[0:00:02] Brenton: This is Further, a weekly show for the People of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to the second episode of Further. I'm brenton grimm and I'm here with Chris Carr. Last week we heard a sermon from Roman ends one one through seven, and we're here just to ask some questions and to dive a little deeper into what we find in that passage.
[0:00:36] Brenton: So, first question, Chris. Why does Paul choose to write his most thorough exposition of the Gospel to the church in Rome?
[0:00:45] Grimm: Yeah, so it's actually pretty fascinating, some of the contextual information here. Paul had never actually been to Rome, which is interesting. Most of the churches that he wrote to, most of the letters in the New Testament were churches that he had planted. He'd never been to Rome. We're not exactly sure how the church got started there. It would seem that it's possible that there were some Jews at the day of pentecost that were saved and they went back to Rome and started the church there.
[0:01:19] Grimm: We're not exactly sure, but Paul writes the letter for a couple of reasons, probably three reasons, at least. One, to introduce himself to these Roman Christians. Two would be to address some issues in the church where there was tension between Jewish believers and gentile believers and hopefully to bring unity to them and to the church there. And then third was actually is because he intended to visit Rome and he wanted to use Rome as kind of a beachhead or a launching point for taking the Gospel to Spain.
[0:01:59] Grimm: And Spain was the unreached part of the world a day. And Paul, he talks about this in chapter 15, is that it was his ambition not to preach where the Gospel had already been proclaimed, but to preach to people that had not heard it before and to go specifically in this instance to Spain. And so it would seem like he wants to introduce himself to Rome, to the church at Rome, and then when he get there, to kind of use that again as a base to launch out into Spain and so number of different reasons there.
[0:02:36] Grimm: But obviously Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire and so it had the potential to influence really, the rest of the world. And so that undoubtedly is one of the big reasons.
[0:02:47] Brenton: Is it safe to assume that the Church of Rome knew who Paul was and would have understood his authority?
[0:02:56] Grimm: It would seem that they probably knew about him for sure, but maybe not completely understand his authority. And that's why he begins the letter by talking about his apostleship in two different instances. He begins that in verse one, and he also hits it later on in verse six. And so they probably had some understanding of that, but he wants to make it really clear from the very beginning.
[0:03:26] Brenton: Of the letter you mentioned on Sunday that the word servant in Greek, you want to pronounce that for me, by the way?
[0:03:33] Grimm: Dulos.
[0:03:34] Brenton: Perfect. That that is translated slave. So what is Paul trying to communicate about himself when he calls himself a slave of Christ?
[0:03:47] Grimm: Yes, this is something Paul is going to talk about quite a bit later on in romans, specifically in chapter six. And the idea here is that before we come to faith in Christ, we are slaves to sin. We're slaves to satan, we're slaves to our sinful nature, to ourselves, essentially. And that when we come to Christ, we are freed from slavery to satan's sin itself. But then we become a slave of Christ, that he becomes our Lord, he becomes our master.
[0:04:23] Grimm: And now we serve him. But it's a different type of service than when we are slaved to sensation Himself. It's now a freedom to actually to be the people that God created us to be and to be, maybe put it this way, where we can experience our true humanity being in Christ and being a slave following Him as we were originally created to do.
[0:04:55] Brenton: Yeah. So it's a changing of our desires to fit more in line with those of Christ.
[0:05:04] Grimm: Yeah, there's a lot to that. And romans six is going to be really interesting, but it's very applicable to the day in and day out of our life. And it's really interesting that Paul, just from the very get go, brings that out.
[0:05:20] Brenton: Yeah. There's another line in this intro that might seem inconsequential, but he refers to Jesus as being a descendant of David. And this is, I think, two things. It's a reference to his humanity, as you mentioned on Sunday, but also what's the significance of Christ being in david's lineage?
[0:05:46] Grimm: Sure, so very significant. And God had promised to David that one of his sons would sit on his throne forever. And so the messiah had to be in david's lineage, had to be a son of David in order to fulfill God's promise to David. And so that's why Paul mentions it. Here is why we see David in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew one, the New Testament begins with this genealogy that includes David and shows that Jesus is in the line of David.
[0:06:33] Grimm: And that is meant to show very clearly that God is faithful to his promise and was bringing about the one that he had literally promised thousands of years before.
[0:06:47] Brenton: Yeah. And the Jewish audience, at least in Rome, would have most certainly understood the reference there.
[0:06:55] Grimm: Absolutely.
[0:06:56] Brenton: Great.
[0:06:57] Grimm: Sure.
[0:06:58] Brenton: Okay, so verse five, it says that the audience of this letter has received apostleship. And I kind of want to just talk over what apostleship is because I think we see some different categories. Back in verse one, Paul reminds us that he was called to be an apostle on the road to damascus. Is there any distinction that paul's making between his apostleship and his audiences?
[0:07:29] Grimm: Absolutely. So I think maybe the best way to explain this is that we should think in two categories big A apostles and Little A apostles. And Little A apostle really just means a special messenger, someone who's been given a special assignment. And in one sense, all believers are Little A apostles. We've all been called or given a special assignment to go out and to spread the Gospel. But what Paul is referring to here is a Big A apostle. He's a big a apostle. And they're only really, I believe, I think the New Testament would bear this out really like 13 Big A apostles ever.
[0:08:15] Grimm: So you have the twelve disciples in the book of Acts who were the first twelve apostles. And then Paul, based upon what we see in Acts, chapter nine, is the 13 Big A apostles. And so the Big A apostles are those who have a special, unique responsibility, really mission from Jesus to proclaim the Gospel. And we see that they're also the ones who either write the New Testament, the books of the New Testament, and or they authorize the writing of those. And so it's really interesting, just in the last couple of weeks, I had somebody reach out to me with a YouTube video about this guy who was claiming to be an apostle.
[0:09:06] Grimm: They were asking me about it and I expressed some real concerns because this gentleman seemed to be giving the idea that he was on the same par with the New Testament apostles like Paul. And that's dangerous in my opinion, because it gives this idea that basically their word has the same authority as the New Testament apostles. And I think that's really problematic and unbiblical on a number of levels.
[0:09:36] Brenton: So just to be clear, no more Big A apostles around today?
[0:09:41] Grimm: Absolutely not.
[0:09:43] Brenton: Got it. How does a deeper understanding and acceptance of the Gospel bring unity to believers? You talked quite a bit about that. And really that is kind of the main push of romans is to bring unity in that church. And Paul uses primarily the Gospel to do that. How does that a deeper understanding of the Gospel really bring unity to believers?
[0:10:12] Grimm: Yeah, this is a big question, a really important one, and something that we will just come back to over and over again. But first of all, the Gospel makes it clear that as Paul is going to talk about all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God, and that nothing about us, justifies us, makes us right with God on our own. So it's not our gender, it's not our race, it's not the church that we go to.
[0:10:43] Grimm: None of those things do anything for us in regards to salvation. Which means that the old saying is everybody's equal at the foot of the cross. And really, I think that's kind of an underlying theme that we find in Roman. So how does that actually bring unity? Well, what it tells us is that we have no reason to boast in anything about us. As Paul talks about ingalatians, we really can and should only boast in the cross. And when we can only boast in the cross, then that means that there shouldn't be anything that divides us. And really there's something that ultimately brings us together, and that is the fact that God justifies or makes righteous. paul's going to talk about this in romans three.
[0:11:38] Grimm: He makes us righteous through Jesus, through all of us righteous. And we all have equal righteousness and we all have equal standing before God and through Christ. And so there are a lot of things in the Church of Rome that could potentially divide people, especially the Jews and the gentiles. All kinds of questions we're going to see. This question is about the law, questions about circumstances, questions about who could be a part of the church or how did you become a part of the church?
[0:12:11] Grimm: And ultimately all those answers go back to the gospel. The answers are found in the gospel and it's what brings people together.
[0:12:21] Brenton: Yeah, and I think we've all seen examples of almost the easy believeism where we need to memorize some spiritual principles and then we're saved and then we moved on from the gospel. And I think that looking at romans, it just flies in the face of that thought. It seems to show that a surface level of understanding of the gospel is really deficient for the Christian life. What would you say the problem is of having a surface level understanding of the gospel?
[0:13:02] Grimm: Well, that's a really good question. We have a long discussion about that. One of the first places I would go is here in the introduction. He talks about the obedience of faith or the obedience that comes from faith. And so faith should translate to obedience. And if it doesn't translate to obedience, then something is deficient in our faith. And when we talk about obedience, that's obedience in every area of our lives.
[0:13:37] Grimm: And so that's why we need to have a deeper understanding of the gospel so that we can actually take the gospel and apply it to every area of our lives. So the way that we view ourselves, the way that we view other people, the way that we view God and really how we live in virtually every area of our life, certainly in our relationships, certainly in the way that we handle our money, the way that we use our time, the way that we use the gifts that God has given us. And the gospel has something to say about all of those things.
[0:14:20] Grimm: And the problem is that when we don't have a deep understanding of the gospel, most of the time we're not even thinking about how the gospel applies to those areas. And then if we are maybe a little bit. If we don't have a deep understanding, we can get sideways in regards to that. Just give an example here that I talked about on Sunday, and it's this idea of whether we are saved by our obedience or we obey because we are saved.
[0:14:55] Grimm: And so many people who would even agree with this statement that, yes, I obey because I'm saved, I don't have to obey in order to be saved. Although we would agree with that in reality. How often? It's so often we have this idea or we live out of this. It's like if I don't obey God, it's not going to be happy with me. Instead of understanding that because of Jesus, God is pleased with me, and now because I have that love and acceptance and assurance, then I'm free to go out and to obey Him and to live for Him. So that's kind of a long and winding explanation with you.
[0:15:36] Brenton: Yeah, it just goes to show that we never ever pass the gospel. There's always more to learn. There's always a deeper place to find an understanding of what Christ sacrifice for us actually means and what our response to that should be. So that's all I have for today. I appreciate it. Chris and we'll wrap up there. See everybody.