Romans
6
Martin Luther called the book of Romans, “The perfect Gospel”. Coleridge said Romans was ‘the most profound work in existence.’ The Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom (Golden voiced) had Romans read to him once every week. John Calvin declared, “Romans opens the door to all the treasures in the scriptures.”
The Book of Romans was the time bomb of the Reformation. What a liberating truth! “Justification by faith in Christ alone”. No add ons, no small print, no provisos, ‘sola fide’.
The Message puts it this way: “Out of sheer generosity God put us in right standing with Himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where He always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.”
Fact number 1 - you can’t achieve your own righteousness. If your righteousness is the result of what you’ve been able to achieve, whatever else you say about it, it is self-righteousness. And it is the enemy of the righteousness of God.
Fact number 2 – The believing sinner is not merely acquitted but justified, given a standing as if he had never sinned.
Abram had a fistful of promises from God who cannot lie. They were given in Genesis 17:4-8 before he was circumcised: “You will be the father of many nations … Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful … I will establish … an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants. The whole land of Canaan … I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.
Moffat’s translation of Romans 4:13 is succinct. “The promise made to Abraham and his offspring that he should inherit the world, did not reach him through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Abraham is the spiritual father of us all.
Isn’t it strange how easily we can miss the point? The Law was not given to save men, but to show men they need to be saved. Where there is no law, there’s still sin, but it doesn’t have the character of transgression because there is no clearly defined line that has been crossed. Because of our sinful nature, the only way we can avoid breaking laws is not to have any to break. That’s why God’s blessings are given to us by faith, as a free gift, so it’s not up to us; it’s down to Him.
Abraham believed in a God who could raise the dead and create something out of nothing. Here’s a precious truth. God must wait until the sinner is dead and unable to help himself, before He can release His saving power. Abraham hoped when it was hopeless. He chose to believe God instead of the circumstances. His complete confidence lay in God who had promised.
The Message Paraphrase from Romans 4:19 runs like this: “Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, ‘It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.’ Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously sceptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what He had said. That’s why it is said, ‘Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.’”
The same is true for us. As we put our trust in the God who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, we also are counted righteous. Jesus Christ was put to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification.
One of the Puritans summarised salvation in this way:
“God the Father thought it, God the Son bought it, God the Spirit wrought it, the devil fought it, but, glory to God, I got it!”
Christianity is a resurrection faith. Every person of the Trinity claims responsibility for raising Jesus from the dead. “God the Father … raised Him (Christ) from the dead.” (Galatians 1:1) Speaking of His own resurrection, Jesus told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19) In Romans 8:11 we are told “the Spirit … raised Jesus from the dead.”
Romans is the most systematic of Paul’s letters. It reads like an elaborate theological essay. One of the best commentaries I have read on Romans was written by Dr. Ian Paisley when he was imprisoned in the Crumlin Road jail in Belfast. Since Romans is a book of logic, it is a book of “therefores”. When you see the word “therefore”, it is logical to ask what it’s there for. Paul has explained that God’s way of salvation has always been ‘by grace through faith’.
Romans 5:1 reads “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been put right with God through faith. Peace with God! Peace of mind! Eternal calm in the very depths of one’s being. He that was a child of hell is now a child of heaven. A new relationship has been established. How wonderful! Once we stood in condemnation, now we stand in justification. Once we stood overshadowed by God’s wrath, now we stand overwhelmed by God’s love. Once we stood as rebels in God’s sight, now we stand reconciled by God’s Son.
By faith the soul cries out ‘I will depend on no other’; ‘I will cling to no other’. Faith, with eyes wide open, looks to Christ alone. Faith is lovesickness for the Saviour and its cry is, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Faith declares: “Thou, O Christ, art all I want, More than all in Thee I find.”
Paul writes (Romans 5:2) “Through Him (Christ) we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
What colossal benefits flow from being fully justified put right with God. We enjoy ‘peace with God’, our past has been taken care of and haunts us no more. We have access to God real time – now – today. The separating curtain between unapproachable holiness and sinful man has been ripped wide open from to bottom. The dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles has been demolished and “through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit”. (Ephesians 2:18) We have access. Christ is the entrance, ‘the door’, ‘the way’. We stand ‘in Christ’. He is the grace in which we now stand. We also have a glorious hope for the future.
The word ‘rejoice’ in Romans 5:2-3 can be translated “boast”. Have we got something to boast about! We can boast about the ‘glory of God.