Ten Things to Know About Romans - Part 4 of 4

By Joe McKeever

Editor’s Note: In this series, Joe encourages and challenges pastors to take on the message of Romans in their churches by laying the groundwork for study, application, and appreciation of this most intense of Paul’s epistles.

8) There are Treasures to be Found and Enjoyed in the Study of Greek words in Romans.

My two favorite Greek words in Romans both come from chapter 8. “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (8:26).

Take the little word “helps” in that verse. It’s only five letters in the English, but the Greek term Paul used is a compound word, meaning that it is several words or prefixes or suffixes, pushed up together to make a newer, fuller, and longer word. The word translated in the Greek is sunantilambano¨mai—seventeen letters!

Here is how that word breaks down. The prefix sun (often transliterated syn) means “together or with.” The prefix anti means “in front of, or opposite to.” Finally lambano¨mai is a form of the verb “to lift.” Put it all together and what we have is this: “The Holy Spirit gets on the other side of your load, and together with you, lifts it up.”

Watch a man trying to operate a cross-cut saw all by himself. It’s practically impossible. He needs someone on the other end. Think of the last time you made up a bed. If you did it alone, you ran from side to side. But if someone stood on the other side, neither of you had to take even one step and the job was accomplished in one-third the time. The Holy Spirit speaking through Paul says that while the Lord does not do your work for you, He will get on the other end and work with you to accomplish the task.

The other word comes from Romans 8:37, “But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

The Greek term for “more than conquerors” is hupe¨rnikomen.

It’s another compound word, this time composed of only two parts: huper (often transliterated hyper, meaning “super, or above”) and nike (meaning “victory”). In Greek mythology Nike was the goddess of victory, and even today we use “hyper” as a prefix to denote something above or beyond.

Paul is saying that through Jesus Christ, we don’t just win. We don’t just conquer. We are “hyper-winners”, “super-conquerors”. And it’s not us. “We are hyper-nikes through Him who loved us.” It’s all about Him.

9) God Has Used Romans to Reach Some of History’s Greatest Spiritual Heroes.

Augustine was a mess. He would pray, “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.” He wanted God, yet he wanted his own ways and those ways were not even close to what pleased the Lord. He was torn right down the middle. One day in his misery, he was weeping under a fig tree, under deep distress of the soul caused by the realization of his own sinfulness. Suddenly, he heard a child singing, “Take up and read....Take up and read.”

That was strange, he thought. He could not find the person speaking those words and did not know of a child’s game or song like that.

Deciding the Lord was speaking to him, Augustine found a copy of Paul’s epistles nearby and opened it at random. His eyes fell on this: “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and wantonness, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:13-14).

Augustine knew God had just sent him a message and received it as such. He believed, obeyed, and became the great spiritual force the Lord had created him to be.

In the 16th century, the Catholic priest and scholar Martin Luther was in his own soul struggle. He had tried every way he knew to gain peace in his heart from knowing he was truly forgiven and accepted by God. As he studied Romans for classes he was teaching, Luther began to grasp for the first time the meaning of Romans 1:17, “The just shall live by faith,” where Paul quotes from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk.

Luther said, “Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.” Afterward, he challenged the church of his day to make needed reforms, and when the leadership refused, he led what we now call the Protestant Reformation.

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley was likewise engaged in a struggle for salvation’s assurance and the peace which accompanies it. He had even traveled across the Atlantic to the colony of Georgia in the New World to bring the message of Christ to the Indians, but he was discouraged. How could he give to others what he did not possess himself? That evening, Wesley went to a meeting where Martin Luther’s introduction to Romans was being read. Later, he wrote in his journal how his heart was “strangely warmed.” He said, “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

You will recognize that last phrase “the law of sin and death” as coming straight out of Romans 8:2. Thereafter, Wesley preached this message for forty years and was God’s spark for revival fires breaking out all over England and America.

Each of these men changed history, and became forces for righteousness. The seed of the new birth in their lives was God’s message in Romans.

This may be a good time to make an observation about soul struggles. I recommend them. To be sure, they’re no fun, but the fact is they serve a useful purpose.

Think of the time we wrestle and struggle with questions about God, faith, and the Bible as the Lord digging downward into the soil of our lives where he will one day lay a foundation for a massive structure to be erected. That structure, of course, is the new person we become on the other side of our struggle. This assumes, however, that we persevere through the struggle to the victory. Not everyone does, unfortunately.

The thing about the struggle of the believer is this: the greater our struggle with these great questions of the faith and the more prolonged it is, the greater the joy and assurance when the answer finally arrives.

If you struggle in the morning and the answer arrives by mid-afternoon, you hardly remember the event the next day. If you struggle for years and lie awake at night tormented by the problem, if you read and question and agonize and shed tears, when the solution comes and the answer arrives with force, the impact will leave you forever changed.

That’s why God let Augustine and Luther and Wesley—and perhaps you, too—struggle with the question of salvation. He had such good news, that he wanted them to appreciate the answer when it arrived.

10) When Teaching Romans, Take Care to Help Your People Love this Book, Not Dread It.

There are so many delightful treasures in Romans, but also some heavy passages most people will find it difficult to negotiate.

John MacArthur identifies five problem areas in Romans, key teaching passages on which good and sincere people disagree. The difficult areas MacArthur mentioned are these:

1) “Adam” in 5:12-21. The nature of mankind’s union with Adam and how his sin was transferred to the human race is a problem scholars still wrestle with.

2) Paul’s testimony in 7:7-25. Is Paul
having this trouble as a believer or describing his pre-Christian life? Or maybe this is a literary device not meant to be personal at all. Good people disagree.

3) The close relation of God’s election (8:28-30) and God’s sovereignty (9:6-29) are difficult for many.

4) Whether Romans 9-11 teaches that God still has plans for the nation of Israel still divides Bible scholars.

5) Obedience to civil government (13:1-7). Some ignore this passage in the cause of Christian activism while others quote Paul to justify not resisting the most despotic of political regimes.

If I were teaching Romans—as I do from time to time in churches around our area—I would try not to get bogged down in these areas. If you are teaching a class for preachers or a doctoral class at the seminary, go for broke. Otherwise, go easy on your people and try not to scare them too much.

I ask the pastors where I’ll be teaching to encourage their people to read through Romans at least twice before we begin the sessions. Once, one of them told me, “I’m saying three times!” Good for him.

One more thing—a good understanding of the Old Testament is helpful (some would say vital) in studying Romans. Consider the way Paul draws lessons from characters in Israel’s history.

In chapter 4, he speaks of Abraham’s faith and later of his sons and grandsons; in 4:6-8, he speaks of David’s spiritual insights. In 5:12-21, he draws analogies and contrasts from Adam; in 9:17, he speaks of Pharaoh being used of God; in11:2-4, he speaks of Elijah’s learning that God had more than he knew who were still faithful—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.