Good morning. Pardon me—good morning.
If you please, turn with me to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1. Now, even though this can take from my time, I would like to read the entire chapter. Reading the Word out loud is a worthy thing to do, and I encourage you to do it.
There’s something special when you read the Word out loud. Linda and I, in my retirement, started this year reading more together, and we’re reading out loud. Now, she finds every mistake I make—and I make many—but nevertheless, just reading the Word out loud is a precious thing.
So, if you don’t understand what I’m saying about chapter 1 of Romans, at least we will have read it out loud. You understand? Okay.
Beginning in verse 1, Paul, writing to the church at Rome:
Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated to God’s glad tidings,
which He had before promised by His prophets in holy writings,
concerning His Son, come of David’s seed according to flesh,
marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord;
by Whom we have received grace and apostleship in behalf of His name, for obedience of faith among all the nations,
among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ;
to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints: grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.
For God is my witness, Whom I serve in my spirit in the glad tidings of His Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you,
always beseeching at my prayers, if in any way now at least I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you.
For I greatly desire to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to establish you;
that is, to have mutual comfort among you, each by the faith which is in the other, both yours and mine.
But I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that I have often proposed to come to you, and have been hindered until the present time,
that I might have some fruit among you too, even as among the other nations.
I am a debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and unintelligent.
So, as far as depends on me, am I ready to announce the glad tidings to you who are in Rome.
For I am not ashamed of the glad tidings, for it is God’s power to salvation, to everyone that believes, both to Jew first and to Greek;
for righteousness of God is revealed therein, on the principle of faith to faith, according as it is written, “But the just shall live by faith.”
For there is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness,
because what is known of God is manifest among them; for God has manifested it to them.
For from the world’s creation, the invisible things of Him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made,
both His eternal power and divinity, so as to render them inexcusable.
Because, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but fell into folly in their thoughts,
and their heart without understanding was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and quadrupeds, and reptiles.
Wherefore God gave them up also, in the lusts of their hearts, to uncleanness, to dishonor their bodies between themselves,
who changed the truth of God into falsehood, and honored and served the creature more than Him Who had created it, Who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason, God gave them up to vile lusts; for both their females changed the natural use into that contrary to nature;
and in like manner the males also, leaving the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their lust towards one another,
males with males working shame and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was fit.
And according as they did not think good to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind,
to practice unseemly things;
being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice;
full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil dispositions;
whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
void of understanding, without natural affection, unmerciful;
who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death,
not only practice them, but have fellow delight in those who do them.
Now, Lord, we just come to You in the name of Jesus and commit Your Word to You, because we are unable to communicate what is written in Your Word in our natural understanding. We know You alone have the words of eternal life.
We come to You that You today would open Your Word to us by the Holy Spirit, that we could hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And we could not only hear it; it would enter into our heart, and it would change us. It would transform us. It would conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus.
Lord, if You do these things, then something of value comes out of our time. May You be exalted. May You be lifted up. May You breathe upon this time, that Your Word will run and be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, we’re obviously looking at Romans 1. You know, a few months ago—I’ll give you a little background—Mari came to us brothers and said, “I have a burden that we consider Romans.” I think that was a very good idea.
You have to understand Romans if you’re going to be a Christian, and you have to live in the reality of Romans if you’re going to know what the true Christian life is. And that’s my emphasis: the true Christian life.
Now, his burden was that the whole book is about Christ. And I couldn’t amen that more. It is about Christ. It includes us—thank God it includes us—but it’s altogether about Christ. That was Paul’s passion, and that was Paul’s burden.
So, if you don’t understand that God-, that Son-centric perspective of the book of Romans, you’ll never understand Romans. It’ll always be just about you—what you get.
Our brother Jerry, this morning as he came to the table, exhorted us to come just because of Who He is, and not to forget to worship Him for all that we have in Him and all that He’s done.
Mari’s burden was received by the brothers, and we thought we should take that up. He already gave an introduction. I may say a few more things, as I’m wont to do, but he gave us an introduction, and I think it was helpful to us to begin to consider this Word.
Now, going forward, we’re not so sure where we’ll go. We think there’ll be other brothers sharing on this book, but we need to concentrate upon this book.
One of the reasons I’m up here, by the way, as a parallel track to Mari bringing this burden, was our sharing with the saints in Pakistan. They asked me back last year—I don’t remember, Jack; it might have been November, it might have been October, but it was before I retired—“Would you teach us the book of Romans?”
I hesitated, and I put them off. I even ignored them a little bit because I didn’t know if I should do that. And so they said, “Would you teach us the book of Romans?” I couldn’t get away with it.
When we were young brothers here—and all of you young brothers ought to take this advice, by the way, and young sisters and old sisters and old brothers—Brother Kong said to us, “Pick a book of the Bible, and pick a book and read that book.” He told me, and he told us, “You can’t ask me any questions until you’ve read that book fifty times.”
So, like a fool that I am, I picked Romans. I should have picked 3 John. It would be much easier. But I’ve never bragged about being smart.
When they told me, “Would you share with us about Romans?” I couldn’t forget it. I couldn’t forget it. And so that parallel track is why we’re here today, sharing about the book of Romans.
Now, today we’ll do Romans 1. We’ll cover as much of it as we can, and then we’ll go on from there.
A few things before we start: you need to understand that the New Testament is the full revelation of God. I don’t want to go into all that the Old Testament is, but it’s twenty-seven books. You need to understand that the Apostle Paul wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books.
Now, if my math is correct—and that’s one thing I still can do—it’s almost half of the New Testament the Apostle Paul wrote. Pretty amazing, don’t you think?
Twenty-one of those twenty-seven books are letters. They’re called epistles. Well, that’s a lovely antiquated word for letters. I think they are love letters from God Himself to the people of God.
Just think of the way God communicated to us. He sent us these letters so we would know all that is in His blessed Son for the people of God.
I remember coming upon a quote by Brother Graham Scroggie. I know some may say “Scroggie,” some may say “Scroggie.” He’ll correct me in heaven, I’m sure. But this is what he said:
The deepest and highest arguments of our religion are conveyed to us in the most familiar form of writing known to us, for letters are the most personal form of literature.
And so, in these letters, God has revealed to us His heart. It happens to be that the first letter after the book of Acts is the book of Romans.
Now, that puzzled me for a long time because the book of Romans was not the first book written by the Apostle Paul. As a matter of fact, it was the sixth book of his thirteen books—or letters, or epistles—that was written by the Apostle Paul: the sixth in order.
Yet, when we open our Bible to the epistles after the book of Acts and after the Gospels, we discover it is first in order in our Bible. Now, I think that’s brilliant. That’s divinely brilliant.
Because the book of Romans is a masterpiece, a spiritual masterpiece. Nothing in the Bible can hardly compare—I’ll use the word “hardly” there—to what is in the Epistle to the Romans. It’s marvelous.
Nothing in human writing, of course—it’s not human writing; it’s divine inspiration—nothing man has ever conceived or made or written can hardly compare to the book of Romans.
I believe that’s the reason those who put together this glorious book for us placed it first among the epistles: because it lays out what the whole of the Christian life is all about.
You can’t know the Christian life without knowing the book of Romans. You can’t enter into the reality of the Christian life without knowing the book of Romans. This is the reason we need to study it.
Romans can be roughly divided into chapters 1 through 8, which is the whole gospel—the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The second division of Romans, chapters 9 through 11, speaks of the mystery of election. Then, from chapters 12 through 15, you see the expression of the life of Christ in a people—what it is to look like. It tells us exactly what it is to look like.
Then, of course, chapter 16 is that long closing of the Apostle Paul, where he brings up all those names. How wonderful it is that we have all those names. It is a reality: real people, real people, manifesting the life of the Lord Jesus; the church manifesting the life of the Lord Jesus.
That is the book of Romans. That’s the whole explanation. So, we’ll begin now with chapter 1. You thought I would never get there, didn’t you?
The first part of chapter 1 is Paul’s greeting, verses 1 through 7. Now, I don’t want you to think this is just some warm feeling that you can pass over.
When we read our Bibles, we like to pass over all those difficult names, and we like to pass over these greetings and conclusions. We like to say, “Let’s get to the meat, the meat of the subject.” This is the meat of the subject.
Paul was not just saying some warm words, not just greeting in a nice way and saying, “Hello, good to write to you.” That wasn’t what he was doing at all. This is the inspired Word of God. All seven verses are inspired, and they have a message to us as believers.
The first thing he says is, “Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ.” He admitted to that Roman church, and to the world, and to all of us, that he was a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If it were me, I would have said, “Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ.” But he said, “Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ.”
Brothers and sisters, this wasn’t lost on us with Pakistan because we’re dealing with real slavery over there. This assembly, and some of the brothers and sisters in this assembly, have freed eighteen people—if I have it right, ten plus eight—eighteen slaves from being slaves in the brick factories.
There is real slavery. They’ve got kids barefoot making bricks, molding bricks under the overlords—the Muslim overlords—most of them Christians.
We were able to make a difference, this assembly and some of us, to those ones who were indebted to generational slavery, whose children at the youngest age had nothing to do but make bricks. They’re free.
They sent us a wonderful banner. Look up on that bulletin board in the hall: “We are free.” How wonderful.
So, when we talked about Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ, it wasn’t lost on them. They understood slavery. Paul wanted us first to know that we are slaves of Jesus Christ.
Now, this is not how the world thinks of slavery. Men and governments and dictators put people into slavery and hold them there. This isn’t the same. This is a love slave.
It hearkens back to Deuteronomy 15:16-17, I think it is, where it talks about a Hebrew slave—one of his brothers. Think about that: brothers putting brothers into slavery.
This slave could only be kept in slavery for six years. At the end of those six years, they had to set that Hebrew slave free. And something happened in those two verses I mentioned. This slave says to his master, “I don’t want to be free. I don’t want to go away free. I want to be your love slave.”
He loves the master. It says he loves the household of the master, and he refuses his liberty. Can you imagine? Who of us would do that?
That’s what we’re called to. Did you know that? No person in this world is a free man. No one is a free woman. Every one of us is in bondage to slavery, and the only way to break that cycle of bondage and set us free is for the Lord to set us free with His glorious gospel.
That’s the whole message of Romans. And then you see what that one set free does. He is constrained, it says in Corinthians, by the love of God, to give himself—or herself—to this benevolent Master and say, “Don’t set me free.”
“Take me to the door. Put an awl through my ear.” You know what an awl is? Those of us that tinker with construction know what an awl is. It’s a very sharp device with a pointed end that, if it falls on your toe, you may be in the emergency room.
But take an awl and put it through my ear, and put it to the door, so that everyone knows forever: “I am a bondman of Jesus Christ, a love slave.”
This is the start. Do you think these are just warm words, insignificant words, words that don’t have any meaning? It’s the whole of the gospel.
He goes on to say he is called as an apostle. Now, you may think this is all about Paul. It’s not all about Paul. He was called as an apostle.
We often think about calling as to our service. You may have a special calling in service and work to the Lord. The apostles did. They were called ones, sent ones.
But he goes on to say, “Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ.” Look at verse 6. And look at verse 7: “To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints.”
That’s who we are. That’s who we are: saints by calling. Brothers and sisters, that’s what the gospel does. It calls us to the Lord.
You may think, “How could you call us saints?” But Paul said of those Roman believers, “You are called saints.” At the beginning of your calling, you were already a saint.
He went further. He said, “Beloved of God.” Isn’t that amazing? This is what the gospel is about. He calls us to Himself, and He makes us His beloved.
Now, if you know anything about the Scripture, that term beloved is particularly reserved for the only Son: “This is My beloved Son.”
You remember when God the Father spoke out at the Lord’s baptism. When the Lord came up out of the water of Jordan after being baptized by John, and the dove—the Holy Spirit—fell upon the Lord, God spoke: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”
It didn’t just happen once. It happened in Matthew 17 at the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter thought it was a good idea to build three tabernacles: one to Elijah, one to Moses, and, of course, the biggest one for the Lord Jesus.
But God couldn’t stand it. Again, that divine voice went out, and He said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”
Do you understand what He’s doing here? Beloved, called saints—you are being lifted up by the grace of God, by the mercy of God, that you are called beloved of God.
He didn’t just save us and put us in a back room, far in the back seat of the bus, and say, “Stay there. You know your place.” He said, “Beloved of God, called saints.” Isn’t that amazing?
This was Paul’s greeting. That’s what we are as the church. In the very Greek name of the church, ekklesia, the assembly or church means called-out ones gathered together. That’s who we are. That’s what we are.
Besides that, we’re God’s beloved. How merciful our God is.
In verse 3, he gets into what his calling was to. His calling was not to a doctrine. His calling was not to a system. His calling was not to a belief. His calling was not to a faith. But he was called unto His beloved Son.
What this gospel is about in verse 3 is “concerning His Son.” Now, I know you think it’s concerning us. You are included, but it actually is concerning His Son.
Paul, when he wrote these first four verses, it seems to me included two elaborate parenthetical expressions. Darby was kind enough to take these elaborate, parenthetical, and glorious expressions and put them in parentheses. It helps.
When you leave those two out, you get to the heart of what the gospel is:
Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated to God’s glad tidings, concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
That’s it. That’s the heart of Romans. The rest is important. He is the promised One. He came of David’s seed according to the flesh, marked out Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. That’s proof.
But the substance is concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is what Romans is about.
This good news is not about a religion. This good news is not about a system of belief. This good news is about a Person: the Lord Jesus.
This good news is that this Person takes us as His own, His called ones, and the Holy Spirit begins to work on us and transform us into the very image of the Lord Jesus. How precious—the whole story of Romans.
When you get to chapter 8, you see that’s the purpose. What is the purpose? We’re called according to purpose: to be conformed to the image of His Son.
It’s not to improve you. The virus is sin. It’s not to make you better or dress you up. We can dress up the flesh. We can think we’re something. We can go into these self-improvement kinds of modes, but God has no such idea when it comes to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s not an improvement plan for your life. As a matter of fact, I hate to tell you this: it’s a funeral for you. And we’ll get into that much later.
How marvelous. Because He loves His Son and saved us and put us in His beloved Son, we are beloved of God. This is the glad tidings.
Now, the next section is Paul’s desire. It is from verses 8 through 15. I think a lot of people who read and study the Bible say Paul just wanted to go to them to preach. You know, preachers preach: “Let me come and give you a word. I’ve got a word for you.”
But it wasn’t his desire. When you read all of verses 8 through 15, you begin to understand. His desire is the perfecting of the testimony of Jesus, in this case in Rome.
You begin to understand that his desire is a desire for fellowship. You begin to understand that it is a desire for the mutual sharing of Christ. This is what fellowship is. This is what it literally means.
Paul had only heard reports of them in Rome. He had never met with them. But Paul wanted to see this testimony of Jesus strengthened in Rome. That was all that was on his heart. Even though he hadn’t seen them, he longed to be with them.
He says in verse 8:
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.
Can you imagine? This little place that only God started—who knows how it started in Rome? Gentiles and Jews, bondmen and freemen, all together—that the Lord started was such a testimony that their faith went out as a report to the whole world.
That’s nothing more than the testimony of Jesus. This is not just Paul’s desire; this is God’s desire for His people.
God is saying through the Apostle Paul, “I want a living testimony of Myself, an expression of Christ in Rome. And I want the whole world to see it and know it is Me.” That is the book of Romans.
This is God’s desire for the church: that we would be a living testimony to the world. They were a living epistle.
This is an epistle from God, a letter from God to us personally. It says in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 of the people of God in Corinth:
Ye are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
being manifest to be Christ’s epistle, ministered by us, written not with ink,
but the Spirit of the living God; not on stone tablets, but on fleshy tables of the heart.
This is what we’re to be. This was Paul’s desire. This is God’s desire for us: that the life of Christ would come into us in such a manner that we would be so transformed that we would be open epistles to the world.
They would see us and say, “What is it you have? What is it that’s in you? What is it that you believe?” That’s a living testimony.
Paul prayed with great earnestness, it says in verses 9 and 10:
How unceasingly I make mention of you, always beseeching at my prayers.
Brothers and sisters, it seems to me maybe the most important prayer we can pray on Wednesday night is that God’s people would become a living and transformed testimony, so that the fullness of the Lord Jesus is manifest to a dying world.
That’s the only answer. That’s the only hope. There’s no other hope. We can pray about other things; I’m not saying we shouldn’t. But number one, I think this was Paul’s prayer, and I think more than that, this was God’s desire.
This is how we should be praying for one another all over the world: His testimony.
He had a desire for fellowship. In verses 10 and 11, he said:
If in any way now at least I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you,
for I greatly desire to see you.
That was his desire. You think it was for him to come and just teach them and have another notch on his belt, that he taught an assembly in Rome that he had never been with before and only heard about? No, it’s nothing like that.
God’s desire and Paul’s desire was for fellowship. It is the mutual sharing of Christ. We’re not here to form anything. We’re here so that we may together know the importance of the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:9:
God is faithful, by Whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
That is Paul’s desire. That is God’s desire: that the gospel would bring about a mutual building up, a sharing of Christ.
Now, do we have that desire for fellowship, brothers and sisters? Do we have that desire?
I remember that wonderful story. I’ve said it before. Forgive me if you’re bored of it, but I’m going to say it anyway.
When Brother Nee went to England in the 1930s, he visited George Cutting. George Cutting was an old Brethren brother, a dear man of God. He was dying. He was on his deathbed.
George Cutting wrote Safety, Security, and Enjoyment, a very famous gospel tract. You can still read it. It relates the gospel as a train. Which train are you in? Where are you in the train?
George Cutting, this dear man, in and out of consciousness, woke up and said, “I cannot live without the Lord, and He cannot live without me.”
Do you know that’s the book of Romans? Why was Romans written? Because God is saying, “I cannot live without you.” That amazes me, but that’s the story of Romans.
When Brother Nee returned to China, he saw something more with greater revelation. He said, “I cannot live without the Lord, and He cannot live without me.” That’s fellowship.
But he said something also wonderful: “I cannot live without the Lord. I cannot live without my brothers and sisters, and they cannot live without me.”
Is that your understanding of fellowship? Can you dispense with the brothers and sisters and say, “All I need is the Lord. I don’t need anything else”? The Lord didn’t say that.
He called us into this most heavenly, this highest, this most sacred fellowship. God can’t live without us. Can you live without your brothers and sisters?
How often I see people—not going to call any names—by their own behavior and character and presence making it clearly known, “I can live without my brothers and sisters.”
Oh, dear saints, this desire for fellowship, manifest in the first chapter of Romans, clearly tells us God’s desire, written as if it were just Paul’s desire.
“I cannot live without my Lord, and He cannot live without me. I cannot live without my brothers and sisters, and they cannot live without me.” You may want to, but it is not God’s heart.
Now, the next section is very short. It is only verses 16 and 17. This is the heart of it. Don’t think for a moment that brevity is any indication of importance.
For I am not ashamed of the glad tidings, for it is God’s power to salvation, to everyone that believes, both to Jew first and to Greek;
for righteousness of God is revealed therein, on the principle of faith to faith, according as it is written, “But the just shall live by faith.”
This is the most important two verses, if you don’t mind me saying, in the book of Romans. It is all about this glorious gospel. As we’ve already learned, this glorious gospel is all about God’s Son.
He said he was not ashamed of it. He even went on to define this glorious gospel of God: “It is God’s power to salvation.”
Now, you need to underline that in your Bible, if you haven’t: God’s power to salvation. It’s not men’s power. It’s not our strength. It’s not our willing. It’s not our choosing, even. We choose only after He chooses us. Do you understand?
That’s the secret of the gospel. It is God’s power to salvation. Can there be a greater power than God’s power to salvation?
He didn’t leave us to our own devices and say, “Clean up your life. Fix those broken things and come back to Me, and then I’ll receive you.” There is nothing of the kind.
The glorious gospel of Jesus Christ is, “I will put in you and give you God’s power to salvation.” Can you imagine? Could He have done any more?
He put the Holy Spirit within us to indwell us, and even the Holy Spirit upon us to anoint us for service. Within us is God’s power.
I don’t want you to miss that. If you miss that, you’ll never understand the book of Romans. This is what the whole thing wanted to describe: it is God’s power to salvation.
Do you understand? Without God’s power to salvation, salvation and the Christian life and righteousness and holiness would be absolutely impossible.
It’s not that you can take path B. It’s not that you can come to the fork in the road and go this way, or choose that way, or select other options like option package B at the car dealership.
Brothers and sisters, there is just one path. It is a straight path. It is a narrow path. It is a path that leads to life. It is one door, and that one door is through God’s power to salvation.
You remember the story of the rich young ruler. When he came, he had such zeal. He said, “What shall I do, good Teacher? What shall I do that I inherit eternal life?”
The Lord told him about the commandments, and he said, “I’ve done all those since my youth.” I can’t think of a more self-deceived person. He was a good fellow, I’m sure, but how deceived he was.
The Lord was trying to bring him to the end. The first chapter of Romans tries to bring us to an end, so that we don’t have the mistaken idea that there is any hope in us to do what He calls us to. It’s impossible.
The Lord, knowing he was a rich young ruler, said, “One thing you lack: go, sell all that you have, and give it to the poor, and come, follow Me.”
That was the Lord’s word to this one because he believed he could do everything else, but there was one thing he could not do.
The apostles were so shaken up that they said, “How then can anyone be saved?” The Lord said those famous words:
With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.
Do you understand? That’s the power of God’s power. How we need to rejoice. He didn’t give us a book and say, “Do this and do that.” He gave us instead God’s power.
Another thing that is revealed is that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. Aren’t you glad it didn’t say the righteousness of Kenny, or the righteousness of Jerry, or the righteousness of Linda?
The righteousness of God is revealed therein. There is no righteousness expected of you. I think our expectations of ourselves are so off base. God doesn’t expect it of us, but we expect it of us.
He never thought you had righteousness that would reach the bar. So He said, “Let Me tell you what else is revealed in the gospel: the righteousness of God.”
That’s what is given to us. That’s what is imputed to us. It is an imputed righteousness. It is granted to us. It’s not our righteousness. It’s the righteousness of Christ.
When we have God’s power and the second thing revealed in the gospel—the righteousness of God—what do we lack? That is the book of Romans, chapter 1. That is the gospel. That is the good news.
He goes on to say it is revealed on the principle of faith, according as it is written, “But the just shall live by faith.” There is only one thing to do: only believe. That’s what you do. Only believe.
If you have a problem believing, I love that one about the man with the demon-possessed boy. He said, “I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” That’s the way we walk. That’s the way this becomes reality.
“The just shall live by faith” is from Habakkuk 2:2-4. It is the secret of the New Testament.
Let me tell you another secret: it’s not even your faith. When you look at Galatians 2:20, it says:
I no longer live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
How marvelous. How marvelous, this gospel. Only believe. That is Galatians 2:20—not Romans 2:20. I apologize. I know better.
“The just shall live by faith” is the secret of the New Testament. It is quoted here in Romans 1:17. It is quoted in Galatians 3. It is quoted in Hebrews 10. Throughout the New Testament, that is the only secret.
Okay, I’m going to do what I did with Pakistan. The last part, we’re going to speed up. I know you were looking forward to that.
This is about man’s condition. Don’t read this as if you have to hurry through it and get to the justification in chapter 3.
Paul spent almost three chapters covering man’s condition: from verses 18 through 32, all of chapter 2, and all the way into chapter 3, verse 20.
He had to be so surgically precise that he touched every button, so that these human beings he was dealing with would never again think, “There is any hope in me fulfilling what God wanted out of me.” The only hope comes from Him.
He surgically, precisely deals with every aspect of man and exposes man to such a degree that, at the end, they are completely guilty and cast upon the mercy of the Lord.
This reveals man’s ruined condition. This reveals the impossibility of us pleasing God. This reveals the absolute need of Christ, our life.
It says in verse 18:
For there is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness.
Remember, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. The second thing revealed is the wrath of God.
Now, I know it’s not fashionable to talk about the wrath of God. It’s politically incorrect. But unless we see His absolute and thorough judgment upon the whole of mankind, we will never understand how glorious the gospel is.
That’s the message of Romans 1. There are a couple words you need to underline: a word and a phrase.
In verse 19, “What is known of God is manifest among them, for God manifested it to them.” In verse 20, God goes out of His way to manifest it. It talks about His eternal power and divinity manifested in the things that are made.
It wasn’t as if He hid Who He was. Not only that, when you get later in Romans, you discover there is a natural law embedded in man’s heart. It is called the law of conscience.
If they obey their conscience, they can know the living God’s ways. Because in verse 21 that word occurs again: “Because, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but fell into folly in their thoughts, and their heart without understanding was darkened.”
That is a darkened mind. You read these things in Romans 1, and this is current-events news. You read the things men were involved in, the things men thought were normal, the things women thought were normal.
How graphic those words are. You might not even be able to read them in mixed company.
There is an interesting thing about Romans: God never turned against man. Man turned against God.
They didn’t even think it was good to keep God in their knowledge. They made idols of birds and quadrupeds and creeping things, and worshiped the creation rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen.
How darkened they became. And then finally, we read God’s reaction. In verse 24, in verse 26, and in verse 28, three times there is this phrase: “God gave them up.” Underline that in your Bible.
God gave them up. After they gave up God, God gave them up.
Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness.
For this reason God gave them up to vile lusts.
And according as they did not think good to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to practice unseemly things.
Then there is this phrase: “Being filled with all unrighteousness.” That’s the condition of man. Do you see it? How clear it is?
God is righteous. He is just in doing what He did. I think today’s struggle, and most of the world’s attack on us, is, “How could a loving God do this?”
A loving God didn’t do it. Man thought, “I don’t want God in my knowledge. I want to be free for my new self to be expressed. I want to be done with God. Wash my hands of God.”
This is what man’s unrighteousness is. What an exhaustive list it is.
When you come to the last verse, it says:
Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death,
not only practice them, but have fellow delight in those who do them.
Think of that. You know what we are worthy of? The death sentence.
You may think that’s cruel. “How could God, a loving God, a caring God, a creating God, impose upon us the death sentence?” He never did. We chose it because we did not think it good to have God in our knowledge.
Brothers and sisters, this is Romans chapter 1.
If you can understand Romans 1:18-32, Romans chapter 2, and most of Romans chapter 3, you have to understand the setting: this is the divine courtroom, where the just Judge is judging unrighteousness.
What He ends up saying is that mankind, whom He created and who turned from Him, is inexcusable. Look at verse 20:
So as to render them inexcusable.
Look at Romans 2:1:
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, everyone who judgest.
We are rendered inexcusable. This is what we are. This is what we’ve chosen. This is how we are driven to a God Who will give us His power, call us His beloved, give us His righteousness, and remake us in His own image.
This is the only secret of the gospel. This is what He is after.
When it comes to this ending in verse 32, the verdict and the sentence are spoken by the divine Judge. He says, “Inexcusable. Inexcusable, O man.” And He says more than that: “Guilty.”
How guilty? Guilty of death. You may think that’s strong. It’s not too strong. This is the only way you will come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
This is Romans 1. May the Lord open our eyes. May the Lord open our eyes.
Lord, we commit to You these things. We ask You, Lord, would You open our eyes to behold the glory of Your gospel and our own condition?
Without seeing the glory of Your gospel, there is no hope. Without seeing our true condition, there is no sensing that we need to worry about it. We will live as we always have lived.
But when the conviction and the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon us and reveals the righteousness of God and the power of God, then we gladly bow the knee and say, “Lord, Your verdict is right. It’s true. It’s righteous. Lord, have mercy on us.”
Oh God, this is what I believe is in this first chapter. May You open our eyes. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear.
Then we believe You will be able to change us into what You want us to be. This we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.