Romans 1:1-7

 

Like most of Paul's letters, Romans begins with a salutation. Usually, Paul's salutations contain certain elements: Paul identifies himself by name, identifies his profession, sometimes joins others with him in the salutation, addresses the church whom he writes, and wishes them grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (See, for example, 2 Corinthians 1:1-2) And you notice most of those here in the salutations in Romans. But like most of Romans, it is longer than most of Paul's letters and takes up the first 7 verses of the epistle.

Notice those elements I mentioned. In verse 1 Paul identifies himself by name and then as a servant of Jesus and as an apostle of the gospel. Verses 2-6 are a parenthesis describing the gospel that he was an apostle of. Verse 7 identifies his audience: the Christians of Rome who were beloved of God, those who were called out to be or invited to be saints. And he wishes them “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All that is more or less standard for Paul's letters.

We should note one thing in verse 1. Paul identifies himself as a doulos. A doulos is a servant, a slave, one bound in service to another. That is how Paul refers to himself, as a slave to Jesus Christ, bound in service to him, under an obligation to Him and therefore under an obligation to His gospel.

The key idea of Romans is that of the gospel—it is, if you will, the subject line of Romans. In verse 1 Paul makes it clear that he had been called to be an apostle and had been set apart to proclaim the gospel. Verses 2-6 then expand on this idea, showing what the gospel was.

Verse 2 emphasizes the continuity of the gospel. The gospel wasn't some strange, new idea that Paul thought up one morning. He wasn't a crank who came up with some novel doctrine. The gospel which the apostles preached had been promised by the prophets and written down in the Old Testament. Anyone who wanted proof of this could look at the OT for themselves, where it was all written down in black and white. As we go through Romans, Paul will frequently appeal to the words of the Old Testament. There is no conflict between the Old and the New Testaments because the New Testament is the fulfillment and consummation of the Old.

Verses 3-4 emphasize the author of the gospel. Though verse 1 makes it clear that the gospel originated with God the Father, the actual work of the gospel was accomplished by and the actual center of the gospel is God's son Jesus Christ our Lord. In these verses we have very clearly the dual nature of Christ--He was the descendant of David biologically, but He was also the Son of God. He was a king by His humanity and He was appointed to a position of power by the Holy Spirit because of His divinity.

Verse 4 also has the seal of the gospel; the thing which initiated the final phase of Christ's work and the thing which establishes and constitutes the gospel: the resurrection of the dead, and specifically Jesus's resurrection, though that includes the general resurrection within it since that resurrection is affected by the power of Christ's resurrection. This point will come up again later in Romans, but one thing I've come to realize while studying the Old Testament over the last several years is that we do not talk enough about the Resurrection. Almost all our songs and hymns about Christ focus on his death. We hang crosses in our churches; we only set up empty tombs at Easter. And that is not to take away from the importance of Christ's death. But I think to the New Testament church, the resurrection was every bit as important as his death. If you take the resurrection away, you have a different story and a different religion.

Verse 5 has the results of the gospel, which is that we have received grace. That is what all Christians receive from the gospel, what everyone in the world could receive if they wanted. But Paul specifically, through the gospel, had received the call to be an apostle. And that call was to bring about the obedience of faith, to lead people into the service of Christ out of every nation, including those at Rome.

And verse 5 also has the goal or final end of the gospel, which is “for his name;” that is,  for His glory or, as Ephesians 1:6 puts it: “To the praise of the glory of his grace.”

This is all just the introduction, but it gives us a picture of who Paul was and, more importantly, who it was that Paul served. Paul was a servant of Jesus and Jesus was and is the center of the gospel and therefore is the center of the book of Romans.