Romans

Romans

 

YOU ARE CALLED

 

The four Gospels show you who Jesus is. Acts shows you what His Spirit does in the world. Romans tells you what all of it means for you.

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This is the letter where the gospel gets explained the most carefully. Why Jesus came. What His death actually accomplished. How a person becomes right with God. Whether that standing can ever be taken back. What changes in you, slowly, when His Spirit comes to live inside you. Romans answers all of these, in order, by a man who used to hate Jesus and ended up writing much of the New Testament about Him.

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If you have encountered Jesus and there are still questions you cannot quite put into words, Romans is the book that gives you the language. It is not the easiest letter to read at first. It is dense. But it rewards a slow reading more than almost any other book in the Bible.

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This guide will not replace your Bible. It is here to walk alongside you while you read it. Open Romans soon, and let what is said here send you back to the source.

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Who Wrote It

Paul. The same man you met in Acts as Saul of Tarsus, the religious zealot who was hunting down believers when Jesus stopped him on the road to Damascus.

 

Before that day, Paul was one of the most respected young scholars in Israel. He had studied under one of the leading rabbis of the time. He knew the Hebrew Scriptures by heart. He had built his life on his religious credentials. After his encounter with Jesus, every one of those credentials had to be reread in a new light, and Romans is the result.

 

That is part of what makes this letter so valuable. Paul is not someone arguing about the Bible from the outside. He is someone who used to read it confidently, was stopped by Jesus, and went back to read it all again. Everything he writes in Romans is shaped by that long second reading. He is showing you what had been hiding in plain sight across centuries of Scripture.

 

Paul wrote Romans from the city of Corinth around AD 57, near the end of one of his missionary journeys. The man who once persecuted Christians would go on to write much of the New Testament about the Jesus he had tried to erase. He had not yet visited Rome. That makes Romans different from his other letters. Most of them were written to churches he knew personally and could speak to in shorthand. Rome was new ground. He could not assume anything. So he laid out the whole gospel from first principles. That is exactly why this letter is so useful to a reader two thousand years later who is also coming in fresh.

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Who He Was Writing For

The church in Rome was a mixed group. Some of them were Jewish believers who had grown up in the Scriptures and the law of Moses. Others were Gentile believers, people from the wider Roman world with no Jewish background at all. They had come to Jesus from very different starting points and were now learning to share one community.

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The questions running underneath the letter are the questions any new believer asks. Who is acceptable to God? On what basis? What about my past? What about who I have been? What about the people who never grew up in any of this religious history at all?

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Paul writes to all of them, and to you. His central claim is this. The way God brings a person into right standing with Himself has been the same from the beginning. Not by being good enough. Not by having the right religious background. Not by performance. By trusting Him. Always.

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The Tone of the Letter

Romans reads like a careful argument, but it is not cold. Paul writes the way a thoughtful friend might explain something important if they were sitting across the table from you. He raises objections out loud. He answers them. He repeats himself when he wants to be sure you understood. He sometimes interrupts his own argument to break out into worship.

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The tone changes noticeably at chapter 12. The first eleven chapters are mostly the explanation. The last five chapters are the application. The hinge is the word "therefore" in Romans 12:1. Everything Paul asks of you in the second half of the letter is grounded in everything he has explained in the first half. The way you live is the result of what God has done, not the cause of it.

 

That is one of the deepest reframes here. You do not change in order to be loved. You are loved, and that is what changes you.

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How a Person Is Made Right with God

This is the question Romans was written to answer.

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Paul begins with a hard truth. Every human being has fallen short of the standard God set, Jew and Gentile alike. Religious people and irreligious people. Good people and people who would never call themselves good. The opening three chapters of Romans build that case carefully, from creation to conscience to the law itself, and end with a verdict no one can wriggle out of. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Paul writes, and all who trust Christ are justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23-24).

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Read that twice. The same sentence that names the problem also names the solution. All have fallen short. All who trust Christ are justified as a gift, by His grace.

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The word justified sounds like legal language because it is. To be justified is to be declared right before a court. Not pretended to be right. Actually declared right. The charges have been fully dealt with. The case has been closed. You walk out of the courtroom with clean standing.

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How? Paul says, by faith. Not by religious performance. Not by reaching a moral standard. Not by joining the right group. By trusting that what Jesus did on the cross was enough.

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This is anchored in a man who lived two thousand years before Jesus. Abraham. Long before there were any religious laws or rituals, God spoke a promise to Abraham, and Abraham believed Him. Paul writes:

 

"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"

Romans 4:3, quoting Genesis 15:6

 

Abraham was made right with God by trust, before he ever did a single religious act. The way God deals with people has always been by faith. The cross is not a new system. It is the moment the original arrangement was finally made fully possible, for everyone, at any cost to God.

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Then comes the most settling sentence in the first half of the letter.

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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1

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Peace with God. Read it slowly. The war is over. Not because you fought your way out of it. Because Jesus took the full weight of it on Himself.

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If you have ever wondered whether you are acceptable to God, that verse is the answer. You are. Not because you have proved yourself. Because Jesus has.

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Can That Standing Ever Be Lost? 

This is the next question, and it matters. A new believer often wonders whether one bad day, one failure, one stretch of doubt could undo what Jesus has done. Romans does not teach a fragile salvation that disappears every time you fail. The first answer comes in the opening line of Romans 8.

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Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

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The Greek word for condemnation is the legal term for the sentence passed after a guilty verdict. The punishment decreed. Paul is saying that for the person who is in Christ, that sentence has been lifted. Not reduced. Not deferred. Not held over their head. Lifted. The punishment was borne by Christ on the cross. The court has closed the case.

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That is the legal answer. The personal answer comes at the end of the same chapter, and it is one of the most quoted passages in the New Testament for good reason.

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For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

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Sit with this. Paul is making a list of every category of threat his readers could think of, and ruling each one out. Death. Life. Spiritual powers. The present. The future. Heights and depths. Anything else in the created order. None of them can separate you from the love of God.

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Notice the word convinced. In Greek it means a settled conclusion that has not moved. Paul has thought about this and stayed there. He is not hoping. He is sure.

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Sin matters. Romans does not pretend it does not. Chapters 6 and 7 will tell you that sin still pulls at you, that you are not free to live carelessly, that what you do with your life still has weight. But the question of whether sin can pull you out of God's love is a different question, and Romans answers it with the longest list in the New Testament. Not even your worst day. Not even your deepest failure. Not even the future you are most afraid of.

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The cross was enough. It is still enough. It will still be enough tomorrow.

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What Jesus Actually Did

The meaning of Jesus' death is made unmistakable here.​

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He did not die as a tragedy that overtook Him. He died as the fulfilment of what He came for. Paul says that God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Not after we had cleaned ourselves up. Not when we were nearly ready. While we were still in the mess. That is the timing of God's love.

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Jesus' death was a sacrifice that satisfied what God's justice required, paid the price our sin had earned, and opened a way for anyone who trusts Him to be brought home. The crucial word is gift. Justification is given (Romans 3:24). Eternal life is given (Romans 6:23). The Spirit is given (Romans 5:5). Nothing in this letter is something you earn. Everything in it is something you receive.

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If you have come to Jesus and find yourself wanting to do something to deserve what has happened, hear this gently. You cannot deserve it. You can only receive it. And the receiving is what changes you.

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The Spirit Who Comes to Live in You

Romans 8 is the heart of the letter. Read it many times in your life. It will keep giving.

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This is where you see what life with the Holy Spirit actually looks like from the inside. The same Spirit who fell at Pentecost in Acts 2 is the Spirit who comes to live inside every person who belongs to Jesus. Paul describes Him doing several things at once.

He sets you free from the old patterns that used to run your life (Romans 8:2). He teaches you to want different things than you used to want (Romans 8:5). He gives you the inner certainty that you are now a child of God, and He cries out the word Abba in you, the same word Jesus used for the Father (Romans 8:15-16).

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And then comes one of the most comforting sentences in the Bible for anyone who is learning to pray. The Spirit, Paul says, helps our weakness. We do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

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If you have ever sat down to pray and not known what to say, that verse is for you. The Spirit is praying through you and for you. The Father is hearing what the Spirit is saying. You are not alone in prayer, even when you cannot find words.

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Romans 8 also says something that will hold you on the days you suffer. Paul does not pretend believers do not suffer. He says clearly that we groan, that creation groans, that the Spirit groans with us (Romans 8:22-26). But he also says that nothing we go through now is worth comparing with the glory that is coming (Romans 8:18), and that God works all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Not that everything is good. That nothing is wasted.

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A Few Threads from the Old Testament

Paul quotes the Hebrew Scriptures more in Romans than in any of his other letters, because the gospel he preaches is not a new invention. It is what God had been pointing to from the beginning.​

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Abraham, made right with God by faith, four hundred years before the law existed (Romans 4, drawing on Genesis 15).

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The prophet Habakkuk, who wrote in a time of confusion that "the righteous will live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4, quoted in Romans 1:17). Paul places that line at the centre of his whole argument. It is the thesis of the gospel: when you cannot see what God is doing, you trust who He is.

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Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, the Psalms. Paul draws on all of them to show that the salvation now offered to anyone who calls on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13, quoting Joel 2:32) is the same salvation God had been promising for centuries. The story has been one story all along. Jesus is its centre.

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Transformed from the Inside

The last five chapters of Romans show you what a life shaped by all of this actually looks like.

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Paul opens chapter 12 with the famous therefore. In view of everything God has done, here is the only response that makes sense.

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Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2

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Two key words. Conformed, in Greek, means to be pressed into a mould. The world's mould. The shape of whatever everyone around you is doing and wanting. Transformed shares its root with the English word metamorphosis. A change from the inside out. A caterpillar becoming a butterfly is not a costume change. It is a different kind of creature.

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The normal pressure of the world is to make you look like everyone else. The alternative is not to try harder to resist. It is to let your mind be slowly renewed by the truth of what God has said about you, until you start to think and want and choose differently because you are a different kind of person now.

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This is not a quick process. It is the daily work of a whole life. But the direction is real, and the Spirit who lives in you is the one doing the changing.

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The rest of the letter walks you through what that transformed life looks like in real situations. How to live with people whose faith is at a different stage from yours (Romans 14). How to bless those who treat you badly (Romans 12:14). How to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). How to receive other believers the way Christ has received you (Romans 15:7).

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When you know you have been loved and received and forgiven at enormous cost, extending love and welcome and forgiveness to others stops being a demand. It becomes an overflow.

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How to Read Romans

Read it slowly. Read it in order. The later chapters depend on the earlier ones, so do not start at chapter 8 without the foundation of what comes first, and there is no rush.

 

The word therefore is your map through the letter. Every time Paul uses it, he is drawing a conclusion from what he has just said. Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace (Romans 5:1). Therefore there is now no condemnation (Romans 8:1). Therefore I urge you (Romans 12:1). If you follow the therefores, you will follow the argument.

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Do not be discouraged by Romans 7. Paul writes openly about the experience of wanting to do what is right and finding himself doing what he hates (Romans 7:15).It is one of the most honest pieces of writing in the New Testament. Anyone who has ever tried to change something about themselves and felt themselves slipping back will recognise it. Read chapter 7 knowing that chapter 8 follows immediately. The frustration of Romans 7 is real. The freedom of Romans 8 is more real. 

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Romans 9 to 11 is the most theologically dense section of the letter, where Paul wrestles with what God is doing with Israel given that many Jewish people of his day did not believe in Jesus. Do not feel that you must understand it all on a first reading. Paul ends those chapters not with a neat answer but with a doxology, a sudden break into worship at how deep God's wisdom is (Romans 11:33-36). That response, awe rather than complete comprehension, is the right response for the reader too. Do not worry if some sentences feel too large on the first reading. Romans is not meant to be mastered in one pass.

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What Romans Means for Your Life Now

If you have come to Jesus and there is still a part of you that wonders whether your past disqualifies you, Romans is the book that closes that question.

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You have been justified by faith. The court has lifted the sentence. The Father is at peace with you, and you with Him. Not because you have earned it. Because Jesus has.

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If you wonder whether you can lose this standing, Paul has already gone through every category of threat you could imagine and told you that none of them can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That is the most secure thing in the universe. It is also the gentlest place to live from.

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If you are afraid of how slowly you are changing, the change is real, even when it is slow, because the Spirit who is doing the changing is the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead and who now lives in you (Romans 8:11). You are not changing yourself. You are being changed.

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If you are learning to pray and the words run out, Romans 8:26 says that the Spirit is praying through you with groanings too deep for words. You have never been alone in your prayers, not even when you thought you were saying nothing.

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And if you have ever wondered whether what happened when you encountered Jesus was real, Romans gives you the framework to understand it. What you felt was the love that Romans 5:8 describes. Christ died for you while you were still in the mess. The Spirit has been drawing you in, and the Father has received you as His own child.

 

The closing words of the letter are worth reading aloud.

 

To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.

Romans 16:27

 

That is where Romans deposits you. Not in a system. Not in a religion. In awe of God Himself. That is exactly where you should be.