04.01. LESSON 1

LESSON 1

Though Romans was written near the close of Paul’s missionary ministry, reasonably, because of its being a fuller and more systematic discussion of the fundamentals of Christianity than the other Epistles of the New Testament, it is placed before them. Paul’s earliest writings, the Thessalonian letters, written some five years before Romans, reasonably, because they feature Christ’s second coming and the end of the age, are placed, save the Pastoral Epistles and Philemon, last of his fourteen Epistles. If Mordecai, without explicit evidence, believed it was like God to have Esther on the throne at a most crucial time (Esther 4:14), why should it be "judged incredible" that God had something to do with this arrangement of his Bible? The theme of the Bible from Eden onward is the redemption of fallen man. Romans begins at man’s end of this long, difficult way up from darkness to light, and portrays him as "having no hope and without God in the world." Ephesians begins at God’s end, and declares that in past eternity before the foundation of the world, God purposed and planned to descend to earth as man that he might redeem man from ruin. Both of these ends are found in both books, but each book treats one of them with special emphasis. In both books, God and man starting, so to speak, from their opposite ends meet in Christ, the God-man.

Commendations

Biblical scholars have heaped many tributes on Romans. Martin Luther wrote: "This Epistle is of the New Testament, the purest gospel. The more time one spends on it, the more precious it becomes." Luther’s English contemporary, William Tyndale, ninety per cent of whose translation of the Bible was incorporated nearly a century later into our King James Version, said: "No man verily can read it too much, or study it too well... The more it is chewed the pleasanter it is,... so great treasure of spiritual things lieth hid therein." Coleridge, poet, philosopher, theologian, regarded it "the profoundest book in existence." Codet called it "The greatest masterpiece ever conceived and realized by the human mind." David Bacon wrote: "The faith of Christendom in its best periods has been more indebted to this Epistle than to any other portion of the Living Oracles." F. W. Farrar: "It is unquestionably the clearest and fullest statement of the doctrines of sin and deliverance from it, as held by the greatest of the apostles." These encomiums are cited to show what learned, pious men have thought of Romans, and perchance thereby to whet our appetites for its study. Undoubtedly, the roots of the Protestant Reformation grew up out of the deep, rich soil of Romans and Galatians.

If gifted, godly men over the centuries have found matter and inspiration for deep, prolonged study of Romans, the book must merit, require, and reward such study. It is not a book to be only tasted, or hastily swallowed: it is a book to be "chewed and digested." It cannot be read as mere pastime; it is not designed to be a substitute for a game of canasta, or an after-dinner cigar. Romans is meant for serious, eager, earnest students of the deepest and the highest things in life—things "that do often lie too deep for tears."

Methods

About fifty-five years ago, I was a member of a small class in the old Nashville Bible School, studying Romans under James A. Harding. As our final examination, we were seated in a row on the stage of the little chapel one night to repeat from memory, each student a verse at a time, round and round the class (In such manner classes recited the multiplication table in those days as some of my readers recall, "If they be willing to testify"), the entire book before a room full of listeners. I memorized the words of Romans in that class, but most of what I know of its teachings has been learned since. At the same time, I had a class, which required no memory work, under David Lipscomb. While in these classes, I thought a combination of the two methods would be an improvement on either method. A little later when I began to teach Bible myself, I used Harding’s way for a few years more than Lipscomb’s. Gradually, however, as my grasp of the principles of the Bible as a whole grew clearer and firmer, I swung toward Lipscomb’s method, and probably went too far before my retirement. For nearly thirty years, some periods rather intensely, I have been studying Romans that I might teach and practice its great doctrines more effectively. I now have a class studying the book each Sunday morning in the College Church. In this series of essays just beginning in the Firm Foundation, I hope to use what I have gleaned from commentaries and all other sources. Since I have class notes, accumulated over the years, some of which do not always adequately indicate quoted material, I shall sometimes be unable to give credit where it is due. I am profoundly grateful for all the helps to which I have had access, however, and when possible and helpful shall be happy to give credit for quotations.

General Survey of Romans Theme: Christian Philosophy

Although this skeletal outline is very inadequate, it gives an airplane view of the entire book, which will be a good guide in our study, and help keep truth in perspective. God grant that our walk with each other, and with him, through this grand "Cathedral of Christian Truth" may prove to be electrifying and sublimating to us all for time and for eternity.

Questions