Session 3 - Romans; Romans 116-17 Mark Lanier, 04 13 25 (1)
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[00:00:00] Well, this morning I get to talk about my favorite subject and I'm really excited to do it. Uh, before we get there, let me give you, for those of you who may not know or, or remember, uh, a basic premise about life. Where you are from where you live forms who you are. It forms how you think, and it forms what you know.
Now. I was born in Dallas, Texas, and when I was born there, Dallas, Texas was a great place.
When I was born there [00:01:00] in 1960, it was also the birth time of the Dallas Cowboys back when Tom Landry was coach. And they won and they won. And everywhere I lived after Dallas, I could be a Dallas Cowboy fan when Tom Landry was a coach there because. They, they, they, they were winners and I grew up with that being part of who I was.
And as I moved in other places, I'd say I'm from Dallas, Dallas. Cowboys formed part of who I was, how I related, how I thought. We moved from there to Fort Worth. Candidly, I remember nothing about it and don't know much about it. Now we move from there to Shreveport, Louisiana. Again, zippo memories for me from there, but from there to New Orleans.
Where I have one of my first memories of being at a Mardi Gras parade, and I was on my dad's shoulders and the floats were going down and they were throwing candy. And my dad, um, caught some candy and handed it up to me and, and I [00:02:00] couldn't get over the fact that they were giving away candy. And in my little three, I don't know how old I was, mom, three or four.
Uh, but in my, in my 3-year-old mind, I was thinking. My parents have been holding out on me. Why don't we come here? Every day they get they throw candy at you. Why are we not making this a daily routine? Formed who I was. We moved from there to Abilene, Texas. I can remember Abilene, I didn't, I was not yet grade school.
I was not yet elementary, uh uh, school in Abilene, Texas. And yet I still remember going to eat at Wyatts cafeteria, and it was so good. I can remember going to a and w Root beer. I can remember leaving church on a Sunday and going in, they had those mugs that had ice formed on them for the root beer, and that's still, I mean, you wanna give me root beer?
[00:03:00] I'm 64, gonna be 65 this year. It's still never gonna be as good if you don't put in one of those glass mugs that has frost all over it because it formed by the age of four. For me, we moved from there to Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis, Tennessee. My mom managed at the Southland Mall, the Walden's bookstore, and Catherine and I would go there after school.
Holly wasn't born yet, so she didn't count. But Catherine and I would go there after school and I, and we'd read every book we could, and I could still smell what those books smelled like. Those brand new books, it formed part of who I am. We moved from there and, uh, I was in, uh, second grade. We moved up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where, where Roberto Clemente was playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
And I got to see the Pirates play and I loved that team. And I can remember to this day so many different aspects about it. I [00:04:00] think I can name the starting lineup of the 1968 Pittsburgh Pirates. We moved from there to Rochester, New York, Rochester, New York was very fascinating. Um, so many different aspects of it.
I remember 'cause we lived there for quite a while. Uh, I threw newspapers, uh, there for the Times Union, which was an app. Afternoon newspaper and it formed so many things about me. I can remember part of my paper route was right across the street from the Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT, which was an engineering college, and back then tennis balls came in, metal cans.
And these college kids would take those metal cans and the bottom was still there, but you'd take off the top, they would take a nail and put a nail down and nail a hole in the base of the can. And then they would sit opposite each other's this open field near the, the, uh, [00:05:00] place where they lived. And they would put a tennis ball in there.
But before they did, they'd put in a couple of, uh, drops of lighter fluid. They put in a tennis ball, they'd take a match, stick it in that hole, kaboom, and the tennis ball would go out 50 yards and the other, they'd try and hit each other out on the fields with these tennis, I can remember that and that.
Formed part of who I am because I'm still dying to do it, but I became a tort lawyer and I know that's just an accident waiting to happen, so I will always live without that desire fulfilled. From there, we went to heaven. I mean, we moved to Lubbock and the hub of the plains where I got the, the joy of learning what Taco Villa is.
And, you know, I went back to teach law school there a week and a half ago, and everybody says, oh, you're so nice to come back and teach law school. And, and that's so wonderful. No, the reason I went back was to eat at Taco Villa Law [00:06:00] School was my excuse. So I didn't say I went all the way to Lubbock for a dollar 95 burrito, but I did.
Uh, it, it's it and, and Becky's kind of like. Uh, can you bring me back, uh, uh, a bean burrito with green sauce and, and so I, I'm bringing them back. Um, that's the real reason we went, but it forms our character. Then I moved to Houston. I worked at a church, then I moved to Nashville. Uh, uh, I took my degree in Hebrew in Greek, and it was there that I first translated Romans one 16 and 17 in the Greek.
And it was there where I had a professor who ingrained in me. The importance of the gospel, Dr. Harvey Floyd, and one of the things Dr. Floyd said to us is, the most simple thing about the gospel is Christ died for our sins. The most profound thing about the [00:07:00] gospel is Christ died for our sins. Right, and we're going to talk about the gospel today, and we're gonna do it in three aspects.
The first thing we're gonna do is talk about the literary context of Romans one 16 and 17. The second thing we're going to do is dissect it. We're gonna look at it and we're gonna look at it close. And then the third thing we're gonna do is talk about why it makes any difference at all. So let's do that.
Let's start with the literary context. Um, now Paul grew up and where Paul lived influenced how he thought influenced who he was. See, Paul was born in Tarsus. Tarsus is, uh, this is modern Turkey. Tarsus is [00:08:00] right at the coast. Down in Alisia. And Paul not only grew up in Tarsus, but Paul was a citizen of Tarsus.
He said, well, yeah, I know he was a Roman citizen. No, no, no, no, no. Citizenship was not something that spanned all of the Roman Empire. Different cities had their own citizenship. He had a citizenship of the city of Rome. That's his Roman citizenship. And it had implications throughout the empire, but his citizenship was the city of Rome.
He had a second citizenship in the city of Tarsus, and you didn't get that citizenship unless you had a pretty good bit of money and unless your family had donated something big to the civics, to the city. So Paul is from a Jewish family. In Tarsus that is well off [00:09:00] and is influential in the city, and we know that about him.
You can go there today and you can see some of the ruins of Tarsus amid the modern city. But at the time that Paul lived in Tarsus, there was a contemporary from Greece named Strau. And Strau is famous because he wrote. The first tour guide. The first tour book, he wrote a book, a collection of books about his travels and geography and Michelin starred restaurants.
I mean, he basically wrote up the, the modern world at the time of Paul. And from Strau, we get some interesting insights about Paul's hometown, where Paul was not only a citizen, but a part of the fabric of that [00:10:00] society. Strau said the following, the people of Tarsus have devoted themselves so zealously to philosophy.
To the whole encyclical curriculum and to whatever studies you might name that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria and any other place that can be named where there are schools and lectures of philosophers. Tarsus was a major intellectual. Think tank for philosophy and for teaching, and they sent out a boatload of philosophers and teachers who had great influence within the Roman Empire, and this is where Paul is from.[00:11:00]
Then we know Paul grew up in Jerusalem to some degree. It's like he went to school there. He studied as a student of Gamal, the leading rabbi of the age, and as such, he knew his scripture, Gamal. That Rabbi was famous for a number of things. We know about him totally independently from the Bible. We have a lot about Gamal that we know.
Two things of note. Number one, he thought the Sept, the Greek translation of the Old Testament was incredibly important and nearly divinely inspired. Because it was so useful among the Jews outside of Jerusalem who did not keep the Hebrew tongue, and so Paul learned firsthand. [00:12:00] From the most important rabbi of his day, how to use and how important the Greek version of the Old Testament was not surprising.
Paul quotes from the Greek version of the Old Testament almost exclusively in his writings, which brings up a second thing that Galeo is famous for. The first rabbi we know who really took it upon himself to write extensive letters. To synagogues that were out and about. He did what his student, Paul would do for the church.
He wrote letters and this formed Paul. Paul was formed by the various places he went, whether it's Antioch or throughout the region of Galatia, or whether it's the island of Crete, or whether it's Ephesus or Troas, or Macedonia or Thessalonica or Athens. In all of those places, [00:13:00] heavens in Athens. Paul goes to the Areopagus or Mars Hill and debates with the philosophers of the day.
He's quoting Greek poets and Greek philosophers, Paul, he was a stud.
This man is a man of action. This is a guy who God has sculpted into a unique singular, one of a kind person. With everything he needed to do, what God called him to do,
and, and he's in Corinth, which is quite the, it, it, it's perhaps rightly called the Las Vegas of the ancient world, of the [00:14:00] Mediterranean world. It's a sea town. It's a town with great, uh, paganism, but also great devotion to the Lord. All sorts of people, and it's from there with all of its, it's, it's, it, everything is in Corinth.
It's from there that Paul writes the letter to the Romans. So if we're looking at the eight different steps to study an epistle, and we single out two of them for today, one is historical context. We know that Romans was written into a historical situation and I talked about that the first two weeks and, and we know these aspects of history that even go into understanding Paul and who he was.
But I'm going to urge you to understand that Romans is not simply a letter written to fix an [00:15:00] occasion. Romans is a bit more rhetorical. Rhetoric is a reference to persuasion argument. Um, when I say that it's more rhetorical, Paul is not simply writing a letter. Hey, how's it going? He's setting out in a very methodical way.
An argument, a persuasion, a treatise, um, a a, a purposeful document to help people better understand what's going on in the world. Now of the days of Paul, he was dead by the time of Paul, but very recently of the days of Paul, the most famous rhetorician around. It was a fella by the name of [00:16:00] Marcus Tullia, kicker Row, Marcus Tul.
You say, well, no, that's Cicero. Well, it may be to us, but in Latin it would've been kicker row. Marcus Tulio kicker row. And we know more about him than we do probably anyone else in the Roman uh, antiquity world. Maybe Julius Caesar's close, but I don't think so. I think we know more because we have so many hundreds of his letters, his speeches, what people have said about him.
He is, he was a major historical writer. Now, one of the things he did is he went to Greece to study as a, as a young man, to study rhetoric, to study how to give persuasive arguments, especially in court. And this statue, this famous statue of him is famous in one sense because it's got his arm extended, [00:17:00] which in rhetoric and in court is what one would do when they were making an argument.
A point you would stand up, you would extend your arm. And that's, that's like, okay, everybody listen to him. He's got his hand up. He's got his arm out. That's what he's talking. In fact, Paul is so well trained in rhetoric that when you read Paul giving his defense at trial in the book of Acts, Luke specifically says, Paul stood up, reached his arm out and gave his speech because Paul was trained in rhetoric.
Paul came from Tarsus. He knew this stuff. Now, Marcus Tulio Kiro taught his son actually is one of the, the, the, uh, Cicero Jr. Uh, one of the recipients. He would write books on how to effectively communicate, how to give a good speech [00:18:00] or write a good letter. How to give a good argument. He wrote books on orations, on rhetoric, and we've got 'em.
In fact, we've got several. We've got one that he did in his early life that basically looked like he kind of put his notes together from when he was in school and published them. And then later on in life, he wrote the one to his son where he said to his son, Hey, you know, here's some different things you need to know.
And what he said is, is every good persuasive speech or writing has certain elements to it, certain sections, certain parts. You've got the very first part, the introduction, where your goal is to grab someone's attention, build your credibility, and make them want to hear what you've got to say. And he talks about how you do [00:19:00] that, and he talks about how you may need to give some narrative facts, but then he says what you need to do is you need to do a sidio.
And that's part of this partio in the Latin. Here's the way he said it. In an argument, a partio correctly renders the whole speech clear and lucid, and he breaks it down into this pro presidio, which we get the word proposition from it, but it's basically a, a statement. Of what you're going to say. Here's what he says in the partition.
The matters which we intend to discuss are briefly set forth in a methodical way. So you put this at the start. The form should have the following qualities. It should be [00:20:00] brief, it should be complete, and it should be concise. He goes on to say Brevity is secured when no word is used unless necessary.
Strunk in White wrote a book, the Essential Elements of Form. Uh, they were British. Uh. Uh, writers and they put all these basic rules. And if you get that book, at least in the edition, that was out when I was a kid, rule one is omit needless words. That's the entire rule. Now look at that. Nothing extra there, no fluff.
I've looked at that for. Decades trying to figure out how to [00:21:00] reduce it down to two words. Can't do it. I want to, but I can't. Brevity is secured when no word is used unless necessary. They were simply taking what Cicero said, said, and reducing it down in words. Omit needless words. Now for Paul. That's what Romans one 16 and 17 is.
This is a rhetorical work in part because Paul's following the Rhetoricians handbook for how to give a persuasive message. And just like Cicero taught in the generation before Paul. Paul does as every good philosopher and Rhetorician who is trained would do. And in this, Paul puts [00:22:00] forward his proficio.
He puts forward the matters which he intends to discuss are briefly set forth in a methodical way. He has brevity, completeness, and conciseness in Romans one 16 and 17. And by brevity, no word is used unless it's necessary, and that's why we rightly focus on each word because that's how we should read this in its literary.
Context. All right, now then let's do that. Let's focus on each word, and I'm loath to do this because it's hard to keep focus, but we must keep it in context. So I'm gonna do [00:23:00] the runup to it, starting with Romans one, one, but we're gonna do it fast. Don't fall asleep. Here we go, Paul. A servant of Christ.
Jesus called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead.
Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom? We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to. So that's from Paul, blah, blah, blah, blah. To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, and then his greeting grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then his [00:24:00] prayer. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. God's my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel, the good news of his son, that without ceasing mention you always in my prayers asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I don't want you to be unaware. That I've often tried to come to you, but though so far I've been prevented. But I wanna reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles, and I'm under obligation both to the Greeks, to the barbarians, to the wise, to the foolish.
I'm eager [00:25:00] to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome now. Larry Burgess, good to see you. I am eager to preach the gospel. That's one word in the Greek,
Anglo you ain. Gallion is the, the, the noun form. But you, zo, I believe is the verb form. It, it is, um, uh, or you angle. Yeah, you angle on is gospel. Lemme put it up here so you can see it. And it means a good news and it means a good message. But when Paul uses it, as I said last week, we need to understand, Paul uses it with a real specific meaning.
There's lots of good news that floats around, but there is [00:26:00] no news that compares to the news that Jesus Christ died for. Our sins was buried and resurrected unto a new life. That we share in. There's nothing that compares to that. Leon Morris said it this way. There's no good news to compare with the news of what Christ has or what God has done in Christ for people's salvation.
And so when Paul writes and he says, I'm eager to preach the gospel, what he's actually saying in the Greek is, I'm eager to bring the good news of the gospel to tell you about Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected. This is, this is the good news. This is what he's eager to say when he says, I wanna.
Preach to you the gospel, taking that noun, gelian, and turning it into that verb. Uzo, [00:27:00] he means I wanna preach the gospel. He means I wanna proclaim Christ's death and resurrection. We have trouble with this because we read Bibles that talk about the gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, and those are gospels that are using that word in a different way than Paul did.
I'm talking about Paul's usage of this word gospel. And if you have any doubts at all about that, go to one Corinthians where Paul is while he's writing. He says, I would remind you brothers to the Corinthians of the gospel. I preach to you. These are, this is the noun form. This is the verb form the gospel.
I gospel to you. Well, what was that message? That's the gospel [00:28:00] message. What do you mean by gospel brother Paul? He says Christ died for our sins. In accordance with the scripture, he was buried and he was raised on the third day. That is the gospel, the way Paul uses the word. That's what Paul means. Christ died, buried, resurrected.
And that's so important because now we get to Paul's pro Presidio. We get to that brief message and look at what Paul says. I'll read it all together and then we'll dissect it. I'm not ashamed of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Because the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is God's power to save everyone who has faith.
The Jew first, also the Greek, for in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith as it's written, the [00:29:00] righteous shall live by faith. That is his succinct, every word matters, methodical argument that explains the entire book all wrapped up into two verses.
That is his pro Presidio. Now, if you look at it in the Greek, it's actually made up of four different clauses. And we can look at those four clauses as we're trying to understand this as best as we can. The first clause, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel again. What is the gospel? It's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul says, I'm not ashamed of it.
Is the Greek word for ashamed. [00:30:00] It means to experience a painful feeling or a sense of loss of status because of some particular event or activity to be ashamed.
Now, some people might say, well, by gospel, I think Paul might mean that Jesus is the Messiah. That's the good news. I don't think that Jesus is the Messiah would ever cause anyone to be ashamed. Why would anyone be ashamed that Jesus is the Messiah? What shamed people, Jews especially, was that Jesus Christ died for their sins.
That death of Christ was shameful. Look at it this way, in one Corinthians 1 23, Paul said, we preach Christ. Crucified. This is the gospel. We preach the gospel and it's a stumbling [00:31:00] block to Jews. Christ crucified is a stumbling block. It is a scanlon in the Greek. That word scanlon kind of has three different, uh, meanings over its breadth.
One is, it was used to describe the trigger of a trap. That would spring the trap, the scandal on is the trigger of the trap. A second thing that it would mean is a, a stumbling block. It would make you stumble. It would trip you up. And the third, we know because of the English we get from the word scandal on it meant a scandal, a cause for moral outrage.
And all of that is wrapped up in this word. It's just the English translators are trying to find one to use, so they just call [00:32:00] it a stumbling block in the English standard version. But all three of these are here. It's a stumbling block. It's the trigger of a trap to the Jews. Jesus Christ. Crucified is a trigger of a trap because the Jews.
Never expected their Messiah to be crucified. That's not what they thought. They thought their Messiah was gonna come conquer the Roman world. So it, it caused them to stumble in the sense of it trapped them. It, it, it sprung on them something different than they had. And that became the tripping hazard because it impeded their ability to accept him.
That's not who they expected him to be. And as for a moral outrage, it's the ultimate scandal. That shouldn't be how God acts. God [00:33:00] Almighty God who parts the Red Sea, who brings manna from heaven, who sends lightning down to zap hundreds of bales, prophets on Mount Carmel. That kind of God does not come down and get arrested by the Romans and get nailed to across, that's scandalous.
That's no way for God to act, and that to the Romans was just an embarrassment. I mean, to the Jews it was an embarrassment. And so when Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, he's not saying I'm not ashamed. Jesus is the Messiah. He's saying, I'm not ashamed that Jesus, the Messiah, died for our sins.
Doesn't shame me at all. The idea that God would take on human flesh and humili himself. Humanify, is that a word? I don't know. [00:34:00] Uh, humiliate, that's the word. Humiliate himself to other people. And that embarrassed me. I'm not embarrassed in the least. I'm not embarrassed because to experience a painful feeling or sense of loss of status because Jesus had to die for me.
I'm not ashamed of the death of Christ. Clause two. Because the death of Christ is the power of God. To save everyone who believes the Jew first, and also the Greek doesn't shame me a bit. It's the power of God to save everyone. Dunes is this Greek word for power. It just means it's the ability to function.
It's, it's, you know, the, the muscles to lift the weights. It's the endurance to run the race. It is the knowledge [00:35:00] to, to put it together. I mean, it's this vision to see the, the, it is the ability, the power. This is God's power to save. This is God's power, one Corinthians one 18. Paul says the same thing, the gospel, the word of the cross is folly, makes them ashamed to those who are perishing, but to those of us that believe it, who are being saved, it's the power of God.
The cross is the power of God. The gospel is the power of God. The gospel is the cross. The good news is Jesus died for your sins. Palm Sunday. I mean, Palm Sunday is today good. Friday is this Friday. Jesus died for our sins. That's a historical fact. He didn't do it 'cause he was caught. He did it because he chose to, because he knew [00:36:00] this is the power of God to save.
It is the ability for God to save us. If you go back to Psalm 77. Which in the Greek version of the Old Testament is Psalm 76. Hence the difference in numbers. They're off by a verse and a chapter. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old I'll ponder all your work.
God, I'll meditate on all your mighty deeds your way. God is holy. What? God is great like our God. You're the God who works wonders. You've made known your duna me douna mean here. Do ensue your power. God, you've made known your power among the peoples. This is power among the peoples. With your arm, you redeemed the people.
The power of God for salvation, for redemption is the cross of Christ, and all of us should ask this question, all of us who needs [00:37:00] God's power in their life. Yes, answer everyone. Everyone. It's the power of God to do what do you remember? Pigpen?
The cross of Christ is the power of God to clean us from the dirt of our sin. Romans seven.
The cross of Christ is the power of God to release us from the hold of sin. Romans six 16, the bondage the cross of Christ. The gospel is the power of God that ends the consequences of sin. Sin leads to death. Paul says in one Corinthians 15. That's the last enemy to be conquered, [00:38:00] but it's conquered through the cross of Christ, through the gospel.
I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God to save everyone who believes. Now, look at this word, save. So Teon, that's another one where you just sit there and say, Ooh, how tough is it to translate one word?
Now you can look at a dictionary. Salvation soter, uh, means to preserve, means to rescue, means to keep from harm, means to save. If you'd gone to my college dorm room, you might've seen a picture like this. I had a Hebrew Old Testament. I had a Greek New Testament. I had a couple of Greek Bibles. I couldn't have read it.
If I'd have had a German Bible and I had a Greek Old Testament, a Sep. [00:39:00] But I can take the English and I can take the Hebrew and I can take the Greek Old Testament and I can look up that word Paul's using. 'cause I know Paul used the Hebrew and the Greek, he didn't use the English. Genesis 26. Isaac sent them.
This is uh, the. King that came and cut a deal with him. Isaac sent them on their way. They departed from him In peace. Be shalom. Peace is that same word Paul uses. The gospel is the power of God for peace, not just salvation, but peace. How about, uh, if we go to Exodus 1413, Moses says, fear not stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord as he saves them the people.
By the way, the word [00:40:00] salvation that's being translated here as power of God is Yeshua the name of Jesus. That's not lost on Paul. That salvation is the name of Jesus in the Tugen. The exact same word that Paul's using the cross of Christ is the power of God to pronounce Jesus over all of us.
Look at uh, two Samuel. The word victory is the same Greek word that's translated salvation, the word help. The same Greek word, the word deliverance, the same Greek word, the word safety, the word wisdom, the word, uh, safety again, uh, contentment, prosperity, that needs an S in it. All of those are the same ideas of salvation.[00:41:00]
Wrapped up in that word. When Paul is saying it's the power of God to salvation, it's the power of God to give you peace. It's the power of God to give you wisdom. It's the power of God to give you contentment. It's the power of God to give you victory. It's the power of God to give you help. It's all of that.
It's why Paul could say, I resolve to do nothing among you and know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Because if you're preaching Christ crucified, you're preaching peace, you're preaching contentment, you're preaching victory. You're preaching salvation. You are preaching, healing, you're preaching everything because it is everything.
It is the focal point of all of history. Everything before led up to it and everything after looks back to it and it will be the door that opens up eternity. That's the gospel. The cross of Christ delivers us from something, but it delivers us also to [00:42:00] something. Don't think of Jesus dying for your sins, simply saving you from your sins.
He's delivering you to something. He's bringing you. Peace. He's bringing you joy. He's bringing you purpose. He's empowering you. He's breaking chains. He's doing all of this. It's the power of God for all of this in your life to everyone who has Faith. Jew first they got it first time-wise, and then it came to the Greeks third clause.
For in it. In what? The gospel. What's the gospel? The cross resurrection, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In that is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith to faith [00:43:00] in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith. Now this. Is a real struggle for the translators. What on earth does it mean the righteousness of God?
Well, let's start with this word of. Uh, in the Greek you actually read De theo, you read the righteousness for the righteousness and then God, Theo is just the word God, but it's got a generative ending. It's called in, in Greek grammar or Latin grammar. Um, it's, it's a generative that, that means it can function in a lot of different ways.
They don't have the word of, it's just built into that ending. [00:44:00] That's at the end of the word God and the generative can work. It can mean a lot of different things in the Greek as we try to put it into an English sense. So let me try to give you some different options. I pulled out the five that are most prominent, and all of these could be read, the Greek could be read, could be read to mean any one of these.
We have to decide what we think it means. The righteousness of God has many potential meanings. First, it might mean the righteousness that God himself has. You know, this is the code of Mark, not Daniel's code. He's got his own coat over there. This is the coat of Mark. See, it's, it's, it's the coat that I have.
So the righteousness of God might be referencing the righteousness that God [00:45:00] has. That's, uh, um, called, uh, uh, um, well, I don't need to get into, there's subjective, objective, generatives, generative of source, generative of, uh, there's just a lot of, of grammar that I won't get into with this sense of time.
I'll just keep it in English. But the second is the righteousness that we have. From before God, not from before God. In other words, it's the righteousness that God wants to see in us. It's the righteousness we have. So Christ and, and the deaf era restoration of Christ, there is righteousness. Uh, the, the first one, if we go back, the first one is it shows the righteousness that God has, that God's a righteous judge.
We see God's righteousness in the cross of Christ. The second is we see the righteousness that we have. It's the cross of Christ that makes us righteous before God. We [00:46:00] have the righteousness of God in us because of the cross of Christ. And in that sense, also, it can be a righteousness that God just gives.
It's not what you look like before God, but it's what God has given you. It's the righteousness God gives to you. Or it might mean the righteousness that God owns. And that's sort of close to what I've already said, uh, in the first one. But there's a little nuanced difference in the Greek not worth getting into in light of the time.
And then the fifth one, it's the righteousness that God has established for us to, to grow into. All of those are acceptable readings and understandings. And I would suggest to you that Paul didn't write with ambiguity because he was a sloppy writer. This is his proficio. This is he wrote with every word battering, and he will [00:47:00] explain in Romans what he means.
So we will unpack this as we unpack the letter. But right now, I'm gonna suggest to you that he means a whole bunch of this all rolled up into one. It wasn't one or the other. It's multiple. And he's just written it in a very concise manner that he will unfold in the letter and we will get to it. And this is where the righteousness of God is revealed.
Now, this word righteousness Dee.
Has at its root a concept of fairness in a courtroom justice. It can be taken by extension to reference the right character that people have, but at its root, the core meaning of [00:48:00] the word is a courtroom scene where God declares someone. Righteous or not guilty. And so in the cross of Christ, some righteousness of God's ability to be just and fair that is being revealed through the cross of Christ.
And Paul will unfold this in the letter, but there's a huge problem. We got guilty people that God's declaring innocent. How can adjust God do that? And if the righteousness of God includes a statement of who he is, then he can't run a kangaroo court and he can't declare any of us free from sin and free to do all of these amazing things, all part of salvation from and to all part of salvation.
He can't do [00:49:00] that if we're actually guilty. Unless the price has been paid. Amen. And that's how a just God can embrace all of us with unending love and mercy and help. Wow. And salvation and purpose and peace, all of that is wrapped up to those who have faith. Now this is another expression that's really a chore to, to unpack, and I've run out of time, so I'm not gonna unpack that now, but we will unpack it as we go through the letter.
But in the cross of Christ, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith as it's written, the righteous will live by faith. And that's a quote out of Habakkuk that again, I don't have time to unpack for you the way we should, but that's dissecting Romans [00:50:00] and I want to take the last few minutes and I want to talk about the impact or the points for home.
Paul had no problem telling the Corinthians I resolved to know nothing among you except Christ Christified. Pastor Jared has urged me when I finished this book on, um, daily devotionals and teachings, uh, based on the Old Testament narratives, which is what I'm writing through now to do the next one on, um, the gospel.
Every day, 365 days, a teaching and a devotional on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and the difference it makes in our life, and I would have no trouble doing it because 365 days to explore the death of Christ. [00:51:00] Paul says everything is wrapped up in it. Everything should be seen to the Christian through that lens.
That is the way we understand everything. That's our deliverance from all of the things we've been delivered from. If you're at our good service, good Friday service. This Friday, we'll be taking communion. What is communion? It's remembering the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It's something the early church did every time they met together.
I have a friend. Um, who I used to talk to about this, I said, you know, the church tradition I moved up, uh, moved here from is one where we would take communion every Sunday and I missed that. And he said to me, he said, yeah, you know, I just think if I took it every Sunday, I it, it would become old hat to me and it wouldn't be special.
And I said, oh, do you feel the same way about seeing your wife don't wanna see her more than once a week, or [00:52:00] just the old hat.
I miss that because the death bureau and resurrection of Jesus. We've got Pastor David here this morning. You know, I told Pastor David one time I missed that. He said, okay, well, we'll set up a room where people can take community every Sunday. And we did that for quite a while. I, I, I, that's the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
That's what keeps us from just being a rotary club.
That's what makes us united. That is what Pastor Jarret was preaching about this morning. That's what makes us team Jesus. That's what makes us one church. That is the uniting factor. That's what means. It doesn't matter what our skin color is, it doesn't matter. Our education, it doesn't matter our economic level, it doesn't matter if we're married, if we're single, if [00:53:00] we're widowed, if we're divorced, none of that matters before Jesus because he has united us all in one death and one resurrection.
We are one people, Paul, he's delivered us from. He says in Romans eight, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. I get that freedom nowhere except in the dead burial and resurrected Jesus, but it also delivers me to
peace, purpose, no fear.
Those are ours. If you don't have 'em, you're being robbed by the enemy because they were one for you in the death and the resurrection of Jesus. If you're afraid of dying, you need to spend more time studying the death and resurrection of [00:54:00] Jesus, because that's the resurrection we share. No fear of dying.
If you're afraid of what. Man can bring against you, or woman can bring against you. You need to spend more time with the death bear and resurrection of Jesus because that power of God to resurrect Jesus is at work in your life. Jesus said, whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
We're being delivered to something and finally. Let's get ready for Easter weekend because the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved with all that word means it's the power of God. That's the gospel is the power of God. Or as Paul says it to the Corinthians, the cross is the power of God.
The cross is the gospel when it's accompanied with an empty [00:55:00] tomb. And with that blessings on you, and let us say a word of prayer. Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask you to bless everyone who hears this message by your spirit stirring up in us. A greater appreciation for what you have done, the great news of your love expressed through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Father, may your power invade our hearts, invade our minds, invade our families, invade our workplace, invade our community, nation and world so that people can understand the depth and breadth of your love and commitment and what you have delivered us from and deliver us to. We thank you that we have this time together to study your word In Jesus, we pray this.
Amen.
