Devotionary

It would have been easy for the Gentile recipients of Paul’s letter to have concluded that the Jews had blown it. They had rejected Jesus as their Messiah and, therefore, God had chosen to take His message of salvation to non-Jews. But Paul, a Jew himself, wouldn’t allow them to draw this conclusion. In response to whether God had rejected His people, Paul responded, “By no means!” They may have rejected Him, but He had not rejected them. He had a plan for the people of Israel and had made binding promises regarding their future that He was going to keep. Their rejection of His Son had not caught God off guard. He hadn’t been forced to knee-jerk react and come up with a plan B. In fact, everything was going exactly as He had pre-ordained it to happen. No surprises. No setbacks. No cause for concern. Because God had always planned for all the nations to be blessed, including Israel, and so they were.  

As Paul closes out chapter 10, he stresses God’s unique relationship to the people of Israel. While they were God’s chosen people, and Jesus had come to them as their Messiah, the vast majority of them had refused to accept Him as such. The apostle John, in his gospel, described just what had happened. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12 NLT). Paul, a Jew himself, had watched as his own people continued to reject Jesus as their Messiah and Savior, while the Gentiles gladly accepted His offer of salvation through grace alone, by faith alone in Christ alone. The Jews had heard, and so, they were without excuse. The light of God had shown among them, but they had chosen to remain in darkness. God had called, but they had refused to listen.

Paul had an obsession with the gospel. It had radically redeemed and changed him. And he was eternally grateful. So much so, that he couldn’t stop talking about it. Everywhere he went, the good news of Jesus Christ was just about all Paul could talk about – to anybody who would listen. It was Paul’s gratitude for what Christ had done for him that fueled his evangelistic zeal. Of course, he had been commissioned by Jesus Himself, but Paul didn’t view his commission as a job, but as a privilege. It was his joy to share the grace that had been shown to him. It was his honor to tell others of the life-changing message of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. And as we open up chapter ten of Romans, we are going to see Paul’s passion for the gospel and his compassion for the lost coming together in a powerful display of evangelistic zeal. Paul was willing to risk all so that some might come to know Jesus as their Savior.

It is a dangerous thing to shake your fist in the face of a holy God and question His integrity or cast doubt regarding His justice. And yet, so often, that is exactly what we do. Our problem is one of perspective, as Paul will point out. We have a limited view of what God is doing, and a less-than-complete understanding of His will or His ways. We have a tendency to look at events from our earth-based vantage point and either question God’s methods or raise doubts as to His presence altogether. The Jews of Paul’s day couldn’t understand why God would offer His grace and mercy to the Gentiles. In their minds, that was unfair. Rich Gentiles who came to faith in Christ struggled with the idea of poor believers being their equals. The ways of God are sometimes difficult to comprehend. He can be mysterious and unconventional, but He is also gracious and merciful. All because He chooses to be. Not because we deserve Him to be.

What was Paul, a good Jew, supposed to do with all the promises God had made to the people of Israel? Was the fact he had been commissioned to take the gospel to the Gentiles a sign that God was done with the Jews? Were they no longer His chosen people? Chapter nine of Romans opens up an important section of the letter that will deal with God’s seeming rejection of the Jews and His inclusion of the Gentiles. The Jews in Paul’s audience, who had placed their faith in Christ, were struggling over what appeared to be a falling from grace on the part of the Israelites. But Paul is going to emphasize God’s faithfulness to His chosen people and affirm that God’s word, His promises, have not failed regarding the descendants of Israel. God was going to choose from among them just as He had among the Gentiles. His blessings would fall on Jew and Gentile alike. Based on His grace, not merit.

In the final verses of chapter eight, Paul stresses the irrepressible, unavoidable and unbelievable love of God for His children. This love, ultimately expressed in the selfless sacrifice of His own Son as payment for our sins, is like nothing we have ever seen before. It’s not based on our performance, so it’s completely undeserved and impossible to un-earn. In other words, there’s nothing we can ever do that will make God stop loving us. And there is nothing anyone else can do to separate us from God’s love. God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. And His love will not be completely fulfilled until He sends His Son back to get us. And between those two events in our life, He continues to pour out His love on us as He patiently, graciously and mercifully transforms us into the likeness of His Son. His love for us came at a great cost, and will last forever.    

God saved us and one day He is going to glorify us. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? That’s the topic of the next section of Romans chapter eight. In verses 18-30 Paul will deal with our future glory and our present suffering. He’ll juxtapose our eternal life to come with the life we are called to live in the meantime. During this phase of our journey, we will experience His sanctifying work in our lives, but it will take place along with the ever-present reality of sin and suffering. But once again, Paul will remind us that we have been given the Spirit of God to help us in our weaknesses and to intercede on our behalf with “groanings too deep for words.” And finally, Paul will leave us with those comforting, yet sometimes difficult to believe words, “all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.”

In the first 17 verses of Romans chapter eight, Paul provides us with important insight into how we are to live for Christ now that we have been set free from the law. He doesn’t tell us to avoid the law or to view it as unnecessary or no longer valid. No, he tells us to walk according to the Spirit. We are to live our lives according to a new power. The Holy Spirit was God’s gift to the church, providing believers with the power they need to live the life to which He has called them. No longer are we staring at a long list of holy requirements, equipped with nothing more than our sinful flesh to help us live obediently. That method has been proven ineffective in producing holy people. But now, we have the Spirit of God providing for us the power of God and making it possible for us to live as the people of God. It is the very presence of the Spirit of God within us that proves to us that we are sons and daughters of God, and heirs to His kingdom.      

The second half of Romans chapter seven contains an up close and personal glimpse into Paul’s own battle with sin. Here was a man who had had a face-to-face encounter with the resurrected Christ, and who had spent years sharing the goods new of faith in Christ with countless individuals all across the known world of that day. And yet, he struggled with sin. He knew what it was like to desire to do what was right and good, but to find himself unable to pull it off. He had discovered the reality of the daily battle we all face as believers: The internal war between our old sin nature and the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God. When God saved us, He didn’t eradicate our sin nature. It remains alive and well, and stands diametrically opposed to the plans the Holy Spirit has for us. But God didn’t just give us an alternative to sin, He gave us a means by which we can have victory over it. All through the power of the Spirit.      

As we open up chapter seven of Paul’s letter to the Romans, we will see him returning to his discussion of man’s new relationship with the law as a result of Christ’s death on the cross. In no way is Paul attempting to diminish the value of the law. In fact, he will defend it with his life. But he is trying to get believers to understand that they have been set from the law in terms of any need they may feel to keep it in order to made right with God. The law is holy, but it cannot transfer that holiness to anyone. Only Jesus can make the unholy, holy. Only He can replace our unrighteousness with His own righteousness. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can do good deeds, not in our power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are free to be fruitful. We are free to keep the righteous requirements of the law, not as a form of merit, but as an expression of our newfound righteousness provided for us by Christ.      

In chapter six of his letter to the Romans, Paul continues to unpack the good news regarding faith in Christ and its provision of a right relationship with God. And one of the most profound aspects of our salvation, made possible by God’s gracious gift of His Son, is the freedom we enjoy. We have been set free from slavery to sin and are now free to pursue a life of holiness. But not based on our human efforts or our ability to keep a set of rules. Our freedom to say no to sin and yes to holiness has been made possible by Christ’s death and the Spirit’s presence in our lives. Holiness, Paul will remind us, is not an issue of SELF-control, but of the Spirit’s control over us. It is based on a willing submission to God’s power made available to us through His indwelling Spirit. We can experience the transformation God has in store for us as we transfer the control of our lives to the Spirit of God He has made available to us.   

As we move into the first six verses of Romans chapter six, we see Paul beginning to stress our new life in Christ as believers. The good news of Jesus Christ is not just future-focused, promising the reality of eternal life and a glorified, sinless state some time out there in the distance. He is reminding us that we can and should experience new life here and now ­– even in this present age with all its sin, struggles and strife. One of the primary topics of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the ongoing, progressive sanctification of the believer. We are being transformed into the image of Christ, day after day, year after year. It is an ongoing reality for all those who have placed their faith in Christ and within whom God has placed His Spirit. And our transformation, like our salvation, is not up to us ­– it is the work of God. Which is what makes it not only possible, but unavoidable.   

What is the Christian’s relationship with the law? On the one hand, Paul will say that the law is holy, just and good. On the other hand, he’ll say that we are no longer under the law, but instead, under grace. In chapter seven he’ll tell us that we have died to the law, so therefore, we are released from it. But Paul’s issue with the law has nothing to do with its authority, just its efficacy. In other words, the law, while holy, was not designed to save. In fact, it can’t save. It can instruct. It can convict. It can condemn. But it will never make anyone right with God. Paul will make it quite clear that the law was given to reveal our sinfulness, not get rid of it. And what makes the law holy is that it is a tangible expression of God’s righteous requirements for mankind. And while any attempt to obey the law and gain favor with God will prove futile, the believer is able to obey out of love, not obligation, and in the power of the Spirit, not the flesh.  

Paul has been talking about justification by faith. Men are made right with God, not by works, but by belief in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The result of their faith is justification, an undeserved restoration into a right standing with God. But several times in the first eleven verses of chapter five, Paul will say, “not only that.” As if a right standing with a holy God was not enough, Paul says we also have peace with Him. We have gone from enemies to sons and daughters. We have moved from foes to family members. And not only that, we can rejoice even in suffering, because we know that God is going to use it to produce in us endurance, character and hope. And God did all of this for us when we were weak, undeserving, mired in our sins, and deserving of His wrath. Our justification has had unbelievable ramifications.  

Faith can be a fickle thing. Sometimes it shows up in ways that surprise even us. Other times, it can appear anemic and as if it’s on life support. So, how do we go from having a wavering, waffling kind of faith that’s as volatile as the stock market, to a steadily increasing, confidence-increasing kind of faith that can weather the storms of life? Paul would have us consider Abraham, whose faith in God was counted to him as righteousness. Chapter four of Romans is a tribute to this father of the Hebrew nation, who spent his life learning to keep his faith in the promises of God based on nothing more than the word of God. It doesn’t mean he never doubted. It simply means he never stopped believing. He wondered how God was going to fulfill His promises and even tried to give God a helping hand. But his faith never wavered.

No one is righteous. Those are difficult words to hear and even harder to accept. And yet, Paul is going to drive home once again the fact that what makes the good news about Jesus Christ so great is the very bad news regarding man’s sin. There is no one who deserves salvation. And there is nothing anyone can do to earn it, either. No one is righteous. That’s bad news. But the good news is that we can be made righteous through faith in Christ. What we could never achieve on our own has been made possible for us through the death of Christ. Chapter 3 of Romans is a powerful statement regarding man’s hopeless sinful state and God’s gracious gift of salvation and justification through His Son. We are made right with God, not by human effort, but by simple faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus. The bad news is overcome by believing the good news about Jesus and His sacrifice on our behalf.

God is looking for heart change, not behavioral modification. He knows that men cannot live up to His holy standards. The Jews, His chosen people, had proven that fact time and time again. And yet, Paul is forced to talk directly to the Jews in his audience, letting them know that their ethnicity was not enough to save them. The fact that they had been given the law made little difference in their standing with God because they had failed to keep God’s law. Being a Jew didn’t make anyone right with God. If anything, it placed them under greater condemnation because their inability to keep the law should have driven them to His Son as their sin substitute and Savior. Paul reveals that a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. Not because of anything they have done, but because of what Christ has done for them.

God is angry with mankind because of their sins against Him. But there are some, who, because they see themselves as religious and therefore righteous, believe they are exempt from God’s wrath. They assume that their good works somehow make them deserving of God’s good favor. But Paul has some powerful words of warning to the religious and smugly self-righteous. Don’t confuse God’s kindness and patience with your sin as a sign that He is happy with you. All men have sinned and fallen short of God’s holy standard. And all men, even the religious and self-righteous are deserving of death. Unless of course, they have placed their faith in Christ. Just because some people seem to get away with sin shouldn’t lead us to believe that God somehow approves of their sin. He is just patiently waiting for them to wake up to the reality of their need for a Savior and the forgiveness made possible through His Son.

Today, we’ll be in Romans chapter 1, verses 18-32, where Paul will introduce us to the bad news. He is going to provide us with the dark reality of sin and how it stands in stark contrast to the Good News found in Jesus Christ. They say you’ll never fully appreciate the good news until you fully understand the bad news. So Paul is going to go out of his way to let us know just how bad things had gotten in the world that God had created. Man, made in God’s image, had chosen to turn his back on God and worship anything and everything but God. And his idolatry had led to increasing immorality and an abandonment by God to their own sinful desires. He gave them over. He left them to their own devices. And the consequences were deadly. Unwilling to give God the glory He deserves, mankind was left to seek after God-substitutes, poor imitations of the real thing that would leave them helpless, hopeless and godless.  

In today’s episode, we’ll be in Romans chapter 1, verses 1-17. Be sure to take time to read the passage sometime today. In it, Paul is going to introduce us to the Good News of Jesus Christ and emphasize his unwavering commitment to it. For Paul, the amazing thing about the good news, or the gospel, was its ability to make sinful men and women right with God. This is what set the gospel of Jesus Christ apart from all other religions. And it was all based on faith, not human effort or good works. Paul was anxious to visit his brothers and sisters in Rome, but had to be satisfied with writing them a letter. He would fill it with words of warning and encouragement, expressions of gratitude and exhortations to stay true to the gospel message they had received. But in these opening verses, Paul will remind his readers how the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is able to make men right with God.