Romans - Chapter 1
1:1-6 Paul's appraisal of himself.
Paul introduces himself as a servant, an Apostle, called to be separated.
From one end of the Roman empire to the other, Paul traveled, preached, taught, found churches, instructed leaders, nurtured those who were faltering, rebuked those who were not in order, sustained, challenged, and comforted. Wherever he went, dedicated groups of disciples of the gospel were formed. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, wherever Paul went, hearts were changed. Perhaps second only to Jesus himself, our own lives are still being changed by Paul and his vision of the gospel.
What were the motivations that drove him to do what he did?
He had a humble attitude and never wavered in devotion to the Lord.
He had a sharp sense of destiny and where he fit within it.
He allowed no bad circumstances to deter his God given message.
He was unshakably loyal to the gospel he had been given by Jesus himself.
He formed his message to conform to the Lord's own message given on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:27), which was that all the OT scriptures pointed to the Messiah. He taught that the Son of God was established with power and according to the Spirit of holiness and most importantly by the resurrection from the dead. That Christ was alive was never in doubt to Paul. How could it be? He had seen him with his own eyes on the road to Damascus.
1:7-12 Paul had a warmhearted interest in people.
Paul displayed a great love for people, without which a pastor will surely fail. He recognized that not only had he been called, but that sinners had been called also, called to be saints. While God loved all His creation, which spoke of Him in it's beauty, He was especially loving and giving to those who accepted His Son. Paul was sure that the church at Rome was filled with such believers as he wrote that “... your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.” The fact that Paul had not founded this church in no way diminished his love for it and its members. In verse 9 he notes his constant prayers for them. He is seeking a way to come to them and seems determined when he uses the words “now at last”. Verse 12 shares the faith hopes that exist between himself and them.
1:13-17 Paul was enthusiastic about his work.
At the time of this writing Paul had been working in his ministry for many years and had endured many hardships to continue to take the gospel onward. He was likely about 60 years old at this writing but remained dedicated and strong in his devotion.
He placed no limits on his ministry. He felt obliged to minister to Greeks, barbarians, wise and unwise. He was prepared to find ways to bridge any gap between himself and those who needed the Word and he was very anxious to minister in Rome. He proclaimed the gospel as a powerful life changing agent for all who will believe, for the Jew first and then for the Greek (the Gentile world).
His message was that men and women who are “in the wrong” can come to be “in the right” by the Lord's Word and that in making that change, God's own righteousness was never jeopardized. How does this happen? By faith, and here Paul reverts back to the OT, quoting Habakkuk 2:4, “... the just shall live by faith.”. Paul went one step further and showing that men are to share faith, expresses lives are to be lived “... from faith to faith....”
1:18-32 Paul first brings the bad news.
The righteousness of God is the theme of both the gospel Paul preached and the epistle he wrote to the Romans.
God is always in the right and this fact is both a challenge and a comfort. The challenge is that righteousness cannot come to man from his own society but only in the never changing revelation of an eternal God. The comfort is knowing that truth can be found in the Lord and that it never wavers no matter what man may do. Paul also taught that the closer a man comes to the Lord, the more uncomfortable he becomes with his own unrighteousness, and the gospel is designed to overcome this fact because the Holy Spirit guides us once we are saved. Before we can understand the good news, we must hear the bad news, the charges God places against us when we try to stand ourselves without the justification of the saving blood of Jesus Christ.
The wrath of God is revealed by Paul, and explained as a part of His righteousness. It is a just response to the unjust and unholy, and a pure rejection of the impure. Paul says that man is not ignorant of this truth because it is hard to know but because man suppresses the truth. Man has done so by insisting that MAN is the center of all things and thereby makes GOD secondary in his life. Paul teaches here that man can know this truth simply by looking at God's creation. So man is without excuse. God's righteous anger is revealed because of man's behavior.
Paul not only insisted that God has revealed himself to mankind but man rejected this revealing and did not glorify God , nor were thankful to God for His blessings. Man's refusal to glorify God is as unacceptable as his suppression of God's truth. There is a spiritual disease within man, a great void, and nothing man can do himself can fill it. In verse 22 Paul clarifies this teaching in that man professed to be wise but became fools.
In verses 23-28 Paul shows man's depraved action by substituting idols to worship rather than God and have thereby become unclean and have dishonored their own bodies which were created by God. This section is severe and ugly as man's behaviors are listed. The root of this problem is that man has an arrogant focus on himself and his own desires, not focusing his life on God and his commands for life.
God's wrath was to give them over to themselves and allow them their own choices that will lead them to destruction rather than to salvation. Freedom and pleasure became the desires of these days in Rome and the people became slaves to pleasure, placing themselves in bondage, exchanging the truth of the Lord for the lie of idols and dark living. Nature itself is violated in this teaching by Paul with such phrases as “vile passions”, “burned in lust”, and “shameful”.
The shame of the situation should be overwhelming. A sense of repentance and grief should be evident. A reaching out to God should be clear and present. But the truth is that the opposite happens as Paul states in verse 32. Here Paul leads us to consider the more negative attitude of man.
Man seems to celebrate evil and seems to rejoice in sin rather than to disapprove it. All this perversion Paul notes as evidence that the wrath of God is among them. The righteousness of God is also evident in the gospel and to those who will hear and believe in faith, Paul will have much to say in the coming chapters.
