Paul’s primary purpose in writing Romans was to teach the great truths of the gospel of grace to believers who had never received apostolic instruction. Unlike with some of Paul’s other epistles, his purpose for writing Romans was not to correct detestable theology or rebuke ungodly living. The Roman church was doctrinally sound, but, like all churches, it was in need of the rich doctrinal and practical instruction this letter provides.
The overarching theme of Romans is the righteousness that comes from God: the glorious truth that God justifies guilty, condemned sinners by grace alone through faith in Christ alone.
In this Session we continue discussing the bad news that Paul delivers to the Romans that necessitated the God provided solution of Christ's sacrifice for mankind's sin.
Paul expounds on the wretchedness of the human heart, and the divine wrath that is God's response to it. Paul was determined that they understand the reality of being under God’s wrath before he offered them the way of escape from it. For Paul, fear of eternal condemnation was the first motivation he offered for coming to Christ, This bad news is the necessary first part of the good news called the Gospel.
Click below to read my notes. For an audio recording of the entire Session click on the YouTube link at the end of the notes.
Today we are going to continue talking about the bad news that Paul was delivering to the Romans that the reason that God had to send His Son Jesus to rescue mankind is because of the wretchedness of the human heart.
Paul was determined that we understand the reality of being under God’s wrath before he offered them the way of escape from it. A person cannot appreciate the wonder of God’s grace until he or she knows about the perfect demands of God’s law, and that person cannot appreciate the fullness of God’s love until he or she knows something about the fierceness of God’s anger against his or her sinful failure to perfectly obey that law. The person cannot appreciate God’s forgiveness until he or she knows about the eternal consequences of the sins that require a penalty and need forgiving.
Paul saw the world divided into two classes of people. He saw the Jews with their Law direct from God and written down so that all could read it. He saw the other nations, without this written law, but nonetheless with a God-implanted knowledge of right and wrong within their hearts. Neither could claim exemption from the judgment of God. The Jew could not claim exemption on the ground that he had a special place in God's plan. The Gentile could not claim exemption on the ground that he had never received the written Law. The Jew would be judged as one who had known the Law; the Gentile as one who had a God-given conscience. God will judge a man according to what he knows and has the chance to know.
Everyone—Gentiles and Jews, indeed all of humankind—stands guilty before a holy God. Human nature is corrupt. Human thoughts and actions are vile. Human motives are impure. We are without excuse. By the time Paul is finished with his divine indictment, every mouth has been shut. We realize that we are incapable of saving ourselves.
For Paul, fear of eternal condemnation was the first motivation he offered for coming to Christ, This bad news is the necessary first part of the good news called the Gospel.
Romans 2:17-20 NKJV Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.
Verses 17-20 When Gentiles became Christians, often they hardly knew anything about God. So they wanted people to teach them about the Bible. And there were many Jewish Christians who were pleased to teach them. Because these teachers were Jewish, they knew much about God’s law. For centuries, their families had followed the law. So these teachers felt well able to teach the Gentile Christians.
But there was a problem :
Romans 2:21-24 NKJV You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” as it is written.
Verses 21-23 There was a problem with many of these Jewish teachers in the churches. Paul often had to warn the churches about teachers who were not sincere.
I Timothy 1:3-7 NKJV As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
Paul urged Timothy to provide sound teaching to combat the false teachings of some in the church. In Timothy's case Paul was probably talking about Gnostic teachings. The Gnostics saw all things in terms of two contrasting principles. On the one side was good, which was associated with the spiritual and the immaterial. On the other side was evil, which was associated with the material universe. God Himself was perfectly good, spiritual, and totally disassociated from the material. He would not pollute Himself by any such contact! The material universe was an accident or, at worst, the error of the last of a long series of supernatural beings—intermediaries—ranked between God and matter. To God, the pure Spirit, the world was alien and despicable.God become man? God take on human flesh? Never! Christ must be a lower intermediary or an "appearance"—a shadow of God cast on a screen. But God in human flesh? Unthinkable!
This is probably not what Paul is talking about here because he is talking about Jewish teaching but the point is that Paul always wanted the church to be aware of false or insincere teaching.
II Corinthians 11:12-14 NKJV But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
And in his farewell to the elders of the church in Ephesus:
Acts 20:28-31 NKJV Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.
Some people were only teaching because they wanted to earn money. Peter addressed that in one of his letters to the church:
II Peter 2:1-3 NKJV But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness g reed) they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
They seemed to have great knowledge of the Bible. But they themselves did not know God properly.
I Timothy 1:3-7 NKJV As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
They thought that they could teach the Gentile Christians about God.
These teachers may not have actually been guilty of the specifec deeds that Paul mentions but Paul is emphasising their wrong attitudes, not necessarily their acts. For example, they were teaching that it is wrong to steal. But they themselves only cared about money.
I Timothy 6:6-10 NKJV Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
And they did not even care whether they obtained that money in an honest way.
Titus 1:10-11 NKJV For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.
When Paul talks about robbing temples in
Romans 2:22 NKJV ...do you rob temples?
He's saying that These Jewish teachers said that they hated idols. But they had the same attitudes as people who robbed
temples.
Robbing temples was a well known crime then. People used to give expensive gifts to the temples of false gods. And these gifts included images of the temple’s own god. Sometimes a person might steal an image for himself or herself. They wanted to keep that image, so they could worship that god at home.
Paul was saying that in public, these teachers were telling people how to serve God. But in private, these same teachers did not even care about God.
It's sort of like what he wrote in his letter to Titus.
Titus 1:16 NKJV They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
Paul says that because of this hypocrisy "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
When he said as it is written at the end of verse 24 he may have been referring to:
Isaiah 52:5 NKJV Now therefore, what have I here,” says the Lord , “That My people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them Make them wail,” says the Lord , “And My name is blasphemed continually every day.
Ezekiel 36:22 NKJV “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God : “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.
Because of their disobedience God had allowed Israel's enemies to defeat them. So the nations wondered whether God had any power to protect his people. God says that the nations insulted him.
Paul could see that the same things were happening again in the churches. There were these Jewish leaders and teachers who were not sincere. The results would be terrible. And people everywhere would insult God when they saw their.
Romans 2:25-29 NKJV For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
To a Jew a passage like this must have come as a shattering experience. He was certain that God regarded him with special favour, simply and solely because of his national descent from Abraham and because he bore the badge of circumcision in his flesh. But Paul introduces an idea to which he will return again and again. Jewishness, he insists, is not a matter of race at all; it has nothing to do with circumcision. It is a matter of conduct.
Galatians 3:26-29 NKJV For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
If that is so, many a so-called Jew who is a pure descendant of Abraham and who bears the mark of circumcision in his body, is no Jew at all; and equally many a Gentile who never heard of Abraham and who would never dream of being circumcised, is a Jew in the real sense of the term. To a Jew this would sound the wildest heresy and leave him angry and aghast.
Verse 25 Circumcision was the sign that God gave to Abraham. It showed the covenant between God and his nation. Because of the covenant relationship, the Jews needed to obey God’s law. Paul reminded the church in Galatia about this. ‘Everyone who receives circumcision must obey the whole law’
Galatians 5:1-3 NKJV Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
The Jewish teachers said that Gentile Christians needed to receive circumcision. The teachers said that this was God’s law. But really, they were not sincere. Their real aim was to control people by means of the laws and traditions of religion.
Galatians 4:17 NKJV They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them.
Galatians 5:1-2 NKJV Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.
But this is the opposite of the real Christian message. The Bible says that we must trust Christ alone. Our own efforts cannot save us from the punishment for our sins.
Romans 2:26-27 NKJV Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?
Verses 26-27 Nobody ever had a good relationship with God because of circumcision. The act of circumcision does not free a person from sin. People who are not circumcised can serve God loyally. And many people who are circumcised refuse to obey God. The important question is whether a person obeys God.
Romans 2:28-29 NKJV For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
Verses 28-29 The prophets taught that real circumcision was not something physical. It meant a pure (sincere) heart. Moses told the Israelites to ‘circumcise their hearts’.
Deuteronomy 10:16 NKJV Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.
Jeremiah used the same words.
Jeremiah 4:4 NKJV Circumcise yourselves to the Lord , And take away the foreskins of your hearts, You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest My fury come forth like fire, And burn so that no one can quench it, Because of the evil of your doings.”
The Holy Spirit changes people’s lives. He gives them power to live in the right manner. The law cannot do this.
A ‘real Jew’ is anyone who obeys God. That person does not need to belong to the natural families of the Jewish people. And that person’s body does not need to be circumcised. But that person’s heart must be circumcised. And so that person receives the benefit of the promises that God gave to Abraham.
Galatians 3:26-29 NKJV For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The bottom line is that God's promises are not to people of a certain race and to people who bear a certain mark on their bodies. They are to people who live a certain kind of life irrespective of their race. To be a real Jew is not a matter of pedigree but of character; and often the man who is not racially a Jew may be a better Jew than the man who is.
Paul Defends God's Judgment
Romans 3:1-8 NKJV What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.” But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.
When we look at this passage we see that there are in it certain basic thoughts of Paul in regard to the Jews.
(i) He did believed the Jews to be in a special position in regard to God. Which is what they believed themselves. The difference was that Paul believed that their special position was one of special responsibility; the Jew believed it to be one of special privilege.
What did Paul say that the Jew had been specially entrusted with? The oracles of God.
What does he mean by that?
The word he uses is logia, the regular word in the Greek Old Testament for a special statement or pronouncement of God.
Here it means The Ten Commandments. God entrusted the Jews with commandments, not privileges.
Exodus 19:3-6 NKJV And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
Leviticus 19:1-2 NKJV And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Leviticus 22:31-33 NKJV “Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the Lord . You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord .”
He said to them, "You are a special people; therefore you must live a special life." He did not say, "You are a special people; therefore you can do what you like." He did say, "You are a special people; therefore you must do what I like."
Romans 3:1 NIV What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?
Verse 1 Paul imagines that a Jew is protesting about Paul’s thoughts. If Paul’s thoughts were correct, then circumcision seemed unnecessary.
Romans 3:2 NIV Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.
Verse 2 Paul was actually proud that he was a Jew. So he answered his own question by saying that there were many advantages. He spoke first about the honour that God had given to the Jews. He had trusted the Jews with all his messages.
Deuteronomy 4:8 NKJV And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?
God wanted to use the Jews in order to benefit the whole world. Remember what he told Abraham when He told him to leave his country and his people?
Genesis 12:1-3 NKJV Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God wanted the Jews to show the rest of the world what God is like. Later in his letter Paul mentioned some other advantages of being a Jew.
Romans 9:3-5 NKJV For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
We’ll talk about that when we get to chapter 9.
Even with those advantages some Jews didn’t obey the covenant.
Romans 3:3-4 NKJV For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.”
They did not remain loyal to God. But God always does everything that he promises to do. Paul emphasized that God’s promises are certain. God’s words are always true, even if every person tells lies. Paul refers to two passages from the Book of Psalms in this verse 4.
Psalm 116:11 says, ‘All men tell lies.’
Psalms 116:11 NKJV I said in my haste, “All men are liars.”
And in Psalm 51:4, David became aware of his sin. So he prayed to God, ‘You are right when you speak. You are right when you judge.’
Psalms 51:4 NKJV Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.