Romans 1:2 which He promised before
through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and
declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead. 5 Through Him we have received grace and
apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name,
The promise of
Christ through the prophets
V2 The
coming of Christ is the prophesied culmination to a long history of
expectation. Jesus Christ ...
Romans 1:2 which He promised before
through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and
declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead. 5 Through Him we have received grace and
apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name,
The promise of
Christ through the prophets
V2 The
coming of Christ is the prophesied culmination to a long history of
expectation. Jesus Christ is not an afterthought, but the very realization of
God’s plan for the world, Jew and Gentile. Indeed, Jesus himself is the gospel!
Prophets
were all the writers of the OT
Paul next began to exalt the gospel
that God had called him to proclaim. It was a message that God had promised,
not just prophesied, in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The words "his" and
"holy" stress the unique origin of the gospel.
Paul was accused of preaching a new
message by the Jews
1Peter 1:10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and
searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time,
the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.
Joh
5:39 "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life; and these are they which testify of Me.
Christ was prophesied of 333 times in
the OT.
2 Sam 7:12-16, Isaiah 1:18, 53:7–8
with the Ethiopian eunuch is a good example, Is 55, and Gen 3:15- first mention
of the Jesus in the OT
Lu 24:25 Then He said to them, "O
foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have
spoken! 26 "Ought not the Christ to
have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" 27 And beginning
at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself.
1.
Paul proclaimed this Gospel was about
Jesus Christ
V3 The reference to Jesus as a
descendent of David according to the flesh functions on two levels. First, it
makes plain that the eternal son of God took on full and complete humanity
(John 1:1, 14; Phil 2:6-11). Second, the explicit link with David is not just
to suggest his humanity, but also to make clear his special relationship to the
line of promise. Jesus met the qualifications of one to whom the promise of 2
Samuel 7:12-16 could be made
The promise in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 is
extremely important in the New Testament and the connection to it is apparent
here (e.g., Matt 1:1; Acts 13:34; 2 Cor 6:18). Nathan tells David, among other
things, that he will never lack a “son” to sit on his throne.
God’s good news concerns His Son,
identified as Jesus Christ our Lord. This asserts Christ’s deity as basic to
His person and prior to His Incarnation
Jesus was born of a virgin and delivered
normally
Jesus was a historical figure written of
by many ancient writers
Roman historian Tacitus in Annals
Jewish Historian Josephus in Antiquities
Pliny the Younger in Letters
Jesus was born of the seed of David,
Mary was his natural parent
Matthew 1:6-16 is Mary's family tree
Luke 3:23-31 is Joseph's family tree
John makes believing Jesus came in the
flesh a crucial test of orthodoxy( or having sound Biblical teachings about
Christ)
1John 4:2-3
Jesus Christ is the center of the Gospel
message. Paul identified Him as a man, a Jew, and the Son of God. He was born
of a virgin (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:18–25) into the family of David, which gave Him
the right to David’s throne. He died for the sins of the world, and then was
raised from the dead. It is this miraculous event of substitutionary death and
victorious resurrection that constitutes the Gospel; and it was this Gospel
that Paul preached
V4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to
the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. The Gr word from
which declared comes from is the word horizon which means to make distinguish.
Just as the horizon serves as a clear divider between the sky and the earth,
the resurrection of Jesus clearly divides Him from the rest of humanity proving
without a doubt that He is the Son of God
The idea of Jesus’ universal Lordship is often connected in
the New Testament to his resurrection and exaltation to a place of power and
authority (cf. Matt 28:18; Acts 2:36; Phil 2:11
The
term Son of God with power is used about 30 times in the Gospels
"A
man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a
great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who
says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make
your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or
something worse." C.
S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,
Jesus was always the Son of God, but the Father declared Him
to be the Son by resurrecting Him. Jesus did not change in essence—He always
was the Son—but in status and function. God appointed the Son to a new and more
powerful position in relation to the world at the Resurrection (cf.
Matt.
28:18). He is now not only the Messiah but the Lord of all.
Jesus
took on a submissive role to the father while he was here on earth
we have received grace and apostleship – a gifting as an apostle which Paul
did not deserve, but we are all gifted and called to be little a apostles, ie
messengers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
V 5 is
the firstreference to the most crucial part of the Gospel-
salvation is a gift from God totally separate from any human effort or
achievement - Eph 2:8-9
Paul
probably meant that he had received the special grace (gift) of being an
apostle.
Matthew
10:1-4 Jesus selected all twelve apostles-
Matthias
picked by disciples in Acts 1:15-26
Acts 9:3-9, 15-18 Paul was personally chosen
by Christ when he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus
For
obedience to faith- True saving faith always produces obedience and submission
to the Lordship of Jesus Christ- Romans 10:9-10, James 2:17-24
"The law lays down what a man must do; the
gospel lays down what God has done.
"Someone has truly said that the
Gospel is 'good news' not 'good advice,'
Faith
is obedience to God because God commands everyone to believe in Christ (cf.
John 6:29; Acts 17:30-31).
Lessons
1. God’s promises
never fail
2. All we have is a
gift from God
The Gospel is 'good news' not 'good advice
