We're beginning this evening a six-part series that I've entitled Understanding Romans. I'm not suggesting by that title that somehow in six messages we're going to understand every detail of the Book of Romans. My purpose in these weeks is to lay out a structure which will help each of us in our personal study of the Book of Romans.
It's a framework that I hope to establish which will then allow each of us to go on in our personal study to really comprehend and grasp this marvelous book in the New Testament. Perhaps I should ask if you have one of the outlines. They were passed out this evening. Some of you may have come in before they were passed out. So if you need one, just lift your hand and if we have any extras, we'll see if we can get one to you. There are a couple up here in front that need them. Thanks Claire.
All right. If there's anybody else, just lift your hand and Claire will be glad to get you one of the outlines. A way of introduction, let's remind ourselves that when God inspired the writers of scripture, most often their work was not done in a monastery-like solitude where they would sort of sit at a table waiting on God for dictation. It was not done that way. Even normally they wrote in the midst of circumstances that prompted their efforts.
They may or may not have been aware at the moment of the Spirit's oversight of their labor in their writing. They were responding to pressures in their own lives or in their nation or they were answering charges or questions. They were rebutting false teachers. They were giving instruction. They were recording historical events or they were delivering a message directly from God to a given audience. All of these scenarios fit different books of the Bible.
In determining the meaning of what these authors wrote, it is important for us to attempt at least to understand the circumstances in which the Spirit of God enabled them to write down the very mind and revelation of God. Interpreting the Bible is both an art and a science. It is an art in the sense that the more you do it, the more natural it becomes to you.
For some people who are just starting in their study of the Bible, it seems a little cumbersome to think about the rules of interpretation. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the more natural it becomes to you. It's an art. But it's also a science because there are certain principles or rules that guide us so that we can determine the genuine meaning of the Bible. Let me just suggest to you some of the principles. For example, there is the principle of context.
You know that well, that no verse is to be taken as an isolated verse but is to be understood or interpreted in its context immediately and then in a larger context. There's the principle of language. In order to understand what the Bible means, we have to understand what the words mean. We have to understand something about the grammar of it. One does not have to be a Greek scholar, thank the Lord, to be able to do this.
There are so many tools available today that any of us who've even had no training in the Greek or the Hebrew can gain understanding of the meaning of words and why words are in a particular order. It's important for us to discover the principle of language. And then the principle of unity. We need to remember as we interpret the Bible that there are going to be no contradictions in the Bible. God is a God who is one and in his revelation he is not going to contradict himself.
Then there's the principle of progression, which means that later books, that is books written at a later time, may in some way modify earlier statements. We cannot merely go to one book in the Bible and say, well, this statement about a given subject is what the Bible teaches. We have to survey the whole of scripture and understand that God's revelation is progressive. He gives a bit here and a bit there and a bit here and a bit there.
And in order to understand the Bible, we need to compile all of that. So it's the principle of progression. And finally, for tonight, let's talk about the principle of history and culture. In order to understand what the Bible means, we have to know something about the history of the Bible and the history of the times in which it was written and the cultures in which the authors lived.
Now once the student of the Word of God has employed those principles, those rules, as best as he knows how, he arrives at his interpretation. And once that meaning is determined, then he can proceed on to application. Now it's very important to understand that you and I are in dangerous territory when we begin to apply the Bible before we understand what it means. We have to first of all come to an understanding of its meaning in its original environment.
What did that mean to Paul and to the Corinthians when he wrote this to them? We first have to understand that before we can understand its application to our lives today. It is important to separate, if need be, the application of the author to his immediate audience in that day and whatever application there may be intended as normative for the people of God in all generations.
An example of that would be Paul's words to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11 where he commands that the women cover their heads in the meetings of the church. Our understanding of that is that certainly that was intended to be an application in that day is intended to be an application today is another question.
We have to understand the culture of that time, what was taking place in Corinth, and the principle that was involved in Paul's commandment regarding women covering their heads in the worship service. And when we do that, I believe we come to the conclusion that that was not intended to be a permanent application for the whole church age. But there is a principle that underlies it that runs throughout the church age.
Well, I've probably raised enough eyebrows now that I'm going to go on without answering any of the questions that have been raised because our subject is the book of Romans. Regarding the book of Romans or any other book of the Bible, there really are three basic questions that have to be asked. First of all, what is the author talking about? What's the subject here? Secondly, what is the author saying about that subject? And finally, why is the author saying it?
I hope that we will begin to answer those questions as we study the book of Romans. Let's talk about the occasion for this epistle. Obviously, there were Christians in Rome. Let's open our Bibles to Romans chapter 1, and we notice how Paul begins this epistle. Paul is a bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an apostle, and he explains who he is. And then he says, verse 7, to all who are beloved of God in Rome called as saints. And so he is writing to Christians in Rome.
There were Christians there. They are addressed here as saints, not as the church in Rome. There were times when Paul spoke of the church at a certain destination. The suggestion may be here that there were so many house churches in Rome that he didn't want to use that collective term. He writes to the saints who are in Rome. We don't exactly know how the gospel first came to the city of Rome. Paul did not bring it there first, as he did in many other places.
The suggestion has been given, and I think it's a good one, that the gospel probably arrived in Rome shortly after the day of Pentecost, because in Acts chapter 2 and verse 10, it says that on that day there were visitors in Jerusalem from Rome, as well as many other places, who heard the apostles proclaiming the gospel.
And so it does seem logical that some of those people visiting in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost heard the gospel, they were converted, and then went back to Rome and began to share this new faith in the Messiah. And thus the gospel arrived in the city. It seems that the saints in Rome were mostly Gentile in their makeup, not exclusively to be sure, but mostly.
For example, here in chapter 1 and verse 13, Paul says, And I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you, and have been prevented thus far, in order that I might obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. And again, in chapter 11 and verse 13, Paul says, I am writing to you Gentiles. And so as we think of the Roman church, we need to realize that it was a church that was in the Gentile capital of a very Gentile empire.
And although Rome had a Jewish colony, that is, a group of people who were Jewish, who sort of stuck together, it was small in relation to the population of the whole city. So if the population of the church reflected at all the makeup, the demographics of Rome, the city, then we would expect it to be a largely Gentile church. And that's important, as we're going to point out in a few moments.
We see that the population of the church in Rome was cosmopolitan, made up of a lot of different kinds of people, as suggested by the names that are given in the 16th chapter, where Paul addresses a lot of people personally. So Paul had never ministered in Rome himself, even though that had been his ambition, as we see in this 13th verse. Plans had been laid, but he had never carried them out. He had been hindered thus far to fulfill these plans to go to Rome.
I think we see a certain lesson there for all of us. It is good for us to plan. I don't believe that God intends for us to fly by the seat of our pants every day of our lives. There are some times when we have no choice but to do that, but I believe that God is a God of order and that he intends that we lay out plans, seeking his will in those plans, for realizing that our plans may be changed, that God may have other purposes beyond what we can see in plan.
Paul seems content for the most part that his plans hadn't been fulfilled, but still there is this longing in his heart to see the people in Rome. This letter that we have in our hands was written to the Roman Christians when Paul was in the city of Corinth. If you want to get your Bible map out and look, you can see that they were not too far apart but in different parts of the Roman Empire. A body of water separated the isthmus that were involved.
Paul had visited Corinth on his first missionary journey. While he was there during this year and a half period, he became very close to a husband and wife whose names were Aquila and Priscilla. In fact, it says that he worked with them. Acts 18 and verse 1 says that the couple had just come from the city of Rome to the city of Corinth. Paul met them and they were of the same trade, and so he took up company with them.
Now, it doesn't say that they were believers at that time, but the assumption is that they were believers. And they probably are the ones who alerted Paul to the fact that there was this large body of believers in the city of Rome, though he had never been there. And they told him about the church in Rome. Well, Paul completed that second missionary journey eventually and then began a third missionary journey.
And on that third journey, he went back to the city of Corinth and he stayed there this time only three months. But during that time, he apparently got more news about what was happening in Rome. And during that three-month stay that is described to us in Acts 20 and verse 3, Paul penned this letter to them. As scholars have tried to figure out the dating of it, it seems that it was in the wintertime or early spring of 56 or 57 AD.
And so the gospel had probably been in Rome over 30 years or around 30 years by this time. It is interesting that the reason that Aquila and Priscilla had left the city of Rome in the first place to go to Corinth where they bumped into Paul was that Claudius, who was the emperor of the empire at the time, caused all the Jews to leave Rome. And one of the Roman historians, whose name is Suetonius, records that also.
And he says that it was because of the disturbances at the instigation of Crestus, C-H-R-E-S-T-U-S, Crestus. Now, Suetonius wrote that in Latin. And if you understand the fact that Christ being written in Latin might be written that way, it is possible that the reason that Claudius caused the Jews to leave Rome was because of controversy that arose in the Jewish community over Christ, not a man named Crestus.
That there were some Jews who believed and some who did not, and because of the tensions that arose in the Jewish community over Christ, Claudius said, all of you just get out. Because you see, he understood Christianity or the teachings of Christ to be but a sect of Judaism. So he just decided all of them needed to leave the city of Rome and a quote on Percival left eventually came back to the city because they were in the city when Paul writes this epistle.
We learn in chapter 16, verses 1 and 2, that a lady delivered this epistle on behalf of Paul, her name was Phoebe, and she was a co-worker, someone who was a servant of the churches of Jesus Christ, and it may have been her planned visit to Rome that determined the timing of the writing of the letter. It would seem because of the makeup of the letter, it is so well laid out that the apostle had well thought through what he wanted to say to these people.
This was not the kind of a letter that was written on the spur of the moment. He had to sit down and take time to think through what he wanted to say and then to write it out or to dictate it so that then Phoebe could deliver it to the city. Now what are the purposes of Paul writing the letter? We're all in the introduction here yet at this point.
We'll take up the actual text in chapters 1 through 3 next week, excuse me, two weeks from tonight, but what are the purposes of Paul writing to the Romans? Seems to me there are at least three of them. One is that Paul wanted to visit the city. We've already seen that, and he wanted to prepare them for his arrival there. It was possible that Paul wanted the church in Rome to be to him what the church in Antioch had been to him. Do you remember that church?
The church in Antioch was his home base for his missionary journeys. And even as he pens this, Antioch is home base. And he is now perhaps looking at Rome as another home base so that from there he can branch on further to the west. For in chapter 15 he tells us he wants to go even as far as where? Spain, that's right. And so he may have been wanting to create a new home church kind of relationship in the city of Rome. So he wanted to prepare them.
He is saying, look, I'm coming to you, here are my immediate plans, and then I'm coming to see you, and my plans are to go on to Spain, implication being I want your help in getting there. Secondly, and this goes back to the makeup of the church, I believe that Paul is here addressing tensions in the church between Jews and Gentiles. There were more Gentiles than Jews in the church undoubtedly. But there was a tension that seems to have been there regarding how they relate together.
Now Paul had never been there to say to them what he had said to the church at Ephesus or to the church in Galatia about no longer a difference between Jew and Gentile. He had not been there to disarm and defuse those kinds of tensions. And so in this book, you can definitely see that Paul is desirous of helping them understand that their relationship should not be antagonistic. For example, in verse 16 in the very chapter we're looking at, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel.
It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, notice now, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. So he's saying, look, the Jew had historical priority. And in Paul's plans, they had priority too in the sense that when he went to one of the cities where there was a Jewish colony, he would start there and then branch out to the Gentiles. But he says the gospel is for everyone, Jew and Gentile.
In the next couple of chapters, he's going to say, look, the Jews are under the condemnation of God and the Gentiles alike are under the condemnation of God. There is none righteous whether Jew or Gentile. In chapters 9, 10, and 11, he goes to great extent to explain what's happened to the nation of Israel. And the God is now proclaiming the gospel to Jew and Gentile alike, but lest the Gentiles should get heady about their position, they'd better remember what happened to Israel.
And so in the book, he is addressing that kind of tension in the church. It is not uncommon for there to be tension in churches over various things. Even in the New Testament churches, there were tensions that exist because we are people and we're not completely sanctified yet. A third reason for the book, I think, is that he wanted to explain to them the gospel of God. And this is very interesting to me, at least the speculation in it.
Paul wants here to demonstrate to them the goodness and the fairness of God to all people. There is an apologetic here, there is a defense of God, of his person, and of his plan of salvation. And he lays it out very carefully. It is his greatest work, Paul's greatest work. As you know, he writes systematically.
It seems as though Paul may have wanted to systematically and comprehensively lay out the essential message that he preached everywhere, the gospel of God, so that if something happened to him, his readers could carry on his work. I find that a fascinating thought because you remember that as Paul was concluding this third missionary journey, while he is at Corinth, there are contracts out on his life.
He changes his plans in his return to Jerusalem to avoid one assassination attempt that he was alerted to. And he was already getting inklings from the Holy Spirit that there was trouble lying ahead of him when he got back to Israel, back to Palestine.
And so he may have been wanting to get this message comprehensively out to people so that they would know the gospel of God that he was preaching, and in case something happened to him, then they in Rome could carry that message on to Spain and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, let's talk about an overview of the epistle for a moment. To me, it seems clear that the key verses of this book are verses 16 and 17 of chapter 1. We read verse 16. Verse 17 goes on the floor right out of it.
He says, For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. The key word or the key phrase in the book is the word righteousness or the phrase the righteousness of God. I say that because at least 67 times in the book of Romans, you find a word that is related to the word righteous. In the language Paul is writing in, he uses the word righteous, righteousness, justify, justification, and justifier.
And if you add up the occasions of the use of all of those words, it's at least 67 of them in these 16 chapters. It's a key thought and idea. So we need to stop for a moment and ask the question, what does it mean? It is righteousness. We think we have an idea of what that means, but how would you put it down on paper? The word righteousness really means, in its essence, conformity to a standard. Conformity to a standard.
When it's used of God, when it speaks of the righteousness of God, it means that God conforms himself to himself, for there is nothing greater for him to conform himself to. In all of his actions, toward all of his creation, God is righteous because he conforms all of his actions to all of his attributes. God is righteous. That means that he is impartial in his justice. God is transparent in his holiness of character, and it leads him to be fair in all of his actions. God is holy in his essence.
He's holy. And righteousness is the expression of that holiness toward anything that's apart from him. It is how God acts toward anything outside of himself. He is righteous. He is righteous. And it's an attribute of God. It's more than that in the book of Romans, but it begins there. When it's used of a man, the word righteousness means uprightness in life. It means being a person of integrity. It means being virtuous. It means being correct in one's thinking, one's feeling, and one's acting.
How many of us are righteous tonight? I'm not. I just want to tempt you to see if you would lift your hand. And that's what the first three chapters of the book tell us, that there's none of us that conform ourselves to the righteousness of God. We are unrighteous. We are not conformed to the standard of God's righteousness. And so we ask the question, since man is unrighteous, how can he possibly meet the standards of God? How can he pass God's test? Or how can he be right with God?
That's the most important question in the world. How can a man be right with God? And that's exactly what the apostle Paul undertakes to answer in this book. Because man can contribute nothing toward his own righteousness, and he cannot attain it, his only hope is that somehow righteousness will be provided to him by someone else. And that's what God has done.
Now the theme of the book, and this refers back now to the outline you have in your hand, as I thought about the book, and I tried to condense this book into just one sentence, one theme. This thought eventually crystallized to me. I believe the theme of Romans is a sovereign God, a sovereign God demonstrates his righteousness. A sovereign God demonstrates his righteousness in the world through those who believe the gospel.
A sovereign God demonstrates his righteousness in the world through those who believe the gospel. You know, when the Jews thought of the righteousness of God, immediately to their minds came the truth that God shows his righteousness through his covenant relationship with Israel. And thus in the Old Testament the word righteous and mercy or kindness are used almost interchangeably.
When they thought of the righteousness of God, they thought of the covenant relationship they had with God as his people. And so I think as we come to this book, whose theme is the righteousness of God, there are some questions we can ask. For example, what is the relationship between God and the world? What is the relationship between the Jew and the Gentile? What is the relationship between the law and the gospel? What is the relationship between God and Israel now?
What is the relationship between God and the believer? And then finally, how does a Christian's relationship to God affect his multifaceted relationships in the world? And so the way that I want us to approach Romans is to think in terms of the righteousness of God being exposed in his relationships. And thus I have addressed the book with the outline that I've given you, which is a little different than I've used in the past.
I felt like I needed a fresh approach and maybe this will be fresh to some of you. In chapter 1, verses 1 through 17, we have an introduction to the book. And by the way, I think in this introduction we have the answer to the three basic questions we talked about earlier. A question, what is the author talking about? Well, we have that in verses 16 and 17. He's going to talk about the gospel in which the righteousness of God is revealed. Now what's he going to say about the gospel?
He's going to talk about it being the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. And why is he saying this? He is saying it because the Jews and the Gentiles and the church in Rome need to hear it because they are having a controversy of some sort. And one of the questions may have been, and if you know the book of Romans you'll see what I'm leading to, it may have been, look, the sovereign God established a relationship with Israel, but he set them aside.
How do we know that the sovereign God who's established a relationship with us isn't going to do the same thing? I think personally that that's the heart of this epistle. Instead of chapters 9 through 11 sort of being a parenthesis that Paul inserts, I think it's really the heart of the book of Romans. Well, we come then to Roman number one, the relationship of God to the world. Chapter one, verse 18 through chapter three, verse 20. The relationship of God to the world.
And if we summarize that, it's probably verse 18 of chapter one, the wrath of God is revealed. And we'll develop that in a couple of weeks. Roman numeral two, the relationship of God to believers. Chapter three, verse 21 through chapter eight, verse 39. What is the new relationship that we have to God because of our faith in Jesus Christ? He concludes chapter eight by saying, we're secure. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ.
And you see there he begins to address this question I posed a few moments ago. Well, what about what happened to Israel and what may happen to us? He says there's nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. And then he says, chapters nine, 10, 11, let me tell you what happened to Israel. And that brings us Roman numeral three, the relationship of God to Israel. Chapter nine, verse one through chapter 11, verse 36. Deep, deep chapters.
And then finally, number four, the relationship of believers to their environment, to the world in which they live, to one another, to unbelievers, and so on. Chapter 12, verse one through chapter 15, verse 13. And then he concludes the book with a rather lengthy section dealing with personal plans, greetings, and prayer. So that's the outline we're going to attempt to follow over these next five weeks as we lay out the book of Romans.
And what I would encourage you to do is to read at least the chapters we're going to deal with the next time in preparation for it. If you want to, you could read the whole book of Romans each time. That would even be better. But it would really help if you would at least read the next section that we will be dealing with. What do we expect to gain from studying the book of Romans? First of all, a clear understanding of how God sees the world of humanity.
And related to that, we're going to gain a grasp of the character of God. Do you know something? Our world does not know God. Our world does not understand the nature of God. And because of that, our world does not have a clue as to how God sees it. And the fact is, there are many Christians the same way. If we will understand what God is like, we don't really understand how God sees the world. We're going to gain that in our study.
We're going to gain some comprehension of the marvelous plan of salvation. And we're going to gain insights into what it means to live a godly life. So those are the goals that we've set before us. I appreciate your being here tonight as we've laid the groundwork for that. And now may God the Holy Spirit help us as we begin to build. Would you bow with me please as we pray? We need the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. I wonder where you're seated there.
If you would say to the Lord, teach me this book. Lord, give me a framework so that I can study and grasp the book of Romans. Ask the Holy Spirit to be your teacher. Father, we give thanks to you for the marvelous miracle of inspiration. That in a certain context of his life, the apostle Paul thoughtfully sat down and wrote out this book. Perhaps being unaware that the Holy Spirit was at that moment guiding and superintending his words so that it would become a part of your revealed will for us.
Thank you for these marvelous chapters we're going to be looking at. We humble ourselves before this book. None of us can master it ultimately. But oh, how we seek to be students of it, to learn it for our own sake and for the sake of others around us. So be our teacher, we pray. And bathe our hearts in the grace of God.
Cause us to see that you, the sovereign God of the universe, that you desire to demonstrate your righteousness in the world through those of us who have believed this gospel of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.