Discovering Romans

S. Lewis Johnson, Mike Abendroth

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780310515432
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

Discovering Romans: Spiritual Revival for the Soul is a popular level guide by outstanding Bible teacher S. Lewis Johnson that opens up the motivating truths found in the apostle Paul's powerful letter to the Romans. Anyone hungry to grow in practical understanding of Scripture will profit from Johnson's rich teaching that stimulates both mind and emotions. This beloved pastor and professor works through the text engagingly, providing both clarifying insights and life applications along the way. Each chapter ends with reflection questions, making this volume useful not only for individual reading (or preparation for teaching) but also in small group Bible studies. John MacArthur once said, "Through the years I have listened to the preaching of S. Lewis Johnson far more than any other preacher." Reading through this volume will be a soul-reviving experience.

CHAPTER 1

THE CHRIST PAUL PREACHED

ROMANS 1:1 – 17

In countless instances, Romans has been the means of arousing individuals and churches out of spiritual lethargy. Augustine, the learned municipal teacher of rhetoric in the city of Milan, was vexed over the condition of his soul. With a “mighty rain of tears” pouring from his eyes, he threw himself on the ground under a fig tree. He kept crying out, “And Thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, wilt Thou be angry unto the end? Remember not our former iniquities.” There he heard from a neighboring residence the voice of a child chanting repetitiously, Tolle, lege! Tolle, lege! What “Take it, read it! Take it, read it!” meant to the child, Augustine does not say. To him, however, it meant that he should open a book and read the first passage he found. He took up a copy of Romans he had left there. Snatching it up, he opened it and read the first passage on which his eyes fell: “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” With the end of this sentence from Romans 13:13 – 14 the darkness was dispelled, and his heart was flooded with light.¹ The epistle to the Romans has warmed the heart of countless others who have pondered its message, for in it is the sum and substance of the voice of God to humans.

“The Epistle to the Romans,” C. H. Dodd said in the opening sentence of his commentary on the book, “is the first great work of Christian theology.”² It is the only part of Scripture in which there is found a detailed and systematic presentation of the main features of Christian doctrine. Since the apostle’s thought is founded on and drawn from the Old Testament primarily, Romans is also an excellent introduction to the theology of the Old Testament. The epistle is calculated to provide its reader with an incisive insight into the riches of the Old Testament and with a sterling handbook to the theology by which Christian believers are to live. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the most influential letters ever written.

THE INTRODUCTION

The introduction to Romans is no ordinary salutation. Embedded within it is one of the apostle’s classic statements of the person and work of the Redeemer he preached. He calls Jesus the Son of God, and it is evident that Paul knows no distinction in dignity between his Lord and his God.

THE AUTHOR

¹Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — ³

It was winter of the years AD 54 – 55 in the city of Corinth, the vanity fair of the ancient world. Two quiet and dignified men, guests in the house of Gaius, a Christian businessman of Corinth, sat down to engage in the work of correspondence. Paul, a man who appeared to be in his late fifties, prepared to dictate a letter to a man named Tertius (cf. Rom. 16:22). That papyrus scroll that flowed from the hand of Tertius would be sufficient to change the course of the history of the Western world.

The letter began insignificantly enough, being composed in accordance with the common formula of salutation, which was in the form of, “A to B, greeting.” But once that is acknowledged, everything changes, and Christian expansions enter. The author expands the description of himself, the description of the addressees, and the greeting. Further, in the midst of the salutation there appears a lengthy aside on the nature of the Christian message, resulting in an almost unique epistolary introduction.

The author in his opening words relates himself to three things: his Master, his spiritual gift, and his work. With regard to his Master, Paul describes himself as “a servant of Christ Jesus.” The word “servant,”⁴ used here for the first time in Romans, is a familiar term from the Old Testament. It is used of the relationship of the Old Testament believers to Yahweh, such as Abraham (cf. Ps. 105:6, 42), Moses (cf. Num. 12:7 – 8), and David (2 Sam. 7:5, 8). The prophets too were accorded this dignity (cf. Amos 3:7; Zech. 1:6). Although a Jew and steeped in the thought of the Old Testament, Paul is proud to call himself a slave of Christ Jesus. To him it is evident that to be the servant of Yahweh and the servant of Jesus Christ is one and the same thing. In his opening words, then, we are given a hint of the lofty majesty of the Jesus whom Paul preached.

The noble phrase “servant of Christ Jesus” is undoubtedly intended to refer to a position Paul holds in the Lord’s service. He calls himself a servant simply to indicate his official status.

Paul refers to himself as an apostle by calling (klētos, “called to be”). He is an apostle by a divinely initiated calling, not by human seeking.⁵ Paul, therefore, has not gained his position by arrogant, ambitious, and presumptuous self-efforts. His call, as Abraham’s, was an invitation that came from heaven.

The word “apostle” is a word that comes into importance in Christian circles. Among the spiritual gifts of the New Testament church apostleship stands first (cf. 1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11).⁶ An apostle had seen the risen Messiah and had been appointed by him to plant the flag of faith in every community to which his Master led him. He was his emissary and spoke with his authority. Thus, in Paul’s words there is the implicit claim that he is the authoritative representative of Jesus Christ, divinely called to his task.

Finally, Paul relates himself to his work. He has been “set apart for the gospel of God,”⁷ a statement that must have been written out of the context of his experience on the road to Damascus. That left an indelible impression on Paul; he was forever and fully dedicated to the ministry of God’s gospel.

THE SUBJECT

²the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, ⁴and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. ⁶And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

The mention of the good news of the gospel leads Paul into an illustration of a peculiarity of his style, the tendency to take off into an expansion of one or more of the essential elements of his address to his readers. This one consumes five verses. Often these asides provide the reader with a key to the theme of the epistle, as is the case in the opening sentences of 1 Corinthians (cf. 1:2). The theme of Romans is simply “the gospel of God” (cf. vv. 1, 16 – 17).

The Roots of the Gospel (1:2)

The first thing said of God’s gospel is that, while it is good news, it is not new news. Its roots lie firmly embedded in the Old Testament. It is not without reason that this epistle has been called a theology of the Old Testament, because Paul’s words “promised beforehand” are ultimately written out of the background of Isaiah 40 – 66 (cf. 40:9; 52:7; 61:1) and Habakkuk 2:4 (cf. Rom. 1:17; 3:21; 4:3, 6 – 8; et al.). “The gospel represents,” Franz Leenhardt says, “not a break with the past, but a consummation of it.”⁸ It is, therefore, exegetical suicide to attempt to interpret the New Testament apart from the voice of its predecessor, the Old Testament. Gerhard von Rad is right: “Christ is given to us only through the double witness of the choir of those who await and those who remember.”⁹

The fact that Paul uses the words “promised beforehand” points also to the element of divine foreordination in the gospel. As Martin Luther in his characteristically rugged way said, “Christianity did not originate by accident or in the fate of the stars (as many empty-headed people presume),” but “it became what it was to be by the certain counsel and premeditated ordination of God.”¹⁰

The Content of the Gospel (1:3 – 4)

Otto Kuss has said that verses 2 – 4 contain a concise but full paraphrase of the gospel preached by Paul.¹¹ The apostle adds the claim that it concerns God’s Son, referring to the theanthropic¹² person, the Son clothed with man’s nature. He is the Son of God because he is consubstantial with the Father, equal with him in power and glory. “The term,” Charles Hodge adds, “expresses the relation of the second to the first person in the Trinity, as it exists from eternity. . . . He was and is the Eternal Son.”¹³ Thus, Paul’s theology is theocentric in that God is the ultimate source of salvation, but it is Christocentric in that its executive is the unique Son of God, who cut the covenant with his blood on the cross. This sonship, then, is the foundation of all that follows.

At this point, the reader is brought face-to-face with a passage that surely would rank with Paul’s greatest christological passages, were it not for its difficulty of interpretation. Students of verses 3 and 4, and the description of the Son they contain, are agreed on one thing: the clauses are arranged in an obvious antithesis to one another.

First, then, what does Paul mean by the verb “declared”? A search of a concordance and a consideration of New Testament usage of “declared” leads to the conviction that the Greek word means to appoint.¹⁴ The first antithesis, then, between the words “who as to his human nature” and “appointed” suggests that the Son entered the human stage of his existence by birth, and that this was followed by an appointment to a further status. The details of these two facets of his life and ministry are developed in the second of the antitheses.

Second, the antithesis between “a descendant of David” and “the Son of God” is not difficult. The former phrase is a clear reference to the Davidic descent of our Lord, and it is evident, not only from this reference but from others also,¹⁵ that this was an essential part of the Pauline gospel. Davidic sonship, with all its messianic meaning, is therefore to be added to divine sonship as a fundamental feature of the Jesus Paul preached.

The other side of the antithesis spells out the significance of the Son’s appointment. It seems best to take the phrase “with power” with “the Son of God” and not with “declared.” His sonship in power refers, then, to the authority he possesses by virtue of his exaltation. Almost imperceptibly sonship begins to merge into lordship.

The resurrection is the great event that reveals the true meaning of the saving work of the cross. It is the evidence that the redeeming work has been accomplished with the full approval of the Father (cf. Rom. 4:25).

The third antithesis is between “as to his human nature” and “through the Spirit of holiness.” The first phrase clearly refers to the human nature of the Lord in its entirety (cf. 9:5; John 1:14; Eph. 2:15; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 5:7). With respect to his human nature, he was born of the seed of David. What, however, does “through the Spirit of holiness” mean? Earlier commentators, due to the clear reference to the human nature in the opposite side of the antithesis, referred the phrase to his divine nature (cf. Rom. 9:5).¹⁶ If, as seems certain from usage, “declared” means “appointed,” then in what sense could it ever be said that Jesus Christ was appointed Son of God according to his divine nature? He was eternally the divine Son by virtue of his own inherent right to the title.

We may take the phrase “through the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. The Christ Paul Preached — Romans 1:1 – 17
• 2. The Revelation of God’s Wrath — Romans 1:18 – 32
• 3. The Judgment of God — Romans 2:1 – 29
• 4. The Jews, the Oracles of God, and the Universality of Sin — Romans 3:1 – 20
• 5. How Should Man Be Just With God? — Romans 3:21 – 31
• 6. Abraham’s Salvation — Romans 4:1 – 25
• 7. Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment — Romans 5:1 – 11
• 8. Imputation and Two Representative Men — Romans 5:12 – 21
• 9. “Shall We Continue In Sin?” — Romans 6:1 – 14
• 10. Only Two Masters — Romans 6:15 – 23
• 11. Marital Union With Christ — Romans 7:1 – 12
• 12. The Struggle — Romans 7:13 – 25
• 13. The Delivering Power of the Indwelling Spirit — Romans 8:1 – 17
• 14. The Divine Purpose: From Groanings to Glory — Romans 8:18 – 30
• 15. God for Us — Romans 8:31 – 39
• 16. Distinguishing Grace — Romans 9:1 – 13
• 17. Vessels of Wrath and Vessels of Mercy — Romans 9:14 – 33
• 18. Christ, the Law, and Israel’s Inexcusable Unbelief — Romans 10:1 – 21
• 19. Is Israel’s Rejection Total? — Romans 11:1 – 24
• 20. The Salvation of Israel and God’s Agenda for the Nations — Romans 11:25 – 36
• 21. The Mercies of God and Living Sacrifices — Romans 12:1 – 8
• 22. Love and Service — Romans 12:9 – 21
• 23. The Christian Citizen and the Day — Romans 13:1 – 14
• 24. The Christian’s Favorite Indoor Sport — Romans 14:1 – 23
• 25. The Servant of the Nations — Romans 15:1 – 33
• 26. Paul’s Friends and the Strengthening Gospel — Romans 16:1 – 27
• Epilogue
• Notes