Romans 1:1-7 (A Defining Gospel)

Introduction

I have a short list of favorite books of the Bible – those books that have been particularly fascinating to me, influential to my understanding of Christianity, and useful to make me grow and help others grow… over the last 26 years or so.

Do you have a favorite book of the Bible… or maybe a handful of them?

The book of Romans is definitely among my top 3… and it might be my #1.

Its genre is discourse, which means it makes logical arguments, explaining and applying them along the way.

Its content is the central message and overall story of the Bible – the gospel of Christ… who He is, what He does, and what it all means.

And its structure is both powerful and easy to recognize – the Apostle Paul takes his reader from where sinful man is, and he leads us right up to the cosmic throne… to worship the God who rules and saves with impeccable justice, inscrutable wisdom, and untamed power.

The God we read about in the book of Romans is unimaginably gracious, He’s flawlessly righteous, He’s awe-inspiringly sovereign, He’s unstoppably effective – in a word, He is HOLY.

For the last 20+ years, it was especially in Romans that I learned:

what it means to be justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (to the glory of God alone),

what it means that the triune God is the Lord of salvation,

what it means to both trust and obey as a NT Christian,

and what it means that God will most certainly accomplish His will.

Of course, the whole Bible speaks to these matters as well (to one degree or another). But the book of Romans has been something of a one-stop-shop for me to understand a summary of the whole of Christianity. And I’m not the first to see it like this… many Christians (past and present) have the same kind of affinity and appreciation for this book.

Now, some of you might wonder… “Marc, if you love this book so much, why are you only just now preaching through it?!”

Well, one of the main reasons I have waited until 12 years into my pastoral ministry to preach through this book is my love for it. I’m sure that I won’t preach it nearly as well as it deserves… even now.

But I trust that the Lord will use my paltry skill to glorify Himself and to build us up… and maybe even to convert some of us (may God grant it!), despite the fact that I am such a blunt tool.

Another reason I’ve avoided preaching this book for more than a decade is because it includes at least two areas of doctrine that I am not completely settled about in my own mind, and these are probably not what you’d expect.

I hope that you all know by now that one of the main tasks of a pastor is to persistently study the Scriptures in order to understand them well enough to preach them faithfully and honestly, humbly and boldly.

This I will do, as the Lord gives me strength to do it. And I hope you’ll be patient and gracious with me as we all learn and grow together.

Today, we’re going to consider the first seven verses of this incredible book. And this first section is itself something of a summary of Romans.

It speaks of the one true God who reigns over all creation and history.

It presents God as both one and three, each person of the trinity playing distinct-but-overlapping roles in the cosmic and personal drama of salvation.

And it invites the reader to see him- or herself as part of an epic story and glorious kingdom with a worldwide and timeless mission to announce Christ’s benediction for all who believe… and to announce the obligation of all people everywhere to believe and obey Christ.

I pray that the Lord will lift our eyes to Him during our time together this morning… that He will help us better understand our own place in His world and in His unfolding plan of salvation… that He will give us the grace and peace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ… and that He will embolden us to announce this good news to others… with both urgency and love.

Scripture Reading

Romans 1:1–7 (ESV)

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

2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,

3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Main Idea:

All believers hear in the gospel a cosmic message that joins them to a lineage of apostolic blessing, to the triune sovereign who rules and saves, and to the noble commission of conveying this same message to others.

Sermon

1. The Apostolic Blessing (vv. 1 and 7)

All believers hear in the gospel a cosmic message that joins them to a lineage of apostolic blessing.

The Apostle Paul begins this letter with a greeting that is familiar – he introduces himself (v. 1), and he names his target audience (v. 7). Paul is an Apostle of God and of Christ, and he announces a divine benediction over those who have been brought into loving and holy fellowship with God and one another.

Who is Paul?

Paul used to be Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-19; Phil. 3:4-6),

An ethnic, cultural, and religiously devout Israelite…

An exemplary pharisee, who took the law of Moses seriously…

And a persecutor of Christ and His people in the world.

Paul became… a servant, an Apostle, and set apart for God’s gospel.

“a servant of Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

Once a servant or slave of sin (even in his strict religious devotion), Paul became a “servant” or “slave” of “Christ.”

There is a sense in which all Christians are “servants” or “slaves” of Christ (1 Pet. 2:16).

But this designation is especially one Paul gives to himself and others who serve Christ in a pastoral role (2 Cor. 4:5; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:7).

Paul was “called to be an apostle” (v. 1).

The original 12 Apostles were selected and called by Christ at the very beginning (Acts 1:15-26; cf. Jn. 20:20-23).

And yet, Paul also received this same special calling when he encountered the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19).

Not only was Paul a “servant” or “slave” of Christ as a preacher or pastor, but also as a divinely commissioned and authoritative spokesman of the gospel of Christ.

Therefore, we (just as the original recipients of this letter) ought to receive these words as God’s words.

Paul was “set apart for the gospel of God” (v. 1).

Here Paul is explicit about his message and his commission, as well as his conception that God is sovereign over both.

The “gospel” Paul preached was/is “God’s” gospel.

And “God” was the one who “set” Paul “apart” to preach the “gospel.”

Again, the gospel Paul preaches and explains in this book should be received by all who read it as belonging to God.

God is the one who planned it from the beginning.

God is the one who performed and arranged the events gospel in real human history.

And God is the one who sends messengers (especially the Apostles) to announce the gospel to sinners who need to hear it.

Friends, do you ever think of the gospel as the message that has been graciously and sovereignly handed down to us throughout the ages?

Why is God obligated to make sure that you or I hear the gospel?

Why should we have been so favored among all the people in the world who have lived and died… and never heard this message?

Paul understood what we should understand today – that the message of the gospel belongs to God, it was planned and executed by God in real history, and it was delivered by God’s appointed messengers (real people) who handed it down to others… so that they too might believe it and pass it along to those who come after.

Who is Paul’s audience?

This letter is written to “all those in Rome who are loved by God” (v. 7).

There seems to have been a number of churches in Rome, assemblies of believers who had received the gospel and become Christian disciples… following Christ together.

God loved them and saved them, and Paul was able to distinguish those Christians in Rome (as “loved by God”) from everyone else.

God’s love upon these believers included a “calling” to “be saints” (v. 7).

God does not love guilty sinners as mere sentimentalism or only in thought or emotion; He loves sinners so as to make them “saints.”

And God makes sinners into saints (or holy ones) through Christ, calling them into a life of holiness as they embrace this new status.

Because of God’s “love” and “calling” upon those who believe, Paul was able to pronounce a benediction over them – “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 7).

“Grace and peace” from God and Christ is the good word announced to those who are “loved” and “called” by God.

Friends, this is an apostolic description and benediction that places Christians within a real and historic lineage that connects them to God and to all those who believe the gospel along with them.

In the gospel, we who believe hear a cosmic message that joins us to God’s love and calling… His plan and people… as these unfold in real human history.

2. The Triune Sovereign (vv. 2-6)

The gospel reveals the triune sovereign who brings His people to Himself.

All three persons of the holy trinity are mentioned here, each with a distinct aspect of His particular role in God’s sovereign plan to save sinners. Everything each person of the trinity does is (of course) a shared act of all three, but the Bible teaches us here something of the way God works… with both distinction and unity in Himself… to bring believers into right fellowship with Him.

God the Father promised, arranged, and revealed.

God the Father “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (v. 2).

Christ’s arrival on the scene of human history was not accidental or coincidental… but perfectly timed and planned according to God’s promises from long ago.

And God’s promises were not unknown (though they were often misunderstood by those who heard them or ignored altogether), but these promises were announced with increasingly clarity through prophets, which God appointed at various times for the job.

And these prophetic announcements are accessible to us today in the Scriptures, where we can read and hear and recognize them.

Friends, our God is a God who speaks!

God knows what He’s doing, and He declares the end from the beginning.

So too, God the Father arranged the events of human history so that the Christ (or Messiah) would fulfill what He’d promised.

The specific prophecy on display in our text this morning is the descent (or family pedigree) of the “Christ.”

“through his prophets,” God “promised beforehand” that “his Son” would be “descended from David” (vv. 2-3).

Think of the detailed arranging needed to fulfill this one prophecy!

God established an ancient nation of Israel.

David himself had to rise to the kingly throne.

David’s office as king had to be of unique importance in his own day, and also 1,000 years later, as God’s plan to reveal His ultimate king or “Messiah” or “Christ” would unfold.

So too, David’s descendants had to persist for many generations – no one eliminated them or snuffed them out.

And God’s Son had to be born as a real baby from a mother who came from this Davidic line.

Brothers and sisters, our God is a God who arranges everything.

There’s no such thing as chance; God’s providence rules all.

And finally, when the time was full, God the Father revealed His Son.

This one in who’s “name” the gospel is proclaimed (v. 5) and the one through whom sinners may hear the divine benediction of “grace and peace” (v. 7)… God the Father ultimately revealed His Son on the pages of human history… in the person of Jesus Christ.

Friends, our God is the God who makes Himself known by way of special revelation!

God is always there (ruling and speaking, arranging and working), but He condescends to make Himself known in all of it… so that His people may come near to Him.

Brothers and sisters, God the Father is no uninterested or distant or unloving person of the trinity!

He is the promise-keeper, the plan-arranger, and the Savior-revealer.

God the Son descended, lived/died/raised, and claimed.

Jesus “descended from David according to the flesh” (v. 3), but this was not where the story of His descent began.

Before there was “Jesus,” there was the “Son of God” (v. 4).

The Scripture says elsewhere that God the Son “emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7).

Thus, God the Son first “descended from heaven” (Jn. 3:13).

As Charles Spurgeon put it, “The infinite became an infant, stepping down from His heavenly throne to walk the dust of earth.”

Thus, God the Son lived and died and conquered death as a human (v. 4).

Paul tells us here that God the Son became a real man with a family history, tracing it back to Israel’s ancient king, David (v. 3).

Paul also says that God the Son (who became the man, Jesus) was raised “from the dead” (v. 4)… which means He truly died.

And this highlights the scandal of the gospel – that God would become a man and even subject Himself to death.

But friends, God the Son – living, dying, and rising from the dead in the person of Christ – is why we can sing “And Can it Be?”

And can it be that I should gain… An interest in the Savior's blood?

Died He for me who caused His pain… For me who Him to death pursued.

Amazing love how can it be… That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

No condemnation now I dread… Jesus and all in Him is mine.

Alive in Him, my living Head… And clothed in righteousness divine.

Bold, I approach th'eternal throne… And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

And, finally, God the Son claimed those who “belong” to Him (v. 6).

Friends, the Bible speaks of Christ’s earthly ministry as a work He accomplished in order to win His prize – a people, a Bride, a church… a brotherhood of heirs who share in all His winnings.

Thus, if we are believing ones today, then we have been “bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:20)… we are members of the “church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).

Brothers and sisters, do you think of the gospel mostly as a story about how you can have Jesus (have His forgiveness, His peace, His love)?

Or do you make room in your mind and heart for understanding that in the gospel we hear about how Jesus claims you as belonging to Him (bought for His glory, for His prize, and for His service)?

It would do us well (I think) to put a bit more emphasis on how the gospel makes an announcement that sweeps believers up… rather than brings God down… The gospel sweeps believers up into God’s eternal plan to save, up into Christ’s heavenly kingdom that’s already invading earth, and up into God Himself.

God the Spirit raised Christ from the dead and declared Him God’s Son.

Christ was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (v. 4).

In other words, it was by or through Christ’s resurrection that the Spirit of God declared Christ to be the Son of God.

The Holy Spirit is credited here with power over death.

And He is the one who declares (or testifies) with authority to the identity of Christ as the Son of God who came to save.

Friends, in this short and profound greeting, it seems to me that the Apostle Paul is emphasizing the transcendence of God – the sovereignty of the Father, the divinity of the Son, and the holiness of the Spirit.

It is true that God is near to us, to His creation, and especially to His people. Indeed, one of Paul’s main points here is that God has made Himself known to His people through the person and work of Christ! But the reason this is so surprising and wonderful is that the triune God of the Bible is “other” or “holy.”

Thus, in the gospel, we who believe hear a cosmic message that both reveals and joins us to this unique and holy God.

3. The Noble Commission (vv. 5-6)

Believers of the gospel share in the noble commission of conveying this same message to others.

If the gospel announces an invitation to join in with believers going all the way back to the Apostles… to join in with them in believing the good news and receiving the blessing (of grace and peace) that comes with it… and if the gospel both reveals the triune God and unites believers to Him (by faith)… then it only makes sense that we who believe would now join with God and with believers of old in the mission of persistently announcing this gospel in the world.

Now, Paul does name himself as “receiving” a special “grace and apostleship” to “bring about the obedience of faith… among all the nations” (v. 5). Therefore, we are right to understand that the special ministry and authority of an Apostle is not something that any of us have today.

The office and role of an Apostle was unique to the foundation-building days of the early church. There are no Apostles after the original ones, and every generation of Christians since then has only built upon that apostolic foundation.

So, if you hear of someone claiming to be an Apostle today, then you can dismiss them as a fool (at best) and probably a fraud. There were genuine Apostles, and we have their inspired words recorded for us in Scripture. We do not need or want anyone else to add to or subtract from what we already have.

And yet, Paul says that his mission was to “bring about the obedience of faith… among all the nations” (v. 5), and this letter was an invitation for the Christians in Rome to join Paul in this mission.

It has been noted by some that this letter from Paul to the Romans might well be a lengthy description of Paul’s gospel so that the Christians in Rome would recognize Paul as a genuine messenger of the true gospel that they should join and support in his missionary efforts.

Near the end of Romans (in ch. 15), Paul writes that his “ambition” was “to preach the gospel” where “Christ” has not “already been named” (Rom. 15:20). And he also says that his purpose in writing to the Christians in Rome and the purpose behind his “hope to see [them] in passing as [he traveled] to Spain” (Rom. 15:24) was to have them “help” him “on [his] journey” financially (v. 24) and to have them “strive together with [him]” in prayer (v. 30).

Now, the reason I’m bringing this up here (at the beginning of the letter this morning) is the implied commission that I believe we all might recognize for ourselves as believers of the same gospel and followers of the same Christ.

I’m not saying that we all ought to be missionaries to a foreign people.

Some of us might be, and this is certainly something we should discuss together if that’s on your mind.

But there are non-Christians all around us, and we would all do well to be better witnesses for Christ where we are before we think about trying to become witnesses for Christ somewhere else.

I’m also not saying that we must all be sending money to missionaries.

Some of us might have surplus cash to help missionaries in their cause, and we (as a church) mean to be contributing a portion of our overall giving to missionary efforts near and far.

But not all those who claim to be missionaries are worthy of our investments, and there are times when we may not have the ability to contribute even to the best of missionaries.

What I’m trying to point out here (at the end of my sermon) is that those of us who have heard in the gospel of Christ an invitation into the divine blessing (“grace and peace”)… those of us who have come to know (through faith) the triune God who rules and saves… we have been gracious recipients of the one message of salvation that all people everywhere are obligated to believe.

And it is both our privilege and our noble commission to convey this message we’ve heard and believed to others.

Conclusion

Friends, I’ve tried to argue this morning that all believers hear in the gospel a cosmic message that joins them to a lineage of apostolic blessing, a message that joins believers to the triune and sovereign God who rules and saves, and a message that joins them to the noble commission of conveying this same message to others.

I’d like to conclude my time today by making three very brief appeals:

First, I appeal to you who are not right now turning from your sin and believing or trusting or submitting yourselves to the only Savior God has provided.

Don’t you hear in this passage of Scripture the exclusive and urgent opportunity you have today to leave your sin behind and to join in with those who can hear and receive the benediction of “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”?

The God who rules over all creation has sent His Son to live and die and conquer death for sinners like you. He has promised that He would do it long ago, and He has delivered on that promise.

Today, this same God announces to you – You must repent and believe the gospel! There is no other Savior! There is no other salvation! Here is grace and peace! Receive it by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who has heard the divine curse so that you might hear the divine blessing.

If you want to talk with me about what this means or how you might repent and believe today, then let’s get together after the service.

Second, I appeal to you who are thinking it a light or insignificant thing that God has made His gospel known to you.

Haven’t you heard in our passage this morning what a profound and epic work God has done in performing the work of saving sinners like us and what a glorious reality it is that we have heard and believed the gospel?

This is no reactive idea or new message. No, God has been about making Himself known to sinners as the gracious and peace-making God for millennia.

If we are among those “called to be saints” today, then it is because the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) has worked His plan to make “grace and peace” available to us, and He has set His decisive love upon us.

As we will sing in just a bit, in Christ’s life and death and resurrection, which was promised of God the Father and performed by God the Spirit, “Christ has opened paradise” to us… and now we may say, “ours the cross, the grave, the skies… Alleluia!”

Third, I appeal to you who are living with a kind of individual and terminal understanding of your salvation.

Haven’t we heard in this opening greeting to the Christians in Rome a divine mission to make the gospel known to others around us who don’t yet believe it?

Brothers and sisters, we are (by God’s grace) not going to be the last Christians on earth. Rather, we are taking our place (in our generation, in our families, in our communities) in a long line of Christians who have gone before us.

There are many Christians even now who walk beside us, who believe along with us, and who are called to be saints in a world full of sinners.

And through our gospel witness, God will make His grace and peace known to many more… if we will but take up our noble commission to make this good news known among our families, our friends, and others God has placed around us.

I pray this morning that God will make us to hear these words of blessing – “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” I pray that God will make us to know Him as Father, Son, and Spirit. And I pray that God will make us faithful witnesses in our own day and circumstances… so that others may come to know Him too.