Story 1: Introduction
The book of Romans was written by the Apostle Paul. In this letter, humanity was given one of the clearest explanations of the truth of the human situation in existence. He provided concise but all-encompassing insight into some of the deepest and most important aspects of what God wants us to understand and respond to. Over the centuries, Christian believers have been meeting over this letter, wrestling with it, debating the contours of its meaning, and finding in it some of the most freeing hopes of life.
Paul wrote this letter to the Church in Rome in 57 AD. At the time, he was ministering to the Church in Corinth. He had never been to Rome, but he was passionately concerned for the believers there. He knew that problems had arisen in the young Church between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jewish believers wanted to impose the rituals and laws of the Old Covenant. Paul was vigilant in defending the truth that our salvation is not obtained by human works, but through the righteousness of Christ. Justification from our sin comes by faith alone.
For the Jewish Christians, this must have been confusing. What do we do with God’s holy Law, the entire Old Testament, and centuries of deep history that laid the foundations for Christianity? And for all Christians, all humans, in fact, it can be kind of confusing. How do we figure out how to walk by faith and seek God’s holiness without making it about the work we do for Him? Those are the complex questions that Paul sought to explain when he wrote the book of Romans.
When humans were in the Garden of Eden, the choice to live in wholly connected, responsiveness to God was effortless. There was no resistance in the human soul to do anything other than what pleased Him, and whatever pleases God is what causes us to thrive. When we rejected God in the Garden, we shattered that freedom, and we broke the world over which we had been given stewardship. Since then, humans have struggled to even discern the will of God, let alone obey it. And even then, we have to fight all sorts of resistance within ourselves and from others.
The human situation is pretty hopeless. We are totally helpless to solve it. If you have any questions about that, just look around at all the problems, all the societal woes, all the ways we hurt each other. Clearly, we need Someone better, higher, more capable and good, to rescue. God had plan to do just that from the very beginning. He started by stepping into human history and making a covenant, or an agreement, with a man named Abraham. God said that He would use the generations of Abraham’s descendants to bless the whole world. In the Abrahamic Covenant, God took full responsibility for keeping the covenant, and it was never ending. All that was required of Abraham was to respond with faith that God would accomplish it.
God raised up millions of descendants from Abraham and made a new covenant through His servant, Moses, that was an extension of His covenant with Abraham. In that covenant, the Lord established the nation of Israel and provided them with a Law that gave them the structures and boundaries they needed to honor God as a people. This covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, was different. God promised many blessings for the nation of Israel, including the Promise Land, but the people of Israel had a role to play to keep it. They had to obey the Law.
All of these things: the Laws, the covenants, all of the stories of God’s work through His people, the nation of Israel, were meant to point to the ultimate act that was going to bring salvation to the whole world: the coming of Christ, and the New Covenant He would establish through His death and resurrection.
What the Jews in Rome didn’t understand was that under the New Covenant, the old covenant of Moses was no longer in place. While the Laws the Moses gave from Mount Sinai were richly full of God’s wisdom and righteousness, the rituals and requirements were intended for the nation of Israel, not as eternal requirements that were still binding on the people of God. A whole new ear had been ushered in with the New Covenant of Christ.
Jesus paid the price for all of the shattered brokenness and sin. He created the Way back for us, and when we join Him in eternity, we will again have the freedom not to sin. We can be wholly assured of our salvation in the “now,” and be hopeful and confident of its complete fulfillment in the “not yet.” Romans helps us understand what to do in the meantime.