(Romans) Romans 1:1-32 — Zac Poonen

The Full Gospel in Romans

Let's turn today to Romans chapter 1, verse 1. As we look through Paul's letter to the Romans, we will discover here the clearest exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is seen anywhere in the whole Bible.

Paul presents the gospel logically. There are many aspects of the gospel that are presented in many, many gospels and episodes, but nowhere is it presented so logically and clearly as in Romans. There are many who speak about the full gospel these days.

Here is the full gospel in Romans chapter 1 all the way to the end. And one of the things that you will discover as you follow through this study in Romans is that you can stop at any point you like. God doesn't force us to go beyond what we desire.

For example, if all you want is forgiveness of sins, you can stop in Romans chapter 3. If you want to go on from there to be justified and to have peace with God and a relationship with God, you can stop at chapter 5.

If you want to go still further to overcome sin in your personal life, you can go on to chapter 6. If you want to be free from legalism, you can go on to chapter 7. If you want to go on to life in the Spirit, you can go on to chapter 8.

And it goes on. It doesn't even stop at chapter 8. It goes right on to chapter 15 and chapter 16. So, many Christians, we will discover as we go through this study, have not experienced the full gospel.

Ultimately, when you come to the end of chapter 16, you find this tremendous promise that the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet. God's ultimate purpose is that everything that man lost in Eden through surrendering to Satan, and when Adam surrendered to Satan, he actually allowed Satan to put his foot on his head.

And now, the thing is going to be reversed, and we're going to put our feet on Satan's head. That's when we have experienced the fullness of the gospel. When we come to what it says in Romans 16 and verse 26, the obedience of faith.

That's a phrase that occurs even in chapter 1. The obedience of faith. And there is faith, and there is obedience. And it's when we have both that we experience the fullness of the gospel. Faith alone is not enough.

Obedience alone would lead us to legalism. Faith alone would lead us to presumption. We would try to have faith for something God hasn't promised. But the obedience of faith, where faith is based, as it says in Romans 10, 17, on the word of Christ, that can lead us to experience the fullness of the gospel.

Paul as a Bondservant of Christ

So let's go through this letter, beginning at chapter 1, verse 1. Here we read of Paul calling himself a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Paul did not preach the gospel because he felt like it.

He was called for it. He was a bondservant means he was a slave. Now, we don't understand that expression these days because we haven't seen slavery in our land. Slavery is almost unheard of throughout the world, and there are just a few places where there could be slaves perhaps today.

But Paul called himself a slave of Christ Jesus. He was a person who decided to serve the Lord, not for any gain. You know, a servant can claim wages. A servant can claim certain rights and privileges.

A slave, however, can claim nothing. He is as much his master's property as the furniture in that master's home, and the master can do anything with him. And in those days, a master could even kill his slave, and nobody would ask any questions because a slave was the master's property, and nobody could question how he treated him.

He had no rights, no privileges, no salary, nothing. And Paul calls himself not a servant of Christ Jesus, but a slave of Christ Jesus. It's good to stop there for a moment and for you to ask yourself, are you a slave or a servant?

When you come to Jesus Christ, do you expect that He should do certain things for you? Do you think that you have some rights and privileges? Or have you surrendered yourself to the Lord Jesus in such a way that you can say, Lord, I gave up all my rights at Calvary's Cross.

When I came to you and surrendered to you, I have no more rights in my life. I can't claim that you should do this for me or that for me. God does many things for us, but He does it in mercy and in grace.

It's not because we deserve it. It's not because we can say we have a right to it or that we can claim it. No, those who come like that are usually disappointed. But if we come humbly and say, any right I have at all is only in Christ.

Other than that, I have nothing. So, the happiest people in the world, the happiest Christians, are those who have surrendered themselves totally, as they say, lock, stock and barrel, completely head to foot to Christ, allowing Him to be Lord of every area of their life.

And they say, Lord, I don't claim any rights or privileges. I'm yours. You can do whatever you like with me. I won't have a complaint if you do anything with my life or my body. It's yours. Paul's life was a very happy life, and not only a very happy life, an example of a way a man could live such a fantastically useful life on earth.

And if you want your life to be useful to God, here's where you must begin. This is part of the full gospel. The purpose of the gospel is that it can bring a man to this place where he becomes a bondservant or a slave of Christ Jesus.

You know, Paul later on says in this chapter that I'm not ashamed, verse 16, of the gospel, for it is the power of God. He was speaking from experience. He wrote this after having been a believer for at least 25 years.

And from 25 years of experience, he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it's changed my life completely. It's made me live a worthwhile life on this earth. How is that? Because he was a slave.

A slave called to be an apostle. His calling was as an apostle. Not all are called to be apostles, but what we can learn from there is that each of us has a calling. Paul was called to be an apostle. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12 about some who are called to be helps.

And if you can realize, this dear friend, that you have a particular calling in the body of Jesus Christ. When you give yourself as a slave to Christ, He gives you a particular calling. You're not a useless member in the body.

You may not be a preacher. You may not be an apostle or a prophet, but you can at least be a help. That's one of the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. Everyone has a particular, specific calling in the body of Jesus Christ.

Just like every member of our body has a function in the body. Even our nails, which look so small and unimportant, have a particular function. And even if God's called you to be a small little nail or a little finger in the body of Christ, you've got a function.

Don't ever devalue that. Don't ever think you're just a passenger in the church or just someone who goes and sits and listens to meetings. You need to be exercised about it. A lot of people do not fulfill their function in the body because they don't feel that God has a specific calling for them.

And that's exactly what the devil wants you to feel, because that way you'll be useless to God. Paul recognized that he had a calling and he was set apart for the gospel of God. So there, right in the very first verse, you have the theme of Romans.

What is it? The gospel of God. That's the subject of this wonderful letter. And verse 2, he says, this gospel was promised long ages ago through the prophets in the Old Testament. And this gospel concerns His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh.

So that's another thing we need to see, that the gospel doesn't primarily concern us. It concerns Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world to win us for Himself, to win a bride for Himself. If we allow the gospel to be centered in ourselves, we're going to have problems.

But if we allow the gospel to be centered in Christ, then we understand what the full gospel really is. And we pray that as we look through this book, God will open our eyes to see and understand what the full gospel is.

Christ’s Humanity, Deity, and Example

In our last study, we were considering how Paul begins to describe the gospel of God in the letter to the Romans. And we looked at Romans chapter 1 and verses 1 to 3, and we saw that it refers to the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ.

It was first prophesied in the Old Testament. In other words, in the Old Testament, they could not experience this. It was a promise made that one day people would experience this wonderful good news.

So, what we learn from verse 2 of Romans chapter 1 is that nobody in the Old Testament, however godly and sincere and wholehearted they may have been, could experience this gospel. There were wonderful men in the Old Testament like Elijah, Moses, and Elisha, and David, and Abraham, but none of them could experience this gospel.

Though they were very sincere, because the time had not yet come, because our Lord Jesus had not come to the earth as yet. No one could experience this gospel till Christ came to earth and till the Holy Spirit came to dwell within man.

So, the reason I mention that is because some people make these Old Testament men their examples. Now, I believe there are many, many good qualities that we can see in men like Job, Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist.

Fantastic qualities that we can emulate, that we can copy, imitate, follow. But, we must not think that that is all that we can experience. In Christ, we can go beyond what anyone in the Old Testament experienced.

That's what I want to point out to you. There's no need for us to be discouraged today like Elijah was. There's no need for us to lose our temper like Moses did when he broke the tablets of stone. And there's no need for us to fall into adultery like David did.

There's no need for us to lose faith like John the Baptist did when he was in the prison and he wondered whether Jesus was the Messiah. So, this was promised in the Scriptures in the Old Testament, but it's gone beyond that now to something more, which is the Gospel.

And this Gospel concerns Jesus Christ, verse 3, who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh, emphasizing His humanity. We all know that Jesus Christ is God and we worship Him and pray to Him as equal with the Father from all eternity, part of the Trinity, but many Christians don't understand sufficiently that He became a man.

The Gospel concerns Jesus, who, though God, became a man, who was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. People saw Him as a man, but when He was raised from the dead, there was a demonstration that He wasn't just a man.

He was Almighty God, equal with the Father. And if we can understand this, then we begin to lay a good foundation for the Gospel, that Jesus Christ was not only God, but He was man who came in the flesh and did what He did on earth as a man, accepting the limitations of human beings, without sin, of course, but every other limitation.

He took upon Himself so that He lived on earth as a man. Now, theoretically, we all accept this, but the practical implication of it is that if He lived on earth as a man, we can follow Him. And that's what the Gospel message is all about.

The message of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ has given us an example how a man can live on earth. And he who says he abides in Christ, 1 John 2, verse 6 says, must walk as He walked. And that's good news.

It's like saying to a sick person, you can be healthy. It's like saying to a lame person, you can get up and walk. That's the best news in the world. And that's what the Gospel is all about. Verse 4, He was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness.

Jesus Christ, our Lord, speaking of His deity, and God confirming His deity by raising Him up from the dead. And through Him, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith.

Now, this is the expression I mentioned in our last study, which is found at the end of the book of Romans 2. At the end of Romans 16, you find this expression again, the obedience of faith. Now, generally speaking, among Christians, you find these two extremes.

Some who emphasize legalistic obedience and who get into bondage. And some who emphasize faith, faith, faith, and they are led into presumption. But the balance is here. The obedience of faith among all nations for His name's sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.

He is writing to the saints in Rome, verse 7. And like in most of His letters, Paul begins with praying that they will have grace. Grace is a word that refers to God's power coming to meet us according to our need.

If our need is forgiveness, grace forgives us. If our need is deliverance from sin's power, grace delivers us from sin's power. If our need is to overcome some other limitation or to be victors in a trial, grace comes to help us there.

Grace is God's help according to our present need. If you can remember that, when Jesus said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, in 2 Corinthians 12. What was He saying? He was saying, With grace, you don't need anything else in the world.

That will take care of all your needs. So, grace is God's power to help us according to what our present need is. The other great thing we need from God is peace. Peace in our heart. Peace of mind. Freedom from anxiety.

Peace in our heart because our sins are forgiven. Peace in our mind because we commit our problems to God and trust Him to take care of them. And peace in our relationships with people around us. Not only with our fellow believers, it must begin there, but also, like it says in Hebrews 12, 14 and 15, with all men, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what we read in Romans 1, verse 7. The other thing we find Paul frequently mentions in all of his letters is an expression of thanksgiving for believers. Thankfulness is something which is not natural to our human nature, which we have received from Adam.

It's most common for our human nature to be complaining when we don't get what we want. The opposite of complaining and grumbling is thankfulness. And one result of the gospel having done a work in a person fully is that he develops a spirit of thankfulness.

And Paul frequently uses this expression and says to the Christians he writes to, verse 8, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. It's not because they were perfect. No Christian in the world is perfect.

Paul himself was not perfect. He says that in Philippians 3. We don't thank God for believers because they are perfect. No. They are in the flesh. They've got limitations. They've got weaknesses, just like we have.

And as we live together with them, we'll rub each other in ways where we need to forgive one another. But in spite of all that, there are so many things that we can thank God for in our fellow believers.

They may not see eye to eye with us doctrinally in every point, but we can thank God that they've accepted Christ as their Savior. He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ because of your faith. You have really repented and surrendered your life to Christ and not only that.

He says, that has transformed your life so much that people everywhere are talking about the faith of the Christians in Rome. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

By that he means the known world around there at that time. He says, I've heard of people speaking about the faith of the Christians in Rome. That means their testimony of standing true to God in the time of trial and trusting Him and openly acknowledging their faith in Christ was known widely.

And I believe that should be true of all of us who are Christians. That people should know that we belong to Jesus Christ and that we're not ashamed to acknowledge Him as our Lord, not ashamed to acknowledge that He died for our sins, that He has forgiven us, and that He's given us a hope for the future.

This should be a challenge to us. Is our faith known to others? Do people recognize these people are people who are disciples of Jesus Christ? Let's take that challenge as we close the study that our life should be a testimony for Christ.

Paul’s Longing for Fellowship and Mutual Encouragement

We continue our study today in Romans chapter 1 and verse 9. Paul had just expressed his thanksgiving in verse 8 for the Christians in Rome whose faith was being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

And here in verse 9 he says that he serves God in his spirit. And he says, God whom he serves in his spirit in the preaching of the gospel of his Son is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request.

If perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. Paul not only thanked God for believers whom he knew about, he also prayed for them. And he prayed that he would have an opportunity to meet them.

Paul longed to meet believers, longed to meet children of God whom he had never met. And that's a mark of any true child of God that he is always eager to meet other believers whom he hasn't met before.

Because every act of fellowship, every time of fellowship with other believers is always going to be mutually profitable. Because he says in verse 12, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you.

He first says, I long to see you in verse 11, that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established. You see, Paul was an apostle. The scriptures were not written in those days. And Paul was one who had revelation on the scripture, on the truth of the gospel.

And he knew that there was something he could communicate to these believers to establish them in the faith. And those who are gifted with God's Word have that ability to give us something that will establish us in the faith.

But then Paul is quick to acknowledge. He says it's not going to be one way. You see, in the body of Christ, each needs the other. For example, the heart pumps blood to the hand. And the hand cannot move without the heart pumping blood.

But the heart cannot keep pumping blood if the hand doesn't reach out to a plate and take food to nourish the body. If the hand doesn't put food into the mouth to nourish the body, finally the body will die.

The heart will die. So, which is more important? The heart or the hand? You can't say. Both are equally important. One needs the other. The hand needs the heart to pump the blood to it, give life to it.

And the heart needs the hand to pick up food and put it inside the body so that the heart can also live. So that's what Paul says. That I may be, verse 12, encouraged together with you. And each of us by the other's faith.

Now, Paul is a mighty man of God. And these Roman Christians are very, very immature young Christians. But he doesn't look down on them, saying, well, I can give you fellows something, but there's nothing you can give me.

Now, sometimes you find Christian preachers have that attitude where they feel that they can impart something to other believers. And those other poor simple believers can impart nothing in return. But that's not true.

Paul says that, I will be encouraged by your faith. And a true man of God will always acknowledge that he gets encouragement from the faith of other simple young believers. I found that through many, many years.

The simple faith of many newly converted believers is a great challenge and an encouragement to me. And Paul recognized that, and he says that, that each of us can be encouraged by the other's faith. Both yours and mine.

See, this is how it is in the body of Christ. In the Old Testament, it wasn't like that. In the Old Testament, the prophets just got up and told the people what God wanted them to hear. The people couldn't do anything for the prophet.

It was only the prophet who encouraged God's people. But in the New Testament, because we all have the Holy Spirit, we can each encourage one another. And if you're a weak simple believer, I just want to encourage you today by telling you that you have a contribution in the body of Christ.

You can be an encouragement to the greatest servant of God in the world by your simple faith. Each encourages the other. We all have a ministry in the body of Christ. And that was the reason why Paul says in verse 11, I long to see you.

Not only to give you something, but I can receive something from you too. Verse 13. He said, I don't want you to be unaware, brothers, that I often plan to come to you and I've been prevented thus far in order that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.

Paul longed to visit Rome because he wanted to share with them the wonderful gospel that had changed his life so that some fruit could come through his labors there as he had seen elsewhere. And then he tells them three things in verse 14 to 16.

Paul’s Debt to the Whole World

All those three statements begin with the words, I am. Verse 14. I am a debtor to the Greeks and to the barbarians. The Greeks were the most cultured people of that time. And what Paul is saying is, he says, I'm in debt to cultured people and to uncultured people.

I'm in debt to the wise and to the foolish. In other words, he says, I'm in debt to the whole world. The second statement he makes is, in verse 15, I am eager to preach the gospel to you. And the third statement in verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel.

All three statements relate to the gospel. To the good news, which is the subject of this book, he says, first of all, I am a debtor. When the Lord Jesus gave Paul the gospel, the good news, it immediately placed Paul in debt to the whole world.

What does that mean? To use an illustration, we know in our country how postmen come around house to house delivering money orders. Think of a postman who starts out from the post office with maybe 20 ,000 rupees in his bag.

Not one rupee of that is his. Those are all money orders that he has to deliver to many, many homes in his beat during that day. So we could say when he leaves the post office with 20 ,000 rupees in his pocket, he's a debtor to maybe 25 or 50 homes in that area.

He looks like a very rich man, but if he spends that just on himself, he's a thief. The money was given to him by the post office to be passed on to others. Okay, now let's apply this to the gospel. Why did Jesus Christ give Paul the gospel?

It's just like the post office giving the money to the postman. It was meant for distribution. It was meant to be given to others. And like the postman could say, I'm a debtor, Paul said, I'm a debtor to everybody.

Why did Jesus Christ give you the gospel? Have you recognized that? Is it only for you? No. God, by giving you the gospel, has made you a debtor to everybody in the world. That which has changed your life, you have to share with others.

And because this is true, he says in verse 15, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you. It's like the postman who recognizes his debt and goes house to house and gives those money orders. In the same way, Paul says, God's given me something, and I'm just eager to come and pass it on to you, what God's given to me.

I'm not doing you a favor. You don't even have to thank me for it. I'm just doing my duty, just like the postman's doing his duty to the post office. Paul says, I'm doing my duty to God, and I'm very eager to clear this debt.

You know, the Bible says that we should not owe anybody anything. It says that later on in Romans 13, in verse 8. What is it we owe to people even when we don't owe them money? We owe them the gospel.

Do you know that Christ died for your sins? Do you know that all your sins can be blotted out by the blood of Jesus? Well, you have to tell others who don't know about that. You're in debt. That's why we must be eager to preach that to others.

And the third thing he says is, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it's the power of God unto salvation. Notice he says there that the gospel is not just a message. It's not a doctrine. It's a power.

Like electric power that lights up a room. He says it's lit up my life. It's changed my life. It's driven out the darkness. It's made my life work. Like electricity makes gadgets to work as soon as the power comes on.

He says it's a power. It's delivered me. It's brought salvation. Freedom from sin, freedom from hell, freedom from the grave, etc. The power of the grave to everyone who believes. It's not only for me.

It's for you. Jew, first, Greek, everybody. This is our calling. Let's also say, I'm a debtor. Therefore, I'm eager. And I'm not ashamed to preach this gospel to you, because it's the power of God. Amen.

Salvation from Sin’s Penalty, Power, and Presence

Let's turn today to Romans 1 .16. We were looking at this verse when we concluded our last study. Here it says, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

And I mentioned how the gospel was not just a message, but a power. And we know there's a lot of difference between a written word or a spoken word and something that is powerful. We can compare it with Genesis 1.

There we read that God spoke, let there be light. And what happened? Immediately the power of God was released, and the darkness was driven out, and light came in. And right through Genesis 1, you see every time God spoke a word, there was power.

See, God's word is not like man's word. There's a power in the word of God. That's why it's so important to read the Bible, to believe it, to confess it with our lips. Because the power of God is hidden in these words of Scripture.

So, we see here, Paul calls the gospel not just words, but the power of God. Have you experienced the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, not just as a message that you're convinced of in your mind, but a power that has driven out the darkness from your life, brought light into it?

He says it's the power of God into salvation. Salvation is a word which is misunderstood by many Christians. Many people think of salvation as only being saved from hell, being saved from guilt. You know, they ask people, are you saved?

What do you mean by are you saved? What they mean is, are you saved from hell? Are you saved from the guilt and penalty of sin? That is the first step of salvation. But salvation is much bigger than that.

We can think of salvation in three tenses, past, present, and future. So, salvation in the past tense is, if you have accepted Christ and received Him as your Savior, asked Him to come into your life and forgive your sin, well, then your past sins are blotted out.

You're no longer going to go to hell. You're no longer going to be punished by God as far as the past is concerned. You're saved from guilt, from hell. You've got a clear conscience. But now, you need to experience salvation in the present tense.

And that is from the power of sin which dwells in your flesh. You see, it's the power of sin that dwells in your flesh that makes you angry, that makes you lust with your eyes, that makes you fight and quarrel and grumble and complain and make you jealous and so many other things like that.

And salvation from this power of sin is also in the Gospel. And then we think of salvation in the future from the very presence of sin. That is when Christ comes again and He delivers us so that sin is no longer found.

We don't have a flesh which keeps tempting us anymore. So, salvation is from the penalty of sin, first of all, from the power of sin now and from the presence of sin in the future. And the Gospel contains all three.

And right now, we can experience at least two of those, past and present. And we await experiencing the future when Christ comes again. But we should not be satisfied with experiencing only the first part of it, that is from the penalty of sin.

We must go on to experience salvation from the power of sin. Otherwise, we don't experience the full Gospel. We'll see that later as we come to chapter 6. For in this Gospel, He says in verse 17, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

See, the righteousness of God is so much higher than anything we can conceive with our mind as righteousness. There are a lot of people who imagine themselves to be very holy and who look down on others as not being holy enough compared to them.

But really, I mean, this is like a student who got 1 in mathematics comparing himself with a student who got 0 and saying, I'm better than you. Or a student who got 2 comparing himself with a student who got 1 and saying, I'm better than you.

Whereas God's standard is 100%. You see, pass marks in an earthly school is probably 35 or 40%, but God's pass marks are 100%. And most of us don't even come to 1%. So where is the question of ever attaining God's standard?

In fact, the Bible says that all our righteousness is like filthy rags. Isaiah 64 and verse 6. And many people haven't seen that. They think they're good. They think they're better than others because they haven't seen God's standards.

They haven't seen what absolute purity is. The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel. It says, God's standard. And how can we attain to that standard? That is what Romans is all about. How can I have 100 and be accepted by God?

It's by faith. And from one degree of faith to another, it says, from faith to faith, means that we experience, first of all, faith for freedom from the penalty of sin, and then faith for freedom from the power of sin.

From faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith. That's a quotation from Habakkuk 2. And it says there that the man who God accepts as righteous is the man who has arrived there by faith.

That means he trusts God to make him righteous. That means he says, Lord, I can't make it. You've got to do it. It's something like the disciples toiled all night to catch fish, and they couldn't catch it the whole night.

And then Jesus came and filled their boats immediately. That's the picture of salvation. I try, try, try, try, try for years, and I can't save myself like those disciples couldn't catch fish. And then in a moment, Jesus puts His righteousness upon me, and I get 100%.

He gives me His marks. He got 100%. And He gives me His marks. That's what salvation is. That's the way I attain to the righteousness of God. You cannot attain to the righteousness of God by struggling all your life.

You've got to receive Christ and receive His righteousness. And then I live by faith day by day. I live trusting Him to make me righteous in the different situations of life. And then He begins in verses 18 onwards to describe how man fell into sin.

He says how man descended into the depths of degradation. And because of this, the anger and the judgment and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against every type of ungodliness, unrighteousness, of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

See, what does it mean to suppress the truth? That means your conscience tells you that you've done something wrong, but you suppress it. You tell your conscience to keep quiet, to shut up and don't open your mouth.

You see, many people who do wrong, their conscience tells them they're doing something wrong, but they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. And God's anger is revealed against all these people who've committed sin, but who don't acknowledge that they're guilty.

And He says, That which is known of God is evident within them, for God has made it evident for them. For since the creation of the world, verse 20, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.