Back to the course: Gospel in Romans
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📖 Memory verse: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)
📄 Read the words of this video
Welcome to Gospel in Romans. In this course we shall work through part of Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome. Romans is Paul's explanation of the gospel: the fullest we have in the whole Bible. Paul greets a church he has never seen. He intends to visit them, but for now he writes to them instead. And he begins to give a full account of the gospel.
Right at the start he tells them what the gospel is, and who it is for. Read Romans chapter one, verses sixteen and seventeen.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:16–17, BSB)
The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Not good advice. Not a set of rules to try harder at. It is God's own power to save. And it is for everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Greek. In the Bible, Greek, or Gentile, means everyone who is not a Jew. So that is all of us.
But before a person will welcome good news, they need to know why they need it. No one sends for a doctor until they know they are ill. So Paul begins with the diagnosis. The topic of this first study is: a guilty world. All are guilty before God, and condemned. And all means Jew and Gentile alike: those who had God's written word, and those who did not.
Paul starts with the world that did not have the Scriptures. And his first point is this. God's true nature was obvious from creation. Read Romans chapter one, verses eighteen to twenty.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18–20, BSB)
Look at verse eighteen. Paul speaks of men who suppress the truth. To suppress something is to hold it down, like holding a ball under water. It keeps coming up, and it has to be pushed down again. And what is it that people push down? What is obvious about God from the world He has made: that He is powerful, and that He is divine. Not human. Not one of us.
So even an atheist, who denies God, still has some idea of Him. He lives in God's world, and sees God's workmanship every day. The problem is not a lack of evidence. And so Paul says: men are without excuse.
What did mankind do with that knowledge? Paul's second point: God was likened to images of people and animals. Read Romans chapter one, verses twenty-one to twenty-three.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:22–23, BSB)
They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. Notice where it began, in verse twenty-one: they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him. Idolatry begins with ingratitude.
God strongly forbids images of Himself. The second commandment says: ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol.’ And through Isaiah He asks: ‘To whom will you liken Me or count Me equal?’ He is the Creator of the universe. No image can portray His greatness. Whatever we make will always be less than He is.
And that applies to more than statues. A small view of God is just as dishonouring as an idol. If I picture a God who does not mind about sin, or a God who exists to give me what I want, I have made an image too. It is in my mind instead of on a shelf. But it is not the true God.
How did God respond? Paul's third point: God reacted strongly to this vile portrayal of Himself. Read Romans chapter one, verses twenty-four to thirty-two.
Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen. (Romans 1:24–25, BSB)
God gave them over. Paul says it three times in this passage. This is how the wrath of God, which he spoke of in verse eighteen, is being revealed. God lets people have what they insist on having. Mankind wanted to be free of Him. And He gave them up to their ways: to sexual sin of every kind, and then to a long list of others. Envy. Deceit. Gossip. Arrogance. Disobedience to parents. Most of us will find ourselves somewhere in that list.
They claimed to be wise. But they received in themselves, Paul says, the due penalty for their error. So think about the state of the world. How many of mankind's troubles are their own fault? A great many. Broken homes, cruelty, greed, and war are not things God has done to us. They are what a world looks like when it turns away from its Maker.
Below this video, you'll find the passages from this part, with a question for each.
Then mark this part as complete and continue with part two: Gentiles and Jews are both guilty.
Paul's letter to Rome (1:1–17)
"Romans" is Paul's explanation of the gospel. He greets a church he has never seen (1:1–7). He intends to visit, but writes to them instead (1:8–15). And he begins to give a full account of the gospel.
📖 Read Romans 1:16–17
What does Paul say the gospel is, and who is it for?
16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. 17For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Romans 1:16–17 (BSB)
The topic of our first study is "A guilty world" (Romans 1:1–3:20): all are guilty before God and condemned. "All" means Jew and Gentile alike – those who had God's written revelation and those who did not.
Idol worship, an inexcusable sin (1:18–32)
1. God's true nature was obvious from creation (1:18–20). Mankind suppressed what was obvious about God (vv. 18–19): namely, that God is powerful, and divine, not human (v. 20).
📖 Read Romans 1:18–20
What can everyone see about God in the world He made? Why are people without excuse?
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
Romans 1:18–20 (BSB)
2. God was likened to images of people and animals (1:23). God strongly forbids images of Himself (Exodus 20:4). As Creator of the universe, no image can portray His greatness (Isaiah 46:5–6).
📖 Read Romans 1:21–23
What did people do instead of honouring God? How can a small view of God be like an idol?
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Romans 1:21–23 (BSB)
See also: Exodus 20:4; Isaiah 46:5–6.
3. God reacted strongly to this vile portrayal of Himself (1:24–32). He gave mankind up to their "dishonorable" ways – sexual perversion and increasing sin – and let them suffer from their "wise" (v. 22) and hurtful (v. 27) practices.
📖 Read Romans 1:24–32
What did God do when people turned away from Him? Why are so many of the world's troubles our own fault?
24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen. 26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. 31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless. 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:24–32 (BSB)
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), which is in the public domain. They keep its American spelling. Like many English Bibles, it often says ‘man’, ‘he’ or ‘brothers’ where it means people in general, men and women alike.