Romans 7:1-4 – I hadn’t caught this reference to being freed, in this case from the law, through death. It’s inspiring to me to think of what a transformation this is. This participation in Christ’s death changes everything, do we really understand that? I mean, we understand it when someone does physically, right? We know that it’s all different for them now. We get that they’ve crossed over to a new dimension, where everything is changed. The rules are changed, their body is changed, everything. But do we as Christians, we who have died with Jesus, do we really understand the change that God has worked in us? Isn’t that the point Paul is making here to the Romans? They didn’t et it either. What kind of people would we be if we truly understood the radical, awe inspiring transformation that occurs in us when we contact Christ’s blood and participate in His death & resurrection in baptism? We could not blend in. We could not be the same. We should not.
Romans 7:9 – Is Paul here making a comment on his passage from the innocence of childhood to becoming accountable? That seems like a possibility, but I don’t know. Maybe I’m just projecting my own ideas on the verse. I’d love some other thoughts on this.
Romans 7:13-25 – This passage makes my head spin. Paul, you lost me in there somewhere. 😛

Romans 6:1-11 – This is one of my favorite passages of scripture because it gives us insight into the process of salvation. I love knowing how things work, and this tells me, in part, how salvation works. By understanding that, I get a vision of what I should be where I should go and what I should do as a result.
When we are baptized, we die and are raised again, just as Jesus was. We go into the water and are buried in it, just as Jesus was buried in the ground and raised up our of it. Read the passage, that’s exactly what it says in verse 3-4:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:3-4, ESV

But the amazing part, to me anyway, is in verses 5-11. It is this death, our own actual death in baptism, that sets us free from sin. Dead men have no sin, they can sin no more and they can be held responsible no more. They are “set free from sin” as it says in verse 7.
Free.
But, usually, when one dies, their chances are over. Their turn is done, their time is up. That wasn’t true for Jesus, and it is not true for us. We die in baptism and return to life, free from sin and free from death’s dominion. Death is a line we all must cross one day, however, to the Christian, they’ve already crossed that line in baptism. They’ve willingly surrendered their life to God and willingly, under His terms, crossed the line of death.
You know those movies where the bad guy chases the hero. The bad guy has the faster car and more powerful weapons, but somehow the hero stay one step ahead. The chase goes on, over hills, crashing through fences, over rough terrain and through impossible circumstances. They round a bend and the bad guy knows it leads to the drawbridge, and it’s time for the ferry to cross. The bridge will be up, and our hero will be caught. As they near the bridge, the hero floors it in a last ditch attempt, one final hope. The hero jumps his car over the opening drawbridge and the bad guy is trapped on the other side, unable to cross. He can only watch as the hero escapes to freedom.
As I read this passage, I get his kind of chase in my mind. Sin has chased us all our lives, nipping at our heels, just waiting for our death so it can finally catch us and claim its victory. It is persistent, yet patient, for it knows that we will come to the line of death and at that line, it has won. What sin doesn’t expect is for us to floor it and veer suddenly right toward the line, trusting in God’s promise, jumping across to a new life in Christ. There sin stands, at that line of death, unable to cross and touch us and bring us death anymore. For the line we’ve crossed, it cannot. And because we crossed that line willingly, surrendering under God’s terms, we go on living after death, just as Jesus did. We are now free from sin to go on and live for God.
Call me a Church of Christ wacko, but this passage shows baptism to be an amazing, mysterious, powerful and absolutely crucial aspect of Christian life because it is the connection to the blood of Christ, to His death, to His resurrection, to His new life and it’s the portal from slavery to freedom, from death to life.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:9-11, ESV

How cool is that? And, more importantly, as the rest of the chapter implores us to think about, if this is true, how should we live then? In sin? No!

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Romans 6:13, ESV

Romans 4 is a challenging passage, and encouraging too. It’s exciting to see how Abraham’s faith gained him the gift of righteousness from God, just as our faith in Jesus does today. Abraham was the beginning of what would become the Israelite nation. Paul’s point here was that all the law and the history and the prophets began, not with obedience and righteous living worthy of praise from God, but with simple faith and trust in him who “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (Romans 4:17, ESV) It’s a powerful testimony of God’s amazing love, patience and grace that He has given first to a family based on his faith, then to a nation now to anyone who will call on His name in faith.
While that big picture is encouraging and amazing, I have this feeling that there are many nuances that I’m missing here. Do you ever read a passage and feel that there’s something in it that’s escaping you, that you just aren’t getting? That’s how I felt reading Romans 4 this time through. I’ve felt that before, with the entire book of Hebrews for example, and later on it’s clicked. Some of those passages are now my favorites (I love Hebrews now), perhaps because of all the head scratching that proceeded the ‘aha!’ moment.
Romans 5:2 – If the grace of God is a room we stand in, faith is the doorway we must pass through to get there. Or perhaps more accurately, Jesus is the doorway and our faith in him is our ‘backstage pass’ or ticket to get in. Perhaps that gives us too much credit.
Romans 5:10 – I wonder if ‘reconciled’ and ‘saved’ in this verse mean two different things. I used to think of them both as salvation, in the saved from Hell sense, but now I wonder. For it says “now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” We are saved through His life after we are reconciled. In other words, His death and sacrifice provide reconciliation that enables His life to save us form a world of hurt. For once we are reconciled, we begin to examine His life and emulate it. In doing so, we are saved from the pain of sin and its consequences. Things we would have done before without thought, and would have hurt us and others in the process,, we now run from. In that way, once we are reconciled, we are then saved.
Romans 5:19 – Some see in this verse, and the surrounding passages guilt that was placed upon everyone because of Adam’s sin. But Romans 5:12 says “death spread to all men because all sinned” and that is the context of verse 19. Also, if you look at verse 19 and say that Adam’s sin made everyone guilty, apart from any action on their own, it would be consistent to use the second part of the verse to say that Jesus’ obedience made everyone justified apart from any action on their own. Even those who take the view of original sin and the Calvinist position that we do absolutely nothing in our salvation (it’s all God’s doing, period) would not say that Jesus’ obedience justifies everyone, would they?

Romans 3:20 – Someone asked me recently what the purpose of the OT law (specifically the 10 Commandments) was, Well, here we learn that it was not for justification. God did not give the law to prove how righteous we were. If anything, it was the opposite, he gave the law to show us just how far we are from him.
This is a concept that was always a little hard for me as I read Romans before. It seemed a bit harsh of God to make up laws to prove us failures. But perhaps the law was not something ‘made up’ by God for any purpose, it sprung from who He was. He didn’t ‘make it up’ as we might think but instead simply recorded who He was and how He lived. By doing so, He illuminated the stark difference between He and us.
Romans 3:21-24 – On the surface the it appears that the law is a means to get to know God – God expect you to do this and that and avoid these and those if you would be like Him and follow Him. Instead of leading us to Him, it just becomes quickly clear, however, that we are not capable of following that road.
But wait – God, now that it is plain to all of humanity that we cannot be like him, has given us, not a way to be righteous, but given us righteousness. It’s not that Jesus offers us a way to be Godly he just offers us the Godliness. It’s like those get rich quick schemes “Here’s an easy way to millions!” except that God, thorough our faith in Jesus, just says “Here’s millions!” How cool is that?

Since The Message isn’t really a good study version, I’ve decided to try something different. I’ve heard good things about the ESV, so I’m going to give that a whirl for a while. I will likely change the auto-linking to go to the ESV as well, although the old quotations will stay NIV. Since I’m changing translations again and I had only read the first Chapter of Romans, I figures I ought to just start over. To here we go.
Romans 1:17 – The footnote for verse 17 in the ESV reads “beginning and ending in faith”. I feel as though I forget how faith is the beginning of Christianity. I think of relationships and love, but it all rests on our faith.
Romans 2:1-3 – Being judgmental, like this describes, is not only sinful, but it’s hard. Not hard on the one you’ve judged, although it is that, but hard on yourself. I know, for that’s me. For years, for whatever reason, I’ve looked in judgment on nearly everyone around me. It has become such part of who I am that I scarcely notice it. If you are different or have a different view, even a different preference, you are wrong. I’m not entirely sure where this comes from in me, but it is prevalent. I wonder sometimes if I can escape it. What’s worse is I’ve begun to see how it has hurt me more than it’s hurt those I’ve judged. In many cases, they have no knowledge of what’s in my mind, thankfully. But because this is how I tend to think, it’s how I assume others think as well. So, any words of disappointment, frustration or anger I interpret as criticism of me personally. When my wife has a headache, I feel responsible. If her PC isn’t running right, I feel that I’m to blame. If someone expresses disappointment to me, I feel that it must mean that they think I’m to blame for it. I’ve found that I don’t know how to just hear someone express something negative without taking it personally. I hope that being able to see it will help me overcome it, but It’s hard to see how.
Romans 2:7 – “patience in well-doing”. Not persistence or perseverance but patience. Patience to me implies waiting, not “doing”. Does that mean we keep doing, even while wait on God for the results or the reward?
Romans 2:25-29 – I guess some use this passage to teach that those who are not baptized, but who live the heart of Christianity will still be saved. I do see the parallel here and I think it’s valid. But the point Paul was making here was not that circumcision was trivial or even optional. He was saying that it it not what made one a Jew. It was one’s heart that made one a Jew, circumcision was secondary to that. I think the same can be said of baptism. It is not a dunking that makes one a Christian. It’s a change of heart, repentance, metenoia, that make one a Christian, the baptism is secondary. Not that baptism is trivial or optional for salvation, but it is not what makes a man righteous before God. Jesus said something similar in Luke 11:37-41, did He not? Will the righteous, yet unbaptized be saved? It’s not my place to say for sure, but presuming such a man exists (and he was merely ignorant of the command of baptism, not defiant of it), I would think so. However, knowing as we do that God has promised us forgiveness in baptism, but has not promised anything out side of it, why chance it? This verse does not, as some might like, get us off the hook for teaching what baptism is to a religious world who doesn’t want to hear it, it merely reminds us if it’s proper place. Vital, but secondary.