This letter comes to you from Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as a messenger and appointed for the service of that gospel of God which was long ago promised by the prophets in the holy scriptures. The Letter To The Christians At Rome
Romans 1
The gospel is centered in God's Son, a descendant of David by human genealogy and patently marked out as the Son of God by the power of that Spirit of holiness which raised him to life again from the dead. He is our Lord, Jesus Christ, from whom we received grace and our commission in his name to forward obedience to the faith in all nations. And of this great number you are also called to belong to him.
To all you in Rome then, loved of God and called to be Christ's men and women, grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
A personal message I must begin by telling you how I thank God through Jesus Christ for you all, since the news of your faith has become known everywhere. Before God, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, I assure you that you are always in my prayers. I am constantly asking him that he will somehow make it possible for me now, at long last, to come see you. I am longing to see you: I want to bring you some spiritual gift to deepen your faith; and that will mean that I shall be encouraged by you, each of us cheered by the other's faith.
Then I should like you to know, my brothers, that I have long intended to come to you (but something has always prevented me), for I should like to see some results among you, as I have among other gentiles. I feel myself under a sort of universal obligation, I owe something to all men, from cultured Greek to ignorant savage. That is why I want, as far as my ability will carry me, to preach the gospel to you who live in Rome as well. For I am not ashamed of the gospel. I see it as the very power of God working for the salvation of everyone who believes it, for the Jew first but also for the Greek. I see in it God's plan for making men right in his sight, a process begun and continued be their faith. For as the scripture says: The righteous shall live by faith.
The righteousness of God and the sin of man Now the holy anger of God is disclosed from Heaven against the godlessness and evil of those men who render truth dumb and impotent by their wickedness. It is not that they do not know the truth about God; indeed he has made it quite plain to them. For since the beginning of the world the invisible attributes of God, e.g. his eternal power and deity, have been plainly discernible through things which he has made and which are commonly seen and known, thus leaving these men without a rag of excuse. They knew all the time that there is a God, yet they refused to acknowledge him as such, or to thank him for what he is or does. Thus they became fatuous in their argumentations, and plunged their silly minds still further into the dark. Behind a facade of "wisdom" they became just fools who would exchange the glory of the immortal God for an image of a mortal man, or of creatures that run or fly or crawl. They gave up God: and therefore God gave them up--to be the playthings their own foul desires in dishonouring their bodies.
The fearful consequence of deliberate atheism These men deliberately forfeited the truth of God and accepted a lie, paying homage and giving service to the creature instead of to the Creator, who alone is worthy to be worshipped for ever and ever, amen. God therefore handed them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged the normal practices of sexual intercourse for something which is abnormal and unnatural. Similarly the men, turning from natural intercourse with women, were swept into lustful passions for one another. Men with men performed these shameful horrors, receiving in their own personalities the consequences of their perversity.
Moreover, since they considered themselves too high and mighty to acknowledge God, he allowed them to become the slaves of their degenerate minds, and to perform unmentionable deeds, They became filled with wickedness, rottenness, greed and malice; their minds became steeped in envy, murder, quarrelsomeness, deceitfulness and spite. They became whisperer-behind-doors, stabbers-in-the-back, God-haters; they overflowed with insolent pride and boastfulness, and their minds teemed with diabolical invention. They scoffed at duty to parents, they mocked affection, and had no use for mercy. More than this--being well aware of God's pronouncement that all who do these things deserve to die, they not only continued their own practices, but did not hesitate to give their thorough approval to others who did the same.
Romans 2
Yet we cannot judge them, for we are also sinners: God is the only judge
Now if you feel inclined to set yourselves up as a judge of those who sin, let me assure you, whoever you are, that you are in no position to do so. For at whatever point you condemn others you automatically condemn yourself, since you, the judge, commit the same sins. God's judgment, we know, is utterly impartial in its action against such evil-doers. What makes you think that you, who so readily judge the sins of others, can consider yourself beyond judgment of God? Are you, perhaps, misinterpreting God's generosity and patient mercy towards you as weakness on his part? Don't you realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Or are you by your obstinate refusal to repent simply storing up for yourself an experience of the wrath of God in the day of his anger when he shows his hand in righteous judgment?
He will "render to every man according to his works", and that means eternal life to those, who, in patiently doing good, aim at the unseen glory and honour of the eternal world. It also means anger and wrath for those who rebel against God's plan of life, and refuse to obey his rules, and, who, in so doing, make themselves the very servants of evil. Yes, it means bitter pain and agony for every human soul who works on the side of evil, for the Jew first and then the Greek. But there is glory and honour and peace for every worker on the side of good, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For there is no preferential treatment with God.
God's judgment is absolutely just All who have sinned without knowledge of the Law will die without reference to the Law; and all who have sinned knowing the Law shall be judged according to the Law. It is not familiarity with the Law that justifies a man in the sight of God, but obedience to it.
When the gentiles, who have no knowledge of the Law, act in accordance with it by the light of nature, they show that they have a law in themselves, for they demonstrate the effect of a law operating in their own hearts. Their own consciences endorse the existence of such a law, for there is something which condemns or excuses their actions.
We may be sure that all this will be taken into account in the day of true judgment, when God will judge men's secret lives by Christ Jesus, as my gospel plainly states.
You Jews are privileged--do you live up to your privileges? Now you, my reader, who bear the name of Jew, take your stand upon the Law, and are able through your knowledge of the Law truly to appreciate moral values. You can, therefore, confidently look upon yourselves as a guide to those who do not know the way, and as a light to those who are groping in the dark. You can instruct those who have no spiritual wisdom: you can teach those who, spiritually speaking, are only just out of the cradle. You have in the Law a certain grasp of the basis of true knowledge. But, prepared as you are to instruct others do you ever teach yourself anything? You preach against stealing, for example, but are you sure of your own honesty? You denounce the practice of adultery, but are you sure of your own purity? You loathe idolatry, but how honest are you towards the property of heathen temples? Everyone knows how proud you are of the Law, but that means a proportionate dishonour to God when men know you break it! Don't you know that the very name of God is cursed among the Gentiles because of the behavior of Jews? There is a verse of scripture to that effect.
Being a true "Jew" is an inward not and outward matter That most intimate sign of belonging to God that we call circumcision does indeed mean something if you keep the Law. But if you flout the Law you are to all intents and purposes uncircumcising yourselves! Conversely, if an uncircumcised man keep the Law's commandments, does he not thereby "circumcise" himself? Moreover, is it not plain to you that those who are physically uncircumcised, and yet keep the Law, are a continual judgment upon you, who for all your circumcision and knowledge of the Law, break it?
I have come to the conclusion that a true Jew is not the man who is merely a Jew outwardly, and real circumcision is not just a matter of the body. A true Jew is one who belongs to God in heart, a man whose circumcision is not just an outward physical affair but is a God-made sign upon the heart and soul, and results not in the approval of man, but in the approval of God.
Romans 3
Jews are privileged, but even they have failed
Is there any advantage then in being a Jew? Does circumcision mean anything? Yes, of course, a great deal in every way. You have only to think of one thing to begin with--it was the Jews to whom God's messages were entrusted. Some of them were undoubtedly faithless, but what then? Can you imagine that their faithlessness could disturb the faithfulness of God? Of course not! God must be true, even if every living man be proved a liar. Remember the scripture?That thou mightest be justified in thy words, And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment.
But if our wickedness advertises the goodness of God, do we feel that God is being unfair to punish us in return? (I'm using a human tit-for-tat argument.) Not a bit! How then could God judge the world? It is like saying that if my lying throws into the sharp relief the truth of God and increases his glory, then why should he still judge me a sinner? Why not do evil that good may come? As a matter of fact, I am reported as urging this very thing, by some slanderously and others quite seriously! But, of course, such an argument is quite properly condemned.
Are we Jews then a march ahead of other men? By no means. For I have shown above that all men from Jews to Greeks are under the condemnation of sin. The scripture endorses this plainly enough.
There is none righteous, no, not one.We know what the message of the Law is, to those who live under it--that every excuse may die on the lips of him who makes it and no living man can be beyond judgment of God. No man can justify himself before God by a perfect performance of the Law's demands--indeed it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are.
There is none that understandeth,
There is none that seeketh after God;
They have all turned aside, they are all together becoming unprofitable
There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one:
Their throat is an open sepulchre
With their tongues they have used deceit;
The poison of asps is under their lips:
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways:
And the way of peace have they not known;
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
God's new plan--righteousness by faith, not through the Law But now we are seeing the righteousness of God declared quite apart from the Law (though amply testified to by both Law and Prophets)--it is a right relationship given to, and operating in, all who have faith in Jesus Christ. For there is no distinction to be made anywhere: everyone has sinned, everyone falls short of the beauty of God's plan. A man who has faith is now freely acquitted in the eyes of God by his generous dealing in the redemptive act of Christ Jesus. God has appointed him as means of propitiation, a propitiation accomplished by the shedding of his blood, to be received and made effective in ourselves by faith. God has done this to demonstrate his righteousness both by the wiping out of the sins of the past (the time when he withheld his hand), and by showing in the present time that he is a just God and that he justifies every man who has faith in Jesus.
Faith, not pride of achievement What happens now to human pride of achievement? There is no more room for it. Why, because failure to keep the Law has killed it? Not at all, but because the whole matter is now on a different plane--believing instead of achieving. We see now that a man is justified before God by the fact of his faith in God's appointed Saviour and not by what he has managed to achieve under the Law.
Do you think that God is only God for the Jews and not for the gentiles? Certainly not! God is God of the gentiles as well. The one God is ready to justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith also.
Are we then undermining the Law by this insistence on faith? Not a bit of it! We put the Law in its proper place.
Romans 4
Let us go back and consider our father Abraham
Now how does all this affect the position of our human ancestor Abraham? Well, if justification were by achievement he could quite fairly be proud of what he achieved--but not, I am sure, proud before God. For what does the scripture say about him? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
Now if a man works his wages are not counted as a gift but as a fair reward. But if a man, irrespective of his work, has faith in him who justifies the sinful, then that man's faith is counted as righteousness. This is the happy state of the man whom God accounts righteous, apart form his achievements, as David expresses it:Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.
It is a matter of faith, not circumcision Now the question arises: is this happiness for the circumcised only or, for the uncircumcised as well?
Note this carefully. We began by saying that Abraham's faith was counted unto him for righteousness. When this happened was he a circumcised man? He was not, he was still uncircumcised. It was afterwards that the sign of circumcision was given to him, as a seal upon that righteousness which God was accounting to him as yet an uncircumcised man! God's purpose here was that Abraham might be the spiritual father of all who since that time, despite their uncircumcision, show the faith that is counted as righteousness, and that he might be the circumcised father of all those who, are not only circumcised, but are living by the same sort of faith which he himself had before he was circumcised.
The promise, from the beginning, was made to faith The ancient promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that they should eventually possess the world, was given not because of any achievements made through obedience to the Law, but because of the righteousness which had its root in faith. For if, after all, they who pin their faith to keeping the Law were to inherit God's world, it would make faith meaningless and destroy the whole point of the promise. For the Law can produce no promise, only threat of wrath to come. And, indeed, if there were no Law the question of sin would not arise.
The whole thing, then, is a matter of faith on man's part and generosity on God's. He gives the security of his own promise to all men who can be called "children of Abraham", i.e. both those who have lived in faith be the Law, and those who have exhibited a faith like that of Abraham. To which ever group we belong, Abraham is in a real sense our father, as the scripture says:A father of many nations have I made thee.
This promise was valid because of his faith in God himself, who can make the dead live, and summon those who are in existence as though they were not yet born.
Abraham was a shining example of faith Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping in faith, believing that he would become "the father of many nations". He relied on the word of God which definitely referred to "thy seed". With undaunted faith he looked at the facts--his own impotence (he was practically a hundred years old at the time) and his wife Sarah's apparent barrenness. Yet he refused to allow any distrust of a definite pronouncement of God to make him waver. He drew strength from his faith, and, while giving glory to God, remained absolutely convinced that God was able to implement his own promise. This was the "faith" which was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now this counting of faith for righteousness was not recorded simply for Abraham's credit, but as a divine principle which should also apply to us as well. Faith is to be reckoned as righteousness to us also, who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered to death for our sins and raised again to secure our justification.
Romans 5
Faith means the certainty of God's love, now and hereafter
Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.
This doesn't mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys--we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. These very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us, And we can see that it was at the very time that we were powerless to help ourselves that Christ died for sinful men. In human experience it is a rare thing for one man to give his life for another even if the latter be a good man, though there have been a few who have had the courage to do it. Yet the proof of God's amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. Moreover, if he did that for us while we were sinners, now that we are men justified by the shedding of his blood, what reason have we to fear the wrath of God? If, while we were his enemies, Christ reconciled us to God by dying for us, surely now that we are reconciled we may be perfectly certain of our salvation through hi living in us. Nor, I am sure, is this matter of bare salvation--we may hold our heads high in the light of God's love because of the reconciliation which Christ has made.
A brief resume--the consequences of sin and the gift of God This, then, is what has happened. Sin made its entry into the world through one man, and through sin, death. The entail of sin and death passed on to the whole human race, and no one could break it for no one was himself free from sin.
Sin, you see, was in the world long before the Law, though I suppose, technically speaking, it was not "sin" where there was no law to define it. Nevertheless death, the complement of sin, held sway over mankind from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sin was quite unlike Adam's.
Adam, the first man, foreshadows in some degree the man who has to come. But the gift of God through Christ is a very different matter from the "account rendered" through the sin of Adam. For while as a result of one man's sin death by natural consequence became the common lot of men, it was by the generosity of God, the free giving of the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, that the love of God overflowed for the benefit of all men.
Nor is the effect of God's gift the same as the effect of that one man's sin. For in the one case one man's sin brought its inevitable judgement, and the result was condemnation. But, in the other, countless men's sins are met with the free gift of grace, and the result is justification before God.
For if one man's offense meant that men should be slaves to death all their lives, it is a far greater thing that through another man, Jesus Christ, men by their acceptance of his more than sufficient grace and righteousness, should live their lives victoriously.
We see, then, that as one act of sin exposed the whole race of men to God's judgment and condemnation, so one act of perfect righteousness presents all men freely acquitted in the sight of God. One man's disobedience placed all men under the threat of condemnation, but one man's obedience has the power to present all men righteous before God.
Now we find that the Law keeps slipping into the picture to point the vast extent of sin. Yet, though sin is shown to be wide and deep, thank God his grace is wider and deeper still! The whole outlook changes--sin used to be the master of men and in the end handed them over to death; now grace is the ruling factor, with its purpose making men right with God and its end the bringing of them to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6
Righteousness by faith, in practice
Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart's content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? What a terrible thought! Have you forgotten that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were, by that very action, sharing in his death? We were dead and buried with him in baptism, so that just as he was raised from the dead by that splendid revelation of the Father's power so we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether. If we have, as it were, shared his death, we shall also share in his resurrection. Let us never forget that our old selves died with him on the cross that the tyranny of sin over us might be broken--for a dead man can be said to be free from the power of sin. And if we were dead men with Christ we can believe that we shall also be men alive with him. We can be sure that the risen Christ never dies again--death's power to master him is finished. He died, because of sin, once: he lives for God for ever. In the same way look upon yourselves as dead to the appeal and power of sin but alive to God through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do not, then, allow sin to establish any power over your mortal bodies in making you give way to its lusts. Nor hand over your bodily parts to be, as it were weapons of evil for the devil's purposes. But, like men rescued from certain death, put yourselves in God's hands as weapons of good for his own purposes. For sin can never be your master--you are no longer living under the Law, but under grace.
The new service completely ousts the old Now, what shall we do? Shall we go on sinning because we have no Law to condemn us any more, but are living under grace? Never! Just think what it would mean. You belong to the power you choose to obey, whether you choose sin, whose reward is death, or God, obedience to whom means the reward of righteousness. Thank God that you, who were at one time the servants of sin, honestly responded to the impact of Christ's teaching when you came under its influence. Then, released from the service of sin, you entered the service of righteousness. (I use an everyday illustration because human nature grasps truth more readily that way.) In the past you voluntarily gave your bodies to the service of vice and wickedness--for the purposes of evil. So, now, give yourselves to the service of righteousness--for the purpose of becoming truly good. For when you were employed by sin you owed no duty to righteousness. Yet what sort of harvest did you reap from those things that today you blush to remember? In the long run those things mean one thing only -- death.
But now that you are freed from sin and employed by God, you owe no duty to sin, and you reap the fruit of being made righteous, while at the end of the road there is life for evermore.
Sin pays it servants: the wage is death. But God gives to those who serve him: his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 7
How to be free from the Law
You know very well, my brothers (for I am speaking to those well acquainted with the subject), that the Law can only exercise authority over a man so long as he is alive. A married woman, for example, is bound by law to her husband so long as he is alive. But if he dies, then his legal claim over her disappears. This means that, if she should give herself to another man while her husband is alive, she incurs the stigma of adultery. But if, after her husband's death, she does exactly the same thing, no one could call her an adulteress, for the legal hold over her has been dissolved by her husband's death.
So, my brothers, the death of Christ on the cross has made you "dead" to the claims of the Law, and you are free to give yourselves in marriage, so to speak, to another, the one who was raised from the dead, that we may be productive for God.
While we were "in the flesh" the Law stimulated our sinful passions and so worked in our nature that we became productive--for death! But now that we stand clear of the Law, the claims of which existed are dissolved by our "death", and we are free to serve God not in the old obedience to the letter of the Law, but in a new way, in the Spirit.
Sin and the Law It now begins to look as if sin and the Law were the same thing--can this be a fact? Of course it cannot. But it must be admitted that I should never have had sin brought home to me but for the Law. For example, I should never have felt guilty of the sin of coveting if I had not heard the Law saying "Thou shalt not covet". But the sin in me, finding in the commandment an opportunity to express itself, stimulated all my desires. For sin, in the absence of the Law, has no life of its own. As long, then as I was without the Law I was alive. But when the commandment arrived, sin sprang to life and I "died". The commandment, which was meant to be a direction to life, I found was a sentence to death. The commandment gave sin its opportunity, and without my realizing what it was doing, it "killed" me.
The Law itself is good It can scarcely be doubted that the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, fair and good. Can it be that something that is intrinsically good could mean death for me? No, what happened is this. Sin, at the touch of the Law, was forced to show itself as sin, and that meant death for me. The contact of the Law showed the utterly sinful nature of sin.
But it cannot make men good For we know that the Law itself is concerned with the spiritual--it is I who am carnal, and have sold my soul to sin. My own behaviour baffles me. For I find myself doing what I really don't want to do, I am admitting that I really agree that the Law is good. But it cannot be said that "I" am doing them at all--it must be sin that has made its home in my nature. And, indeed, I know from experience that the carnal side of my being can scarcely be called the home of good! I often find I have the will to do good, but not the power. That is, I don't accomplish the good I set out to do, and the evil I don't really want to do I find I am always doing. Yet if I do things that I don't really want to do the it is not, I repeat. "I" who do them, but sin which has made its home within me. My experience of the Law is that when I want to do good, only evil is within my reach. For I am in hearty agreement with God's Law so far as my inner self is concerned. But then I find another law in my bodily members, which is in continual conflict with the Law which my mind approves, and makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is inherent in my mortal body. For left to myself, I serve the Law of God with my mind, but in my unspiritual nature I serve the law of sin. It is an agonizing situation, and who can set me free from the prison of this mortal body? I thank God there is a way out through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 8
The way out- new life in Christ
The truth is that no condemnation now hangs over the head of those who are "in" Christ Jesus. For the new spiritual principle of life "in" Christ Jesus lifts me out of the old vicious circle of sin and death.
The Law never succeeded in producing righteousness--the failure was always the weakness of human nature. But God has met this by sending his own Son to live in sinful human nature like ours. And, while Christ was dealing with sin, God condemned that sinful nature. Therefore we are able to meet the Law's requirements, for we are living no longer by the dictates of our sinful nature, but in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit. The carnal man sees no further than carnal things. But the spiritual man is concerned with the things of the spirit. The former attitude means, bluntly, death: the latter means life and inward peace. And this is only to be expected, for the carnal attitude is inevitably opposed to the purpose of God, and neither can nor will follow his Law. Men who hold this attitude cannot possibly please God.
What the presence of Christ within means But you are not carnal but spiritual if the Spirit of God finds a home within you. You cannot, indeed, be a Christian at all unless you have something of his Spirit in you. Now if Christ does live within you his presence means that your sinful nature is dead, but your spirit becomes alive because of the righteousness he brings with him. Once the Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives within you he will, by that same Spirit, bring to your whole being, yes even to your mortal bodies, new strength and vitality. For he now lives in you.
So then, my brothers, you can see that we owe no duty to our sensual nature, or to live life on the level of instincts. Indeed that way of living leads to certain spiritual death. But if on the other hand you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, you will live...
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