What Has Been Said Of Romans?
“This letter is the principal part of the New Testament and the purest Gospel, which surely deserves the honor that a Christian man should not merely know it off by heart word for word, but that he should be occupied with it daily as the daily bread of the soul. For it can never be read too often and too well. And the more it is used the more delicious it becomes and the better it tastes …”
With these words, Martin Luther in the year 1522 began his introduction to the Letter to the Romans in the first edition of the New Testament newly translated by him.
“At every significant juncture in the life of the Christian community this letter has stood, and for every giant of faith ever raised up to effect some change in that community, it has furnished the fire. And, for all the souls who have carried the embers which some great event or person has later fanned into flame, this last will and testament of Paul of Tarsus has spelled warmth and light.”
“If Holy Scripture was a ring, and the Epistle to the Romans a precious stone, chapter 8 would be the sparkling point of the jewel.”
“Certain it is that no book has had a greater influence on the theology of the Protestant Church, and no book contains more of the quintessence of the mind of Paul.”
The Epistle to the Romans was the bedrock, the foundation on which the faith of the church was held and established and enabled to continue.
Highlights Of Conversions By Romans
This Epistle is so powerful that it has affected transformation in the lives of countless Christian men and women. The list of those who have experienced transformation may be endless, including those who are being added to this list daily, but I will pick out a few of the outstanding highlights.
St. Augustine:
Augustine of Hippo was a brilliant professor and a profound philosopher and yet, he was living an immoral and dissolute life. Troubled and agonized in his soul, he was seated in a garden one afternoon: “I heard the voice of a boy or a girl … chanting over and over again, ‘Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it’ … I quickly returned to the bench … for there I had put down the apostle’s book … I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.’ I wanted to read no further, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”
The famous verses that converted him were Romans 13:13-14.
Martin Luther:
In 1515, while he was still a Roman Catholic, Martin Luther, who was at the time a teacher of theology, decided to give lectures to his students on the Epistle to the Romans. And it was as he was studying this very Epistle that the truth of justification by faith and by faith alone dawned upon his mind and his heart and his whole being. This led to that tremendous change in his life that was the catalyst of the Protestant Reformation. This great doctrine, mentioned in the first chapter of this Epistle and also in the Epistle to the Galatians, was the source of that total turnaround in Luther’s life.
Shortly before his death, the greatest Reformer of them all described the decisive change that had occurred in him: “It is true; I had been seized by an uncommon desire to understand Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. And thus far it was not cold blood around the heart that hindered me, but on single word … “in it the righteousness of God is revealed.” For I hated that word “righteousness of God” which … I was taught to construe philosophically as a formal or active righteousness (as they call it), by which God is just and punishes sinners and the unjust. … So I raged furiously and with a confused conscience. Still, I hammered persistently away at the passage in Paul, afire with eagerness to know what he means. Then, thanks to God’s mercy and meditating on it day and night, I paid attention to the context. … I began to understand God’s righteousness as something by which the merciful God justifies us through faith, as it is written: “The just lives by faith.” Right then I sensed I had been wholly reborn, and had entered by open doors to very paradise.”
That man was Luther, and the passage Romans 1:17 (WA 54, 185, 14-186, 9, author’s transl.).
John Wesley:
Perhaps best-known of all is the account of the conversion of John Wesley on May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street in London. The Spirit of God had been working in him; the Moravian Brethren had been teaching him about this doctrine of justification by faith without works, and though he understood it with his mind, he had to say, ‘I have not felt it.’ It was in a state of great agitation of soul and of mind and of heart that he went in weariness to a meeting in Aldersgate Street. It so happened that there in that meeting somebody – one of the Christian brethren – was reading the Preface and Introduction to Martin Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and Wesley sat there listening to it. And as he sat and listened he found that his heart was ‘strangely warmed’ and he knew that God had forgiven his sins – ‘even mine’, he says. And then, he was given the certain assurance that turned him, from being a preacher who was an abject failure, into a great and mighty evangelist.
Have I Realized The Value Of Romans Yet?
Looking back at these epoch-making conversions in the history of Christianity, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones challenges us, we should be examining ourselves and asking this question: “Have I realized all this about the Epistle to the Romans? As I have gone through my Bible have I stopped at this book? Have I paused at it and given my time to it? Have I realized its profundity?”
PAUL: Who Is He?
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the Gospel of God” (Romans 1:1)
We find that the first word in this Epistle is PAUL; it is an Epistle written by a man called Paul. The Epistle cannot be understood apart from the man. Likewise, only when we understand an artist can we comprehend his work easier and fuller, therefore let us take time to study about this man.
Apostle Paul-who is he?
He is, at once, an amazing person. He authored more than a half of the New Testament and pioneered numerous churches throughout Asia Minor and Europe. When he was moving from one city to another, he sent letters to teach and encourage the young Christians in the matters of faith in his pioneered churches. And his letters were so powerful and profound that his words have come to occupy the universal history, and forming a core of the Holy Scripture.
Some say that without him, Christianity, in the context of world religion, would have been just a small sect in Palestine and that today’s worldwide church would not exist.
Unmarried his whole life, Paul fully devoted himself to the spreading of the Gospel of God with unwavering faith and a fiery passion.
Greatest Persecutor To His Church, Called By Christ
However, do you know that Paul was initially one of the greatest persecutors of Christianity?
Paul kindly introduces himself in Acts: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city.
Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. (Acts 22:3-5)
Let us backtrack and examine Paul, a.k.a. Saul of Tarsus, prior to his conversion in a little more detail.
“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1-2)
Here was this man, an unyielding, rabid, nationalistic Jew, hating the Lord Jesus Christ and everything related to Him, regarding Him as a blasphemer; Saul tried to destroy the Christian church, going to Damascus breathing out words of threat and slaughter in order that he might exterminate the little church there.
He was once Saul of Tarsus, but when he became the Apostle of Christ, his temperament did not change. When he became an Apostle, he was not transformed into a submissive preacher. He preached with all the intensity of his zealous and righteous character. He weeps, he tells us, and at times confronted fears within, and at other times was cast down. The man’s temperament is exactly what it was; the zeal with which he persecuted is the same zeal with which he now preaches. The temperament remains a constant.
Greatest Sufferer For The Sake Of The Gospel
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied. (Acts 9:3-5)
God surely works in the most mysterious and profound way that humans oftentimes fail to fathom. At the time that the Christian Church should expand its boundary to the Gentile world outside Jerusalem, the path of the pioneering missionary was destined to be thorny and rugged. “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” (Acts 9:16)
For this very ministry, God chose Saul of Tarsus, a man stubborn, violent, and bloodthirsty, who persecuted and was responsible for many deaths of God’s very own Christians.
Paul’s life would be filled with of adversaries and suffering. Paul himself revealed about the great distresses he had to face in multiple instances throughout the New Testament.
“Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger.” (2 Corinthians 6:4-5)
“Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)
“We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.” (1 Corinthians 4:10-13)
“Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.” (Acts 14:19)
These records vividly depict the life of Paul. He lived the life of real suffering and yet, he endured and never gave up on his commission of being an apostle of the Lord.
Why Saul Of Tarsus? ‘Because Of Love,’ Says The Lord
Still, why did God have to choose Saul?
Because when you are forgiven more, greater love is revealed. Paul himself testified to this mysterious grace.
“Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” (Romans 5:20b) Where there is much sin, the greater grace of God is uncovered.
When a sinful woman poured perfume of an alabaster jar on his feet, the Lord taught his disciples: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:47)
The Lord knew so well that the only power that can overcome these indescribable trials and persecutions was love, the love of God. The Lord knew so well that only the one who is perfectly reborn by the love of God, who breathes and speaks in His love, can overcome all things.
Paul, Loyalist To God’s Love
“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.” (Acts 9:3-5)
The risen Lord came to him with the most unexpected, shocking, love. Something impossible, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, within the boundary of law that he so adhered to, had just happened to him.
“Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” (Acts 9:8-9)
After the Lord called Saul, he could not see for three days, a period he spent in prayer and fasting. He must have sought an answer to this mysterious incident: ‘Lord, why do you hold on to me? Why did you come to me, who you must abhor most, who deserves to be cursed, the worst of all sinners? Why do you call this persecutor and forgive and love me?’
The law he abided by said: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” (Exodus 21:24-25) Apart from the law, something different, completely different came to him. It was unconditional love poured down on Saul, and it shattered his whole world.
The most sublime of love is forgiveness. When he was unconditionally forgiven by the Lord, he did not take this love for granted.
Fully meditating on this electrifying, heart-trembling love, he laid down all his past, never making light of this surprising love; not even once did he forsake this love, through the last moment of his life. Since this conversion, he, as a faithful, loyal servant of the Lord, preached the love of God until he returned back to Him.
This man undoubtedly was one of the great intellectual minds, not only of the church but also of the world. Unmistakable is Paul’s tremendous reasoning power, his logic, his arguments, and the way in which he marshals evidence and facts, and then presents them.
To be sure, Paul is a theological teacher and thinker, who deeply understood the riches of this new world of truth. But he was not satisfied with these internal abundances and enlightenment. More importantly, he lived the life, the life of the Gospel. He practiced the word of the Gospel. His words that testify to the love and redemption of Christ, therefore, are testimonies of his life, so shining and powerful as his own life. He is one whom we cannot follow without having our whole lives set in motion.
Paul’s background represented the height of intellectual, political, and religious standards of the time. He was immersed in the richness of Greek culture, held citizenship in the Empire of Rome, and was a Jew by birth. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, and a Pharisee of the Pharisees, an expert in the Jewish understanding and interpretation of the law of God.
How did this proud, highly intellectual, precise, and perfectly lawful person end up preaching the love of God?
It was God’s love itself that transformed Saul. Because of God’s love, Saul of Tarsus became Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles.
Republished with permission from Dr. Christy Tran, the author of “The Epistle to the Romans: Paul’s Love Letter from God.”