This Sunday is the third in our Romans series and I have had to dovetail my contribution with the excellent addresses by Jemima and Stephen in the last 2 weeks.
Both have talked about the background to Paul’s writing to the Christians in Rome. Romans is different in content and style to Paul’s other letters in the New Testament, nearly all of which were written to the communities of churches which Paul himself had founded; Paul knew many of the individuals in those churches and part of each letter was invariably addressed to recommending a solution to a particular problem that had arisen in the church community.
But Paul had never visited Rome and you can sense that he chooses his words carefully. As Stephen pointed out last week, the letter to the Romans is the earliest developed statement of Christian beliefs. Paul was writing to Christians in the city that was at the centre of the civilised world. It was a city that had undergone much change in the 100 previous years. Politically it had changed from a Republic, a democracy run by the Senate, into an Empire, ruled and dominated by one man – an Emperor. As in most autocracies, some of these were good rulers, but others were not, and the third Emperor, Caligula, was particularly unsuitable and probably mad. In this same period, the Roman Empire had doubled in size, and culturally, Rome was a melting pot of faiths and religions from all over the known world. In his letter Paul explains that Christianity is different to any other religion, in that the God whom we worship does not require Christians to follow laws or earn God’s favour through good works. God loves us and forgives us whatever we do. It is enough that we believe in him, we are “justified” by our faith, we are in a new relationship with God; he loves us and our sins are not held against us.
That is the essence of what Stephen told us last week – God’s solution to the problem of sin. In the opening of Chapter 5, he goes on to set out what being a Christian means, – the consequences, the good things which follow. If we believe, we have Peace with God. If we understand just how much God loves us, and always has, then we have Joy. And finally, we have the Hope, the confidence that, because we believe in God and know that he loves us, we will never, in the end, be disappointed, whatever may befall us.
Part 3 on Sunday!
John Sweeting