Romans

Paul introduces the Gospel of God's Son, declares that it is God's power to save everyone who believes, and then begins his case that the whole world needs it: God's wrath is revealed against people who hold down the truth He has made plain.

Paul turns to the moral and religious person who agrees with Romans 1 about everyone else, and shows that God judges every person impartially, by truth and by deeds, that conscience witnesses even where the law was never given, and that no privilege or outward sign can replace a heart God has changed.

Paul answers a Jewish hearer's objections, calls the Old Testament to witness that the whole world is guilty before God, and then announces the turning point of the letter: God's righteousness, given freely through faith in Christ, whose blood is the propitiation that lets God be both just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Paul proves from Abraham and David that God has always counted righteousness to those who believe, apart from works and apart from circumcision, and that the same righteousness is counted to everyone who believes on the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Justified by faith, believers have peace with God, access into grace, and a hope that suffering cannot shame; and as one man brought sin and death to the whole race, one Man brings righteousness and life to all who receive the gift, for where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

Grace never makes sin safe: every believer has been joined to Christ in His death and resurrection, which baptism pictures, so he reckons himself dead to sin and alive to God, yields himself to God as a servant of righteousness, and knows that sin pays death while God gives eternal life.

Believers died to the law through the body of Christ so that they belong to Him; the law is holy, but sin used it and it cannot make anyone holy; and the believer who hates his sin cries for deliverance and thanks God through Jesus Christ.

There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus; the Spirit who dwells in every believer gives life, leads God's adopted children, helps them in weakness, and keeps them in hope; and nothing in all creation can separate them from the love of God in Christ.

God's word to Israel has not failed: His promises have always run through the line He chose by His call, not by birth or works, His mercy and His hardening are always righteous, and Israel stumbled because she sought righteousness by works and not by faith.

Israel had zeal without knowledge and tried to establish her own righteousness, but Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth; the word of faith is near, whosoever calls on the Lord shall be saved, and so God sends preachers, because faith comes by hearing.

God has not cast away Israel: a remnant believes by grace, the rest are hardened in part and for a time, Gentiles are grafted in by faith and must not boast, and when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, the Deliverer will come and all Israel shall be saved, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

Because of God's mercies, believers give their whole selves to Him as a living sacrifice, are transformed by a renewed mind, serve one another with the gifts He gives, love without hypocrisy, and overcome evil with good.

Believers are subject to the governing authorities as God's servants and pay what they owe, they keep paying the one debt that never runs out, love, and they live awake and clothed in Christ, because their salvation is nearer than when they believed.

In matters God has left to conscience, believers receive one another without quarreling, each is fully persuaded before the Lord he will answer to, and the strong lay down their liberty rather than destroy a brother for whom Christ died.

Following Christ, who pleased not Himself, the strong bear with the weak so that Jew and Gentile glorify God with one voice, and Paul, the Gentiles' minister, lays his plans for Jerusalem, Rome, and Spain in God's hands and asks the church to strive with him in prayer.

Paul commends Phebe, greets a church of Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slave and free, warns them to mark and avoid those who divide against the apostles' doctrine, promises that the God of peace will crush Satan, and closes the letter with glory to the only wise God.