30. Romans 1

[Music] well good morning welcome we are as you know now at long last reaching the book of romans so i i was guilty of a little false advertising last week but this week we're here uh romans chapter 1. so if you want to uh follow along in the pew bible we're going to be on page 153 i was mentioning to you last week that of course when we come to paul's letter to the romans we're coming to what by all accounts is the masterpiece production of paul uh many would argue the most important single document in the in in the new testament uh possibly in the entire bible certainly when it comes to just getting the comprehensive coherent systematic layout of the christian gospel uh this is it and so we come to this book with uh a great deal of enthusiasm obviously because uh it has all of that potential to uh help us clarify our thinking and so on personally i come to it with a little bit of trepidation because this is a point where a sunday school teacher never wants to fumble the ball you know this is about as important as it gets when we get into a book like the book of uh romans i indicated to you last week of course paul writes this book this this may be the least attached to the occasion of paul's life everything we've seen so far we've we've covered five of paul's letters uh we're taking them out you know in chronological sequence so we've looked at galatians we looked at first and second thessalonians first and second uh corinthians all of which were driven as you probably have detected to some degree by the circumstances of the moment he's responding to issues problems uh these are called occasional letters because they are occasioned by circumstances within that particular church least of all of paul's letters would be the letter of romans as an occasional letter it is really uh kind of his great treatise and so while it is occasioned in some minor sense by uh immediate circumstances of his travels and so on i has a vastly more important and much greater purpose than that but uh just to get uh our minds back into where paul is you know he's been in macedonia he's just caught up with titus titus has told him that the corinthians have uh really come around as a result of uh paul's severe letter paul wants to go to corinth i'm sorry go to corinth uh correctly at uh probably in another uh two or three months uh he actually arrives there in the late fall of 57 spends the winter uh in corinth and interestingly it's from corinth in that he writes his letter to the romans i think it's interesting because of course he had a very tumultuous relationship with the corinthians for the last couple of years if you've been in the class you know we've detailed something of that and yet ironically it's here in corinth uh now that he is able to enjoy the leisure to put together this great letter that goes to the romans rome is of course in italy italy's the next peninsula over after greece if you know your mediterranean geography there and so paul is envisioning his next missionary journey this is the third one that he's on right now he's thinking the next one the fourth journey will take him even further west and hopefully bring him to the italian peninsula into the great capital of the ancient world and so really in some ways his letter to the romans is simply an introductory letter it's uh it's saying to them something of his intentions of coming to visit them and he wants to give them that heads up and give them some idea of how he hopes he'll uh he's looking forward to seeing them and how he hopes he'll be received by them uh so that's probably the immediate uh concern he just wants to write this letter to let them know he's on his way but obviously that's a minor aspect of the of the letter he introduces that thought at the beginning and says something about it toward the end in chapter 15. uh maybe a more profound uh reason that paul is inspired to write this letter is that paul himself wants to delineate more or less as we say from the horse's mouth for these people what he's been teaching because paul is a controversial character and of course everywhere that he goes he stirs up a certain degree of of uh sometimes confusion especially among those who are his detractors we know that many of those who were converted to the christian faith were converted out of a very traditional jewish outlook and uh paul who was of course himself a product of that great tradition the jewish tradition nevertheless spent most of his time with the gentiles that in itself made him a bit of a controversial and perplexing character in the minds of some and so he wants to clarify what had probably been points where he'd been slandered or misrepresented some people had claimed that paul was teaching gentiles that they could ignore moral principles and law you're saved by faith it doesn't matter how you live you know well paul he would never say anything like that and be as far from his thoughts as you can imagine but he was slandered along those lines let us sin so that grace may abound you know people were saying such things about him and so we find that paul works into his letter to the romans ways of clarifying those points where he'd possibly been maligned by enemies and detractors we don't have any idea that this was necessarily a problem in rome in the sense that the the church was just being torn apart by various factions but certainly we have some idea that even the church in rome had uh at least to some degree some tension over the question of paul and his ministry and so paul seems to be uh sort of addressing those points along the way we'll notice that as we proceed but uh beyond all of that really paul is simply wanting to lay it out here it is start to finish the great sweeping themes of the gospel and so uh that i think is what we'll find as we begin to read it uh i it's probably not gonna be any secret to your romans is probably my favorite book in the in the new testament i've taught it at whitworth uh this is my 15th year now that i've taught romans at whitworth college i taught it some of you may recall this i've mentioned it before i taught it here in the first press starting in took a mere six years to get through it you may recall uh moving at a rate of about one verse a week uh we're not going to go quite that slowly this time we will pick up the pace a bit uh but it's just been a wonderful privilege again and again to come back at least personally uh to the book of romans i have to say to you it never gets old i'm quite sincere at this point uh it seems that every time i have an opportunity to teach this book somehow this very slow mind sees something new and i wonder how did i miss that before you know it's perfectly obvious now but but that's the way this book is it just is always something new and uh really gives all of us i think a good uh new perspective a new clarification of the teaching of the new testament i've heard it said that if someone will really master the book of romans they will be heresy proof and i think that's right i think there's a great deal of value that comes in in really getting the themes and romans nailed down and uh with uh some degree of clarity so hopefully that will make us all heresy proof as we uh work our way through it but with that let's just have a word of prayer and we'll get underway father we're grateful that you give us this privilege of gathering around this book that has been so instrumental through the history of your church how many of your people have had their lives changed and revolutionized by a proper study and comprehension of this book and father as we come so inadequate as we are to really plum its depths we simply pray that you out of your great grace and your spirit among us the same spirit that guided that pen of the apostle would open our eyes to see and to embrace the great truths that are set before us here we humbly ask these things knowing that it's only possible through the presence of your spirit and we ask them therefore in the name of christ with confidence and anticipation amen so uh the pace we're going to maintain about a chapter a week that's what it's going to be it'll be tough believe me it's going to be agonizing at moments for me uh to skip over wonderful little i heard someone say once the rabbit track is the point you know and and sometimes i feel that way but we're going to just this is a survey this is not a detailed study it's a survey of this book so we'll be maintaining a pretty rapid pace along the way and i apologize if it seems a little bit uh kind of out of breath as we go but i'm trying to get as much into a condensed period of time as we can so let's just start right off with chapter one verse one uh and we'll start right there so paul begins paul a servant of jesus christ called to be an apostle set apart to the gospel of god three things paul wants to say about himself the first of which is a very uh you might say humiliating self-description paul a doulas paula's doulas christian jesus paul a slave of christ jesus he never has called himself that before in his earlier writings as an introductory comment to the corinthians and the galatians he said paul an apostle to the thessalonians he didn't say paul anything he just paul said paul you know timothy and silas but here to the romans in a kind of low profile uh self description he starts with this designation of himself as a slave probably because throughout the book of romans he has great deference for this church he is not its founder he doesn't have a founder's authority over it as he would for the uh galatians or the corinthians and so on and you catch paul all the way through kind of making adjustments to not be quite as as it were authoritarian in that sense as he might have been with the corinthians so he starts in this very kind of low profile description and yet doesn't shrink from calling himself an apostle this narrow band of people who could actually speak with the authority of christ he who hears you here's me was the commission christ gave to his apostles and then finally the two of those combined in the third description set apart to the gospel of god paul's entire self-definition was one of living breathing eating sleeping the gospel it's what he was all about and so that's those are the three things he wants to say about himself two things about the gospel uh verse 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures the book of romans will be about the gospel and one of the things we're going to notice is that paul frequently alludes to anticipatory statements about the gospel in the old testament he doesn't want any jewish people to doubt that the gospel is continuous with all that they anticipated in their old testament uh theology and so he reminds them of it here it was promised beforehand uh in the old testament second thing about the gospel is it is concerning his son the gospel is about christ it is most precisely about the atoning work of christ when paul spoke in hyperbole to the corinthians he reduced it radically to christ and him crucified that's what the gospel is about that's the principle propositional content of this message by which we are saved paul says but obviously while it is that a message in its narrowest uh delineation it certainly has a much broader content as well as we're going to see as we go along so it concerns his son everything about his son and now concerning his son two things he descended from david according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of god with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead paul gives two descriptions of christ he's the son of david and he's the son of god we are tempted at this point to see a little proto uh chalcedonian symbol here if you know the council of child saddam truly man truly god vera homo verde use two natures one person and so on uh it's tempting it's probably not quite what paul had in mind although it may be at least lurking in the back of his mind but what he's really driving at is simply that christ has both as it were a human and a heavenly um as it were a description of who he is he's the seed of david he's the son of david uh david had proposed on one occasion to build a house for god nathan came back and said no david god's going to build a house for you and so at that point the davidic covenant was put in place which included in part the promise that david would never cease to have someone on the throne of israel one of his descendants forever ruling and that of course was christ himself the messiah and so this is the one who fulfills all of the promises the messianic promises that have been articulated in the old testament and at the same time christ is even more than that he's the son of god he's the uniquely obedient one the reason i don't say it's this is quite uh in in terms of its its meaning suggesting the deity of christ as such is because others are called the son of god but christ is uniquely the son of god he's the uniquely obedient one the only begotten son of god and so in some distinct sense it still sets him apart from everybody else and so paul has those two ideas in terms of describing christ he's vindicated in that claim to be the son of god by his resurrection from the dead as paul uh mentions here and then of course he gives us then who it is christ our lord through whom we have received paul referring to himself grace and apostleship uh grace implying humility paul was a entrenched enemy of the church when he was converted on the road to damascus that was pure unmitigated grace that turned his life around but even more than that he was given an apostleship the authority that comes by virtue of being one commissioned by christ to speak on his behalf to bring about then obedience of faith among all the gentiles for the sake of his name paul is seeking to bring about obedience of faith among the gentiles he's already began to be beginning to anticipate some of the ways in which he has been slandered because there are those who are saying we see this in the book of acts for example that paul was teaching the gentiles they could disregard obedience it's just faith you know paul says no no paul agrees with james faith without works is dead there's an obedience of faith if you say you have faith and you don't have obedience you don't have faith they are a package deal we're not saved by obedience we're not saved by works we're saved by faith which is simply to say we're saved by christ alone but the faith that saves will never be as luther said a lonely faith it'll always be a working faith and so paul is out there bringing about the obedience of faith you see among the gentiles correcting already you can see a little bit of the way in which his own message had been distorted uh for your sake and then including you verse six uh you yourselves called uh to belong to christ see how tightly he writes every word of this beginning paragraph is just loaded i mean you know there's six weeks of lecture right here you see how frustrated i am okay so now we go ahead there so uh to all god's beloved in rome who are called to be saints grace to you in peace from god our father in the lord jesus christ the letter is to the roman church who founded the roman church nobody knows uh best guess is that it was probably people who were in jerusalem from rome on the day of pentecost luke makes express reference to among other things people being there from rome undoubtedly some of those were converted these are jewish people who heard peter preach were converted to the christian gospel stayed in jerusalem for a while then went home and with their newfound faith established a community of faith in rome if that's the case then it means the roman church was probably established right around the year 30 or 31 a.d which might make it something like the second oldest church in the christian world you see jerusalem would be first but the roman church may have fallen in a rapid succession right after in any event it was not a church founded by paul it was certainly not a church over which he exercised as we said earlier founders authority which he would have toward the corinthians and galatians and thessalonians and others this is a church that had independently taken root uh and so paul treats the church with great deference throughout we see him respecting the fact that he was not the one ultimately who could as it were humanly claim to be their father and we see a different tone in a sense throughout the book but that's probably the best estimate by most scholars as to how the roman church uh came to be there all right the next paragraph is really personal he doesn't really quite get to the gospel content yet here but uh so we'll go through this fairly quickly then paul says first i thank my god through jesus christ for all of you because your faith you romans your faith is proclaimed throughout the world paul everywhere he went heard about the church in rome the church in rome was already well known uh this was a church that had already established its reputation and so uh paul was happy to hear that there was this church in rome that was holding out a great uh consistent uh testimony to the gospel of christ and he just mentions to them congratulating them on that good reputation they have paul continues verse 9 for god whom i serve with my spirit this is poorly translated in my opinion uh literally the greek reads whom i serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son uh is my witness that without ceasing i remember you in my prayers i think that the translators here missed the point of this paul has his spirit in the gospel the very essence of what paul is is invested in the gospel you see that's what that's the whole definition of his meaning in life is to be an emissary of and a vessel of and a uh proclaimer of the gospel and his little metaphor here his spirit is in it is simply to say you know if you get to the very core you dig as deep into paul as you can that's what you're going to find you're going to find that he is gospel through and through and so paul in a sense takes an oath now based on that identification he has with the gospel saying that he unceasingly remembers these romans in his prayers day and night praying for them verse 10 asking that by god's will i may somehow at last succeed in coming to you paul has been desiring through these years to come to paul to come to rome he wants to be there but he's been detained by all the circumstances that have uh uh prevented it you see but the romans have sometimes misunderstood that they thought paul was being standoffish they thought well paul doesn't have time for us i mean that was at least some of what was you know going on in the church this was just benign kinds of you know it wasn't a hostility or anything like that but just these what people wondered was paul ever going to come to see us yeah and paul wants to them to understand he's thought about it many times desire to but so far not been able to but verse 11 i'm longing to see you so that i may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you i'd love to come and see you that's my constant prayer i'd love to give you a spiritual gift and then again he adjusts that thought verse verse 12 or rather he says so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith see how deferential that is uh you know here's paul who wants to go and have a ministry among the romans for sure and yet at the same time is humble enough to realize they may have a ministry in paul's life as well and he recognizes both sides of that ministry experience both yours he says and mine i want you to know brothers and sisters that i've often intended to come to you but thus far have been prevented so that i may reap some harvest among you as i have among the rest of the gentiles so lest they think that paul has just been reticent to come and venture as far as the roman church uh he wants to set the record straight that his firm intention is and has been that he would eventually come there and indeed this letter is written in part to advise them that that is now more or less his near-term plan now he begins to segue so at this point we're going to see the transition really from uh this personal uh data now more to the proper beginning of the book of romans which is uh truly uh the delineation of the gospel he says i'm the i am a debtor to the greeks and to the barbarians kai barbaroys the greek has a knight it's an inflective language has a nice kind of rhythm to it that we miss in translation and this has a very rhythmic quality to it throughout and these were kind of terms of art in the ancient world in a sense they were commonplace colloquialisms that you would hear the helenois kaivoba barbara royce you know that idea it was the sophisticated and the unsophisticated the greek speakers the well-educated uh you know the people that had sort of the upper cost of social uh respect and so on and also the dregs paul doesn't want them to think that he has any distinctly uh you know a definable obligation to one and not the other he's if he sees a human being he's that man's debtor he's that woman's debtor he is a debtor to every person he sees regardless of social station and uh he has really you know embodied that uh throughout his career to the wise sophomores and to the off naois to the foolish to all of these you see paul is a debtor hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you who are in rome and that really concludes now this introductory personal stuff uh we'll come back to it in chapter 15 but all how much happens in the meantime he's going to you know come back to these thoughts about visiting them uh but it's like he's going to take them to the stratosphere of theological conversation in the meantime and then return to these ideas uh at the end so verse 16 for i am not ashamed of the gospel it is the power of god for salvation to everyone who has faith you see rich or poor sophisticated unsophisticated regardless of social status to the jew first also to the greek paul is not ashamed of the gospel virtually every decent commentator on the book of romans con agrees this is paul's thesis statement for the entire book i am not ashamed of the gospel this great message is one that i am proud to preach uh paul would be saying uh the basic layout of the gospel as paul presented in the book of romans is in five uh broad movements the first of which is what i've normally called the bad news it starts in verse 18 goes to chapter 3 verse 20 and it's essentially paul establishing how desperately we are in need of a gospel how hopeless is our circumstance without a gospel uh how desperately uh you know we are lost unless god gives us a gospel and so paul wants to hammer home the dreadful circumstances in which we find ourselves morally culpable before god on our way palmell to hell and uh there's no possible way we can save ourselves no bootstrap we can grab it is too late we are all paul will conclude under sin and hence if it weren't for a gospel we would be hopeless and in despair and uh paul's afraid we might not have quite understood that so he spends a little time to drag us through that uh and hopefully uh impress upon us that we are in great need of a savior and that's where it starts so the gospel starts with bad news you see it starts with this wrath of god the anger of god toward our sin so that will be the first theme we run into the next great theme is justification dick io god makes us righteous he makes us righteous on the basis of the work of christ and his substitutionary and atoning death in which our sin was imputed to him so that as paul says elsewhere christ became sin he became a curse he stood in the target area of the wrath of god and absorbed the hell we deserved and at the same time imputed to us was the righteousness of the perfect life he lived theologians called this double imputation our sin imputed to him christ righteousness imputed to us we received what he deserved he received what we deserved we get the great blessing of heaven itself christ extinguishes the fires of hell on our behalf that's justification it is embraced by the person through simple faith you see through faith in his blood paul puts it in romans chapter three uh and the great example of that of course is abraham in romans uh four the whole the reason we're in such need of it romans 5 is because of this uh original sin that we've inherited as a race uh we're born guilty we're born sinful and then we compound the felony and so how much we need god's grace in order to be redeemed from that horrible plight so that's the second great theme the third theme chapter six through eight sanctification god having pronounced us righteous what the reformers called forensic justification having declared us righteous now goes to work on us to make us righteous he's not willing to leave us where we are he sets about the task of changing us renovating us from the inside out you see it's not antinomianism romans chapter 6 nor is it legalism romans chapter 7 it is in fact liberation freedom in christ is now the power to do as we ought so that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us as we walk not after the flesh but after the spirit and the great uh themes of romans chapter 8 that we are now free to live in a new quality of life by the power of god's spirit within us so sanctification is the next one next theme chapters 9 through 11 get to this very thorny issue of jew and gentile and how do we understand the relation of these two in the christian church and who anyway are truly the seed of abraham and of course paul deals with this question it's a thorny question it's a hard question it was a controversial issue in the church but he gives us the great new testament teaching as he alludes to in chapter two he is not a jew who is one in or outwardly he is not a jew who is simply one by birth or circumcision true jewishness truly being the seed of abraham is an inward thing they are not all israel who are of israel paul insists it is by god's election it's by god's choice it's by his grace when he shows mercy to whom he wants leaving others without mercy it's that which brings someone into the fold and makes them the seed of abraham heirs of the promises to abraham and his seed and uh that's one of the great contributions paul makes in terms of the whole understanding of the people of god in the new testament we are in paul's scheme of things than the true and genuine israel and heirs of all of that that was promised to israel throughout the old testament and that's the chapters 9-11 chapters 12-15 then are the very practical application present your bodies a living sacrifice now that we have these great theological ideas bouncing around in our brains what do we do about it in the real world you know and so paul uh gets to the very practical instruction of how to live out this life at the uh you know in the real world what sometimes called ortho praxis the right practice that is incumbent upon us as christian people that is the message of which paul can say he is not ashamed uh that great uh sweeping uh theme of the gospel he's not afraid to stand up before the philosophers of the day on mars hill in athens and engage them in conversation about the gospel you see this is a message that doesn't embarrass the apostle it is cogent it reaches the core issues of human existence it gives sufficient answers to where we're coming from where we're going what it's about this is the message that finally explains human existence in a way that's uh infinitely more satisfying than other philosophies competing for that status but actually paul's reason for not being ashamed of the gospel has less to do with its intellectual cogency than it does with its power paul is not ashamed of the gospel for the same reason that a man might not be ashamed of an m16 you see uh this is a this is a powerful message all you got to do is pull the trigger it's very persuasive you see it doesn't seem that it should be it seems so simple it seems so almost elementary childish christ in him crucified who in the world could be impressed like you know with a message like that and yet paul says everywhere i go when i uncork that message things happen lives are changed in it the righteousness of god is revealed there is an unleashing of the power of god that comes through that simple message and that bottom line is why i'm not ashamed of it you see i'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of god to change lives to take hearts of stone and we you know replace them with hearts of flesh i see this un this amazing change happening everywhere i proclaim it so why should i be ashamed of it in it a righteousness of god is revealed from faith for faith or to faith justice is written the righteous will live by faith this of course you may know was the verse that perplexed martin luther uh in 1914 1515 he was still a a monk in an augustinian monastery writing a commentary on romans and he bumped into romans 1 16 and 17 and he just couldn't get it he was virtually neurotically paralyzed in his sense of guilt and dread as he contemplated the righteousness of god and to hear that in the gospel the righteousness of god was revealed was for luther a traumatic thought he would much have preferred to hear that in the gospel the righteousness of god is concealed you know that the lights are dimmed down a little bit so that my moral culpability isn't quite so noticeable to the deity but no the righteousness of god is revealed and luther felt like you know that's the worst possible message it exposes my guilt it turns on the white light of heaven's gaze and shows what a you know what about a poor uh you know fallible sinful creature i really am and then luther says one day the you know it dawned on him he got it but this righteousness of which paul was speaking was not the righteousness by which god is intrinsically righteous but it's the gift of righteousness that he freely bestows on those possessed of faith god gives a gift of righteousness precisely the righteousness that christ himself lived i receive as a gift the benefit of a life as if i had lived a life as righteous as christ is given to me free of charge by mere faith now there was a charge as you know but it's the charge that was paid by christ himself and all of a sudden paul luther says it was like i walked into paradise he said the gates opened and i think properly speaking that's when the reformation began it wasn't the 95 theses in 1517 it was more 1515 when his eyes were open to see you know what was being said here by paul so it's great text and of course as i say it's a thesis text for uh the rest of our studies of romans all right now we come to much more dense material as paul now plows in in earnest uh to the uh the true beginning of the gospel and verse 18. for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness miserable rendering here uh the greek simply renders it uh ungodliness and wickedness of men that is of humanity meaning all humanity who by their wickedness suppress the truth so the they're trying to avoid the translators the word man they hate that word and so they'll find every excuse not to use in this case they butchered the meaning of the verse by so doing so naughty naughty here but it's the idea that god is his wrath is revealed against the wickedness of humanity but what do we do we know god is angry but we suppress that into understanding so three thoughts in this verse one god is angry the or gay of god the white hot you know wrath of god is a strong word very strong word god is not just in a bad mood however it's not just a malevolent attitude on his part he's angry because we are sinful paul is saying we know he's angry we've got a sense of cosmic claustrophobia we're crowded by that sense there's a sort of collective neurosis we all feel knowing that something ain't quite right out there you know in terms of the deity's perception of us but instead of facing the music instead of you know acknowledging that and bowing before god and crying out for mercy we suppress that truth we refuse to face it we repress it as a psychologist might say we turn from it we bury it now those three ideas organize paul's uh statement now from this point on only in reverse order so the first thing paul's going to describe is how we suppress the truth the second thing he'll talk about this goes by the way down to verse 23 the second thing he talks about is this ungodliness and unwickedness of humanity that he's alluded to that's verses 24 through 32 and then next week we get to chapter two and the third theme which is the wrath of god the judgment of god which paul spells out in verses 1 through 16. so we have the basically the three uh points that he's going to uh be tackling here and let's start with the first one verse 18 verse 19. for what can be known about god this uh the nostalgia the knowledge of god or the knowable of god that which can be known about god uh is plain to them strong word here manifest is the word fan iran it means is perfectly brilliantly evident you see paul doesn't wanna it's not shadowy at all it's perfectly uh clear is manifest to them or plain to them the reason is because god has made it plain to them so paul starts with a very clear affirmation that the fact that god exists and the fact that he makes moral demands upon us as a race is universally understood by the human race you don't need to read it in the bible you don't need to hear it from a christian missionary you don't have to go to church it is screaming at you through what calvin calls this theater in which we live i did i lose my uh did it uh sorry you could probably still hear me right because i'm kind of okay so um so paul's point here is that uh this uh knowledge of god what's called in theology general revelation reaches all people nobody can exempt himself or herself from responsibility because it gets to everybody we ask the question well how does it get to everybody and paul answers that in verse 20. ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature even though they are invisible have been the greek is here clearly seen being understood through what has been made so the idea the reason that people are universally aware that there is a god in heaven is because god has disclosed it through what he has made his invisible qualities are visible through that visible uh creation that he's made this creation includes both an external and an internal creation the external creation of nature the heavens declare the glory of god the earth displays his handiwork what equine is called immediate general revelation it's also internal it is immediate it's in our conscience what augustine said that sense of god the census divinitas within us screams that we are the product of a divine maker uh paul is simply affirming here what christian philosophers through history have insisted on that we live breathe and sleep and dream the reality of god in our human existence and even though we may temporarily deny it for the purposes of convenience we come back affirming it as soon as we change the subject in some different way we are theological beings you see and so paul concludes because of that we have no excuse the excuse of which he is that he's denying us or depriving us of is the excuse of ignorance the agnostic is going to feel very foolish on the day of judgment by trying to explain to god that he didn't have enough evidence to believe god was there it's kind of you know it kind of sells well here in an unbelieving world it's going to sound pretty silly when you stand before this god and really begin to reflect on how god has so overwhelmingly you know just flooded us with the truth of himself in virtually every aspect of human experience we are confronting god he will be no stranger to anybody the most hardened atheist will have to admit god was lurking in the back of his mind throughout his life this is one he knew in fact paul says that in verse 21 even though they knew god you see not could have known him should have known him everybody does know him they don't like him they do know him you know even though they knew god paul says they didn't honor him they refused to give him thanks the problem is not that people have insufficient evidence to know that god is there they've got plenty of evidence to know that god is there they just don't like the god that they know you see they don't like this they prefer a different deity they'd like a deity they could domesticate a deity they can control a deity that isn't quite so threatening a deity that isn't quite so holy and majestic and demanding of moral perfection on our part we prefer a deity that lets us get away with some things now and again you know what i mean we'd like a deity that we can put in our back pocket and sort of uh you know exercise some kind of dominion over that's our preferred deity sticks and stones that we can prefer uh that we can persuade and then manage rather than a god who demands from us that which we feel helpless to deliver and so uh so we refuse to acknowledge him we refuse to honor him we refuse to give him thanks we turn away from him paul says this is the collective indictment against the whole human race we don't like this god and paul says you know what happens to people when they refuse to acknowledge what they know to be true his answer is that they become they are plunged into futile thinking futile not stopping thinking but futile thing it could be brilliant thinking i might add thinking can be both brilliant and futile it can be both foolish and brilliant you know i play this game out of footwork occasionally i'll say do a student call on a snoot around and say uh what do i have on my arm here and say a wristwatch and i'll say i want to explain to me uh what you think would be a rational explanation for the fact that i've got a wristwatch on my arm ticking at roughly the right time uh just give me the explanation usually i'll get something along these lines while that watch was manufactured by somebody and went through a distribution process and you bought it and you wear it and there it is and i say that's perfect that's good very good very bright student now i say i want you to play a little game with me i want you to explain how this watch came to be on my wrist ticking at roughly the right time but you are not permitted by the rules of the game to include any form of intelligence in your explanation in other words you've got to explain it by simply raw random time plus space plus chance plus matter go and i'll usually get a blank stare you know like what do you think how could you do that any idiot would see that and i said no no you've got to do it so then i've gotten some wonderful explanations well there was this comet and it was flowing through space and it dropped some dust out of the sky into a swamp and there was a chemical reaction and you know and i've gotten some just amazingly brilliant alternative explanations now we all sort of chuckle at the end of that and say wasn't that a good exercise and brilliant silliness you know everybody gets it then i say now by the way you realize that the complexity of one strand of dna is infinitely more complex this is nothing this is building blocks compared to that and yet you have people running around constantly trying to say that came by random time plus space plus chances matter and people believe it and they confer phds on each other in that and paul says that's silly you know that's brilliant foolishness and it may sell well now it may get you great degrees and honors but you're going to feel very very embarrassed when you try to explain why you actually believe that standing before the god who created you and sustained you every breath you took through your life and who in the bottom of your heart you always knew was really there you just didn't like him you didn't like him being holy you didn't like him being demanding you didn't like him being sovereign you didn't like him so you said i'm going to destroy you by not believing in you it'll work temporary temporarily but it won't work eternally you see they are without excuse is paul's indictment of such folks so paul says what do they do they claim to be wise they become fools they exchange the glory of the immortal god for images sticks and stones resembling mortal man birds four-footed animals reptiles paul is alluding here to isaiah chapter 44 where isaiah pokes fun at the idolatry of the surrounding canaanite nations that he was familiar with and if you know that text you know that isaiah talks about a perfectly intelligent person going out chopping down a tree taking home the big log he's created cutting it in half taking half of it and using it as firewood taking the other half pulling out his little precise utensils and carving a work of art and then bowing down and worshipping that thing that was the creation of his own hands and isaiah the prophet goes what's wrong with this picture you know why is it that people would uh bow down and worship the very thing that they have created uh out of material that they're also using by the way to heat their you know house in the winter that's that's isaiah's critique of this foolishness of idolatry and paul is simply alluding to that worshiping things that are infinitely inferior to us who are created in the image of god preferring sticks and stones to the glorious creator of our humanity and so paul is just kind of giving us this uh vast and sweeping uh indictment now that brings us to verse 24 to verse 32. uh and this is as i was saying earlier where paul now deals with the question of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man but the thing to notice about it is that even this comes as an expression of god's judgment god judges people by making them slaves to the very thing they want instead of god you see he makes them prisoners of the sin that they prefer to worshiping so in a in a wonderful and uh just a tragic irony people say i want to be free from the deity i'd rather do this over here and god says fine you go ahead and do that and we become straitjacketed by the very thing we wanted instead of the god who was the only possible source of freedom for us hence we have language such as we find in verse 24 god gave them up to the lust that's that's judgment language that's the term of art to suggest a prisoner being given up to the executioner or being given up to the torturer or being given up to prison you see getting delivered over is really the the sense of it uh another way of putting it verse 26 god gave them up to degrading passions verse 28 god gave them up to a debased mind in each of those paul is talking in judgment language this is part of how the wrath of god is revealed from heaven it's revealed by these brutally in addictive forms of sin that we entrap ourselves in that become proof that we are really not free at all what we call freedom can be the most malicious and horrific form of slavery to virtually anything you can imagine and we'll take that over a freedom that comes from worshiping god and the power to do what he calls us to do now this comes in three phases i'm going to just give you this real shorthand here paul talks in three kind of broad movements first of all people prefer to worship nature as opposed to the god of nature in other words they worship the creation rather than the creator everybody wants to be natural that's always the first uh selling point let's just be natural you know let's just do what nature dictates but the problem is nature is no sufficient foundation for ethical principle and so as soon as people start saying let's worship nature they're only a small step from what paul i think sets up is a great example of anti-nature which was of course an allusion to the rampant homosexuality of the first century and i think paul's indictment of that as a behavior throughout history i realize that's a thorny controversial issue but you know paul's the one that raised it i didn't so there it is and then in verse 28 uh we go to i would call it on nature that is the destruction of nature or suicidal behavior so uh let's uh well i'm i don't have time to read them but i i want you to at least notice those that in the first little segment there paul talks about how our worship of nature degrades our relationships with each other when you dishonor god you're only one small step from dishonoring another human being let's face it if there is no god we are all as one commentator said growing up germs living on the you know cog of a wheel of a vast cosmic machine destined to disintegrate if there is no god you are a grown-up german i don't know why i should respect you and i don't know why you should respect me if there is no god there is nothing respectable about any of us because respect itself is a nonsense term you see but if there is a god then you are created in his image and i have every reason to respect you and you may have some reason to respect me as well the point is that when we begin worshiping nature creation rather than the creator we degrade not only god but we degrade each other in the process and then paul's treatment there of um homosexual behavior that was very widespread in the first century he was in corinth it was very widespread there he sets that up as an example of what he would consider to be i would say anti-nature acting against what seems to be the normal natural relationship not to just do a a broadside condemnation of homosexuality as such that's not his purpose although i think he would do that the bible does that but more to simply illustrate how people can cut themselves free from what they thought was natural how arbitrary nature becomes once you have removed god from the equation you see and then these last this great vice list that he gives us there uh in the latter part of chapter 20 uh chapter one they're filled with coveted malice full of envy murder strife deceit craftiness gossip slanderers if you doubt any of that just go read this morning's newspaper uh you can probably find every one of the crimes paul mentions here within the first five or ten pages i would say uh you know so the proof of this as jonathan edwards said is uh one of the easiest christian doctrines to prove total depravity uh edward said is the easiest christian doctrine to prove you don't need the bible to do it you just look at humanity and and the evidence is quite painfully evident so uh paul is simply in a sense uh uh commenting on the obvious there when he reaches that conclusion this is rough stuff i i hope you realize the look of romans is not famous because it's sugar sweet and kind of lovely and makes us feel good at points it makes us feel miserable that's paul's intention i'm trying to be fair to the text here but i just want you to brace yourself but it can be a little bumpy along the way uh partly because of the content partly because of the rapidity with which we have to move along thank you all you've been very kind uh let's uh let's have a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed father we are grateful that's we don't get a sugar-coated message from the apostle that scriptures don't come telling us sweet little lies flattering us trying to seduce us into belief by promises that are based on pure fiction but that the gospel comes to us telling us that which our own heart tells us must be true and that is we find ourselves placed in a world that screams your great creative genius and handiwork and power that to hear that this is actually the testimony of heaven through your scriptures gives us great comfort we pray that we might be those who have heard the gospel and embraced it by faith and that we might be those who would take seriously the bad news that people are lost without this message and would be willing to put our own lives on the line to be courageous ambassadors with integrity to announce christ and him crucified to those who so desperately need to hear that wonderful truth we give you thanks for the chance we've had to review these things this morning we ask your blessing on us now in the name of christ amen so [Music] you

Channel: Bruce Gore

Views: 1,698

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Romans, Romans 1, Apostle Paul, Bruce Gore

Id: HAS7JqK8lDk

Length: 53min 9sec (3189 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2020