Romans 1 (I may or may not come up with a creative title for some of these Roman posts.)

Well, I’m a bit late for this post, because our family was on vacation last week, but here we are at last. 

Romans chapter one is divided (in my head, at least) into three sections. First there is the introduction, then the purpose for writing and finally what I like to call the beginning of the argument. Most of Paul’s letter have fairly similar introductions (greetings etc.), so I’m focusing on the other two sections.

The purpose for writing is very clearly stated in verses 16 and 17. Paraphrased, these verses read: “The gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes; in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” (I took out some phrases to emphasize why Paul is writing.) In these verses, we see several characteristics of the gospel.

- It is the power of God

- It is for everyone who believes

- It reveals the righteousness of God

- It requires faith

There are more things that can be learned about the gospel from these two verses--especially if they are taken in their entirety--but this is enough to see how the whole argument of Romans is based on Paul’s desire to explain the gospel. (I’m not attempting an exhaustive exegesis, so I warn you now that I may leave things out of my lists, and I’ve no intention of apologizing for it every time. Now you know.)

Now that the preliminaries are taken care of, Paul really begins his argument in verse 18. If I had to come up with a title for verses 18-32 I would call it “The Depravity of Man”. Many arguments for Christianity start by presenting this fundamental belief, and it is an especially natural starting place for Paul with his extensive background in Judaism and the law (which we’ll get into more [maybe] in chapter 2). Paul loves to overwhelm the reader as he does here with crushing lists of the attributes of sinners, but a few salient points stand out in this section:

• God is angry with the unrighteous (v. 18)
• They should know better (19-20)
• God gave them up to their sinfulness (24-32)

This sets the stage for further developments in chapter two, but we’ll get to that in a couple weeks. 

Rom. 16:27: To God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.