After long desiring to travel to Rome, Paul finally began a trip fraught with ill-favored winds and a storm that left his ship destroyed. He was ultimately cast away on Malta, where he survived a venomous snakebite. He was brought into the home of the chief official of the island, and continued to show God’s grace and favor by healing the sick. Eventually, Paul arrived in Rome, where he lived for two years, preaching the Gospel while under guard, though the Scripture never tells us exactly what happened to him there.
In his letter to the Romans, which has long been considered Paul’s magnum opus, we find some of the most detailed and richly articulated theological discussions of the New Testament. In chapter 5, Paul examines the hope that we have been offered through Jesus by the reconciliation of his blood. For Paul, the act of reconciliation was closely tied to the Temple sacrificial system, which was at the heart of the Israelite’s worship life. The Law demanded blood to appease God’s need for justice. Paul explained Christ’s reconciliation through a comparison between Adam, the first to sin, and Jesus, the only one to offer freedom from sin.
Chapters 7 and 8 explain the ways in which we are powerless to be free of sin by our own volition (John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity is closely tied to these passages), while also pointing us toward the freedom from sin offered through life in Jesus. Marin Luther summed up these two chapters by saying that at Creation, mankind had the choice to sin; after the Fall, mankind had no choice but to sin; and through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we now have the choice not to sin. Thanks to God’s grace through Jesus, we have received the reassurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God (which is a statement that I wish I could tattoo on my heart).
The final three chapters of Romans that we are reading this week provide practical applications for the Christian life. We are to live as people transformed from the worldly perspective. We are to understand that each person’s gifts are of equal value. We should show love as God does rather than as humanity does. We should understand that all governing authorities have been established by our Creator. We should do all of these things through the lens of love. Finally, we should understand that each person’s journey of faith is at a different point, and we should not let our knowledge hinder another person’s walk with the Lord.
Our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 145 points us toward a desire to offer praise and adoration to God, while expounding not on His acts of creation but on His character.