Romans
is a letter to, yep, you got it, the Romans.
It was written by Paul, and can I just say . . . that dude means
business. You want a speaker at your
next meeting who is sure to get everyone’s attention? Paul’s your guy. You want someone explaining things to potential
clients? Paul’s the fella for the
job. You want a person who can straighten
out your employees? Go with Paul. Never underestimate a man who spent much of
his life on the dark side, only to become a major player in the greatest story
of all time. Man can tell it like it is.
The
first few chapters of Romans are a bit of a wake-up call. Actually, ‘wake-up call’ is far too trivial a
comparison. This isn’t a Bose radio playing
your current favorite Christian song as the sun rises, the notes slowly
increasing in volume with each minute you choose to cozy deeper under the
covers. It’s more like Paul shows up beside
your bed at three am, when you’re still deliriously asleep, and just as you
float into a glorious dream about winning a $50,000 kitchen renovation from
HGTV that will be completed by Ryan Gosling, Paul begins slapping you in the
face. Over and over he swings, stopping
just long enough to let you take a breath and try to shield yourself with your
hands, but you’re too slow, and WHACK, he hits you again. Hard.
It stings, pulsing with heat that seems to come from deep under your
skin, burning in a way that lets you know the pain won’t end anytime soon. Your brain throbs with the knowledge that you
can’t fight back, and your heart breaks as you realize you lost this battle
before it even began. You’re fully awake
now. You can never enter that state of idyllic
dreaminess again.
YOU.
ARE. A. SINNER.
Paul
makes no bones about the truth. He is
clear about the spiritual state of humans, and it is ugly my friends. Very
ugly.
‘Godless
and wicked’ are two terms Paul uses to describe mankind in the first chapter of
Romans. He also uses words like futile,
foolish, shameful, insolent, arrogant, boastful, and evil.
Feeling
the sting right about now?
I’m
afraid it gets worse.
Paul
says human beings are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. He claims we are gossipers and slanderers who
suppress the truth and have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Need
a tissue . . . or perhaps an entire box of them?
The
thing is - I don’t think Paul is trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. His goal is
not to simply ignite emotion in his audience.
Paul just wants to be sure we completely understand the depth of our
sinful nature, and he wants us to realize he is speaking about everyone. We are all on the same playing field.
We are all on level
ground. There is no need to compare
ourselves to anyone else – we are all counted guilty. You can thank Adam for that. Just as we inherit traits from our ancestors,
we inherited Adam’s sin nature. We are
fallen to our very DNA, people. Every
single one of us has witnessed the irrefutable evidence of God’s existence and
goodness, and we have all chosen to deny it when we live our lives in ways that
do not glorify Him.
“For His
invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been
clearly perceived since the creation of the world, in the things that have been
made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
We
are without excuse.
Paul
goes on to speak of God’s wrath, and after what we’ve just heard, we know
without a doubt it is justified. We deserve
it. But here’s where Romans starts to
get interesting. At first, the idea of
God being intensely angry - having wrath, if you will - makes me squirm a
little bit. My God? Furious?
At me? Nah, that doesn’t sound
like MY God. My God is a peaceful
God. My God is healer and comforter and
redeemer. My God doesn’t get mad at me .
. . right?
Wrong.
The
truth is, God’s wrath is nothing like human wrath. God’s wrath is neither irrational nor vindictive,
because God’s wrath comes from his holiness. Because God is holy, he must have hostility
towards sin, and we must understand this fact if we want to be in a
relationship with him, because it is such an important part of who he is.
There’s
more. And this is where Romans isn’t
just interesting. It’s good.
You
see, Paul refuses to let us remain in the sin of Adam’s mistakes . . . in the
sin we are born with and which follows us all the days of our lives. After he’s beat us down with the truth of who
we are as human beings, of why we are sinners to the core, and how we are wholly
responsible for the wrath of God . . . Paul tells the rest of the story . . .
The
gospel is the power of salvation for all who believe. Romans 1:16
The
gospel is the power of salvation for ALL WHO BELIEVE!
This is the message of Romans. This
is Paul’s message of victory. He has knocked us to the ground and it hurts all
over – we are bruised and battered and burning with the knowledge that we are
sinners and God hates sin. But we don’t
have to stay there, defeated and damned. Yes, we are sinners. Yes, we totally suck sometimes. But there is good news!
We don’t have to give up because God didn’t give up on us. Instead, he sent his one and only son to die on a cross so we could be his forever. Christ’s power and grace are greater than our sin . . . greater than ALL sin.
We
can’t claim to be a follower of Jesus and only speak of God’s love and grace –
that will never be the complete picture of who he truly is. To comprehend God’s unbelievable love for us,
we must first comprehend how much he despises our sin. The perfect fullness of God only makes sense
when we see both sides of the picture.
God fully hates our sin, yet fully loves us.
Now
I need a tissue. God fully hates my sin, yet fully loves me.
Like
I said . . . WOW.
I’m
pretty sure I’ll be writing about Paul, and Romans, again. Every chapter I read gets under my skin and
remains there, taunting me with new information and more conviction and the hint
of an idea that what is coming next might not just challenge me, but instead .
. . change me?
Stay
tuned, and in the meantime, I hope you’ll remember something . . .
God hates every bit of your sin, because he has to.
God
loves every bit of you, because he chose to.
