PAUL’S LETTER TO THE CHRISTIANS IN ROME

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Verses 1-11 Peace and Joy

In these verses Paul writes about ‘we’ and ‘us’ again. So what he says was true of him, and true of the Roman Christians too. It is also true of every real Christian since then, and it is still true today. We shall find that Paul does not write in this way in the second half of the chapter. It was in Chapter 1 up to verse 15 that he wrote like this before.

So first in verse 1 Paul says again:- ‘God has said that we are righteous. And this comes out of the fact that we have faith in God.’ Now it is time for Paul to build on this.

a) So, he says that we have peace towards God. Once, we were the enemies of God. People all round us who do not believe in Jesus still are the enemies of God. This is not the same as to say that God is their enemy. We are not now God’s enemies and this change is ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ’. It is not because of what we have done. It is because of what He did for us.

b) In verse 2, Paul says much the same thing in other words. Once we stood in a place of the greatest danger. Jesus opened a door for us to go through. By faith we had the right to go through. Now we stand in quite another place. Instead of danger all round us, there is now God’s grace, His love and His favour to us. We stand in front of God. See, for example, Revelation 7:9 and 14:1.

c) Before this great change we were sometimes happy. Sometimes we were sad. Now we should be full of joy. Joy is more than happiness. We do not share in the glory of God. Yet we have every reason to hope that we will. We rest upon this hope.

(Verse 3) There is nothing very strange about rejoicing in the hope of glory. It is wonderful in this world to have hope. So many people have no hope. What Paul says next could seem strange. ‘We rejoice in our sufferings’. Paul sometimes tells us in his letters how much he suffered. Many of the Christians at Rome were slaves; they suffered in many ways. Others were Jews, and then as now, the Jews were hated. They often suffered. This is not the only place in the New Testament which speaks in this way. See Matthew 5:11 and 12; Luke 6:22 and 23; 1 Peter 4:12-19; Hebrews 10:32-34; James 1:2; 1 Peter 1:6; 2 Corinthians 6:10 and 7:4; Philippians 2:17; Colossians 1:24; 1 Thessalonians 1:6 and Acts 5:41.

Now if you look at Romans 8:17 and Philippians 3:10 you will see one great reason why Christians may suffer and rejoice. Christians have a Master and Lord, Jesus. He suffered. We suffer with Him so that we may share His glory.

People often think:- ‘If there is a God, and He is love, why do people suffer?’ This is just not a New Testament way to think! God calls His people to suffer, and He gives them His help when they suffer. He promises them glory and a reward.

So we can say:- ‘Yes, of course. Suffering is bad. Yet we look through it to find out what it means in God’ It makes something good in us - ‘endurance, fortitude or perseverance’. ‘Patience’ is a simpler word, perhaps. Paul uses the Greek word ‘hupomone’. This is a word that the New Testament writers often use. It means that we have a load to carry. It is heavy, but we stay under it. We do not try to get out from under it. We do not try wrong ways to escape from the load.

(Verse 4) ‘Patience’ makes something else in our lives. This is ‘character’ or ‘experience’. This word is ‘dokime’ and it means that something has been tested. When it was tested, it was found to be good. God has tested our faith and He has found that it is good. So our faith has been tested and Paul adds ‘hope’ to his list. This is hope in God, not hope in what we have become.

You will find other lists like this in the New Testament. There is one in 2 Peter 1:5-7.

In verse 5, Paul says more about hope. Hope does not bring shame on us: it honours us. Notice that faith, hope and love come together here. The best known place in the New Testament where this happens is 1 Corinthians 13:13. Other places are Colossians 1:4 and 5; Hebrews 6:10-12 and 10:22-24; 1 Peter 1:3, 7 and 8, and also 21-22; and 1 Thessalonians 1:3 and 5:8. The love which God has for us is like a flood of water in our hearts. He pours out this love through the Holy Spirit.

This is the first time in this letter that Paul has said anything about God’s love to us or about the Holy Spirit. We have to wait until Chapter 8 for most of his teaching about the Holy Spirit, but Paul goes on to say more about God’s love in the next few verses. It is only the Holy Spirit who can give to us a sense or feeling of God’s love. It is in our heart that the Spirit of God works. He makes us new men and women (Psalm 51:10). The Spirit of God is able to reach into our hearts and to do His work there. The Old Testament promised that God would give His Spirit freely. God has kept His word, through the Spirit. Love is a flood in our hearts. Now we have the New Testament promise of glory. God will keep that promise too. He has not done it yet, but He will do it at the right time.

(Verse 6) Paul says that there were two things wrong with us. First, we were ungodly. We did not give to God the honour which He ought to have. We did not fear God. The other thing was that we were weak. We did not have the strength which we needed to make ourselves better. Now one of these wrong things on its own would not be so bad. Men cannot help themselves, and they cannot expect help from God. Then they are in real trouble. See Isaiah 40:29. So Christ died for us. This happened, Paul says ‘at the right time’. See Galatians 4:4.

It is often said that Christ came into the world and died for us at the best time for the Good News to spread. The ‘Roman peace’ covered much of the world. People could travel all over the Roman Empire. People spoke Greek and Latin everywhere. The Jews too, had spread through the Empire and beyond. Their meeting places or ’synagogues’ were often the place where Christians first preached the Good News in a city. There is some truth in all this, although the church soon spread beyond the Roman Empire, mostly to countries further to the east.

The true meaning of ’at the right time’ is rather ’at the right time in God’s will’. We often feel that people die at the wrong time. Some seem to die too soon before their life work is finished. Some seem to live on in pain and weakness, and we almost wish that they could die sooner. Some people may ask why God did not send Jesus into the world sooner. We do not know. Yet we do know that Jesus came to a world which was weary of its religion. The world was ready for something new. The old ideas did not help people.

Jesus came to a world, too, where Jew and Roman met. They shared when He was judged, and when He was put to death.

Paul writes here for the first time in this letter about the death of Jesus. This verse does not say how the death of Jesus helps us. That comes in the verses that follow.

In verse 7, Paul begins to argue from what is less to what is greater. It is not very likely that someone will give up their life for a man who is righteous. He is a man who does what is right and good. It is more likely that someone will die to help a man who not only does what is right. This man does much more. This man has money and he gives it away to help other people. But we all fear death. Not many people are ready to give up their lives for a man like that.

So in verse 8, Paul says:- ‘We were not people who gave money away and so were really good. We were not just fairly good. We were sinners.’ No one would want to die for sinners. Yet Jesus did. He did not fear death, even a death of great pain and shame. Verse 8 really says that God brings out His love for us. The word ‘commends’ or ‘shows’ really means more. The word means to bring things or people together. So Jesus brings God’s love out from heaven and He brings it home to us. You could even say that Jesus brings God’s love right into us. This verse also says that God did not wait for us to make ourselves a bit better. While we were still sinners, Jesus died. The Good News is not to make good men even better. It makes sinners into saints. This is one of the ways in which the Good News is different from other religions.

In verse 9, notice the words ‘much more’. We shall find them again in verse 10 and then in verses 15 and 17. See too Hebrews 9:14. Paul does not say how much more. What he says is that Christ’s death helped us. God has declared us free from guilt because Jesus died. Yet the life of Jesus must do more for us than His death did. He has won the fight with death, and now He is alive for ever. So because Jesus lives, God will save us. He will keep us away from ‘the wrath’, that is, His great anger.

Paul uses another argument like this in verse 11. We were in a really bad place. We were the enemies of God Then Jesus died. This moved us from that bad place. We are now in a good place, for we have peace with God. We are ‘reconciled’. We would have expected God to hate men, because they killed the Son Who He loved so much. It is wonderful that this is God’s way to make peace with men. We may be sure that the risen life of Jesus will do us more good even than His death. This is because now we are in a better place to enjoy His help.

So (verse 11) Paul says:- ‘We rejoice in God’. Verse 2 said that we rejoice in hope. Verse 3 said that we rejoice in sufferings. To rejoice in God is greatest of all. We have already seen that this is the end of this part of the letter, where Paul speaks about ‘us’ and ‘we’. Verse 12 is rather a new start.

Verses 12-21 Life comes to us through Jesus.

Paul’s mind now turns to the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. He thinks about Genesis 3:1-7. Through one man, Adam, sin came into the world. Paul means ‘the world of men’ here. The word ‘world’ is another one which does not always mean exactly the same thing. We always have to ask just what it means. Now this leaves us with some questions to which we do not know the answers. We must judge that God has not told us the answers, so it is best for us not to know. We cannot find out, however hard we try! We would like to know where sin came from. Perhaps it was there but outside the ‘world of men’. It would not help us if we did know.

God warned Adam not to eat from the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’. If he did eat from it, he would die (Genesis 2:17). With his wife Eve, he did eat. He did not die at once (Genesis 3:6 and 7). But death comes into the story in several ways (Genesis 3:19; 4:8; 4:23 and 24; 5:5 and the verses that follow; 6:21; 9:5 and 6). We may ask what would have happened if Adam had not sinned. The answer is that we do not know. Paul just says:- ‘ And through sin death’. Sin was like a door into human life through which death came into human life too.

In the second half of the verse, Paul adds two more things. First, all men sinned. It was not only Adam, the first man. Second, because of this, death also spread to all men.

Then in verse 13, Paul says that the story of men is in two parts. There is a first part from Adam to Moses. Then there is a second part, from Moses till Christ. In the first part men sinned. God had not yet given His Law to Moses. So when men sinned, they did not break God’s Law. Yet death was there. When God gave His Law, sin and death were still there, but now God ‘reckoned’ or counted up men’s sins against them.

So Paul adds more in verse 14. Paul adds first that ‘from Adam to Moses’, death ruled over men like a king. Now, a king makes laws. ‘King Death’ had his law, but now God, the true King, gives Moses His law. Then second, men do not have to sin in the same way that Adam sinned. They sinned in all sorts of other ways. Perhaps the point is that Adam is more like the people who had God’s Law. God had warned him not to eat, and he did not obey. Then third, Paul says that Adam is a picture of ‘the One Who should come,’ that is, Jesus.

In verse 15, Paul begins to work out for us what this last thought means. We must start with something that Paul does not say. Adam is a ‘picture’ of Jesus, but only a picture. Adam was a wonderful man, but Jesus is not only a wonderful man. He is also the Son of God. I think that Adam was clever, but Jesus was wise.

Now what Adam did when he sinned, had an effect. It spread sin and death to all men. Jesus is greater, and so the effect of what He does is greater too. He spreads pardon of sins and new life to all men. The effect of the sin of Adam must also be less than the effect of the life and the death of Jesus. This is because Adam sinned against God, but in life and death, Jesus obeyed God’s will. We can do far more when we work with God than when we work against Him. Adam worked against God. Jesus worked with God. The same thing is true of our lives.

In verse 15, Paul begins to set this out. He calls Adam’s ‘act of sin’ a ‘trespass’ or ‘offence’. On the other side is God’s act of grace, that is His free gift to men. Because of Adam’s sin, ‘the many’ died. ‘How much more’ does God’s grace in the death of Christ flow out to ‘the many’. We cannot even begin to measure this ‘how much more’.

In verse 16, Paul brings in another idea to show how great the grace of God is. Adam sinned just once. God judged him (Genesis 3:9-13) and then spoke in His anger and punished him (Genesis 3:14-19). From then on, there were more sins than we could count. God’s anger did not follow these sins. God’s great gift of love followed these many sins. He gave us Jesus, to die for our sins. More, God says to us:- ‘Yes, you are sinners. Yet Jesus has taken your sins away. So I say that you are righteous’. This is not because of what we are, but because of what Jesus has done.

Verse 17 gives us again the picture of King Death. He sits on his royal seat or ‘throne’ and he rules or ‘reigns’. Death got hold of the throne because of one man, Adam, and his sin. Then we read about another ‘much more’. This ‘much more’ comes to us through the life and death of Jesus. It is ours because He lives; He has risen from the dead!

1. King Death has gone! He is no longer on his throne. He no longer rules.
2. We no longer face God’s anger. There is grace. There is God’s grace and there is plenty of it.
3. We receive God’s righteousness, freely as a gift.
4. We expect Paul to say that Jesus is now on the throne. He does not! He says something far better even than that! He says that we rule or ‘reign’. We are all kings now. We rule over death, and we rule in life. New life is all around us. See Revelation 20:4-6; 22:5; 1:6; 5:11 and 1 Peter 2:9. Now we should be quietly thankful to God for all this. We have to say:- ‘Not yet’ (1 John 3:2).

Paul’s argument in these verses began in verse 12:- ‘Therefore just as sin came into the world.....’. Verse 18 marks the second stage as Paul says:- ‘So, therefore.......’. The third part will be in verse 21:- ‘So also grace.......’.

Paul begins to say that some things have a ‘knock-on effect’. Here in verse 18 he says that that was a ‘false step’, an ‘offence’ or ‘trespass’. This was, of course, Adam’s sin. Through this ‘false step’ ‘into’ all men ‘into’ condemnation. So God says that all men are wrong. God’s condemnation now means death. Against this, Paul sets what Jesus had done. ‘Through’ His one righteous act ‘into’ all men ‘into’ righteousness which brings life. What Jesus has done is to obey God, and so Jesus has died. His death has a ‘knock-on effect’, just like Adam’s sin. That effect is to bring life.

Some people find it difficult that Paul here speaks twice of ‘all men’. We have to ask what he really does mean. [5.1] The first time he means all men and no one is left out. The second time he means ‘all men who believe’. ‘All men’ here means both Jew and non-Jew.

This is like verse 15, where the first time Paul says ‘the many’ he means ‘all men’. The second ‘many’ is all who believe and are saved. For ‘the many’ see Isaiah 52:14; and 53:11 and 12 and Mark 10:45. God grant to us that we may know that we belong to the ‘many’ who have faith and are saved.

In verse 19, we would like to understand better what ‘were made’ or ‘constituted’ means. We can only guess that God Himself made these things so. What Paul adds in this verse is a contrast. Adam knew what the will of God was, but he did not obey God. ‘The disobedience of the one man’ is the sin of Adam. ‘The obedience of the one’ is, of course, the obedience of Jesus to the will of God. God can do wonderful things through us, too, if we obey His will. ‘All men’ are the many who are made sinners. Real Christians are those who are made righteous.

Paul has not said anything about the Law of God since verses 12-14. He has spoken about Adam and Christ, life and death, sin and righteousness, and judgment and grace.

So (verse 20) a Jewish friend might ask:- ‘ Where is the Law in all this?’ So Paul says that the Law came in amongst these other things. It is almost as though God slid or slipped it in. Here Paul explains why. It was so that sin should ‘increase’. Now that cannot mean that there would be more sin. The Law does not make the quantity of sin greater. The Law shows us how sin spreads all through us. It shows us how bad sin is. It shows us how much God hates sin. It shows us how weak we are when we fight against sin. Law came in only to do this. It did not ‘come in’ to save us or to redeem us. Sin ‘abounded’ - there was plenty of it! - in us. That was just where sin had its power. So that was just where the grace of God came in also. And if sin ‘abounded’ grace - the grace of God - ‘abounded’ far more. ‘Grace is good because it makes us good. Grace is so good that it makes bad things good’. [5.2] See Ephesians 2:7. The picture in verse 21 is not quite the same as we have had before. Now it is King Sin who rules. He sits on his seat as king and ‘reigns’. All round is death. Nothing changes. Nothing moves. But now the grace of God comes in. It pushes King Sin off his throne. Now it is the grace of God that rules and reigns. Grace is on the throne now. See Hebrews 4:16 which tells us about ‘The throne of grace’.

Sin reigned in death. Grace reigns ‘into’ life, and not just this life, but life for ever with God. So now things change and move forward. Grace reigns ‘through righteousness’. God can do everything which He wants to do by grace. The way that He does it is always right. Then grace reigns ‘through Jesus Christ’, and He is our Lord. That is good to know.

Just notice that word ‘our’ as we come to the end of this chapter. The next chapter is full of ‘we’ and ‘us’.