Romans - General Introduction - Part 1

This letter was written by Paul the Apostle from Corinth about 57 AD, towards the end of his 3rd missionary journey. Paul would depart from Corinth making his way back to Jerusalem, stopping at Miletus to encourage and admonish the Ephesian elders.

Romans is the most complete and thorough explanation of the gospel to be found anywhere in one place in the Bible. It is a great treatise - the great Christian treatise - on the state of mankind, the need for salvation and how that salvation comes to men. It explains the true nature of the relationship between God and His creation and how that creation should relate to Him. It is all about righteousness; who has it, who doesn’t, who needs it, how to get it and what happens if you don’t. Every believer should make it a goal to know this book so well that he is familiar with the entire outline and the main arguments.


The great subject of Romans is, of course, righteouness, but the theme is stated in Paul’s own words halfway through the first chapter, where he says:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." {Romans 1:16-17}

In other words, the gospel reveals how the righteousness of God can be imputed to Jews and Gentiles alike, through faith. This is the simplicity which is in Christ. Any child can receive Him with the very minimum of information, when he repents of his evil and believes that Christ died to save him from his sins.

We may be tempted to ask, then – why such a deep, convoluted and intense theological treatment of salvation as we find in Romans is needed at all. If a child can receive Christ upon the clear and simple presentation of the facts of the gospel, why do we need all this talk of depravity and justification and law and election and reprobation? Why go on at great length about Israel and Gentiles and ancient history when the coming of Christ has ushered in a new dawn with the age of grace? Why bother with all this dull doctrine when we now have the Holy Spirit to excite us, and to lead us with visions and dreams and words of knowledge and wisdom?

The answer is, of course, that while we are all received into Christ as little children, and were all baptized into the same Spirit, we are to grow up into Christ by the help of the same Spirit, through the knowledge of the Word. For, curiously, I find that the better I know and obey the scriptures, the more I am led by the Spirit.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. {Romans 15:4}

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. {2Timothy 3:16-17}

How would it be if our children never learned to walk, to feed themselves, or to use a toilet – but preferred instead to lie around on the floor enjoying their so-called innocence, even as their bodies grew and changed? Just as babies need to grow and to mature – and in the process to learn and handle more and more complex information and tasks – so we need to grow spiritually. Even the Lord Jesus Himself “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” {Luke 2:52} He spent time in the Temple learning the things of God, and was indignant when his parents seemed not to understand this. {Luke 2:49}

The written Word contains both milk and meat. It is manna – bread from heaven – because it is truly “every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God.” {Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4}. It is what God has said about His Son. When we open the Bible we break bread; we partake in the remembrance of Christ and we are fed on His body for, through it, the Holy Spirit feeds us on the Living Word, by which we grow up into Him.

We did not enter Christ in order to remain spiritual children and be fed only upon milk. And so, we ought to emulate our Lord by studying about our heavenly Father and His Son through the scriptures that He has given to us, so that we may become like His Son – holy, submissive, obedient and devoid of self-directedness. There is vastly more to know of God than we shall ever find out, even in eternity. He is infinite; we are finite. He could therefore fill us to the fullest with the things of Himself an infinite number of times, and we should still not know quantitatively all there is to know about God. But thank the Lord, we can know right now what we need to know about Him qualitatively – including His love, holiness, grace, faithfulness and mercy.

God does not wish His children to be ignorant of Him. He wants us to study what He says about Himself and about His plan for His creation and His creatures – and He gave us His Word so that we could do that. He will not force us. But it will please Him if we are found striving to know Him better. And the way He has given for us to do this is from the record He has made of all He has done in His creation, through His Son.