From Sinner to Saint: Book of Romans Series #2
We are certainly living in a world that is filled with bad news. It seems daily, on the television and in the newspaper, the news is increasingly bad. It seems that every day the news is filled with violence and tragedy, with horror and with heartache. It seems everywhere we turn today, the news is increasingly bad.
That’s one of the reasons I love the Bible and enjoy talking about the Bible. The Bible is a book that is filled with Good News. In fact, every time you open the Bible, somewhere in that passage you will find a message from God about Good News. The Bible is Good News from heaven.
Of course, the Bible does have some bad news. You have to be honest about it. I heard about a doctor who said to his patient, “I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which do you want first?” The patient said, “Let me have the good news first.” The doctor said, “You have only three days to live.” The patient said, “If that’s good news, what’s the bad news?” The doctor said, “I should have told you two days ago.”
Good news and bad news. I heard about a group of soldiers that had been out in a field for a long, long time. Their lieutenant called them together and said, “Men, I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is you are all going to get a change of socks. The bad news is Smith is going to change with Jones and Adams is going to change with Williams.”
The Bible does have some bad news in Romans 3:23. There is the bad news that all have sinned. In Romans 6:23 is the bad news that the wages of sin is death. But the Bible also has some good news because the Bible says in Romans 5:8 that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. In Romans 10:9 it says, “If we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.” That is the good news.
The Bible is a message about the Good News of what God has done in His Son, the Lord Jesus. In Romans 1:9, Paul calls it the Gospel of His Son. In Romans 1:16 he calls it the Gospel of Christ. Religion is bad news. Religion is man trying to reach up to God. That’s bad news—you can’t get to God that way. Salvation is good news because salvation is from God, through His Son, dealing with the sin problem, making it possible for us to be forgiven of sin, and the guilt of sin removed from our lives. The Bible is a message of Good News.
I. We Have Good News Which Contains a Promise
We read in Romans 1:2, “which He had promised before by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.” He is referring to the Old Testament and the fact that God inspired Old Testament prophets to write in the Old Testament the promise which He was making to men.
All through the centuries God was making a promise. All through the ages the prophets were recording faithfully the promise that God had made. In the Scriptures God gives us the good news, and it is the good news of what He has done to make it possible for our salvation.
The Gospel was not something that came to Paul in a sudden brainstorm. The Gospel was not something that I just thought about and decided to record in a book. The Gospel is Good News that goes all the way back through thousands of years in the promises God made through the prophets.
In Romans 1:2, we notice here that the Good News verifies the Holy Scriptures. When Paul refers to the Holy Scriptures, he is talking primarily about the Old Testament. He is basically saying that in the Gospel, God has kept the promise that He has made all through those centuries. A promise is only as good as the person who makes that promise.
For instance, if I should say to you, “I want to promise you that I have deposited a million dollars in the bank downtown in your name.” you would probably not get very excited because the promise would only be as good as the ability of the one who makes the promise.
But if Elon Musk said, “I will put a million dollars in your account,” you might get a little bit more excited. God says that He has verified His promise of the Gospel made in the Old Testament in the fulfillment of all of those promises in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, the questions come up, “How did you know those prophets were telling the truth? How can you tell whether or not what they say can be depended upon?” Well, in the Old Testament God had a very simple method whereby you could tell whether or not the promise of the prophet was valid. In Deuteronomy 18:21-22 Moses writes, “If thou shall say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken.”
God says there is a very simple way to tell whether or not it’s real. If what they promised comes to pass, you know they were correct. If it doesn’t come to pass, you know they were not correct. But God says in the Bible, all through the ages the prophets predicted and promised the Good News that Jesus Christ would come into the world, and God verifies the Old Testament Scriptures in the fulfillment of the Gospel.
Isaiah said He would be born of a virgin. Matthew 1:23 says Jesus was born of a virgin. Micah said Jesus Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Luke 2:11 tells us Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jeremiah said He would be offspring of the seed of David. Matthew 1:1 and Revelation 22:16 say Jesus was the offspring of David.
David said in Psalm 22 that the Savior was going to be crucified. At the time he made that statement, crucifixion was unknown in the world. Yet in Matthew 27:35, the Bible says they crucified Him. David said He would die of a broken heart. In Psalm 22 it talks about His heart melting like wax. In John 19:34, when the soldier put his spear into the side of the Lord Jesus, out came blood and water. He died of a broken heart. Everything the Old Testament prophesied and promised about the Lord was verified in the fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Good News also unifies the Old Testament Scriptures. When you open the Bible you will see that there are two great divisions. There is the Old Testament, and there is also the New Testament. When you look at those two you need to be aware of the fact that these 66 books were composed over a period of 1,500 years. And when you read the Old Testament and the New Testament, you need to be aware of the 400 years between the Old and the New Testaments. Yet when you read the Bible, you are no doubt absolutely astounded at the unbelievable unity you find between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Someone said, the New is in the Old contained. The Old is in the New explained. The New is in the Old concealed. The Old is in the New revealed. The Bible holds together and it all comes together because the Bible centers in the person of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ who makes the Bible hold together. It is Jesus Christ who is the focal point of all of the Scriptures. In the Old Testament they said He is coming. In the New Testament they say He has come. The Old Testament predicts Him. The New Testament presents Him. It all comes together, and it is all unified in the person of Jesus Christ.
In Acts 10:43 we read, “to him (Jesus) give all of the prophets witness.” In Revelation 19:10 we read, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” When you lay hold of the fact that Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of all of the Bible, then your Bible is unified and begins to come together. As you go through the Old Testament you will find everywhere that Jesus is the central theme.
II. We Have Good News Which Contains a Person
In Romans 1:3, we read, “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” He is saying that this Good News, this Gospel, concerns a person—the Lord Jesus Christ. The word “concerning” is a preposition. We get our word “perimeter” from it. The word “concerning” means it is something which revolves around, centers around. Paul is saying that the Gospel centers in Jesus Christ. It is all about who Jesus is and what He came into this world to do.
In verses 3 and 4 we are given the essentials of who Jesus is. Circle two words in those two verses in your Bible. Verse 3: the word “made.” In verse 4, circle the word “declared.” There you have it—MADE—that’s His human nature. DECLARED—that’s His divine nature. When verse 3 says Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, Paul is pointing to His humanity. The Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ became a man. The Bible teaches that He was born in the royal line of King David.
If you were a Jew, you would pick up your New Testament and you would be aware that one of the requirements for the Savior was that He would be in the royal lineage of King David. When you turn to the last page of the Bible, in Revelation 22:16, Jesus says, “I am the root and the offspring of David.” As to His humanity, He was born into the family of King David and He became a man. Jesus Christ took upon Himself human flesh. In Hebrews 2:16 we learn that He did not take upon Himself the nature of angels, but He took upon Himself the nature of Abraham. He became a man. That means Jesus got tired, He slept at night, paid taxes, experienced pain, and died.
In 1 Peter 3:18 we read, “For Christ also hath suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh.” In His human nature, He was put to death. He suffered for our sins that He might bring us to God. He became a man. He was just like us except the Bible says He was without sin. The Bible says He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Yet, Jesus Christ in His humanity died on a cross. He suffered in His flesh for our sins that He might bring us to God.
Then, in Romans 1:4, we read, “was declared to be the Son of God.” Now Paul is focused on His divinity. Jesus was man, but Jesus was also God. Jesus was fully man and yet He was fully God. The only way to really put that together is to call Him the God-man. He is altogether God and yet He is altogether man. He is as much man as if He had not been God, and yet He is as much God as if He had not been man.
Sometimes we see that marvelous fusing of the two natures of Jesus Christ at one point in time. In Mark 4, when Jesus was in the ship, He was asleep on a pillow. We see His humanity. Then the storm came up and those disciples got afraid and were going down for the third time. They came and they shook Jesus and woke Him up and said, “Master, don’t You care that we perish?” As a man He was asleep. But then He sat on the deck of that ship, looked at the waves and at the storm, and said, “Peace, be still.” The waves laid down and a calm covered the sea.
What really proves to us that Jesus Christ is divine? That He is God in human flesh? Paul tells us in Romans 1:4, “According to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” The word translated “declared” in verse 4 is close in meaning to the word in verse 1, which is translated “separated.”
“Separated” is our English word, “horizon.” The fact that God had lifted Paul to a brand-new horizon had showed him things he never knew existed before. The word translated “declared” in verse 4 has that same concept. It means to mark off by boundaries. A horizon means that your vision is marked off by certain boundaries and that’s as far as you can see. This statement here means that Jesus Christ was marked off by boundaries and was declared to be the Son of God. And there is one event that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that He was the Son of God. It is the resurrection!
There was a time when Paul thought Jesus was a phony. But there was one fact that convinced Paul beyond everything else that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God. Paul was on his way to the city of Damascus. About noon time there was a light that came from heaven above the brightness of the sun. Paul was smashed to the ground in conviction and he cried out, “Who art thou, Lord?” From heaven the word came, “I am Jesus.” It was the biggest shock he ever got in his life. He thought Jesus Christ was dead. He though Jesus Christ had been buried and put away forever in a tomb. But on the Damascus Road Jesus said, “I am Jesus.” Not “I was Jesus.” “I am Jesus, I’m alive.” It was the resurrection of Jesus Christ that proved the case to the apostle Paul.
Only God can come out of the grave. Do you know anybody else who has? The resurrection of Jesus Christ did not make Jesus the Son of God; it proved He was the Son of God. When Jesus died on that cross He was really dead. Nobody has ever doubted that Jesus really died on the cross. Most people believe that Jesus Christ really did die on the cross. Then they took down the lifeless form of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible says they took His body and wrapped it up in linen and covered it with spices—about 100-120 pounds of spices on top of the body of Jesus.
In that tomb they placed that body of the Lord Jesus Christ and then they rolled a stone that had to have weighed hundreds of pounds. Then they affixed the official Roman seal around that stone. Two soldiers were stationed to guard the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham is in the Holy Land. They put him in a tomb, and he’s been there literally thousands of year. He hasn’t come out of that grave yet. Billions of people have lived and died on this earth and yet they are still in their tombs today.
Three days later, those spices could not hold Him. That stone could not confine Him. Those soldiers could not restrict Him. On the third day the Bible says that Jesus Christ came up out of that grave and Jesus Christ walked out of that tomb and He said to the world, “I’m alive forevermore.” Only God can come walking out of the grave. He is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
III. We Have Good News Which Contains a Purpose
In Romans 1:5, we read, “By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name.” Let me paraphrase these words. This verse says, we have been saved by grace and we have been sent the message to all of the nations, all of the people of the world, for obedience of faith. In other words, that they might by faith obey this good news and be saved.
Paul is saying that all of us that are saved by grace are God’s apostles in this sense in that we are messengers to carry this good news to everybody in the world so they will be saved. If you really want to understand the book of Romans, the bottom line of the book of Romans is that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross, that if you would receive Him as your Savior, you would be saved. The bottom line of the whole Bible is that if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, you will be saved. The bottom line of the whole church and what it’s all about is, that you might believe in Jesus Christ and might be saved.
He says in verse 6, “among whom you (Romans, specifically) are the called (if you are saved, you are called).” Verse 7, “to all that be in Rome.” He was talking specifically to them, but the Holy Spirit now takes this message and says to us to impact our cities and communities. To all of you who by faith have obeyed the message, you are the called of God and are saved.
What is the purpose of the Good News? It is that you might believe the Gospel and be saved and thus become one of God’s loved ones. We read in verse 7, “beloved of God.” That’s one of the most precious statements in the whole Bible. He is saying if you are saved, you are one of God’s loved ones. The term “beloved” was used especially of Jesus.
When Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water in Matthew 3, the Bible says the heavens opened up and the Spirit of God, like a dove, descended upon Him. Then there was a voice out of heaven that said, “This (Jesus) is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, the cloud came out of heaven, and out of the cloud the voice said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.” The special name God the Father had for His Son, Jesus, was “My beloved.”
In Ephesians 1:6, we read, “To the praise of his grace, wherein he (God) hath made us (poor old sinners that got saved) accepted in the beloved.” That means you and me, just hell-deserving sinners, in the family of the devil, come to the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “O, God, I don’t deserve to be saved, I can’t live good enough, I can’t live right enough to be saved, but I believe Jesus died on the cross. Would You save me and let me go to heaven?” God says, “I’ll just accept you into the Beloved. Because of My beloved Son, Jesus, I’ll make you one of My beloved.” God loves the world and that’s wonderful. But if you are saved, you are beloved, and that’s even better!
I love everybody and love all people, but there are some who are my beloved. Sheri, my wife, is in the beloved. She’s my beloved wife. Then I have two daughters. They are my beloved children.
Would you believe it if I told you that God loves you just as much as He does Jesus? If you can really grasp this truth, it will probably overwhelm you with tears. In John 17:23, we read the words of Jesus, “I in them (you), and thou in me, that they (all of us who are saved) may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou has sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” God says, “I want the whole world to know about My saved people. I love them just as much as I do You, Son.” For in the person of His Son, I’m just as dear as He. You are His beloved.
You are also His lifted ones. Beloved of God, called to be saints. If you are saved, you are a saint. It has nothing to do with your conduct; that comes up later. It’s talking about your position before God. There are not but two kinds of people in the world, saints and sinners. Are you saved? Then you are a saint.
The moment you receive the Lord Jesus Christ, He lifts you and makes you a saint. How does He do it? Grace and peace. God’s unmerited favor. God stooping down. Peace—God made peace through the blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, at the cross. That’s the whole purpose of the Gospel. That’s what it’s all about, beginning from way back in the prophets all the way down to right now. It’s all designed that you and I might be His loved ones and His lifted ones.
There was a man who ran a children’s home. The children would come from various parts of the country by train and he would always meet the train. When the little ones would come off the train, the great man would reach down and pick them up in his arms and shower them with kisses. The train had come in, the little ones were coming off the train, and he was picking them up and showering them with kisses.
Standing over on the side to herself was a little girl who had been in a tragic fire, losing her parents and severely scarring her face. She was self-conscious about it. After all the other little children had come, she walked up to the great man and said, “Sir, I know I’m scarred and I’m not as pretty as the rest of the children, but would you just at least give me a hug?” He reached down and picked her up in his strong, loving arms, and he covered that scarred little face with kisses. Our God of heaven wants to shower us with kisses and call us His beloved, now and for all of eternity.
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