The Letter to the Romans, sometimes called the gospel according to Paul, is really Paul’s explanation of the secret of the ages namely that ‘the just society’.
The good life’ which is only possible by being in a personal relationship with the living God, is now available to all because of what Jesus Christ has done.
The simplest way of grasping the Letter to the Romans is by seeing it as the Roman Goldmine.
You walk up the hill of the first few verses, gold nuggets lying about all over the floor and come to the main shaft and peep down it.
This main shaft is verses 16 and 17 of chapter 1 from which you can glimpse every level of the work¬ings in the gold mine.
On the surface alongside the main shaft there are three slag heaps.
One slag heap is the world of rebellion.
The second one is the world of religion.
The third one is the world of respect¬ability.
All these have gone through God’s grader and although they contain different quantities of gold dust they’ve all fallen short of God’s gold standard and been rejected. That takes you to the end of chapter 3.
Chapter 4, is about the first man in the mine, who was called Abraham, and he discovered corridors which were going to run right underground to the New Testament.
There are seams of pure gold to be dug out and refined.
Chapter 5 onwards is all about life on the gold standard: how to spend the wealth you’ve got.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 are a kind of separate section about those who orig¬inally inherited the gold mine but turned it down.
To see the Letter to the Romans like this is to have a map to help you find your way through it without getting lost.
But remember, the only way of getting the gold out of it is to go in and dig it out, and bring it out and spend it.
