Lessons #05 and 06
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New American Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
+ 4. Text is based on 1984 edition of the NIV +
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The Gospel of God (Rom 1:2-6)
2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6 And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
Apostle Paul did not follow his usual pattern of salutation in his epistles in this epistle to the Romans. His usual pattern is that he would introduce himself as the author of a given epistle with a short description that indicates he is an apostle by the will of God and followed right away by the identification of the recipients of the epistle. Let me prove my assertion by referring to the other epistles of the apostle. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, we read of him introducing himself in verse 1 and in verse 2 he followed by identifying the recipients of his epistle as we may gather from 1 Corinthians 1:1–2:
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
In his second epistle to the Corinthians, we read of him introducing himself as the author of the epistle followed by identification of the Corinthians as its recipients as stated in 2 Corinthians 1:1:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul identified himself as the author of the epistle describing himself as one that was sent by the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. This is followed by identification of the recipients of the epistle as we read in Galatians 1:1–2:
1 Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers with me, To the churches in Galatia:
Paul identified himself as the author of the epistle to the Ephesians stating that he is an apostle by the will of God. This he followed by identifying the recipients of the epistle right away in Ephesians 1:1:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
In his epistle to the Philippians, the apostle identified himself as the author of the epistle, followed by identification of its recipients as we read in Philippians 1:1:
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:
Paul began his epistle to the Colossians by identifying himself as the author, followed by his identification of its recipients as we read in Colossians 1:1–2:
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
The first epistle to the Thessalonians began with Paul introducing himself as its author, followed by identification of its recipients according to 1 Thessalonians 1:1:
Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you.
The same identification of the human author followed by identification of the recipients of the second epistle to the Thessalonians is evident in 2 Thessalonians 1:1:
Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Paul in his first letter to Timothy identified himself as the author, followed by identification of Timothy as its recipient as we read in 1 Timothy 1:1–2:
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,
2 To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
The same observation of identifying the author and recipients of an epistle applies to the second epistle of Apostle Paul to Timothy according to 2 Timothy 1:1–2:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, 2 To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
The passages we have cited indicate that the normal pattern of the apostle in introducing his epistles is that of identifying himself as the human author often with a brief description of himself as one commissioned by God for the preaching of the gospel. However, there are two epistles of the apostle where he did not follow this pattern. In effect, he introduced himself as the human author but followed with somewhat lengthy assertions before identifying the recipients. The first is his epistle to the Romans that we are considering. The second is his epistle to Titus as we may gather from Titus 1:1–4:
1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness— 2 a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, 4 To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Why did the apostle deviate from his normal pattern of introducing his epistles in both the epistle to the Romans and to Titus? There is no direct reason supplied for this deviation. However, there are two observations that may explain the apostle’s deviation from his pattern. The first is that in these two epistles, the apostle introduced the concept of God’s promise. In Romans, he indicated that the promise was about the gospel that was revealed through the prophets and in Titus, he indicated that the promise concerned eternal life that God promised in eternity. The second is that the apostle hinted that he would in the two epistles make statements that are direct assertions of the deity of Jesus Christ although interpreters do not agree on this assertion. Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans went immediately to statements that indicate the two natures of Jesus Christ. He referenced His humanity in the clause of Romans 1:3 who as to his human nature was a descendant of David and His deity in the verbal phrase of verse 4 to be the Son of God. Thus, it is not surprising that later the apostle asserted directly that Jesus Christ is God in Romans 9:5:
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
We will by the will of God examine this passage in detail at the appropriate time, but we are making a passing reference because of the point we made. Anyway, in Titus, the apostle made a reference to Jesus Christ’s deity in the verbal phrase of Titus 1:3 the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior. This sentence implies that the apostle recognized Jesus Christ as God since he elsewhere in his epistle had indicated that Jesus Christ commissioned him to preach the gospel. Thus, it is not surprising that the apostle later in his epistle stated directly that Jesus Christ is God in Titus 2:13:
while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our point is that the apostle deviated from his normal pattern of introducing his epistles in Romans and Titus probably because the Holy Spirit directed him to do so knowing that He would lead the apostle to make direct statements about Jesus Christ being God in these two epistles.
Be that as it may, in the case of the epistle to the Romans, there is another reason the apostle deviated from his normal pattern of introducing his epistles. It is because he, in effect, introduced a part of his theme of the epistle in the phrase of Romans 1:1 the gospel of God where we indicated it can be translated “the gospel from God” or “gospel about God.” This phrase appears eight times in the Greek NT, six of these by Apostle Paul. The first use of the phrase appears in Mark’s gospel as he introduced the ministry of Jesus as recorded in Mark 1:14:
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news[gospel] of God.
Apostle Peter used the phrase as he indicated that if God judges those in His family, he could not imagine what would come to those who are unbelievers as we read in 1 Peter 4:17:
For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Apostle Paul used the phrase twice in his epistle to the Romans. Besides Romans 1:1 that we had referenced, he used it in Romans 15:16:
to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
In his second epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle used the phrase in his question to the Corinthians if he failed by preaching the gospel to them without charge. This gospel, of course, he referred as “gospel of God” in 2 Corinthians 11:7:
Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?
The last three usages of the phrase we are considering appear in his epistle to the Thessalonians. In narrating the difficulty under which he and his team preached the gospel to the Thessalonians, Paul referred to it, using the phrase “gospel of God” in 1 Thessalonians 2:2:
We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition.
The phrase his gospel is more literally the gospel of God. He used the phrase in two other verses of the same chapter as we read in 1 Thessalonians 2:8–9:
8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9 Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.
Hence, we see that the apostle used the phrase more than any other writer of the NT. We contend that the phrase is quite important in the pen of the apostle. Thus, the fact that the apostle used the phrase gospel of God in Romans 1:1 is his unmistaken way of conveying that Jesus Christ is God. I am saying that from the very first verse of the epistle to the Romans, he meant to convey that Jesus Christ is God. Someone may say that I am just making this up. Am 1? I do not think so. The apostle was intentional in that the Holy Spirit directed him to use the phrase gospel of God so to convey that Jesus Christ is God as I will demonstrate by the argument that follows.
Apostle Paul recognizes no other gospel than the one he and the other apostles preached as being true. This we know from what he said to the Galatians as he rebuked them for listening to something that is false as implied in Galatians 1:6–8:
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
This passage indicates that to the apostle there is only one gospel that is associated with Christ. This gospel he described as the “gospel of his Son” in Romans 1:9:
God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you.
This gospel the apostle preached; he described severally as the “gospel of Christ.” He described it that way in Romans 15:19:
by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
To the Corinthians, the apostle used the phrase “gospel of Christ” to describe the gospel he preached. For example, in his first epistle to the Corinthians we find the phrase “gospel of Christ” in 1 Corinthians 9:12:
If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.
In describing the opportunity God provided him to preach the gospel in Troas, he used the phrase “gospel of Christ” in 2 Corinthians 2:12:
Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me,
In the apostle’s encouragement to the Philippians to be mindful of their lifestyles as those who are believers in Christ Jesus, he used the phrase to describe the gospel in Philippians 1:27:
Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel.
In stating his purpose for sending Timothy to the Thessalonians, the apostle used the phrase “gospel of Christ” as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 3:2:
We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith.
I could go on to cite many more passages where the apostle used the phrase “gospel of Christ” but the ones that I have cited suffice to show that the apostle used the phrase several times. So, if the apostle used the phrase several times to describe the only gospel he preached, it must mean that to him the phrase “gospel of Christ” is the same as the phrase “gospel of God.” This being the case, it does not take much to see that Christ and God in the mind of the apostle could be interchanged. The implication is that the apostle recognized that Jesus Christ is God. Interestingly, there is a passage that implies that the apostle sees rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ as rejection of God. I am referring to the punishment the apostle mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 1:8:
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
The word “and” is translated from a Greek word (καί) that has generally been interpreted in one of two ways. The first interpretation is that “It means ‘even’, and functions as a further description of the one group of people upon whom the Lord will take vengeance.” The second interpretation is that “It is coordinate and indicates another group upon whom the Lord will take vengeance.” To me, there is a third interpretation that is probably what the apostle meant. It is to understand the Greek word as providing an explanation of what it means not to know God. So, not to know God is not to accept and so believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This interpretation implies that the apostle recognized the Lord Jesus as God. In any event, it is our assertion that another reason the apostle deviated from his normal pattern in the greeting portion of his epistle is because he, in effect, introduced a part of his theme of the epistle in the phrase of Romans 1:1 the gospel of God. This phrase also is an indirect way that the apostle asserted that Jesus Christ is God.
In any case, Apostle Paul made two general statements in his introduction of his epistle regarding the gospel of God that he introduced in Romans 1:1. Let me give you the two general statements before we begin to consider them. The first is that the gospel of God had been in God’s plan from eternity and so was revealed through the prophets as he stated in Romans 1:2. The second is that the gospel of God is about the Son of God as he described in Romans 1:3-6. Thus, the central message communicated in Romans 1:2-6 is that the Gospel of God is a promised good news given through the prophets and it is about the Son of God. From this central message we derive a simple message the Holy Spirit wants us to hear from this passage that is: You should endeavor to remember that the focus of the gospel of God is Jesus Christ. Having stated this message, we begin our study with the first general statement of the apostle about the gospel of God.
We indicated that the first general statement of the apostle about the gospel of God is that it had been in God’s plan from eternity and so was revealed through the prophets. This statement is given in Romans 1:2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Someone may say to me that there is no word “plan” or the word “eternity” in this sentence and so that my assertion is not in keeping with the sentence. However, a closer reflection on the sentence indicates it is concerned with something that was in God’s mind in eternity since prophecy is nothing but God disclosing to human agents what is in His plan. God’s plan is “His eternal decision rendering certain all things which shall come to pass according to His good pleasure and for His own glory.” Thus, the fact the sentence we are considering contains a promise is in and of itself a reference to God’s plan. The plan of God is not something that He came up as human history began. The Scripture is clear that God’s plan is eternal in nature. Prophet Isaiah made this point using the phrase “long ago” in Isaiah 22:11:
You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.
The same concept of the eternal nature of God’s plan is conveyed with the phrase “before the beginning of time” as Apostle Paul used it to describe the grace associated with our salvation as stated in 2 Timothy 1:9:
who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
If you understand that God’s plan is eternal, you should not have difficulty with me saying that the gospel of God had been in His plan from eternity.
Be that as it may, the apostle wrote in Romans 1:2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The word gospel does not appear in the Greek of verse 2, but it is understood since the literal translation reads which he promised beforehand through his prophets in holy Scriptures. The pronoun which is translated from a Greek pronoun (ho) that as a demonstrative pronoun may mean “this (one)” but as a relative pronoun means “who, which, what” that is used to reference what preceded or something implied in a preceding clause. It is in this sense that it is used in our verse to reference the gospel mentioned in Romans 1:1 and so the NIV, the NET, and a handful of our English versions are correct by replacing it with the word “gospel” or “good news.”
The gospel or good news, the apostle said was promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Although it is not explicitly stated but the context indicates that the one who promised beforehand is God.
The expression “promised beforehand” is translated from a Greek word (proepangellō) that appears only twice in the Greek NT; it means “to announce with certainty in advance as to what one will do,” that is, “to promise beforehand” or “to promise previously.” In its other usage, the translators of the NIV rendered the word simply with the meaning “promised” when the word is used to convey to the Corinthians that Apostle Paul had sent some brothers to visit them to finish the arrangements to fulfill their previous promise of gifts to be delivered to believers in Judea as we read in 2 Corinthians 9:5:
So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.
The clause for the generous gift you had promised is translated in the LEB as for your generous gift that was promised previously. In our passage of Romans 1:2, the sense of the word is “to promise beforehand,” that is, “to promise something at a previous time or in advance.”
God promised something in advance, but He did this through human agents described as the prophets in the phrase of Romans 1:2 through his prophets. Our use of the word “agents” is because of the word “through” that is translated from a Greek preposition (dia) that no doubt means “through.” However, the meaning “through” may be understood to be used in different ways. For example, it could be understood to be used as a marker of means between two events or a marker of instrumentality. In our verse, it is used as marker of personal agency. The agents involved are described as “prophets.”
The word “prophet” is translated from a Greek word (prophētēs) that refers to a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose. In other words, a proclaimer or expounder of divine matters or concerns that could not ordinarily be known except by special revelation. Such a person rebuke people or predicts events. OT prophets had the important role of being intermediaries between God and people and vice-versa. Moses as a prophet fulfilled this role and so God promised Israel to send a prophet to them like Moses as we read in Deuteronomy 18:16–18:
16 For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” 17 The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
Since a prophet serves as an intermediary between God and people, God would send a prophet to convey His message to people as was the case when God communicated to David through Gad the choices he had from Him, because of his ill-advised census as we read in 2 Samuel 24:11–12:
11 Before David got up the next morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 12 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”
Prophets would normally warn of pending disasters that are generally the results of divine judgment. Prophet Elisha demonstrated this function of warning people concerning a pending disaster when he warned the woman that had taken care of him to move to another country because of famine that was coming in Israel that will last seven years, as stated in 2 Kings 8:1:
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, "Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years."
Another function of the OT prophets is consulting God for personal information that an individual needed. This practice is implied in 1 Samuel 9:9:
(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, "Come, let us go to the seer," because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.)
We have examples of this kind of consultation in Scripture. Saul under the advice of his servant consulted Prophet Samuel about his father’s missing animals, according to 1 Samuel 9:5-6:
5 When they reached the district of Zuph, Saul said to the servant who was with him, "Come, let's go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us." 6 But the servant replied, "Look, in this town there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true. Let's go there now. Perhaps he will tell us what way to take."
King Jehoshaphat consulted Prophet Elisha when he faced a military situation, as indicated in his question in 2 Kings 3:11:
But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of the LORD through him?" An officer of the king of Israel answered, "Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah."
If you read the rest of the chapter, you will note that Prophet Elisha indeed gave the king the assurance of military defeat of his enemies. Anyway, a prophet is a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose. This divine will is that which is within God from eternity and so our reference to the gospel of God as being in His plan from eternity is proper.
In any case, Apostle Paul asserted in Romans 1:2 that the gospel or good news of God was promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The promise of the gospel of God is conveyed in the assertion of the victory of the offspring of the woman over that of the serpent in Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This promise notwithstanding, in a sense, the first promise of the gospel of God was through the first person clearly identified as a prophet in the OT Scripture. I mean Abraham whom God declared to be a prophet as we read in Genesis 20:7:
Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die.”
The promise God gave to Abraham that constitutes the gospel or good news is that of a coming seed of his that would be a blessing to the world as stated in Genesis 22:18:
and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
The phrase your offspring is more literally your seed. This promise to Abraham is clearly related to the gospel of Jesus Christ since Apostle Paul later indicated that the seed of Abraham in view is Jesus Christ as we read in Galatians 3:16:
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.
The promise of the gospel of God was certainly what God revealed to Moses in terms of raising a prophet like him to Israel as stated in a passage we cited previously, that is, Deuteronomy 18:18:
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
Apostle Peter while preaching the gospel to those who witnessed the healing of a crippled man through him referenced this passage as recorded in Acts 3:22–23:
22 For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.’
David functioning as a prophet wrote about this promised gospel of God in that he wrote about the resurrection of Jesus Christ in Psalm 16:8–11:
8 I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Apostle Peter, during his sermon on the day of Pentecost, cited this passage in support of his assertion that Jesus is the Christ since He was raised from the dead. After the apostle quoted this passage, he made the comment recorded in Acts 2:29–32:
29 “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
Anyway, the point we are stressing is that the gospel of God was revealed to the prophets since Apostle Paul stated in Romans 1:2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets.
It is not only that God revealed His will to the prophets about the gospel of God but what He revealed to them were written down for us. It is this fact that is given in the phrase of Romans 1:2 in the Holy Scriptures.
The word “holy” is translated from a Greek word (hagios) that pertains to being dedicated or consecrated to the service of God and so means “dedicated to God, holy, sacred.” As an adjective it is used to describe several things that are certainly related to God. It is used to describe Jerusalem as “the holy city” where the devil took Jesus to during His temptation as recorded in Matthew 4:5:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
The adjective is used to describe the temple in Jerusalem as the place that the Lord Jesus indicated would be defiled in fulfillment of Scripture as we read in Matthew 24:15:
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—
The adjective is used by Apostle Paul to describe both the calling of believers and the lifestyle expected of them as stated in 2 Timothy 1:9:
who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.
The phrase to a holy life is literally to a holy calling so the apostle meant to convey not just the manner believers were called but also the responsibility associated with God calling us. The Greek adjective is used with the meaning “sacred” to describe the mountain of transfiguration as described in 2 Peter 1:18:
We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
It is in the sense of “sacred” that Apostle Peter used it to describe the various teachings of the Christian faith that were passed on to believers that he referred as the sacred command as we read in 2 Peter 2:21:
It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
In our passage of Romans 1:2, the Greek adjective means “holy” or “sacred” in the sense of that which is “dedicated or consecrated to the service of God.” The word, of course, is used to qualify “scripture” as in the phrase in the Holy Scriptures.
Our word “scriptures” is translated from a Greek word (graphē) that may mean “writing” but in the NT, it is used to refer to our sacred scripture. It can refer to “an individual passage of scripture” as it is used to describe the passage Philip the evangelist focused on as he presented the gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch as narrated in Acts 8:35:
Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
The word may refer to “scripture in its entirety.” In our passage of Romans 1:2, the plural is used so it refers collectively to all parts of the OT Scripture. We can understand this since we have cited few passages where the promise of the gospel of God was revealed through the prophets or through one (David) with gift of prophecy without the office of a prophet although of the three parts of OT Scripture (Torah, Prophets, and Writings), we cited only from two – Torah and Writings.
Be that as it may, the apostle conveyed that the promise of the gospel of God was revealed through the prophets in the Scripture since we have the last phrase of Romans 1:2 in the Holy Scriptures. This is the only place in the entire Greek NT that we find the Greek phrase so translated Holy Scriptures used. Of course, if you consult an English Bible concordance you may think that I am mistaken because you will find the phrase in 2 Timothy 3:15:
and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
However, the Greek phrase here translated the holy Scriptures is not the same as that used in Romans 1:2. This is first because the word “holy” in 2 Timothy 3:15 is translated from a Greek word (hieron) that appears only twice in the Greek NT. The word may mean “holy thing” in the sense of “belonging to temple and its service” so the word simply has the meaning “temple.” Another meaning of the word is “holy” as it is used in in 2 Timothy 3:15. The word “scripture” in the NIV in 2 Timothy 3:15 is translated from a Greek word (gramma) from which we get the English word “grammar.” The Greek word in question has several meanings. For example, it refers to the letter of a Greek alphabet as that is the sense in which the word is used by Apostle Paul to indicate that the closing portion of his epistle to the Galatians was written by him. It is in this sense that the word is used by Apostle Paul in Galatians 6:11:
See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!
The word may refer to any kind of written document as it is used to refer to the words of the Law as implied in Romans 2:29:
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.
Anyway, the Greek phrase translated the holy Scriptures in Romans 1:2 appears only in it and in no other passage of the NT. The real problem is to understand the reason the apostle described the Scripture as holy Scriptures in Romans 1:2 since that is only place the apostle used the phrase in the Greek NT. It is difficult to be certain of the apostle’s reason for such description since we know that the apostle has a high view of the OT Scripture that he quoted several times in his epistles. Although we cannot be definite about the apostle’s reasons, it appears that one of his reasons is that he would later in this epistle to the Romans refer to a part of the Hebrew Scripture that he wants the reader to recognize as part of the Scripture. You see, later in this epistle the apostle would describe the Law or the commandment with the word “holy” as we read in Romans 7:12:
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
The apostle’s use of the word “holy” here in Romans 7:12 should cause the reader to recognize that the apostle did not mean any law or any commandment but the Scripture. This may be a part of the reason for him from the start to indicate that the Scripture is holy, hence his use of the Greek phrase translated in Romans 1:2 Holy Scriptures. In any event, the first general statement of the apostle about the gospel of God is that it had been in God’s plan from eternity and so was revealed through the prophets in written form as he stated in Romans 1:2. As we end our study today, let me remind you of the message of Romans 1:2-6 is You should endeavor to remember that the focus of the gospel of God is Jesus Christ.
04/19/24