The two-age model of inmillennialism lies under the surface and sometimes rises into sight. A major prophetic event would occur soon—the destruction of the temple that Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24:1). That destruction would end the Mosaic age and allow the messianic age to continue.
This change of age would bring significant changes, fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies God had made to Abraham. They were necessary to establish the kingdom of God, which was bringing “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” to replace the “meat and drink” of the Mosaic age (Rom 14:17). (I am using the KJV in this post.)
So let’s start our short review of Romans.
The Announcement of These Changes (Rom 1:1–17)
Paul was “separated unto the gospel of God” (Rom 1:1). The Scriptures many times call this good news “the gospel of the kingdom.” Jesus said the apostles would preach “the gospel of the kingdom” in all the world before the temple fell (Matt 24:21). The Romans were proof that the apostles were being successful because their “faith is spoken of throughout the whole world” (Rom 1:8).
This gospel of the kingdom is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). It made no distinction between the Jew and Greek!
In the messianic age that Jesus had established, “The just shall live by faith” (Rom 1:17; cp. Hab 2:4). God was revealing His righteousness to those who had faith in Christ.
The Problem (Rom 1:18–3:20)
Both the Jews and the Gentiles had corrupted the worship of God. Here is part of Paul’s description of the Gentiles:
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Rom 1:22–23)
But God had also condemned the Jews because they condemned the Gentiles but did the same things. Paul asks them, “Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” (Rom 2:3).
The Jews should have seen that the end of the Mosaic age was near and that the messianic age had revealed the true definition of what being a Jew meant. Paul reminds them of this fact:
He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. (Rom 2:28–29)
The Old Testament definition of “a Jew” was passing away. No longer would circumcision of the flesh, descent from Abraham, worship at the temple, life in the land, etc., define God’s covenant people.
Paul summarizes the problem for Old Testament Jews:
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19–20)
God’s Answer for Jew and Gentile (Rom 1:18–5:21)
Paul gives God’s answer to the problem of condemnation faced by the Jews and the Gentiles:
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference. (Rom 3:21–22)
In the messianic age, God is both “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). This “law of faith” justifies both Jews and Gentiles in the same way (Rom 3:27–30).
Paul reinforces his argument by discussing Abraham’s justification (Rom 4:1–25). He was not justified by works of the law but by faith. So, he became “the father of all them that believe” (Rom 4:11). This is how God was fulfilling His promise that Abraham would become “heir of the world” (Rom 4:13). This method was the only way that “promise might be sure to all the seed” (Rom 4:16)—to all God’s elect people, whether Jew or Gentile.
Paul brings the underlying theme of age transition near the surface at this point. He says, “If by one man’s offence [Adam’s] death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). The saints would reign in the messianic age by faith, not by keeping the law. God was changing the reign of the law to the reign of grace:
The law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 5:20–21)
This change is God’s answer to the sin problem all men face.
The Status of Messianic-age Jews (Rom 6:1–8:39)
God had baptized the Mosaic-age Jews unto Moses (1 Cor 10:1–11). The messianic-age Jew are “baptized into Jesus Christ” and his death, burial and resurrection (Rom 6:1–6). God has not delivered them from physical bondage but “from sin” (Rom 6:7). Therefore, they should not let sin reign in their mortal bodies (Rom 6:12).
Paul gives a clear summary:
Now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 6:22–23)
But this situation depends on an important point: God must deliver people from the law. This deliverance presents a problem for Mosaic-age Jews—those who “know the law” (Rom 7:1)—because God had defined his marriage (Jer 3:14) to them through the law, and that law had dominion over them as long as they lived in the flesh (Rom 7:2–3).
Paul says God has solved this problem. The messianic-age Jews have died “to the law by the body of Christ” so they could be married to Christ (Rom 7:4–6). John, in another place, describes that soon-coming marriage (Rev 19:9; 1:1; 22:6).
Using himself as a representative the Apostle describes the problem Mosaic-age Jews had—they could not keep the law. He says,
We know that the law is spiritual: but I [as a Mosaic-age Jew] am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (Rom 7:14–15)
But God has provided deliverance from the law for messianic-age Jews, and Paul describes it in glowing terms:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Rom 8:1–4)
Mosaic-age Jews are “not in the flesth, but in the Spirit” (Rom 8:9)!
Reflecting on what he said earlier about the promise being sure to all the seed, Paul says,
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Rom 8:28–30)
Nothing can separate messianic-age Jews from the love of God (Rom 8:31–39)!
The Problem of Unbelief Among Mosaic-age Jews (Rom 9–11)
If Paul’s gospel—as described above—is true, why are most of the Mosaic-age Jews not believing it? The apostle answers this question in chapters 9–11.
Paul’s answer is simple:
They are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. (Rom 9:6–8)
“Even so,” Paul says, “at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom 11:5) among Mosaic-age Israel.
An imaginary opponent of this doctrine of election might say, “There is unrighteousness with God,” and “Why doth [God] find fault” with the unbelieving Jews? “For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom 9:14–19).
Paul does not reason with such objections to election. He just says,
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans 9:20–24)
In this section, Paul again brings his two-age model of prophecy close to the surface when he describes God’s rejection of the unbelieving Jews:
Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. (Rom 9:27–28)
Jesus had described this “short work” in His Olivet Discourse: God would bring the “great tribulation,” and the temple would fall in his generation (Matt 24:1–3, 21, 34). The Mosaic age would end.
But, Paul says, the fall of the Mosaic-age Jews would bring “the riches of the world” in the messianic age (Rom 11:11–22). Blindness in part has happened to them “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom 11:25). This method is the way “all Israel shall be saved” (Rom 11:26)—that is, all the Jews, as Paul defined them throughout this letter (Rom 2:28–29, 4:16; etc.).
Our Response (Rom 12–16)
These facts about the problem all men face and God’s answer to it place us in debt to the grace of God. Here is how Paul wants us to respond:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this [ Mosaic-age that is passing away]: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1–2)
He gives a series of ways to manifest this transformation: by living in humility, recognizing the one body in Christ, exercising our spiritual gifts, living in brotherly love, obeying the governmental authorities, etc. (Rom 12:3–10).
He uses his two-age prophetic framework to encourage the Romans:
Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The [Mosaic-age] night is far spent, the [messianic-age] day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. (Rom 13:11–12)
Paul reminds them of an important truth: “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom 14:17). Teachings about “meat and drink” were a significant part of the Mosaic age, and they were about to end at the temple’s destruction. In the messianic-age kingdom of God, “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” had replaced them.
Conclusion
Paul ends the letter by addressing a problem he faced in many places. Some men—mostly apostate Jews—were trying to cause divisions in the churches (Rom 16:17). His answer was to say, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom 16:20).
Jesus had said the apostate Jews were of their father the devil (John 8:44). He had also said God would judge them in His generation. Paul is reminding the Romans of these facts.
He ends by returning to his theme at the beginning of this letter:
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.” (Romans 16:25–27)
God will use the gospel of the kingdom to cause all nations to serve Christ.
