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ROMANS Paul's letter to Rome chapters 1 to 5 Click to go to other chapters |
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Chapter 1 This letter comes to you from Paul, a helper of Jesus, God’s Chosen. God has asked me to pass on the Good News of Jesus to other people. This “Good News” was promised by God’s speakers a long time ago. Their words can be found in the old books. It’s all about God’s Likeness, someone who is truly human by being descended from David, but seen by those with special insight to be God’s Likeness, because he has power over death. God’s Chosen is Jesus, our Leader. Jesus has given my team the special task of getting people of all races to trust in God. And it’s Jesus who has given us what we need to carry out the task in the way he wants. You are some of the people who’ve received the invitation to be his friends. I’m writing to you who live in Rome. God loves you all; you’re all invited to be God’s people! Greetings from the Loving God, and our Leader, Jesus, God’s Chosen. First of all, Jesus moves me to thank God for you all, because your
trust in God is talked about everywhere. I’m keen to spread the Good
News about God’s Likeness, as God knows. When I talk with God I never
fail to mention you. I’m asking God to let me visit you. I can’t wait to
see you, so I can be a good influence on you, and help you to be strong
– or rather, I ought to say, so we can help and encourage one another to
trust in God. I want you to know, my friends, I’ve made plans to visit
you often, but something has happened to upset them each time. I was
hoping to have a good crop of converts in your part of the world, as I
have elsewhere. I owe a great deal to people of all types – some highly
cultured, others with little education; some very clever, others not so
bright. It’s the mixture of people in Rome that makes it so attractive
to me as a place to spread the Good News. (18) God’s fierce opposition has been declared against all the evil and wickedness done by people who shamefully suppress the truth. Everything it’s possible to know about God has been made known to humankind – God has made sure of that. Though God’s character is too wonderful for us to understand, from the beginning of time it’s been easy to grasp something of it through the world of nature. There’s no excuse for complete ignorance! Though people can tell what God is like, they take no notice. They aren’t grateful for God’s gifts. Instead they’ve filled their minds with nonsense and gone wandering down every dark alley. They thought they were being clever while making fools of themselves. In the place of God who lives forever, they put statues of people, who live for no time at all, or even animals, birds, or snakes. God has watched them go on from this to despise one another and to practice all kinds of abuse. Because they’ve twisted the truth about God, their attitude to the material world is twisted too. They’ve forgotten that the source of lasting good is God, not things! God let them go on to pursue their selfish desires. Women use their charms to further their own ends. Men, instead of being friends, ruthlessly exploit one another. Their stressful lifestyle makes them ill. (see footnote 1) When people have no interest in getting to know what God is really like,
God has no option but to leave them to their own evil thoughts, which
lead to every kind of inhuman conduct. There is no end to their
wickedness. Such people are greedy and envious, they commit murder, they
quarrel and deceive; they play dirty tricks, they gossip and slander one
another; they hate the very idea of God; they’re arrogant, with no
respect for their parents; they’re silly, unreliable, lacking any tender
feelings or scruples. They know they’re offending God and that they
don’t deserve to live. Yet not only do they persist in their evil ways,
they encourage others to do
the same. But you’ve no excuse either, if you think you’re in a position to criticize other people, because your critical attitude shows you’re as bad as they are. We know God is a fair judge when people behave badly. Do you think when you criticize other people for behaving in the same way as you do, it will somehow put God off the scent? Shouldn’t you be more appreciative of God’s kindness, patience, and tolerance in your own case? Don’t you realize that God’s kindness is intended to get you to change your frame of mind? But your hard, unbending attitude means you’re going to be in for a nasty shock on the day God’s fair judgment is announced. God will take into account the whole pattern of your life. To those who have patiently tried to be a permanent influence for good, God will give life to the full; while for those who’ve been selfish and ignore the truth about their own wickedness, the consequences will be unpleasant in the extreme. There will be a time of grief and suffering for all who behave badly wherever they come from. But it will be an exciting time, with a sense of achievement and contentment, for all who’ve done what is right, whatever their religion or culture. God is free from prejudice. For those who’ve done wrong because they don’t know the rules, ignorance is no excuse. The future is empty for them. Those who know the rules, and still do wrong, will have the rules quoted against them. It’s not enough to know the rules. Only if you keep them will God be impressed! When people who don’t know the rules do what is right, as if by instinct, they are accepted on their own merits. The fact that they’ve never read the rules does not matter. They have a natural sense of right and wrong, and their conscience tells them whether or not they’ve made the grade. This is close to the way God looks at things. Through Jesus, God looks deep into our most secret thoughts. (17) Do you think you’re one of God’s people because you’re never without the rulebook and always talking about God? You think you know God’s mind inside out and know what’s right and wrong because you’ve studied the rules. You’re so sure you’re a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness, correcting those who’ve got it wrong and putting beginners through their paces! You’ve got it all neatly tied up, haven’t you? Isn’t it about time you gave yourself a few lessons? You tell others it’s wrong to steal. Can you put your hand on your heart and say you’ve never stolen anything yourself? You hold strict rules on the matter of personal relationships. Have you never stepped over the line? You believe God should be the only object of worship. Have you never made any financial gain from your religion? In fact, you make a mockery of those rules you’re so proud of, and you give God a bad reputation. To use the words of the old books, “You make God’s name a laughing-stock all over the world.” Being without a foreskin is your badge of office. You’d deserve a badge
if you kept all the rules! But since you break the rules, your badge
doesn’t count for anything. Those who don’t have the badge, but keep the
rules, display the true badge. They’re in a position to take you to
task, because all you have is a meaningless badge. Belonging to God
isn’t a matter of outward show. It’s got nothing to do with badges!
God’s people are those who have their hearts in the right place. God’s
Spirit is what makes them stand out, not rules. Such people aren’t out
to impress others. What God thinks of them is all that matters. Is there any advantage, then, in being born into the community of God’s people? Is there any value in having a distinct identity? Quite a lot, I would say. You must remember, in the first place, that God’s messages were entrusted to a special community of people. Just because some of them let God down, it doesn’t mean that God has opted out of the relationship. God can always be relied upon, even if everyone else turns out to be unreliable. As the old books say, “Your words stand up to the stiffest cross-examination, and you always win your case.” Our bad conduct shows how good God’s conduct is. Does that mean God is at fault to be displeased with us? (I hesitate to use such human talk in relation to God. God’s view on the world cannot be questioned.) There is an argument which goes like this: “If our dishonesty serves to highlight God’s honesty, can that be so bad on our part? Doesn’t the end justify the means?” Some accuse me of saying this. They couldn’t be more wrong! What if we put it another way? Are those of us who are members of God’s community in a position to feel superior? Far from it! I’ve already made it clear that insiders and outsiders are equally enthusiastic when it comes to doing wrong. The old books say, “There’s no such thing as a good person, or a wise one for that matter; no one who is true to God. Everyone has gone off the track, everyone is corrupt; no one knows what it is to be kind. They’re foul-mouthed, fork-tongued, poisonous like snakes. They only use words to sting and wound. They only hurry anywhere in order to kill. They leave a trail of misery wherever they go. They have no wish to live in harmony with others. God means absolutely nothing to them!” Everything in the book of rules refers to those who take the rules as their standard. So no one is in a position to talk about their achievements. The whole world stands accused by God. Nobody succeeds in looking good in God’s eyes by keeping the rules. The rules only point out where you’ve gone wrong. (21) But recently, God has announced another way of putting right what is wrong, an idea foreseen in the Rule Book and by God’s speakers in the past. This is God’s way of putting things right by means of a relationship with Jesus, God’s Chosen. It’s for all who put their trust in him. There are to be no special categories, because we’ve all made a mess of things and failed to live up to God’s intention for us. Everybody is now to be put right by means of God’s loving action. It’s like receiving a gift, or being released from prison. Jesus, by his death, has made us one with God. All we have to do is to trust him! By doing this, God shows supreme goodness. All the wrongs of the past are overlooked, and a new way shown of dealing with the wrongs of the present. Anyone who puts their trust in Jesus is acceptable to God. God cannot do better than that! The “holier than thou” attitude is out! Why? Because we don’t get any
credit for what we do. It’s all a matter of trust. The right
relationship with God comes only through trust, not by keeping the
rules. God is not a special mascot for the insiders. God belongs to
everybody. There’s only one God, who will put things right for insiders
when they trust and for outsiders when they trust. Does this mean that
if we trust we can throw away the rules? No, that’s not the right way of
looking at it. Trust will help us appreciate the rules. Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, is a good example of what
I’m talking about. If Abraham had made a good impression by the things
he did, he could have been pleased with himself. But it was not what
Abraham did that impressed God. The old books say, “Abraham put his
trust in God and that’s what God liked about him.” Workers receive their
wages as a right. They’re not a gift, but have to be earned. But when
God accepts people who have nothing to their credit, trust becomes the
deciding factor. This is what David meant when he described the
happiness of those God accepts, despite what they’ve done: God promised Abraham and his descendants that one day the world would be theirs. This promise was not based on what it says in the Rule Book, but on a relationship of trust with God. If only those who keep the rules are to enjoy God’s New World, then trust counts for nothing and the promise was false. The Rule Book only leads to frustration. When there are no rules, there’s no upset when they are broken! So the promise depends on trust and on God’s delight in giving. It’s for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who keep the rules, but also for those who trust God like he did. Abraham may be regarded as the ancestor of all of us. The old books put it clearly, “I’ve made you the ancestor of many nations.” Abraham stands in the presence of the one he trusted, the one who brings
the dead back to life, the same God who makes worlds out of nothing.
Abraham clung on to the hope that he would be the ancestor of many
nations, even when it seemed impossible. When he heard the words, “Your
descendants will be too many to count,” he was very old with not much
longer to live. What’s more, Sarah was incapable of having children. But
none of this put him off. He went on trusting in God’s promise, and this
trust renewed his physical strength and his delight in God. He never
doubted for a moment that God would be able to keep the promise. It was
this trust that kept him on good terms with God. The words “on good
terms with God” don’t only apply to Abraham. They apply to us too, since
we trust the same God who brought Jesus, our Leader, back to life. He
was arrested and executed as a result of our wrongdoing, and was brought
back to life to restore our relationship with God. We’re now on good terms with God by means of trust, and Jesus helps us maintain our relationship with God, so that we no longer have to fret. Jesus made us aware of God’s way of loving those who don’t deserve it. And we’re sure we’ll share the thrill of God’s success. We keep our spirits up, even when we’re having a bad time. Trouble forces us to put up with things. Putting up with things helps our personalities develop and we become more confident. We know we won’t be let down, because we’ve experienced God’s love flooding into our hearts through the gift of God’s Spirit. In the nick of time, when we were getting into more and more of a hopeless mess, God’s Chosen died for the sake of those who couldn’t care less about God. Not many would offer to die for a righteous bore. Now and again someone has the courage to die for a person whose qualities they admire. Jesus died for us when we were rotten to the core, and that puts God’s love in a class of its own! By his death we’ve been put back on good terms with God. Thanks to Jesus, we’ll escape the dreadful fate we had coming to us! By the death of God’s True Likeness, we’ve changed from being God’s enemies into being God’s friends. Now we’re God’s friends, new life from Jesus helps us become complete people! We ought to go over the top in celebration because of what God has done for us through Jesus. He’s arranged for us to be God’s friends! (12) Being human seems to mean doing wrong. Doing wrong leads to death. That’s why death affects everybody. There was plenty of wrongdoing in the world before there were any rules, but since nobody knew the rules, no one could be held responsible. Nevertheless, death held everybody in its grip from the dawn of humanity to the time when Moses introduced the rules, including those who did wrong without realizing it. The development of conscience was a pointer toward the day when a new humanity would appear. The extent of humanity’s wrongdoing doesn’t affect God’s loving action on our behalf. Death is a feature of our flawed humanity, and touches everybody. In the same way, everybody is touched by Jesus, God’s gift of love. God’s gift upsets the principle that wrongdoing must be followed by a verdict of “guilty.” Despite a great amount of wrongdoing, God’s gift amounts to a verdict of “not guilty.” Up to now, our link with one another as humans meant we shared the consequence of our common failure. That consequence was death. But now we also have a link with Jesus who is human too. This means God’s love is being given to us in a new relationship and in a new life. So, since the flawed humanity we all share meant a verdict of “guilty”
for everybody, the goodness of one member of the human race reversed the
verdict, bringing life for all. Just as the failure of one meant the
failure of all, so now the fine performance of one means we can all make
something of our lives! Rules were introduced to produce a sense of
failure. But no matter how many rules were broken, God’s love was always
one step ahead. Death made it look as if failure had the upper hand, but
God’s goodness has won through to put things right, bringing life to the
full through Jesus.
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