Romans 1:1,2 – “Blessings”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, set apart into the Gospel of God, ²which He promised beforehand through His prophets in [the] holy Scriptures …

In the last post, I was pondering this “Gospel of God” and how it was an ancient Truth even when Paul was writing about it 2,000 years ago.

Notice again that it was “promised beforehand.” The “beforehand” almost needs to be capitalized! But notice that it was “promised.” It is good heart medicine to stop and ponder this word “promised.” First of all, what are promises? They are, of course, someone’s word that something will be true in the future. What is truly amazing is that God gives us promises. He actually speaks to us truths that we can count on, that we can build our lives on, believing that something will in the future be true. Of course, the Bible itself calls them “very great and precious promises,” which He gives to us specifically so we can “participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world” (II Peter 1:4).

In a sense, this is precisely why we’re called “believers” – because we believe His promises. Our relationship with Him begins when we understand that He promises us eternal life if only we will put our trust in Jesus. We believe that promise and are saved. And what is it to “believe?” It is to hear God’s promise, to believe that it is in fact true and then to base our lives, our decisions, our moment by moment choices on that belief. It is literally to hang our eternal souls on that one simple promise, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47).

But of course our “believing” goes far beyond salvation itself. As Peter said, He gives us His promises to utterly transform us – to allow us to “participate in the divine nature” and to “escape the corruption in the world.” As we live our lives minute by minute, the very fuel that fires the engine of our hearts is His promises. Yes I want to do what He commands, but in order to do that, I must believe His promises. He tells me to love then promises that all things will work together for good. He wants me to be brave then tells me He will never leave me nor forsake me. He sends me out into this very scary world and encourages me, “Fear not, for I am with thee.” It is believing His promises that allows me to in fact live out my faith.

And then pause and consider how we got those promises. He gave them to us “through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.” I think I could type for days on all the encouragement we can draw from these simple words. I’ll restrain myself and try to be brief. “Through His prophets” – they are God’s promises, but He gives them to us “through His prophets.” Someone once observed it is generally true that when God does miracles, He usually uses someone. It is very often true when He answers one of our prayers, He’ll do it using someone. He rarely just answers our prayers straight from heaven. He can and He does, but so often He chooses to use people. Each of us can stop and survey our lives and realize they are filled with people who were God’s instruments to do us good. It is then encouraging to realize that is what He wants to do with you and me. We may not even realize He’s using us, but as we would walk with Him and sincerely try to love Him and love the people around us, we can count on Him somehow using us to answer other people’s prayers, to be His instruments to literally do miracles in other people’s lives.

He used “His prophets” to give us the very promises that we “believers” hang our souls on. He could have just spoken from heaven but instead He chose to use simple bungling people just like you and me. And notice they were His prophets. He calls them “His.” Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers and God the Father calls certain people “His” prophets. Isn’t it great to be “His?” We may not be prophets or anything even so remotely impressive, but we’re still “His.” Jesus said that eternal life itself really comes down to knowing God (John 17:3) – it comes down to a relationship with Him. We don’t belong to the evil one any more. We belong to the Lord. We are His.

And then note, how did those prophets give to us His promises? “In the holy Scriptures.” It was no doubt amazing to actually hear the prophets preach. Even in the early church it is said that when the prophets speak, a person “will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘Surely God is among you!’” (I Cor 14:24,25). A prophet is a powerful speaker. However, in order for us to benefit from the prophets’ ministries, their words had to be recorded. Their messages from God had to be written down, and thank the Lord they were. We call them “the holy Scriptures,” the Word of God, the words of the living God, our Bible.

I suppose to some extent, the Jewish people could have transmitted the words of the prophets orally from one generation to the next. However, if the Gospel was to go literally into “the ends of the earth,” it needed to be written down.  And so it was. And so I sit here this morning pondering the words of Paul, some 2,000 years later and half way around the world. I guess it is a special delight to me to have God’s truth recorded in “words” so I can handle every one of them, even every letter, turn them each this way and that, and thoroughly enjoy asking the question, “So what?” If every word is from God, then every word is important, every phrase and sentence has the potential to utterly transform my mind, to change my life, to give me new hope and help. “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” And it’s all in “the holy Scriptures.”

As I said above, I could write on and on about this verse. Our God is an encouraging God. His Word is full of help and hope. We are so blessed that God’s good news was “promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures!”