Book of Romans Study: Sin

Last week we started our intro into our book study of Romans. If you missed the Facebook Live video from last week, you can watch it here.

This week we will be discussing chapters 1-3 of the book of Romans and diving into the main theme of these chapters: sin. We briefly talked about Romans chapter 1:1-7 last week during our Introduction so this week we will pick up in verse 8 of chapter one. 

In the next section (chapter 1:8-17), we have some passage that is Paul speaking to the Roman church about how he has been longing to visit. The last part of this section is also where we have the theme of the entire book of Romans which comes from chapter 1:16-17:

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes; first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed--a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'"

Essentially in this passage and throughout the book of Romans, Paul emphasizes that justification and salvation come not by the performances of the law of Moses, but by the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and we receive the blessings of the Atonement as we live by faith in Jesus Christ. This was extremely important to address with the New Testament church because everything that man had known under the Mosaic law was done away with after Jesus' crucifixion. The book of Romans was really meant to show the church every part of being a Christian under the new law- from sin to salvation to service. 

The first three chapters of the book of Romans addresses sin but it is broken up into five sections (after Paul's opening remarks to the church). There is also a section in my Bible about the Jews and the law but I didn't include that in this breakdown:

1. God's wrath against sinful humanity- 

Romans 1:18 "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness"

2. God's righteous judgement-

Romans 2:1-2 "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. ² We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things."

3. God's faithfulness:

Romans 3:3 "Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge."

4. No one is righteous

Romans 3:10-12 "¹⁰ as it is written:

5. Righteousness through faith (this slightly overlaps into our next section which is Salvation but I wanted to include it here as well so we can see the totality of the arc of the fall of man through salvation)-

Romans 3:23-26 "²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

We essentially see the arc of sin throughout these sections. 

I also want to revisit the chart from last week and just walk through what chapters 1-3 show us in the book of Romans. 

Click here to get your own copies of these charts! This will take you to a product page and you will have to "checkout" to get the download sent to your email address but the price is free.