Bible Study Romans Part 31-To the Jew First

Romans 1:16-17 sounds familiar until you actually let it speak. We take our time with Paul’s words because a single phrase, “to the Jew first,” has been misused to feed arrogance, confusion, and even antisemitism. We walk through what Paul is really saying: God’s Gospel is aimed at saving everyone who believes, and God is not finished with Israel. The order in Romans reflects God’s covenant history, not a permission slip to look down on anyone.

From there we zoom out to the scope of the Good News. “Jew and Greek” is Paul’s way of naming the whole world, and the requirement is the same for every person: faith in the Messiah, not moral effort, not religious performance, not family connection. We also tackle Romans 1:17 and the phrase “from faith to faith,” then land on the heartbeat of the letter: God reveals a righteousness that comes from Him, not from us.

That leads to the hard edge of the passage and its hope. Scripture is blunt about the limits of human righteousness and the reality of sin in the heart, which is exactly why the Gospel is “the power of God unto Salvation.” We close by tying Romans to assurance and perseverance, the kind of settled confidence that carries Christians through suffering when nothing else does.

If you’re working through Romans, wrestling with Salvation by faith, or looking for a Bible Study that refuses shortcuts, listen through and share it with a friend. Subscribe and leave a review.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Study Scripture

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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.

Setting Up Romans 1:16

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It's very well written. It's a very well written letter. It's set up perfectly for those that will be receiving all of this doctrine. That's why it's taking us some time. Paul took his time to introduce these topics. We're taking our time to unwrap them. We are currently in the 16th verse of that first chapter of the letter to the Romans. I'm going to read it, read it a few times tonight, read a few other verses from all over the Bible. I just am saying that to let you know. I read out of the King James Bible. It is my preferred version for no real good reason. Please follow along with the Bible that's in front of you. I hope that you bring a Bible with you every time you show up to watch these lessons. Please bring a Bible with you. But if you don't, if you don't even have a Bible, we do have the verses up on the screen. And if you do need a Bible, please contact us and we'll see if we can help you with that. Romans 1:16, reading out of the King James, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

To The Jew First

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Now I'm a little sad to say that this verse is one of those that very often stirs up a bit of antisemitism in the hearts of some Christians who read it. You should never be an anti-Semite if you're a Christian. Now, this statement could not be any clearer. God's full intention with the gospel, listen to me, was to save the Jews. In fact, he wanted and still wants his chosen people to get back on track, and his gospel is the means through which that happens. How do you know that, John? Because that is what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us all the way through that God will never give up on the Jews. But like everyone else, they have to believe, they have to repent, they have to change their mind from the idea that salvation comes through the law to the truth that salvation comes through the Messiah. In fact, they have to shake off the centuries of misunderstanding of the prophecies of the Messiah. He was not going to be some military ruler who would restore the Jews to the prominence they enjoyed in David's day. But rather, he was to bring about the forgiveness of the sins of not only the Jews, but the whole world. And not just the forgiveness of sins, but also the imputation of God's righteousness to those who believe. That's the gospel, and it was to go to the Jew first, whether you like it or not. The Jews hold a position of preeminence with God. They always have and they always will. They have a preeminence with God and with the Savior. Don't forget what he himself said a couple of times. Matthew 15, 24. But he answered and said, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Jews were the sole object of the ministry of Jesus. Notice I didn't say the life, I said the ministry. The time Jesus spent on this earth teaching God's truth, his personal ministry was to the Jews, to his father's chosen people. He never ventured very far beyond his home's regional borders. He never took his message directly to the Gentiles. He came to the Jews as their king. The very Son of God was sent to them. It was to them he went as the bearer of the gospel. He preached the good news to his own people. Yes, others heard it in the process. Non-Jews came to hear him preach. Others simply heard him by accident. I think that was the plan for his life all along. There was that Samaritan woman, and who could forget the Roman centurion? They overheard his good news, but he makes clear he was preaching to the house of Israel. They were his first priority. And by the way, it may surprise you to know that the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, that's how he preached it too. Whenever he went into a new town with the intention of spreading the gospel, and I suspect the spreading of the gospel was his intention every time he went anywhere. Anyhow, all we have in the Bible is the record of his missionary trips. And so we know that on his missionary trips, the first thing he did each time was head down to the local synagogue and start teaching them about Christ. And friends, by experience, he knew how dangerous of a thing it was to do, but he did it anyhow. He went to the local Jews first and then to the Gentiles. He spread the gospel first to the Jew and then to the Greek. And by the way, don't let the way this statement is structured in the English confuse you. Paul did not say, Paul did not go first to the Jew and then when it failed, he was on to the Greek. That's not what he said. He didn't say, hey, if the Jews don't take this in, we'll never go back to the Jews. That's not what he said. This is where those anti-Semites like to chime in. That's how they would like to interpret this. There are some who say that's what Paul meant here. But to see it that way means you're doing two things. Number one, you're twisting what Paul is saying, and number two, you're ignoring the whole rest of the Bible. God is not done with the Jews. Listen, if he's not done with you, then he's certainly not done with them. If grace saved you, it'll save them. John, are you saying that all the Jews are going to be saved? Of course not. And by the way, there are some who say that too. Some ineffective interpreters of God's word think that his intention is to bring all the Jews back under his provision and control, that all the Jews who have ever lived and who will ever live will be spared condemnation simply by virtue of their physical nature, their lineage, their genetic connection to Abraham. As I said, poor interpretation of Scripture. Listen, salvation is no different for the Jews than it is for anyone else. It is by faith, just like yours, yours is. And this is incidentally one of the major themes of this letter to the Romans. Paul spends significant time proving this to those Romans who must have had a sizable population of converted Jews among them. And I suspect a sizable population of unconverted Jews around them, trying to cause trouble. Now, all of that will become clear as we move along. Back to my point. No, not all the Jews will be saved, only those who turn to Christ, to their Messiah, no different than anyone else. But neither is God finished with the Jews. You're really hammering this point home, aren't you, John? Because for the longest time there have been many people who have said that the church now replaced the Jews. I've said, you've heard me say before, that the church is in the same position as the Jews in Jesus' day, but that doesn't mean the church has replaced them. If you read the book of Revelation, if you read some of Isaiah, if you read some of the other prophetic books, you will find out God will save the Jews. That's the way it's going to work. That's why the gospel is going out to them. Romans 1:16 again, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Jew And Greek Means Everyone

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This gospel is for the whole world. That's what this statement is saying, Jew and Gentile. Now, to the ancient Hebrew mindset, that's the whole world. Paul may have used the word Greek, but those that received the letter knew what he meant. I mean, after all, we can assume that most who were reading this were neither Jew nor Greek. So if they were inclined to so if they were to read this literally, if that's what they were supposed to do, friends, no need to go any further. Most of us would be excluded. The vast majority of the world would be excluded from the gospel if we were to read that, if we're supposed to read that literally. And does anything about the gospel feel exclusionary? Of course not. Friends, I'll say it again. God's word is written with the assumption that you're going to use your intellect when you're reading it and studying it. When Paul used the terms Jew and Greek, he was employing a common figurative reference for the two types of people that existed in the whole world, again to the ancient Hebrew mindset. Jews, that's his fellow countrymen, not much confusion about that. And Greeks, everyone else. Everyone who is not a Jew is considered a Greek in those days. When Paul referenced the Greeks, he meant the whole world. If you're not a Greek, then you must be a Jew. It's called poetic license. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Verse

From Faith To Faith

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17. For therein, wherein, therein, they're in the gospel of Christ, in the gospel of Christ, in the good news of Christ, that Paul is not ashamed of, is a righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now let me pause here for one second. The phrase from faith to faith is a little bit confusing. And from what I can tell from most scholars, most people are not really certain as to what it means. It could mean that it is faith that is causing salvation to our faith that we exercise, faith to faith. Or it means going from one moment with faith to another, to another, to another, all the way through the end of your life. It is sort of an expression of your salvation. I tend to believe that it means from faith, which saves us to our faith or our believing, which makes the connection between the two. That's what I believe Paul is saying. But as I said, it is a very confusing statement. Most scholars cannot agree on what it means. I just wanted to make sure we clear that out. Now, having said that, I don't believe it, it's all that important that we know exactly what that means because all of the rest of the verse makes sense. That entire verse makes sense to us because we are able to figure out that it is by faith. Faith is the vehicle by which we are saved. Verse 17 is the message of the entire Bible. Everything we study, everything we have ever studied, including all of the Old Testament books, everything we praise God for, everything we live for is right here in the gospel. The subject, the topic, the theme of the gospel is this. The, or more accurately, a righteousness of God is revealed to us from faith to faith, because we are made just and we live because of by through faith. Now let's start breaking this down. I suspect we're going to be bouncing around a lot here, but it will come together in the end. First of all, this is the good news of Christ. If I came to you and I said, Hey, I have great news, you say, Oh, tell me, what is it? What's the great news? Then I'd answer by giving you the content of that news, which just so, which just so happens to be great. The content is great, not the fact that I have news. The good news regarding Christ is the fact that faith in him, this is the good part. It's not that the news is in itself that I have good news is good. It's the fact that Christ is our Savior. In him there is a righteousness. When we believe in him, there is a righteousness. The King James says the righteousness, it should say a righteousness of God.

God’s Righteousness Versus Ours

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A righteousness of God. Now, let's face it, righteousness is really only righteousness if it's righteousness of God. Everything else isn't really righteousness because everything else will have some unrighteous elements in it. If it doesn't come from God, who is the only pure being, if it doesn't come from him, then there is some impurity to it. We may call other things righteous, but they can't really be righteous because they're not pure. Impure righteousness is an oxymoron. But even the use of the word oxymoron implies that it can exist in an ironic way. That's not what we have here. We have a non-existent condition. It's like saying bright darkness or a dry ocean or a tall valley. Impure righteousness is nonsensical. It can't exist. Only pure righteousness is real righteousness. Of course, we may we may still call impure righteousness righteousness. We do love to do that. We love to take a look at our own puny, incomplete, ineffective, impure efforts and call it righteousness, but we're fooling ourselves. God takes one look at what we call our righteousness, and you know what he thinks of it? Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah describes it this way, chapter 64, verse 6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we will, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Now, as I've told you before, the original language in Isaiah is describing something, well, something quite disgusting. The King James is trying to spray some flowery perfume on it, but the people who can read the ancient Hebrew will find nothing in it but repulsiveness. And we just don't like this sort of talk, do we? Why does God always look down on what I'm trying to do for him? Why can't he just give me a little bit of credit for the effort I put in for him? If you're looking for credit for the work you do for God, then you're not doing it for him. You're doing it for yourself. You're doing it for the recognition. And Paul answers those puny questions, those whiny questions, I should say, sometime later on when he says on our behalf as well as his own, Romans 7, 18. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. Now that isn't just Paul being some dreary, dark-sided ret rabbi. This sort of thing is found throughout scripture. Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? Listen to Job's point of view, 15, 16 out of the book of Job. How much more abominable and filthy is man, listen to this, which drinketh iniquity like water. But you know, perhaps to convince you, I need only quote our Lord Himself, who said in Mark 7, 21, for from within, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit. This is your this is the sweet baby Jesus. He's giving you a rundown of the kind of person you are. An evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these things come from within and defile the man. That's God's view of your righteousness. Evil isn't what you do, it's who you are. It comes from within and that defiles you. Why do you hammer this all the time on us? Are you trying to make us feel bad? I'm trying to convince you that if you want salvation, you'll never find it in yourself. These are the things that God feels about you. What in that list could satisfy God? Jesus said that comes from within you. All of those things are within you. There is nothing you can do to push any of that out. And if you want to spend your eternity with him, then you must listen to what he says and do what he tells you. And that isn't try to improve yourself. Those things on that list Jesus gave us are impossible to improve because they've come from within and they defile you. So, if your religious view is one that claims that all you need to do is correct your behavior, well, you didn't get that from the Bible. And why would you rely on anything that's not from the Bible? I mean, don't you agree? We all agree that it is God who is offended by our ways. If you go to church, even a small amount of time, you know that God is offended by our sins. Even if you buy into the fact that when we sin, we sin against our brother. Even if you believe that, you must realize that it is God who is in charge of eternal justice, right? If your concern about your behavior is that you hurt your fellow man, your opinion of that comes from a sensitivity that you have somehow transgressed a moral law that God laid down. Well, I would agree with you on that. But then in that case, shouldn't the primary goal of your desire for forgiveness bypass, not completely, but initially bypass your injured brother and go straight to God who's really the one who's been offended, right? I mean, isn't this how people who go to church view their sins? Then why don't we pay attention to what the offended one has to say about it?

Why God’s Word Gets Priority

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There's only one place where we can get that point of view, the point of view of the offended one, and it's in scripture. No man speaks for God unless he's chosen him to. And the only people he's chosen are in his word. They've already written it down, there's nothing else to say. Your priest or your minister or your pastor may have an opinion along these lines, but if their opinions don't match what God has said in his word, why consider those opinions? If someone, if anyone tells you how to make up for your sinful nature and it's different from what God says, what's the point of following that advice? If God is the one who's offended and says one thing, and then someone who's not offended tells you anything differently, logically, you're making a mistake if you follow that advice. So I ask again, why would you do anything anyone else tells you? Well, I can answer that for you. There really can only be one answer. You prefer what they say to what God says. Oh, well, John, come on now. I mean, the Bible was written by men. I'm not going to entertain that thought. We've covered it many times before. If you think that God had nothing to do, or even a little to do, or even a lot to do, but not everything to do with what's in his word, then this discussion, really no discussion on this program, is for you. As always, our assumption is that the word of God is the word of God, and not the paraphrase or summary of men on the word of God. It's all true or none of it is. Here we choose the former, and that's the only foundation on which we teach. I don't engage in debates, but I will certainly ignore any challenge to a topic we're covering on the basis that the Bible is wrong or even just questionable or dubious. If you want to have a discussion with me about whether or not the Bible says a certain thing or the interpretation of it, fine. But if you're going to tell me that the Bible is wrong or there's mistakes, we're not going to have a discussion. I'm not going to spend my time proving that to you. All of that to say, if you ignore what's written in the Bible in favor of what someone else says, then you are rejecting what God has to say, and that applies to any subject. And God's word says only a righteousness of God provides salvation. Only a righteousness of God can lead to your salvation. Shall I say it again? That is why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, because it comes directly from God. This isn't his opinion or the opinion of the Sanhedrin or his fellow Pharisees. He could be ashamed of that. There could be parts of it that he's ashamed of, but he cannot be ashamed of something that comes directly from God. In fact, his use of this lito tease tells us that he's actually thrilled with the gospel because it contains the solution to the problem of human existence, which is the fact that we are now cast adrift without any way in ourselves to get back to shore. Listen to me. Every single problem on earth is traceable directly to that moment we were cast adrift in the garden when sin entered in and corrupted everything. That is the cause of every single problem on earth. But there's hope. Actually, there's always been hope all along, and the gospel reveals that to us. God's word said that there was someone coming who is going to crush the head of the one whose lies caused all this. Now I'm using the past tense because it's already happened. That someone has already come, past tense. My point in bringing this up is that our Redeemer has been promised since the beginning. And if we believe that to be true, listen to me, if we believe our Redeemer has come, then a righteousness of God is revealed to us, and that righteousness is what redeems us. Let's pull this all back together by reading our currently under study verses, Romans 1, 16 and 17. Honest and truly my favorites in the Bible. Not that should mean anything to you, anyhow. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is a righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Assurance That Holds In Suffering

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John, you know, no offense, but I already know all this already. Why do we keep going over it? You don't think those Romans already knew that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believeth? Of course they did. This may have been good news, but it wasn't breaking news. Listen, you can't even be a Christian unless you already know and believe these things. And while I'm at it, let me ask you do you think that Paul didn't know that they knew and believed all this? He knew. If he suspected they didn't, this letter would have a completely different tone to it. None of this, by the way, is here to inform you of the gospel. It's here to assure you of the gospel. You should already know, but how strongly are you able to hang on? Now this will come up again, but one of the most important themes of this letter to the Romans is assurance. Blessed assurance. You've heard that song before, haven't you? Don't worry, I'm not going to sing it, but here are the words as written by Francis J. Crosby. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine, heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of a spirit, washed in his blood. Throughout this letter, Paul time and again frames his argument for what Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones calls the final perseverance of the saints. That's a fancy theological term that means that what has been achieved for us cannot be undone, least of all by us. That our salvation is certain and final, and we will persevere until the end. And there is no such thing as an end. It's eternity. We will persevere in our salvation through eternity. That's our sainthood. Our saved status will last throughout all eternity. Now, why is being assured of that so important? Well, I think the answer to that is obvious. But getting through this life as Christians, stuck in a corrupt vessel, walking around in a corrupt world is not easy. There are plenty of forces working against us, and nothing will comfort us quite like knowing that there are much bigger and better things ahead. Now, there are other reasons that being assured of our salvation is important, like being able to comfort others with it. But I think this is first and foremost. Our standing in the kingdom, knowing our true destiny, can make the darkest storms pass quickly. You may be an expert on all this Christian doctrine. You can quote the Westminster Confession front to back and back to front, top graduate at Moody Institute. But I'm sure there have been times when your head drooped and your heart dropped, and no comfort would come except the knowledge that the great shepherd is leading you, feeding you, and protecting you because of your faith and the righteousness of God you received. That's the thing we can all lean on when times are tough, when nothing else comforts us. We know this is but temporary. We know that our salvation is permanent, we know that our pain is temporary. That comforts us. We need to be assured of that. Paul knows it. Though you may be bored with all of this, why don't we just continue as long as we can? At least as long as Paul went. But I think we're gonna have to wait. I think this is probably enough for now, so we'll pick it up right there next time. See you then.

Closing And Ministry Links

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We hope 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.