Reason to Rejoice: Love, Grace, and Forgiveness in Paul's Letter to the Romans

By Ray C. Stedman

Of all the New Testament letters, Romans is the broadest in scope and deepest in insight. No other document has affected and transformed more human lives," says Ray Stedman. Nowhere do you see more clearly how God, through Jesus Christ, has enabled human beings to move from a place of condemnation and sin to a place of reconciliation and righteousness.
In Reason to Rejoice, Ray Stedman guides you in a chapter-by-chapter study of the apostle Paul's most famous New Testament letter. Like all of Stedman's writings, this book is lively, conversational, and avoids technical jargon, even as he shares powerful and instructive insights into the Word of God.
Stedman's personal warmth and humor shine through every page, making this an enjoyable book to read--and reread. Most important of all, you'll be inspired, challenged, and encouraged to apply and incorporate these life-changing truths into your own life.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Our Daily Bread Publishing
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781627076111

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Reason to Rejoice cover imageReason to Rejoice cover image

Reason to Rejoice

©2004 by Elaine Stedman

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from The New International Version®, (NIV®) ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

ISBN: 978-1-62707-611-1

First eBook edition in February 2016

CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface

1. From Guilt to Glory (Romans 1:1–17)

2. The Divine Diagnosis (Romans 1:18–32)

3. Sinful Morality (Romans 2)

4. The Heart of the Gospel (Romans 3)

5. The Father of Faith (Romans 4)

6. Rejoicing in God (Romans 5)

7. Whose Slave Are You? (Romans 6)

8. The Never-Ending Struggle (Romans 7)

9. No Condemnation (Romans 8:1–17)

10. If God Be for Us (Romans 8:18–39)

11. Let God Be God (Romans 9)

12. How To Be Saved (Romans 10)

13. The Church and the Chosen People (Romans 11)

14. Who Am I, Lord? (Romans 12)

15. God’s Strange Servants (Romans 13:1–7)

16. Love, for the Night Is Ending (Romans 13:8–14)

17. The Weak and the Strong (Romans 14:1–15:13)

18. Paul’s Postscript (Romans 15:14–16:24)

Editors’ Preface

Ray Stedman (1917–1992) served as pastor of the Peninsula Bible Church from 1950 to 1990. He was known and loved as a man of outstanding Bible knowledge and wisdom coupled with a depth of Christian integrity, love, and humility. Born in Temvik, North Dakota, Ray grew up on the rugged landscape of Montana. When he was a small child, his mother became ill and his father, a railroad man, abandoned the family, so Ray grew up on his aunt’s Montana farm from the time he was six. He came to know the Lord at a Methodist revival meeting at age ten.

As a young man he tried different jobs, working in Chicago, Denver, Hawaii, and elsewhere. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II, where he often led Bible studies for civilians and Navy personnel, and even preached on local radio in Hawaii. At the close of the war, Ray was married in Honolulu, though he and his wife Elaine had first met in Great Falls, Montana. They returned to the mainland in 1946, and Ray graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1950. After two seminary summers interning under the widely regarded Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Ray traveled for several months with another renowned Bible teacher, Dr. H. A. Ironside, pastor of Moody Church in Chicago.

In 1950, Ray was called by the two-year-old Peninsula Bible Fellowship in Palo Alto, California, to serve as its first pastor. Peninsula Bible Fellowship later became Peninsula Bible Church, and Ray eventually served a forty-year tenure there, retiring on April 30, 1990. During those years, Ray Stedman authored a number of life-changing Christian books, including the classic work on the meaning and mission of the church, Body Life. He entered into the presence of his Lord on October 7, 1992.

This book, Reason to Rejoice, is derived from two sermon series Ray Stedman preached on the book of Romans.¹ In Romans 12:1, Paul challenges Christians to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. Though the book of Romans is rich in wisdom and practical instruction on many themes, from justification by faith to our struggle against sin to authentic Christian love, the theme of presenting ourselves to God as living sacrifices is a good summation of what Romans is all about.

In these pages, you’ll be inspired and instructed as Ray shares powerful insights into the apostle Paul’s most famous New Testament letter. Like all of Ray Stedman’s writings, Reason to Rejoice is lively, conversational, and avoids technical jargon. Ray’s personal warmth and humor shine through, making this an enjoyable book to read—and reread. Most important of all, you’ll be challenged and encouraged to apply these life-changing truths in your everyday life.

The journey through Paul’s letter to the Romans is the journey of a lifetime. So turn the page and enrich your adventure of faith in Christ!

—The Editors

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1 Edior James Denney has provided a few updated examples to the author’s writing when appropriate.

Chapter 1

From Guilt to Glory

Romans 1:1–17

Saint Augustine of Hippo was a great church leader of the fourth century. But as a young man before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine struggled with God and with the temptation to sin. He tried to live a morally upright life in his own strength, but he would inevitably fail.

In his autobiography, The Confessions, he wrote that on one occasion he felt such so much guilt, shame, and condemnation for his sins that he flung himself down under a fig tree and wept a flood of tears. God, why can’t I live a righteous life? he prayed. I want to stop sinning, but I can’t!

Just then, he heard a child, chanting in a sing-song voice, Take up and read, take up and read! He interpreted those words as a message from God.

But what did the message mean—take up and read? Read what? Then Augustine remembered the scroll he had left with his close friend, Alypius—a scroll of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome.

Augustine jumped up, went to his friend, and found the scroll. He decided to read the first passage his eyes fell upon:

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Romans 13:13–14)

Instantly, a sense of peace came over him. His struggle with God was over. Though he could not resist temptation in his own power, he could clothe [himself] with the Lord Jesus Christ and allow the Lord live through him. At that moment, Augustine was a changed man. His transformation had begun with two sentences from the book of Romans.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is his greatest. In fact, I believe it is the most powerful document ever written. Of all the New Testament letters, Romans is the broadest in scope and deepest in insight. No other document has affected and transformed more human lives. Here are just a few stories of lives it has changed:

Eleven centuries after St. Augustine, a German theologian named Martin Luther was meditating on this great phrase from Romans 1:17: The righteous will live by faith. As he contemplated those words, Luther realized that he had completely missed the point of the Christian gospel! True Christianity is not a matter of rites and rituals and ceremonies. The essence of Christianity is faith, not works! Those words from the book of Romans lit a fire in Luther’s soul, a fire that would become the great Protestant Reformation.

The seventeenth-century Puritan preacher John Bunyan spent twelve years in jail in Bedford, England. His crime? He left the Church of England and sought to worship God according to his own conscience. While studying Romans in his jail cell, Bunyan was inspired by the themes of Romans to write an allegorical novel, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Today, that novel—which illustrates how Christians should relate to God and the world around them—is still a widely read classic.

Another whose life was transformed by the message of Romans was a young Anglican minister, John Wesley. In 1735, Wesley went to America, where he had served a brief stint as a pastor to British colonists in Savannah, Georgia. There he was spurned by the woman he loved and rejected by his congregation. He returned to England in February 1738, embittered and dejected, feeling like a complete failure.

For the next few weeks, Wesley tried to live a righteous life, but he continually battled temptation. I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering, he later recalled. I fell and rose, and fell again. During this time, he often doubted God and his own faith.

On May 14 of that year, Wesley went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. There, a man was reading to the congregation from Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans. Wesley wrote in his journal that as he listened, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation.

As a result of his encounter with the book of Romans, John Wesley’s life was transformed. He became one of the leaders of the Great Evangelical Awakening that brought thousands of people to faith in Jesus Christ.

That is the power of this amazing book. Embedded in the pages of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the power to change individual lives and entire societies. It is a power that we all long to experience as followers of Jesus Christ.

Every Christian should study and master the book of Romans. I hope that, by the time you have completed this study, you will be able to outline the great themes of Romans from memory. I pray that you will develop such a love for this life-changing New Testament letter that you will return to it again and again, and that you will live daily in its truths. If you do, I guarantee that it will change your life, just as it has changed thousands of lives through the centuries.

The Central Truth of Romans: Jesus Is Lord

The theme of Romans could be expressed as From Guilt to Glory. In other words, this letter deals with how God, through Jesus Christ, has enabled human beings to move from a place of condemnation and sin to a place of reconciliation and righteousness. The sixteen chapters of Romans divide into three main sections with a number of subsections (see The Structure of Romans).

Paul’s letter to the Romans was written around AD 56 to 58 while he was in the Greek city of Corinth on his third missionary journey. As you read this letter, you can catch glimpses of the social and spiritual condition of Corinth at that time. Corinth was located at the crossroads of trade in the Roman Empire, much like New York or San Francisco in our own time. And like those modern cities, Corinth was notorious for its godlessness and its atmosphere of bold, blatant immorality. Paul characterizes that godlessness in his letter to the Romans.

Paul wrote less than thirty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The impact of the life of Jesus was sharply etched in the minds of Christians throughout the Roman Empire. Paul wrote Romans to instruct them and remind them of these profound events that had shaken the first-century world.

The first seventeen verses of Romans are an introduction to the great themes of the letter. In those opening verses, Paul lays out the themes he will return to repeatedly. There is a logical, literary order to them that leads us to a central theme: Jesus is Lord. We see it in the first seven verses:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:1–7)

The heart of Paul’s argument is Jesus Himself. As he wrote in Colossians 1:27, Christ in you, the hope of glory is the one great truth from which all others flow. Other profound truths, such as justification by faith and sanctification (solving the sin problem) are certainly important, but the great central theme of the New Testament is the astonishing fact of our union with Jesus Christ, God’s Son. That’s why the person of the Lord Jesus is central to Paul’s thinking, just as it is central to God’s program for humanity. We do not simply believe in a creed or follow a philosopher. Our lives are joined to the life of the Savior, the Redeemer, the Lord.

Another major theme of Paul’s introduction is that Jesus is the promised Messiah whose coming was predicted throughout the Old Testament. The good news of salvation was promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son. The Christian faith was not invented in the first century ad; rather, it was the culmination of centuries of Jewish teachings, Jewish prophecies, and Jewish anticipation throughout Old Testament times.

In John 5:39, Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, You diligently study the [Old Testament] Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me. Later, after His death and resurrection, Jesus met two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize Him, nor did they understand that His death and resurrection had been predicted many times in the Old Testament Scriptures. So Luke 24:27 tells us, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he [Jesus] expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (KJV).

The great messianic passages of the Old Testament point unerringly to Jesus. When reading the Old Testament, we are gripped by the feeling that Someone is coming! All the prophets speak of Him, all the sacrifices point to Him, all the longings of humanity are focused on the coming Person who will one day arrive and solve the great crises of history. When the Old Testament closes, it is clear that He has not yet arrived—but He is expected.

And when the New Testament opens, the first story we read is of angels appearing to shepherds near Bethlehem. They sing a song of hope: For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11 KJV). The Promised One has come!

These resounding truths are echoed in Paul’s introduction to Romans as he points to Jesus as the One who was promised beforehand. Paul presents Jesus to us in two unique ways:

First, Paul speaks of His human nature. In Romans 1:3, Paul tells us that Jesus was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

Second, Paul tells us that there was more to Jesus than mere humanity. Linked with His humanness is the profound deity of the Creator God. In verse 4, Paul writes that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead (KJV). That phrase, the Son of God, unmistakably declares the deity of our Lord. He was God. Paul emphasizes this fact many times throughout his letter to the Romans.

Yet, as we see in Romans and other letters of Paul, Jesus set aside His deity when He came in human form. He didn’t come to act as God; rather, He came to act as a man filled by God. Jesus set an example for us, because Christians must live the same way, seeking to do God’s will by being filled with God’s Spirit. You and I can’t be God, but we can be possessed by God, so that He can fill us and use us to accomplish His good and perfect will.

In verse 4, Paul notes three signs of the deity of Jesus, saying that He was declared to be the Son of God (1) with power, (2) according to the spirit of holiness, (3) by the resurrection from the dead.

First, the phrase with power speaks of the miracles Jesus did—the healings, the deliverance of people from demons, the miraculous feedings, and many more signs of His authority as the Son of God.

Second, Jesus came by the spirit of holiness. Understand, this word holiness does not refer to putting on religious or sanctimonious airs. The word holiness actually comes from the same root as the word wholeness, and that is a good clue as to what holiness means. Paul is telling us that Jesus came as a whole person. He demonstrated a complete and fully integrated human personality. He showed us what it means to be a whole person living in a world of brokenness. When we look at Jesus, we see what He is calling us to become as whole and holy human beings. That is good news for us all.

Third, the deity of Jesus is authenticated in His resurrection from the dead. That is where our faith ultimately rests. We can have confidence that God has told us the truth because of the historical fact that God raised Jesus from the dead. The Resurrection cannot be explained away. We will explore this truth as we move deeper into Romans.

Loved by God

In the next section of his introduction to Romans, Paul makes a profound statement about the Christians in Rome—a statement that also applies to you and me as Christians today:

And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:6–7)

First, Paul says that Christians have a calling. We are not self-made or man-made saints; we are called by God to be His saints. The word saint comes from sanctify, which means to set something or someone apart for a specific purpose. So when Paul tells us we are loved by God and called to be saints, he wants us to know that God cares deeply about us. He has called us and has set us apart for His eternal purpose.

God calls each of us in a unique way. But one common thread runs through every story of conversion to Christ: God sought us out. We may have thought we were seeking God, but the truth is that He sought us.

That is why Jesus said to His disciples, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away (John 6:37). God sought us, God called us, God placed us in the care and keeping of His Son, Jesus.

Look again at Paul’s remarkable statement that we are loved by God. Later in Romans, Paul will have to scold these saints and correct them, so he begins by reminding them they are loved by God. He wants them to know that any correction that must take place will take place in a context of God’s perfect love for them.

This is the basis of our relationship with God: He loves us. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul writes. Grace and peace should characterize our lives. The grace and peace God gives us are proof of His love for us. We cannot earn grace; it is a gift of God’s love.

Faith that Startles the World

Next, Paul highlights the faith of the Christians in Rome:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. (Romans 1:8)

The whole world was talking about the faith of the Roman Christians! As Christians today, we tend to think the world will be impressed by the splendor of our church buildings, our growing congregations, or our glitzy, Broadway-class music programs. But these things do not impact the world for Jesus Christ. When God impacts the world through His saints, He does so through their faith.

The vibrant, vital faith of the Christians in Rome startled the entire world. Where did this vitality come from? Paul gives us this clue:

God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. (Romans 1:9–10)

The faith of the Christians in Rome startled the world because Paul and other Christians were praying for them. At this point in his ministry, Paul had never been to Rome. Even so, he prayed continually for the believers in Rome: How constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times. That is why the church in Rome was flourishing.

We need to recover this urgent sense of concern and prayer for one another. I am convinced that it would make all the difference in the world if we would continually uphold each other in prayer.

Set Apart from birth

Next, Paul points out that the Christians in Rome have been strengthened by gifts of the Holy Spirit:

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. (Romans 1:11–12)

Here we see what makes a church strong: the exercise of spiritual gifts. When Paul says he wants to impart a spiritual gift to the Christians in Rome, he doesn’t mean that he has all the gifts in a bag and he doles them out wherever he goes. The word impart means to share. Paul can’t give anyone a spiritual gift; only the Holy Spirit can do that. Paul wants to share with the Roman Christians the gifts God has given. He wants to use his gifts among them, and he wants to experience their gifts in his own life. Spiritual gifts are given so that Christians can be mutually strengthened in the faith. That is how a church should function. The saints minister to each other, building up one another by their faith and by sharing and exercising their spiritual gifts.

Next, Paul defines himself as the great apostle to the Gentiles. As he writes, the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus the Messiah is going out beyond Israel and into the world. Paul himself is helping build the bridge between Israel and the Gentiles.

In Romans 1:1, Paul identifies himself with these words: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. He is a called apostle, and it was God who called him. When did God call him? You might think Paul’s calling took place when he had his blinding encounter with the Lord Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1–16). But no, Paul tells us in Galatians 1:15 that God "set me apart from birth and called me by his grace" (italics added).

God, who sees the end from the beginning, knows us and calls from a time before we even exist. That is the wonder of the God we serve. He sets us apart even before our lives and our awareness are formed. God used all the events of Paul’s early life—his training under Gamaliel, his zeal as a young Pharisee, and even his early hatred of the gospel. This was all part of setting Paul apart as an apostle. When the time came for Paul to be converted, God opened the trap door on the Damascus Road and Paul fell through. That trap had been set for Paul long before he was born, and every experience of his pre-Christian life was designed to make him a more effective minister of the gospel.

So don’t ever think that your life before you met Jesus was wasted. God can take all the sin, rebellion, sorrow, pain, and regret of your old life, and He can use it to make you a more effective minister of His grace in your new life in Christ. God doesn’t merely redeem our souls. He redeems all the experiences of our lives, and He refashions them for His good, for our good, and for the good of the people around us.

What does Paul mean when he calls himself an apostle? What is an apostle? The word Paul uses that we translate apostle is kletos in the original Greek, which comes from klesis, a divine calling or an invitation from God. Paul tells us in verse 5, Through [Jesus] and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. So an apostle is someone called by God and set apart so that he might call others to faith and obedience. Paul continues:

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. (Romans 1:13–15)

Note that phrase: "I am obligated. . . ." Here Paul tells us his mission in life. He is driven by a sense of purpose so clear and overwhelming that he considers it an obligation upon his life. He is obligated to preach the gospel to the Jews, to the Greeks, and to everyone else. He senses an urgent imperative to preach the gospel wherever he goes, to whoever he meets. Why? Because the gospel is the cure for sin!

If you were the sole possessor of a cure for cancer, would you be quiet about it? Or would you share the secret with everyone around you? Paul was intensely aware that he possessed the secret that everyone needs. He had the cure for the sin disease, and he was determined to share that cure with everyone he met.

Proud of the Gospel

What is this cure for sin that Paul feels driven to preach to the nations? He describes his message in the next two verses:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith. (Romans 1:16–17)

Paul closes with a quotation from the Old Testament: The righteous will live by his faith (Habakkuk 2:4). This is the phrase that gripped the heart of Martin Luther. This great truth, Paul says, is the life-transforming message of the Christian gospel: If you want to live a righteous life, then you must stop trying to achieve it by your own efforts. The righteous life can only be achieved by faith—that is, by a trust-relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

This is a transforming truth, and Paul says he is not ashamed of it. In fact, he is proud of it. He proclaims it boldly everywhere he goes. He can’t wait to get to Rome so he can preach this message there.

Paul is especially eager to proclaim this gospel in Rome because the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do today. Roman military power had conquered the entire known world. Roman knowledge was power—their road-building technology, their war-making technology, their legal knowledge, their literary and artistic skill. Roman economic power had brought the wealth of the world to Rome through both trade and conquest.

But Paul knew the Romans were powerless when it came to changing hearts. Even with all its wealth and military might, the Roman Empire was riddled with violence, corruption, despair, and suicide. The noble Romans lived meaningless lives; their wealth and power gave them no inner peace.

That is why Paul is proud of the gospel. That is why he is eager to preach the gospel in the capital city of the Roman Empire. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God—power to do the very things that Roman power could not do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is power without rival, power to transform human lives, power to live a righteous life.

The righteousness of God, Paul says, is received by faith. We cannot earn God’s righteousness, but we can receive it anytime we need it—and that is good news! Whenever we feel depressed, discouraged, or defeated, we can recall that God loves us, restores us, and gives us His righteousness to cover our own sin and inadequacy.

In the first seventeen verses of Romans 1, Paul has introduced the great themes of this letter. As we continue through this book together, I trust that these themes will transform our hearts as they have transformed the hearts of the first-century church, and of believers down through the ages. May you and I add our names to that list—Augustine, Luther, Bunyan, and Wesley—and may our hearts be strangely, wonderfully warmed by the life-changing truths of Romans.

Chapter 2

The Divine Diagnosis

Romans 1:18–32

The most famous mutiny in history was the rebellion aboard the HMS Bounty in April 1789. That incident