(We are beginning a series of devotionals today from Romans 1-8.)
The importance of Paul’s letter to the Romans has seldom
been questioned. It is fundamental to
Christian doctrine and essential to the life of every human being. The Bible itself is bound together
historically, geographically, topically and doctrinally by God’s provision of
salvation to mankind through His Son Jesus Christ. But if you want an orderly presentation of
this truth, the place to go is Romans.
Consider these words:
· Harry Ironside: Romans is “the most scientific statement of the divine plan for the redemption of mankind that God has been pleased to give us.”
· Gleason Archer: “No other product of the pen has ever more powerfully confronted the mind of man with the truth of God, casting him down from his complacency and pride, stripping him of all pretensions to self-justifying righteousness, and casting him wholly upon the grace of the Divine Redeemer.”
· Augustine: At the very time he was struggling between beginning a new life and breaking with the old, God brought Romans 13:13-14 to his mind. “No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of the sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.”
· Martin Luther: “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God,’ because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous … Night and day I pondered until … I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.”
· John Wesley: on Wednesday evening, May 24, 1738, “I went unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, 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.”
· Wm. Tyndale: in 1534 advised, “I think it meet that every Christian man not only know it by rote and without the book, but also exercise himself therein evermore continually, as with the daily bread of the soul.”
If I may add the testimony of one not so famous, my own
relationship with God would be nil apart from a professor in Bible college days
who spent the first 10weeks of a 16 week semester in Romans 1-3. For the first time, though brought up in a
Christian home with great parents who taught and lives the Bible, I came face to
face with the ugliness of sin. I had known
academically but had not felt it deeply so as to long for God’s grace. God used that teacher with a poor lesson plan
to grip the heart of one who might otherwise have wandered through life
confident in his own goodness.
May these devotions be a tool of God to etch His truth deep
in our hearts.
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