Romans and Harmony

God created our world without chaos. 

His way is the way of peace and harmony.

Jesus restores peace!

Rest in His peace, not the peace of the world, but in the peace He offers to all who believe.

In the New Testament, we see several ways Jesus is the better mediator of a better covenant with better promises (Hebrews 8:6).

● Jesus is the perfect, eternal Son of God. (John 1:1-2;  1 Peter 2:22-23;  Hebrews 13:8)

● Jesus frees us from spiritual slavery to sin and death. (Acts 13:38-39;  Colossians 1:13-14)

● Jesus is the Word of God, who reveals the Father to us. (Exodus 3;  John 1:1;  Hebrews 1:1-3)

● Jesus brought the new covenant; He secured our redemption with His blood, and through His sacrifice we receive salvation by grace through faith. (John 1:17;  Hebrews 9:11-12;  Hebrews 9:15)

● Jesus is God, and He died, was buried and rose again ... His followers knew exactly where His grave was, and they found it empty! (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Through faith in Christ, we can look forward to a glorious end to the story of God's people when Christ returns and makes all things new (Revelation 21:5-6). First5 

And Jimmy Carter has been on our hearts and minds this week. This is what he wrote after his encounter with The Church of the Exceptional. “I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.” SabbathMoments 

Hebrews 10:14 says, “He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Note that the word is not “improving.” God doesn’t improve; he perfects. He doesn’t enhance; he completes. When it comes to our position before God, we’re perfect.

And when he sees each of us, he sees one who has been made perfect through the One who is perfect—Jesus Christ. He sees perfection. Not perfection earned by us, mind you, but perfection paid by him. Scripture says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Max Lucado

Paul wanted to exhort Jewish and Gentile believers to live in harmony. As in most of the early churches, the gospel brought different groups of people together who otherwise would have stayed apart, whether for reasons of nationality, status, or culture. Once they came together under one roof, the challenge was to preserve their oneness in Christ. Thus throughout the letter, Paul deals with problems arising from Jewish and Gentile differences. He emphasizes what everyone shared. Since there is only one God, He is the God of both Jew and Gentile. Both groups are under sin (3:9), and both are saved through faith (3:30). This theme of Jew and Gentile living together surfaces most clearly in chapters 14 and 15, where Paul deals with the practical aspects of being together in one body. Paul hammers home his central theme: The righteous God justifies and ultimately glorifies both Jew and Gentile by grace through faith. 

Paul refers to himself and his fellow Jews. He acknowledges that they did have an advantage in having the law and God’s covenants. But this advantage does not exempt them from God’s judgment. Paul argues that sin is universal. Therefore, both Jews and Gentiles are guilty before God, who shows no partiality. NKJ Study Bible

Romans 3:9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

Romans 3:30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. The NKJV Study Bible

All people—even Jews who were entrusted with God’s oracleare under the control and power of sin. Like everyone else, Jews are subject to God’s judgment. Paul reveals that God provided a solution to this shared problem of sin: righteousness by faith in Jesus (or by God’s faithfulness revealed through Jesus). Faithlife Study Bible

This question means “Do we Jews have an advantage over the Gentiles?”. In other words, “Is there anything we can cling to for protection?” The answer is no, since all are under sin. The NKJV Study Bible

By faith, not in this matter an act of obedience, or a good work, but forming the relation between Christ and the sinner, which renders it proper that the believer should be pardoned and justified for the sake of the Saviour, and that the unbeliever who is not thus united or related to him, should remain under condemnation. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 11:32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.

Galatians 3:22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.