Romans Intro (Part 3)

Romans — Steve Gregg

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Romans Intro (Part 3)

RomansSteve Gregg

An outline of the book of Romans is necessary for grasping its message, as it covers various themes and shifts directions frequently. The traditional outline of the book centers on the theological treatise of the initial eleven chapters, followed by practical subjects in the latter part. Chapters one through eight of Romans detail the Gospel of salvation, with Paul making a progression of arguments for its positions, starting with the concept of universal sinfulness. Meanwhile, Chapters nine through eleven address a different subject, Israel, and God's guarantees to them.

Transcript

Okay, we're going to get into chapter one of Romans in this session, but I want to just talk to you about a couple of different options when it comes to outlining the book. It's always helpful when you're studying a book to know what the movements, the main movements are, where the argument changes direction a little bit. So you'll know that this passage I'm reading, he's still talking about this general subject, but then at that later point he's talking about a different general subject.

A book the size of Romans is big enough that it's a little hard to hold the whole message in your head at one time without knowing how it divides up. Now, there's a sort of a conventional outline of Romans that I always learned when I was growing up, which I would say is not entirely sufficient or satisfactory anymore. It still has its merits, and I'm going to acquaint you with it because virtually anyone who teaches Romans, most people that teach Romans are going to be assuming this outline to be the case.

And it's not as if it's a bad outline. I think it's just missing something. But here's a general outline of Romans as it is usually outlined.

Remember, it's commonly taught by commentators that this is more or less not so much a personal epistle about some circumstance in the church that needs to be addressed, but it's simply a treatise on the gospel. It's more like a theological treatise, like somebody's, you know, an article written to explain the gospel to people who might not understand it well. And it's laid out as if it's almost strictly a treatise by this way of reckoning, this outline.

First of all, the idea is that the book in the first nine chapters, excuse me, the first 11 chapters is theological in content. And I'm going to agree with that. The first 11 chapters are theological in content.

Whereas chapters 12 and following get into the practical aspects. You know that when Paul writes his letters, he often does this, not every single time, but most of the time. For example, Ephesians.

Ephesians is a book of six chapters. Three of them are theological, and the other three are practical. That is, he gives the ideas and the truths that he wants them to know, and then he gives them how we live because of these truths.

So Ephesians is divided right in the middle. Three chapters theological, three chapters practical. Colossians is similar.

Colossians is four chapters long. Two of them are theological, and two of them are practical. Once again, the theological chapters lay the groundwork for the instructions he's going to give in the practical.

They're based upon them. In Galatians, it's a little different. There's six chapters in Galatians.

The first two chapters are really autobiographical. Paul's just talking about himself in the first two chapters. But then when he starts talking about his other material, he's got two chapters that are theological and two chapters that are practical.

So Paul often gives about equal time to the theological material as he gives to the practical material. Not so with Romans, because chapter 12 begins the practical section. It begins with the words, I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God.

In other words, the mercies of God are what he was just talking about in the first 11 chapters. And in view of those, I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice and to do all the things he goes on to talk about. As in these other epistles, so Romans also assumes that the theological portion at the beginning gives the basis for the practical instructions that he's giving in the latter part.

What's different is that he gives much more chapters in Romans than in the other cases to the theological. It is more theologically oriented than the other epistles because he only has a few chapters at the end of practical instruction. Although in chapter 12 especially, he packs a lot in.

He covers a lot of practical matters in a single chapter, but still he spends 11 chapters on theology. Now that part agrees with the outline I would give as well as the outline that's commonly given. It's just an obvious thing that the theology is in the first 11 chapters and the practical instruction in the latter part.

But the outline that most people would see is that chapters 1 through 8 are Paul's layout of the gospel of salvation. And he begins by talking about how sinful everybody is because it's like a gospel tract. Have you ever heard of people using the Romans Road to evangelize? The Romans Road is so called because it's taken from the book of Romans.

When you're evangelizing, you can start at Romans 3.23, all of sin and come short of the glory of God over to Romans 6.23. You know, the wages of sin is death over to, you know, chapter 10 verse 9. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead to be saved. You can kind of move through Romans progressively through to make certain points you want to make in evangelizing someone. And many people treat the book of Romans as if that's what Paul's doing.

He's just like running a big tract to evangelize people. So he starts out with the sin part. The first three chapters, they say, are about showing universal sinfulness.

The idea being he's going to offer salvation, but who wants it if they don't know they need it? Who would take the medicine if they don't know they're sick is the idea. So he wants to describe in the first three chapters how sick everyone is, and therefore how much they need the medicine he's going to offer in the later chapters. It's often said that chapters 1 through 3 are laid out like this.

Chapter 1 shows how guilty the Gentiles are. Chapter 2 is about how guilty the Jews are. And chapter 3 summarizes that the Jews and the Gentiles are therefore all guilty, and that means everybody.

So all have sinned. He ends that discussion in verse 23 of chapter 3. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So he's made his first point of the gospel in the first three chapters.

Gentiles are sinners, Jews are sinners, Jews and Gentiles are sinners, everybody's sinners. That gets us through most of chapter 3. Then he lays out the subject of justification by grace through faith. That really begins near the end of chapter 3 around verse 21, and it goes on through chapter 4 and into chapter 5. About halfway through chapter 5, we have him talking about celebrating this justification by faith.

And then there's a little section at the end of chapter 5 that's not always explained clearly as to how it fits into the outline. Chapter 5 verses 12 through 21. It's about Adam and Christ.

And it's a difficult section. It makes an obvious point that's not difficult, and that is that there's some kind of correspondence between Adam's impact on the world and Christ's impact on the world. Christ elsewhere is referred to as the second Adam.

And this is because Adam and Christ both are the founders, not just of movements, but of human races. Everybody is in either Adam or in Christ. You're either in the Adam human race or in the Christ human race, the new man, the new humanity.

And so it's kind of hard to follow his argument. And I was very happy to hear one of my favorite teachers said so, because I always found it difficult to follow Paul's argument in Romans 5, chapter 12 and following. But I thought I was just being stupid.

And then one of my favorite teachers many years ago, a very intellectual, profoundly knowledgeable man, I was listening to a tape of him teaching in Romans, and he said, now this section of Romans 5, he said, could be the most difficult passage in the entire Bible to follow Paul's thought. So I thought, oh good, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. Although it might've been more gratifying if he had understood it and made it clear to me.

But if he's not going to make it clear, at least I'm glad he told me he doesn't understand it either, because I didn't and I respected him. But you can get some basic ideas from this of what Paul is saying without much difficulty. Some of the finer points of his argument, you wonder, how does he really mean that? But we'll worry about that another time.

The main thing is that he's pointing out that salvation is not simply in being in a religion, but being in a person, in Christ. And condemnation is not simply in being in the wrong religion, but being in the wrong person, in Adam. There's two solidarities, two humanities.

One is in Christ, the other's in Adam. We were all in Adam at one time, but some of us have been born again and we're now in Christ, a new humanity. And being in Christ involves righteousness and justification and all kinds of benefits, glorification.

So, in a sense, this passage about Adam and Christ probably belongs to the whole section on justification by faith. And people usually feel that after Paul spent three chapters, therefore, talking about how sinful we are, he's got those two chapters, chapters four and five, that are about justification by faith. And then chapters six through eight, they argue sometimes, is about sanctification.

Not about justification anymore, but sanctification. Now, you know the difference? Justification, I told you last session, is a law court term. Justification means acquitted.

Now, you can be acquitted and be a total jerk. You know, you could be guilty and have bad character and be unsafe to society, but if the judge is being careless or he's corrupt or he's having a happy day or something, he can just say, I'm going to let you go. Well, that's great for you, in a sense, but you're still an unchanged person.

You're not going to jail, but you're still a menace to society. The distinction between justification and sanctification, the way theologians usually describe it, is that justification is the legal thing. You've been acquitted, you've been set free, you're not going to hell now.

But justification, they say, has to do with you becoming a different kind of person or becoming holy. So, there's not just the issue of the forensic legal pronouncement that you're not condemned anymore and you're not going to hell. There's this issue of becoming a different kind of a person.

And the process of becoming a different kind of person is often referred to as sanctification. It is argued that salvation has three different aspects. And you may have heard this before, but if not, I'll go over it quickly.

This is not what Paul says, but this is what theologians often say, and I'm not saying they're wrong. This is just something so you know the language. Christians usually speak of justification as the first part of salvation, which is, of course, the legal aspect.

You're not guilty. Sanctification is the continuing aspect of being made holy, being made into a different kind of person, so that you're not a criminal and a danger to society anymore. And then the last thing is glorification, and that awaits the resurrection when Jesus comes back.

And it's usually argued this way. Justification is salvation from the penalty of sin. If you're justified, you're saved from the penalty of past sin.

Sanctification, they say, is salvation from the power of present sin in your life, the power of sin in your life. You have to overcome that. You have to stop being so sinful, stop doing the wrong thing so much.

And sanctification is the process of being saved from the power of indwelling sin presently. And then glorification, they say, is salvation from the very presence of sin in the future. When Jesus comes back and we're raised from the dead, we'll be sinless, we'll live in a sinless environment from then on.

And so salvation is threefold. We're saved from the penalty, the power, and eventually the presence of sin. One has to do with past, our past sins we're forgiven for.

One has to do with the present. I'm struggling with and have to overcome the present struggle with sin in my members. And the other is future, glorification.

So justification, sanctification, glorification, usually are considered to be the three aspects of salvation, dealing with past, present, and future issues of sin. We're saved from sin, but saved in different senses, all senses. Now, having made that clear, I hope, the argument that people have is that chapters 4 and 5 are about justification.

And chapters 6 through 8 are about sanctification. That is, how do I live the Christian life? And so chapter 6 begins, but then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now, he's already talked about us being forgiven of sins, but shall we continue sinning? Shall our life be characterized by sinning still? No, he says, certainly not. Later in the same chapter, he says in verse 15, shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace? He says, certainly not.

So shall we sin? Shall we continue in sin? Obviously sounds like it's talking now about the way we live rather than the way we're, we deal with the guilt of past sins. Shall we sin? Shall we continue in sin? And that chapter 7 talks about how the law is not the solution to our sin problem because law did not end sin. When the law came, Paul says, it made me more sinful than I was before.

In a sense, because if I was sinning before, I didn't know it. So I didn't have guilt issues. But when the law came, it made all my sins visible because I now saw that, like if you're sitting and enjoying lunch, sitting on the lawn of the library or something like that, having a good time out in the sunshine, eating good food.

You're having a good time. Then you look over and see there's a stay off the grass sign. Suddenly you're condemned.

You're happy till then. You were breaking the law. You just didn't know it.

As soon as you see the law, you think, uh-oh, I'm in trouble now. And Paul says that's how the law was. He says I was covetous, but I didn't know I was covetous.

Until I saw the law, you should not covet. Now I'm condemned. The law didn't make me less sinful.

If anything, it only defined my sin more distinctly and made me more aware of my sinfulness. So the law is not the solution. And at the end of Romans 7, of course, he talks about I can desire to do what's right, but I can't perform what's right.

I have this law, but it doesn't make me stop sinning. And so when you come to chapter 8, the general statement that we hear so often, and there's a measure of truth in all of this. I'm just thinking it's not totally satisfactory with this outline we're giving.

Chapter 8 then would say, well, the solution is the Holy Spirit. Now exactly how the Holy Spirit is the solution is not agreed upon by all teachers. And we will examine that.

Of course, we're going to come to chapter 8 someday when we go through Romans. We'll talk about it. But it's very clear that the Holy Spirit dominates chapter 8 and is hardly mentioned at all prior to Romans 8. And so the new emphasis in Romans 8 has to do with the way the Holy Spirit impacts our lives, how the Holy Spirit changes everything.

So what we've seen then is on the common way of understanding the book of Romans, chapters 1 through 3 show how guilty and in need of salvation everyone is. Chapters 4 and 5 tell us that we're justified by faith. And chapters 6 through 8 would then be talking about sanctification, how do I live godly, and the answer is in the Holy Spirit.

And the law is not adequate for that. Okay, so far so good. Then there's chapters 9 through 11.

Now chapters 9 through 11 seems to be about something entirely different. Because chapters 9 through 11 are about Israel. And Paul's great grief because Israel's not saved.

He starts discussing the issue of Israel. The question underlying Romans 9 through 11 that Paul is obviously answering is the question, why have God's promises to Israel not been fulfilled? Now the modern Jew has the same question. The Jew who's not a Christian.

And one reason they don't believe in Christ is that the Jews say, when the Messiah comes, he's supposed to regather Israel back to the promised land. And reestablish Israel again. Well, most of Israel's still scattered throughout the world.

And has been for the past 2,000 years. So they say Jesus can't be the Messiah because the Messiah's supposed to gather Israel. And so they're still looking for the Messiah because they still say the exile has not ended.

Yeah, we live after 1948 where there's now a nation called Israel in the Middle East. And there wasn't before 1948 for about 1,900 years. There wasn't.

There is now. And many people think that's very prophetically significant. And that we're living in the last days because now there's a nation of Israel.

But the fact remains, here we are what? 60 years? Almost? The nation of Israel's been there? Most Jews in the world still don't live there. Most Jews still live all over the rest of the world. And many of them are not making any movement in the direction of Israel.

Some are leaving Israel. I'm not saying there's not a significant number that have moved from other places to Israel. But for the most part, Israel has not been regathered to the land.

And many Jewish rabbis believe that the exile, which began with the Babylonians taking Judah into captivity, has never ended. Because only a remnant came back to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. And only a remnant have ever lived in Israel since 586 B.C. Since Nebuchadnezzar took the Jews away into Babylon, there's never been a time since then that the majority of Jews lived in Israel.

There's what they call the diaspora. The scattered ones. The Jews who are away from their country.

The vast majority of people of ethnic Judaism are of the diaspora. Not in the land. And so, the Jews would say the Messiah hasn't come because when the Messiah comes, he's going to gather the diaspora.

He's going to end the exile. Rabbis to this day, there are many of them who say the exile still has not ended. The Messiah has not yet come.

And so, in Paul's day, the same complaint was raised. How come the Jews are still scattered? Still away from God? And still not restored? If Jesus is the Messiah, as you Christians say, shouldn't he have regathered all the Jews? Why hasn't he? And this is the underlying question that Paul addresses in Romans 9. Now, there's two entirely different answers that people have taken Paul to be given. The most popular answer you'll hear from especially dispensationalist teachers, and they are in the majority of those who are speaking on this subject, they would say Paul's answer is this.

That though Jesus has come, he hasn't fulfilled all the promises yet to Israel. He's going to. At the end of the age, in the last days, he will in fact regather all Israel.

All Israel will be saved, it says in Romans 11, 26. And therefore, they would agree with the Jews that Jesus has not yet really fulfilled his messianic mission with Israel. But he will.

And they believe that what Paul is saying is be patient. God still has this in mind, but God has at least saved a remnant of Israel in the meantime as more or less a token that he's still interested in them. That is, you may have thought when the Messiah came, the first time he should have regathered Israel and saved all Israel, and it didn't happen.

Well, God hasn't given up on that plan, but he's saved a remnant within Israel for the time being. And this remnant is sort of a token that he still got the whole nation in his sights, and he's someday going to save all Israel. That is how Romans 9 through 11 is popularly taught.

Now when I teach it, I'm going to teach it more in the historic Christian way because dispensationalism since the 1800s has pretty much bumped historic Christian thinking out into, you know, the margins of evangelicalism. And most people think like dispensationalists now, that Paul is saying there's a future for Israel still, the very future that Israel hoped for, a regathering to their land and all that under the Messiah. It's all going to happen, but in the meantime we have to be patient and as a sort of a token to whet our appetite or to stave off our appetite waiting for this to happen, he's given us a few, a trickle of juice into the kingdom of God through the remnant that he saved in the church.

But that I don't believe is what Paul is saying at all. I don't think that's his argument. His argument, and this is what the church always believed for most of 1800 years until dispensationalism came along, his argument is God has in fact fulfilled those promises differently than you thought because those promises of regathering are not really referring to geographical regathering but rather to gathering to the Messiah.

And the promises of God in the Old Testament never were intended to apply to every last breathing Jew but rather to the faithful remnant. There always was a faithful remnant. He says in the days of Elijah, God said there are 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

He said even now, he says in chapter 11, even now there's a remnant. And the idea here is in Romans 9 he quotes Isaiah saying though the children of Israel be as the sand of the seashore, the remnant will be saved. Only a remnant were ever promised to be saved.

And Paul says they are. He says I'm part of that remnant. He says I'm a Jew.

I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. Look at me. I'm in.

I'm following Christ and look around. There's lots of Jews following Christ, just not most of them. But the ones who are, they are the remnant.

God has in fact brought the remnant back to himself and brought the remnant to the Messiah. And for example, look with me real quickly and Isaiah chapter 10. We will talk when we get to Romans 9 through 11 in our study through verse by verse, of course, we'll go much deeper into this.

So I just want to give you the general idea in Isaiah chapter 10. And verse 20 and following it says it should come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel and such as have escaped from the house of Jacob will never again depend on him who defeated them, but will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. In truth, the remnant will return the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God.

For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return. The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness. Now, Paul actually quotes this verse in Romans 9 when he's discussing the Israel thing.

And what's interesting, though, is it says a remnant will return That's what the Jews are looking for. They're looking for the Jews to return from the exile. However, Paul, when he quotes it, doesn't quote it, a remnant shall return.

He says a remnant will be saved. If you read it in Romans 9, he quotes this. He changes the word return to be saved.

God's not bringing his people back to the land. He's bringing them back to himself in salvation. In fact, you can even see it here because in Isaiah 10, verse 21, it says the remnant will return the remnant of Jacob to what? To the promised land? No.

To the mighty God. And who is the mighty God? That term is used twice in the Bible. The mighty God.

The other time is in the previous chapter. Chapter 9, verse 6 and 7. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.

The government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. The mighty God.

The everlasting father. The prince of priests. It's the Messiah who they're returning to.

They're returning to the mighty God. The Messiah who is named such in the previous chapter. So what is predicted is not a return to the land.

Although that's how the Jews always understood it. It's a return to God through the Messiah. And it's only a remnant.

Not all the Jews but only the remnant shall return. Now that's what Paul's argument is. He's saying it's not that God's promises have failed to come true.

It's just that they've been misunderstood. And look at Romans 9, 6. And then we're going to move along to the rest of this outline. In Romans 9, 6. As he begins this discussion which goes through chapter 11.

He says, but it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. Now what he means by the word of God is the promises God made to Israel. God made promises to save and gather Israel to himself.

Now the dispensationalists and the Jew today would say that promise has not taken effect. That promise has not been fulfilled. God said he'd save and gather Israel.

He hasn't done it. Paul says, no, it's not that it hasn't taken effect. It has.

It has been fulfilled. He says, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. What's he mean by that? He means that you are reading the passages in the Old Testament that say God's going to do such and such to Israel.

Well, not everyone who is of the nation of Israel is this Israel that he's made these promises to. It's a remnant. The true Israel is the faithful remnant of Israel.

And they are the ones to whom the promises apply. It's not that the promises haven't come true. They have come true to the remnant.

We can see them all around us. Jewish believers in Christ. That's the remnant.

They have come to the mighty God, Christ. The fulfillment has come. In other words, the difference views of this section by that held by different Christians are a the dispensationist view.

Paul's saying true enough. The promises have not been fulfilled, but they will. And God's given us a remnant to keep us satisfied in the meantime.

But someday he's going to save all of Israel and bring him back to the land. That's what the dispensational view is. The church held for centuries before dispensationalism came along that what he's saying is God has in fact promised and kept his promise.

But the answer is a way that surprised you because you were misunderstanding. You thought Israel means all Jews, but they are not all Israel. Who are of Israel.

The promise he made to Israel are to the remnant of Israel. And he has done so. He is currently continuing to.

So he's bringing the remnant to himself in Christ. The church is the fulfillment. The gathering of the Jewish remnant to Christ along with Gentiles is the fulfillment of the promises.

And that's what Romans 9 through 11, I think, is saying different than what we often hear. I'll want to go through it verse by verse. Let's see exactly how this is the only realistic way to take Paul seriously in the passage.

Well, then we have but I want to say this in the common way of looking at Romans Romans 9 through 11 is like a parenthesis. It's like it doesn't really. It's like Paul kind of got off his subject.

Romans like 1 through 8 was a nice little package presentation of the gospel like a Bible tract. You're all sinners. Jesus died.

Your justification is through faith in Christ. You got to live a holy life through the Holy Spirit. A nice package like Romans 1 through 8 would be a complete book all in itself.

And then later in chapter 12, he starts talking about, you know, present your body living sacrifice and live a good holy life and so forth. But what's this Romans 9 through 11 doing there? Why get off the subject? Why get on this matter of Israel? It many people treat it as if this is like Paul deviating off his normal course just because it came to his mind that some people might wonder about this so that it seems like it's an odd part sort of off to an aside. I'm not sure that it is.

I think it's a continuation of one of his main theme is and that's what we're going to see later on. And then of course the last section chapter 12 and following is about Christian living and that's how the popular outline of Romans is. Once again, I called this outline not entirely satisfactory, but certainly not entirely wrong.

For the most part, the broad contours of it are hard to dispute. He does talk about the sinfulness of people in the first three chapters. He does talk about justification by faith in chapters three through five, but the late part three through five.

But there are some things after that point. And even before that point, I think people are not seeing that that we can look at the outline from Paul's more or less pastoral purpose. So let me give you sort of a an alternative outline that treats it not so much as a doctrinal treatise as an occasional letter that use this doctrine to make the points he wants to make and that point is the Jews and the Gentiles need to get along and need to stop judging each other.

They need to start living appreciating their distinctions and not judging or condemning each other. They need to have unity in the church. Paul's appeal in this book throughout, I believe, is for unity.

And he does so first of all by addressing the Jews. He also addresses the Gentiles as a separate group to tell them how they should feel toward the Jews. But the early part of the book is about the Jewish attitude toward the Gentiles.

The first four chapters, especially, and some other parts that we'll come to later are directed almost entirely to the Jews because I think Paul saw the Jewish Christians as the main instigators of the division. I think probably while the Jews were out of Rome because of Claudius decree, the Gentiles were getting along reasonably well as a church in terms of unity anyway. But when the Jews came back, they introduced another element and it sounds to me like Paul sees the Jews as the ones who need the most correction of their attitude because he spends so much time addressing their attitude.

And I don't think this is just like a gospel tract making the four spiritual laws or something like this. I think the first four chapters are addressing Jewish ethnic snobbery. Now we have to understand how the Jews felt about themselves.

Modern Jews probably don't feel this as much or if they do, they don't say it as much. But in those days before 70 AD, before the great humiliation that came upon the Jews by the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and so forth, the Jews saw themselves as morally superior to everybody. But not because they behaved morally better than others, but because they were the only people that God had showed favoritism toward.

God had given them his laws. He'd saved them from Egypt. He made a special covenant with them and with no other nation.

And that was their identity. We are the special people that God chose. The mark of our specialness is circumcision.

That's the mark of the covenant. And because we are circumcised, we are better. And those Gentiles, they're the unclean, uncircumcised pagans.

And you see, there is a sense where there's a truth in this that got morphed. The truth was that God hadn't given his law to the Gentiles prior to coming to Christ. The whole Old Testament period, God gave his law only to Israel.

So they were truly special in privilege. And in some respects, when they weren't apostate, but of course, as you read the Old Testament, they were apostate most of the time. But on those rare occasions, when they came back and kept the law, like in Josiah's revival, when they found the law that had been hidden for a generation or so, and they didn't even know what it was when they found it.

That's how scripturally illiterate they were at certain points in their history. Well, when they found the law and began to keep it, they did behave better than Gentiles. They did condemn adultery and homosexuality and murder and theft.

And they did live morally better lives. But the truth is, their moral superiority to Gentiles throughout their history was spotty. Only rare occasions, rare revivals where the Jews actually took God's law seriously enough to live morally superior lives to the Gentiles who were pagans, worshipping demons.

What was constant was they were circumcised. And here's how you have to understand the mentality of the Jew at the time. They assumed they were morally better just because they were circumcised, just because they were part of the Jewish race, just because they're part of Israel.

Now, they lost sight of the fact that much of the time they were morally as bad as the Gentiles. But even at those times, they were still circumcised. So their distinctiveness as vis-a-vis the Gentiles was their circumcision.

It wasn't always their behavior. But because the circumcision was a constant through their history, it became the thing that they defined themselves by. Sometimes the Jews were more godly than the Gentiles, sometimes they weren't.

But they were always the circumcised and the Gentiles weren't. So because of their national pride, their circumcision was what made them the better people. And what Paul argues, especially in chapters 2 and 3 and 4, is that though the Jews are circumcised, they haven't been better people.

And because they haven't been better people, their circumcision doesn't matter to God. And so what this is deflating is this national ethnic snobbery. We're better than the Gentiles.

Those Gentiles, they're a lesser breed without the law. We are God's people who have the law. And we can prove it if you just want to look at our babies.

We circumcised them and we've all been circumcised. Us men, the women, they get in on our coattails. They don't have to get circumcised.

But the point is, we are the special people because we're the circumcised. And you'll find that Paul, in Romans 2 and in Romans 4, has a strong emphasis on the whole significance and non-significance of circumcision. And how basically he says, if you're circumcised and you keep the rest of the law, great.

But if you're circumcised and you don't keep the rest of the law, you're an uncircumcised man as far as God's concerned. Physical circumcision doesn't matter. And his key verses are in Romans 2, 28 and 29.

He is not a Jew who's one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision which is outward of the flesh. But he's a Jew who's one inwardly.

And that is circumcision which is inward of the heart. So, what he's addressing here, in all these chapters, I will demonstrate especially when we get to chapter 1. This is where I differ strongly from most commentaries. Even in chapter 1, he's setting up the Jews for this deflation.

Most commentaries just say, Paul is objectively talking about how sinful Gentiles are in chapter 1. Then he includes the Jews in chapter 2. Then he summarizes Jews and Gentiles in chapter 3 are all sinners. He's doing something very different, I think. I think the whole section is addressed toward the Jews.

And even chapter 1 plays a role in what Paul's going to say to deflate this snobbery among the Jews. Now, this snobbery was a problem in the church. Because, again, the Jews were not Gentiles.

They were circumcised. The Jewish Christians were circumcised. Because they were circumcised as babies.

They became Christians. They were still circumcised. So, there were still circumcised Christians and uncircumcised Christians.

And the Jew had been raised with this whole idea, being circumcised makes you a better person. And most of them thought, probably, in their heart of hearts, that those Gentiles probably should get circumcised, too, if they want to be in this church. And, of course, the Jerusalem Council said that's not so.

But just a decree from a council doesn't change people's emotions about things. They still had this pride and this lifelong conviction that Gentiles, because they're uncircumcised, are not acceptable. And so, Paul considers, apparently, that the biggest problem in the Jew-Gentile division in the church that's causing the problems is the Jewish attitude that he's got to get on.

Later on, he tells the Gentiles not to despise the Jews and to not boast against the branches that were cut off, because you're just standing there by faith that you can be cut off, too. So, I mean, Paul does later address the problem with maybe Gentile snobbery. But he has to first attack his own, the mentality of his own people, the Jews.

And so, he states right at the beginning, after the epilogue of the book, I mean, right after the prologue of the book, that being Jewish is not the ticket that admits a man to favor with God. He says it's to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And when he says to the Jew first, he's not trying to give Jews privilege.

They already believed they had that. He's adding that also to the Greek. So, when he says to the Jew first and also to the Greek, he really means not to the Jews only, but the Greeks, too.

It's Gentiles as well as Jews. You know, when we as Gentiles read to the Jew first, and also the Greek, well, God's given some kind of priority to the Jews here. The Jew first, you know, God still, are they still his favorites? We have to understand that he's intending for Jews who think that the Jews only are the good ones, not the Greeks.

And he says, no, the Jew had the first chance. God came to the Jews first. Just read history.

He came to them at Mount Sinai. He later reached to the Greeks through Christ. So, the Jews had it first, the Greeks next.

But the emphasis is on the fact that it's not only the Jews. Just the Jews happen to be first, but they're not alone in this. The Greeks also are included as God's people.

And he makes this point emphatically through much of what follows. I won't go through all this in detail. In your notes, I do somewhat more, but I want to get past it quicker.

And so, the first four chapters, I think, are the antidote to Jewish ethnic snobbery. The chapters 5 through 11, then, I think, are clarifying concepts that were affirmed in the first four chapters. In chapter 5, 1 through 11, he celebrates the justification by faith that he's been talking about in the previous chapters.

He has, eventually, even Romans 9 through 11, is just amplifying on a point that he raised in chapter 3. At the beginning of chapter 3, he said, what, then, is the advantage of being circumcised? Is there any advantage to it? And he says, much in every way, chiefly to them as given the oracles of God. But he amplifies on that more in chapter 9. And about what advantage in being a Jew and what the advantages are not. So, he's kind of touched on it in chapter 3, but he goes into it in detail in chapters 9 through 11.

I think all of chapters 5 through 11, although they divide into subsections, they are all clarifications of points he touched on more succinctly in the earlier chapters. As he was more or less trying to rebuke the Jews for their snobbery, he made several points that needed more amplification later. And so, chapters 5 through 11, I believe, amplify on many of those points.

I believe that chapters 6 and 7 are not about sanctification. Remember, I said that the conventional outline sees chapters 6, 7, and 8 as about sanctification. I don't think that 6 and 7 are about sanctification.

It's still, you will find the language, there is still the language of justification through there. But what 6 and 7 are doing is answering certain questions that would arise from a misunderstanding of what he has said about justification by faith. For example, at the end of chapter 5, in verse 20, he says, Where sin abounds, grace abounds.

So verse 6, he says, You see, this is a question that rises very naturally out of what he's just said. If when I sin, if there's more sin that makes grace abound, well, maybe we should just sin more, so grace will abound more. And of course, he refutes that.

No, that's a wrong understanding. And in doing so, in chapter 6, verse 14, he says, Well, what's the next line? What then, shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace? So he has said, first of all, where sin abounds, grace abounds. And the question actually comes up, well, then maybe we should sin, so grace will abound more.

And then he says, we're not under the law, we're under grace. He says, well, maybe then we should sin because we're not under the law, but under grace. You see, he's anticipating the things he's already said earlier are going to be corrupted in the minds of people who misunderstand.

So he's really just clarifying here. The things he's talking about are things that were already in the first four chapters. He's just clarifying where people are likely to be mistaken.

About things. Also, in chapter 7, verse 7, he has basically said in the previous verses to that, that when the law came, it made sin worse for him, not better. He then anticipates the question, verse 7, what should we say then, is the law sin? And he answers that, you know, is the law bad? If in fact, I was better off before the law came because where the law came, it made my sin more stark, more obvious.

Well, then is the law a bad thing because it had that effect? No, the law is not bad, I'm bad. That's what his answer is. But the point here is that chapters 6 and 7 are like a long parenthesis between chapter 5 and chapter 8. And I believe that these chapters are not talking about sanctification.

They're clarifying things about justification by faith. But then when he comes to Romans 8, he does talk about the role of the Holy Spirit, which does have an impact on our sanctification. So if there's anything about sanctification in the book, it's chapter 8. It's just that the common outline would make chapters 6, 7, and 8 about that.

But I think they're not understanding the function of chapters 6 and 7 when they put it in that outline. This is not extremely necessary for you to have down as an outline, but it's just seeing Paul's argument going a little different direction than some would say. And so chapters 9 through 11 are an amplification on some of the things he said in chapter 3 in the opening verses.

But then we have the practical section. I'm not going to get into that in detail. We already said something about that.

The practical section from chapter 12 on. So, so much for that. Now, I promised we'd get into chapter 1. We're not going to get very far into it, but let's go ahead and look at chapter 1. Let's read the first 7 verses.

Now, I'm using the New King James. I know some of you may have different versions. And if you want to borrow a New King James in addition to the version you like, or you can also go online and find a text of the New King James if it helps you.

You can, of course, use whatever version you're comfortable with. But just so you'll know, what's he reading? I'm reading the New King James here. Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

Through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all the nations for his name, among whom also you are the called of Jesus Christ, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. This is obviously just sort of the standard obligatory opening, but Paul always packs some of his theological concerns even into his formal opening of a letter.

Now, the word called is used here three times in the first seven verses. First, in verse one, he says he's called to be an apostle. In verse six, he says, among whom you also are the called.

The same word of Jesus Christ. And then in verse seven, at the end of verse seven, you're called, not the end, but in the middle of verse seven, you're called to be saints. So once it's Paul that's called, twice it's us who are called.

Actually, this word is kleitos in the Greek, and it's only used one other time in Romans, and that's in a very well-known verse, Romans 8, 28, which everyone knows at least the first part of that. It goes, for we know that all things work together for good, to those who love God and who are the called, according to his purpose. So the called is kleitos.

Now, the word call is used elsewhere in Romans, but it's not the same Greek word. There's different Greek words for called. This particular word means invited, or in the case of verse one, appointed.

Called refers to being invited, like to a feast or something like that. Jesus used this word in Matthew 20, end verse 16, where he said, many are called and few are chosen. Actually, that's with reference to the ones who are invited to work in the field, and some worked all day and so forth.

But he uses the same phrase again in Matthew 22, 14, and that's at the wedding feast. The king made a marriage for his son. He invited or called guests.

The first guest didn't come. That was the Jews who didn't come to the invitation. The king got angry, sent out his armies, burned down their city, and then went out and sent his messengers out far and wide to the Gentiles to bring them in.

But even that wasn't the end of it, because the guests came, but then they had to be sorted out because there was one there who didn't have a wedding garment. The king came and threw him out. And at the very end, Jesus says, for many are called, but few are chosen.

Now, it's very clear that those who are called are the ones who are invited. They were invited to the wedding. Not all of them get to stay.

Not all are the chosen. Now, chosen should not, we should not import theological ideas that we have presupposed into the words. Chosen does not necessarily mean what Calvinists mean by chosen.

It could, but it could mean something else. I'm not a Calvinist, so I don't believe it's, I don't believe in unconditional election, or chosenness like that. And I'm not, I don't believe it's talking about, well, I won't get into that too much.

All I'm saying is we might think the word chosen has a whole bunch of theological content, that God chose these people before they were born, before the foundation of the world, and though he invited others, he didn't choose them all. So they're, you know, it's kind of like a sham invitation. They weren't chosen, so they can't be saved anyway, but he invited them anyway, and let them think they were saved for a while.

That's not what he's saying. I think what he's saying is if you want to be among the chosen, you have to respond to the invitation, and respond properly. You have to respond on God's terms.

Everybody was invited. They were all called, but not everyone responded on God's terms. One man just didn't come, he didn't wear the right clothes you're supposed to wear at a king's wedding feast.

What's up with that? It's disrespecting the king. He got thrown out. He was inappropriately dressed.

He came on his own terms, not the king's terms. And so the message of the parable is that God invites everybody, but not everybody will come, and not everyone will come on his terms. The first group of people invited didn't come at all.

The second group came, but some of them came on their own terms, and they had to be kicked out. The idea here is the invitation stands general. Everyone is invited through the gospel, but not everyone meets the conditions of responding on God's terms in order to be chosen to participate long-term in the festivities.

And so that's the same word in those passages of Matthew that's used here. Now, I say that because lots of times in Romans 8, 28, when it says, those who love God and who are the called, according to his purpose, Calvinists have a doctrine they call irresistible grace. And related to that is the idea of the effectual call.

There's our word call. To a Calvinist, and it may seem like I'm picking on Calvinists. The trouble is I'm not a Calvinist, and they use Romans a lot.

So I have to point out sometimes that what they say about certain passages of Romans may be what you've heard or will hear, and I would just point out where I see it differently than that. But they believe that those who are elected are chosen unconditionally and drawn irresistibly to God. That if you are elect, you will necessarily and irresistibly be drawn to God.

It's inevitable. You'll be saved because you were chosen. And when they hear the called, according to his purpose in Romans 8, 28, that's talking about the elect who were effectually called.

You see, the Calvinists believe there's two kinds of calls too. They believe there's a general call, an invitation that goes out to everybody, but it's not a sincere invitation to everybody. God only effectually calls some.

There's some that he really wants, others he doesn't. There's some that he chose to save through no merit or demerit of anybody. Just before they were born, he says, I'm going to take them, I'm not going to take them.

That is his unilateral choice before the world was created. So on those views, of course, he doesn't want these ones or else he would have chosen them too. He could choose whoever he wants.

There's no one twisting his arm. He's not taking into consideration anything in the creation. It's his unilateral sovereign choice, according to Calvinism.

So anyone who doesn't get saved, you have to conclude God didn't want them to be saved or else he would have saved them too. He would have included them. There's a group of people, apparently the mass of humanity, that God doesn't want saved.

And then this elect group, this elite group that he loved enough to want to save. That's the Calvinist view. Now, if you're in the elite group, God will issue a call to you that's different than the call to them.

These people who are not like, they can hear the gospel and hear the invitation, but they can't respond because they just don't have it in them and God won't let them. These people though, they'll be called effectually. There'll be an irresistible grace, a tractor beam that God has that draws them irresistibly to himself.

And Calvinists believe many times when he talks about Christians as the called, it's talking about this tractor beam kind of effectual call that once God calls you in that way, you just, you come necessarily. Now, what I'm pointing out to you is this word kleitos, which is used in these passages, is also used in the passage about the people who didn't come. The many who were called, but not all of them met the conditions.

They didn't irresistibly come and get saved. Some of them didn't come at all. The first group, the second group, some of them came on good terms, some didn't.

The ones who came on good terms are saved. The ones, all of them were called. Being called is no guarantee that you'll come.

There is not, therefore, this effectual call in these passages, nor as far as I can tell elsewhere in Scripture. Remember when Jesus said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times I would have gathered your children under my wings, or as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you wouldn't. Well, God was trying to gather them.

God's trying to draw them. If he had this tractor, maybe he could have just done it. But he apparently left it up to them.

He says, you didn't want this, you didn't come. But I would have brought you. I didn't exclude you.

You excluded yourself. I didn't choose for you to be lost. You chose to be lost.

I called you. I wanted you to come. I would have drawn you, but you wouldn't come.

This is how God actually speaks. And this is, therefore, clear that the calling is not irresistible. But Paul was called to be an apostle, as well as us being called to be Christians in general.

He was, but he was also called to be an apostle. There was a special calling on his life, once called, and he was called in a special way. He actually did, of course, see a vision that would be awfully hard to say no to.

Although he could have said no. Later, he was speaking to King Agrippa and telling his story about how he was converted and how he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. He says, I was not disobedient to the heavenly calling.

In other words, I had this call and I wasn't disobedient. But the very saying of that suggests that it could have gone otherwise. I could have been disobedient.

I wasn't. And so some people say, well, Paul could not have said no once he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. Really? There were people who saw Jesus work miracles, raise Lazarus from the dead, and they said no to.

You see, a sign or a wonder doesn't convert somebody. If they don't want to come to God, they'll make excuses for it. Once in John 12, a voice from heaven spoke to Jesus and people heard it.

Jesus said, Father, glorify your name. And the voice came down, a booming voice said, I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. The Bible says some said it thundered and others said an angel spoke to him.

But none of them were admitting it was God. Here's a supernatural thing. You know, people say, why doesn't God just open the sky and show himself to people? Well, here he speaks with a booming voice that anyone can hear.

And some say it thundered, didn't it? You know, I know there's a supernatural thing. They interpret it through the paradigm of their naturalism. It was a natural phenomenon.

Or if they had supernatural beliefs, it was an angel, wasn't God. You see, God can show himself any way he wants and there's going to be people, they'll interpret it through the grid they want to interpret it through. Their hearts being submissive or not submissive is what's going to determine whether they'll be convinced or not.

C.S. Lewis said that he said, he says, I've only met one woman in my life who professed to have seen a ghost. And he says, the interesting thing about her was that before she saw the ghost, she did not believe in the immortality of the soul. And after she saw the ghost, she still didn't.

He said, which proves only one thing, that seeing is not believing. We sometimes think if Jesus would just show up with the holes in his hands, everyone would believe. Well, a woman who sees a ghost and still doesn't believe in ghosts proves that that's not necessarily true.

She's a naturalist. She doesn't believe in the supernatural. So you have to interpret it according to how you want to understand it.

And people will believe what they want to believe more than they will believe what is persuasively given to them. There's people's hearts direction. Is it obedient or disobedient to God by inclination? That's going to be what determines if you believe or not.

So Paul said that he was called an apostle. He received that call on the road to Damascus and he was not disobedient to it. He did accept that call because he was never really an enemy of God.

He had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge as he says about his fellow Jews in Romans 10. So I can bear them witness. I know because I was one of them.

They have a zeal for God, but it's just not according knowledge. They're ignorant. He was ignorant.

He tells Timothy says I persecuted the church of God by I obtained mercy because I did it in ignorance and he was never an enemy of God in his heart. He wanted to be God. He was a zealot for God.

He just didn't believe Jesus was who he claimed to be until he saw him. Then he said, oh, okay changes everything. I'll worship you now.

Paul was not resistant to God. He was just slow a slow learner and he says there at the end of verse 1 and we're going to stop after this part. I told you we get into chapter 1. Got one verse out of the way almost.

Separated to the gospel of God. Now this is probably intended as a play on words because he as we know from other passages was once a Pharisee in Philippians chapter 3. He says that he was formerly a Pharisee of the son of a Pharisee. The word Pharisee means someone who separated separated from the normal course of life to follow the law of God.

A Pharisee was a separated one. Now Paul had been a Pharisee separated to the law. Now, he's an apostle separated to the gospel.

So he's sort of like he doesn't use the word Pharisee but because that would be not a Greek word and he's writing in Greek, but the idea is there, you know, I used to be separated to the law. But now that I've been called of Christ. I'm separated to the gospel.

I'm as zealous for the gospel as I was for the law and you're going to see that he sees a tremendous difference in the gospel and the law that they're different from each other. Although they come from the same God. They belong to different covenants and we'll see how he unpacks that later, but we've run out of time.

And so we're going to stop right there.