THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS : ITS TEXT,
STRUCTURE AND TESTIMONY
Australian Bible Church Study

SECTION I

1) Romans 1:1-7 Synopsis: The Scene so Far in History.

2) Romans 1:8-15 The Scene so Far, in Apostolic Commission.

3) Romans 1:16-17 The Power, Purpose and Centre of the Commission.

4) Romans 1:18-21 The Divine Wrath at the Hollowness
of Self-Deceiving Man.

1:22-31
A Listing: Stages of Deterioration - the Text

5) Romans 1:22-28 The Specific, Pathetic Pathology of a Godless Theology.

6) Romans 1:29-32 The Spreading, Spiritual Plague in Many Dimensions.

7) Romans 1:32 The Self-Congratulation of those who
Defy Life and Deserve Death: culminating in
the imperious or petulant imperviousness,
the shunning of shame,
in an almost stunningly rampant rebelliousness.

B Areas of Defilement - its Coverage

a) Romans 1:20-23 - Re God.
b) Romans 1:24-27 - Re themselves physically.
c) Romans 1:-28-31 Re themselves morally, personally, socially, spirituallyn
cf. II Timothy 3:1-8.

PRE-VIEW of Section 2

For convenience, the following pre-view of Section II
is provided below.

This primarily relates to Romans 2, but extends in principle to 3:19.

Divine judgment is "according to truth" (2:2) that "all the world may become guilty before God" (3:19). The divine principles of holiness are ruptured with relish or other principles provided with self-assertion, stifling anyone's self-appointed come-back code.

ROMANS STUDY NOTES

PART 2

TO ROMANS 3:27 - 4:25

THIS RELATES IN ADDITION TO A REVIEW OF ROMANS 2:12-16,

1) We have before covered Paul's universal condemnation of unbelief whether of Jew or Gentile, noting some of the excursions people make that help their guilt not at all.

2) In Romans 2:12-16, we reach a fascinating path on the way to the exposure of the total guilt of our human race. In this, it is noted that moral inventions and contentions, even within the heart and conscience, whether rationalisations, or realisations of the psyche, do not clear anybody, whatever may be the excusings or accusings of their own thoughts within them. In the end it is reality that counts, in the day when God will judge all according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ ( Romans 2:16).

The bar is not moved because of blither, blather or brightness, for the knowledge of God Himself is the beginning of understanding, and it is His divine provisions morally and spiritually which alone atone.

This matter intense in Romans 2:12-16, is so important that we will look at further ingredients in it. Strife with the conscience may indeed come from partly ingrained morals which though they may speak to the deaf, may shout to the foolish, whose minds are astray. Varied ideas do not stand when subjected to divine order, justice and truth, but move in the sphere, intended or not, of suppression, civil, social, personal, intended or rote! There is no escape for any in the day of judgment, in, of or for themselves. Man is not his own saviour; it is salvation that he needs, and of this He is the only exponent (Isaiah 43:10, cf. Acts 4:11-12). What then, says the apostle: SIN WITHOUT LAW, PERISH WITHOUT LAW; SIN IN THE LAW, BE JUDGED BY THE LAW.

3) Having then noted the nominalism, the formalism of imagining that the external (but of course significant rite in the Old Testament - Genesis 17:1-11, Paul roundly declares that sign of circumcision does not in itself save anyone, nor does empty judgmentalism, but rather being circumcised in heart, changed and charged anew in spirit, purged and pardoned: this is the necessity. Forms make impact but regeneration (by faith) makes people of God.

He even asserts categorically this essence: a Jew is not a mere racial unit, but one who is inwardly so (Romans 2:29). This does not disestablish the promise to the nation (Genesis 17:7-8) concerning the divine selection of its site for service, Canaan in the way defined; but it does make it clear that in the end, the faith from the first is the criterion of any enduring relationship with God.

4) Indeed, in Chapter 3, the apostle is moved to ask what advantage there is in being a
Jew ? There are, he declares, many, chiefly their receiving from God and passing on to this whole world what the God and Maker of it has to say, through the prophets. That is a vast and crucial contribution at the hand of God, and it was through the Jewish people..

Are then Jews any better ? Hardly, for as Psalm 14 shows (Romans 3:10-18 cites it), there is utter divorce from the actual path and ways of God among the thoughts and paths of mankind, in whom there is neither salvation nor escape, nor ground for it, nor hope. The ONLY ones acceptable in this melee are those whom God deems the righteous, and these are they who have already been rescued and brought home (cf. Psalm 32. Without saving faith there is no way for any man or woman or child, in the end, as from the first in God's foreknowledge, to be found.

There is nothing else or other.

5) Every mouth then will "be stopped" (Romans 3:18 has declared this conclusion): the lawless in their separation from God, those on the other hand, of the law prone to trusting in their failure to know God, instead relying on forms or names or whatever personal 'god' or value system appeals practically. It is as if God should be relegated to the post of onlooker, or provider of scenes only. Law as Saviour, even that does not work, for it is the means of gaining acute knowledge of sin, not of escaping its judgments! Romans 7 stresses this.

6) In Romans 3:21ff., we come to the solution for salvation. It lies not in what man proposes, but how God disposes. Since it is He who demands justice and hence judgment, then He took the ultimate step of love and prescient purpose - that in terms of what He had known from before the beginning as His plan (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.). This was - and is - , the plan of salvation. He would step into the bodily format of mankind, even its bodily clothing, even through a virgin (Matthew 1, Isaiah 7) and AS man - God as man, the eternal Word of God sent as man, that eternal expression of God (Colossians 2:9), do what? This: take on Himself, what was coming to and due to mankind.

This was nothing less than redemption, made personally not in money (I Peter 1:18-19), but in His own blood as God-man (Acts 20:28). This means that the righteousness of God Himself descends on and comes to the personal account of ALL WHO BELIEVE and so receive from the abundance of the offer, so vast that the measurement of the love is shown in this, that in all the WORLD, ANYONE may believe, be received, be rescued, and not just some from a select group (John 3:16).

THIS, as the apostle John there says, is for the WORLD, effectual for anyone in it, offered to it ALL, not to a segment merely. It is this extravagant extremity which is the measure of the divine love, so that what is not reached is statedly because of something else for which some have preference - John 3:19. Despite the light coming as in John 3, the profound extremity of the uninhibited and expansive divine love shown, for many darkness prevailed; for heaven is not for compulsive conscripts but for those both foreknown before creation and called.

The restraint of God in His intense desire (Colossians 1:19). in that He foregoes some whose hearts spurn Him, is both beautiful and amazing (Isaiah 48:15ff.); but the free offer is not empty, spurious, or vainglorious, misleading or a mere spectacular presentation. On the contrary, as HE says, so it is. His love is both lively and wise.

Before the fall and indeed the creation, before sin corrupted corrosively, HE knew who freely were His, being in that image of God which is no mere butt of forced love, but of found love.

7) Paul in his main code words in Romans 3:21ff., is picking up what is said elsewhere, but it is all implicit. It is wonderful that "in His forbearance God had passed over the sins which were previously committed." This meant that in His foreknowledge, as explained, the saving provision of the cross of Christ is applicable retrospectively and prospectively in a way only the supernatural and omniscient God could possibly achieve.

This illustrates the point that when the unbelievers tell us about many things that this and that could not have happened, because it is not normal, that is merely begging the question. The earth without God is not only not normal, it is not even possible since nothing comes to nothing and we are no nothings. If there were no God, what God does could not happen., This is true; but it is also quite irrelevant!

8) Paul at once challenges many. These things being do, where then is boasting! (Romans 3:27ff.). The point is positive: a person is justified by faith and not by the deeds of the law. Jew or Gentile, it is the same. But wait ?

Is this to trivialise the law ? (Romans 3:31), or does it set it aside, as if without function ?. On the contrary, it is to establish the law, Paul protests. The law had a vital preliminary function: to focus, feature and demarcate the reality and profundity of sin! It was an instrument and by faith Abraham was delivered from its pervasive character as are we who believe in the Saviour now.

9) It was for one as for all: but here is this great example, presented with great promises, Abraham. How again was he delivered ? It was by a pure faith, believing in, and relying altogether and practically on God, relating by His promises, relentlessly "hoping against hope", not doubting the promises made from the divine premises, the God of heaven and earth, the Almighty, whether for the land to come to his race, or for the faith to come to this world in whatever measure, a faith to become a profound blessing throughout the entirety of our globe (Genesis 12).

It did not depend on anything but the believing reception of God's gift (Romans 4:3, Genesis 15:6), and this like a pearl of great price, overcame darkness with light, weakness with strength and guilt with a righteous gift which God accounted to him, in the very divine dynamic of acceptance (Romans 4:3, Genesis 15:6). So must we receive the gift of God through the Saviour now come, and add nothing to it as the ground of salvation (Romans 4:23-25)..

To add to it is to take away its purity, sufficiency and turn a power into a mere poultice. Even the Covenant signal, circumcision, was required of Abraham after God counted Abraham's faith, for righteousness. Such was the accounting. Action came before confirmation, operation preceded form, so that Abraham is a double expression: speaking to the Gentile believer beyond the sign, and to the Jew with it as only a sign, not the substance (Romans 4:1-5).

Paul is moved now to cite Psalm 32, where King David is seen blessing God, why ? It is so blessed of the Lord NOT TO IMPUTE SIN! You do not have to earn the key to heaven, just as you are not to worship it or its prongs. It is the Giver you worship, and this means the Father who sent His only begotten Son, the Son who so willingly came (Psalm 40) and the Spirit who has wrought the incarnation (Luke 1:35).

10) Indeed in that place, Paul declares this: It is so imputed to us, yes JUST AS to Abraham, if we believe in Him who has gone so far in our time, as to do this: to raise up Jesus from the dead. The faith in Him who predicted the Saviour from the first (Genesis 3:15), having now expanded it and fulfilled this great work (foretold often, as in Isaiah 49-55), is He in whom trust must be placed. In Him is the reality of faith tested in this central divine wonder covering the whole vulnerability, guilt and horror for man... through faith in none other than this same God.

11) It is God who holds everything in mind, what is current, the past, things to come and gives "life to the dead, and calls those things which do not exist as though they did"; and before this one and only God (4:20), Abraham "did not waver at the promises of God, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God."

12) Indeed, as we who believe should be, he was "fully convinced that what He had promised, He was able to perform," as in Romans 4:21. The focus is Christ who was "delivered up for our offences, and raised up for our justification," as in Romans 4:25. Reflecting, one realises that Abraham had to be willing to give up his son to GIVE UP his precious son and heir, in faith (Hebrews 11:17-19, Genesis 15), but it was after all only to receive as a gift a ram which he could instead sacrifice). So we give up our life, only to fulfil it (Matthew 10:39).

ROMANS 6-12 BIBLE STUDIES

with some reference to 13-16
This Set: Application of Principles Shown in Romans 1-5

PART 3 Bible Studies on Romans

Applications

Is then the whole things a closed circuit ?
Yes, in its wholeness, wisdom and completeness.
Romans 6-12 examines aspects and applications.

ROMANS 6-12 BIBLE STUDIES
with some reference to 13-16
This Set: Application of Principles Shown in Romans 1-5

PART 3 Bible Studies on Romans

Applications

Is then the whole things a closed circuit ?
Yes, in its wholeness, wisdom and completeness.
Romans 6-12 examines aspects and applications.

A) ROMANS 6

A 'closed circuit'? a fashioning conceived in immensity, accomplished by propensity,
established in stability ? Yes, again, it is that, magnificently simple in outcome (like steering a rocket ship, once granted all the work done to MAKE the steering possible and direct), and simply magnificent (like being able to steer at all and know where you are going, in an image, the moon, in spiritual reality, back under the painfully obtained amnesty of your Maker, now indeed your Saviour).

It is in this sense, also, immensely simple, and simply immense, incorporating nothing less than God Himself, in human form, not only informing man of what he needs to know, but accomplishing something far better than reformation: salvation, so that those becoming His own, may even become friends of God.

Such is indeed the position of those who received Him and His divine offer and opportunity positively.

Yes, it is all this; but now in Romans 6 and succeeding Chapters, Paul proceeds to show personal, theological and practical aspects, after the manner of going from a (comparatively) low power microscope, to a high power version. You see more, but of the same thing from different angles. In more detail - TO ROMANS 6 then.

1) WHAT IT MEANS

Do you REALISE what it MEANS to be in and of Christ ? That is the aspect to the point in Romans 6, and it uses images to show relationship between Him and those He has saved. First, it is like being buried with Him in baptism, second like being planted in the ground with Him, in establishment in the base and thirdly, it is like being crucified WITH Him, in achievement of the transformation to come when conversion is completed, itself like a resurrection after the rigors and rigours are past, and blessed consequences accrue. Such is the introduction to the meaning of these great events, to Him, for us, in their relationship.

On the baptism image, see Matthew 20:22-23, this in terms of a wholehearted entry into the trials and challenges, life and confrontations of really being a disciple of Christ, convicted, converted, redeemed. On the planting image, see Isaiah 61:3, and on the crucified together with Him, see Galatians 2:20. See also Matthew 15:13, on 'planting' by the Father and bearing fruit accordingly.

2) HOW IT FUNCTIONS

It is transmutation - as with Christ in His death, to awake on earth with HIS life, the imprint, the prototype, the example and the dynamic supplied, directive, protective and filled with pardon on impeccable grounds. Wrought by His Spirit, it is taught by His word (cf. Romans 8:10-13). is word His word His

As HE left, God-man, His life on this earth voluntarily, so we also yield ourselves to a death, not only of autonomy, but of wilfulness, self-centredness and self-belief, having something - Someone - far better on whom to rely for our grounding, as those found and equipped from above. Instead, then, there is a divine trust, trust in the affinity of divinity as in Isaiah 50:10!

Now let us focus more on Romans 6:7-14: He who is dead has been freed from sin.
Death finished with Him in its own way, as He bore in anguish its penalty on guilt, now so diversified and multiplied as Saviour; and He finished with death, breaking its power once and for all, in the resurrection (cf. Hosea 13:14). Thus He removed all claims of justice, and ground for judgment by justification vicariously, substitute in sacrifice for sin, for each one of His people (Romans 8:32, cf. Isaiah 53:1-6).

Hence we are urged to realise the new reality, and to keep ourselves from serving - like a surrendering slave, or even squandering life on sin, abandoning liberty (Romans 6:11-14).

"Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead...", being
"alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

It is like the army call, 'Present arms!' Deadened to sin, despising its polluted mortality, alive to God inspired by His immortality is the order of the day, in effect (cf. Romans 11:33-36)..It is not an arising to bedraggled shivering, but to disciplined issuance into eternal life (Romans 6:22).

As often in imagery, we must avoid getting the form and forgetting the point! Thus it is not buried with baptism, but buried IN baptism. The thrust of the passage is quite other than that of spatial movement, but rather with mortal challenge leading to death. As seen in Matthew 20:20ff., the term for 'baptism' may be used most broadly, and in this case it is in a sequence referring to a hard, challenging series of events to come, with a unitary significance, listed even in reverse order. This James and John are willing to face. It is rather like our own idiom, 'baptism of fire,' which of course is not especially watery but may be deadly!

Thus as you enter into the functional realities of spiritual life in Christ, from outside it, at the very outset you have a burial with Christ: what He did voluntarily, you follow, being surrendered as He to death, so you to your new Lord and life's master. When you are proceeding, it is like being planting as He was, that is taken right out of life and landed in death, while for you it is a basis for growth and a enlivening foundation, being enveloped in what stirs growth, continually at its base. He however, killed in vicarious sacrifice, had it as a basis for the resurrection of the body.

The whole transmutation is spiritually governed by God Himself so that any plant not planted by the Father will be uprooted: there is a vital reality which neither pretence nor home-made substitutes or ways will replace (Matthew 15:13); and the trees, if that be the planting, will be in fact trees of righteousness (Isaiah 61:3), for as the root and the Planter, so the fruit, whether abundant in display or more meagre. The arising is to dynamic, not drips.

Being crucified with Christ, so clearly expressed in Galatians 2:20, means that your former passions and preferences being yielded, they also meet dismissal in kind, unworthy, spiritually condemned, while you arise through the power of the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead, even in 'your mortal bodies' (Romans 8:11) to a form of life so diverse from what went before, as to compare, yes even with a resurrection. It is a freedom for a new life which is so frankly different, as to be in its change and impact like a resurrection from the dead. The items are expressive of events with vital, applied power.

Thus this series of three transformational images must be understood. It is not about how many inches deep must be the planting, or how far apart the arms of the cross, or how placed the burial site, or the format for baptism, this being here preoccupation with the peripheral. It has a meaning which has nothing to do with any spatial configuration, of or in the items. The point was entry into eternal life having as a spiritual qualification, resemblance to a burial, initial action in it like a planting, with growth scope attached and change in what is desired. In this way, it is like a crucifixion of former things, ready for a resurrection in terms of the new. Actual bodily resurrection consummates the plan (Romans 1:4, 6:5, 10:9, I Corinthians 15:42) when its due time comes.

In summary, your transforming entry into Christ resembles His burial in its challenge, impact and first effect, it being a participation in that burial; your situation in Christ thus resembles a planting for foundation, stability and growth, while your experience of sanctification resembles not in its mordancy but its crush, His crucifixion, in the supplanting of the carnal with the spiritual, of the dynamics of the flesh with the presence of the Spirit in the regenerated soul.

In these highly diverse images in Romans 6:1-8, we gain a translation of aspects of His atonement into aspects of our salvation. Don't forget to translate. In Romans 6:9-14 exposed is the impact on and in life of such a work by Christ, in the partial parallels. The emphasis is not sacramental but sacrificial, paralleling phases of His departure from this life, with phases of our entering into it.

3) FREELY FORMED FRUIT OR WOEFUL WAGES

We move to Romans 6:15-23.Through faith you have transferred allegiance, faith in Christ, and in effect, faith affects not only what and whom you serve, but the heart to do so. You WERE free from the rule of righteousness, but now you serve God in righteousness. What a staggering transformation, alignment and how radical a result! Now you are free from the rule of sin. It is like sowing, for there is fruit - wages of sin in condign contribution not only of but in death, or free gift of God, eternal life through the Person and work of Christ - Romans 8:29ff..

Following are brief notations of main themes in the following Chapters, 7-12 at first.

B) ROMANS 7

What happens if there is calamity, or sudden set back ?

C) ROMANS 8

To the above question, now comes the short answer.
Paul extends the scope of his coverage, past the special,
to the general answer, to seeing things in universal and chronological perspective
the eternity-time interface. His word on the inseparability of the love of God from the Christian is inspiring, a parallel to Ephesians 3:14-21.

D) ROMANS 9 and "What if ..."

As the apostle returns to the special issue of Israel and the Gentiles, we find that the Jewish calamity is not of merely episodic kind, but has meaning over a long and varied set of circumstances, conditions and outcomes; and that it is under the express supervision in the very mind of God. It involves predestination as in Romans 8:29ff., but also and before that, divine foreknowledge, not of what is to come, in this case, but of affairs of the heart, for nothing is ordered without understanding. It is necessary as we traverse this scene of basic principles and knowledge, to give weight to the phrase, what if, in Romans 9:22.

Paul is declaring, God is entire sovereign and does not bargain principles, but that being said, the Lord shows great patience and fairness, His actions weighed and judicious, and is in no way arbitrary. We are to realise likewise, the use made of this Israel failure, that it was the occasion for the vast movement of the divine revelation with power and speed to the entire realm of the Gentile peoples.

While Israel at its own failure, still languished, the Gentiles had the very acme of opportunity! Such was in the plan of God as the apostle shows to be abundantly attested, as he draws on the vast coverage of this aspect, by the earlier prophets of Israel. How Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, longs for the eyes of those in his own land to open, and their restoration! His desire is that the Gentiles may stir the Jewish people to inherit their own heritage, and return to the Lord.

E) ROMANS 10

Israel still spiritually slumbers, though to them were given the oracles - the prophetic word TO Israel (not only FOR Israel) showing well and clearly the way they should go.

F) ROMANS 11

Indeed, even at the national level they will come back. - the definition of the term 'Israel' does not change in Romans 11, just as in many instances in the prophets of old. These foretell that just as He brought down Israel for its idolatry, injustice, violence and false gods, so He would build them again (Jeremiah 31:28) in their place, with a very prodigy of grace. Indeed, as in Ezekiel 36-37 and Jeremiah 33, we have the forecast of a vast return to Israel of its people, culminating as a phase for the future, in the return of the Messiah, after vicious challenges to their restoration and even to their very continuance! (as in Jeremiah 33:24). Of this coming episode, Paul would not have us ignorant.

The same spirit as then is visible now! But God does not wish us to be "ignorant" of His plans (as in Romans 11:25ff.), for their coming inspiration, restoration and transformation, like a branch cut off, then later regrafted into an olive tree, the place of faith. The definition of 'Israel' does not change during Romans 11 in heady confusion but is preserved in coherence. Thus at last "all Israel will be saved!" (Romans 11:26). This coming back has two parts, one that of some to Christ, and then at last the mounting onrush back home and to the Lord of glory. It is for Him to cut and to cure.

Just as we are aware of the comparative trickle such as in the days of the apostles and those then won, so we must know of the coming torrent, the sudden onset of their return to the Lord, thence to prosper in the assigned site of the nation and its post in the divine promises first to Abraham and through the prophets. At this crisis point, however it will be to, for and in Christ, whose dismissal by them led to their own (Micah 5:1-3) by Him. Indeed their King will be He, the Messiah Himself for all the earth as promised to Abraham and foreshadowed way back in Genesis 3:15, which is called the protoevangelium. The restorative rush back to Israel's land has now begun; their change awaits them.

So Jew and Gentile, each group affording many in reconciliation to God, jointly will praise the God who called them, who harbours both together now in one Gospel (cf. Galatians1 and 3): for there is no other name nor is there any other way (as in Acts 4:11-12): indeed this provides not only opportunity but necessity, even equipped with ransom, for Jew and to Gentile alike. Paul, stricken with awe at this outcome alike for Jew and Gentile believers, then exclaims at this marvellous fusion in faith from the majesty of the Lord and the profundity of His wisdom (Romans 11:29-36), concluding thus: "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

G) ROMANS 12

The apostle then moves to the general nature of dedication, devotion and faithfulness (such as
the Lord is to show to Israel), for individual Christians. He beseeches all to

"present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

Also in sharp focus is the stability in the truth, with constant orientation (Romans 12:2), and the serviceable reception of diversified gifts by the body of Christian people, enabling specialised compositions of service and attainment the more readily. Indeed, he warns us to be watchful in the way we work and gives inter-personal advice, not unlike some of the exhortations found in the book of Proverbs.

ROMANS 13-16 is the final phase, dealing with challenging and personal issues. As the book of Romans draws to a close (Romans 16:17), the apostle emphasises the need to separate from those causing divisions contrary to what has been taught by the apostolic group. Indeed, as to the short message, it is: " Avoid them!" Do not admix. It would be like dealing intimately and happily with known spies while being a member of a diplomatic or spy agency designed to protect from such.