A Gospel for all Nations. Romans 1.

So, now, on to Romans. What do we make of this book, the first of the epistles in the New Testament? The NIV Study Bible describes it as “The most systematic of Paul’s letters.” Others, however, find the “system” elusive.

Right now, I’m thinking of the tsunami of wrath unleashed in verses 1:18 and which continues, with just a few interludes, up until 3:20. What manner of God are we encountering in this journey? But I also know we will reach the glories of God’s awesome love crystallized in 8:31-39, so I do not lose heart.

Romans can be confusing. I remember several years ago being constantly mystified why Paul constantly seemed to go on tangents and non sequiturs. So we see in Rom 6:15, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Well, okay, here we have it: the great “Calvinist – Arminian” debate (can a person lose his salvation) is about to be solved! Ok, Paul, what happens to the person who is “saved by faith” and yet continues in sin? Does he lose his salvation, or not?

And yet Paul gives us no help. He’s already off on a different path.

Only later did it dawn on me that perhaps Paul wasn’t thinking about the “Calvinist – Arminian” question, since obviously those two gentlemen lived 1500 years after Paul.

To find out what Paul was thinking about in Romans, we can look at 1:1-5. We see here “Jesus Christ”, “gospel”, “by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures”, “obedience of faith among all the Gentiles”. And then we can go to the very end of the book (16:25-27) and we see “Jesus Christ”, “gospel”, “prophetic scriptures”, “to all nations . . . obedience of faith”. Very interesting -- we see here a bracket around the body of the book. As we learned in school long ago: “First tell them what you are going to say, then say it [16 chapters worth], and finally tell them what you just said.” If we keep these themes in mind then perhaps we may follow the flow of Paul’s thought more easily as we read through the book.

My own capsulized version of Paul’s thought goes like this: “The OT prophets taught the good news [gospel] that the Messiah [Christ] would come, and all nations would receive God’s promises through faith in Him.” Paul’s opponents, to whom he is responding in Romans, had a different opinion: “God’s promises in the OT were obviously given to the Jews, and therefore anyone who expected to be part of God’s kingdom had better become a Jew and get circumcised.”

And, by the way, notice that Paul says “obedience of faith”. He does not say “faith instead of obedience”. As we encounter the “faith - works” passages later on in Romans, to supplement our previous study of Galatians and James, it might be useful to keep these “bracket comments” in mind.

Another thing that had me confused at first was Paul’s comment in 1:2 about the “gospel promised beforehand in the Holy Scriptures”. This meant the Old Testament, and we see that Paul frequently quotes the OT (always positively). That seemed strange, because as I understood it, the OT taught “salvation by law” or “salvation by works”, whereas the NT taught “salvation by grace through faith”. So why did Paul call his message the “gospel promised in the [OT]”, if he was supposedly contradicting the OT message of “salvation by works”? To make sense of all this, it will be helpful to pay careful attention to how Paul uses these OT passages, as the letter progresses.

And from here I’ll move to another side of Paul, because he was not only a rigorous theologian, but also had a pastor’s heart. We can see this starting at 1:6, and especially in 1:11-12 where he yearns for fellowship with them; and we can observe from chap 16 how well he knew several of the people from that church.

And finally, we can’t forget that Paul had the legs of a missionary. His gospel “to all nations” was carried out in his body as well as his words. As we see from Acts, he did finally make it to Rome, as to most everywhere else in the region. Most commentators think he was in Corinth as he was writing the letter. As he says in 1:13-15 “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often intended to come to you (and was prevented until now), so that I may have some fruit even among you, just as I already have among the rest of the Gentiles. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. Thus I am eager also to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.”

As I read through Romans I am taken by Paul’s intense missionary zeal. In fact, I don’t know how one can fully grasp his message without that understanding. His rigorous theology said, “The gospel must go to all nations, not just Jews; can’t you see even in the OT how this is prophesied!” And his personal comments (1:13-15 as noted above, and see also 15:19-24) show that his practical theology is just the same. His mind, soul, and body were all on the same page.

hook's note: Robb Starr is a long-time member at BCC, and has studied Romans extensively.