Bible Commentaries
Romans

Martin Luther, the great reformer, called the book of Romans the chief book in the New Testament. Coleridge, the English writer, said, “It is the most profound work in existence.” Melanc­thon, a contemporary of Luther, wrote it twice in longhand just for the joy, the blessing and the thrill of getting into it.

W. R. Newell, one of the outstanding teachers of the book of Romans in the past century, told me one day, “I have taught the book 80 times, and the pastures are still green.”

Someone has well said, “To know the book of Romans makes one heresy proof.”

It is the great foundational epistle, and all the other epistles are based on this book.

It may be that I’m conscious of this for the sim­ple reason that, when I first went out preaching, I was asked the question, “Mitchell, don’t you know there are other books in the Bible to read beside the Book of Romans?” (I had preached Romans all across the Canadian prairies.)

And people have told me, even though I haven’t been back in more than 40 years, that they have found people all over the prairies who were estab­lished in the Gospel of God’s grace; and they got it from a man called Mitchell, who doted on the book of Romans.

So, I’m going to dote a while on the Book of Ro­mans if you don’t mind my using the term.

Now it’s folly to build a building without a foundation. This wonderful, amazing book of Ro­mans is the foundational book. The epistles that follow Romans are all based on this book. Just what Isaiah, the great prophetical book, is to the prophets of the Old Testament, the Book of Ro­mans is to the New Testament.

The books of First and Second Corinthians guard the practice of Romans, and Galatians guards its doctrine. We get the revelation of the righteousness of God in Romans where the grace of God makes it possible for unrighteous people to be fitted to come into the presence of a righteous God. The practice of that sort of life is found in Co­rinthians.

Someone has said that Romans is “Christ, My Righteousness” and Corinthians is “Christ, My Sanctifier.” Then, when you come to the book of Galatians, it is “Christ, My Liberator.” Galatians guards the doctrine of justification set forth in Romans. These three books make one package.

When you come to Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, you have another package. Ephesians reveals the church, the Body of Christ. Philippians guards the practice of Ephesians—“for to me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). To have the mind of Christ operating in you, to know Christ, to do all things through Christ—this is to be the practice of the church and this is Philippians in four chap­ters.

Colossians guards the doctrine of Ephesians, especially the headship of Christ over the Body which is the Church. So Ephesians is “Christ, my Life;” Philippians is “Christ, my Joy;” and Colos­sians is “Christ, my Head.”

Now, when you come to the books of Thessaloni­ans, First Thessalonians is the coming of the Lord for His own. Each chapter of the book ends with the coming of the Lord. Second Thessalonians deals with the coming of the Lord to earth with His saints. He is going to come in judgment, as it says in the first chapter. He is going to come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God and who obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, these are the Pauline letters to the churches. God gave Paul a two-fold revelation: in Romans, the revelation of the grace of God; and in Ephesians, the revelation of the Church, the body of Christ.

If you want to know something about the sweet­ness, the loveliness of Christ and the claims of Christ, then you’ll go to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John where these four men report what they saw and heard. They were not fabricators. Each one wrote with a definite point in view.

Dr. Griffith Thomas has given the following out­line:

Matthew wrote of the coming of a promised Sav­iour;

Mark wrote of the life of a powerful Saviour; Luke wrote of the grace of a perfect Saviour; and John wrote of the possession of a personal Sav-

iour.

We need all four Gospels to give us a full picture of our Saviour as a Man in the midst of men.

The book of Acts deals with the ministry of the Spirit of God through the early Church. What the Lord Jesus began as He walked among men is continued by the Spirit of God in the Church as He gathers out “a people for His name.”

In the epistles, we see Paul as the apostle who declares the meaning of faith in Christ Jesus; we see Peter, the apostle of hope; and we see John as the apostle of love.

Romans starts with man corrupt and fit for hell; and, in Thessalonians, man is translated and glo­rified. The epistles between Romans and Thessalo­nians reveal to us how God changes sinners and fits them for His presence.

In the epistles of Timothy and Titus, we have instructions to young preachers and young Chris­tians concerning conduct in the house of God. Philemon is a wonderful story of grace. Hebrews declares the superiority of the person and work of Christ over the Old Testament priesthood and the sacrifices.

James informs us how the godly should walk. Both 1 and 2 Peter relate the sufferings of the people of God and the opposition they meet. In 1 Peter the opposition is from the world. In 2 Peter it is from false teachers.

The epistles of John speak of the believers’ fel­lowship with God. In the first epistle, we have fel­lowship with the One who is Light, who is Right­eousness, who is Love. Second John tells who are to be excluded from the fellowship, and 3 John tells who are to be included in the fellowship. Jude is a book of the last days. In Revelation, we see Christ as Judge in the midst of the churches, in the midst of Israel and in the midst of the nations. We also see the final revelation of a new heaven and a new earth.

Having said that, I want to come right back to the book of Romans, the only book in the New Tes­tament (in fact, I would say the only book in the Bible) that gives to us the Gospel of God in a sys­tematic way.

Now I know that in the Book of John the Gospel is declared, but here in Romans it is systematically set forth.

Why was Romans written? Paul has the Jew with his laws and ceremonies in mind and also the Gentile who needs to be told that the Gospel is for him as well. In this book you see both Jewish un­belief and Gentile faith; for chapters 9 and 10 show that what the Jews missed by their works and ceremonies, the Gentiles received by faith.

Paul wanted to assure the Jewish people that this message was God’s message for them as well as for the Gentiles. When the Apostle wrote this book, many Jewish people were opposed to him because his message was being believed by the Gentile world. He was writing to prove to them that the message he was giving the Gentiles was also God’s message for Jews and that they must receive it on the ground of faith, just like anyone else.

Likewise, he had the Gentiles in mind when he declared that this message which had so trans­formed their lives was also for the Jews. He wanted the Gentiles to take heed that, if God had set the Jew to one side because of his unbelief, He could also set the Gentiles to one side because of their unbelief.

That is the line of argument that goes along in the book. You have the Jewish people with all their laws, ceremonies, traditions and ordinances on one side and the Gentile people with their need of enlightenment regarding God’s Gospel on the other.

The great theme of Romans is the righteous­ness of God displayed in the Gospel of His Son. God has made provision whereby every man, Jew or Gentile, can be brought into a place of relation­ship and acceptance before God. To me, it is a wonderful thing that irrespective of their back­ground or tradition or experience, God has made provision whereby men and women can be fitted to come into His presence.

I was greatly amazed, when I visited the Orient, to see the transformed lives. On one hand, I saw a people in darkness, in despair, in fear, in bondage to paganism. And then I found wonderful men and women who have been absolutely transformed into the sons of God, proving that God has a message and has made provision whereby men of any age and under any circumstance—irrespective of background—can be transformed and fitted for His presence.

I wonder in these days if we haven’t been far re­moved from the Gospel of God. When men and women, irrespective of what they are, can be abso­lutely transformed and can become the children of One who is God, when they can stand in the presence of their holy God absolutely righteous and can have a sanctified life through the Lord Jesus Christ, when they can manifest to their generation the character and beauty of the living God and themselves become bearers of the Good News to their generation, one wonders why we’re not more diligent to spend our time and our money to sup­port the spreading of that Gospel.

Now Romans is an amazing book! I want to take the time in studying it and preaching it and teaching it to bring to you the jewels and the pearls that are along the way—that we might re­fresh your heart and strengthen you and establish you in the Word of God. We want you to be espe­cially helped, so that, as the Apostle Paul would say, “By our mutual faith we might be edified by the precious Word of God.”

Let’s take just a moment to whet your appe­tite. In the first 17 verses of the first chapter, we have Paul introducing the truth of the righteous­ness of God. He is introducing the Gospel of God which was prophesied by the prophets and is now made manifest. He takes up the whole degenerate human race in chapters 1, 2 and 3.

In chapter 1 he specifically has the Gentiles in mind, showing how God gave them up to their sins. In fact, that’s the history of the Gentile na­tions from Genesis 10:1-32 right through to the coming of our Lord.

Then in chapter 2 he has a little more difficult job. He has to prove that the moralist and the re­ligionist—both Jew and Gentile—are just as un­righteous before God as those in the first chapter. He specifically takes up the fact that God is going to judge them according to truth.

Then, from chapter 2:17 to chapter 3:9, you have the Jew in his rebellion against God. Paul ends up with a verdict in 3:18-20 where every man’s mouth is shut and the whole world is guilty before God.

Now, having shut man’s mouth from glorying about his own goodness and self-righteousness, God turns around and opens His heart. Starting at chapter 3, verse 21, and running right down through chapter 5:11, we have the unfolding of God’s heart toward men. Here are the great doc­trines of justification, redemption and of what God has in the cross (theologically, called “propitia­tion”). We find in chapter 4, for example, that the Christian life is by faith. It is without works. It is without ceremonies, without law. It is faith in the God of resurrection.

And the question is raised at the beginning of chapter 5: Can we lose our faith?

Paul answers that the love of God will guarantee the faith of every believer. The provision for man’s redemption is received on only one ground—the ground of faith. Not only does the Gospel give us forgiveness and redemption and fit us for the pres­ence of God, but it gives us a new life. It brings us into a new relationship with God. It delivers us from death, from sin and from the law. It sanctifies us and will eventually glorify us.

In chapter 5 we are delivered from death. In chapter 6 we are delivered from sin as a master, as a principle of operation. In chapter 7 we are deliv­ered from the law and its curse. The law can’t make us righteous, no matter how we strive to keep it. We must turn from the law, which con­demns, to a Saviour who redeems and sets us free. Then we come to that amazing eighth chapter, tell­ing all the marvelous things we have in Christ. This is the crowning chapter of the book. Here we are glorified together with Christ.

I’m not surprised that the Apostle Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). And then, at the end of chapter 8, the chapter that starts with “no condemnation” and ends with “no separation,” we have the glorious verse, “He who did not spare His own Son . . . how will He not also with Him freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32).

Chapters 9, 10 and 11 give us what is com­monly known as dispensational truth. Here a question is raised: Is God righteous in His dealings with the people of Israel? In chapter 9 we find that God chose Israel for a distinct purpose—not be­cause these people were better than anybody else, but because they could be the avenue through whom the Messiah would come. Their language would be the depository of the Word of God. They would relate to the nations of the earth the won­ders of our Sovereign God. But they failed in that. So in chapter 10 we are shown that the Jews re­jected both a personal salvation and a universal salvation for Jews and Gentiles.

When you come to chapter 11, another question is raised:

Is God through with Israel? No, He will still fulfill His promise to the nation. He still has a remnant that He is going to bring right through to where His purpose and His counsel will be fulfilled according to the prophetic word.

Then in chapters 12 through 16, we have the practical side of the book, dealing with practical righteousness as well as the question of responsi­bility. The moment you and I receive the Saviour, we have a responsibility. In chapter 12 we are re­sponsible to God, we are responsible to our posi­tion in the Body of Christ and we are responsible with respect to enemies.

When we come to chapter 13, we find our posi­tion as Christians with respect to the government under which we live. We are to be in subjection to the powers that be. In the same chapter, starting with verse 11, we have our relationship to society.

In chapter 14, up to the first two or three verses of chapter 15, we have our relationship to weaker brethren. Some Christians are still babes, and some are in trouble.

In chapter 15 we have an exhortation to God’s people about their own relationship to the God of hope, the God of all grace, the God of peace.

And then in chapter 16 we have that great list of dear men and women whom he salutes at Rome. He ends up with a few final words.

Now I have given you a brief run-down of the whole book of Romans because I want to whet your appetite so you will read it. You can’t read it too much. You can’t study it too much or chew it too much. Sometimes I think about Ezekiel, who, when he got the Word of God, was told to eat it; and, when he swallowed it, it became life to him.

I know some of you have studied Romans before, but it will not hurt you one little bit to go over it again. After all, the book of Romans will make Christians heresy-proof. It is because of their lack of study and knowledge of Romans that so many Christians have been led astray. They have be­come shipwrecked in respect to their own hearts and lives before God. They have also become “dou­ble-minded” and “unstable” in all their ways, to quote the book of James.

I want to say very frankly that many of God’s people (even in evangelical circles) are in absolute confusion regarding all the “isms” and the doc­trines that are being tossed around today. But they have not been established in the book of Ro­mans. They need the book of Romans. We all need the book of Romans.

You may say, “Well, Mr. Mitchell, I read the Bible; but I get nothing out of it.”

The one thing Satan desires above all else is that we not spend time in the Bible. It is God’s revela­tion to us and to men everywhere. So let us come to know our Bibles. Let us not be ignorant of the marvelous things God has done for us through the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Oh, my friend, as we begin this study, ask the Father to open your mind and heart to show you His beloved Son and to prompt you to truly fall in love with Him.

Paul wrote from the city of Corinth about the year 50 A.D. You remember, he was 18 months in Corinth. And, while he was there, he wrote to these Roman Christians whom he had never seen. He wrote to establish and to encourage them.

A broad general outline of the book would be:

DOCTRINAL, chapters 1-8

DISPENSATIONAL, chapters 9-11

PRACTICAL, chapters 12-16

Let us study, first of all, the doctrinal section of the Book of Romans in 1:1-8:39. We’ll begin with Paul’s introduction in the first 17 verses of chapter 1.