BibleProject New Testament Series - Lesson 12

BP150-12 - Romans (Part 2) Paul's letter to the Romans. Check out the first video where we explored who Paul was, why he wrote this letter and where we trace the core ideas of chapters one through four: that all humanity is hopelessly trapped in sin and needs to be rescued. That this rescue is not going to happen by people trying to obey the laws of the Torah. Rather God's righteous character has moved him to rescue the world through Jesus' death and resurrection so that He could create a faith-based multi-ethnic family of Abraham as His people. Now in the remaining three movements of the letter to the Romans Paul is going to develop these ideas even more. So remember Paul's exploration of justification by faith that when people trust Jesus's death and resurrection was for them they're given a new status, the right with God, they're placed in a new family, the covenant people of Abraham, and they're given a new future: the hope of a transformed life. Now Paul wants to show how this reality should reshape every part of our existence because being in this family means being a part of a new humanity that God is creating through Jesus and the Spirit. So Paul goes back to the first human character of the Biblical story, Adam. His name means humanity and Adam like all humanity after him has chosen sin and selfishness and so everyone faces God's judgment because we become slaves to sins influence resulting in death. But then Paul contrast Adam with Jesus who He says is the new Adam, a human who lived in faithful obedience to God shown through His act of sacrificial love and now Jesus offers His life as a gift to others so that they can be justified before God. And so Jesus stands as the head of a new humanity that is being transformed by this gift which leads him to chapter 6. Paul reminds these Christians in Rome that choosing to follow Jesus means leaving their old Adam-like humanity and entering into the new Jesus-like humanity. And their baptism was a sacred symbol of that transition. Their old humanity died with Jesus and their new humanity was raised with Him from the dead. So when a person trust in Jesus their life becomes joined to His life, what's true of Him is now true of them. It's when people accept their identity as Jesus-like humans that they are liberated to become the wholehearted humans who can truly love God and their neighbor. Now, if creating this new humanity was always God's purpose Paul asks in Chapter seven what then was the point of God giving Israel the law or in Hebrew the Torah? Now side note: when Paul uses this word law he sometimes means the storyline and message of the first five books of the Bible. But other times he's more specifically referring to the hundreds of commands given through Moses and that are found in the Torah. The second meaning is Paul's focus here what was the purpose of all those commands? Paul says that the commands of the Torah were good, they showed God's will for how Israel was to live. But, if you read the story line of the Torah Israel broke all those commands: the more laws Israel received, the more they replayed the sin of Adam and rebelled. So even when God gave His people specific moral rules to obey that did not fix the problem of the sinful human heart. And so paradoxically these rules made Israel even more guilty. But Paul says that paradox is the point. God's goal was to make it crystal clear that it's evil that's hijack the human heart and that the Torah good as it is could not do a thing about it. But Paul says in chapter eight the solution has arrived in Jesus and the Spirit. And here's how: the commands of the Torah acted like a magnifying glass, it focused the problem of the human condition into into one place, on the people of Israel. But now, Israel's repre- sentative Jesus, the Messiah, has paid for and dealt with all of that sin through His death and His resurrection. And now Jesus has released His Spirit into His new family to transform their hearts So that they can truly fulfill the call of all the Torah's commands to love God and neighbor. And there's more: God's renewal of human beings is the first step of His larger mission to rescue and renew all of creation making it a place where His love gets the final word. Now you can see how chapters one through eight are long flowy thought here. But it raises some other questions: if all of this was God's purpose what is the current status then of Paul's fellow Israelites who don't acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah? How does this story fulfill God's promises to them? Paul begins in chapter nine with his own anguish over fellow Israelites who don't think Jesus is their Messiah. And it leads him to reflect on Israel in the past from the Old Testament story. And he reminds us that simply being an ethnic Israelite, a physical descendant of Abraham, never made one automatically a faithful member of the Covenant family. Paul shows us how God has always selected a subset from Abraham's family to carry on the line of promise. In this point is that now that line of promise is carried on by those who follow Jesus. He reminds us that for a long time people inside and outside Abraham's family have rejected God's will. He reminds us of the story of Israel in the golden calf and of Pharaohs rebellion. He shows us how God was able to orchestrate events so that people's rejection of Him actually accomplished His redemptive purposes. And so in chapter ten Paul turns his focus to israel in the present; the reason many Israelites reject Jesus is because they're basing their covenant relationship with God on their performance of the commands in the Torah. And so sadly they don't recognize what God has done through Jesus to create a new covenant family on the basis of faith. And so paul asks in chapter 11 what is Israel's future? Has God written off His people? No, he says. There are tons of Jewish people, including himself, who do recognize Jesus as their Messiah but there are also a lot who don't. But God has been able to use their rejection for His own purposes. it's cause the gospel to spread even quicker and farther into the gentile world making the family of Abraham even larger and more multi-ethnic. Paul describes God's covenant family as a big olive tree and the rejecters of Jesus have been broken off so to speak and these Gentiles are like wild branches that have been grafted into the family tree. However, Paul says, one day Jesus will be acknowledged by His own people. He doesn't offer any details about how. Paul simply trust God's character and promise that he won't give up on His covenant people. Which transitions into the final section of the book, chapters 12 to 16. But remember the big picture: because of their faith in Jesus Jews and Gentiles are now together Abraham's family that new humanity that's being transformed by God's Spirit And so this is how God's fulfilling His ancient promises. Therefore the only reasonable response is for these Jews and non-jewish Christians to be unified as the church. In chapter 12 to 13 he shows that this unity will come from a commitment to love and forgive each other. Love will look like everybody using their diverse gifts and talents to serve one another in the church. And will also mean humility and forgiveness; when these different ethnic groups and cultures come together in Jesus conflict is inevitable. And it can only be overcome through the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation. This is how they will show the greatest of Christian virtues, love, which fulfills the Thora's greatest commands to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. In chapter 14 and 15 he focuses specifically on the issues that are creating ethnic divisions in the Roman Church. These are disputes about the Jewish food laws and the Sabbath. And Paul says, these practices don't define who's in or out of Jesus' family. And people differ over these culturally important but non-essential issues they need to learn how to respect each other's differences. And it's in this way that love will heal and unify Jesus' family. Paul closes the letter by first committing Phobe who's a key leader in the church of Cenchrea. She had the honor of carrying and perhaps even reading this letter aloud to the Roman churches for the first time. Paul then conclude by greeting all the people that he hasn't seen for a long time and that's the end. You can see better now how all the pieces of this letter fit together and show what a profound masterpiece it truely is. That's what the letter to the Romans is all about.