Romans 1:1–17 — a servant, a promise, and a gospel worth not being ashamed of

Through Romans, part 2 · Romans 1:1–17

A servant of Jesus Christ (v. 1)

Paul opens with three things about himself. First, his name — "small" or "humble." Second, "a servant of Jesus Christ." The word is doulos, from a root meaning "to bind": a bond-slave, one who gives himself up to another's will and disregards his own interests. Paul had once been bound to Satan, to sin, to the law, and to the traditions of men. Now he was bound to Jesus and free from all of those. We serve sin before salvation because we're in debt to it. We serve Jesus after salvation because we're free from it — not to pay back the price of our salvation, but because we love Him. The implication is that Paul has been purchased and is now willingly serving the One who bought him.

There's an old story of an African slave whose master was about to kill him with a spear when a traveler thrust out his arm to ward off the blow and was pierced through. As the blood ran, he demanded the slave, saying he had bought him with his suffering. The master agreed. The slave threw himself at the traveler's feet: "The blood-bought is now the slave of the son of pity. He will serve him faithfully." That's Paul. That's every redeemed person.

Third, "called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God." An apostle is one sent with orders, and Paul was directly called by Jesus on the Damascus road. There are no apostles today in the way Paul, Peter, and John were apostles — but every believer is sent by Jesus to take the gospel to the world, the same way not everyone is a deacon like Stephen but every one of us should be a servant. "Set apart" is like a fire crew: one drives the truck, one works the hose, one climbs the ladder. Paul was the one on the hose. He was called to preach the gospel, and he focused on that.

Here's the application. We too have been purchased with the blood of Jesus, called to be witnesses, and set apart to tell the good news wherever we go. Your calling may not look like Paul's — but serve God in your calling and spread the gospel in your calling. You'll meet people nobody else in the room will meet. And in this great calling, stay small and humble. God's glory isn't ours to take. We're meant to reflect it, not absorb it. "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The gospel was never plan B (v. 2)

This gospel was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." The good news is not new. It was never a backup plan after Eden went wrong; it's been the plan all along. Galatians 3:8 says Scripture "proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham" — "in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). And God keeps His promises. "God, that cannot lie" (Titus 1:2). If we can't trust His promises, we're already sunk.

"His prophets" means everyone who wrote Scripture — Moses ("The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me," Deuteronomy 18:15), David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel. Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 53:5. The virgin birth, the tribe of Judah, the line of David, Bethlehem. There are somewhere between 55 and 300 Old Testament prophecies about Jesus depending on how you count. A mathematician named Peter Stoner once worked out the odds of eight of them being fulfilled by chance in one man and compared it to covering the state of Texas two feet deep in silver dollars, marking one, and asking a blindfolded man to pick it up on the first try.

And "Holy Scriptures" — set apart from the common, errant writings of men. When you quote Scripture you're quoting God. Paul says this to a church steeped in rabbinic tradition to make a point: the Bible is the source of truth, not the traditions. For us, that means our baseline in every spiritual conversation is Scripture, not opinion. Exegesis draws truth out of the text; eisegesis reads our ideas into it. And Scripture sits above every earthly law. If the law of the land lines up with the Bible, wonderful. If it doesn't, the Bible doesn't move.

Son of David, Son of God (vv. 3–4)

In one verse Jesus is called the Son of God — which makes Him God — and Lord, and a descendant of David according to the flesh. Then verse 4: "declared to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead." The event that defines Jesus as the Son of God more than any other is that He rose. It's the final proof of His deity and the thing that separates Christianity from every other religion. If Jesus is dead, we have no hope. "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Grace, and obedience to the faith (vv. 5–7)

Every believer has received grace through Jesus; Paul additionally received his apostleship from Him. The purpose is "the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles." We're to submit to Christ. We've already established He's the Son of God — now we let His deity reign over our lives and make Him Lord. Lord means one with authority, a master, an owner. After the resurrection the word is used almost exclusively for Jesus. The Lord of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New (compare Psalm 34:8 with 1 Peter 2:3, Isaiah 8:13 with 1 Peter 3:15). Thomas got it: "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

That obedience continues in the Great Commission. When we share the gospel we're obeying the One whose grace saved us. And verse 6 says "you also are among those called" — we have the same calling as Paul: receive Jesus by faith, submit to Him as Lord, and share Him with others. Verse 7 calls every believer "loved by God, called as saints." All who are saved are saints. That's just what we're called. Then: "Grace to you and peace." Grace always comes first, and it's the source of the peace.

A faith people talk about (vv. 8–15)

Their faith "is being reported in all the world." Do the people around us see ours? Paul prays for them "constantly." We pray for family and friends, but do we pray for believers we've never met? Grab a missionary prayer card and pray for them. Paul longed to come and "impart some spiritual gift" so they'd be strengthened, and to be "mutually encouraged by each other's faith." Believers gathering together brings comfort to each other. That's part of why church matters.

Verse 14: "I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish." Greeks and barbarians was the idiom for the whole world. Paul felt a debt to preach the gospel to everyone, every class of people — because the gospel is good for everyone. And he was "eager" to preach it in Rome. Not just prepared; excited. The transformation it had brought to his own life, he wanted for them.

Not ashamed (v. 16)

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek."

By Roman eyes there was plenty to be ashamed of. Israel was a tiny conquered country. Jesus was crucified — the pinnacle of shame. Paul was a Jewish tentmaker. But when a message comes from God, it doesn't matter who's carrying it; it matters who it's from. A message from Caesar carried its own weight. The message of God carries its own weight. Paul knew Hebrew law, Greek philosophy, and Roman power, and he was telling this church the gospel is supreme over all of it. No matter what culture we find ourselves in, the gospel is still relevant and still supreme.

A debtor, eager, and not ashamed. That's Paul about the gospel. What are we?

The righteousness of God, from faith to faith (v. 17)

"For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith."

This is the key thought of the book. The righteousness of God — we don't have it, but it's offered to us through believing in Christ. God's righteousness demands that sin be punished, and the death of Christ shows a holy God cannot accept sin. The resurrection shows a loving God will not leave people helpless. The same righteousness of God that condemns the man who rejects saves the man who receives. "From faith" is the initial act; "to faith" is the life that flows from it. Righteousness is received by faith and reproduced by faith.

"The righteous will live by faith" is Habakkuk 2:4, so Paul is not inventing anything. Moses gave 613 commands. David brought them to eleven (Psalm 15), Isaiah to six, Micah to three, Isaiah again to two. Habakkuk condenses them all into one: the just shall live by faith.

Now we enter God's courtroom

Romans has three basic movements — sin, salvation, sanctification — and Paul begins with sin. We won't appreciate the grace of God until we start to see how unrighteous we are. Three parties are about to be brought in, and every one of them is guilty before God: the heathen (1:18–32), the hypocrite (2:1–16), and the Hebrew (2:17–3:8). Next time, the first of them.

Paul wasn't ashamed of a message about an executed Jewish carpenter because the thing works. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, and everyone includes whoever is reading this. If you've never put your trust in Him, that's the offer on the table. He died for your sin, God raised Him, and the righteousness you don't have gets credited to you the second you believe. From faith is where it starts. To faith is the rest of your life.

Believers, here's the week. Paul called himself a bond-slave before he called himself anything else. Find the one area you're still running as your own boss and hand it over out loud in prayer. The calendar, the money, the mouth, whichever one just came to mind. Then find the person you've been quiet around because you were a little embarrassed, and say something. Right?

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