Bible Study Romans Part 27-RnR

The word “salvation” gets used so often that it can start to sound vague, like a churchy label instead of a real rescue. We slow down our study through Paul’s letter to the Romans to rebuild the basics, because Romans makes no sense if we’re fuzzy on the thing Paul keeps arguing for: the Gospel is the Power of God unto Salvation, not the power of our effort unto self-improvement.

We center the conversation on two essential “R” words: redemption and repentance. Redemption is not a religious catchphrase. It means regaining possession by paying a price and clearing a debt, and Scripture applies that to every person on earth. We trace how redemption implies a prior ownership, what humanity lost when sin entered, and why our problem is deeper than “trying harder.” Then we lean into the New Testament’s uncomfortable but clear metaphor: redemption language comes straight out of slave auctions. A slave cannot buy himself, and we cannot purchase our freedom from sin with good behavior. Only a sin-free life can pay that price, which is why Jesus comes, lives without sin, and gives Himself in our place.

From there we turn to repentance, the Greek metanoia, literally a change of mind. Jesus leads with “repent,” and John the Baptist delivers the same message to people who thought they could save themselves. If you’ve ever wondered what repentance really means, why the cross is necessary, or why Romans insists Salvation is God’s work, this teaching is for you. Subscribe for more through-the-Bible study, share this with a friend who’s wrestling with the idea of salvation, and leave a review.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Scripture Matters

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Why Romans Shapes Our Faith

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We are continuing our way through the letter of Paul, Paul's letter to the Romans. We love this letter because it has so much to tell us about ourselves, about our path to salvation, about Paul himself. The reason why it's important for us to know about Paul is because to me, he is an example of a true servant of God. We want to emulate those pure and holy servants of God. Jesus chose Paul purposely, therefore, there must be something about him of value to Jesus. We want to mirror that value in any way that we can. And that's why we like to learn not only about the letter to the Romans, not only the Romans, but also Paul. So that's what is the value of this letter to us. Currently,

Why Pause To Define Salvation

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we have veered off the main road and set about on a bit of some side travel. We decided to pause a moment to talk about salvation and what that actually means. Now, you may be thinking, what does this have to do with our study in the letter to the Romans? Well, good question. And there are a few things to say about it. First of all, if you're not familiar with this book of the New Testament, you will eventually discover that Paul spends an enormous amount of time on this topic of salvation. In fact, he does throughout all of his letters. It's important. Salvation was the number one issue being discussed at the time of the early church. They didn't care anything about equity, they didn't care anything about anything else other than the resurrection and what that meant to us. And what that meant to us is our salvation. You see, as damaged as our view of salvation is, the Jews had drifted even further from the truth. So Paul handles this very thing throughout this letter. And if we go over most of the basics now, it will help us when we start getting into the meat of Paul's arguments. Secondly, Paul just told us that the gospel was the power of God unto salvation. If we don't know what salvation is, or we have an incorrect or incomplete view of what it is, then we will fail to fully understand what he means by the power of God unto it, and we'll never properly appreciate what God has done for us. Worst of all, we will never see the depth of his love for us and we'll spend our entire lives trying to achieve salvation by some other means that will, in the end, never satisfy our fear of displeasing God, and we'll never receive the great reward waiting for the saved. This is incredibly important. And finally, we're doing this because this is precisely why I added the book of Romans to our weekly Bible study series. Tragically, we Christians don't even know our own doctrine. We Christians don't even know our own status. I sense the terrible need for a return to what Christianity actually is because it's become so many other things, especially in the past century or so, certainly in the last few decades. Now, let's see what we can do to get us all back to the biblical heart of the matter.

Two R Words For Salvation

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Now, to begin with, I think any good discussion on salvation should revolve around two R words. Any guesses? Any guesses what those two R words should be? Repentance and redemption in that order. Although here I put redemption, repentance in the first position. I put repentance in the first position, and it is indeed the right and proper place for listing it. I want to talk about redemption first, even though repentance, redemption, that's the proper order. I'm going out of order by speaking about redemption. Now, quickly, the definition of the word redemption. I know this is sort of an eighth-grade book report strategic element, but hang with me. Redemption means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, I like to quote the Oxford Dictionary because let's face it, they're in charge of the English language. The Oxford Dictionary defines redemption, thusly. I'll read the part that fits its use in Scripture. Redemption, the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment or clearing a debt. Let me read that again. Redemption, the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment or clearing a debt. And let me add that this word applies to every human being on the planet. Now, I don't think this is a discussion that you're completely unfamiliar with. Most people who have spent time in church, and I suspect that's most of you, have heard of this word redemption. Certainly someone in your religious circle has called Jesus the Redeemer. Perhaps you go to a church that is called Jesus the Redeemer. If I were to ask any one of you, I'm not going to, but if I were to ask any one of you what redemption is, you know, I suspect all of you would have an answer. Most of you would have an answer. Most churchgoers would be ready to respond. But I'm sad to say it surely would come out in a rather robotic, non-committal, bland way. Out of sheer rote memory, the answers will flow. But how many would truly grasp in the depths of their soul what they're saying? Well, that's a little dramatic, isn't it? Not at all. I mean, without redemption, there's not much value to your soul and no depth to it at all. Will you give an answer to the what is redemption question that you are sure is right? Sure, a few would, but the vast majority of the church world has only a murky, unclear view of it.

Why Everyone Needs Redemption

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And part of this is that almost no one feels a need to be redeemed, even if they knew what it meant. Most people think redemption is something someone else needs. We're more likely to pray for the other guy's redemption because, you know, I'm good. We all have a little of that Pharisee in us that says, thank God I'm not like as that man. Most of us don't know the depths of our own needs. That's what we're going to talk about before we go any further. From here on out, in Paul's letter, his focus is going to be on Christ's work on your behalf. And if you don't know why you have a need for someone to work on your behalf, then you certainly won't understand what that work really is. Your mind is going to drift and you'll walk away squandering another opportunity to glorify your savior. You have need of redemption. So do I. So does everyone. And I'm hoping and praying that this little side trip will convince you of that. Now I want to make sure you understand. You and I, and all of us, need redemption regardless of how good a guy or gal we actually are. It has nothing to do with that. I'll say this again, over and over. Paul will say this over and over again. It has nothing to do with how little or how much you sin, how immoral or moral you are, has nothing to do with your redemption. That is one of the hardest lessons to learn as a Christian, especially one coming out of the denominational churches. We have fed into us over and over and over that our behavior has something to do with our value to God and whether he will accept us or not. I'm here to tell you right now, the only thing the Bible tells you is that we're all worthless to God. We're worthless to him until we get saved, but he still loves us. Now, when I say worthless, I don't mean that God's going to chuck you away. What I mean is there's nothing we can offer him. There's nothing we can give him, no matter how hard you try. And you know who knows that? God. That's why he sent his only son. That's why he had to send his only son. Can you imagine loving something that you can't have but by one way? And if that's the case, you will go through that one way to get the one that you love. That is what God has done for us.

What We Lost In The Beginning

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So I'm sure going back to today's lesson, I'm sure that you noticed that the definition of redemption that we read a couple of times mentions regaining possession of something. Does that not infer a previous possession and then a subsequent possession, right? Put the prefix R-E, re before a word, and it means to do something again. There are takes and retakes, there are claims and reclaims, there's work and rework. You get it. Re-something means to repeat that action an additional time. And no, repeat does not mean peting again. It's directly from Latin repetire, do or say again, attack again, from re, meaning again, plus petire, to go to, attack, strive after, ask for, besiege. Now I don't want to be too clever here. I just want to make sure we're zeroing in on the matter. Listen to me. There was a time when mankind had no worries whatsoever. It's hard to believe, but it's true. No need to find shelter, no need to go out and look for food, no need for protection from anything, no threats, no dangers. God gave us a place and a situation where all we perceived was loveliness, peace, and provision. And let me tell you, this is part of the problem. When you are made for an environment like that, you are not equipped. Listen to me, you're not equipped to take care of yourself. Human beings do not have imprinted in their DNA a way to take care of ourselves because that was never a need. Fish are not born with legs. It's not in their DNA because there was never going to be a need for them to walk down a path. That's what happened to us. We were not meant to be without a provider. So we were not given any equipment to toward that goal. So God knows He needs to intervene in our lives in every aspect in order to bring us along, especially to bring us back to Him. And that was the way God had planned it and intended it for all eternity. And yes, I did say eternity. You see, there would have been no such thing as death, at least among humankind. If you know your Bible, then you know all of this already. And that's a big if because not many people do. And by the way, I define knowing your Bible as including believing your Bible. That's the rarity. Lots of people have read that God put Adam in paradise, but not many people believe it. Not to believe your Bible just means you don't really know it because the Bible says things like, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Which means if it's written there, it's real. You can't say, well, you know, I believe parts of the Bible. And lots of people do say that. Maybe you do. But that just means that you translate that above passage this way. It's not forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. It's more like, for the time being, oh big man upstairs, part of the things people said you said are acceptable in heaven, which in itself is different for everyone. If you don't believe all of God's word, then you don't know it. And this ministry is just not for you unless you want that to change. And listen, stick around long enough, and I believe that will change. You see, here we always go on the premise that what God said is true. And if you listen here long enough, I honestly believe our confidence in that will surely rub off on you. At least that's what I pray for. Back to what God said about Adam and Paradise. In the beginning, God and man and all of creation worked hand in hand with each other. Adam, as our representative, considered himself as belonging to God. In the beginning, Adam knew he belonged to God. Nothing stood in the way of our, meaning all the ancestors of Adam. That was the way God had planned it. Nothing stood in the way of us enjoying God's full ownership of us eternally. We were totally and completely his possession. We lived completely under his rule and reign, and it was joy for us. Joy for us human beings. I know there was only two of them, but it was joy for them. He was there, he was going to be our sole king and provider. But then sin entered, as Paul puts it later on in this letter. It wasn't there at the beginning. When everything was new and right and peaceful, sin was not present. And then sin came in as if a foreign enemy or an illness or a flaw or a fault or an imperfection. Now you may be thinking, what does that have to do with me? Well, this is why we must talk about redemption. When sin entered, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they allow that invader, the sin invader, into paradise, which in turn corrupted it. But more importantly, most importantly, it corrupted us. Now I don't want to get into the full theology of the matter here. So it's going to feel incomplete, at least to me it will. But nonetheless, for now, let's just stick with the highlights. Believe me, we'll go over this. Every time we talk about the Bible, every time we talk about the Bible, we will be talking about redemption and sin and how God is going to rid the world of it. Everything in the Bible talks about that. Because sin, when it entered, it set mankind adrift. It put us in an environment we are not prepared for. It took us out from underneath, under God's, took us out from underneath God's ownership, and we fell under its ownership, under sin's ownership. That is the I'm telling, I'm telling you, if you look around the world, if you read a newspaper, if you watch the news, you will see sin has infected the entire planet, and we are powerless against it. Everything we try to do to stop the violence and the hatred and the bloodshed and all of the other sins because they're just as bad, they all fail. Sin has grabbed us from God, and we have become the children of wrath, as Paul put it in Ephesians. We became the property of Satan and we act like it. We became the possession of sin and the devil and we act like it. Do you want to know how bad this is? This is so bad. Sin is such a disruptive force that it got a hold of you even before you were born. Sin affected you before there was a you to affect. Meaning by the time you were born, you were already in need of a rescue, of a redemption. That's why I said earlier, it doesn't matter how good or bad you are in this life, none of that changes your status from birth. You can't stop it. You can't change it because it happened externally from you. The Greek

Bought Back From Sin’s Ownership

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word used in the New Testament for redeem and redemption is actually a word that the typical Greek speaker used in the context, listen to me, of slave auctions. When a slave was purchased at the slave markets, it is said that the purchaser redeemed him or her. The thought is that all that was owed in order to transfer ownership was paid. Starting to see how this applies to you. You and I and every other human being were born into slavery. We were born in debt, we were born indebted to sin, owned by sin, possessed by sin. And God is not going to leave it like that. His intention was that we were to be his possession. And so he sent the only one who had the price necessary for our redemption, the only one who had the price necessary to buy us off the slave block, his son. We sure didn't have what was necessary. Can you imagine a slave sitting on a slave block reaching into his pockets and finding the money to buy himself? That's exactly that picture. No slave even had pockets. They didn't even have pockets to pay for themselves. We don't have what's necessary because what's needed, what's necessary, the payment, was a sin-free life. You start out without having that. Now, without getting into too many details at this point, let me just say that only a sin-free life could buy up your freedom. And that's why Jesus came as a man, lived a sin-free life, and then offered that up for you and me. He died as if he were guilty. He died for us. He received what we deserve so that we could have what he deserved, what he earned. That, all of that, is redemption.

Why Basics Come Before Romans

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Now let me remind you of what we're doing. We're taking a little side road in order to talk about salvation. We're spending some time describing what salvation is so that we can better understand the good news Paul is sharing with those Romans so that we can understand why it's good news. It's news, sure, but if you don't know what redemption is, it's not good until you do. He is going to talk a lot about it, and much about what he's going to say will have a fine-tuning vibe to it. In other words, he's going to go beyond the basics in this letter to make some very important points. And if you're not familiar with the basics, it's going to be a bit difficult to keep up. So we're covering the foundational concepts of salvation for a couple of weeks in preparation for Paul's messages. As you remember, I said in order to talk about salvation, we need to understand two concepts, two R words, repentance and redemption. We started out of order with the second one, redemption. We didn't do a thorough job, but I think we covered the essentials, which means it's about time to talk about repentance.

Repentance Means Change Your Mind

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You already know that I like to do this, so let's look at the original word that gets translated into our word repentance. Listen, I think looking at the etymology of biblical words, breaking them down and examining their structure helps us to understand the thought processes involved in using certain terms. Actually, in my opinion, that's the key to fully grasping the definition of any word. But I'm sure someone out there wants to know why we're bothering with this word repentance. I mean, my pastor doesn't use that word. He uses words like love and forgiveness and liberty and all of those. But repentance, I don't, I don't think I remember him ever using it. Well, it may not be all that important to the sermons your preacher delivers, but it sure seemed important to our master. It was the first thing he ever preached on. In fact, it became the very heart of his message, the reason he came here. Here's the prologue of his setting out on his father's business, Matthew 4, starting at verse 12. Now, when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in the borders of Zabulon and Neftalim, that it might be fulfilled with listen, this is talking about how Jesus was prophesied by Isaiah, that it might be Isaiah, it's Isaiah, Isaiah, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun and the land of Nephthalim by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. That's talking about Jesus. Verse 17. This is the point I was trying to make. From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus called on broken mankind to repent. And I have news for you. All of mankind is broken. Matthew 4, 17 says, from that time, which infers a constancy. It was his constant message. In the Greek, the word for repentance is meta-noio. Meta noio is as so many biblical Greek words are. It's made up of the preposition meta and the verb noio. Meta simply means to change, and noio means to perceive. Putting it together, we have meta noio, which means to change how you perceive, how you think. More simply, change your mind. When Jesus called us to repent, indeed, whenever you see this word repent in the new in the New Testament, we are being told to adjust our thinking about the way the world works, change our minds about eternal things. The very first time anyone used the word metanoio, repent in the New Testament, it was John the Baptist. Now to me, that is significant. Because John the Baptist was a prophet. A prophet speaks, takes the words from God and gives them to the people. He receives word from God to the people. A priest takes the word of the people and sends it to God. Prophet from God to the people, priest from the people to God. That's the an important difference. John the Baptist was a prophet who took from God what he had to say. And he wasn't a prophet to the Christians. He was a prophet to the Jews. Of course, we Christians must repent too. It's actually how we become Christians. But I think the fact that John the Baptist used this word is key to our understanding of its importance.

John’s Warning To Rethink Messiah

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You see, and this will come out again and again in this letter, the Jews relied on themselves for their salvation, much like Christians do today. But let's stick with the point. John the Baptist said, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand, meaning their long-awaited Messiah was now on the scene. He knew Jesus was on the scene, so he said, Stop thinking the way that you used to, because the real Messiah is here. He's on the scene. And the Jews had to set aside their strongly held counterviews, just like we do. The Jews thought they could achieve for and in themselves what the Messiah was actually sent to achieve. They had lost the true meaning of who the Messiah was. Now, no one can blame them entirely, I don't think, just like us. Their religious leadership was at fault. The rank and file Jew was being taught that God's anointed would come as some great military leader who would deliver them from the oppression that the world over and over subjected them to. Not since Solomon had they had a king who could give them the security from their enemies that they so longed for. But you see, they didn't realize that the enemy they most needed protection from was themselves. Now, let me pause here to make sure you realize that I am in no way twisting scripture to disparage the Jews. I invite you to check my facts. Open your Bible and verify the things I'm saying to you. In this world so rife with hatred toward the Jews, the last thing I want to be accused of is being an anti-Semite. I love the Jews because God loves the Jews. They are his people and they always be, they always will be. But just like the rest of us, they're human and they're going to make mistakes. They are making mistakes. Repent, you children of God. Think differently, change your mind. That was the message of John the Baptist. He was telling his fellow Jews that their Savior, also a Jew, was at hand. The purpose for their being chosen by God is in the process of being fulfilled. Through you, the last of God's Old Testament style prophets is telling the Jews, through you, the world will receive its Redeemer. Change your mind to that. And through him, through the Messiah, through the Redeemer, we will all be reconciled to God. Stop thinking, and this is for all of us, for Jews and Christians, stop thinking there's a way to deal with your sins outside of Jesus. You might believe that you can live a life that's pleasing to God, but you can't. Even as a little infant, you were not pleasing God. How do you think you could be doing it now after all you've been through, after all that you've done? Change that thinking. Repent. Metanoio. So much more to talk about, but let's pick it up right there next time. See you then.

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We hope

Closing Prayer And Ministry Info

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this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.