The Epistle of Paul to the
ROMANS
1
Salutation
1 Paul, a slave* of Jesus Christ, a called apostle,† having been set apart to the Gospel of God, 2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures:‡ 3 concerning His Son, who became a physical descendant of David,§ 4 who was established to be God's powerful Son (in accordance with Spirit of holiness*) by resurrection from the dead†—Jesus Christ our Lord— 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to promote obedience of faith among all ethnic nations concerning His name‡ 6 (among these you also are called by Jesus Christ); 7 to all the called saints§ who are in Rome, beloved of God: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Sovereign Jesus Christ.*
To Gentiles
Paul has been hindered from visiting Rome
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.† 9 Further, the God whom I serve with my spirit‡ in the Gospel of His Son is my witness, how without ceasing I always remember you in my prayers, 10 begging that perhaps now, at last, I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you.§ 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established 12 —that is, that I may be encouraged among you by our mutual faith,* both yours and mine.
13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), in order that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the rest of the Gentiles.† 14 I am a debtor‡ both to Greeks and to non-Greeks, both to wise and to foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome as well.
Faith
16 I am not ashamed§ of the Gospel of Christ,* because it is the power of God for the salvation of each one who believes† (for the Jew first, then the Greek); 17 because in it God's righteousness is revealed, from faith to faith; just as it is written: “The righteous one will live by faith.”‡
Unrighteousness
18 Now the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of the people who suppress the truth by unrighteousness,§ 19 precisely because what may be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Because His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood from what has been made, so that they are inexcusable;* 21 precisely because, knowing God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks;† so their reasonings became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened.‡ 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,§ 23 and exchanged for themselves the glory of the incorruptible God for an image resembling a perishable man*—even birds and quadrupeds and reptiles!
24 Therefore God also gave them up, through the cravings of their hearts for vileness, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves 25 —they had exchanged the truth of God for the lie,† and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Depravity
26 For this reason God gave them up‡ to degrading passions; in fact even their females exchanged the natural sexual function for that against nature; 27 likewise also the males, abandoning the natural use of the female, were inflamed§ in their lust toward one another, males committing the disgraceful act* with males, and receiving in themselves the due penalty† for their error.
28 So precisely because they determined not to retain God in their knowledge,‡ God gave them up to a debased mind, to do wrong things: 29 having been filled§ with all unrighteousness, fornication,* wickedness, greed, depravity; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, braggarts, contrivers of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, faithless, hardhearted, intransigent,† unmerciful; 32 who, knowing full well God's just sentence, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do them but also approve of other practitioners.‡
* 1:1 All human beings are slaves—we are born that way, live that way, die that way. As the Lord Jesus said, “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin… if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed” (John 8:34,36). Sovereign Jesus offers us a choice of owner: the only way to escape slavery to sin is to become a slave of Jesus Christ. † 1:1 Apostles are not ordained by man; they are designated by God, who has a reason for doing so. In the case of Paul, it was “to promote obedience of faith among all ethnic nations” (verse 5). ‡ 1:2 The promise begins in Genesis 3:15, and reappears in passages like Genesis 12:3, 28:14, 2 Samuel 7:16, Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6-7. The “Holy Scriptures” here refer to the Old Testament. § 1:3 Literally, ‘of the seed of David according to the flesh’. Jesus' body contained genes from David that came through His mother Mary, a descendant of David's son, Nathan (Luke 3:31) (and presumably still does, at the Father's right hand). Isaiah 9:7 makes clear that the Messiah will occupy the throne of David; see also 2 Samuel 7:16, Isaiah 11:10 and Micah 5:2. * 1:4 Since there is no article with ‘spirit’, I take it as a title, so all three persons of the Trinity are in this verse. † 1:4 A ‘mere’ human cannot decide to rise from the dead; Jesus had this authority, as He affirms in John 10:17-18—“My Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” The cross did not kill Jesus; He dismissed His spirit. ‡ 1:5 One's name represents his person—the obedience of faith is to be directed toward the person of Jesus Christ. § 1:7 They were called to be saints. * 1:7 Where ‘Lord’ occurs without the definite article, as here, I usually render ‘Sovereign’; with either ‘the’ or ‘our’ I usually render ‘Lord’. This text clearly presents the Father and the Son as distinct persons. † 1:8 Not bad. ‡ 1:9 See Romans 7:14-25. § 1:10 What we think we want is not always what God wants. * 1:12 To see someone established in the mutual faith is a genuine encouragement. † 1:13 ‘Gentiles’ and ‘ethnic nations’ are renderings of the same Greek noun; the choice is governed by the context, but that choice is often difficult. The reader should keep the two options in mind. ‡ 1:14 Why was Paul a debtor to people he had never seen? He had the cure for their ills, and a command from God. § 1:16 Where did Paul get the idea of ‘shame’? A world controlled by Satan does all it can to cow any who dare to proclaim the Truth. * 1:16 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts omit “of Christ”, to be followed by NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.—an inferior proceeding. † 1:16 The Gospel is the power for the salvation. As the Lord Jesus said in John 14:6—“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are not many ways, only one. ‡ 1:17 See Habakkuk 2:4. To ‘live by faith’ you must move from one exercise of faith to another. § 1:18 To ‘suppress the truth’ is a deliberate act, an evil choice that invites God's wrath. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11, to reject the love of the truth brings God's judgment. To hear a sermon about ‘the love of God’ is easy enough, but how many have you heard (or preached) about ‘the wrath of God’? “God hates sin but loves the sinner” is standard fare, but consider Psalm 5:4-6—“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” This is not an isolated text; there are a fair number of others in the same vein. Someone who deliberately chooses to be and promote evil thereby makes God his enemy. In John 6:44 Sovereign Jesus said: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Do you suppose that the Father will ‘draw’ someone He hates? Perhaps we should do more preaching on the wrath of God (although that will probably send people scurrying to other churches). * 1:20 All scientific experiment and true human knowledge is based on the principle of cause and effect—we observe an effect and try to isolate its cause. As a logical corollary, the cause must be as great or greater than the effect, otherwise it could not produce it. Any human being who is both honest and intelligent, confronted with the observable universe, with its incredible order and complexity, must conclude that there has to be a CAUSE who is both incredibly intelligent and powerful—to refuse to do so is perverse. Since we have personality, He must as well. So Paul's argument is precisely correct. The science of physics tells us that the entire known universe, taking only what is inorganic (not part of any living system), can be described using up to 350 bits of information. To describe the smallest protein molecule (unable to live alone, but part of a living system) requires some 1,500 bits of information (the E. coli bacterium some 7 million; one human cell some 20 billion). Now just where could chance plus nothing find 1,150 bits of new information (to produce the simplest protein), if in the whole universe there was only 350? The evolutionary hypothesis as an explanation for the origin of life is ridiculously, stupidly impossible! The science of genetics, with its genome projects, has discovered that a change of just 3 nucleotides is usually fatal to the organism. The genetic difference between a human being and a chimpanzee (closest relative) is at least 1.6%—this represents a gap of some 48 million nucleotide differences. Since a random change of only 3 nucleotides is fatal to an animal, and a dead animal cannot reproduce, there is no possible way that a chimp could evolve into a human. Each individual species had to be assembled separately, just like Genesis says. The ‘geologic column’ is a fiction, since there are multistrate tree fossils. Symbiotic plants and insects could not possibly evolve. And so on. † 1:21 To turn against the Creator, to deny His existence, is a deliberate, culpable choice, since it goes against the observable scientific evidence. ‡ 1:21 When you deliberately turn out the light, you condemn yourself to grope about in darkness, and you cannot see what is attacking you. ‘Were darkened’ is in the passive voice, so the necessary question is, by what or by whom? Ephesians 2:2 refers to Satan as “the spirit who now works in the sons of the disobedience”. When someone rejects the Creator he also rejects His protection; by choosing to become a ‘son of the disobedience’, a person invites Satan into his mind, and Satan brings darkness. I am reminded of our Lord's words in Matthew 6:22-23. “The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is sound your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Of course we have two eyes, but the Text has “eye” in the singular. I take it that the reference is to the way we interpret what we see (which is our real ‘eye’)—two people, one pure and one vile, observing the same scene will give very different interpretations to it. “Evil” here has the idea of malignant—aggressively evil. Someone with a malignant mind will give an evil interpretation to everything he sees, and in consequence his being will be filled with unrelenting darkness. Cf. Titus 1:15. § 1:22 ‘Modern man’ struts about, thinking that he is smarter than former generations. Anyone who embraces materialistic, relativistic humanism is a true fool. * 1:23 Any god you create will be smaller than you are—totally worthless! † 1:25 Note that they turned their backs on God first; His giving them up was a consequence of their choice. All the evil in the world is a consequence of men's evil choices—God should not be blamed. That said, however, any time a person chooses evil he invites Satan into his mind, and Satan will push the person toward ever lower levels of depravity. I believe that Hebrews 2:7 is relevant here: “You made him [man, verse 6] lower than the angels, for a little while” (quoting Psalm 8:5). The human being is superior to the angelic being in essence; we bear the Creator's image and they do not, and once glorified that superiority will be obvious, but only for the redeemed. Those who serve Satan subordinate themselves to him, and thus can never rise above him. If Lucifer's rebellion was provoked, as I suppose, by the creation of a being superior to himself, he is doing very well at getting his ‘revenge’, by depriving the vast majority of humanity of that superiority [and so Hebrews 2:8 would not apply to them]. Satan is now controlled by spite; he was demoted. Since he is unable to create, he gets his satisfaction by degrading and destroying. His greatest ‘pleasure’ must be to drag the image of the Creator through the mire, and for that purpose anal sex is just the ticket. Since it is a man's seed that transmits the ‘image’ (see Hebrews 7:10, etc.), anal sex mixes the image of God with feces—a monstrous insult! The practice of anal sex is the equivalent of spitting in the face of the Creator; it is an extremely serious offense (worse than a buck private spitting in the face of a four star general). So then, as soon as God removes His hand, Satan pushes men toward anal sex, thereby making it increasingly difficult for them to ever be saved (as verses 26-32 below make clear). ‡ 1:26 If God gives you up, you are in a bad way! Most people today live in cultures controlled by Satan; if they do not resist their culture, they have very little chance of salvation. § 1:27 The verb is in the passive voice, so the necessary question is, by whom? The answer has already been given in the note above. I doubt that anyone performs anal sex without a demon present. * 1:27 The noun here is singular and with the definite article, ‘the act’. The seriousness of this has been explained above. † 1:27 Whatever this ‘penalty’ is, why would any sane person want it? ‡ 1:28 It needs to be emphasized that this is a deliberate choice. § 1:29 The passive voice again; God gives them up and Satan takes over. * 1:29 Perhaps 5% of the Greek manuscripts omit “fornication”, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.—an inferior proceeding, being a simple case of ‘like ending’. † 1:31 Perhaps 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit “intransigent”, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.—an inferior proceeding, being another simple case of ‘like ending’. ‡ 1:32 Is this not a perfect picture of ‘modern man’? (Of course things were at least that bad before the Flood.) Note “are deserving of death”; the verb is in the present tense, and Paul wrote this years after Pentecost, and consequently within the age of Grace. Through Moses the Creator articulated the death penalty for certain practices. Paul's use of ‘are’ indicates that the penalty has not been revoked or annulled.