Legal Document

Saul’s religion drove him into the blackness of a night of antipathy against the Lord Jesus and His followers. His theological bigotry impelled him forward by an uncontrollable force, making him willing to perpetrate diabolical cruelties upon those who believed in and followed the Lord Jesus. We see this come out in all its frightful force as he stood that day on the street of Jerusalem, watching the stoning of Stephen. One would think that the sight of Steven’s face shinning as the face of an angel would have been enough to melt the stoutest heart – but Saul stood there unmoved, his heart like the flinty rock, consenting to the murder. It was not that Saul was essentially a wicked man, a criminal person who delighted in sin. On the contrary, in the Epistle to the Philippians he gives us his religious history. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, an exemplary character in the religious world. In his Epistle to Timothy, he lays the claim that he served God from his forefathers with a pure conscience. when he was consenting to Stephen’s death, He thought he was doing the will of God. The crimes he perpetrated were done “ignorantly in unbelief.” Then the mercy of God reached him and he was wonderfully converted.

From this traditional background we can see how those avenues of religious bigotry gave Paul a proper appreciation of the mighty love of Christ that had rescued him from the perdition of such folly. “He who is forgiven much, the same loveth much.” Thus Paul comes upon the scene. He is Saul with a new name; a regenerated heart, humbled and contrite, but still with the same astuteness of mind displayed in his unconverted days. Now that great intellect is captivated by the Spirit of God. Paul is renewed, and in the spirit of his mind thoughts brought into obedience to Christ. It is not exactly that he was given a new mind but rather that his mental capacity was taken over by the power of the Spirit.

We can see how Paul is renewed and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – thoroughly equipped by his mental development to set forth this mighty legal document of the New Testament called “The Epistle to the Romans.”

We now consider the Epistle itself. This letter is of great importance for this age because our feet are so firmly set in the shifting sands of man’s theological opinions and organizations. We are living in a time when Satan is able to instill doubts and misgivings into the hearts of not only unregenerate men, but God’s own children as well. Therefore, we must lay hold of the truths of the Epistle to the Romans. Therein, by the Spirit, Paul takes up certain sterling, foundational questions – approaching them from a legal standpoint; tracing them to their logical conclusions in order that these great moral problems between God and men might be settled conclusively and forever.

Thus we find in the opening chapters of the Epistle to the Romans both Jews and Gentiles are considered. Their moral and spiritual qualifications are measured; their actions are weighed in the balance of God’s righteous judgment, and both declared to be criminals; brought guilty before God; their mouths stopped – both condemned. The general charge brought against Gentiles is that they have the testimony of creation, witnessing the power and Godhead of the Creator. Instead of responding to it, according to the intelligence God has given to the creature, they refused its testimony and went into idolatry, fashioning God in their minds after the order of corruptible man, beasts, and creeping things. The Jews are then taken up as having the testimony of the law, God’s righteous requirements whereby men may walk in this world for the good pleasure of the Lord. On the basis of law, they had broken their covenant with God. Thus the Gentile without law is brought in guilty and the Jew under law is brought in guilty. The third chapter of Romans declares that there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Thus we have the first question settled in the Epistle to the Romans – the sin question; the question of guilt. Now this is a means to an end. In chapter three we stand before the bar of God’s justice, both Jew and Gentile, unequivocally condemned. But we are not left there. Immediately God’s righteousness is set forth, and it is not a righteousness attained by human effort, good works, or our own doings. It is the righteousness of God which is set forth on the principle of the faith of Jesus Christ, through His shed blood. Thus the second moral question, God’s righteousness, is settled at the Cross of Calvary. Then we have the great question of the clearance of the sinner from guilt: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted unto him for righteousness.” Thereby the sinner is justified. In a sense, the one who has sinned and thereafter placed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is brought to a legal status before God – a place where he is accepted; brought into the favor of God as if he had never committed a single sin.

Then, as we travel across the pages of this wonderful Epistle, every moral and spiritual problem between the creature and the Creator is taken up and settled with a finality that silences every accusing voice. In chapter eight the grand unanswered challenge is proclaimed: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.” And the final conclusion of the matter is that “nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”