ROMANS - INTRODUCTION (2023) FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS

ROMANS – INTRODUCTION FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS

Tuesday Morning Bible Study

September 20, 2009; May 30, 2023

Romans has a very special place in my life journey. During the four years I went through a brokenness in my soul (death of the carnal soul), I was asked to teach the bible at Trumpet Christian Fellowship by Pastor Melody McCrary. This would have been in 1986 or 87. Not sure of the dates. Prophets were discerning and prophesying that I was a “Teacher.” I wrote out the Book of Romans by hand. I could type, but I needed (emphasis on needed) to write each scripture out. During the process of teaching Romans, the Lord delivered me from the pain of the Law of Sin and Death which had persecuted me from the “Church,” into the experiential reality of the Law of the Spirit of Life. By the time I had finished teaching the Book of Romans, I was delivered and healed from the religious spirit which had judged me, and any religious demons of my own doing. I was delivered in to the LIBERTY of, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY. Out of my belly begin to flow rivers of living water.

The Book of Romans has become part of my DNA as a Christian. But then, I can say that about almost every book of the Bible, how it is not just words, but life flowing through my veins in demonstration like an electric current with joy unspeakable and full of glory. May we all become an epistle read by all men.

The Roman Empire was the nation who ruled Israel at the time of the birth and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. They ruled until 300 A.D. As the apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ of Nazareth were walking out the New Testament, they were under Roman government. The Kingdom of God was birthed in the age of Rome. The past 2023 years is the establishing of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus’ Kingdom is the stone cut out of the mountain without hands and has broken to pieces all the other kingdoms.

Daniel 2: 44-45: In the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

The Book of Daniel and Revelation clearly state that the kingdom of the antichrist will come out of a revived Roman empire. Revelation 17:8 and Daniel 7 describe in metaphorical language the formation of these powers. “The beast will have seven heads and ten horns…. the ten horns are kings. The beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth” (antichrist and the revised Grecian empire).

When John was writing the Revelation, all his mind could see was –Rome. He saw its power and its evil. To him, she was a religious prostitute. The New Testament Babylon is “the mother of harlots” who has dominated peoples, multitudes, and nations. This spirit of confusion that pervades all man-made religion and governments has become a habitation of demons and foul spirits.

In Revelation, Babylon is pictured as a prostitute (representing a false union which cannot satisfy) who seduces people away from the true and living God, captivating the souls of men.

Rev. 7:9-11: Here is the mind which has wisdom; the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They are seven kings; five have fallen, one is. The other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction.

This is a riddle. The mention of the seven hills would be an instant clue for the early readers. Rome was built on seven hills. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind, but that Rome was the anti-Christian center of the world. However, the interpretation goes beyond the city. It is my personal belief (which is as good as anyone’s and really means nothing) that the seven hills not only mean Rome at the time this was written but is prophetic of the high-places of world-power in the end-time.

Romans 8 is the pinnacle of this great book. This takes us out of the realm of the soul and the flesh into “walking in the Spirit.” All those who by faith have been snatched as firebrands from the burnings of the old race and brought into the new. We are not brought in by going through a process of reformation or reconditioning. We are brought into new life by the outworking of a new Law --- The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. The last five chapters of Romans teach us this walk of Life in the Spirit as a corporate church body of Jesus Christ on earth.

On the mountain top of Chapter Eight, one can see in to the Third Heaven. From that vista, as over comers, we can see heavenly things with eyes like eagles. These over comers hear the trumpet sound, “Come up hither”. Once you have ascended into the hill of the Lord, “come hither!” (Rev. 21:9).

Paul was at Corinth when he wrote this letter. He was staying in the house of Gaius (Ro. 16:23). This was more than 1,000 miles from Rome. It wasn’t easy to send a letter in Paul’s day. If you wanted to get a letter to a person, you had to hire a messenger or trust it to someone who happened to be going that way.

The Lord provided him with a very unusual mailman. She was a mail-woman. Her name was Phoebe. She was a wealthy lady who belonged to the church at Cenchrea which was nine miles from Corinth.

Thus, it was that God chose a woman to bear one of the world’s most valuable documents to the capitol of the empire. Surely this saint of God had no way of knowing the value of that scroll she carried under her robe. Because she fulfilled her commission, we have in existence the clearest and fullest statement on the doctrine of sin and salvation available today. “The just shall live by Faith.”

Paul honored her in Romans 16:1-2. First, he calls her “our sister.” Second, he calls her “a servant of the church in Cenchrea.” The word for servant here is diaconos, from which our word “deacon” is derived. It is believed by some and by me that she was a minister even as were Paul, Timothy, and others. Third, he calls her helper of many and of Paul. Then fourth, she is to be received in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of.

I am grateful for this woman of God who risked her life to deliver this great masterpiece not only to the Roman Christians, but to the Christians through eternity.

‘In my humble opinion” (quote from Bill O’Reilly), the Book of Romans is the most important of all of Paul’s works. When the Holy Spirit was directing the New Testament to be put together, He had this letter placed first in order of Paul’s writings, even though it was the sixth in his series of letters.

The date is A.D. 57.  Since Paul was a tent-maker, he was probably occupied with his trade while composing the letter. Tertius is the one doing the writing. The writing and revelation are supernatural and could only be dictated through a man whose mind was ONE with the Mind of Christ.

Paul speaks in Romans 5 of two races of mankind, just two. One is the figure or type of the other. He clearly defines the manner in which the first Adam prefigures the Last Adam. No man could have this knowledge unless it was revealed to him from heaven.

No one knows who started the church at Rome. Some believe that it was begun by Jews who traveled from Rome to attend that great feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem. Many of them were saved that day the Holy Spirit descended to indwell the believers. Then they returned to Rome where they continued to worship in the synagogues. They made no attempt to start a Christian church. Why not? They were all Jews. Well, Jews and proselytes. By proselytes, we mean those Gentiles who had forsaken their heathen gods and embraced Judaism.\

These Jews and proselytes were born again, no question about that. But they continued worshiping the Lord alongside the orthodox Jews. They continued to observe all the ancient customs and rites of Judaism. To them Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews. They did not know Him as the Savior of the World.

Since they were not tied to the Jewish customs by ancestors, they gradually pulled away from the synagogues to form isolated groups about the city. These isolated groups of believers were the beginnings of the church of Rome.

At the time this letter was written, the majority of Christians at Rome seem to have been Gentiles, though the Jews also constituted a sizeable minority (Rom. 15: 7, 8)

The Gentiles gradually took over when Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome in A.D. 49-50.

In A.D. 54, this decree was no longer enforced and many of the Jews returned to Rome from the cities in the east where they had taken refuge. The presence of the two groups in the same community now constituted a delicate situation which called for tact and wisdom. I

n Romans 11:13, Paul deals with this situation seeking to ease the friction between them.

For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office

. For a long time, Paul had his eye on Rome. Since it was the center of the Gentile world, it was the natural center for world-wide Christianity. If the Great Commission was to be fulfilled on a world-wide basis, then the capitol of the world would have to be taken for Jesus.

Paul is writing 28 years after Pentecost. The church at Rome was divided into various congregations about the city. It was a loose knit community of believers.

In the 16th chapter, Paul sends his greetings to 26 of his friends in Rome. It is possible there were 26 congregations in Rome.

Paul’s message to the Romans is an announcement to the World. God is ready to receive all men who will come to Him on the basis of Faith alone. He doesn’t care about a person’s background, whether he is the strictest kind of Jew, who meticulously sought to conform to the Law, or a Gentile who has worked hard to obey his own conscience. Men are to forget their own righteousness and cast themselves wholly on Christ. If they will renounce their human righteousness and accept salvation as a free gift from God, then He will make them as righteous as Himself.

The salvation which Paul offers is of God. It is God who proves this righteousness for man. All anyone can do is accept it by faith. Accepting this gift is an “Act,” an act of the Will. It is the one work man must do to receive the experience of salvation (John 6:29).

If a person will accept God’s righteousness by putting his complete trust in Jesus, then God, by his power, will make that sinner as righteous as Himself.

The theme of Romans is salvation through faith period. The person who masters this book will find himself relaxing in the security of his soul, and then God, by his power, will make that sinner as righteous as Himself.

This great apostle, chosen and equipped by the Lord Jesus Christ with his remarkable education, exalted Jewish background, astonishing revelations and supernatural gifts here refers to himself as a slave.

This should be a testimony to all ministers everywhere of what our position is in the Lord.

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries Church

www.eastgateministries.com

10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane Richmond, TX

Scripture from K.J.V. and N.K.J.V. I entered into the labors of F.F. Bruce Bible Commentary, Leslie C. Allen, C.S. Lovett’s Lights on Romans, comments and conclusions are my own