Introducing Romans

Hello, everybody.

This is James Rathman.

And I'm Aaron Neff.

This is the Aaron and James Podcast on Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Awesome.

Really looking forward to getting started on this one.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by the Redemption Church Denver Women's Night, which is actually a women's brunch.

And this women's brunch will take place on sub Sunday, February 16th.

It is a uh from noon to 2 p.m.

So you just get to kind of stick around right after church.

Okay.

Have a great brunch.

And uh I know this is something that our women's director, Liz Carr, has really put her heart into.

It's going to be a great time to kind of set a uh vision for women in our church and that uh to kind of co-develop together.

And um, she's got some great things to uh lead the women through on that brunch.

And uh so yeah, if you're uh one of the women of R C D, this is a great thing to mark your calendar for.

That's February 16th, so coming up.

And do they do they need to bring anything to the brunch?

Or no, they just show up and you just get to brunch.

Sounds great.

Isn't that awesome?

Yeah, it's awesome.

This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by the upcoming men's night on February 28th.

We've got uh men's night.

That's a Friday from 7 to 9 p.m.

It'll be just like the other men's nights.

Uh so come and uh as I look at the app right now, it says we have 154 spots remaining.

Invite your friends and your children.

So sign up.

Sign up quickly.

I mean, if it's an encouragement to anyone else, my son sprinted through and slid into the middle of the circle last time.

Yeah, that was a hit.

I think we all cheered, we all stood and cheered.

Uh I uh I didn't know whether I should be embarrassed or proud.

Yeah, that's right.

But that's a good thing to note.

Bring your sons, it's a great time together.

And uh this month uh we're going to be led through a discussion on uh the duty of men to protect.

Cool.

So that's February 28th from 7 to 9 p.m.

This concludes our advertisements for the pot for the podcast.

But without these sponsors.

I mean we we might go out and try and get I don't know, someone from PCA.

Yeah, that's right.

Just drop a little five minute You know, this is also brought to you by Athletic Greens.

AG1 has been a part of my routine for the past ten years now, and it's probably the most effective multivitamin.

Just a single you know, it's hard to Okay.

I was almost ready to go order.

Yeah, I know.

Hit that button on Amazon.

Yeah, that's right.

So thanks for listening.

Uh go ahead and uh smash that like button, hit subscribe, ring the bell.

Let's talk about Romans.

Romans.

Romans is uh my favorite book.

Out of all the books in the Bible.

Yeah, it is.

Wow.

Uh it it had just this incredibly transformative effect on me in college.

It was uh uh a study that I was a part of my freshman year, and it was the place where I really learned the mechanics of the gospel, and it really hit my heart, uh, the reality of justification, um, the freedom of the grace of God.

Every week I'd go into that study and we'd share together what we'd seen in the text, and it was every week I was like, this sounds, am I getting this?

This sounds too good to be true.

This sounds too wonderful.

This sounds better than I ever thought the gospel was.

And then the leader of the study was a guy named David Billingsley, and he really mentored me through my first couple of years of college and in my faith, and he um uh over and over again was like, Yeah, it's really that good.

It's really that good.

Can you believe it?

Yeah.

And that wonder of the righteousness of God being revealed in the way that he saves sinners, and that he connects his very righteousness to our salvation, and that uh allows us to participate and receive the righteousness of Christ is just the best news I've ever heard anywhere.

So I'm really hopeful for our church.

Some might call that good news.

I think it's good news.

Yeah.

It's one of those things we're like, that's good news.

Maybe I should share this with somebody.

Yeah, exactly.

And I just hope that our church gets that sort of experience.

That's what I've been praying for.

Uh in these studies that our church is going through, as so many folks are going through Romans, that they all just get to see, man, this is really good.

Um this is as this is as good as I this is better than I could have imagined.

Yeah.

I hope that really gets realized.

So um anyway, w maybe we should jump in and uh uh talk a bit about sort of the um well uh let's let's let's share this quote from Martin Luther on Romans.

You want to read that for us?

Sure.

Yeah, so uh Martin Luther in his preface to the Epistle of the Romans, he wrote, Romans is not only worthy that every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of the soul.

We can never read it or ponder over it too much, for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

So good.

You know, his insight to the gospel that sparked the Reformation was in teaching through Romans.

Yeah.

And that I feel like the church has been experiencing that ever since.

That Romans has been uh sparking new Reformations, new discoveries of the gospel in Christians' hearts.

That if you go into this book, you don't come out unchanged.

Yeah.

Um, if you open your eyes to see what it says, you're you're gonna see some of the most precious truths in all of Scripture.

Yeah, and that it seems like there's several kind of great patriarchs in the faith that that's happened as well.

I think I know you you really like Augustine.

Yeah, I do.

Um and this is the book that kind of lit his heart on fire.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um there's uh uh I I think it's uh it one way to think of it in the study that we're going through emphasizes this is it's sort of like the the schematic of salvation.

And it's like the uh the spine that the the uh that gets like fleshed out in the rest of scripture of what the nature of our salvation looks like.

And if you if you see this in Romans, then uh you can feel your whole Bible get drawn together.

Yeah.

Because you realize, oh, what Paul is describing here explicitly has been played out narratively throughout the rest of Scripture.

And now he's because of the revelation of Jesus Christ and uh the realization of the new covenant promises in Jesus.

Now these things that had been hidden, he can just name plainly.

And so he's able to say, here's exactly what's going on.

Jesus' death is the propitiation for our sins.

So God is just in the justifier.

That's why he was able to pass over those former sins and realize their judgment in Christ.

Their judgment in Christ means we're justified by him.

Yeah.

How are we justified by him?

Well, it's by faith.

And isn't that the way it's been the whole time?

Because look back to Abraham.

Even before he was given the promise of circumcision, he was told that he was made righteous by faith.

Right.

And so that's to show us at the present time that that's always the way it was going to be, and that's fully realized in Jesus now.

And so this all just just gets pulled together in in the book of Romans.

It's exciting.

Yeah, it's exciting.

It's good stuff.

Um I'd say the thesis of the book of Romans is right in the first chapter, and it's verses 16 and 17.

Romans 1, 16 and 17 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

So that's the thesis, and the rest of the book is going to be this argument for that.

That the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

So that means it is where uh salvation is uh practically applied.

It is the mechanism by which we are able to access the power of God so that we might be saved.

Yeah.

That's in the gospel.

And the gospel what the gospel demonstrates is the righteousness of God.

Because this is the dynamic of scripture is how can God be righteous and be in communion with sinners without in his righteousness destroying those sinners, which is what they justly deserve.

And the gospel explains that by the offering of Jesus Christ on behalf of those sinners.

And so it's a demonstration of it answers the question of how can we be made righteous in God's sight?

But it it it's really more fundamentally dealing with uh a question that's act that's like deeper and even more beneath that question, which is how can God be righteous in his justification of sinners?

Because that's the heart of the problem.

Yeah.

Uh the problem of humanity and our sin.

And the gospel demonstrates that.

Yeah.

And then in this thesis as well, it shows the means by which we participate in that, which is faith.

Okay.

Faith is uh uh though the way in which we receive the righteousness of Christ is by faith.

Yeah.

And so that'll take a lot of argument because even those uh concepts are are hard for us to grasp and it's a different world for us to m move in.

Um but I think as Paul describes the mechanism and describes how it is that Jesus works as the true sacrifice who is our propitiation.

Um what that means with regards to the satisfaction of the law and the sacrifice that's made on uh on our behalf.

Uh when you see that mechanism, then it it will start to make sense of why it is by faith that we participate in that.

And it that puts humanity in this really um, in a sense, obvious but um hidden position, especially to our sinful hearts, it's hidden position before God, which is one of absolute humility, where we stand before him bringing nothing, and he is the author of our salvation.

Yeah.

And we realize that we are in the place of receivers.

Yeah.

Uh we have received the great work that the Lord has done on our behalf.

And it puts us all in level playing field with one another.

So that no one may boast.

So that we all come before the Lord and uh no one may boast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the these are these wonders are all uh uh laid out in their most systematic and I think clearest form in Paul's letter to the Romans.

Cool.

I'm excited.

Yeah, me too.

Me too.

Um we often hit on a cultural lie.

Okay.

Oh what's our cultural lie?

So I mean, I think the cultural lie is something like you know, I I don't really need God to be saved.

And and it seems like you see that throughout both Christian culture and um secular culture.

The secular person saying, you know, if you're just if you're a good person, uh, you know, you'll be reincarnated or you'll you'll make it to heaven in the afterlife, or whatever that may be.

And then the the Christian, I think, often says, Well, like I've I've obeyed the commandments of God.

Um, so therefore I'm gonna go to heaven.

Yep.

And and on both sides, it's that that's reliance on ourselves of trying to earn salvation.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

And so Romans just makes no space for that.

Yeah.

Romans will back you up into a corner where uh every every possible exit on your own human effort is no longer feasible.

And it it brings you to a place of of uh like absolute despair.

And in that place of absolute despair, the uh the gospel is is shown that okay, something from the outside, someone else comes in and accomplishes your salvation for you.

Yeah.

And it you then stand before God and and you you you're driven to worship.

Because you see, oh wow, he really did this completely on my behalf.

And then Paul in the second half of the book starts to describe, okay, so what does a life look like where your salvation has been accomplished for you and given to you freely, and you receive it by faith, and you now you've been transformed and set free.

What does that life look like?

Yeah.

And it's uh uh a completely different shape than any other religion or worldview offers to anybody of a person who is able to live from a place of this absolute security before the Lord, the equipment that we've been given to wage war against the sin which still remains in our flesh in a way that prevents despair and uh continually draws us back into the the gracious arms of our Father.

Aaron Ross Powell It sounds really similar to the study that we did with Ephesians.

Yeah, for sure.

Uh maybe that we'll just get get a little bit deeper peek into Paul's reasoning for these arguments.

I think that there's the um Ephesians is like out of the gate, bam, here's what's been accomplished.

Uh, recognize the wonder of what's been accomplished.

And then shows sort of these cosmic and then church-level implications of what's been accomplished.

Okay.

Romans is like, here's how that's been accomplished.

And so you get a chance to follow this the system of how it's been accomplished, and then you arrive at, oh, uh so when we say this has been accomplished, not only do I know that it is the case that I have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, but I know oh uh I don't just know that it is the case, but I also understand why and uh uh what the how it is that God accomplished that on my behalf.

And so I think it just gives the Christian just this confidence to be able to say, like, oh yeah, to step and and um place all of my weight on Jesus Christ alone for my salvation is utterly sensible and reasonable and is the way in which I can demonstrate the glory of the righteousness of God.

Yeah.

Cool.

That's helpful.

Yeah.

Yeah, sort of a bit of a thematic overview of what we're what we're headed into.

Things to keep your eyes tuned in for.

But as we're just moving into this book, it'd probably be helpful to provide some background on its provenance.

What state was it written in?

Okay.

Uh what what was Paul seeing when it when he was writing it, and then how do those um how does its providence kind of inform uh what topics in particular that Paul is writing about?

Okay.

Um Aaron, you've done great work on this, so I'd love to for you to share what uh uh you've seen in in sort of the providence of the R.

Yeah.

Um so I'll I'll start with maybe a little bit of just the uh secular history in the context there, and then we can jump into kind of what I was seeing as I was looking at this within the book of Acts in the biblical context.

But um, so for those who aren't aware, um this was written somewhere around you know the the 50 AD decade.

Uh-huh.

And so at that point in time, the Roman Empire was pretty large.

Um so it spanned from basically Israel to Portugal and then from northern part of Africa up into Germany.

So a pretty big territory.

Um and I think over the course um or in the in that period of of time, the empire had about a population of 50 million people, and then the city of Rome itself was anywhere between 500,000 to a million people.

Okay.

Um so almost basically the size of Denver for the city of Rome.

Enormous ancient city.

Huge.

Yeah.

Um, and that's not normally what I picture, I guess, when I when I picture when I when I've read the Bible before and you read the letters going to these churches in different parts of the world, uh, for whatever reason, I don't I don't I haven't pictured the big metropolitan area.

Yeah, that's true.

Um but I thought I thought that was interesting.

Um the other thing that was is kind of unique or and maybe helpful for this is that um we're there's two emperors in this time period to point out, and one of them was Emperor Claudius, and one of the things that he did in this time frame was he expelled the Jews from Rome.

So he kicked them all out.

Well, kicked them out.

I don't know that they had a great way of enforcing that, but um there was this big exodus um from Rome.

Um this is actually confirmed in the book of Acts, where Paul first meets uh Priscilla and Aquila.

Um they actually, I think they arrive in Corinth from Italy, is what the Bible says, but basically they were those um Jews that were living in Rome and had to leave because of this decree.

Okay.

Um and the the reason that he kicked them out was um strife over this person called Crestus or Christos.

Uh it doesn't seem like it's clear maybe who that person is, but um some of the scholars are saying that it's likely that it's a misunderstanding of the Greek word Christos for Christ.

Um and being So it's already a Christian controversy.

So perhaps pr perhaps, yeah, a Christian controversy.

And so my thought was that you know Peter is is getting up and he's preaching um to the Jews, and everyone you know gets saved, and then they all go back home to their cities.

Yeah, because Pentecost uh they would have gathered in from all over the empire to Jerusalem.

Yep, that's right.

So that they're there for that, the Holy Spirit falls, people are saved, they go back home, and then they start to share the good news of Jesus, which is causing these like uh disturbances in Rome.

Yeah.

That Rome doesn't like.

So and Rome wasn't differentiating between Jews and Christians, they were the same thing to them at that point.

Okay, and so basically they just said, We're gonna get get rid of the Jews.

Yeah.

Um, which actually, uh interestingly enough, happened a couple times before where they kicked the Jews out of Rome.

Uh huh.

And one of them was for supposed missionary work that they thought the Jews were trying to convert um the Romans to Judaism.

Yeah.

So you can see just how disruptive that would be.

Right.

And so if you if they draw them past precedent of like the Jews have done this before, now there's this other person here, Christos or whoever.

Yeah, some new energy in this movement.

Let's shake this out again.

We don't we don't want them here.

Let's just get them out of here.

Yep.

And so the thought was then that what was predominantly maybe a Jewish Christian church in Rome overnight became a Gentile church because the the only people that would have been left would have been the Gentile Christians.

And so then they're there for a period of years.

It's it's a I don't remember what it was.

Let's see.

He he makes this decree in about potentially around 49 AD, and then he dies around 54 AD.

So you know, five years or so.

Yeah.

And uh basically when he when he dies, the decree dies with them, and Jews are allowed to actually come back into the city.

Okay.

And so then this is kind of where you get this mingling then again of the Gentile church and the Jewish Christians come back, and it starts to be um like a mix of the two different people groups that just didn't exist before.

Right.

And so um from a historical perspective and what Paul, you know, he's writing this letter to the Roman church.

Sometimes it feels like he's writing to the Jews, and sometimes it feels like he's writing to the Greeks.

Um and with this historical background, it kind of makes sense that he's writing to both.

Yeah.

Um so this is a church that Paul did not plant.

Correct.

Yeah.

But it's a church that sort of formed organically just out of the spread of Christianity across the empire from that bomb that went off at Pentecost.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is it's pretty cool to actually see that happen.

Um the other thing that I thought was interesting, uh, so there's a uh a couple things.

I was I was reading um through, I don't know if it was a commentary or just like a help book um to go along with the New Testament, but it was talking about how Phoebe was the one who had taken the letter to the Romans, and the book of Romans actually calls that out, and how he how he's staying with um this guy named Gaius, and Phoebe was from um from Corinth, and potentially if this Gaius is the same person, he was one of the guys that Paul baptized in in Corinth.

Oh, yeah.

Um, so I was I was like, oh, it's kind of interesting that he's okay, so he's maybe writing the letter.

Glad I didn't baptize anymore.

Yeah.

Uh glad I didn't stay in Corinth any longer.

Um but yeah, so he's he's writing in Corinth.

Um, and so I I just had this thought.

I was like, well, maybe I need to go back and look at Acts and try and get an idea of like when he's in Corinth, the events that were happening and going on around it, um, and then maybe what's what's coming um after he writes uh Romans.

Yeah.

And so I just kind of just jotted down like uh some bullet points here as like a so likely Paul writes Romans in Corinth during his time with that church.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um to them, still hasn't been there yet, wanting to go there.

Yep.

Um, but if you read Corinth, you could or Corinthians, you could kind of get an idea of what he's dealing with there as well as then what he's wanting to say to the Romans now as we as we read this book.

Right.

But so one of the things I did was like, okay, I'm I'm gonna go back and just make a little recap of basically Paul in the book of Acts.

Yeah.

Um and so things that are covered with Paul in the book of Acts is he get he gets converted on his way to Damascus, he's blinded, he has his sight restored, and after that he has to he goes to Jerusalem to meet the disciples.

Um and there Barnabas vouches for him, basically says that you know Paul's preaching the gospel, um, you know, he's one of us now.

Yes.

Um, and when he's in Jerusalem, then um, you know, it doesn't really seem like Paul's really elevated to that that status yet.

It's just the disciples are unsure.

Um and so Paul basically then goes out and he starts preaching to some Greek-speaking Jews um in Jerusalem.

Uh and what's interesting is that they immediately seek to kill him.

Right.

Um, which is the pattern then that you see with Paul pretty much anywhere he goes in Acts, he first goes to the synagogue, he starts preaching to the Jews, and then for the most part, uh generally they get angry and they try to to attack him or to kill him or some other sort of plot against him.

Now there's some instances where it's maybe a mixed reception, and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not, but that's typically what we what you see.

Um go into the synagogue, get rejected by the Jews.

Get rejected by the Jews.

Or occasionally Jews and Greeks hear together.

Correct.

Yeah.

And and what I thought was interesting was just after this first trip to Jerusalem to introduce himself to the apostles, um, and them seeking to kill him, he just goes home.

He goes to Tarsus.

Yeah.

Um, and he's there for a while.

Right.

Um, and so we don't, you know, it's almost like we don't hear much about Paul, and we shift to another vantage point of other things that are happening in the church.

Yeah, specifically with Peter.

And this is where, you know, God gives Peter this vision about unclean and clean foods, and basically tells Peter not to call the Gentiles unclean and to go with the Gentiles.

So he goes with them, he preaches to them, and the Holy Spirit falls upon them, just like he had uh the apostles.

Right.

And so, and Peter then takes this news back to the church, um, saying that you know, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.

Right.

Um, so there's almost this there's confirmation that the the Gentiles are also a part of now the people of God, even prior to because kind of Paul's kind of off the scene a little bit.

That's right, yeah, and it's happening in the in both of these places.

You get this explicit vision that uh is recorded like three times, the vision is recounted of Peter uh of God testifying to him that the uh Gentiles are no longer unclean in Christ.

And then Paul, it's just sort of happening practically.

Greeks are being converted.

That's right.

And so they're look, they're we have the Holy Spirit just like us.

He's seeing it, we don't see that story explicitly, right, but we we hear the fruit of it.

Right.

That's right.

Um and so what was interesting to me then that is that at this point we they know that the Gentiles, God's granted them the repentance, but it specifically says in Acts Um that they basically so it says, now they were those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, but they spoke the word to no one except for Jews.

Um so it's even though that they knew um God was including the Gentiles, they weren't going out to the Gentiles.

Yeah, and you can you you sense, you know, the this this these are people that are living in this overlap of these covenant ages.

Yeah.

And that there's a stark barrier between the Jew and the Gentile.

That is their whole cultural history.

And then for that to just get broken open, uh it it doesn't it there's there's nothing intuitive about going to Gentiles to share this for these new Jewish Christians.

That's right.

And it and it the way the Bible um talks about it, it just says, but there were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks, also preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was upon them, and a great number who and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

And a report came to the church, and they sent Barnabas up to see what was going on, and then at that point Paul goes or Barnabas goes to find Paul in Tarsus.

Yeah.

Um but yeah, I just thought it was interesting that it's kind of the apostles weren't the ones that were a part of this um revival, if if that's what you want to call it.

Uh-huh.

Um, and they they had to go send someone, Barnabas, like, go find out what's going on up there.

Let's see what's actually happening among among the Gentiles.

You know, it's they say it's called the Acts of the Apostles, but they say it should be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

And you can see how there's this sort of interplay throughout the whole book of Acts of things uh that the apostles are doing, and you see the organizational structure of the church taking place, and then amidst that you see the organic movement of the Holy Spirit that is it driving and compelling these things that have been commanded, but that aren't being taken up.

Yeah.

And so even with the uh, you know, uh Jesus himself says in the beginning of Acts 2, the apostles uh go from Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

And uh everybody stays in Judea until the martyrdom of Stephen.

Yeah.

And you can feel like even that is the Holy Spirit uh acting as like this forcing function to uh push everybody out of Judea.

Yeah.

Uh so that he is accomplishing the expansion of his church.

Yeah.

And it is weird that it's like these unnamed men from Cyprus who are it's like, hey, look at these Greeks, they're they believe the gospel now.

Yeah.

And for Barnabas to be like, it it it almost make it almost what it seems like, because otherwise it seems almost arbitrary that he goes straight to Paul after that.

It does seem like Barnabas is like, well, I've heard kind of rumors that Paul is seeing this same sort of thing, and we know he teaches the same gospel, let's go check that out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The only other thought I had about um about maybe why they went to see Paul was right after this, um, Acts talks about Peter being in prison.

Um and so instead of being able to go back to the church and get Peter and bring him up to see the disciples, now they go, they go to get Paul.

Right.

Um because even if Paul um you know, even if Paul wasn't at that status of of where Peter was in in the group of the apostles at this point in time, at least he knew the law.

Yep, and he knew what was going on, um, and he was converted to Christianity, so he would maybe he would know how to reconcile these two groups of people.

He's probably the best educated Christian at this point in terms of knowledge of the law.

Right.

Yeah, so I thought I thought that was interesting.

Um so they get Paul, they bring him back to Antioch, they're there, they're there a while preaching and teaching for about a year, and then at the end of the year, uh the elders in the in the city basically pray for Paul and Barnabas and commission them to go to the Gentiles.

Um and then this is this is kind of where I saw some interesting things just around what Paul experienced in his missionary trips and then what he actually is writing in the book of Romans.

Yeah, make that connection for us.

I thought that was really helpful.

Okay.

Um, so we talked a little bit about basically the normal pattern of Paul shows up to New City, he goes to the synagogue, he preaches in reasons from the scriptures.

Generally speaking, the Jews reject it, try to attack him, um, and then the Gentiles rejoice and some are saved.

So you kind of see that pattern um going through.

But one of the first places they go to um was uh called Antioch and Pisidia, so a different Antioch um city.

Uh but it says that the Jews saw the crowds were filled with jealousy, um, which was one of those things where Paul talks about the reason that the gospel has come to the Gentiles is to make them jealous, yeah, and to bring them back to God.

Yeah.

Um so that it says he'll lay that pattern out explicitly in Romans 11.

Right.

Yep.

So they're filled with jealousy, and then it all it says after that that he they began to contradict what was spoken to by Paul.

Um, and so for me it was tying this back to this concept in Romans of suppressing the truth.

So they they knew God, but they did not honor him as God, and they suppressed the truth.

Um, and and that's essentially what they're actively doing with Paul as he's preaching the gospel.

Yeah.

So Paul's experience is going into these Jewish synagogues, experiencing contradiction, seeing fruitfulness among the Gentiles, and then that fruitfulness among the Gentiles sparking envy among the Jews.

Right.

Yeah.

Um the other thing, one of the other things I saw was that um, so it's it wasn't that case though, everywhere he went.

So there's a place where uh iconium where he went, where it was uh basically a mixed reception.

Like some people sided with the Jews, some people sided with Paul and the Apostles.

Um, but it was kind of this mix of Gentiles and Jews doing that.

Um so it wasn't all kind of black and white.

Uh but what I thought was interesting here was that it says the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

Um and there's this um, you know, this passage in Romans where it talks about like not only did they do the do the wrong things, um, but they encouraged other people to do the wrong things and basically took like joy in that.

Yeah.

Essentially.

I'm I'm misparaphrasing that, but um, that's the general idea of you know, the the Jews basically they know now they're doing wrong in some sense, but they're they're trying to get others to do the wrong thing and reject the gospel as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Um and so you can kind of see this pattern it throughout the Paul's letter to the Romans, and we can we can sometimes read it as like Paul's revelation is just this thing that just um uh you know was uploaded into his brain like learning how to fly a helicopter in the matrix.

But when you look at the pattern of his of his life and his ministry, you can see that it the Holy Spirit is uh enlightening him to be able to interpret with right understanding the very experiences that he's being brought into.

Yeah.

And so when he sees the rejection of the Jews at the hearing of the gospel, the Jews rejecting the gospel at its hearing, and then he sees the acceptance of the Gentiles of the Gospel, and then he sees the spark of envy of the Jews, um, in that even driving some of them back into the gospel, then it when you see that pattern taking place in his ministry, you can see how the Holy Spirit is showing him here's this is not just what is happening to take place, but I am actually showing you the very pattern of the way that I am accomplishing my salvation with these groups of people.

The one from whom salvation has come are the ones that rejected by their rejection, they accomplished the mechanism of salvation for the Gentiles, but uh in seeing the salvation of the Gentiles, that's actually something that God is using to draw them in, yeah.

Uh to the only hope of salvation, yeah, which is Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's and it's I think it's super helpful just to understand that um not only was this like the course of redemptive history throughout the Bible, but just that this was you said experiential is what we were talking prior to uh recording.

It's just this is really happening.

Um which should be an encouragement, I think, for us today.

I think you you say a lot um in your sermons on Sundays about like Exodus or Genesis or these types of things, or they're showing us the ways in which the world works.

Yes.

Um, and if we can get these things in scripture, then we'll understand the experiences that we're having on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, that's right.

If you can interpret the Bible, you can interpret your life.

Yeah.

Um, so I I just thought that was interesting.

I mean, it kind of goes on.

You see this same pattern.

Um, there's almost like this little break in it where Paul has to go back to the church in Jerusalem and convince them in the same way that he's he's in in these random synagogues.

It's almost like the um the even though they knew the Gentiles were now included, they fall back into resistance against it at the church in Jerusalem.

So he has to go back and argue against circumcision and adding in additional um requirements of the law for the Gentiles.

Um but then he he goes out again, and it you kind of see it just ramp up where he's going into these places, um, but not only now are they they trying to attack him in the cities where he's preaching, but they travel from Thessalonica to Beria.

Um so now they're going and following Paul around, trying to um stir up dissension wherever he's going.

Um till finally where he lands in Corinth, where he writes the book of Romans, where Paul basically says, I'm fed up with all this, I'm now only going to the Gentiles.

Right, and he becomes the apostle to the Gentiles.

Yeah.

And so it kind of puts them in that place, like he's got all that background and context.

And you can hear, you know, why why that that that was like a death for Paul uh to uh recognize his calling in that direction because it's a abandonment of his own people.

And you you will hear in Romans his his heart breaking over that, but but he's able to recognize that his going to the Gentiles is not a rejection of the Jews because it going to the Gentiles actually becomes the mechanism by which the Jews will be drawn back in.

Yeah.

And so he's he's he this sort of like uh cosmic narrative of how God is saving all peoples is uh tearing it personally at Paul's heart, and you can see that it's like he had to discover uh how how that tension could be resolved just for him to be able to move into the calling to the Gentiles that God called him to, yeah.

Without it meaning a rejection of his own people.

Yeah.

And and I don't think then he entirely gives up on them either.

Um, you know, because in in the book of Romans, he basically asks the Roman church to pray for him because he knows he's got to go back to Jerusalem.

Um he says, you know, pray for me that I may be rescued for those who are disobedient in Judea, that my service to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints.

Yeah.

And I think I was trying to look it up just now.

Um it's hard to do on the fly, but I think he talks a little bit in there about how he feels sad around that um in in asking them to pray for him.

But yeah, it's this this weird kind of um thing for him.

Yeah.

To where he knows he can't he can't be with them anymore, but he's also gonna go back to them, and then when he goes back to them for the last time, he knows that he's gonna die.

Right.

Um yeah, it's an interesting thing.

Yeah, it is because that's where he gets arrested and the story becomes an appeals process.

Yeah.

Up to Rome.

And it's ultimately towards Rome, towards his execution.

Yeah.

In Rome.

Um I I think that's just super helpful information, and it really brings just like this sense of personal life into the letter to hear that sort of context.

I really appreciate it.

Sure.

Um you uh researching all that and laying that out for us.

Um well, let's conclude and let's just give an overview of what it is that we're headed into when we go to the book of Romans.

And what's helpful about Romans is it's written so systematically that as you move through it, and at the end of this study, I think you'll find that you'll be able to reflect back on the book of Romans and really understand the system of argument and just be able to lay it out.

Um, it even lines up, even the chapter divisions are really useful in the Book of Romans because it is so systematic and each point uh builds on the others.

And so you'll get sort of the shape of the argument.

Yeah.

And you can kind of narratively understand the shape of the argument.

And so it's actually really sticky um uh as a book.

So um I'll just take some time uh and then we'll wrap up and just sort of lay out okay, here's kind of an overview of an outline of what we're getting into with the book of Romans.

And the way it begins is in uh one way to understand it is the simplest outline, which is uh Romans 1 through 11, our doctrine.

Okay.

And uh Paul lays out how uh the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, and that uh the righteous man lives by faith.

And in Romans 12 through 16, it's an explication of it sort of answers the question well, how should we then live?

Yeah.

So if this is true, if this doctrine is true, then how should we then live?

Live.

So you may even be surprised as you're reading it how little exhortation there is in chapters 1 through 11.

There's just a few, you'll be able to put your uh finger on them.

You know, therefore, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God, uh, alive to righteousness in Christ Jesus.

So it's like, okay, I'll can what's the first thing I'm told to do?

Just consider myself dead to sin.

Um, but we can break that down further from just the doctrine and application to seeing the shape of the doctrine that he's describing.

The first part of chapter one is Paul's longing to go to Rome, uh, the fruitfulness of the gospel, and why he so desires to continue sharing the gospel.

It's because he sees it as the power of God for salvation.

And he understands that this is the very power of God for salvation.

So he lays that out as his thesis in Romans 1, 1 through 17.

Then 18, he starts describing, okay, what is the state of mankind?

And the state of mankind is a state of sin.

And he argues it really practically in Romans 1, where he describes that uh the uh what can be known about God, namely his eternal power and divine nature, has been made clear just in the creation itself.

But mankind has made an exchange where we haven't worshipped and served God as the creator.

Instead, we've worshiped uh uh ourselves and uh the creation itself uh as though it was worthy of our worship.

Yeah.

And then he just he argues in this really practical way, where he he just he basically says, look around you.

And you can see all of these things that are just plainly contrary to nature.

You can see people dishonoring their parents, you can see people uh entering homosexual relationships, plainly contrary to nature.

You can uh see people uh living in selfishness and gluttony and hatred and strife.

And it you you don't you don't need he's arguing in such a way where he's like you need like no moral framework to you you just need a sense of like what's it like to be a human and what works for humans.

You look at you lift up your eyes and it's like why is nobody living in accord with what plainly works for humans?

Yeah.

And so you get this picture of wow, the the corruption of sin really is this radical corruption.

And it does seem to, if I just lift up my eyes, I can see it all around me.

And then he shifts in chapter two, and he starts to demonstrate yes, this corruption, which you can see all around you, is also within you.

And you participate in this corruption, you celebrate this corruption, and even those of you, even if you have and know the moral framework, then that's even further evidence against you because you are actually living in just the same way as these people who have no moral code and no moral framework.

Yeah.

And by the way, God isn't interested in whether or not you have the moral code or moral framework, he's interested in whether or not you're living righteously before him, and nobody passes that test.

And in Romans 3, he goes in to just plainly say in the in the broadest strokes possible, nobody passes that test.

Nobody lives righteously before God.

Yeah.

And so he binds up everyone.

So in the first chapter, you think he's talking about those wicked people over there because you can see it, it's so plain.

In the second chapter, it's like, oh man, this kind of feels like he's talking about me too.

And then in the third chapter, he's plain and explicit to everybody.

Their mouths are open graves.

Um and then he culminates it in 323, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And it's like, okay.

Now we see the state.

Yeah.

And that's where you can see that Paul is binding up everyone in this um uh we're trapped in our unrighteousness before God.

And so justly we deserve God's wrath and punishment.

And uh then in Romans 3, at the end of Romans 3, he it like breaks in, this light breaks in into this dark world that Paul has shown us of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins.

That's why God is able to pass over these former sins, and that's why God is able to be the both just and the justifier of the one who believes.

Because Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God on our behalf.

So the wrath of God is born, therefore, God is just, and he imputes to us his righteousness, therefore, he is the justifier, the one who makes us righteous before him.

And so the righteousness of God is therefore demonstrated, and that he is able to maintain his justice, but also demonstrate his grace towards the wicked people.

And he says that uh now this means that nobody can boast.

Right.

Because we all stand utterly condemned before God and we are saved by his grace alone.

So then the question is, okay, well, how do I participate in that?

How do I become one of the ones that receives this?

Seems natural.

It seems like the natural question.

This is why Romans is so great, because when you get the shape, it's like each thing is like, well, here's the natural question, here's the natural question.

So Paul goes.

Exactly.

And in Romans 4, he describes, he goes back before the Mosaic covenant, he goes back before even the covenant of circumcision, he goes to this covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, and he says, See, right here, it was shown to Abraham, even before there were any requirements of the law, that he was counted righteous by faith.

And this shows to us that this is the way that it has been the whole time.

Yeah.

That the only way that humans can be counted righteous before God is by faith in the covenant that he fulfilled on our behalf.

And so it is all faith in the work of God on our behalf that then is counted to us as righteousness that's imputed to us in Christ.

Then in Romans 5, he uh goes even back before Abraham and he shows how this was the necessary mechanism, because at first we were all in Adam and we all fell in Adam.

And what we needed is a second covenant head who would be able to accomplish what Adam didn't, which is perfect righteousness before God, and then do on our behalf what Adam didn't do on Eve's behalf, which is in his sinlessness offer himself up as a sacrifice to save his bride.

Yeah.

And Jesus shows himself as that uh, Jesus is that second Adam.

And so Paul describes how now, because Jesus is the second Adam, we are this new humanity that now stands with Christ as our head, and we have a spiritual union with him that is more powerful than the physical union that we had had with Adam.

Sure.

And so we are grafted into Jesus Christ.

We're in Christ.

And there are two types of people now, those that are in Adam or in Christ.

And then Paul starts to talk about what that means of our relationship with God and our relationship with sin, because uh in Adam we are slaves to sin, slaves to unrighteousness.

But now that Adam has now that the sin of Adam has been put to death in Jesus Christ, we're freed from that slavery.

Yeah.

And so we are uh Paul then begins to talk about the freedom of the gospel that we have and this righteousness of Christ that has just been given to us, that is this um uh free gift of God.

And he concludes it with um uh Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And then there's this remaining question, which is okay, well then what did the law mean?

We've gone back to Abraham, we've gone back to Adam, but we have this Mosaic law.

What was it?

How do we relate to that now?

And what was that law even doing if we were all bound up in sin?

And he starts to describe that the purpose of the law was not a mechanism of salvation, the purpose of the law was to reveal the depth of our corrupt of our corruption.

Sure.

And then Paul starts to talk very personally.

He says, I didn't understand covetousness in my own heart.

That wasn't revealed until I heard of covetousness in the law, and then that was shown to me in my own heart, and I start cut, I realize I'm coveting everywhere, and I start coveting everywhere.

And he's and then he goes into this even more personally as he shows, you know, I realize that I have this war within me since I'm in Christ.

And this war is between the spirit which has been given to me and the flesh which wages war against the spirit, and that this is amplified by the law, but I'm no longer under the law.

Yeah.

Because it's the law was like a spouse.

And when your spouse dies, then you're no longer bound to them.

And the requirements of the law have been satisfied and put to death in Jesus.

Right.

And now we are freed from the curse of the law, and yet this sin, which was amplified by the law, continues to wage war in our being.

And this is where so then Paul brings us back to this point of like, okay, well, what do we do?

How do we fight in this war that we're now in, now that we have the Holy Spirit within us?

And that's what Romans 8 is all about.

It's about life in the Spirit.

Okay.

Begins with this wonderful promise of therefore there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Uh and then it goes on and it describes okay, so how are we to live?

Well, the the mind that is set on the spirit, the mind that is set on the flesh is death, but the mind that is set on the spirit is life and peace.

And so now we're to live these lives that are by the Spirit of God.

They're empowered by the Spirit of the Lord.

And he describes how this means that we can call upon God as our Father in the same way that Jesus called upon God as his Father.

Describes that our prayers are interceded for by the Spirit on our behalf, so that there's this efficacy to our prayers now, which works as this preservative force.

He describes the certainty of our salvation and his accomplishment of it as he lays out this golden chain of salvation of those whom he foreknew, he also called, those whom he called, he predestined, those whom he or those whom he foreknew, he predestined, those whom he predestined, he called.

Those whom he called, he justified, those whom he justified, he will glorify.

Um and then he's almost starts playing like, okay, so what are you gonna think about what how are you then then gonna think?

It's like, well, when you receive accusations of you're not justified by Christ, um, or how could you be justified?

Look at you.

Yeah.

Um the way to respond is with things like, well, God is the one who justifies, yeah.

Who is the one who condemns?

Christ Jesus is the one who died, yes, and was raised from the dead.

And so what is it that could possibly separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

And it's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And then here's this question that Paul's brought into in chapter nine, which is but what is this if all of these promises were for the Jewish people and they are rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the fulfillment and the reality of all that these promises pointed towards, does that mean that God's promises towards those people are actually void and that they were not effective promises, that he does not show his righteousness towards them?

And Paul demonstrates that actually the way that God is acting towards the Jews now is the way that he has always acted throughout all of history, which is that not all of Israel is truly Israel.

But God has always selected for himself, for reasons that belong only to him, who it is that he will save.

And lest we think that this is a reason to uh ignore the uh call to preach or the necessity of the means that God uses to bring people towards salvation, Paul moves in chapter 10 to describe there's the simple reality that we are required to respond to the call of God, that uh it is by believing in our hearts, confessing with our mouths, um, and how will they understand unless unless they are preached, and how will they preach unless they are sent?

And uh then Paul continues on into Romans 11, and he describes this dynamic between Israel and the Gentiles, which is something that we've hit on already today, as we saw the context of Paul's ministry that he's writing this in, which is that the Gentiles are like the younger brother who makes the older brother jealous by their which is a pattern throughout scripture the whole time.

Um and the the uh ultimately with the hope that the Jews will recognize that the way of salvation is by trusting in the same thing that the younger brother is trusting in.

Uh trusting in the same one that the Jews are, excuse me, that the Gentiles are trusting in.

Yeah.

That's this ultimate hope that we have.

So that and then Paul lays it out and he's like, so what am I saying?

God has bound everyone up in sin.

All peoples have been bound up in sin so that he might show grace to all.

And this inside of Paul's, he explodes at the wonder of what God has done.

He realizes that the intention of everything for all time was to create the exigencies that would allow for God to demonstrate his righteousness in showing grace to sinners.

And he shows us how to respond to that as he goes into this glorious doxology of uh praise to the Lord.

Um the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, for who has um been his counselor, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid.

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever.

From him the whole conclusion of Paul's doctrine section is from God is salvation to God is our salvation uh through God is our salvation and to God is our salvation.

It's all for his glory.

And the good news is that God bound up his own glory with our salvation.

Yeah.

So we can be as confident that God will secure our salvation as we can be that he will secure his own glory.

And we know that he will secure his own glory.

And then in Romans 12, he starts talking like, okay, so how should you then live?

And interestingly, he doesn't begin with commands, he begins with an appeal, because the transformed heart is not one that is under law, but it's one that is appealed to.

Now live according to your new nature.

And he talks about how we are progressively transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and how that reshapes Christian communities.

In Romans 13, he describes how this reshapes our relationship with all of society from the top down, from governmental institutions to family relationships.

In Romans 14, he describes how the shape of our relating to one another is to be one that's colored by the gospel of grace, so that we bear with one another, we bear with weaker brothers, we um uh uh move into this new challenge of how it is that we live with the freedom of the gospel, but we don't use our freedom as an occasion for sin, but as true freedom, which is uh call to righteousness.

And then in chapter 15, he uh moves into these more calls for uh our continued hope in Christ.

He describes his own missions and his own journey, and then chapter 16 he uh uh gives his final greeting and you realize it's a missionary letter because he asks for money.

That's right.

Um and so you can see throughout the shape of all of all of this the the wonder of the gospel that's laid out, and how if you lived in a text like this, you could get this glorious picture of how it is we should live and uh what it means that all that Christ has accomplished for us.

And I just hope that we're able to see the glory and wonder of this, and that folks will be able to say with just like a confidence like, I'm saved by Jesus Christ.

I know why he had to do it, I know that he did it.

I know that by faith in him I can be saved and have eternal life.

Yeah.

Uh that'd be a great thing for folks to see.

I can't wait.

Me neither.

All right, let's call it a day.

Great job, everybody.

Thanks for stopping by.

Goodbye.