This post is part of a study in Romans, whereby we identify keywords and phrases for each chapter with the goal of having a handle on the subject matter and flow of thought within Romans whereby we can preach the gospel to ourselves and others every day. See here for a introduction and description of our study in Romans.
The following is a handout I made to review the previous seven weeks of study and to introduce chapter four with new Keywords and Memory verses.
ROMANS - SUMMARY SO FAR
Keywords:
Chap 1: Without Excuse
Chap 2: The Law Condemns
Chap 3: There is none righteous
Chap 4: Imputation/Logizomai
Alternate Keywords:
Chap 1: The Indictment Begins (Rom 1:18)
Chap 2: (open for suggestions)
Chap 3: All have sinned, Total Depravity
Chap 4: Counted Righteous
Memory Verses:
Rom 1:20
Rom 2:13
Rom 3:10
Rom 4:3
Extended Memory Verses
Chap 1: Rom 1:1, Rom 1:8, Rom 1:16-20
Chap 2: Rom 2:12-16
Chap 3: Rom 3:10-12, Rom 3:18, Rom 3:21, Rom 3:23, Rom 3:28-29
Chap 4: Rom 4:23-25
REVIEW:
Chapter One showing us that we were all WITHOUT EXCUSE. That what can be known of God has been made MANFEST IN us and shown to us by GOD. Even the invisible things of God being clearly understood ever since the creation of the world, from the things that are made, even his eternal power and GODHEAD. God is. Who can deny? No one! All are without excuse. As my little girl almost 10 years old at the time said, “There had to be someone that wasn’t made to make all that was made.”
Moving on to Chapter Two, we find that the there is no law to empower us unto the making of our own righteousness. No standard we can erect will ever serve to justify us in the end before a holy God. Having the standard is never enough we must from the first breath uphold all things perfectly and at all times, for it is not the hearers of the law that are just before God but the doers of the law that shall be justified. Again from the mouth of my little girls: “The law tells you what to do, but it doesn’t give you the power to do it.” And if we might assert “We had no standard to guide us, we had no law written on stone to show us the way, how can we then be judged?” We also learned that we evidence all the time the work of the law written on our hearts, we have a conscience, we look at the actions of one another and say approvingly ‘that was good’ or ‘that was bad.’ We have law enough, which if we sin without law we shall also PERISH without law. So then the Law cannot save us, but only condemn. The Law Condemns, either that law which the Jews were under or even which standard is a “work of the law written in our hearts.”
Then in Chapter Three, the case against us having already been made , yet there is more. We hear an argument from Holy Scriptures written long before the book of Romans. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” A number of scriptures are cited, humbling us, showing us our hopeless state without remedy in ourselves. Some of which are:
Psa 14:1-3, Psa 53:1-3, Psa 5:9, Psa 140:3, Psa 10:7, Isa 59:7-8, Psa 36:1
The charges are numerous, our own inability plainly stated: “None that understands,” “none that seeks after God,” Everyone unprofitable, no one doing GOOD. My Throat like an open grave is a man-eater. (note: I said “my” not “their” for the difficulty for me is to see my own place in this dreadful list, to see these holy charges falling upon me, but they do if I attempt to stand on my own person, ability and goodness.) My tongue has used deceit, and the deadly poison of an asp is under my lips. Mouth full of cursing - (too well do I know that truth.) Destruction and misery in my way. Not knowing the way of peace with my wife, my fellow, my friend, and especially MY GOD. The one true cause of all the previously mentioned is summed all up in the greatest of all sins, “There is no fear of God before my eyes.” Had I feared God aright, my entire passion would be for him, my thoughts always running to him, I would have diligently read His book, prayed without ceasing, this Holy Fear would have flavored my every action. Fear that doesn’t cower but cries out “who do I have in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.” Not the fear of cowardice but the Holy fear that COMES to God.
Matthew Henry:
The fear of God is here put for all practical religion, which consists in an awful and serious regard to the word and will of God as our rule, to the honour and glory of God as our end. Wicked people have not this before their eyes; that is, they do not steer by it; they are governed by other rules, aim at other ends.
How PRECIOUS therefore is the good news that follows this dreadful list, the righteousness of God without the law, being freely justified, Christ set forth by God to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, and so God is JUST and the JUSTIFIER to him which believeth in Jesus. How can we conclude otherwise except this: “A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” So well am I made to see THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS NOT EVEN ME.
Rom 3:21
Rom 3:22
Rom 3:24
Rom 3:25
Rom 3:26
Rom 3:28
AND So the question arises and is yet more fully answered in Chapter Four, “What righteousness is there then by which I can stand in the day of Judgment?”
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