paul's letter to the romans
check out the first video where we
explored who paul was and why he wrote
this letter
and where we trace the core ideas of
chapters one through four
that all humanity is hopelessly trapped
in sin and needs to be rescued
that this rescue is not going to happen
by people trying to obey the laws of the
torah
rather god's righteous character has
moved him to rescue the world through
jesus's death
and resurrection so that he could create
a faith-based multi-ethnic family of
abraham
as his people now in the remaining three
movements of the letter to the romans
paul is going to develop these ideas
even more
so remember paul's exploration of
justification by
faith that when people trust jesus's
death and resurrection was for them
they're given a new status the right
with god they're placed in a new family
the covenant people of abraham
and they're given a new future the hope
of a transformed life
now paul wants to show how this reality
should reshape every part of our
existence
because being in this family means being
a part of a new
humanity that god is creating through
jesus and the spirit
so paul goes back to the first human
character of the biblical story
adam his name means humanity and adam
like all humanity after him has chosen
sin and selfishness and so everyone
faces
god's judgment because we've become
slaves to sins influence resulting in
death but then paul contrasts adam with
jesus who he says is the new adam a
human who lived in
faithful obedience to god shown through
his act of sacrificial love
and now jesus offers his life as a gift
to others
so that they can be justified before god
and so jesus stands as the head of a
new humanity that is being transformed
by this
gift which leads him to chapter 6. paul
reminds these christians in rome
that choosing to follow jesus means
leaving their old
adam-like humanity and entering into the
new jesus-like
humanity and their baptism was a sacred
symbol of that transition
their old humanity died with jesus and
their new humanity was raised with him
from the dead
so when a person trusts in jesus their
life becomes joined to his
life what's true of him is now true of
them
it's when people accept their identity
as jesus like
humans that they are liberated to become
the wholehearted humans
who can truly love god and their
neighbor now
if creating this new humanity was always
god's purpose
paul asks in chapter 7 what then was the
point of god giving israel the law
or in hebrew the torah now side note
when paul uses this word law he
sometimes
means the story line and message of the
first five books of the bible
but other times he's more specifically
referring to the hundreds of commands
given through moses
and that are found in the torah the
second meaning is paul's focus here
what was the purpose of all those
commands paul says that the commands of
the torah were good
they showed god's will for how israel
was to live
but if you read the storyline of the
torah israel broke all those commands
the more laws israel received the more
they replayed the sin of adam and
rebelled
so even when god gave his people
specific moral rules to obey that did
not fix the problem of the sinful
human heart and so paradoxically these
rules made israel
even more guilty but paul says that
paradox
is the point god's goal was to make it
crystal clear that it's
evil that's hijacked the human heart and
that the torah
good as it is could not do a thing about
it
but paul says in chapter 8 the solution
has arrived in jesus
and the spirit and here's how the
commands of the torah
acted like a magnifying glass it focused
the problem of the human condition
into one place the people of israel but
now
israel's representative jesus the
messiah has
paid for and dealt with all of that sin
through his death
and his resurrection and now jesus has
released his spirit
into his new family to transform their
hearts so that they can truly
fulfill the call of all the taurus
commands
to love god and neighbor and there's
more
god's renewal of human beings is the
first step of his larger mission to
rescue and renew
all of creation making it a place where
his love gets the final
word now you can see how chapters 1
through 8 are one
long flow of thought here but it raises
some other questions
if all of this was god's purpose what is
the current status then
of paul's fellow israelites who don't
acknowledge jesus as the messiah
how does this story fulfill god's
promises to them
well paul begins in chapter 9 with his
own anguish over fellow israelites who
don't think jesus is their messiah
and it leads him to reflect on israel in
the past from the old testament story
and he reminds us that simply being an
ethnic israelite a physical descent of
abraham
never made one automatically a faithful
member of the covenant family paul shows
us how god has always selected a subset
from abraham's family to carry on the
line of promise
and his point is that now that line of
promise is carried on by those who
follow
jesus he reminds us that for a long time
people inside and outside abraham's
family have rejected god's will
he reminds us of the story of israel in
the golden calf and of
pharaoh's rebellion he shows us how god
was able to orchestrate events so that
people's rejection of him
actually accomplished his redemptive
purposes
and so in chapter 10 paul turns his
focus to israel in the present
the reason many israelites reject jesus
is because they're basing their covenant
relationship with god on their
performance of the commands in the torah
and so sadly they don't recognize what
god has done through jesus to create a
new covenant family on the basis of
faith
and so paul asks in chapter 11 what is
israel's future
has god written off his people no he
says
there are tons of jewish people
including himself who do
recognize jesus as their messiah but
there are also a lot who don't
but god has been able to use their
rejection for his own purposes
it's caused the gospel to spread even
quicker and farther into the gentile
world
making the family of abraham even larger
and more multi-ethnic
paul describes god's covenant family as
a big olive tree
and the rejecters of jesus have been
broken off so to speak
and these gentiles are like wild
branches that have been grafted into the
family tree
however paul says one day jesus will be
acknowledged by his own people
he doesn't offer any details about how
paul simply trusts god's character and
promise that he won't give up
on his covenant people which transitions
into the final section of the book
chapters 12-16
but remember the big picture because of
their faith in jesus
jews and gentiles are now together
abraham's family
that new humanity that's being
transformed by god's spirit
and so this is how god's fulfilling his
ancient promises
therefore the only reasonable response
is for these jews and
non-jewish christians to be unified as
the church
in chapters 12 to 13 he shows that this
unity will come from a commitment to
love and forgive each other
love will look like everybody using
their diverse gifts and talents to serve
one another in the church
and it will also mean humility and
forgiveness
when these different ethnic groups and
cultures come together in jesus
conflict is inevitable and it can only
be overcome through the hard work of
forgiveness and reconciliation
this is how they will show the greatest
of christian virtues
love which fulfills the torah's greatest
commands
to love god and love your neighbor as
yourself
in chapters 14 and 15 he focuses
specifically on the issues that are
creating
ethnic divisions in the roman church
these are disputes about the jewish food
laws and the sabbath
and paul says these practices don't
define who's in or out of jesus's family
and if people differ over these
culturally important but
non-essential issues they need to learn
how to respect each other's differences
and it's in this way that love will heal
and
unify jesus's family paul closes the
letter by first commanding
phoebe who's a key leader in the church
of kencre
she had the honor of carrying and
perhaps even reading this letter aloud
to the roman churches for the first time
paul then concludes by greeting all the
people that he hasn't seen for a long
time
and that's the end whoa
you can see better now how all the
pieces of this letter fit together
and show what a profound masterpiece it
truly
is that's what the letter to the romans
is all about
you