Introduction
You often look around the world and wonder how to attain a right standing before a holy God. You realize your own moral efforts fall short against the reality of human sin and guilt. Warren W. Wiersbe examines the Epistle to the Romans to show that true righteousness comes entirely as a gift through faith in Jesus Christ.
The book traces your journey from helpless condemnation under the law into the glorious freedom of the Spirit. You discover how justification secures your eternal position and how sanctification transforms your daily behavior. Wiersbe guides you through God's sovereign plan for history and teaches you to apply practical holiness to your relationships and ministry.
You find answers to vital questions as you read the book:
- How can a guilty person be declared righteous before God?
- What does it mean to be dead to sin and alive in Christ?
- How do you live a victorious life instead of a defeated one?
- What is God's ultimate purpose for Israel and the church?
- How do you handle personal disagreements without compromising truth?
1. The Power of the Gospel and Human Sinfulness
Paul introduced himself in the opening of Romans by establishing specific credentials that gave him the authority to write to believers. There were 60000000 estimated slaves in the Roman Empire when Paul wrote. He presented himself as a servant of Jesus Christ showing loving devotion.
You see Paul as an apostle sent with authority by a commission having seen the risen Christ. He was a preacher of the gospel separated to the ministry of good news. He was also a missionary called to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
Paul introduced himself with apostolic authority to proclaim the gospel of God, establishing that the entire human race is guilty before God due to universal devolution and sin.
Paul's Credentials and Confidence
The gospel is the powerful message of God centered on Jesus Christ. Its central theme is the righteousness of God received through faith. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel because it originates from God. It operates as the supreme power to change lives.
The gospel brings salvation from the penalty and power of sin. It is available to everyone who believes. You find 60 references to righteousness in Romans and 60 references to faith or unbelief in Romans. The key verse Romans 1:17 reveals that a sinner can only become just before God by faith rather than by works.
Human Sinfulness
Human history reveals devolution rather than evolution. Humankind started high in the knowledge of God and sank lower through sin. Instead of evolving from beasts, humans began with a clear knowledge of God revealed through creation.
Humankind sank lower through four distinct stages:
- intelligence;
- ignorance;
- indulgence;
- impenitence.
People suppressed the truth and turned truth into a lie. They embraced idolatry and immorality. They ultimately received a depraved mind after God gave them up to their lustful ways. Paul listed twenty-four specific sins to describe the depraved mind and open defiance of humanity.
The Jewish nation is proven guilty before God through four distinct witnesses despite their religious privileges and blessings. Paul proves that the Jewish world is just as guilty as the Gentile world. He summons four distinct witnesses:
- the Gentiles whose sins the Jews also practiced;
- God's unappreciated blessings which demanded greater obedience;
- God's law which exposed their transgressions;
- the physical mark of circumcision which lacked inward spiritual reality.
God gave Israel forty more years of grace after they crucified Christ before withholding His judgment. Every human being is a sinner before God. No person can be justified by trying to obey the law.
Paul compiled Old Testament passages detailing the X-ray study of the lost sinner from head to foot. This study described corrupt speech, destructive feet, ignorance of peace, and arrogant pride. Paul establishes that the whole world is guilty. Every mouth is stopped before God because no flesh can perfectly obey the law.
2. Justification by Faith and Victory Over Sin
The Meaning of Justification
Justification is a legal act of God where He declares a believing sinner righteous based on Christ's finished work on the cross, rather than a process of making them internally righteous. God places Christ's righteousness on your record in place of your sinfulness. This means God deals with believers as though they had never sinned. Justification is distinct from sanctification, which is the ongoing daily process of becoming more like Christ.
Justification is God's legal declaration counting a believer righteous based on Christ's finished work, uniting them in His death and resurrection to conquer sin.
Salvation is entirely free to you, but it was paid for at an infinite cost to God through propitiation, redemption, and blood. God in His grace gives believers what they do not deserve without any merit of their own. This required satisfying God's holy law through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan explained free salvation to a coal miner by comparing it to an elevator ride into a mine, which cost the miner nothing but cost the company plenty to install.
Paul proves that Abraham was counted righteous when he believed God's promise about his descendants. The text uses banking terminology where righteousness was put to his account. Because this happened before the law was given and 14 years before his circumcision at 99 years old, outward rituals and law-keeping had nothing to do with his justification. He stands as the father of all them that believe.
Being justified by faith brings seven immediate and permanent spiritual blessings that secure your standing in the present, past, and future:
- peace with God;
- access to God;
- glorious hope;
- Christian character built through trials;
- the love of God poured within;
- salvation from future wrath;
- reconciliation.
Mankind's racial union with Adam brought condemnation and death, but union with Christ brings a much greater abundance of grace, righteousness, and eternal life. Paul contrasts Adam and Christ as heads of two distinct realms using the word 'one' 11 times to emphasize identification. Just as humanity was condemned through Adam's single act of disobedience, you reign in life through Christ's obedience and sacrificial death, gaining infinitely more than was lost. The author repeats the word 'reign' and the phrase 'much more' 5 times.
Victory Over Sin
Believers are dynamically identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, making them legally and practically dead to the dominion of sin. Justification is not merely a legal transaction but a living union. Because you died with Christ on the cross, sin's ruling power has been broken, and you are raised to walk in newness of life with resurrection power.
The resurrection of Lazarus illustrates the spiritual truth of being raised from the dead, unwrapped from graveclothes, and set free to walk in new life after spending 4 days in the tomb.
To attain daily victory over sin, you must follow three sequential steps:
- Know that you have been crucified with Christ and are dead to sin.
- Reckon this fact to be true in your own life by acting on God's Word.
- Yield your body to the Lord once and for all as an instrument for His glory.
Christian living is founded on learning doctrine. You must first know you died with Christ, second reckon this fact as true in your own life through faith, and third make a definitive, once-and-for-all act of the will to yield your physical body to God as His instrument. The word 'yield' appears 5 times in the surrender section.
3. Christians and the Law
The law cannot achieve holiness because it only reveals human corruption and arouses the carnal nature, leaving believers free to walk in the Spirit.
Legalism attempts to achieve holiness and please God by obeying external laws and a list of dos and don'ts. Warren W. Wiersbe points out that legalism ultimately fails because it only targets outward actions instead of the root of sin. The author uses the word law twenty-three times in Romans 7. Legalism fails to recognize the root of sin and cannot transform the old nature. Instead of providing power to overcome sin, the law acts as a magnet that draws out corruption and aggravates the carnal nature, leading to spiritual death or emotional collapse.
God's law continues to function today through specific ministries designed to reveal human sinfulness and demonstrate the absolute necessity of a Savior. The law serves four main ministries:
- it reveals sin like a mirror;
- it arouses the rebellious carnal nature;
- it kills by showing the sinner that he is condemned without providing life;
- it exposes the extreme sinfulness of sin.
The author observed newly painted park benches in Lincoln Park in Chicago with Do Not Touch signs. He noticed that people deliberately touched the wet paint because the prohibition aroused their rebellious nature.
4. Freedom, Fulfillment, and God's Plan for Israel
Union with Christ grants unbreakable spiritual freedom and eternal security, while God maintains His sovereign faithfulness to Israel.
Freedom and Fulfillment
Romans 8 serves as the Christian Declaration of Freedom. You can discover four foundational spiritual freedoms that secure your victorious Christian life:
- freedom from judgment through no condemnation;
- freedom from defeat through no obligation to the flesh;
- freedom from discouragement through no frustration in suffering;
- freedom from fear through no separation from God's love.
The Holy Spirit appears nineteen times in Romans 8. Paul contrasts three distinct levels of human existence, urging you to live on the highest level where the Spirit fully controls your life.
The lowest level is being in the flesh without the Spirit. This state brings spiritual death, war with God, and self-pleasing. The intermediate level is having the indwelling Spirit as evidence of conversion. The highest level is when the Spirit has you, empowering you to put to death the deeds of the flesh and experience adoption as adult sons.
Evangelist D. L. Moody described his conversion experience by stating he entered a new world where the sun shone brighter, birds sang sweeter, and all nature was at peace.
The present reality of suffering involves three distinct groans that ultimately point toward future glory and divine purpose. Creation groans under the burden of Adam's sin like a woman in travail waiting for delivery. You groan as you wait for the redemption of the body, which is the final physical redemption. The Holy Spirit groans by interceding for you in your weaknesses to align you with God's perfect plan, working alongside the firstfruits of the Spirit.
Believers are entirely secure in Christ and shielded from any separation from His love through five unshakeable divine guarantees.
Paul proves absolute security by arguing that God the Father is for us, Christ died for us as the ultimate sacrifice, God has justified us through a permanent legal declaration, Christ and the Spirit continually intercede for us in heaven, and nothing in creation can sever us from Christ's love. You become superconquerors through Jesus Christ. Christ acts as your High Priest and Advocate in heaven.
Did God Make a Mistake?
Paul devotes three chapters from Romans 9 through 11 to the nation of Israel. Israel's historical rejection of the Messiah does not mean that God's word or His elective promises have failed. Paul defends God's character by examining Israel's past history across four divine attributes: faithfulness, righteousness, justice, and grace. He demonstrates that God's sovereign election is never based on natural descent or human merit, but entirely on His sovereign mercy and will. God works with vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy according to His divine purpose.
The Gentiles attained righteousness through faith without searching for it, while Israel failed because they sought righteousness through legalistic works. Israel stumbled over Christ as the Foundation Stone because they tried to substitute their religious privileges and law-keeping for saving faith. Salvation requires humbling yourself to accept grace righteousness rather than law righteousness, depending entirely on God's grace rather than human birth or moral behavior.
5. Right Living, Disagreements, and Christian Ministry
True dedication requires surrendering body, mind, and will to God, expressing love in relationships, handling nonessential disagreements with grace, and fulfilling our missionary calling.
Our Relationship to God
True dedication begins by presenting the body as a living, once-for-all sacrifice for God's service. Next, the mind must be transformed through the Word of God away from world conformity. Finally, the will must be surrendered through disciplined prayer to receive the power needed for a victorious Christian life.
- Start each day by surrendering your body to the Lord.
- Spend time in God's Word to let Him transform your mind and prepare your thinking.
- Pray and yield the plans and tasks of the day to the Lord.
Believers form a spiritual body where each person has distinct gifts that must be evaluated honestly and used cooperatively for the common good. Spiritual gifts are tools to build with rather than weapons to fight with or toys to play with. You must avoid false evaluations by neither overrating nor underrating your abilities, acknowledging that all gifts come purely by God's grace and must be exercised through faith.
Christian Relationships
Because human inclination is to fight back, overcoming evil requires both love and faith to leave the vindication in God's hands. Returning good for evil can bring a feeling of shame to the enemy and acts as the only effective way to conquer evil without adding fuel to the fire. You are commanded to be in subjection to human government because civil authority is ultimately established by God.
Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker fellowshipped early in their ministries, but had a public disagreement when Spurgeon accused Parker of unspirituality for attending the theater, even though Spurgeon smoked cigars.
You must maintain unity when disagreeing on nonessential, gray areas of life by refusing to judge or despise one another. Paul addresses situations where believers hold differing convictions on matters not explicitly commanded or condemned in Scripture, such as diets or holy days. Strong believers understand their liberty, while weak believers cling to rules.
- Receive one another, recognizing that God has accepted both weak and strong believers.
- Edify one another through brotherly love and prioritizing spiritual growth over personal freedoms.
- Please one another by practicing selflessness and drawing spiritual power from the Word of God and prayer.
Christian Ministry
Paul viewed his ministry to the Gentiles through the lens of priestly service, offering up converted souls as a spiritual sacrifice to God's glory. Just as Old Testament priests were required to offer only the best at the altar, you must serve the Triune God with similar dedication, devotion, and purity. Paul and his associates received a special offering from the Gentile churches in Greece for the suffering Jewish saints in Jerusalem.
There are four distinct biblical motivations that obligate the church to send out missionaries to the lost.
- Respond to the command from above: go ye into all the world
- Listen to the cry from beneath: send him to my father's house
- Answer the call from without: come over and help us
- Yield to the constraint from within: the love of Christ constraineth us
10 Key Ideas
- The gospel originates from God as the supreme power to change lives, establishing that the entire human race is guilty before God due to universal devolution and sin.
- Justification is God's legal declaration counting a believer righteous based on Christ's finished work, uniting them in His death and resurrection to conquer sin.
- Believers are dynamically identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, making them legally and practically dead to the dominion of sin.
- The law cannot achieve holiness because it only reveals human corruption and arouses the carnal nature, leaving believers free to walk in the Spirit.
- Union with Christ grants unbreakable spiritual freedom and eternal security, while God maintains His sovereign faithfulness to Israel.
- Believers are entirely secure in Christ and shielded from any separation from His love through five unshakeable divine guarantees.
- Israel's historical rejection of the Messiah does not mean that God's word or His elective promises have failed.
- True dedication requires surrendering body, mind, and will to God, expressing love in relationships, handling nonessential disagreements with grace, and fulfilling our missionary calling.
- You must maintain unity when disagreeing on nonessential, gray areas of life by refusing to judge or despise one another.
- Paul viewed his ministry to the Gentiles through the lens of priestly service, offering up converted souls as a spiritual sacrifice to God's glory.