Well, this is video number two in our series through the book of Romans. In the last video we looked at an overview of the book, and today I want to start talking about the apostle Paul, the writer of it. Obviously it was the Holy Spirit who wrote the Scriptures, and we will get into that in a little bit, but we are looking at the man who wrote it. Hi, church. Welcome back to our Bible study video series. We are taking shorter chunks this time, just a few minutes on each of these. If you are new here, my name is Pastor Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and I invite you to join along as we go phrase by phrase, verse by verse, through the book of Romans.
Paul, a Servant of Jesus Christ
Today we are looking at the apostle Paul, who is named here in verse 1: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” The apostle Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, one of the most educated men of his time, and he was converted when he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. You read his story about three times in the book of Acts: Jesus appeared to him, and he became convinced, “This One I have been fighting against is actually God, and He actually rose from the dead. Here He is, appearing to me.” So the one who once accused and martyred Christians became one willing to be martyred himself. He was an incredible missionary for Jesus Christ and went all over the known world preaching the gospel. Many times, because of that, he landed in jail, and a few times he faced a kind of puppet court. At one point he appealed to Caesar: “I want to go to Rome,” he said. Because of that, he was placed under house arrest, in Acts 28:30: “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him.” So you have the prison epistles, and perhaps Acts, written around the time of this house arrest, and then most likely he was released. The Bible does not give us many details about that, but in Philemon 22 he certainly hoped he would be released, and in Philippians 1 he was looking forward to his release, and early Christian writings attest to his being released. In the last video we looked at the verses showing that his plan was always to visit Spain. He was always hoping to get through Rome, and then, basically, “I am on my way to Spain.”
So now in chapter 1, verse 1, the apostle Paul, the one instrumental in founding many, many churches all across the known world at that time, is writing, and he is not a self-important individual. The way he describes himself here is as a servant. That is the first word he uses of himself. Verse 1 says he is “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” He was called to be an apostle; that is what it says. An apostle was one who had authority. An apostle is a sent one, and he was sent. He was sent to the Gentiles, and he was sent with sign gifts to the Jews. The term apostle is used of a messenger, and it is used of Jesus in Hebrews 3:1. But here he is talking about being the servant of Jesus Christ and an apostle, a sent one, authorized by God to perform ministry on God’s behalf with the authority of God. And verse 1 says he was “separated unto the gospel of God.” His main focus in life was the gospel. His main calling was to preach the gospel and see people saved. That was his calling in life, and really that is not so different from the rest of us. I am not an apostle in the sense that I have seen the resurrected Lord, but I am sent to go preach the gospel to every creature, and that is what the apostle Paul was sent to do. His whole life was to be separated unto the gospel of God.
The Holy Scriptures
Then verse 2 describes it like this: “(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)” So this was something that long preceded him. It was predicted in the Scriptures that the gospel of God would come to this world. So right here in the first couple of verses of the book of Romans, we are affirming the Word of God. I love that this is called the holy Scriptures. These are the Word of God, separated, set apart, as God’s holy Word. It is plural here, so it refers to the whole thing, the holy Scriptures. Sometimes Scripture or Scriptures is used of a specific word or passage, and sometimes it is used in a plural sense referring to all of it. Every individual word is inspired by God, and the whole of Scripture is inspired by God. I had a solar salesman come by the house, and he started asking me all kinds of questions, trying to relate to me, and he said, “What do you think about the Apocrypha?” I just said, “Well, because of the errors in it, and because the believers at that time rejected it, we would reject it today.” As part of the canonization process it was rejected, and it was not written by His prophets, as it says here: “which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures.” Part of the canonization, checking what is Scripture, what is authorized by God, is the source. The prophets were the ones who wrote the holy Scriptures, so we would reject the Apocrypha as not being written by the prophets. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” So we cannot just believe every dream or vision somebody claims, every claim that the Holy Ghost appeared to them. Anyone can say anything. Anybody can experience anything. But our foundation is the Word of God. If anything contradicts the Word of God, we reject it as completely false. Some people will say, “Well, I felt it,” and we reject feelings. If it is contrary to the Word of God, it is totally rejected. We judge everything by the Word of God. My senses are tricked all the time. I enjoy watching magic shows, Penn and Teller: Fool Us and that kind of thing, and they trick my eyes all the time. So this is not about my senses. It is not about whether I can be convinced because I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. No, this is verified: “which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Concerning His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord
So this is a focus on Jesus, on what the Scriptures say about Jesus. “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” These are the Scriptures that have been verified over time, which prophesied, and this is a message about Jesus. The name Jesus means Saviour. Remember when the angel appeared and said, “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Jesus means Saviour, like Joshua. Christ means Messiah, the Anointed One. Messiah is the Hebrew word for the Anointed One, and Christ is the Greek word. So this Jesus, this Saviour who is the Messiah, is also our Lord. I do not believe it is some kind of lordship salvation to call Jesus Christ our Lord and to expect followers of Jesus to follow Him as Lord, because He is our Lord. The Bible says He was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” David was the king, and his royal blood flows through Jesus’ veins. Jesus was born of the lineage of David, and He inherits the Davidic covenant, that there would be a Person to sit on David’s throne in an eternal kingdom, as prophesied in 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah 9. Jesus is called the Son of David ten times in Matthew. Verse 3 says “according to the flesh,” meaning His incarnation. The fact that He was humanly born of the line of King David shows He was royalty, able to receive the kingship that had been prophesied. That is talking about His human lineage. It is not talking about “the flesh” in the sense of our old sin nature; that is not the flesh he is talking about. He is literally talking about His humanity here.
“And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” This declaration is, man, He promised He would rise, and His resurrection proves those promises. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, and that declaration was validated by the resurrection from the dead. His resurrection proved His promises. “According to the spirit of holiness”: that is how He was resurrected. It was by the Holy Spirit’s power that He rose from the dead. Or it could be the spirit of Jesus, meaning that He is perfectly holy, and death cannot hold Him. There are a couple of different ways people have read that verse, but really it is saying the power of the Godhead was involved not only in the writing of Scripture and the resurrection of Jesus Christ but in the authority this message comes from.
Grace and Apostleship
So the apostle Paul says in verse 5, “By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name.” Grace and apostleship: that is not for all of us. That is the apostle Paul speaking. The grace he speaks of here is the grace to be saved: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” And then there is another kind of grace, the grace of serving: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,” and it goes into the gifts of service we have. So we are “apostles” in the sense that we are all given that same grace for salvation and grace to serve the Lord, and we are messengers of that gospel message. Paul says his message was “for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name.” His whole life’s calling was to preach the gospel to every creature. He said it all the way up in verse 1: “called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” Verse 16 is very famous, but here it is again in verse 5, in the opening words describing himself and God’s calling on his life. He is saying, “My whole life is about people coming to a saving, obedient faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, my Master, the One anointed to be the Messiah for all of mankind, among all nations, for His name.” That is a divine calling. So that is just a simple look at the first few verses of Romans. I am very excited to continue in the next video, picking up with the next verse. I will see you then. God bless you.
