ROMANS 1:2-5 THE PROMISED GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD

Romans 1:2 which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. 5 Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name,

The promise of Christ through the prophets

V2 The coming of Christ is the prophesied culmination to a long history of expectation. Jesus Christ is not an afterthought, but the very realization of God’s plan for the world, Jew and Gentile. Indeed, Jesus himself is the gospel!

Prophets were all the writers of the OT

Paul next began to exalt the gospel that God had called him to proclaim. It was a message that God had promised, not just prophesied, in the Old Testament Scriptures.

The words "his" and "holy" stress the unique origin of the gospel.

Paul was accused of preaching a new message by the Jews

1Peter 1:10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Joh 5:39 "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.

Christ was prophesied of 333 times in the OT.

2 Sam 7:12-16, Isaiah 1:18, 53:7–8 with the Ethiopian eunuch is a good example, Is 55, and Gen 3:15- first mention of the Jesus in the OT

Lu 24:25 Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

1. Paul proclaimed this Gospel was about Jesus Christ

V3 The reference to Jesus as a descendent of David according to the flesh functions on two levels. First, it makes plain that the eternal son of God took on full and complete humanity (John 1:1, 14; Phil 2:6-11). Second, the explicit link with David is not just to suggest his humanity, but also to make clear his special relationship to the line of promise. Jesus met the qualifications of one to whom the promise of 2 Samuel 7:12-16 could be made

The promise in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 is extremely important in the New Testament and the connection to it is apparent here (e.g., Matt 1:1; Acts 13:34; 2 Cor 6:18). Nathan tells David, among other things, that he will never lack a “son” to sit on his throne.

God’s good news concerns His Son, identified as Jesus Christ our Lord. This asserts Christ’s deity as basic to His person and prior to His Incarnation

Jesus was born of a virgin and delivered normally

Jesus was a historical figure written of by many ancient writers

Roman historian Tacitus in Annals

Jewish Historian Josephus in Antiquities

Pliny the Younger in Letters

Jesus was born of the seed of David, Mary was his natural parent

Matthew 1:6-16 is Mary's family tree

Luke 3:23-31 is Joseph's family tree

John makes believing Jesus came in the flesh a crucial test of orthodoxy( or having sound Biblical teachings about Christ)

1John 4:2-3

Jesus Christ is the center of the Gospel message. Paul identified Him as a man, a Jew, and the Son of God. He was born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:18–25) into the family of David, which gave Him the right to David’s throne. He died for the sins of the world, and then was raised from the dead. It is this miraculous event of substitutionary death and victorious resurrection that constitutes the Gospel; and it was this Gospel that Paul preached

V4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. The Gr word from which declared comes from is the word horizon which means to make distinguish. Just as the horizon serves as a clear divider between the sky and the earth, the resurrection of Jesus clearly divides Him from the rest of humanity proving without a doubt that He is the Son of God

The idea of Jesus’ universal Lordship is often connected in the New Testament to his resurrection and exaltation to a place of power and authority (cf. Matt 28:18; Acts 2:36; Phil 2:11

The term Son of God with power is used about 30 times in the Gospels

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,

Jesus was always the Son of God, but the Father declared Him to be the Son by resurrecting Him. Jesus did not change in essence—He always was the Son—but in status and function. God appointed the Son to a new and more powerful position in relation to the world at the Resurrection (cf.

Matt. 28:18). He is now not only the Messiah but the Lord of all.

Jesus took on a submissive role to the father while he was here on earth

we have received grace and apostleship – a gifting as an apostle which Paul did not deserve, but we are all gifted and called to be little a apostles, ie messengers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

V 5 is the firstreference to the most crucial part of the Gospel- salvation is a gift from God totally separate from any human effort or achievement - Eph 2:8-9

Paul probably meant that he had received the special grace (gift) of being an apostle.

Matthew 10:1-4 Jesus selected all twelve apostles-

Matthias picked by disciples in Acts 1:15-26

Acts 9:3-9, 15-18 Paul was personally chosen by Christ when he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus

For obedience to faith- True saving faith always produces obedience and submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ- Romans 10:9-10, James 2:17-24

"The law lays down what a man must do; the gospel lays down what God has done.

"Someone has truly said that the Gospel is 'good news' not 'good advice,'

Faith is obedience to God because God commands everyone to believe in Christ (cf. John 6:29; Acts 17:30-31).

ROMANS 1:2-5 THE PROMISED GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD

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