Some people in the church had doubts about a future resurrection of the dead. Paul reassured them and because it seems many had questions he gives an extended discourse in response to their skeptical questions. In chapter 15 Paul discusses the resurrection of the dead: the resurrection of Christ, the future resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection body. First, the resurrection of Christ. In the first 11 verses Paul summarizes the Good News that he had been preaching, and at the heart of this Good News we find the message of the atoning, sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. He reminds that that whoever continues in their faith will be saved. What we find is that Paul didn’t originate the proclamation of Jesus that he delivered to the Corinthians. He simply gave the Corinthians what he had received himself. He saw himself as a link in a long chain of witnesses to the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul made it crystal clear that Christ’s death dealt decisively with our sins. He suffered in our place to endure the just wrath of God against us. Christ lived and died in accordance with the prophecies about Him in the Old Testament. And, the resurrection verifies the fact that Christ’s death paid the full, price for our sin. The Greek word here for rose is in the perfect tense which serves to emphasize the ongoing effect of this historical event. Christ is a risen Savior today. At the time of Paul’s writing it would have been fairly easy to verify the truthfulness of Paul’s statements since most of those Jesus had appeared to were still alive. We do not have that luxury today. We walk by faith and not by sight. Paul even listed many of those who saw the risen Christ, including James the half brother of the Lord and the head of the Jerusalem church.
But Paul considered himself born at the wrong time. This is probably Paul’s comment on the way he became an apostle. Unlike the other apostles who had the benefit of an initial training period with Christ, Paul became an apostle abruptly, with no opportunity for earthly contact with Christ or His teaching. Paul is most likely combining here several things. There were derogatory comments about his apostleship. He no doubt felt unworthy, but when you really stop and think, who among us wouldn’t feel unworthy. He considered himself unworthy because he had persecuted the church and even stood by and watched as Stephen was stoned to death. His persecuting the church probably haunted him for a long time. But Paul also came face to face with the risen Christ at his conversion. Paul’s awareness of God’s extraordinary favor, or grace to him, resulted in Paul showing an extraordinary response on his part. But, even that must be understood as an expression of God who was working in and through Paul. He got a late start, didn’t t have the same discipleship training, traveled farther than anyone else, established more churches, and wrote more scripture than anyone else. And he attributed all of it to the grace of God because for Paul the important thing is the message, not the messenger. Not only that but Paul didn’t care who got credit for the Corinthians faith. The importance thing was that they believed. Next Paul made a case for a future resurrection and Christ’s resurrection confirms the reality of the future resurrection. It seems as though there were Corinthian Christians who struggled to accept the Jewish notion of a bodily resurrection of the dead. They preferred instead the Greek notion of the Immortality of the soul. Some of the Corinthians were teaching that there is no resurrection. These were probably opponents of Paul who were teaching false things. They may also have been teaching that resurrection is only spiritual, not physical. Others may have been teaching that the resurrection had already happened. Whatever the case, these false teachers contradicted the essential teaching that Christ had been physically raised from the dead and that believers in Him will someday also be resurrected. Paul’s argument is this: If Christ has not risen from the dead, then faith in Him is useless. But in reality, Jesus’ resurrection is proof that the sacrifice of Christ fully atoned for human sins. If Christ has not been raised then beings remain unforgiven, under the judgement of God, and still guilty of all their sins. Christ’s death without resurrection would not succeed in saving us from our sins. And, without the resurrection of Christ, those who are asleep in Christ, the dead, have perished or been destroyed. It is futile then, with futile here meaning that which has no results. Without eternal life, faithful believers are more to be pitied than anyone in the world because they suffer persecution and deprivation. Their joy is found in what lies ahead after this life. In the Old Testament, the first crop was dedicated to God. Christ’s resurrection is the first of a great harvest of God’s people who will be resurrected. Jesus is the first fruits of all those who believe in Him. The first man, Adam, broke God’s law and brought sin and death into the world. The second, man, Jesus Christ was the true perfect sacrifice to take away sin and bring life and resurrection to those who believe in Him. Paul does a compare and contrast here between Adam and Jesus. Adam brought death and Jesus brought the gift of eternal life. Paul reminds his readers that Christ is the Lord of all things, even death itself. Nevertheless He remains subordinate to God His Father. The Greek word for order here is a military term that could be translated rank. The commander is raised first, His troops afterwards. When Paul speaks of the end in verse 24 it refers to all the remaining prophetic events that will occur after the rapture of the church and during the climax of history when Christ puts an end to all rule. He will deliver the kingdom to God the Father. When Christ and the church are joined at His coming, God will establish His kingdom on this earth, culminating in a new heaven and a new earth. Until that time, the Father subjugated everything to the Son. Every ruler, authority and power here refers to spiritual powers who oppose Christ. In the ancient Near East it was common for victorious kings to celebrate their victories by putting their feet on the necks of their defeated enemies. It was a picture Paul knew his readers were familiar with. God has allowed the His enemy, the evil one, to rule as the prince of the power of the air but his final judgement before God is certain and it will not end well for the evil one. God is sovereign and once the old is gone and everything is made new, there will be universal peace and prosperity. It seems that some first century Christians practiced baptism by proxy for dead unbelievers whom they wished to be saved. Paul neither endorses or condemns the practice. He simply uses it as evidence for belief in resurrection. There is no other reference to such a practice in early Christian literature. Paul reminded his readers that he risked his life daily and that was based on the conviction that there is life beyond death. If there is no resurrection such suffering is completely pointless. Why else would Paul have endured fighting with the wild beasts in Ephesus. It would have been better for him to take a different view and enjoy pleasure instead. One of the most common forms of entertainment in the Roman world was watching condemned prisoners fighting wild beasts and getting mauled to death. Paul had already warned the Corinthians to avoid fellow believers who lived immoral lives. Now he has added false teachers to that list. He also sharply rebuked those who prided themselves on their knowledge but remained skeptical about resurrection. Last in chapter 15 Paul discusses the nature of resurrection bodies, again be cause of skeptical questions being raised by the Corinthians. In the Greco-Roman world’s belief in the immortality of the soul was common but not belief in the resurrection of the body. Because of Paul’s strong response in verse 16 it appears the question asked was by a skeptic. And it was a foolish question, perhaps because the answer seems obvious and perhaps because it might mean the question is unknowable. If you have ever planted seeds or watched someone else do this you know that the kind of seed that gets planted determines the plant that grows. But the plant does not resemble the seed at all. So the resurrected body will be. The resurrection body will be unlike the present body, yet identifiable as belonging to the same person. There were people who objected to the resurrection on the grounds it was to difficult to understand. Paul referred to these folks as foolish. God has created a great variety of species; men, birds, animals, and fish. But then there are the stars, planets, sun and the moon. Each of them is different and the stars; each is different than the others. Paul is saying that God can and does creature whatever He wants to create. Everything that God has made has its own glory; its own unique beauty and magnificence. The resurrected body will be unlike anything else. Adam and Christ founded two distinct humanities: one is natural and earthly, enslaved to sin and death. The other is spiritual and heavenly, purified and destined for life. Adam represents the natural (physical) body and Christ the spiritual (resurrection) body. Just as Christ’s Life giving Spirit supersedes the natural life, the spiritual body will supersede the physical body. Paul continues: Adam’s body came from the dirt of the earth and Jesus from heaven. Earthly people like Adam, natural human beings are under the cursed sin and death. All return to dust. They all die. Heavenly people are like the heavenly man: those who belong to Christ are like Him in having an unending spiritual life. Like the earthly man, Adam, we have physical bodies in this life. But we will someday be like Christ, the heavenly man, experiencing the kingdom of God in resurrection bodies. Physical bodies cannot inherit God’s kingdom. Only a spiritual, resurrected body can experience the kingdom in all of its fullness. The Good News reveals the previously unknown secret of resurrection. We will not all die. It is quite possible Paul expected the future resurrection in his lifetime. The teaching here is similar to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where the dead in Christ will be raised first, the living believers will be instantly transformed into their immortal bodies when Jesus returns. The living will receive a body that is not subject to death. The evil ones apparent victories in the garden of Eden and at the cross were reversed by Jesus death and resurrection. From the vantage point of Jesus’ victorious return, death and hades (the grave) have no power over Christians, because Jesus has already conquered both. And we participate in His victory. Resurrection defeats the ultimate enemy, death, just as the power of the Spirit enables believers to transcend sin here and now. Believers have nothing to fear from death. Death is like the sting of a scorpion. The death and resurrection of Christ ends the dominating power of sin and death. Lastly, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are called to work enthusiastically for the Lord because our labor is never in vain. Nothing we do for the Lord is ever useless and there will be eternal rewards for those who serve Him faithfully. The Corinthians had questions about the collection for the poor brothers and sisters in the Jerusalem church. Christians met on the first day of the week rather than on the last day in the Old Testament. The first day was the Lord’s Day, the day Christ rose from the dead. The portion of money is not specified here and Paul later encouraged them to give as generously as they could. And Paul did in fact deliver the offering to Jerusalem himself. Macedonia is a province in the northern region of Greece and Paul travelled there on his second missionary journey. Paul was trying to get to the Corinthian church and had hoped to leave Ephesus soon. Perhaps he would winter in Corinth since the weather was too bad to sail and the land route was arduous because of the rains and snow. Paul eventually did make it to Corinth, but not according to the schedule he planned here. This failure to come caused him trouble later with the Corinthians. The opportunities for Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, a major city of Asia Minor, were great, as was the persecution he endured there. Though Paul could not leave immediately for Corinth he wanted to be represented among the Corinthian Christians by his fellow workers. He planned to send Timothy and he encouraged the Corinthians to go easy on him for though he was trustworthy, he wasn’t as forceful as Paul. It is possible that Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus had apparently traveled to Ephesus from Corinth to visit Paul. He knew Priscilla and Aquila from Ephesus. They had moved from Corinth. There was a house church in their home. A kiss in the cheek was a common greeting in Paul’s day. It was common for people like Paul to have their own secretaries but here Paul takes pen in hand and signs the letter himself. It may seem harsh that Paul would wish God’s damnation on those who do not love Jesus. But the acceptance or rejection of Christ is serious business. Those who reject the Lord Jesus are enemies of God. In the next breath Paul utters desires of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with an Aramaic expression “Marana tha” which means Lord, come! All of Paul’s letters close with a benediction similar to this one. Paul invokes Grace at both the beginning and the end of this letter. In His Grip Pastor Matt W Paul begins this section with a call to imitate him, meaning Paul set aside doing things his way so that he could do whatever it was Christ wanted him to do. He even found something to praise the Corinthians for. Verse three begins with “but”. This introduces an exception to the praise. Head primarily means authority when used in the context of human relationships. But the Greek word for head can also mean source or origin. The relationship between man and woman does NOT involve inferiority, for in the parallel clause, Christ is not inferior to God the Father. Submission does not indicate inferiority but subordination. Just as Christ and God are equally divine, men and women are equal beings. But just as Jesus and God the Father have different roles in God’s plan of salvation, so men and women have different roles. We could also translate verse two as, the source of every man is Christ, the source of woman is man (think Eve coming from Adam’s side) and the source of Christ is God. Never had such a big deal been made about what to wear to church. Here the challenge is what to wear on your head in worship. A man who covers his physical head dishonors his spiritual head, Jesus Christ. But a woman who prays without her physical head covered dishonors her spiritual head and that of her husband. It seems that when the Corinthian women heard about freedom in Christ they thought that meant they didn’t have to cover their heads anymore, which was against social mores as well. It also seems that women in Corinth were praying and prophesying in worship but with uncovered heads they were sending ambiguous signals about their sexuality or religious commitment. Paul encouraged them to exercise restraint. For a woman not to cover her head with a veil or her own hair was as shameful as having a shaved head which was a sign of public disgrace. On the other side, if a man covered his head as he prayed he was showing great dishonor to his spiritual head, Jesus Christ because man was made in God’s image. Paul also indicates that women were to cover their heads because the angels were watching. Angels are the guardians of the created order, appointed to ensure everything is done according to God’s plan. Evidently God’s angels are present at the meeting of the church and actually learn of God’s work of grace through the lives and worship of God’s people. Verses 11-12 show that God has created men and women to be mutually dependent on each other. The first woman came from man but every other man has been born from a woman. In Paul’s culture, men would never wear long hair and he argues that social conventions regarding hair length express fundamental differences between men and women. There were some in the Corinthian church who did not agree with Paul but his final argument was that this was the established custom of the church.
The next issue Paul had with the Corinthian church centered around the Lord’s Supper. Early Christians usually met in someone’s home at least once a week, typically on the Lord’s Day. But there were issues, one of which was division. Paul becomes a bit prickly when calling the people out for some of their claims of being superior to others. Some were more concerned about eating their own supper than eating the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper was the centerpiece of early Christian worship. Gathered around one table, fellow believers met with the Lord and with each other in unity. Christ had expressed this type of humility and unity when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. By taking their own supper ahead of others, the believers violated the spirit and purpose of the meal. By acting in this manner they showed contempt for the church of God and shamed those who had nothing. And Paul would not praise them for this behavior. Verse 23 brings us the words of institution that are so familiar to us. Paul is passing on what he received from the Lord Himself. It is one of the few explicit references in Paul’s letters to traditions handed down from Christ. In taking the Lord’s Supper, Christians proclaim the saving significance of the Lord’s death to those around them until He comes again. To take the Lord’s Supper without recognizing it’s significance or with unconfessed sin in one’s life is to take it unworthily. The Corinthians had been making it a meal of overeating and drunkenness rather than a time of reflecting on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That makes Jesus’ sacrificial death trivial, and thereby will invoke God’s judgement upon the people. Confession averts God’s judgement. When God’s people are judged by the Lord and disciplined, it is for their ultimate good, so that they will not be condemned along with the world. Then Paul told the Corinthians he would be visiting soon. The rest of today’s reading deals with the church in Corinth placing too much emphasis on the gift of tongues. Paul gives corrective advice regarding the value and use of spiritual gifts. He began by introducing the topic and emphasizing the active presence of the Holy Spirit in believers. Paul gives two criteria for discerning the presence of the Spirit in worship. First, those who curse Jesus thereby express their rejection of Jesus and His message and thus cannot be speaking by the Spirit of God. Second, the presence of the Holy Spirit in believers lives is shown by their sincere confession that Jesus is Lord. This is perhaps the earliest Christian creed. Though believers are united in the Lord and His Spirit, God gives different kinds of spiritual gifts to different people so that they can fulfill different kinds of service to the same Lord. All the work believers do for God is in fact God working through them. Spiritual gifts are not given for the individual recipients benefit but to help each other and bring God glory. The list of nine spiritual gifts is representative rather than a complete list. God’s Spirit gives supernatural wisdom or knowledge to some believers. The spiritual gift of great faith is not the faith required for salvation but an unusual ability to trust God for special needs. The ability to prophesy does not refer primarily to predicting the future, but to speaking a special message directly from God. The ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit is a necessary gift for any Christian community that is open to hearing a word directly from God. For Paul, the ability to speak in unknown languages here refers to spiritual language that requires the special gift of interpretation in order to be understood. By placing this gift near the bottom of the list Paul shows the lesser priority attached to the gift of tongues, with which the Corinthian church had become over enamored. The ability to interpret does not refer to natural intellectual ability to translate, but to a spiritual ability to understand the meaning of the Spirit’s message communicated through the gift of tongues. The Spirit decides what gift each person should have. Paul paradoxically affirms both the sovereign choice of God in giving spiritual gifts, and the human responsibility to earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. The church is a body composed of many different parts, each with its own function determined by God. No one function is more important than another. Ethnic and social distinctions have no significance in the church because regardless of who we are or where we have come from, we are all united together with Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit in baptism. Every part of the body, physical or spiritual is important and essential to its proper functioning. Paul calls us to not boast of our ministries or belittle them in comparison to others. Every single one of us had a purpose. Every. Single. One. And God who made the body has put each part just where He wants it. When one part of the body has a need we are called to go be useful to help with that need. And some of the parts we may see as weak are actually the most necessary. Because the church is a unified body, harmony and care for each other is essential. Paul ends chapter 13 with a list of some of the different individual roles given to people in the church. Apostles are specially commissioned emissaries of Christ in the world. Prophets speak a word from God. Teachers instruct others in the faith. His rhetorical questions all expect the same answer, of course not! Paul gently rebukes those who are jealous of others. Believers are to gratefully accept the gifts God has given them, and not envy other gifts or elevate any gifts as more important than others. He even goes so far as to say that believers should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts; that is the gifts that have the greatest potential to build up the church. God is the only one who distributes gifts as He chooses. And Paul encourages the Corinthians to move beyond their desire for the gift of tongues because it has the least potential, of all the gifts, to build up the church. And then Paul shows the Corinthian church the best way of life. Contrary to popular belief, 1 Corinthians 13 was not written specifically for weddings. Paul interrupted his discussion on spiritual gifts to emphasize that love is more important than any spiritual gift. The most important thing for Christians is to become deeply and consistently loving people. Spiritual gifts in themselves do not define our worth to God or to the church. In fact, apart from the expression of love, spiritual gifts are of no value. Paul uses an intentional exaggeration to illustrate the uselessness of each spiritual gift without love. The Corinthians could readily understand the images of sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. This is an illusion to pagan liturgy. Bestowing all of his gifts probably refers to the spiritual gift of giving to others. Some translations say if I give my body to be burned. Many early Christians experienced martyrdom by being burned at the stake. Verses 4-7 are a description of Christian love that emphasizes the willingness to give up one’s own desires for the good of others. This is how we are called to live today and while this text is often used at weddings, as you read what love is, picture what it really takes to be patient sometimes, what it actually looks like to be kind instead of snarky. Paul tells us that love does not demand its own way. If you love someone your relationship should be a partnership and not a dictatorship. Love is not self centered. It is not concerned with its own interests. Love isn’t keeping a list of all the wrongs that have been done to us, only to pull that list out as ammo when there are disagreements. Love celebrates the truth. It never gives up even when that would be easier and love endures through everything; the good, bad, and ugly. Love will last forever because God is love. Spiritual gifts are limited in their benefits, but not love. The contrast between now and then is between this age and the coming age. Now we see in a mirror dimly. In Paul’s day mirrors were usually made of polished bronze so the view was imperfect. Our perception in this life is limited and our understanding is partial and incomplete. When the end comes and Christ establishes His eternal kingdom we will see everything with perfect clarity. Then the spiritual gifts that give knowledge will be unnecessary. Faith, hope, and love are more important than spiritual gifts because they last forever. The greatest is love because love is the quintessential nature of God Himself. That means that love should epitomize our relationship with both Him and others. Having emphasized the supreme importance of love Paul returns to spiritual gifts. Their relative value is defined by the benefit they give to others, which is characteristic of love. In that light Paul contrasts the over valued gift of tongues with the more beneficial gift of prophecy. This seems to be the number one gift for Paul. The gift of tongues is not readily understandable for the majority of people but prophecy is immediately understandable and beneficial. These words both comfort and encourage. And messages need to be clearly intelligible if they are to communicate effectively. Paul doesn’t forbid the speaking in tongues but the ability to interpret is crucial, especially in public worship. Speaking in tongues engages the spirit of the speaker but not their mind because the message is not rationally intelligible. It is preferable both to worship in the spirit and to use words “I understand” in worship and ministry because public ministry should always bless both God and others. Paul also affirmed the personal value of speaking in tongues but speaking in a church meeting should help others, not only the speaker. Being mature means that one must consider the purpose of spiritual gifts and not treat them as ends in themselves for ones own enjoyment. Paul even argues that even unbelievers are more likely to be convicted by a word of prophecy than by speaking in tongues. Paul gives specific procedures for the use of spiritual gifts in the church and emphasizes that they are to be expressed in an orderly way. Among the early Christians, church meetings were not led by professional pastors or priests. Instead everyone shared with the others what God had given them for strengthening the church. Everything done in worship is to be for the strengthening the church. Paul even put time limits on some things so the most helpful things for the body of the church will get the most time and play. And public prophesying is to be expressed in an orderly way, sensitive to the guidance of the Spirit so that everyone may benefit from it. Others will evaluate what was said. Verses 34-35 are a bit of an aside, based on chapter 11:5. Women were encouraged to pray and prophesy but are also encouraged to be silent and submissive. Paul expected the Corinthians to take his apostolic word seriously, as a command from the Lord Himself. And one last caution to do things in an orderly fashion. In His Grip Pastor Matt W From chapter 10 through 16 Paul begins to answer the questions the Corinthians had asked him by letter, beginning with the question of marriage. Paul consistently states his strong conviction that true Christians, as slaves of Christ are wholly claimed by Christ for His own service. Because of this Paul recommends that Christians remain single, but he also conceded that getting married is not a sin. Both Paul and Jesus encouraged a celibate life for God’s sake. (Matthew 19:10-12). Paul’s emphasis on celibacy is shaped by his expectation that the end of the age is near. For the Corinthians however, Paul recommended marriage, tempering the ideal of a celibate life with awareness of physical realities. Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, married Christians must always be considerate of the physical needs of their spouse. It is clear that Paul’s preference is singleness, but he also recognizes that both being single and being married are both gifts from God. If one remains single there are no worldly distractions but even with its distractions, an honorable marriage is much better than living a life dominated by unsatisfied desire. He also reminds the people that a believing husband and wife should not leave each other, but if they do then they should remain unmarried. Next Paul turns to the case of a believer married to an unbeliever. He doesn’t have a direct command from Jesus but his counsel is consistent. Believers must be faithful and honor their marriage commitment, and by remaining, the believer brings holiness to the unbelieving spouse. This also extends to the children, who benefit from the holiness of a Christian parent. If the unbeliever breaks up the marriage, the believing spouse is free to let them go. God’s desire is that His people live in peace, rather than the intolerable conflict of a mixed marriage no longer desired by the non Christian spouse.
There is always the hope that the believing spouse will win the unbelieving mate to faith in Christ. But there are no guarantees. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they should accept their God given lot in life and as a rule should continue in the social situation in which they first became believers. Circumcision was also an issue though Paul tells this church it doesn’t matter one way or the other. It is much more important to keep the commandments, such as the commandment both to love God and love others. Slavery was widespread in the Greco-Roman world and many Christian converts served rich families. Like circumcision, slavery is also a relatively unimportant issue for the Christian. Even as a slave the Christian is spiritually freefrom the power of sin, death, and the law. And even if you are free to begin with, all of us are slaves to Christ. All of us have been bought at a very high price. Paul gives three reasons why it is generally preferable for single people to remain unmarried.First, single people have fewer everyday problems than married people. Second, because the end is near, Christians ought not let marriage and the things of the world be their dominant concerns. Their primary concern should be Christ and eternity. Third, because marriage brings earthly responsibilities and divided interests. Those who remain single can devote their whole lives more fully to serving Christ. Finally, a widow may marry another man, but only if he loves the Lord. Paul strongly discouraged the marriage of Christians to unbelievers. This is what is known as being unequally yoked. Next comes the issue of food sacrificed to idols. Throughout the Greco-Roman world there were temples and shrines dedicated to pagan gods. It was common for worshipers of those gods to offer animal sacrifices. The excess meat was sold then in the market by the pagan priests. The question arose as to whether Christians were free to eat such meat. Is meat taken from an animal that has been sacrificed to a pagan god inherently defiled? Paul makes no mention here of the prohibition made by the Jewish Christian leaders in Acts 15:20,29, but emphasizes that one’s actions must be governed above all by loving consideration of others. Here is what Paul has to say. “We all have knowledge” was evidently a common saying of the Corinthian Christians. The knowledge in question is religious knowledge, paraded by certain Christians who might have felt their superior understanding made them unaccountable to the opinions of others. It is those who truly love God, not just those who know all the answers, who are acknowledged by God asHis own. In reality, the idols to which such meat is sacrificed are not gods because there is only one God. He is the Creator of everything, including the meat in question. The only ultimate reality is God, the Father, and the one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created. Many of the Corinthian believers, having grown up in the pagan world, viewed eating meat as an expression of devotion to the god to whom the meat had been sacrificed. For such Christians, to eat meat presented to an idol would violate their weak consciences. Paul told them that their relationship with the living God was not affected by eating or not eating, whatever the source of food. But, believers must be careful that what they do does not cause others to stumble. For instance, believers insisting on eating food sacrificed to idols…because their superior knowledge assured them that they are free to eat such food…could destroy less mature Christians who understand eating meat sacrificed to idols as an expression of worship to pagan gods. This is serious business for Paul. He told the Corinthians that making immature believers sin by violating their conscience is the same as sinning against Christ who has claimed them for Himself. Personal rights must be subordinated to the larger commitment not to cause another believer to stumble. Now Paul moves onto his rights, giving personal examples of his giving up his own rights for the sake of other people. He began with four rhetorical questions each of which should receive a positive answer. The first is an assertion of Paul’s freedom from Jewish ritual obligations, though as he later emphasizes he freely accommodates himself to the practices of Jews in his desire to win them to Christ. The other three questions are assertions of Paul’s apostolic authority, which apparently was being questioned by some in Corinth. For those who might be skeptical, the reality of Paul’s apostolic calling was verified by his firsthand encounter with Jesus our Lord onthe road to Damascus. Also, the Corinthians themselves who came to faith through Paul’s evangelism were proof of his status as an apostle. Paul’s answer or defense is that as an apostle he had the right to expect food and housing from those to who he ministered. Nevertheless, to avoid any possible criticisms, he did not take advantage of this privilege. He also had the right to have a wife like many others but he did not exercise these rights. The examples in verses 7-10 support Paul’s point that he and other Christian workers had a right to be supported by those they served. It is hard to tell if Paul is angry or merely pointing out facts here. Compared with other Christian workers supported by the Corinthians, Paul claimed an even greater right to be supported by them because he was the first to bring them the Good News. To avoid criticism, he never exercised these rights. Paul may have been referring to the Levites and priests in God’s temple in Jerusalem but it would have been the same for thepagan priests in temples around Corinth. Paul never pressed his rights, not was he now seeking to do so. Instead, he was illustrating the importance of giving up one’s rights for the sake of another. Paul also reminded all who read that he was compelled by God to preach the Good News and it would be horrible for him if he didn’t or couldn’t. His satisfaction came from preaching the Good News without charging anyone. This is another example of the way Christians must be willing to give up their rights out of consideration for others. Paul placed himself in the position of a slave in the household. He shows just how far he is willing to go in adjusting his lifestyle and behavior to that of the people to whom he was preaching in order to win them for Christ. To illustrate how seriously the Corinthians must take the discipline of their salvation, Paul alludes to the familiar Isthmian games, an athletic competition held every two years in Corinth. Strict self discipline is required for athletes competing for a prize. In Paul’s day, athletes endured months of rigorous training before competing. In the same way, strict self discipline is required if a person is to gain the eternal prize of salvation. Christians must submit daily to obeying Christ. And Christians are called to engage in the real contest of obedience rather than simply goingthrough the motions. Those who are disqualified from a sporting event have no hope of winning the prize. To avoid losing the eternal prize, Paul disciplined himself severely, like an athlete, so that he would not be led away from Christ into a life of sin. After illustrating from his own life the key principle of giving up one’s own rights for the sake of others, Paul turns back to the specific question of eating meat sacrificed to idols. He warns believers of God’s wrath on those who sin, especially on those who engage in idolatry. Even though the Israelites were God’s people and experienced His salvation and provision they still came under His judgement because of their disobedience. All of them were baptized in the cloud. Paul drawls a parallel here between the Jews and the Corinthian Christians. God graciously and supernaturally provided food and water in the wilderness, especially for the people of Israel. The Corinthian situation was analogous. The spiritual rock here alludes to the rock Moses struck to get water. Early Jewish tradition understood both occurrences to involve the same rock that was traveling with them. That rock was Christ. Paul’s interpretation of Israel’s experience provides a parallel between God’s provision in the wilderness and the Lords Supper. Both the Israelites and Christians share in the spiritual provisions of Christ; and just as the Israelites were therefore judged for their sins, so Christians will be judged if they sin. When Paul speaks of feasting and drinking he is referring to celebrations in honor of pagan gods. Paul still is pointing towards the Israelites, with the snake bites. Paul also gave the Corinthians a final warning against falling into sin and he reminds them that God is faithful. God will not allow them to be tempted or tested beyond their capability to endure. The cool thing is that God will always provide a way out. We just need to take it! He warns the Corinthians against anything that might be interpreted as idolatry, which includes eating food in honor of a pagan god. He also affirms the spiritual meaning of sacred meals. In the Lord’s Supper, believers share in the body and blood of Jesus, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. Sharing one loaf unites believers as one body in Christ, just as with the pagans religious meals unite them with the gods they worship. The truth is that idols have no reality or life and sacrifices made to them accomplish nothing. The sacrifices pagans made to idols are actually unknowingly made to demons. So, those who share in these meals are uniting themselves to demons. Believers should avoid participating in religious meals eaten in a pagan temple because those united to the Lord cannot be simultaneously united to demons. To ignore Paul in this matter is to rouse the Lord’s jealousy and judgement, just as Israel did. The Corinthians had a saying, “I am allowed to do anything” but Paul qualifies the assertion of a Christians freedom by doing what is the most beneficial for others. When Christians are invited to a meal with an unbeliever, the Christians are free to eat what is set before them, unless warned that the meat has been offered to an idol. In that case, the Christian should refrain from eating it out of consideration for for the conscience of the other person, who might misinterpret it or be hurt by believing that such eating honors the god to whom the meat has been sacrificed. Paul concludes his discussion by summarizing the two principles that are to guide Christian behavior in issues like this. First, believers are to do everything for the glory of God. Second, believers are not to give offense and should avoid doing anything that would harm another’s Christian faith. Christians behavior is to be guided by what is best for others rather than by personal privilege. In His Grip Pastor Matt W Paul wrote 1 Corinthians somewhere about 54-55AD while he was in Ephesus. It is said that Paul’s Corinth was at once the Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas of the ancient world and the church was in many ways a mirror of the city. Corinth was a thriving cosmopolitan city, known for its diversity, culture, commerce, paganism, immorality, and great wealth. As the founder of the church in Corinth, Paul was vitally concerned about its spiritual health. He wrote 1 Corinthians in response to a formidable number of problems that had arisen. He had been officially informed of some of these issues but was made aware of others on the basis of questions from the Corinthian believers. There were factions in the church, conflict over spiritual gifts, sexual immorality, challenges to Paul’s authority, nascent heresy about the resurrection, aberrant practices in the worship services, and questions about proper Christian behavior. Old Corinth was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. It was rebuilt a century later as a Roman colony and populated in large part by former Roman slaves. By the time of Paul’s visit it was a cosmopolitan city. The members of the young church were multiethnic. As you read look for general principles and practical information that can be applied to Christian living and modern church relationships. Paul has much advice to give to the Corinthian church. Study and find encouragement in his argument that Jesus’ resurrection was a factual, historical event. The central Christian confession “Jesus is Lord” was a particular problem in the Roman Empire because the affirmation of the sovereignty of Jesus was a direct challenge to the claim of absolute rule on the part of the Roman emperor. There are four themes to watch for. First, divisions. Corinthian society was riddled with competitive individualism, an attitude that spilled over into the church. Feuding groups developed around rival leading figures who may have hosted different house churches. Paul admonished those who fancied themselves spiritual, mature, and wise, reminding them that God uses the lowly, despised, and weak in this world to bring about change in the wise and the strong. Next, Christian conduct. Correct living is rooted in correct thinking. Paul addresses the problem of sexual immorality and the dangers and advantages of sexual asceticism. He pointed out the detrimental effects of Christians suing one another in secular courts, and the evils of idolatry. Third, worship. Paul addressed practices in worship, the character of the Lord’s Supper, and the nature and use of spiritual gifts. Worship is to be orderly, God honoring, uplifting, and unifying. Lastly, Resurrection. In denying the resurrection, the Corinthians almost certainly were not denying life after death; belief in the afterlife was held by virtually everyone in the ancient world. They were disputing the Jewish and Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection in favor of a Greek form of belief that limited the afterlife to disembodied immorality of the soul.
Paul used a typical greeting here in this letter. An apostle of Jesus Christ was a missionary evangelist commissioned by Christ Himself. The church is comprised of those who are called by God to be His own holy people, those who belong to Him, and are dedicated to Him. They have been made holy by means of Christ Jesus. God set them apart for Himself through the saving work of His Son and their faith relationship to Him. Grace and peace are traditional Greek and Hebrew greetings. Grace is undeserved blessing that comes from the kindness of God and peace is a sense of well being and contentedness, rooted in the Good News and brought about by the Holy Spirit. Paul thanks God for the spiritual gifts he sees in the lives of the Corinthian Christians and he expresses his confidence that God will keep them safe to the end. Paul frequently uses the phrase “in Christ Jesus” to refer to the saving relationship believers have with Christ. He also acknowledges the abundant spiritual gifts that God has given the church in Corinth. Later he will correct their distorted perspective on these gifts. God was giving this church everything they needed to do His will. Paul encouraged the church in Corinth to live holy lives so they will be found faultless when Christ returns. God has chosen them to do His will. The first issue Paul addresses is that of division. This extends from 1:10-6:20, the majority of today’s reading. The Christians in Corinth had formed factions loyal to different leaders but the leaders themselves do not seem to be in conflict. Leaders included Paul, Peter, Apollos, and Christ. This last group may well have disavowed any allegiance to any human authority and viewed themselves holier than others. In verse 13 Paul asked three rhetorical questions, all with the answer of no. Crispus and Gaius were two of Paul’s earliest converts in Corinth. Crispus was a former synagogue leader and Gaius later offered Paul the use of his home. The household of Stephanas were the first converts in the province of Achaia which is southern Greece. Paul wasn’t sent to baptize but to preach and teach the Good News, knowing that he needed to not speak cleverly and thus risk putting the power of the cross in danger. The last half of chapter one Paul spent contrasting eloquence and human wisdom which were highly valued by some of the Corinthians, and the foolish message of the cross, which was the expression of God’s wisdom. Paul emphasized that the real power lies in the simple message of the cross of Christ. This message is foolish to unbelievers because their eyes are blinded to the truth but believers have their eyes wide open. Unbelievers, still in their sin are headed for destruction and ultimate condemnation. Believers are saved and headed for eternal life and glory. In God’s eyes the human wisdom of this world is foolish and human wisdom does not bring people to true knowledge of God. That comes through the message of the cross which the world sees as foolish but which saves the lives of believers. What we see are unbelieving Jews who want miraculous signs to validate the message, just like they did in Jesus’ day. Greeks on the other hand were only interested in human wisdom or philosophical reasoning. It didn’t matter what people wanted. Paul only gave the simple message of the cross. For Jews this was a contradiction in terms because crucifixion expressed curse, not the power of God. What the unbelieving world considered foolish and weak…Christ and the message of the cross… in reality is stronger and wiser than anything the world has to offer. It solves the world’s greatest problem, the problem of sin, and overcomes all the powers of evil that oppose humans. Few in the Corinthian church were of the elite, but God chose despised and humble people in order to demonstrate his judgement on human pride. And, as we have seen before, when people are united with Christ Jesus God makes them righteous, holy, and free. This work is an expression of God’s wisdom. Because of what God has done, there is absolutely no room for human pride. Paul made sure the Corinthians knew that it was God’s sovereign work that made his preaching effective. Paul relied solely on the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that the message of the cross has its own power. None of what Paul does is out of his own strength. Human weakness is not a hindrance to God’s work. The power lies in the message of Christ, and in the Holy Spirit who convicts the human heart. There is a huge difference between the wisdom of the world and God’s wisdom and only the spiritually mature will recognize God’s wisdom. This means that many of the Corinthians would not recognize it. Things of this world come and go but the things of the risen Christ will last forever. When Paul writes, mystery often refers to a previously hidden truth that is revealed in the work of Jesus Christ. He reminds all of us that from the very beginning it has been God’s desire to save His chosen people through Christ and to bring them to ultimate glory in the coming age. By quoting Isaiah 64:4 Paul again reminds us that those with no spiritual sensitivity do not understand God’s work of redemption. The things of God are understood because of His Holy Spirit who alone reveals God’s thoughts to His people. And, learning spiritual truths are not done in the realm of the world but in the dimension and power of the Spirit. Non believers only see through physical eyes but those who have the Spirit have a true understanding of divine revelation. As believers, we are linked to Christ. That means we have the Spirit of Christ in us to reveal Christ’s thinking to us. Continuing on, Paul rebuked the Christians in Corinth for their spiritual immaturity. They were behaving like the unbelievers who are attracted to the values of this world. In fact, they were so immature Paul addressed them as spiritual infants in Christ. And because of that, Paul wasn’t able to speak deep spiritual truths to them which is the solid food that is reserved for mature Christians. Instead he had to feed them milk , the basic teachings of the Good News. Their jealousy and quarreling showed that they were still just like unbelievers, controlled by their sinful nature rather than the by the Spirit of God. Identifying oneself with a preferred teacher was common in Greek culture but it is not in keeping with the mind of Christ. These teachers could not save anyone. Only God has the power to do that, and the apostles are only God’s servants. Everyone has a job to do in the kingdom, and all are accountable to God for the way they serve Christ. Paul reminded the Corinthians that he was the one who laid the foundation of the church in Corinth and now others were building on it by what they were teaching young Christians. There can never be any other foundation except Christ but these Corinthians were in danger of treating a human teacher as their foundation. Some of the things people built on the foundation of Christ will endure and other things will burn up in the fire of judgement. On judgement day the work of each builder who instructs the church will be assessed. Those whose teachings are faithful and true will receive a reward and the others will suffer great loss, not of their salvation but their reward. They will be saved but just barely. Paul cautions that Christians must be very careful in what they teach and in how they relate to one another because the body of believers is the temple of God, the home of the Holy Spirit who lives in them. There are terrible consequences for anyone who destroys God’s temple by such things as jealousy, argumentativeness, and divisiveness. As the privileged children of God, they may now lay claim to everything; the world, life after death, and the present and the future. So, there is no point in claiming a human leader as their own. Just as they may now claim everything as their own, so Christ has claimed them for Himself, and in Christ they are ultimately claimed by God. Chapter 4 begins with Paul emphasizing his faithfulness and the genuineness of his motives as an apostle of Christ. But only God can judge the heart. Paul and Apollos were not leaders competing for a following. They were merely servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries. Paul’s deepest desire was that he be found faithful before God. What humans think doesn’t matter to Paul. Only the Lord can fully know a person’s heart, and when he returns, He will judge. Then again, Paul rebuked the Corinthians for their arrogance, admonishing them as a father would. When we have pride in a specific leader that results from failure to realize that everything is a gift from God. There is no room for pride; humble gratitude is the only appropriate attitude. Paul follows this with the difference between himself and them. Their attitudes reflect the wisdom of the world and he the wisdom of God. The Corinthians thought they had arrived but if that was the case they would have been sharing the suffering Paul experienced. Paul compared himself to a condemned prisoner who died by facing wild animals in the amphitheater which was always a spectacle. But Paul gladly accepted suffering because God was using it to bring blessing to others and he reminded the Corinthians how much he had endured for Christ’s sake. To avoid being blamed by others for taking money, Paul preferred to support himself. He was even willing to bless those who cursed him. This follows directly with Jesus’ teaching. Paul concluded this section on divisions in the church with gentle words of fatherly admonition and warning. As their spiritual father who first brought them the Good News, Paul affirmed his genuine concern for their well being. As his beloved children, they should listen to their father and imitate his example and teachings. Timothy, Paul’s child in the faith and one of his closest associates, was with Paul when he first preached the Good News in Corinth. Paul sent him to faithfully communicate what it means to follow Jesus Christ. Because of his sending Timothy, some may have concluded that Paul lacked the courage to visit them himself, but in fact Paul was deeply engrossed in his work in Ephesus at this time. He would indeed visit them soon and he would confront those who publicly opposed him and show that they were nothing more than big talkers. His life and words would demonstrate the reality of God’s power. Chapter five deals with sexual immorality, spiritual pride and the disciplining of those who sin. A man was having sexual relations with his stepmother. Even pagans didn’t do that. It violated both the law of Moses and Roman law. The Corinthian Christians were proud when they should have been mourning in sorrow and shame over such sin among them. Paul instructed the church to expel this man from their fellowship. Such blatant sin required immediate action and discipline. Paul’s spiritual unity with them and the authority he had received from God through the Spirit were effective among them. Throwing the man out of the church means the man would be under the power and control of the evil one. There was a chance that this man would repent and not be condemned. Yeast in scripture was often a symbol of sin. Jews ceremonially cleansed their homes of yeast before the annual Passover meal. But sin, if unaddressed, could spread throughout the church, just as yeast spreads throughout a batch of dough. Paul drew an analogy between the traditional Passover celebration and the sacrifice of Christ. In the Passover celebration, a lamb was sacrificed and unleavened bread was eaten. The sacrifice of Christ, which occurred at Passover, results in the removal of sin for believers. Paul also makes reference to an earlier letter but it is unknown. Some scholars believe what we know as 1 Corinthians is actually Paul’s second letter to the church. He generally encouraged believers not to separate themselves from the company of sinful believers. Separation from a professing believer who was living in sin was intended to reinforce and maintain the high moral standards of the Christian community. The social pressure it exerted might also encourage repentance in an erring brother or sister. Christians are not called to judge sin in unbelievers, but in believers. When serious differences arise between two Christians, they are not to be settled by a secular court, but by other believers. Someday we believers will judge the world, and even angels, as associates of the Son of Man, who is the ultimate judge of all people. In light of this responsibility, Christians should be able to settle their disagreements over comparatively little things. It is a scandal for Christians to have to resolve their conflicts in secular courts, as if there were no one in the church sufficiently capable of resolving them. Suing a fellow believer reflects self interest rather than concern for the welfare of others or the glory of God. Christians are called to follow the example of Christ’s self sacrifice. But some of the Corinthian believers were even cheating their fellow believers. Both their actions and attitudes were wrong. Those who willingly sin have no share in the kingdom of God. The lives of Christians must reflect the faith they confess. Sin is deceptive and believers should not take it lightly, as if it were somehow acceptable. Following the strong warnings of verses 9-10, Paul reaffirms his confidence in the genuineness of his readers conversion. They had been cleansed which is a metaphor for the righteousness that’s comes from forgiveness. They were made holy by God Himself and they were made right with God by their identification with the Lord Jesus Christ and the transforming work of the Spirit of our God. Paul tells them to run from sexual sin and gives several ideas why this behavior is unacceptable by Christians. Some Christians believed they were allowed to do anything they wanted. Paul countered by saying not all things are helpful. Our bodies were not made for immorality because it does not glorify God. In light of Paul’s concern for our bodies and the coming resurrection from the dead, our bodies must be used for holy purposes in God’s service. To be a Christian is to be spiritually joined to Christ in both life and death. As a result, believers bodies have become parts of Christ. For Christians, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christians can no longer claim their bodies as their own, as they have been bought…with a high price, the blood of Christ. And every part of their lives has been claimed by Christ for God’s glory In His Grip, Pastor Matt W We have been working our way through the Book of Romans and the subject of election has come up. So, let me share some thoughts about election today along with a couple of other things. The doctrine of election is one of the most hotly debated mysteries of the Christian life. Theologians through the ages have pondered the meaning of 8:29, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” What exactly did Paul mean when he wrote this? There are two camps scholars align themselves with. The first are the Arminians who embrace the position of the 17th century Dutch pastor Jacobus Arminius. He understood foreknowledge to mean God’s knowledge in advance of those who would repent of their sin and believe the gospel. In other words, in eternity past, God looked down through the corridors of time to see all who would one day accept the offer of salvation through Christ. In this view those who accept salvation are the elect. The fact that they would eventually believe in Christ was the condition that prompted God to choose them “before the foundation of the world” or predestine them to eternal life. To bolster their position they point to verses that clearly state God’s desire for all people to be saved; verses like 2 Peter 3:9. They also argue the universal call for sinners to repent and believe the gospel is meaningless if salvation is determined solely by God apart from the free will of the person.
The second dominant viewpoint is Calvinism. Calvinists are named for the French reformer John Calvin. They see foreknowledge as a “relational” term. In other words, foreknowledge refers to God’s intimate knowledge of and love for His elect before they came into existence. From the Calvinist perspective, it is God’s sovereign choice, not a person’s exercised faith, that determines who the elect are. Simply put, Calvinists define election as the unconditional choice of God that is the cause of our faith. Arminians, on the other hand, would define it as the conditional choice of God that is the result of our faith. Calvinists defend their position with passages like 9:6-24 which describe why God hardened pharaoh’s heart. Moreover, they argue that depraved, spiritually dead people could not choose to believe and would not choose to believe. Martin Luther had this to say about the Calvinist position. “For this is what they say:’ if I am predestined, I shall be saved, whether I do good or evil. If I am not predestined, I shall be condemned regardless of my works. If the statements are true, as they, of course think, then the incarnation of the Son of God, His suffering and resurrection, and all that He did for the salvation of the world are done away with completely. What will the prophets and all Holy Scripture help?” Luther’s point? If salvation is dependent solely on God’s predestining us…His Sovereign will…then what is the point of the sacraments, the Word, or the sacrifice of Christ? Luther believed that this thinking gave people the idea that, if I am already predestined one way or the other, then nothing I do or believe can change that. He also wrote that “one must either debate about the hidden God or about the revealed God who was made known through Jesus Christ. With regard to God insofar as He has not been revealed, there is no faith, no knowledge, and no understanding. If God is only hidden then we have no knowledge about Him whatsoever. He continues; and here one must hold to the statement that what is above us is none of our concern. For thoughts of this kind, which investigate something more sublime above or outside the revelation of God, are altogether hellish. With them nothing more is achieved than we plunge ourselves into destruction. Doctrines such as double predestination, meaning some are predestined to be saved and others are predestined for damnation, built on reason and not scripture do nothing but increase doubt among faithful Christians.” The scriptures do not teach that God has predestined to be damned those who will be damned. God tells us in His Word that He wills the salvation of all. (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Matthew 23:37). That means God cannot simultaneously have willed that some will not be saved. The bottom line is that God’s ways are so much higher than our ways we do not and cannot fully understand them. Our call is to believe, trust, and be faithful. The grace of God, His freely given gift of favor and blessing, is theological bedrock for Paul. He never tries to prove that God is gracious but he assumes it as a fact when presenting the Good News to the Romans. Paul rules out any idea that we merit our salvation because Gods acts by His grace. Our good works do not give us a right standing with God either. Our good works are the result of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. If our good works did earn us a right standing with God then He would be obliged to reward us for our efforts, like a worker earning their wage. Instead, He gives us salvation as a gift. The apostle John makes the same point: “The law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love, grace, and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.” Neither John nor Paul meant that God’s Grace was not active in the Old Testament, because God has always dealt graciously with His people. But the overwhelming power of God’s Grace is displayed for us in and through Jesus Christ. Jews in Paul’s day perceived a contrast between the present evil age and a glorious age to come. Throughout chapters 5-8 Paul uses these contrasting realms to help conceptualize our experience of salvation. The old realm is ruled by death, sin, the law, and sinful nature. The new realm is characterized by life, righteous living, grace, and the Holy Spirit. Each realm is headed by a man who represents its constituents. The old realm of sin and death is headed by Adam, the first man. The new realm of forgiveness and life is headed by Christ. By nature all human beings are in the old realm of sin and death and are represented by Adam, the first man whose sin and death control the destiny of all people. But, those who put their faith in God through Christ are transferred by faith into the new realm of life. God appointed Jesus Christ as the second Adam. By obeying God and fulfilling God’s will, Jesus won a decisive victory over the realm of sin that Adam had inaugurated. By receiving God’s gift of grace, people accept Jesus as their head and look forward to eternal life. Those who are in the new realm are identified with Christ and enjoy the benefits of union with Him. They have “died with Christ”, they have been “buried with Christ”, and their present new life with Christ is an anticipation of the day when they will live with Him forever. The founding of the church in Rome is not known with certainty. There was a large Jewish population in Rome and some Jews from Rome were present in the day of Pentecost at the birth of the church. The most likely explanation is that some of these Jews converted to Christianity and took the good News about Jesus to Rome , where a Christian community was born from within the synagogues of Rome. It is fairly unlikely that Peter founded this church or that he was present in Rome by the time Paul wrote to the Roman church in 57 AD, otherwise Paul would have certainly greeted him. Consequently Paul wrote this letter to help ensure that the Roman church had apostolic involvement in their faith. He never wrote to the churches of Judea, founded by the other apostles, but only to churches that he either had founded like Corinth and Galatia, or to those who had no direct apostolic involvement, like Colosse and Rome. In time, Jewish Christians in Rome would have been pushed out of the synagogues by the non Christian Jews. This happened most places. By the time Paul wrote to the Roman church they were meeting as separate house churches in private homes. There were no centralized buildings and it is uncertain when or if the whole body of believers met together. When Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome is 49 AD, the Jewish Christians were also forced to leave, among them Priscilla and Aquila. In the absence of Jews the Roman church would have become Gentiles in character. When the Jews returned after the death of Claudius in 54 AD there were no doubt questions, if not conflicts among the Jewish and Gentile Christians. It was most likely to settle such differences that Paul chose to write. When we look at chapter 16 it is clear Paul already had many friends in the Roman church. And then this. Nero became emperor of Rome in 54AD at the age of 17, after his mother poisoned her husband, the emperor Claudius. Nero enjoyed performing in the limelight and he was a sexually depraved and profligate man. Nero’s debauched character would have been well known when Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome. Asking the Romans to submit to governing authorities as having been placed there by God would have been a stretch for the believers; even non believers would have struggled here. Yet the early years of Nero’s reign were stable and competent, administered by his advisors the prefect Burris and the stoic philosopher Seneca. Nero’s worst actions came after he had arranged his mother murder in 59 AD. In 62AD he banished and then executed his wife, married his lover, and forced Burris and Seneca into retirement. In 64AD a fire, which most believe Nero set, devastated a large area of Rome. Not willing to accept responsibility for his actions, Nero blamed the Christians and charged them with the crime. Christians were widely seen as hostile to civil society and thus deserving of punishment, even if few believed that they had started the fire. They were convicted not so much of arson as of hatred of the human race. The persecution of Christians in Rome was intense and it is likely that both Peter and Paul were executed in Rome at this time. In 66AD a Jewish revolt broke out in Caesarea. Nero dispatched his general, Vespasian to squelch the revolt, taking no interest in the affairs of state. Nero spent the next two years doing performances in Greece, leaving the responsibility of governing to a Roman prefect. Because of the opposition he encountered from leading governors in France, Spain, and Africa on his return to Rome in 68 AD, Nero committed suicide. As he died Nero exclaimed “What an artist dies with me!” He was the last and worst emperor of the line of Julius Caesar. In His Grip Pastor Matt W Romans 12:1-15:13 sets out the moral and ethical demands of the Good News. God’s gift of salvation in Christ requires a response. God is not satisfied simply with forgiving our sin. He wants to transform our lives. Most of what Paul teaches concerning the moral duties of believers is paralleled in other letters. However, it also seems clear that he has chosen issues pertinent to the situation in Rome; most notably the dispute between people who are weak in faith and people who are strong in faith. So, based on God’s mercy Paul entreats believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices, meaning their should use their bodies to serve and obey God. Being holy means to be set apart. And this is how we worship Him. Paul urges all of us to not be conformed to this world. Instead of being molded to the values of this world believers should be transformed by renewing of the mind. Spiritual transformation begins in the mind and heart. A mind dedicated to the world and its concerns will produce a life tossed back and forth by the currents of culture. We can resist the temptations of our culture by spending time with the Lord, meditating on His truth, and letting the Holy Spirit guide and shape our thoughts and behaviors. This is how we learn God’s will for us. A renewed mind begins with thinking soberly about ourselves. God has given each one of us one or more gifts that can be used in service to Him. These gifts are not the result of our praying or asking for them. Instead, God simply gives everyone gifts to strengthen the church. The parallel between the human body and the church; the body of Christ, is also found in 1 Corinthians 12. This is a picture of both unity and diversity in the church, the body of Christ.
The Greek word “charismata” refers to God given abilities that should be used to build up other members in the church. Although these gifts are irrevocable and do not change, they are to be pursued and developed. And we are called to use those gifts to the best of our abilities, not for our glory but for the Lords, whatever that might look like. The gifts Paul mentions here are prophecy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, and leading. Paul also addressed love and it’s manifestation. We are called to love those both inside the church and those outside of the church. There are at least four greek words for love, not all of which are used in the New Testament. The highest form of love is agape love. This is self sacrificial love and it involves seeking the best for another besides ourselves. There is also philos love which is often called brotherly love. There is family love or affectionate love, and finally Eros love which is physical love. This does not appear in the New Testament. The greatest proof of the truth of the gospel message and of the reality of Jesus’ love is the love believers show to each other. Jesus is the model for sacrificial love. Paul calls all of us to love one another with the love found in a healthy family. He calls us to be passionate about our faith and eager to fulfill our ministry to others within the church. Christians should not offer their service half heartedly or in a lazy manner. Verse 12 holds three commands: rejoice in confident hope, be patient in trouble, and pray continually. Being ready to help is of the same vein as hospitality which in Greek means love of strangers. There is a progression in this verse which leads us from serving our fellow believers to eventually having the opportunity to serve strangers. And it is more than just meeting needs. It is about entering into fellowship with people. The exhortations in verse 14 are similar to two sayings of Jesus (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27-28). It is possible that the commands in this verse were so well known that Paul didn’t need to specify the source. What we will see is that the teachings of Romans 12-13 have many parallels with the teachings of Jesus. We are called as believers to treat everyone the way we would like others to treat us, friends and foe alike. Paul also reminds us that we as believers are one body and when one part hurts everyone feels the pain. When one is joyful, everyone can rejoice. We cannot be indifferent. When Paul speaks of good he is referring to morally good. A Christian should not repay evil for evil. In other words we focus on what is good and not what is evil. Paul also recognizes that our efforts to live at peace with others will sometimes be frustrated by our own moral constraints or by other peoples unwillingness to be reconciled to us. A simple act of Christian kindness can often bring a hostile person to repentance before God and restore fellowship between people. The basic command of 13:1-7 is to submit to governing authorities. In God’s ordering of the world, we answer to those in position of authority. Our submission to them will usually take the form of obedience. But God stands over all governments, so our submission to governing authorities must always be in submission to God. Paul is writing to Romans who are living under Nero’s madness but the Lord is still ruler over Nero and they were to submit because that authority was ordained by God Himself. These authorities do not strike fear in those who are doing right. Paul presented a positive picture of the governing authorities, describing them in terms of what God has appointed them to do. He does not touch on situations where leaders punish those who do good and reward those who do evil. Paul speaks of the appropriate response to governing authorities who live according to their calling. Servants are typically referring to Christians who serve God in various capacities. But it is also used to refer to a Greek civic official. Whether they know it or not, governing authorities are serving God when they administer justice. Paul’s reference to the sword is that the sword was the symbol of Roman authority. Usually the sword was an instrument of death. Governments have the right to impose capital punishment in certain circumstances, as well as to wage war. Believers obey governments because it is their civic duty and their spiritual duty before God. Paul also addresses paying taxes. At the time he was writing there were tax revolts in Rome and many of the Christians were participating. Again, when Paul wrote about something it meant that he was addressing something that was already happening. Christians are to give to everyone what they owe them. This owe no one anything refers mostly to respect and honor. Christians always owe love to their neighbors. Love is a debt that is never paid in full. We are reminded that debts are not sinful but when they are incurred they should be promptly paid back so the believer is free to serve in love. This teaching closely follows Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 22:34-40. Paul pictures believers as asleep or inactive but salvation is coming. This is the final victory over sin and death. When Paul speaks of night he means the present age where the prince of darkness reigns, while day is the beginning of a new life with Christ in His glorious reign. Because believers belong to the day (or light) we are called to be living out these values, avoiding the dark deeds that are typical of nighttime. With chapter 14 Paul moved on to a specific issue that was causing conflict in the church at Rome. The issue was a dispute between people who were weak in their faith and those who were strong regarding practices. Throughout this chapter Paul instructs believers to be tolerant towards others and their practices. He is convinced that people on both sides of the issue are genuine believers, and he doesn’t think the issues they are fighting over are essential to the faith. Being weak in the faith means having scruples against doing certain things that Christian liberty would allow. In Rome most of the weak in faith were Jewish Christians whose consciences did not give them liberty from certain requirements of Jewish law. It seems that believed they should eat only vegetables, like Daniel in Babylon. Many Jews did this in pagan cultures because they could never be sure where meat had been slaughtered, for what purpose, and by whom. These people were looked down on by those who were strong and prided themselves in their enlightened freedom in Christ. And the weak looked down on these folks because of their laxness. They are all genuine believers, welcomed by God into His family so they have no right or place to treat each other as if they didn’t belong. The whole issue of some days being more important than others most likely referred to Jewish festival days and the sabbath. But with Christ’s provision of salvation, observation of the sabbath in its original form is not required of Christians. Paul reminds us that as believers we belong to the Lord. We live and die in relation to Him. Because of that, we should aim to please Him because ultimately it is God, and not other Christians who will judge all of us. Only sovereign God has the right to stand in judgement. One day everyone will submit to God’s authority. Verse 13 acts as bridge here. Let’s stop condemning each other summarizes 14:1-12 while the concern about causing another believer to stumble and fall becomes the major emphasis of 14:14-23. Originally this meant literal objects that could trip people as they walked, or it was a trap into which a person might fall. But here in the New Testament it is used metaphorically about behavior that might bring spiritual harm to another person. Much of this discussion centers around food; specifically that which is considered clean or unclean by the Jewish Christians. They were still concerned about ritual purity laws. The truth that no food is wrong to eat was not easy for pious Jews to accept because they had been raised to honor God by avoiding certain foods. Paul urged those who are strong in faith not to force others to violate their consciences. And by insisting on their freedom to eat whatever they wanted, strong Christians might cause sensitive Jewish Christians for whom Christ died to turn away from the faith. When Paul references the work of God he is referring to both the spiritual life of other Christians and to the Christian community itself. The strong with their dogged insistence on doing whatever they want create division and disrupt God’s intention to build a healthy and united community of believers. The Jews also sometimes abstained from wine to avoid the appearance of ritual contamination because wine was also used in pagan religious celebrations. Paul didn’t contest the freedom of the strong believers, but he instructed them to limit the expression of their freedom out of love for fellow believers so that the whole Christian community could be built up. Finally, Paul tells us that if we do anything that we believe is not right we are sinning. God’s Word defines sin for us but sin also involves violating our conscience. The weak Christians in Rome did not yet believe in their own hearts that they could eat meat, drink wine, or ignore Jewish holidays. Their consciences were still weak. Therefore they should not violate their consciences on these matters. Nor should the strong, by the power of their example or by their scorn force weak Christians to do so. Paul aligns himself with the strong but cautions that not all of the Jewish Christians were weak and not all of the Gentile Christians were strong. But Paul didn’t want the strong to simply put up with the weak. They and we are encouraged to help the weak to become strong. Love for others should govern the conduct of people who are strong in the faith. Then Paul points to Psalm 69:9 which evokes just a small portion of Jesus’ suffering. Things like this were written in the scriptures long ago to teach us, especially in regards to God’s plan of salvation. We are called to accept each other and that means accepting other believers with all of their flaws and sins, into our fellowship and treat them as family, just as Christ has accepted us with all of our flaws and sins into his fellowship and family. It was through Christ that God made it possible for Jews and Gentiles to join together to give glory to God in the new covenant people of God. Verses 9-12 are a series of Old Testament quotes, all of which emphasize God’s promise that Gentiles would join with Jews in praising God. From 15:14 through the end of Romans we see common elements of New Testament letters: a discussion of travel plans, requests for prayer, references to ministry associates, greetings, and a doxology. Only the warning about false teachers is a non standard feature. Paul praised the Roman Christians as he did at the beginning of his letter, demonstrating a gracious manner toward a church he had neither founded or visited. He emphasized that his role as apostle and teacher was because God had chosen him to lead in the formation of the Christian church. His ministry had a priestly nature but he also stressed the Gentile flavor of the church. Paul was sure the work of evangelism was not done in the region but he also knew enough churches had been planted in major population centers that those churches could carry on the work by themselves. Paul knew his work in that region was done. He also wanted to go to Spain. That was his final target in fulfilling the promise of Isaiah 66:19-20. Spain was so far away from Paul’s previous sending church, Antioch in Syria, that he hoped the church in Rome could serve as the logistical base for this future evangelistic effort. But first, he needed to go to Jerusalem to take the offering from the Gentiles churches, to the poor in Jerusalem. And he reminded the church that the Gentile Christians owed their spiritual existence to God’s work among the Israelites. Paul asked for prayers from those in Jerusalem who were disobedient to the Lord, but God preserved Paul’s life and used the circumstances to take him precisely where he wanted to go…Rome. Some final comments on chapter 16. Paul commended and greeted 27 Roman Christians, ten of whom were women. Cenchrea was located eight miles from Corinth and functioned as it’s port. Paul could have been writing his letter from there on a winter-long stop near the end of his third missionary journey. Phoebe appears to have been a wealthy patron who used her wealth and influence to help people and causes. Priscilla and Aquila were Paul’s good friends. They became his co-workers for an extended time in Corinth and Ephesus. These two had a house church that met in their home in Rome. The two who were in prison with Paul, Andronicus and Junia, had been Christians longer than Paul. No one knows where or when they were in prison together. Amplias, Urbanus, and Stachys were common slave names and Aristobulus was probably the same man as the brother of Herod Agrippa I. He was a member of the Roman aristocracy. Tryphena and Tryphosa are generally considered sisters and Rufus could well be the one mentioned as the son of Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus’ cross. There was one more warning, this one against false teachers. These people usually caused division . Sometimes they came from without the church and sometimes from within. In verse 20 Paul alludes to the curse that God pronounced upon the serpent after he had deceived Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Christ , the offspring of Eve, will crush the evil one under the feet of the church. Timothy was one of Paul’s closest ministry associates. Tertius was the scribe who wrote the letter as Paul dictated. Most ancient letter writers employed such a scribe. The doxology makes a very appropriate conclusion to this letter with Paul touching on many of the same themes he presented at the beginning of the letter. At the beginning Paul expressed a desire to visit to the church in Rome so he could impart some spiritual gift to them so they would be established. Now he praises God who is able to do it. God used the gospel, which is the preaching of Jesus Christ, to establish the Roman believers. The mystery Paul spoke of is that the church will consist of both Jews and a Gentiles, united in one body of Jesus Christ. In His Grip Pastor Matt W At the end of chapter 8 Paul established that God has a purpose for believers; nothing can prevent that purpose from being fulfilled; and no one can separate God’s people from His love. Chapters 9-11 find Paul taking up the problem raised by the unbelief of so many Jews. If God had promised salvation to Israel yet so few Jews were being saved, how could Jesus truly be the fulfillment of God’s plan? In his response to this objection, Paul cites the Old Testament as evidence that God had always intended to save only a remnant of Israel, and he faults the Jews for refusing to embrace Christ. Paul then shows that God has not discarded Israel from His plan of salvation. Many Jews have already believed in Christ, and many more will believe in the future. Paul’s pain was so great that he was willing if possible, to be separated from Christ if it meant Israel could be united to Him. Paul doesn’t say why he has such bitter sorrow for his Jewish brothers and sisters. Yet his willingness to become cursed on their behalf if that would save them, makes clear that the failure of most Jews to respond to Jesus and be saved stimulated his agony. Paul knows that he cannot in fact be cut off from Christ, but he is echoing the offer of Moses who pled with God to kill him but to spare the people. Up to this point Paul had called the Jewish people Jews so his shift here in calling the Jews people of Israel is significant. Jew connotes National identity but Israel emphasizes the covenant relationship of the people of God. The Old Testament called Israel God’s son or child to emphasize that God had selected Israel to be His own people. Israel’s adopted status meant that they received God’s blessing and promises, not that they were necessarily saved.
Christ came from the people of Israel, and God made His promises of salvation to them. Israel here can refer to the people of Israel in a biological sense; that is everyone descended from Jacob. But in the later part of the Old Testament and in Judaism, the idea of a righteous remnant within Israel developed. On at least one occasion in the New Testament, Israel refers to everyone, Jew and Gentile, who belongs to God in a spiritual sense. Paul is stating that there is now an Israel within Israel, a community consisting of both Jews and Gentiles who truly believe. The quote in verse 7 is from Genesis 21:12, where God spoke to Abraham when he was reluctant to follow Sarah’s advice to banish his son Ishmael, who was born to the slave woman Hagar. God assured Abraham that Sarah’s child Isaac was the son through whom God’s promises would be fulfilled. The children of Isaac are yet another illustration of Paul’s point. God’s promise to Isaac would never be fulfilled through Esau. Paul argued that the difference between the twins was of God’s choosing. God didn’t select Jacob on anything he had done; his selection was based solely on Grace. God told Rebekah before the twins were born that her older son would serve the younger. Esau was Isaac’s natural heir but Esau sold his birthright to Jacob and ceded his position to his brother in fulfillment of God’s promise. While God chose Jacob, He also made provision for Esau. It is somewhat disconcerting to read that God hates Esau but it really means he was not the object of God’s selection process. God’s choice is not unfair because He owes nothing to His sinful creatures. Paul quoted Exodus 33:19 which focuses on God’s nature. God is free from obligation or constraint in bestowing mercy on people. God is free to show mercy to whoever He wants. Pharaoh refused to obey the Lord and hardened his heart. God used pharaoh’s sin to demonstrate His power and magnify His name. God only gave pharaoh over to what he had already chosen to do. God chose pharaoh be the instrument for showing His glory. Once again Paul asked a question in verse 19 that he will answer in verse 20. Here Paul is rebuking anyone who would raise such objections which in the end are only a protest against God’s ways, and not a sincere request for an explanation. The next question asks, what if. Some people insist Paul is raising only the possibility of a vessel designed for destruction. Others take the passage literally, that God prepares some people for eternal doom. So the grammar here is helpful. The word prepared is used twice. The first time literally means they prepared themselves and the second means “which He prepared”. If we are doomed it is because of our rejection of God. If we are redeemed it is because of the grace of God. The question isn’t why are some saved and some condemned? Everyone deserves condemnation. It is only by God’s Grace that anyone is saved. Paul insists that God was free to select whom He wanted from both the Jews and the Gentiles and he used prophecy from Hosea to reinforce his point. God will, eventually choose those who were not of the chosen people from early on. Paul also knew that so many Israelites had turned from God that the Old Testament prophets spoke of a true spiritual Israel within a larger nation of Israel. The remnant would receive salvation while the rest of the Israelites would suffer condemnation. The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is often used as a poignant illustration of the reality and severity of God’s judgement. The question in verses 30-32 is, since Israel had the law and pursued righteousness, why have they not attained it? Was it because they were not elected? And the answer is they did not obtain righteousness because they did not believe. They tried obtaining righteousness by the works of the law. And by being committed to a righteousness by works, they stumbled over the righteousness of faith offered by Christ. People either put their faith in Jesus and build on that or they stumble over His message that faith and not human works is the key to getting right with God. Paul continues in chapter 10 about Israel’s need for the gospel. His deep desire and prayer is that Israel might be justified and saved from God’s wrath. Paul believes Israel has enthusiasm for the Lord but it is misdirected because it fails to understand that Jesus Christ is the pinnacle of God’s plan. The Jews were very religious outwardly but they lacked a correct understanding of the kind of worship God wanted from them. And he explained their ignorance in verses 3-13. The Jews didn’t understand God manifesting Himself in Jesus Christ because they were so focused on the law as the way to secure their own righteousness. But Israel failed to comprehend exactly what the law was intended to do. The law revealed sin and showed that people could not hope to keep the law. Christ came and fulfilled the law, then offered us His righteousness through faith in Him. We read in Leviticus 18:5 that obedience to all of the laws commands were words that encouraged the Israelites to obey the law in order to enjoy a long life and prosperity in the land the Lord was giving to them. Paul can see the implication that if people want to be right with God through the law , they can only do so by obeying all of it…which no one can do. There are two kinds of righteousness, by works or by faith. One is inaccessible and the other is very accessible. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30:11-14 to demonstrate that righteousness by faith is not far off and inaccessible, but as near as a person’s mouth and heart. All one has to do is repent, believe in Jesus, and confess that belief. He tells us that we do not need to go up to heaven to find Christ and so be made right with God because God has already brought Christ down to earth. We also don’t need to go down to the place of the dead to find Christ because God has already raised Him from the dead. To find Christ, we must simply believe in the message that is close at hand. This is available to anyone, Jew or Greek who comes to the Lord. Paul argued that Israel was in a position to know what God was doing through Jesus Christ so they were culpable for their failure to understand or accept it. Israel was guilty both of failing to understand God’s plan in light of Christ, and of focusing so much on the law that they missed Christ when He arrived. This is followed by Paul quoting Old Testament scripture from Psalm 19:4, Deuteronomy 32:21, and Isaiah 65:1-2. The people of Israel had in fact heard the Good News. By the time Paul wrote, Christian missionaries had spread the Good News through most of the Roman Empire. Did the people understand? Many of the Jews were guilty of idolatry because they put the law in place of God Himself. God’s punishment involved using the Gentiles, people who are not even a nation, to make Israel jealous and angry. Israel heard but they were disobedient. The quote from Isaiah refers to the people of Israel. Paul here is referring to the Gentiles who were not seeking the Lord but they were given the opportunity to know Him and they took it. God opened the way for them to be part of His kingdom. However, Israel’s rejection was not total. From the very beginning God had chosen them based on His grace alone. He references Elijah the prophet, who after his time with the 400 prophets of Baal fled to the wilderness where he bemoaned his fate. God responded with the assurance that many faithful people remained. The thing about God is that there is always, always a faithful remnant. But Pul knew that while many Jews didn’t believe, and some were even hostile, God was and is still working to preserve a believing remnant. This solid core of godly Israelites in the faithful remnant represents God’s pledge of his continuing faithfulness to His promises and to His people. God’s election was based solely on His Grace. What Israel seeks is righteousness and the elects have received that by faith. The others were blinded because they didn’t believe. The offer of salvation to the Gentiles is the purpose, not just the result of Israel’s disobedience. Paul emphasizes that God had the salvation of Gentiles in view all along and ultimately the salvation of many Jews as well. The sight of Gentiles enjoying the blessings of salvation that God had promised to Israel would spur Jews to desire salvation so they could participate in those blessings as well. But, Paul also addressed the Gentile Christians in Rome, rebuking them for thinking too highly of themselves , especially in relation to their Jewish brothers and sisters. He shows that their enjoyment of salvation depends entirely on God’s kindness and that God’s final goal is to stimulate repentance among the Jews. Paul devoted himself to the conversion of Gentiles because he knew that their salvation would ultimately lead to salvation for Jews as well. Their rejection here refers to God’s rejection of the unbelieving Jews. But their acceptance then refers to God’s acceptance of Jews into His kingdom. Paul even speaks of life for those who were dead. This may well refer to the new spiritual life that comes to Jews as a result of their conversion to Christ. But the language more naturally suggests the physical resurrection from the dead. That occurs when Christ returns in glory. Paul speaks of the part of the dough, if offered as first fruits is holy than the whole batch is holy. And if the root is holy so are the branches. In other words, part of the first batch of dough is taken and set aside as a gift to the Lord but a portion cannot be set aside if the whole batch is not holy. God’s promises to and blessings on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the root from which the rest of the people grow. The olive tree is a reference to the people of God and Paul refers to the Gentile Christians as branches from a wild olive tree that are grafted on to a regular tree, which is Israel. The Gentiles were not originally included among the people of God. By the time Paul wrote to the church in Rome it was composed of mainly Gentiles which was common in the early Christian communities. This led many Gentile Christians to brag about their status, while treating Jews and their religious heritage with disdain. Paul reminded the Gentile believers that they enjoy God’s blessings only because they have been included in the one people of God, who are rooted in God’s promises to Israel. The Gentiles were to fear what could happen. In scripture fear often means a reverential awe of God that includes the recognition that we must one day stand before Him in judgement. God is both kind and severe; severe to those who have been disobedient and kind to those who trust Him. But if you stop trusting you will be cut off. Scripture consistently emphasizes that only believers who persevere to the end will be saved. However, Paul’s warning leads to debate over the theological implications of his statement. Some think it implies that genuine believers can stop believing and therefore not be saved in the end. Others argue that we should not press the metaphor so far and that Paul is referring to people who appear to be believers but whose lack of real faith ultimately reveals itself. If Gentiles continue in God’s goodness they will not be cut off and if Jews turn to God in faith they can be grafted in again. This is not a reference to individual salvation but to God’s plan for the Jews and Gentiles. What God has done with the Gentiles is contrary to nature. The usual method of enhancing olive trees involved grafting a shoot from a cultivated olive tree onto a wild olive tree to benefit from the wild tree’s vigor. But God grafted the wild tree branches into a cultivated tree…Gentiles into the people of God and that is contrary to nature. Paul used the word mystery to refer to an event of the last days that has already been determined by God. Such a mystery already exists in heaven, and is revealed to God’s people in the Christian Era. Here the mystery is the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the plan of salvation, which is at the heart of this entire passage. If believers do not understand this mystery, chances are they will be haughty and boast. Another part of the mystery is that Israel has been temporarily hardened and partially hardened but God has not rejected them. The phrase “all Israel” could refer to the total of all believers, both Jewish and Gentile. With this meaning “and so” would describe the way that God works to bring salvation to all His people. All Israel could refer to the total of all Jews destined to believe throughout the Christian Era, or to a significant number of Jews who turn to Christ in the last days. With this second meaning the “and so” would have a sequential meaning, after the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ then the full number of Jews will be saved. It does not mean all Jewish people. In the Old Testament the one who rescues Is the Lord. Paul almost surely is referring to Jesus Christ here. The Hebrew text of Isaiah 59:20 says that the redeemer will come to Jerusalem. Paul might have changed the wording to represent Jesus’ first coming from among the people of Israel or to speak of the second coming when Jesus will return from the heavenly Jerusalem. Having mercy on everyone has the sense of all kinds of people. In the context of the Book of Romans, and especially this chapter, it refers to the inclusion of Gentiles alongside of Jews. Paul ends this chapter with a short hymn of praise, extolling how powerful, mighty, and awesome God is. None of us can even come close to knowing God or understanding His ways. He ends with the reminder that God is the source, the means and the end of all things. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and the goal of everything. Therefore, He should be praised and glorified forever. In His Grip Pastor Matt W In 5:20 Paul has proclaimed that God multiplies Grace where sin increases so he knows people will wonder whether this means that sin does not matter in the Christian life. After all, since sin makes grace more abundant why not continue in sin? It seems that Paul had been accused of teaching this false doctrine, called antinomianism. This word is from two Greek words meanings against (anti) nomos (the law). They believed that Christians are freed by grace from the necessity of obeying the Mosaic law. It is their belief that there are no moral laws God expects Christians to obey. They have taken a Biblical teaching that is, Christians are not required to observe the Old Testament law as a means of salvation and twisted it to mean Christians do not have to obey the law at all. To silence his accusers, Paul shows in chapter six that a believer who continues in sin would be denying his or her own identity in Christ. The thought of a believer living in sin in order to take advantage of grace was abhorrent to Paul. The reason believers should not live in sin is that they have died to sin. Paul makes it clear that our new relationship to sin is possible because of our vital connection with the death of Jesus. To be dead to sin does not mean to be entirely insensitive to sin and temptation. We as believers are still involved in a battle with sin. But, Christians no longer have to live as hapless slaves to sin. In Christ we can choose not to sin.
Water baptism is a symbol of the spiritual union of Christ and the believer. When a person trusts Christ, they are incorporated into, united to, Jesus Christ which means being united to His death. His death becomes our death. But baptism has no value apart from faith. The believer’s power over sin and the ability to lead a new life stem from Identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. From God’s perspective, Jesus’ death to sin is ours as well. His rising to new life means that we also begin to lead a new life and in the future our bodies will also be raised. Having died and been raised with Christ, believers should live a new kind of life. Our old selves are not a nature that we possess or just one part of who we are. It reflects who we were in Adam. All human beings were born in Adam. As heirs of the sin and death that he introduced into the world, we were slaves to the power of sin. The old has been put to death by Jesus dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. Simply put, a believer is not the same person he or she was before conversion. A believer is a new creation in Christ. There are two reasons for crucifying the old. First is that the body of sin must be done away with. And second is that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Believers are new people who are no longer enslaved to the old sinful nature. In Jesus Christ we have been set free from the power of sin that ruled our former lives. Believing that we will live with Christ introduces a new idea. Christians must not only know that they have died to sin and have been made alive with Christ, they must also believe it. Believers are already raised with Christ spiritually, but eventually we will also be raised bodily with Him at the time of His coming glory. Christ died for sin once and for all. He is now alive and sitting at the right hand of God. Jesus was never under sin’s power in the way that we are because He had no sin nature from Adam and He never succumbed to temptation. However, when He became human Jesus entered the arena where sin holds sway, and He was truly vulnerable to sin. And, since believers have died with Christ and have also been raised with Him, Paul now urges Christians to consider themselves dead to sin. This does not mean we will not sin. It means that we are free and able to resist it because of the power of Christ in us. Now sin has no right to reign so Paul admonishes the believer not to obey it. While verse 12 has the whole body in view, verse 13 focuses on the individual parts of the body, like the hands or the mouth. Believers are not to present parts of their bodies as a means of sinning. In other words; do not use your hands to steal or your tongue to lie. Instead believers are called to use their bodies as instruments of righteousness for the glory of God. Believers no longer live under the requirements of the law, meaning that with the Messiah’s coming the era governed by the law of Moses came to an end. Now we live under the freedom of God’s grace. The Mosaic law was an external law which served to reveal sin that is prevalent in human hearts. God’s Grace places the believer in Christ and the Holy Spirit in the believer. The law was the governing power of the old covenant. Jesus is the governing power of the new covenant. Paul points out that we become slaves to whatever we choose to obey. Everyone is a slave to something…person, possession, or activity. But a Christian should be a slave only to God’s righteousness. In the first part of Romans, Paul uses the Greek word for righteousness in a judicial sense referring to the activity of God to set people in a right relationship with Himself or, to the righteous standing that believers enjoy as a result of Christ’s work. Here Paul uses the same word as it is often used in the Old Testament, meaning the right behavior that God demands fromHis people. Paul speaks of believers being slaves to righteous living. Being a slave in the ancient world meant being owned by a master. Whether slaves obeyed or not, did not change their status as slaves. It would however affect their relationship with their master. Paul used the Greek word “sarx”, meaning human nature or flesh, to refer to the frailty and proneness to sin that characterizes humans. Paul uses the illustration of slavery to show the relationship of the human nature to sin. He also spoke of the freedom from the obligation to do right, in other words being free from righteousness. Either Paul means that unbelievers feel no obligation to obey God or, they are unable to do so. This freedom that they boast of actually makes them slaves to sin. The child of God who lives in sin, lives in the sphere of death with the ultimate result being physical death. Throughout chapters 5-8 Paul uses death to describe the eternal consequences of sin. This goes all the way back to God’s warning to Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17). This is not primarily physical death. Instead it denotes separation from true fellowship with God that if not reversed through faith in Jesus Christ, will last forever. Both Jewish Christians and many of the Gentile Christians were familiar with the law. Jews were taught the law of Moses from birth. Many of the Gentiles in the church in Rome had been God-Fearers, Gentiles who were interested in Judaism, and they attended the synagogue regularly. Now Paul is teaching that the law only applies while a person is living. In verses 2-3 Paul makes two basic points. Death can release a person from obligation to the law and freedom from one relationship can allow a person to establish a new one. Christians have died to the law so they are no longer bound to it. Paul often refers to the law of Moses as representing the old addage of sin and death, but through Union with Christ in His death, believers are set free. For Paul, being in the flesh means being dominated by sin and it’s hostility to God. He also reminds his readers that when we are in rebellion against God, His commands spark in us a desire to do the exact opposite of what He commands. When he speaks of the letter of the law he is referring to the letters that were literally engraved in the stone tablets using individual letters. From verses 7-25 Paul explains how God’s law is good in order to guard against any notion that it is evil in and of itself. Sin can exist without the law although it may be dormant. Without standards of right and wrong there can be no judgement of what is sin and what is not. By expressing God’s demands, the commandments stimulate rebellion in sinful human beings and the commandments of God become an occasion for sin to accomplish its deadly purpose. The law of Moses did not solve Israel’s sin problem but exposed and exacerbated it. This is always the effect that God’s law, by itself, has on sinful human beings. With the law we have a greater accountability to God, which brings the power of sin to life and the result is greater judgement. The Old Testament promised a blessed and secure life to those who obeyed the law. But humans inherit from Adam a strong tendency to sin. So when God’s commands come to us, we do not naturally obey them, but resist and disobey them. Instead of bringing life, the law only confirms and exposes our lost and helpless condition. We need a change of heart that the law cannot provide. The root of our struggles is that sin lives in us. Paul has experienced a divide between his will and his actions. He has struggled, as many of us do, and sin is so invasive that it affects the whole person, especially in our interactions in the physical world. Chapter eight concluded the argument from chapters 5-7 that neither sin nor the law can keep believers from having eternal life. Paul can triumphantly proclaim that those who belong to Jesus Christ need not fear that they will be condemned for their sins. Now Paul depicts the freedom of living in the Spirit. There is no condemnation because we are no longer under the law but empowered by the Holy Spirit to live for and in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is a power that frees the believer from the power of sin that leads to death. The law could pronounce judgement on sin but it could not do anything about sin itself. Jesus identified with sinful people so that He could be their representative and redeem them. Jesus did not inherit a sinful nature from Adam like we did. Paul reminds his readers that Christ was the sin offering that brought forgiveness and turned away God’s wrath. God condemned sin in Christ, our substitute, so that we could escape condemnation. Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the law for us. When sin controls us we know death, but when the Spirit controls us we know life and peace. The choice is ours. Unbelievers still live under the dominion of Adam’s sinful nature, while the Spirit opposes sin and brings life in Christ. Death is the consequence of sin and those who consistently yield to it will suffer spiritual death and eternal condemnation. But the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers and makes it possible for them to turn away from sin. The result is eternal life with the Lord. In the Old Testament the phrase children of God referred to Israel, the people God called His own. Paul uses it to remind believers that they enjoy an intimate relationship with God and that they will inherit many of the promises and blessings given to Israel. Christians are no longer minors or slaves but mature children with full rights. Being led by the Spirit is virtually synonymous with walking according to the Spirit. Walking highlights the active participation and effort of the believer. Being led underscores the passive side, the submissive dependence of the believer in themSpirit. Believers are the sons of God because they have received the spirit of adoption. In ancient Rome an adopted son would possess all the rights of a son born into a family. Christians have been adopted into God’s family, receiving an eternal inheritance. And because we have been adopted we can call God abba, or daddy. It is used in an intimate family context. Jesus used this word to address God the Father, and now all those who become children of God through Jesus have the privilege of addressing God in the same way. Jesus is heir to all of God’s promises and as those who belong to Jesus, we share in that glorious inheritance. But, just as it was for Jesus, our path is also marked by suffering. We experience the difficulties that come from trying to live righteously in a world dominated by sin. When Paul speaks of all creation he means animals, plants, and the earth itself. Everything was tainted by that first sin. And just as the entire world was harmed by Adam’s fall into sin, it will share in the blessings that God has promised His people. Creation awaits the coming glory because it also will be delivered. Even we believers groan in waiting because we are expressing a longing for God’s deliverance from the difficulties and oppression of this life. However, we also have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of what awaits us in the future glory. Although we have already been adopted by God as His children, the full rights of that adoption, our inheritance, are not ours yet. We live in the tension between already and not yet. Jesus has already come and defeated sin, death, and evil, but He has not yet returned in glory to cast evil into the lake of fire once and for all. Verse 26 offers the contrast between our ability to know how to pray and the effective prayer of the Spirit Himself. The emphasis is that the Spirit Himself prays for us. He intercedes on our behalf before the throne of God. But His intercession cannot be uttered. When we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit is interceding for us before God. Paul tells us that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. All circumstances work together, the good and the bad which means the believer will be conformed to Jesus now and will reign with Him latter. Those who love God are in fact those who are called by Him. Our love is our response to the Holy Spirit working in us. We are called according to His purpose. In other words, God does everything, including redemption, in order to accomplish His overarching plan. Verses 29-30 are challenging and I will write on the subject of election on Thursday, our free day. What shall we say to these things?! These things refer to God’s purpose and Paul follows this up with a rhetorical question. Since God has done the greatest thing, giving his one and only Son, will He not freely give us all things? And if God, the supreme judge justifies, then who is going to successfully bring a charge against us. If no one can successfully oppose us, charge us, or condemn us with regard to our personal relationship with God, then it follows that no one can separate us from Christ’s love for us either. Paul says that the trials and difficulties listed in verse 35 not only do not separate us from God’s love, but they make us more than conquerors by forcing us to depend even more on God. When we look at verses 38-39 Paul is clear. NOTHING can separate believers from God’s love. Paul struggles for words to describe the absolute certainty of God’s love for believers. If God the uncreated one, is for us, and no created thing can separate us, then our security in Him is absolute. In His Grip Pastor Matt W Jews in Paul’s day revered Abraham as Israel’s founder. Some Jewish texts claim that Abraham never sinned. Others emphasize his obedience to the law of Moses as the basis for his relationship with God. However, Paul demonstrates that Abraham’s faith, not his obedience, established his status with God. Abraham’s position as the founder of God’s people demonstrates that justification by faith is central to God’s plan. Remember that justification is being declared righteous, or right with God. No one will be declared righteous by obeying the law. The law does not save. It convicts us of our sin so that we return to the Lord, repent and ask for forgiveness. Then we are forgiven. That all happens because we have faith. Paul quoted Genesis 15:6 to prove that Abraham was not justified by works. God made a promise to Abraham and Abraham trusted God to fulfill it. Because of Abraham’s faith, God credited Abraham with righteousness. Because of his faith, God gave Abraham His righteousness. There was no obedience to the law involved here and no ritual to be performed. Abraham simply believed God. It was faith that established Abraham’s relationship with God; not works, circumcision, the law, or the number of descendants. The logic of verses 4-5 sounds like this. The stated premise is that when people work, their pay is what they have earned. It is not a gift. The unstated premise is that God is never indebted to His creatures (because they owe Him everything), so anything He gives them is a gift. The conclusion is that therefore, people cannot be declared righteous before God because of their works. Others say this: the person who does not work, who comes to God by faith alone without having performed rituals or followed Jewish laws; that person will be counted as righteous. Work here does not refer to a job but to the work one might try to do to gain favor with God.
According to Jewish law, a question was settled by two or three witnesses. Paul called two witnesses from the Old Testament to testify to justification by faith: one from the law and one from the prophets. The quotation is from Psalm 32:1-2. Paul introduces David as the second example of righteousness by faith. Given the understanding that people can become righteous by faith alone, apart from obeying Jewish law, the obvious question from Paul’s readers is: Is this righteousness actually available to the uncircumcised? Many of the Jews of Paul’s day assumed that blessing from God and forgiveness applied only to those who had been circumcised, the Jews. But Abraham received righteousness from God before he was circumcised. This fact opened the door to a new understanding of God’s Grace. It is available to all people; Jews and Gentiles. This point further demonstrates that God’s acceptance and blessing is a free gift and not earned by works. When God instituted circumcision He called it a sign of the covenant between Himself and Abraham. The covenant was already in place even before Abraham was circumcised. This shows that the covenant was based in faith, not circumcision. So, Abraham is the spiritual father of all people, whether circumcised (the Jews) or uncircumcised (the Gentiles) who have the same kind of faith Abraham had, that is faith in God’s promises. Circumcision was both a sign and a seal. As a sign it pointed to the fact that Abraham possessed righteousness, and as a seal it verified that Abraham was righteous. God would not make a covenant with one who is not righteous. The promise to Abraham was not through circumcision or through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. And being the heir of the world means that Abraham and his seed, in particular Christ, will inherit the earth, a promise that will be fulfilled in the kingdom to be established when Christ returns. Abraham would be the father of many nations and the means of blessing to all people. Paul continues on: if works of obedience can be substituted for faith, then faith is emptied of its importance. It is not needed. But believing in God means acknowledging our unworthiness and depending entirely on God’s mercy. Verse 15 means literally; where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Paul always used transgression to denote disobedience of a clear commandment of God. Transgression only exists where the law exists, which is why the law always brings punishment. The law convicts. The law God gave to the Israelites specified requirements in great detail, which made the people more accountable for sin than before. So when they inevitably disobeyed the law, God brought more severe punishment upon them. The word transgression here literally means stepping over. The law draws the line that should not be crossed. Paul concludes that God’s promises to Abraham were founded on his faith so that it would be acknowledged that salvation was only through grace, that is, God’s favor. The Jews were of the law in that their covenant with God included the law of Moses and they were to live according to it. Paul then speaks to Abraham’s faithfulness. He and Sarah were old, way too old to conceive and bear children. They knew God’s promise but no doubt some days it must have seemed impossible. Because God had made a promise even on days of doubt Abraham soldiered on because God had made a promise. In fact, Abraham’s faith grew stronger and that brought God glory. Abraham experienced the life giving power of God in the birth of his son Isaac. Christians recognize this in the birth of Jesus. Throughout history, salvation had been available only through faith in God, who makes and keeps His promises. From chapter 5-8 Paul turns from the Good News about how people enter a relationship with God to the security of that relationship. Christians have a strong and unassailable promise because of God’s work in Christ, God’s love for them, and the power of the Holy Spirit. This theme frames the teaching of these chapters (5:1-55, 8:18-39) as Paul grounds that promise in the transfer of believers from the realm of Adam to the realm of Jesus Christ. No power; whether sin, the law, or death will ever be able to separate us from the love of God. Peace with God does not refer to a mere feeling of peacefulness but to a real situation of peace. It is the end of hostilities between God and sinful human beings when they believe in Jesus Christ and the state of blessing and salvation that God promised His people in the end. Now the believer has been reconciled to God and there is true peace. Undeserved privilege can be called Grace. So basic is God’s Grace that Paul can use the word to sum up our present situation as believers. Where we now stand indicates that God’s Grace is needed and necessary throughout our lives and not just at the beginning. We have access as believers. We have been granted admission to stand before God. And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Rejoicing here means boasting. We get to boast in the glory of God. And hope means expectation. Believers boast in the sure expectation of the glory of God. Believers are confident for God Himself had placed the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Behind Paul’s use of the word glory is the Hebrew word kabod. This depicts God’s majesty and overwhelming presence. The prophets depict a day when God’s glory will return to dwell in the midst of His people. Paul assures his readers that faith triumphs trouble. Believers can rejoice, glory, and boast in their future hope, but they can also do the same in their present troubles. Some translations use the word tribulations which refers to physical hardship, suffering and distress. Perseverance means endurance. Trials and tribulations produce endurance when we exercise faith during those difficult times. This sort of faith produces its own reward. Perseverance produces character, the quality of being approved. As believers endure tribulation, God works in them to develop certain qualities and virtues that will strengthen them and draw them closer to Him. The result is fortified hope in God and His promises. The hope that believers have of their future glory with God will not disappoint them by being unfilled. They will not be put to shame or humiliated because of their hope. The reason the believer can be so confident is that the love of God has been poured out. The moment a person trusts in Jesus Christ, that person receives the Holy Spirit who constantly encourages them in their hope in God. Now, in verse 6, Paul explains the nature of God’s love. God loved us when we were still without strength and ungodly. God loved us so much He sent His Son to die for us. That happened at just the right time, in other words, God’s time. Our condition as utterly helpless was the right time for God to demonstrate His love by sending His Son in our behalf. God loves just the way we are but He loves us too much to leave us where we are. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God didn’t wait until we got our act together, not even a little bit. We were mired in sin and disobedience. That’s when God chose to act, to save us. We sing “What wondrous love is this?” It is love that is willing to be a sacrifice for our sins, to stand in our place and endure God’s wrath. Believers already share in the new life that Christ provided through His resurrection. Through this vital connection with Christ, believers will also be spared from God’s wrath in the last days. The one man is Adam and through him sin entered the world. Sin brought death and the result is that death is now a universal experience. One sin brought death to us all. From Adam we all have inherited a sinful nature. One sin has colored everything…all of creation has been affected. The result of that one sin is a physical and spiritual death for everyone. And because of that one sin we all gave a common judgement…death. The fact that Paul ascribes to the significance of that one sin, and the parallel he draws between Adam and Jesus makes it clear that Paul views Adam and his sin in the garden of Eden as historical fact. Sin is universal and so is death. Paul continued his explanation of everyone sinned by stating that people who died between Adam and Moses were not subject to specific commandments from God. Therefore, their condemnation was not only because of their own sin. It was because of their Union with Adam, who sinned by violating an explicit commandment of God. Through one man, Adam, death came. But through one man, Jesus Christ, grace and the gift of God, eternal life was given. Christ’s work is greater because it brings God’s Grace to those stuck in the sinfulness which originated with Adam. In the face of condemnation Christ came with the free gift that resulted in our being justified with God. Both Adam and Jesus Christ committed a single act that changed everything, Adam for the worse and Jesus for the best. Jesus’ one act of righteousness refers to His death on the cross, a righteous act because Christ chose to die in obedience to the Father’s will. Because of that we all have the opportunity for new life. But to receive it, we must believe in Jesus Christ. This is counter to what the Jews believed. Many of them believed that the giving of the law to Israel reversed or mitigated the negative effects of Adam’s sin, but Paul says that God’s law magnified and illuminated their sins. Paul reminds that not only can sin never exceed the grace provided by God but sin loses its threat when compared to the super abounding grace of God. In His Grip Pastor Matt W Paul wrote almost one quarter of the New Testament. During his travels, he established churches around the Roman world. These churches, comprised of Jewish and Gentile believers, had a wide variety of struggles during their early years. Paul wrote to address the issues these and other churches were facing. His thirteen letters to churches and individuals have been deeply influential in Christian belief and practice. Here is just a smattering of what each of his books details. Romans explains and applies the foundations of the Good News. 1 Corinthians addresses a wide range of problems in a young church. 2 Corinthians answers challenges to Paul’s apostolic authority. Galatians proclaims freedom: salvation through faith in Christ. Ephesians reflects on how Christ’s body unites both Jews and Gentiles. Colossians proclaims the preeminence of Christ and new life in him. 1 Thessalonians helps believers withstand severe antagonism. 2 Thessalonians corrects false beliefs and guides believers to prepare for the day of the Lord. 1 Timothy commissions Timothy to deal with false teachers and restore order in God’s house. 2 Timothy passes Paul’s torch to Timothy to carry on his work faithfully. Titus commands a young and undisciplined church to heed appointed leadership. Philemon appeals to the owner of a runaway slave to welcome him back as a brother in Christ. The Book of Romans is dated 57 AD, written most likely during Paul’s third missionary journey. For many years Paul had wanted to visit Rome to minister there but he had always been kept from going there. Some believe he wanted to use Rome as a base for missionary work in Spain. Others believe he was writing to heal divisions within the church in Rome. But whatever his purpose, it is clear that a major concern of this book is the relationship between Jew and Gentile in God’s overall plan of redemption. You will find the recurring topics of faith and works, law and grace, sin and righteousness, and judgement and justification.
Gentiles came from a background of idolatry and unbelief and Jews came with a heritage of knowing the law and promises of God, BUT; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Justification is by faith and not works but this is not a license to sin. Here are a couple of tidbits for you. Jews of the day regarded themselves as superior to Gentiles because they had the Mosaic law. But the law does not save; it convicts. The gospel saves. Often large amounts of wealth was stored in pagan temples for safe keeping. In New Testament times baptism so closely followed conversion that the two were considered aspects of a single event. Here are three themes to watch for. First, God’s faithfulness. One of the central themes is God’s covenant faithfulness. Both Jews and Gentiles find righteousness before God through faith in Jesus Christ. Second; righteousness. Through Jesus’ death, God credits his own righteousness to all who believe and rely on His promise of salvation in Christ. Third; reconciliation. Romans is marked with Paul’s concern for racial reconciliation and cross cultural sensitivity. His advice on resolving internal conflicts in the church lifts up Christ’s attitude as the example for our own. Paul reiterated Jesus’ teachings that love of neighbor fulfills the law’s intent. The first 17 verses of the Book of Romans contain the normal features of New Testament letter introductions: an identification of the writer and readers, a thanksgiving and the theme of the letter. Paul calls himself a slave. The Greek word here is doulos which can be translated either as servant or slave. Paul intends slave here. Servants are free to come and go, have a set schedule and return home at the end of their shift. Slaves are all in, all the time. Paul sees himself as a slave for Jesus Christ. This is complete and total subservience to the Lord. He calls himself an apostle, placing himself on the same level as the original 12, and he claims authority from God for His work. He has been sent out to do the work of the Lord. Humanly speaking Jesus was a descendant of David. He was fully human and fully divine. The fact that Jesus was a descendant of David’s links Him to the Davidic covenant. When Christ returns to reign over all, He will fulfill God’s promise to David to give him a dynasty that will last forever. Jesus did not become the Son of God by the resurrection. Instead the Resurrection proved that Jesus was the Son of God, revealing Him in all His power and glory. Paul reminded the Romans that the purpose of the apostles work was to persuade people to obey God’s command to trust Christ. The summary in verse 5 is Paul’s purpose in preaching to the Gentiles and it brackets the book, appearing again at the end in a slightly different form. (16:26). Paul wanted the Gentiles to believe in Jesus Christ: he underscored that believing in Jesus as the Lord, entails a commitment to obey Him. Faith and obedience are not identical but one does not occur without the other. Being holy means to be set apart, different from the world. Paul makes it clear that Gentiles are now fully included among God’s people. Paul prayed for the Roman church every time he prayed. He told them he prayed with his whole heart, meaning in his spirit. The Word spirits refers to the deepest part of a person. The mention of spiritual gifts here doesn’t mean Paul will be distributing spiritual gifts but instead he will use his spiritual gift to aid them in their faith. He also recognizes that we encourage one another in our faith, something that is true even today. Paul also carries a heavy burden to reach as many people as he can with the Good News of Jesus Christ. The New Testament speaks of salvation in the past tense (Ephesians 2:8), the present tense (2 Corinthians 2:15), and the future tense (13:11). In the past the believer has been saved from the penalty of sin. In the present the believer is being saved from the power of sin. In the future the believer will be saved from the very presence of sin. Paul consistently emphasizes that the Good News is for everyone. He also insists that God first chose the Jews to be His people, made promises to them, gave them a unique place in the continuing plans of God. They have a special responsibility to respond to the Good News and will be judged first if they turn away. God’s righteousness revealed from faith to faith means that faith is at the beginning of the salvation process and it is the goal as well. God makes us right in His sight is a key phrase that appears eight times in Romans. This has Old Testament roots, where God’s righteousness refers to his character, or, to an act of declaring His people sinless and perfect in His eyes. Paul uses the second meaning in this verse. The Good News has the power to save because it is the fulfillment of God’s promise to vindicate His people. In the first four chapters of this book Paul repeatedly insists that only through faith can human beings be made right in God’s sight. Here are some key words and meanings. Paul and other New Testament writers portray Jesus Christ, on the basis of His sacrificial death on the cross in the place of sinners, as the Author and Provider of salvation. This spiritual deliverance is graciously and lovingly offered by God to all people, but only those who repent and trust in Jesus will experience its blessings. And what exactly are those blessings? We can summarize as salvation from the penalty of sin, salvation from the power of sin, and salvation from the presence of sin. Theologians use the terms of justification, sanctification, glorification, and regeneration. Allow me to explain. Justification is the divine act of declaring sinners to be righteous on account of their faith in Jesus Christ. He paid for their sins completely and finally on the cross, and through faith in Him their sins can be forgiven. Closely related to justification is regeneration. This is where the Spirit of God in dwells a repentant sinner and imparts eternal life to his or her spiritually dead soul. Sanctification is the process in which God develops the new life of the believer and gradually brings it to perfection. It is how we continue to become more and more like Jesus. Glorification is the ultimate salvation of the whole person. This occurs when we are face to face with our Savior in His coming kingdom. At that time God will completely mold us into the image of Christ. Then we will be able to enjoy complete fellowship with God, singing His praises forever. The rest of today’s reading is Paul teaching about universal sinfulness. Both Gentiles and Jews are equally under sin’s power and cannot find favor with God by any action of their own. God’s anger is not a spontaneous emotional outburst but the Holy God’s necessary response to sin. The Old Testament often depicts God’s anger and predicts a decisive outpouring of God’s wrath on human sin at the end of history. Paul usually depicts God’s anger as occurring at the end times. Our knowing God typically means having an intimate, saving relationship with Him. Here, knowing God meant they knew about God, but rather than learn about the Lord, they worshiped gods of their own making. When humans exchanged the living God for idols, God abandoned them, a point Paul makes twice in this paragraph. Verses 26-32 contain one of the most extensive lists of sins in all of scripture. It contains the rebelliousness of the human heart and the exhaustive sweep of human depravity. Society has chosen certain of them to use to condemn people and others society tends to rationalize. But the truth is, God judges all sins. And a sin is a sin is a sin. Here Paul declares that all unrighteous people are without excuse. God’s judgement will be meted out according to the truth, according to works, and according to the light one has of the law. And, encouraging others to sin is worse than sinning oneself. Chapter 2 begins with addressing the Jews, “you may think” , meaning their feelings of superiority to the Gentiles. Paul uses what is known as a diatribe where a writer tries to win over an audience to their own views by portraying a debate between themselves and a hypothetical opponent. Paul’s point here is that Jews, like Gentiles turn from God’s revelation to go their own way. Paul used the word wrath in verse 5 but it is a different wrath than that which he used in 1:18. There God’s wrath was His present anger but here it refers to God’s future wrath. Thus, the people who continue in their rebellion against the Lord are accumulating wrath for themselves. Paul tells the Roman church that God will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good. But he also makes it crystal clear that no one can receive eternal life except as God’s gift through faith. As the letter unfolds Paul makes it clear that the standards of God’s holiness cannot be met by any human. God will pour out His anger in those who live for themselves. The Greek word here is not often used but it conveys the ideas of selfish ambition or strife. And at the end, the wicked will be destroyed. Condemned sinners do not cease to exist but suffer eternal punishment which includes separation from God. Paul also makes the point that there are Gentiles who are living in obedience to God’s law and they don’t even know the law. For Paul that means they actually have God’s law written in their hearts. The secret life addressed in verse 16 refers to our thoughts and intentions. And again Paul addressed the Jews who were certain that being God’s chosen people and having his law gave them immunity from judgement and the superiority to have complete knowledge and truth. In a series of questions Paul uses a diatribe again to expose the inconsistency of the Jews claims. God instituted the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of His covenant with Abraham. It represents God’s covenant with His people Israel. But if you are marked with the sign of circumcision and have nothing to do with God and His laws then you are no better than those who have never been circumcised. Paul goes so far as to say that uncircumcised Gentiles who obey the law will judge the Jews who are circumcised and do not obey the law. Finally, the letter of the law refers to the law of God written on tablets of stone while the Spirit now writes His law on people’s hearts. Outward conformity is thus contrasted with obedience motivated by a change of heart. The advantages of being a Jew? Paul moves his argument along by asking questions. By this point Paul had preached the Good News for nearly 20 years and he knew the questions people asked. So he answered them before they could ask. The advantage the Jews had was that they had received the Word of the Lord. It was revealed to them, highlighting the fact that God has personal communication with His people. He tells the Romans that God is never unfaithful to His people. Paul quoted Psalm 51:4 where David confessed his sin with Bathsheba. God punished David and David admitted God was proved right and would win His case in court. His punishment was entirely just, and God is faithful to what He has said in the past. God punished all sin and He retains all righteousness as He does so. God even makes use of human sin for His own means. But even when God does that, the sin is still punished. Believing does not entitle us to sin, and the more we sin does not bring glory to anyone. Believing is not a license to sin as we want. There are six quotes in verses 10-18, drawn from various parts of the Old Testament, and all of them address human sinfulness. Paul followed the practice of other rabbis who gathered together Old Testament texts on similar themes in a practice called pearl stringing. Perhaps the most severe is verses 14-18. Humans apart from God are not blessing others. Instead they asked often cursing them. They are not loving but bitter. People apart from God are prone to shed blood. They murder and kill because they have no respect for the life of another. Worse yet, people apart from God have no fear of God. This is an Old Testament expression for respect and reverence for God. It is also said to be the beginning of knowledge. Because people without God are spiritually dead, they produce only deceit, damage , and destruction. In verse 21 Paul returns to the central theme of the righteousness of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus and is available to anyone who believes. Verses 21-26 are the fundamental statement of righteousness, in verses 27-31 Paul elaborates on this and in chapter 4 illustrates this with the experience of Abraham. Paul reiterates God puts people in a right relationship with Himself through His righteousness. The old covenant looked forward to the climactic revelation of God’s righteousness in His Son and now through His Son we are able to come to Him. God in His grace has chosen to make us right in His sight. He doesn’t have to do this but has chosen to do so. We are helpless slaves to sin and our righteous status before God can and will never be earned. It happens only through Jesus Christ. The phrase sacrifice for sin, in the Greek, means atonement cover. This is the cover on the ark of the covenant that resided in the most holy place in the tabernacle and later the temple. Paul characterizes Jesus Christ as God’s provision of final atonement for His people. Jesus absorbed the wrath of God in our place so we would be made right with God. Paul used the foundational Jewish argument of monotheism, only one God. He argued that if that is indeed true, then the Lord, Yahweh, is equally the God of both the Jews and Gentiles. Paul even acknowledges that some people will object to his insistence on faith apart from the law because it seems to dismiss the demands of the law. However, faith actually enables people to fulfill the law. The Holy Spirit is given to those who have faith, and He makes it possible for people to do as they should. In His Grip Pastor Matt W |