The Book of Romans

Romans – its impact on the church

The book of Romans is Paul’s theological Magnum Opus.  Paul had written to a church he had presumably never yet visited to ensure they were well-grounded in the Faith.  Since then, Paul’s letter to the Roman church has affected countless people and has shaped the course of the church.

In 386 AD, a brilliant young teacher of rhetoric living in Milan, Italy, was in the middle of a personal crisis.  He had come under the influence of the great Bishop Ambrose of Milan, and had begun to question his own lifestyle.  He was grossly indulging his flesh, including living with a mistress, and he knew his Christian mother was grieving over her son’s sin.  In the midst of his own personal crisis he heard a child outside his garden singing the repetitive words “Take up and read, take up and read.”  He looked for the child, but could not locate him.  Sensing this as a sign from God, he opened the Bible and read at random from Romans 13:13-14, “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”  Saint Augustine later wrote about this in his autobiography ‘Confessions’, “I neither wished nor needed to read further.  At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled.”

In the early 16^th Century, a young monk and professor in Wittenburg, Germany, began a series of lectures on the Book of Romans.  He re-read 1:17, “…the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’ “  These words troubled him a great deal and set him on the road to discovering that is was not his own works which saved him, but righteousness which comes by faith.  This was how Martin Luther was used by God as the spark that started the Great Reformation.  Martin Luther later described the book of Romans, “This Epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul.  It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious is becomes, and the better it tastes.”

In May of 1738, a young man sat, despondent.  Previously, he had felt the call to ministry and had come to Georgia in North America to preach to the natives there.  En route, he fell into the company of a group of Moravian Christians whose sincerity and simplicity of faith astonished him.  He wrote in his journal “I have come to save the Indians, but oh!  Who shall save me?”  He did not last long as a missionary and returned home to contemplate his life and his faith.  On May 24^th, he reluctantly attended a Christian gathering.  There, he heard a man reading aloud the preface to Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans.  John Wesley wrote about his experience there, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Many of the early church fathers had much to say about Romans.  Its impact on the church is incalculable.