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The Epistle of Paul to the

ROMANS

1
Salutation
1 Paul, a slave[a] of Jesus Christ, a called apostle,[b] having been set apart to the Gospel of God, 2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures:[c] 3 concerning His Son, who became a physical descendant of David,[d] 4 who was established to be God's powerful Son (in accordance with Spirit of holiness[e]) by resurrection from the dead[f]—Jesus Christ our Lord— 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to promote obedience of faith among all ethnic nations concerning His name[g] 6 (among these you also are called by Jesus Christ); 7 to all the called saints[h] who are in Rome, beloved of God: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Sovereign Jesus Christ.[i]
To Gentiles
Paul has been hindered from visiting Rome
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.[j] 9 Further, the God whom I serve with my spirit[k] in the Gospel of His Son is my witness, how without ceasing I always remember you in my prayers, 10 begging that perhaps now, at last, I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you.[l] 11 For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established 12 —that is, that I may be encouraged among you by our mutual faith,[m] both yours and mine.

13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), in order that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the rest of the Gentiles.[n] 14 I am a debtor[o] both to Greeks and to non-Greeks, both to wise and to foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome as well.

Faith
16 I am not ashamed[p] of the Gospel of Christ,[q] because it is the power of God for the salvation of each one who believes[r] (for the Jew first, then the Greek); 17 because in it God's righteousness is revealed, from faith to faith; just as it is written: “The righteous one will live by faith.”[s]
Unrighteousness
18 Now the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of the people who suppress the truth by unrighteousness,§To ‘suppress the truth’ is a deliberate act, an evil choice that invites God's wrath. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11, to reject the love of the truth brings God's judgment. To hear a sermon about ‘the love of God’ is easy enough, but how many have you heard (or preached) about ‘the wrath of God’? “God hates sin but loves the sinner” is standard fare, but consider Psalm 5:4-6—“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” This is not an isolated text; there are a fair number of others in the same vein. Someone who deliberately chooses to be and promote evil thereby makes God his enemy. In John 6:44 Sovereign Jesus said: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Do you suppose that the Father will ‘draw’ someone He hates? Perhaps we should do more preaching on the wrath of God (although that will probably send people scurrying to other churches). 19 precisely because what may be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Because His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood from what has been made, so that they are inexcusable;*All scientific experiment and true human knowledge is based on the principle of cause and effect—we observe an effect and try to isolate its cause. As a logical corollary, the cause must be as great or greater than the effect, otherwise it could not produce it. Any human being who is both honest and intelligent, confronted with the observable universe, with its incredible order and complexity, must conclude that there has to be a CAUSE who is both incredibly intelligent and powerful—to refuse to do so is perverse. Since we have personality, He must as well. So Paul's argument is precisely correct. The science of physics tells us that the entire known universe, taking only what is inorganic (not part of any living system), can be described using up to 350 bits of information. To describe the smallest protein molecule (unable to live alone, but part of a living system) requires some 1,500 bits of information (the E. coli bacterium some 7 million; one human cell some 20 billion). Now just where could chance plus nothing find 1,150 bits of new information (to produce the simplest protein), if in the whole universe there was only 350? The evolutionary hypothesis as an explanation for the origin of life is ridiculously, stupidly impossible! The science of genetics, with its genome projects, has discovered that a change of just 3 nucleotides is usually fatal to the organism. The genetic difference between a human being and a chimpanzee (closest relative) is at least 1.6%—this represents a gap of some 48 million nucleotide differences. Since a random change of only 3 nucleotides is fatal to an animal, and a dead animal cannot reproduce, there is no possible way that a chimp could evolve into a human. Each individual species had to be assembled separately, just like Genesis says. The ‘geologic column’ is a fiction, since there are multistrate tree fossils. Symbiotic plants and insects could not possibly evolve. And so on. 21 precisely because, knowing God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks;[v] so their reasonings became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened.[w] 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,[x] 23 and exchanged for themselves the glory of the incorruptible God for an image resembling a perishable man[y]—even birds and quadrupeds and reptiles!

24 Therefore God also gave them up, through the cravings of their hearts for vileness, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves 25 —they had exchanged the truth of God for the lie,[z] and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Depravity
26 For this reason God gave them up[aa] to degrading passions; in fact even their females exchanged the natural sexual function for that against nature; 27 likewise also the males, abandoning the natural use of the female, were inflamed[bb] in their lust toward one another, males committing the disgraceful act[cc] with males, and receiving in themselves the due penalty[dd] for their error.

28 So precisely because they determined not to retain God in their knowledge,[ee] God gave them up to a debased mind, to do wrong things: 29 having been filled[ff] with all unrighteousness, fornication,[gg] wickedness, greed, depravity; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, braggarts, contrivers of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, faithless, hardhearted, intransigent,[hh] unmerciful; 32 who, knowing full well God's just sentence, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do them but also approve of other practitioners.‡Is this not a perfect picture of ‘modern man’? (Of course things were at least that bad before the Flood.) Note “are deserving of death”; the verb is in the present tense, and Paul wrote this years after Pentecost, and consequently within the age of Grace. Through Moses the Creator articulated the death penalty for certain practices. Paul's use of ‘are’ indicates that the penalty has not been revoked or annulled.

Romans 2 ->