Set Apart for the Gospel - Part 1 (Romans 1:1-2)
It has been well said that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple enough that a child can understand and believe it; and deep enough that no person can ever fully search it out. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul sets forth a long explanation of the gospel.
We turn to spend some time studying Romans, because it is a systematic treatment of the Gospel. If our mission is to preach the gospel wherever we go, then we need to have a mastery of the gospel message: its origin, its content, its commandments, its results, its power, its life implications. We need to be convinced that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17). And we must ask with all distress, “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14).
The gospel is so on Paul’s heart that from the very first verse of Romans, Paul sets out to give us a fuller, deeper, richer understanding of the gospel.
In verse 1, Paul introduces himself as a servant of Christ Jesus. That’s all he is. A lowly slave about his master’s business.
That business, as he will expand in the following verses, is apostleship. He was a lowly servant, who had been called by the Lord to be an apostle. An apostle is one sent out with the authority of the one sending him. Paul was thus called by Jesus Christ and given His authority to teach and preach. As far as preaching and teaching, he was set apart for the gospel of God. He was separated out for the preaching of the gospel. Paul describes this calling on the Road to Damascus in Acts 26:16-18 - “I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’
Friend, YOU also are a servant of Jesus Christ. YOU also are called by God. YOU also are set apart for the gospel of God. Perhaps not in the same way as Paul. You are not an apostle (capital A). That office is closed. But we are still sent by Jesus Christ to herald the gospel to all the world. We are set apart as God’s holy possession. We have received the Great Commission to go into all the world and make disciples.
“Making disciples” means that we minister the gospel. We preach and proclaim. We teach and exhort. We guide and pray. We challenge and rebuke. We comfort and encourage. The gospel permeates, shapes, and informs every aspect of our thinking and our lives.
So it sounds like we need to know the ins and outs of the gospel. That’s what the whole book of Romans is about. The gospel. So that we may know it inside and out. So that we may fulfill our calling as servants of Jesus Christ set apart for the gospel of God.
MAIN POINT - The Holy Spirit, through Paul, teaches us that the Gospel contains the promise of God.
THE GOSPEL CONTAINS GOD’S PROMISE
2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
I feel that it is utterly necessary that we spend a lot of time on this first point today. We need to understand the Old Testament better, and I want to give you the tools that will both open up your understanding of the Old Testament AND the New Testament. Once you see what I’m about to show you, the gospel will be opened to you with so much more depth and richness.
Here is a question: what were the Old Testament believers trusting God about? They didn’t have the fullness of revelation like we do. Their gospel was not Jesus dying on a cross to absorb the wrath of God and then be raised from the dead 3 days later. So what was their gospel, exactly? When we ask that question, we begin to see the overarching narrative of the Bible.
Soon into the Old Testament, there emerges a very important word. This word is covenant. What is a covenant? A promise. But at the same time, more than mere promises. Covenants are oaths that God made. There are six covenants in the Old Testament. Many people say 5. I am convinced there are six.
Before we get to the first covenant in the Bible, we need to remind ourselves that God is eternal. Therefore, before sin ever entered the world, God decreed that He would glorify Himself by allowing sin and death to enter the world so that He could demonstrate His love, His compassion, His grace, His wisdom by overcoming sin and defeating it forever. God has a goal for what He is doing in history. He is working toward that goal. That stated goal is in Genesis 3:15. As soon as sin entered the world through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God set forth a promise that One would come from the line of Adam who would overcome sin and reverse the curse. The rest of the Scriptures focus in on what this One would be like and do.
The Noahic Covenant
A mere 1650 years after Creation, God sent the Flood to wipe out all life on the earth. Out of all the thousands (possibly millions) of people alive at that time, He saved eight. Noah and his wife, their three sons, and their sons’ wives. He also saved two of every kind of animal. From these, He repopulated the earth. However, there is a BIG problem. Aren’t we just doomed to repeat history? Wouldn’t we expect people to again spiral into such depraved living that God has to again wipe them out some 1500 years later? God actually exacerbates this tension. He makes a covenant with Noah in Genesis 8-9. The Noahic covenant was made with every living thing (person and animal) for the rest of history. I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done (Gen 8:21). The clear intent of the Noahic covenant is perpetuity. The earth will remain, and people will continue upon it. The implication of this is that God is working toward something. He has something in mind that requires a lot of TIME. By the way, how does He overcome the problem of human depravity running wild? He puts it in check. Genesis 10 describes the national boundaries that came about after the Flood. They are separated by geography. Genesis 11 describes the language barrier. God mixed the languages up, so that people groups have difficult times communicating with one another. Up to our day, these checks have succeeded in keeping some sort of a cap on the outworking of human depravity.
The Abrahamic Covenant
The Noahic Covenant provides the stage on which God’s plan would unfold over thousands of years. The promise of the One to Come began to be filled out by God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12-17. Genesis 12:2-3 - “And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” What God promised to Abraham is nothing short of a Kingdom. You have all of the ingredients for a kingdom stated in Genesis 12-17. Descendants. Land. Kings. This Kingdom would not only be blessed of the Lord, but it would also bring blessing from God upon all the nations of the earth. How would this blessing be given to all the families of the earth? That is yet to be discovered, but we get a clue: Genesis 22:18 - “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
The Mosaic Covenant
As per God’s Word to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-16, the fledgling Jewish nation that sprang from the loins of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob went down to Egypt and became enslaved and oppressed. The Book of Exodus recounts how God brought the Jews out of bondage in Egypt to make them a Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation to Him. At Mount Sinai in the wilderness, He brought the people close to meet Him. There, they entered into covenant with Him there. Unlike all the rest of the covenants, the Mosaic covenant depends on the obedience of the people in the covenant. If they were obedient to the Law of the Covenant, God would bless them. If they were disobedient to the Law of the Covenant, God would curse them, even spitting them out of the land into worldwide exile until the last days. The rest of the Old Testament (and New Testament) relates how the people were almost perpetually disobedient to the Law of God. The promises of the Abrahamic Covenant are locked up by the Mosaic Covenant. The people can never keep the Law completely. It’s impossible. There will have to be a better covenant to act as a sort of key to unlock the blessings promised to Abraham.
The Priestly Covenant
This is a covenant that you may not be familiar with. Many call this the forgotten covenant. It is often lumped into the Mosaic Covenant. But I think there is compelling evidence to believe it is separate from the Mosaic Covenant. You remember how Balak, king of Moab, hired Balaam to curse Israel. Most of us remember how Balaam’s donkey spoke back when Balaam rebuked it. Balaam attempted to curse Israel and receive his wages from Balak, but the Lord would not allow it to happen. Eventually, Balaam suggests that Balak try to seduce Israel into a partnership by intermarriage. When one of the men of Israel brought a high-ranking Midianite woman into his tent, Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, in the zeal of the Lord, pierced them both through with a spear. In Number 25:10-13, God made a covenant with Phinehas that he would have a perpetual priesthood because of this zeal. I’ll show you how this covenant comes back into play later.
The Davidic Covenant
God raised up David, a man after God’s own heart, to be King in Israel. Despite David’s sin, God swore to him, 1 Chronicles 17:11 - “When your days are fulfilled that you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up one of your descendants after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom.” Solomon, in his early days, was a picture of this king who would come. His wisdom. His reign. His discernment. But this covenant to David looks far ahead to the future and promises a King.
This covenant shows up all over the place. Isaiah 9:6 - For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders.
The New Covenant
So far, we see that great blessings are promised. A picture of the goal is emerging. An eternal King reigning over a blessed earth. Let’s get a picture of how these covenants interact together.
Jeremiah 33. We could start at verse 14. But for time, let’s start at verse 20. “Thus says the LORD, ‘If you can break My covenant for the day and My covenant for the night (NOAHIC) so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant (DAVIDIC) so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers (PRIESTLY). As the host of heaven cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured (ABRAHAMIC), so I will multiply the descendants of David My servant (DAVIDIC) and the Levites who minister to Me (PRIESTLY). 23 And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, “Have you not observed what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which the LORD chose (Judah and Ephraim), He has rejected them’? Thus they despise My people, no longer are they as a nation in their sight. 25 Thus says that LORD, ‘If My covenant for day and night stand not (NOAHIC), and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, then I would reject the descendants of Jacob (ABRAHAMIC) and David My servant (DAVIDIC), not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (ABRAHAMIC/DAVIDIC). But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them (that introduces us to what we know as the NEW COVENANT)
Do you see how the covenants all intertwine to give us a fuller picture of God’s intention? Did you notice that this passage excludes the Mosaic Covenant? Why? Because there needed to be a better covenant to act as the key to unlock the blessings of all the other covenants, especially the Abrahamic Covenant. What covenant is the key to the other four covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Priestly, and Davidic? The NEW COVENANT!
Here’s where the Old Testament all of a sudden starts sounding like New Testament language!
Jeremiah 31:31-34 - “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
The New Covenant is the key to unlocking all the blessings of the other covenants, because in that covenant alone is the forgiveness of sins.
There is also a transformation of heart.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 - “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
There is a circumcision of heart.
Deut 30:6 - “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. The Mosaic Covenant commanded this kind of love of God. But the New Covenant gives the ability!
This covenant is also inextricably tied to a person: Isaiah 42:6-7 - “I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.”
To be in the New Covenant is to be ‘in Christ.’
Not just to the people of Israel but to all the nations - Isaiah 49:6 - He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
How will this forgiveness of sins be given? Isa 53:5 - But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
Psalm 16 - The holy one is not abandoned to Sheol.
How is the New Covenant entered and the forgiveness of sins received? By calling upon Christ, the very seed of the woman promised long ago in Genesis 3:15. The seed of Abraham. The seed of David. All peoples everywhere are now to know that He has appeared, and they are to repent of their sins and believe in Him! Psalm 2:10-12 - Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the LORD with reverence And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The New Covenant shows up all over the place, filling out the wonderful blessings of God to His people.
I HOPE THAT YOU SEE that the gospel of God was promised beforehand through the covenants contained in the Old Testament. I hope you see the wonderful richness of the Old Testament. Knowing these will help us know the gospel. Knowing these will help us to answer questions. Knowing these will give us new depths of hope as we wait for our Savior, Jesus Christ, from heaven.
Comments
Post a Comment