Why Paul Is THE Apostle to the Gentiles — Romans 1 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, once again, we're ready to roll. And we'll go right back where we left off at the end of the last program. We're going to pick up Paul in Romans chapter 1. That great apostle to the Gentiles. The revealer of all the church age doctrines. Someday I'm going to put it on the board. Not today, I don't believe. But I'm going to put on the board, like I did in a couple of my classes a few years ago, all of the basic doctrines, which you can sort of put on one word, that come only out of this section of your Bible. You can't find it anywhere else. And those are what I call Pauline doctrines. And how in the world people can ignore that is just beyond me. But we're not going to have time for that in this program, so we're just going to come right back to Romans chapter 1. And again, every week we have new listeners, so I guess I almost every week have to announce that we are just an informal Bible study. We try to spend every minute of the program in the book. I don't even like to take this much time for announcements. That's why we don't have any music. That's why we don't spend time for prayer time. We do that before we start the programs here in the studio. For those of you out in television, we have a prayer time before we start. But we want to use every second that we can to feed people from the Word. And for those of you that are interested, we do have tapes and booklets available. You call us on the 800 number, or write to us. Alright, so those of you in the studio, and those of you who use your Scriptures with me, back to Romans chapter 1. In our last program, again we were showing that Paul was uniquely called of God to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. Not one of many, but he is THE Apostle. Others, of course, are going to follow in his footsteps. But nevertheless, Paul is the one to whom we must go for our basic doctrines. Alright, now then, verse 2. He's been separated in verse 1 to the Gospel of God. Verse 2, which He, that is God, had promised before by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is made of the seed of David, according to the flesh. Now I have to stop. That's why I told you I could spend five years in Romans. I don't think I'd have any trouble. The seed of David. Now if you'll remember, way back in Genesis 3.15, we have the reference of the seed of the what? The woman. Alright, and what would the seed of the woman accomplish? He would crush the head of the servant. Remember? Alright, that was the promised line of redemption, as I think some great theologian once put it. That scarlet thread of salvation that starts with Genesis 3.15 and carries all the way through Scripture. So the seed of the woman was going to crush the head of the servant. And then in Genesis chapter 12, and I think it's about verse 3 or 4, we have the Abrahamic covenant, and you know I'm always putting a lot of emphasis on that, and then Paul in Galatians. Now let's see if we can find it. I think that would be in Galatians chapter 3. No, it would be after chapter 4. Or chapter 5. No, wait a minute. Just a second. Yeah. Galatians chapter 3, verse 16. Galatians chapter 3, verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he saith not unto seeds, plural, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, who is Christ. Alright, so he's the seed of Abraham. So we have three distinct seeds that Paul is going to make reference to. First, of course, going all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. As the seed of the woman, he would crush our arch enemy, Satan. Then he refers in Romans, come back with me back to Romans 1 now then, he comes back to Christ as the seed of David, because, you see, out of the seed of David would come Mary, Joseph, I think, as well, who is the legal father. And so now we have not only the seed of the woman, who is going to defeat Satan at the cross, but we also have the seed of David, which brought him on the scene in order to become flesh and go the way of the cross, as well as to be the rightful heir to the throne of David. But then we also have that reference to the seed of Abraham, which brings us into the picture, because when it comes to the realm of faith plus nothing, we Gentile believers are referred to by Paul then as the seed of Abraham, because, of course, of Christ being the seed. And so here we have then, verse 3 again of Romans 1, concerning his son Jesus Christ the Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. In other words, through the line of David and Solomon, here came Mary as well as Joseph. Now verse 4, "...and declared to be the Son of God with..." what? "...power." Now that's another word that Paul will use over and over when he talks about his gospel, that it is the what? "...the power of God." And you know, in my classes, and I think I've even done it quite often on the program, I like to go back and use Israel in slavery in Egypt, coming out of that slavery, coming up against the shores of the Red Sea with seemingly no hope. Here they've experienced the death angel flying over because they were under the blood, but yet God brings them out of that experience and almost to an impossible situation, the shores of the Red Sea, the Egyptian army behind them, impossibilities to the right and to the left, and then He tells them to what? Stand still. Well you see, that's exactly where the human individual finds themselves. We're without hope. We've been in the slave market of Satan. Last night we had a super good time again in our class, and I made reference to the slave trade as we knew it in America from history books, and it was awful. You know, not just the slavery itself as the work of the plantation owners, but the whole slave trade, those slave ships that brought those poor human beings over from Africa. Despicable. Totally inhuman. I wouldn't treat my cattle that way. It was beyond human description what those poor folk went through simply because they were slaves. But you see, in the spiritual realm, we were in that same ballpark, and we're going to see that, I don't think today, probably in our next taping, of where we were before we became believers and where we were as the offspring of Adam. We were under the same kind of circumstances spiritually that those poor slaves were back in the 1800s, all the way from their inception in Africa across the ocean on those stinking ships, and then into the slave market, treated worse than animals, bought and sold. But oh, listen, we were in the same thing spiritually, and God is going to graphically tell us what He saw in every one of us, and it's not a pretty picture. But He bought us out of that slave market, He set us free, cleaned us up, gave us a whole new wardrobe, put us in a beautiful place to live, and I'm not talking about material now, I'm talking about the spiritual, and set our feet upon a rock, gave us hope, and all we had to do was believe it. Just believe it. Now then, how did God accomplish it with His power? With His power. You see, in order to buy a slave out of the slave market in Virginia back in the 1840s and 50s, you had to have money, you probably had to have wealth, you had to have some clout, influence, and you could go down and buy good slaves, take them home and do with them what they wanted. No doubt there were benevolent slaveholders, and there were some that were anything but. But you see, it still took a certain amount of power in order to take somebody out of that slave market. Now with God, it took all the power at His disposal to bring us out of Satan's slave market. And I'm going to be stressing that as we come through these chapters of Romans, that the power of God, the very same power that put everything out there in that universe, was concentrated on every one of us the moment we believed. And it was His power that brought us then out of the clutches of Satan's slave market. And so this is why you'll see Paul constantly refer to this word then, the power of God. Alright, declared to be the Son of God, verse 4 again, "...with power according to the Spirit of holiness." And what proved it? Resurrection from the dead. We touched on it a few weeks ago, back in Acts 13. The psalmist declared, "...thou art the only begotten Son." And then you remember the next verse in Acts says, "...and concerning that, that He was the only begotten Son, God raised Him from the dead." Do you remember that lesson? I hope you did. And I brought you to this verse. It's the two that show that the very terminology of the only begotten Son of God is not a reference to Bethlehem, it's a reference to His resurrection. That's when He became the truly, only begotten Son of God. It was the power of resurrection. And here again, I don't know how many times I've had people in my class come to me and say, well now, my Sunday school teacher, or my pastor, or I've got a friend who can believe that Christ died on a Roman cross, but they can't quite accept the fact that He was raised from the dead. Well listen, if we can't accept the fact that He was raised from the dead, we have nothing. We are totally lost. Because that is the very basis of His power, is His resurrection from the dead. Now, way, way, way back, when we were in the Gospels, you remember I made mention of the fact there was one thing that changed the total attitude of the 11 disciples who at the time of His crucifixion scattered and ran for their life out of fear. What changed it? The resurrection. Because you see, after Christ rose from the dead, Peter never again would have kowtowed to a young maid and swore that he never knew Him. Peter stood up to Rome. All the 11 apostles, as near as I can tell, were all martyred without fear. Why? Because of the truth of resurrection. And the same way with us. We can say with Paul, we don't have to worry about what men can do to this body, because they can't touch the invisible, immortal part of us, which is going to one day be resurrected if they kill us. And this is what makes all the difference in the world so far as a Christian is concerned. We have the hope of the power of resurrection. First in salvation, out of deadness, as we're going to see somewheres down the road. Ephesians 2 verse 1, You hath He quickened, made alive, who were, what? Dead in trespasses and sins. How did He do it? The power of resurrection. All right, come back to the text. Declared, verse 4, to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by whom, here Paul comes back with his apostleship again, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith, not a faith, the faith. There's only one, among all nations, for His name. Do you see the difference? My, when Jesus, now let me take you back, because a lot of people have just tuned in the last few weeks, and they missed all this good stuff. Go all the way back with me to Matthew chapter 10, and I'll be doing this periodically as we go through Paul. For sake of comparison, that there's not a contradiction ever. There is never a contradiction in Scripture. It's a change of the program. I see it back in Matthew chapter 10. Jesus has just chosen the 12 up around Galilee, and you come down to verse 5. Matthew 10, verse 5. These 12, Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans, enter you not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now see how plain that is? They were directed only to the nation of Israel, and throughout His three years of earthly ministry, He Himself confined His ministry only to Israel, with two exceptions. That was the Roman centurion, and the Canaanite woman, who at first He even ignored, and the 12 said, Send her away. Why? Because she's a Gentile. But now come back to Romans, and you see, it seems like a contradiction, but it isn't. No contradiction, because now God has set Israel aside, and He's going to go to the Gentiles. And so now Paul can write, For obedience to the faith among all nations, not just Israel, but Israel and every Gentile nation, for His name, among whom also you are the called of Jesus Christ, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Now a saint isn't somebody who walks around with a halo around his head. A saint isn't somebody who is of sinless perfection. Far from it. But a saint is merely someone who has believed what God has promised, and by virtue of God's imputation, not of anything that we've worked for or deserve, but by the act of imputation, God has imputed to us His righteousness, simply because we believed. Not because we've worked, not because we've done this or done that, but strictly because of our faith in what He has said. God does that all on our behalf, and we'll be looking at that more in depth as we go through the Book of Romans. It's imputation. This fact that you and I deserve none of it, but He has put it on us. He has literally inundated us with everything that He has accomplished on our behalf. That's what it means to be a saint. All right, reading on. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. Now remember at the time that Paul was writing, the Roman Empire was pretty much the then known world. And I know a lot of people have wondered when I've said that I felt Paul's Gospel had penetrated all the way from Great Britain on the West, across both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and all the way out to probably the Ganges River of India, because that's as far as the Roman Empire extended. Well if Rome was so pagan, transportation was still relatively slow. How did it happen in that period of time? Now I put a bunch of years on the board here when the last program wrote in, and I didn't refer to them. Now remember chronologically, Paul was converted, 37 AD approximately. He went out for the three years of that instruction from God's personal seminary, I call it. Then after that 37 to 40, he goes up to his home city of Tarsus and begins his work amongst the Gentiles, and of course he always approaches the Jew first. And then you remember back in Acts chapter 15, we had that council in Jerusalem, where the Jews were now calling him on the carpet for having gone to Gentile. Well look at the time interval. From the time that he begins his ministry among the Gentiles in his old home city of Tarsus, until that council in Jerusalem is already 11 years, and see in that 11 year period of time, he still hasn't written any of his epistles, but he has been seeing Gentiles brought into the body of Christ. All right, now then you come on over to this line of figures, you see, here are the dates, approximately again, of the various letters that he has written in your New Testament. Beginning with the oldest, or the first written, were the Thessalonian letters, in about 54. Then four years later, in 58, he writes the little letter of Galatians. Now remember, he's already been up there on his missionary journeys. He's already established these churches. But now he has to write to them, to admonish them, to encourage them. And then 1 Corinthians is written in 59, and the next year he writes the next letter to the Corinthians, about AD 60. The same year, he writes this book of Romans, and then four years later, he writes from Rome, now in prison, under house arrest. He writes Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. And then the next year, while he's still in Rome, and under house arrest, and that's why they're called the prison epistles, he's literally in prison, but it's not a dungeon, it's a house arrest. And then he writes 1 Timothy and Titus in 65, and then in the last year of his life, probably martyred in either the end of 66, or early part of 67, he writes his final little epistle to 2 Timothy, and that's the letter where he says, I am now ready to be offered, I have kept the faith, and so on and so forth. But, over here, what you want to remember, is that he's been out there ministering to Gentiles for 23 years, by the time he finally gets to Rome. That's a long time. And in that 23 year period of time, you see, Romans hasn't even written yet. And so, never lose sight of all these things, that this didn't all just happen in a month or two, this was progressively taking place over the years. Now, the same way with his letters. See, Paul won't cover all the deep doctrines of Romans, up here in Thessalonians, and the same way as you come on down, the further you come into Paul's revelations, the deeper it gets. The deeper it gets. And then you finally get to those final letters, like Ephesians and Philippians. My land, most people don't even touch that anymore. But see, that's because that's the deep stuff. That's deep water. This is a higher plane. And this is where God wants us to be. He wants us to learn. He wants us to grow. Alright, back to the text again. I was going to explain, how did they get from one end of the Roman Empire to the other, if he's in prison? Well, I have a pet theory. You know, the Roman Army was proud, I think, of the way they treated their troops, just like America is. The Pentagon likes to feel that they treat their military personnel quite fairly. They'll never put an American GI in some awful hole, in some area of the world, and forget about him. Well, they do. They rotate their periods of service. I remember when I was in service, some guys who had had real nice service out in the Hawaiian Islands, they might all of a sudden be shipped to some awful place like Okinawa for a while. But from there, they could bet that they would go back to another pretty nice place of duty. Well, the Romans were much the same way. They didn't put some poor soldier at Paul's side and then let him rot there, but after maybe a few months, they'd move him out and bring in another one, or maybe several. Now knowing the Apostle Paul, by the time those Roman young men had come in and spent a few days chained to him, how did they leave? Believers. I have to believe that. Because in another one of his letters, what does Paul say? That his Gospel had even penetrated the Roman palace. Well, he didn't. So how did it? Oh, these GIs. These Roman GIs would go from Paul's place of duty in their Army duty, maybe to the palace of the Emperor. Maybe they went to India. Maybe they went to Spain. But wherever these men who had been the prisoner keepers of Rome, would get the Gospel from Paul and take it to the ends of the earth. And so that's why he also says in the letter to Titus, the grace of God, Titus chapter 2, the grace of God that bringeth salvation, has already, past tense, appeared unto how many? All men. All men. Now he couldn't say that. The Spirit would never inspire to say that, if it weren't true. And so from this one man, Christianity just scattered throughout the Empire. Alright, verse 9. For God is my witness, who I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son. Now that's another thing you want to watch for. The various terms that Paul puts on his Gospel. He'll never call it the Gospel of the Kingdom. Never. He'll call it the Gospel of God, he'll call it my Gospel, the Gospel of the grace of God, the Gospel of Christ, and a couple or three others, but it's always uniquely Paul's Gospel. Alright, now here it's called the, where did I just see it? Verse 9. For God is my witness, who I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son. Now without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers. Along with all of his travel, and with all of his teaching, Paul was a man of prayer. And that's what I feel every believer can be, if you want to be. We can all be prayer warriors. Verse 10. Make a request, if by any means now at length, I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God, to come unto you. Now remember when he's writing this, he's writing this in about AD 60, back here. And he's not going to get there until 63. So he's still writing from another point in the Empire, in reference to the day when he will get to Rome. Alright, I'm going to hasten a little bit, because I'd like to start our next half hour on Romans 1 16, if I can. So he says in verse 11, I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift. Now you want to remember, he hasn't ever been to Rome. The Roman congregation was established by the witness of other Gentile believers, not this apostle. And he recognizes that. But oh, he wants to still have a part in it, see. Verse 13. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but was hindered hitherto, that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. He said, I am debtor, I am in debt too, both the Greeks and the barbarians, both the wise and the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you, that are in Rome also. Oh, Rome was just constantly on this man's heart. And God, of course, didn't permit it until he finally went as a prisoner. All right, now then, getting ready for our next program, and I think I can spend the whole 30 minutes on that next verse. I am not ashamed, the apostle writes, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ unto salvation to everyone that, oh, I told my class the other night, just stop and think of all the words most people think should be in there, and they're not there. Purposely, they're not there. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. 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