uh these letters that Paul wrote. Why we're gonna get to that in a minute. Uh, God wants all of his people to be educated as to what this gospel message is. Okay, let me give a little bit of background as to why we're doing this in one sentence, is because God wants it done. He he wants each and every one of his people to understand these letters that were given to wake us up to what's really going on. And there are many things that are in these letters that you do not understand yet. And worse yet, if you think you understand them and you don't, you're in a worse state. So God is trying to wake up the church as to what we've actually entered into through Christ. By the way, according to Ephesians 3:11, this is his dream of the ages. That this these truths would live in a people, not not live in them, and then we sit at home, you know, watching TV or playing tiddlywinks. There's still a game anymore, but that that it lives in and through us. Imagine if he designed the sun, the S-U-N, the orb, right, to be selfish. It gives no light and heat. We'd be dead by the in an hour, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Short order, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, right. But he designed it as a power source to manifest what it is. He designed each one of us in this body of Christ to be a power source to manifest what we are. Super conqueror. And the list goes on. Yes, super conquerors. Yeah, uh, we are so recreated by God to be a uh uh a breakthrough in this dark world that we're living in. And uh praise God, these epistles were penned to get this message out. Now, I'm gonna give a little you know running start to to get into Romans and a little bit of background here. We have to do this to get started. Why did God have uh 12 apostles appointed by his son Jesus Christ? These apostles were appointed, it says, to according to to Mark 16, 15, to preach the gospel in all of creation. Preach the gospel. It doesn't say start churches, although that would happen. It doesn't say minister, you know, healing right there, although that's going to happen. It's preach the gospel. Then these signs are going to follow when the gospel's believed, and that gives a short list. There's other lists in other places, but these signs, these results are going to follow the gospel being believed. So the primary thing the apostles were appointed for is to get this message to people. And thank God they were inspired to write it down so that we can read it today, and they're still doing their job, even though they haven't been around for almost 2,000 years. So God has arranged for this message to get out, and these letters were written for this purpose. Most of the things that were written back, you know, they didn't have copy machines, right? Everything that was written was handwritten. Okay. Most things that were written were written on, from what we understand, what they called papyrus. It was a fabric-like paper they made from a weed called papyrus. No coincidence. So they made this paper-like product, and that's what they would write things on. But the problem was it wasn't very um uh didn't have much longevity to it. So if they wanted to preserve something, they would write it on uh animal skins, essentially, um, is what most of it was done on. And they uh they used just forms of leather, it was animal skins, but they would uh they would also carve it into rock. Uh they really wanted to preserve something like the Ten Commandments, um, like the Gospel and the stars. They found the message carved into stone and metal, you know, in many cultures of antiquity. Uh but what to to carry something around, like the scrolls of the Old Testament, it was done on um this, these uh animal skins, and they would either sew them together or glue them together, and and then they would roll them. So it would literally be a scroll. They would roll it out and then read, you know, Isaiah, what we know today is like chapter 40 or whatever. Um, but it was on animal skins to preserve it. Paul in the end of 2 Timothy told Timothy, Come to me in prison in Rome. He was in prison in Rome, come to me and bring this and that, but especially the parchments, those are the animal skins. What do you think were written on those animal skins?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Everything he got taught?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yes, what he knew he needed to get to the saints as an apostle. An apostle's a messenger, so he he was aimed at his job being completed, getting this message out to the people of the world. So he made sure Timothy brought those parchments, as it says, right? It's interesting that in the Bible, the New Testament, there are the the copies that we have handwritten. Uh they call them the cap in capital letters, they were called unseals. Uh, the other word is is in English, we would say in cursive. It was just one word after another. They called it running hand was what the meaning of it was. But it would they would just write this. So it was in capital letters or in running hand. But everything they did was hand done, right? So all the the copies that were from the first century, as far as we know, don't exist. They've now, in the last like, I'm gonna comfortably say 100 years, 80 years or so, they found things from the the third and second century even more. So they're finding the and all this word of God, when you look at it and compare one handwritten text with another, they're saying the same thing. In all the New Testament, some parts are missing in some of these uh writings, these collections of writings of the New Testament. Um, uh other things, there's there's portions, uh, other other ones that things are out of order. Paul's nine letters to the churches are in every single discovered uh transcript, and they're in the exact same order, like no other books in the whole New Testament, even Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Sometimes you know, John's missing, or they you know, they have uh portions of Matthew, Mark, or Luke that are missing. Uh, but Paul's letters are complete and in every one of those transcripts. It's an interesting thing to note. Why is that? The gospel message is better comprised and and communicated in Paul's letters, the package of them, more than any other part of the New Testament, and for sure the old, because it wasn't in there, wasn't in the old kingdom, correct. The mystery part was not in there at all, exactly. So Paul's letters are designed by God, being inspired that Paul wrote them on these animal skins to get this message to the world for generations, and they made copies from those animal skins and more copies from the copy, and they kept doing that to get this message out uh until we had the copy machine, then it made it much easier. Um, but the message has to get out. These same letters carry the authority of God, in no matter you know what language they're translated into, you'll find if you compare them, they're saying the same basic things. Why is this message so important to God to get out? Well, what we're aimed at and praying for is that as we're going through, first going through Romans, is that you'll know in your heart more and more of the answer to that question. Why is it so important that these letters have been preserved like they have? Like Paul was so aimed to make sure they're collected and they get into what we now call the canon of the collection of the New Testament. Why was this so important? Because it was important to God, it became important to Paul, and it becomes important to anybody who takes a look at these letters, and the more you look at them, the more important they appear to be. Some of these, uh would you say, uh mighty men of uh faith in the Christian church through the years, thinking of Martin Luther from the 1500s, he was so intent on people spending time in the book of Romans. One of his statements in his uh, it's it's the I'm gonna call it a prelude. It's what he wrote before he taught the book of Romans years and years ago. And uh uh he said that every Christian ought to make it his duty to memorize the book word for word and to feed on it daily. Right, that's quite a statement. There's another man that lived in the 1800s dominantly, um, by the name of E. W. Bollinger, which said essentially the same thing. If you understand the book of Romans, you essentially understand the Bible because it summarizes the whole thing, like no other book does. So we're gonna spend time reading this. One of the things we're gonna emphasize is uh keeping in mind how can you better understand what you're reading. So I'm gonna bring up points, and maybe others will bring up points. Uh, this is a collective effort, by the way. You know, if you have a question or you want to bring up a point, we're you know, a family doing this, okay? So as we're going through Romans, okay, like we'll go as far as we you know can read and point things out today, and then uh if between now and next Friday, if you could read, you know, whatever we cover, say we cover all of chapter one, but read maybe the first three chapters, first four or five chapters a couple to several times, and and look to God to understand what the scope of how this fits together is. Why are the why is this constructed the way it is? Do you have a question? Are you okay? Just hanging comfortably. Yeah, thanks. Um, God wants to teach you what these documents are designed by God inspiring Paul to write them to communicate. He wants you to understand it. That's why they were written, that's why so much effort has been done to preserve them. Okay, so let's start in Romans uh chapter one, verse one. If you have okay, right away, how to better understand it. Okay, the book of Romans, we today have 16 chapters. It was just a letter when it was written. There's no chapters. Chapters were added in about 1200 AD, uh, somewhere in mid-1200s. Verses weren't put in the Bible until the 1500s. So what we're seeing today broken down into chapters and verses is not the same. So it takes it a discipline of mind to read it this way, but if you just read, just keep reading as if there's no verses or chapter breaks, you'll get more out of it. Um yeah, uh here I'm just gonna give you a couple examples of this. If you look at uh the end of chapter four of Romans, uh this you can do this in a lot of places. In the book of Romans, it's uh very clearly noted, but the chapter breaks. Okay, so if you start with chapter five in verse one, in this translation it says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, how did we get there? Why does it start with therefore? You know why? Because what it's gonna say is based upon what's written before, that's why the therefore is therefore.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

So therefore.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, so therefore you keep reading in a chapter five, based upon chapter four. Do you understand why they made a chap? They gotta make chapter breaks somewhere, but why they would start a chapter with the word therefore, it's telling you that it's a continuation of thought. Next chapter, chapter six, verse one. What shall we say then? Based upon what? What was just written exactly in the end of chapter five. So it keeps going like this, chapter after chapter. So to read without the chapter breaks, try to discipline your mind. It will help you, and uh we'll try to point out some things as we go as to why this is so important, chapter by chapter. Verse breaks, verse breaks next to murder the scriptures in many places. You you will not understand. If you isolate a verse, I actually I just had someone who is a been a minister in Christ for years, decades. Just we just had a conversation uh the uh yesterday morning, whatever it was, recently, uh, he was asking a question about a verse. You know where his answer was in the verse before and repeated in the verse after. You know what the problem was? He was allowing that verse to look like a verse, arrested out of its flow of context. So as we're reading, try as you're reading, try to discipline your mind not to acknowledge the chapter breaks or the verse breaks. Okay. And by the way, all this added verbiage, I don't know how you have it in your Bible, but I've got all this uh side references, they can be really helpful for reference. Uh and the notes, sometimes they can be really helpful, but just know they were all added by man, okay? Punctuation, yeah, punctuation, uh chapter headings, uh is another one. They can be very misleading. They can be helpful too, but just know that they were added, they are not the original word of God. It's all trying to communicate right here. Okay, it goes away, we still have the word of God. Yes, exactly. Right. So let's look at what God was communicating through the apostle Paul through these words, okay, as best we can. Okay. So starting in well, yeah. See my title here says the letter of Paul to the Romans. Where's God in that? Where's the Lord Jesus Christ in that heading? Don't exist. What he's doing, Paul is writing this letter, he's inspired to write this letter to the Romans. Uh, so it you could expand this title, read something like the the letter Paul was inspired to write to the Romans to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ, or something like that, in long form. Okay, because he it wasn't Paul deciding to write this, he didn't have a good idea someday, had an extra cup of coffee or something and felt like writing. It's not the way it happened. He was inspired to write it right, right? And in Galatians 1, he says, I was given the information by revelation. He was revealed it to him. So these are not normal letters, and we when we're reading it, you have to realize that it'll help you gather in their intensity and their richness. These are words your father God is trying to communicate his heart to you through these words, through the Spirit of God living in you. He wants you to understand. Uh I'm so I'm throwing out all these things, but they're they're all very, very impacting individually. I came from a background where uh this what was taught was every single word that Paul wrote was what God wanted to say, like the word thee or the word a or the word and. Well, what how it reads is Paul was inspired to write, and he wrote according to what he was inspired to write. Okay, let's give an example here. By the same Spirit of God, uh, someone could give a word of prophecy, which we heard in this meeting earlier. Well, was God using a vocabulary that that person that spoke that word of prophecy did not have? No, no. So if someone else went inspired to give that word of prophecy and they go to give that word of prophecy, it would be slightly different words, but it would communicate the same thing. Do you get it? Okay, same thing with this written word of God. So God inspired it to be written. So we're looking at what God inspired the apostle Paul to say. What did God put in his heart that the apostle Paul is communicating for the Lord Jesus Christ here? Okay, that's what we're looking for. I got stuck, I'm saying this because I got stuck on the words for decades, two decades about. Uh I got stuck on the words. It we're not looking for the words, we're looking for what was intended to be said by those words. Do you see what I'm saying? We do this in conversation. Say, you know, Kat says something to me, and I'm not understanding what he said. Well, I understood this part, what you said, but what did you mean when you said this? See, and then if he explains it, but I'm still not quite getting. I say, okay, now I get that part, but what do you mean by that part? See, and this is how we should approach God's word. God, what did you put in the apostle Paul's heart to mean to say through these words? And then you're looking at it, you go, I'm I there's something more there. Go back and read it again. Father, there's something more here. You like you know that in your heart. Go to his word as if it is his word, in other words, okay, okay. That okay, I'm not gonna go down that trail any further. Um, so the book of Romans, chapter one, verse one. This this translation reads, Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. So he's given this introduction of these first six verses, and then he in verse seven he starts by talking about who he's writing to. So let's read these first six verses together, and then we'll go back up to verse one. Says, regarding the gospel of God, he set apart as an apostle for the gospel of God, right in verse one, verse two, which, referring to the gospel, he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of Holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience of faith among all the nations for his name's sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Verse four is always I just I don't understand it. And I guess I have to look at the Romans paperwork. Can you explain verse four and declare the Son of God with power for the spirit of all the words?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yes. Can we get to that in oh no? Well, let's just go through that and read all the thing or be out of the way. Yeah, no, no, that's good, Larry. No, let's do that first, and then we'll go back up to verse one because there's some things that you really need to understand in this opening six verses, one of them being what Larry just brought up in verse four. So in verse three, it's giving Jesus' credentials by the flesh. In verse four, his credentials by the spirit. Okay, why do we need his credentials? Are you sure he was the son of God? Well, how do you know he was the son of God? Well, by him being in the lineage of David, he's at least potentially the promised Christ, because God had promised that the Christ would come through the lineage of David and sit on his throne forever. Okay, then in verse 4, he was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the spirit of holiness, uh, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is um something by the resurrection of the dead. What made it confusing to At first, was there have been others who've been raised from the dead, right? Lazarus was raised from the dead, right? Um, and others who also is raised from the dead and blanket, uh, but there have been Jesus raised. Uh yeah, the the girl, 12-year-old girl. Isaac uh Isaac Elijah, but Elijah, he they raised that oh, Elijah raised that boy, the Shinamite woman's boy. Yes, right. So there have been others who've been raised on the dead. So why does he this mark him out that he is marked out by the resurrection of the dead?

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Because he was sent during those days where he was not alive, that he was in the grave to grab them keys from the adversary to deal with those folks. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Right. Well, I finally see when you you look at you look up the words and the meaning of the words can really give you some insight as to what it's saying. It's not saying raised here, it says uh the resurrection. But when when that word resurrection is used, it means that something that thing that's resurrected is not uh no longer subject to death. Like like all of mankind is going to be resurrected in the end, and you know, uh it's contradicting myself. That some of them to the to the second death, right? The final death. But the resurrection is when someone's raised uh from the dead, but it's to not die again. That's why it doesn't speak of Lazarus was resurrected. Do you understand the difference? So raised from death, they're raised, and Lazarus ultimately died. That Shinemite woman's son ultimately died again. Jesus, never gonna die. He was raised to eternal life. By the way, that word resurrection is used of us in our baptism into Christ in chapter six. Resurrection. Awesome, isn't it? We were raised for his glory, not ours. Yeah, so verse four again, hoping that helps a little bit by background. This Jesus Christ, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead. So when he was resurrected to never die again, it was with power, right? According to the spirit of holiness. So, in light of all that, what can you refine your question?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Uh well, no, it explained it a little bit more, but I will say the raised from the dead is a the the this it does say he was raised from the dead in one six.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yes, I yeah, so well it uses them interchangeably, yeah, but where it says resurrection, yeah, that's a lock.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Okay, got it, okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

You get it? Yeah, uh we're okay, yeah. Because right there were many raised, but the resurrected is only referring to never dying again. Like us. Yeah, exactly. Because we have eternal life, that eternal life can never be taken from us. And people say, Well, what what about saints that die? Well, saints that die are called fallen asleep in the scriptures, remember? Yeah, because they're gonna get up. They're gonna get up.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

So getting up just for a second.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Um out in the world of Christians. Some say that Christ they don't put a fine point here. The fine point was that the spirit of holiness raised up Christ.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

He didn't do it on his own. Right. But out in the Christian world, they think he did.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Right. It's just a matter of reading what's written. There I went through every record of uh Jesus being raised from the dead, and every record is in the the um uh passive voice, meaning that he was acted upon. Same thing when he was uh ascended into heaven, it says that it, you know, he ascended into heaven and a cloud received him out of their sight. That's all in the passive voice. He was acted upon by the hear it, by the power of the resurrection. See it? It's really cool. Well, so yeah, I know it if we don't read exactly what's written.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

I couldn't tell you passive voice from nothing.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, don't read nothing to me. Well, and when you read it, it says that God raised him from the dead. That's what it says. Uh that God raised him after three days and three nights. God raised him from the dead, and that's exactly what happened. Right, right. Yeah, so there's a lot of ambiguity that gets cleared up when you actually read what's written. So let's back up to verse one. We have to get these six verses, and it's probably all we're gonna do today. Uh it says Paul, and you can look at the background of who this man is in the end of chapter eight of Acts into the following chapters, it uh communicates who he was and who he became to be. So, Paul, a bond servant of Christ, that means he's a sold-out slave by his own decision to Jesus Christ. He was asked to serve Christ and he gave his life to the cause. So, as we all did. Yes, that's set up according to Romans 6. When we get there, uh it's one of the things we're gonna talk about. Yeah, we're it's it's set up that way. That's the way it is. So, Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, then the uh second point, then the third point is called an apostle. An apostle is a messenger, so it's begging the question with what message? Next phrase, set apart for the gospel of God. So again, did Paul start churches? Yeah, quite a few of them. Uh did he raise the dead? Yes. Did he cast out evil spirits? Yes, he did, but he was caught, he was called an apostle for the purpose of making known the gospel. So then verse 2, which referring now the subject is the gospel, which he God promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. There, if you have a Bible that really marks out the quotes from the Old Testament and Romans, and you just go through all the quotes, you're going to see that God had promised in the prophets of old through the Old Testament, the gospel's coming. The richness of God, the gospel and life is coming, the Christ is coming, all these points. So that's what it's referring to. And um, the quotes in Romans really help you understand this. You know, here's an example. Chapter 4. See, starting in verse 6, Romans 4. We're gonna come right back to chapter 1, but here's one of those quotes. Paul is using the words of David from Psalms in verse 6, chapter 4, verse 6, he says, just excuse me, just as David also speaks of the blessing of on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. So then he gives the quote, verses 7 and 8. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Now, why was this written in the Old Testament? So that we could get to the new, so that we could get to what Christ accomplished for mankind. So that quote is taken as a prophet of the old, promising, like chapter 1, verse 2 says, the prophets of old spoke of this coming gospel and the blessings that would result. Those quotes are um scattered throughout Romans. Then chapter 1, verse 3, still talking about the gospel, here is concerning his God's son. And then there's a it's like a depends on your translation, but some translation, there's a parenthesis from concerning God's son, and that starts the parenthesis and goes to toward the end of verse 4, the spirit of holiness ending the parenthesis. Then who it's talking about who it's concerning is Jesus Christ our Lord. So he is like we talked about, he's of the seed of David, saying he is qualified to be the Christ to sit on David's throne forever. That's what that's referring to, with all these quotes from the Old Testament referring to that. And then by the Spirit of Holiness, he's marked out, right? By God to be the Christ. Then verse 5 through whom the Lord Jesus Christ we have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience of faith among all the nations for his namesake. So this message is being proclaimed to bring about it says, obedience of faith. And this has been misused in a big way to prove that you have to work for your you know your righteousness. Well, the obedience of faith means the obedience that comes from faith. So the faith is made known, the gospel message made known what to believe, the faith, right? What to believe, and out of that people obey, they submit to it. Obedience which comes from the faith. Okay, then it gets to verse six, among whom you also, speaking to the saints in Rome, you also are the called of Jesus Christ. Now that is the introduction to the letter. Verse 7 speaks of who the letter is written to. We're gonna get to that starting off the next time. We don't have to go into this much detail behind all this stuff next time. We're gonna spend more time reading it and just talking about it, okay? But the introduction gives you the base for the rest of the letter and actually for all of Paul's letters. It's the foundation for all of them. So we are the called of Jesus Christ. So a point when you're reading is you're gonna now read um when you get past verse seven, from verse eight to the first phrase in verse 16 is personal stuff from Paul as an apostle to those saints back then in Rome. Said, I want to visit you, but Satan has hindered me so far. There's things like that. He's not talking about visiting Visalia. Okay, you got to realize I know it sounds stupid in a way, but you've got to realize certain sections in his letters are personal to those saints. Well, it should be obvious what is. So the question is, what can you glean out of that as a saint today? And by the way, from chapter chapter 1, verse 16, the second part of it, all the way to chapter 15, verse 14, there isn't one other personal point. Not one, it doesn't exist. It's all uh the same message he could write to the saints today as back then, right? That you died with Christ, you've been raised with him to walk in newness of life, and these kind of truths. So, in that section, as you're reading, you know, uh uh getting ready for next week, verses 8 through the beginning of 16, where he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, that's him then, right? Then from the second part of verse 16, all the way chapter chapter 15, verse 14, well, through verse 13, it's all uh message to all saints everywhere all the time. Okay, so I needed to share that because it starts getting confusing if you think, oh, he's writing, he's writing to us right here, and he's looking forward to coming and visiting us. No, he's not so and other things you'll see. Uh, so anyway, as you're reading this, keep spending time thinking about God wants me to understand this, Father. What do you need me to see that's in these words that you communicated to the apostle Paul? That these words are designed to communicate the same thing to me, right? That's what we're looking for. So have fun with that. Uh, and then we'll be getting together next week, uh, you know, for the same purpose.