Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians [3] Before We Actually Begin...

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS [3]

Analytical Commentary on Romans.
BEFORE WE ACTUALLY BEGIN...

The Audio MP3 of this lecture is available via this link: http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture3.MP3

Copyright © BRI 2016 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"The great Rabbi Gamaliel had among his disciples one who, according to a passage in the Talmud, gave his master a good deal of trouble, manifesting 'impudence in matters of learning.' But his name is not given; he is remembered simply as 'that pupil'" (F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 1958, 81. See also J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, 1944, 310f; Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 30b).

ISAIAH PREDICTED THE LETTER TO BE PLACED 45TH IN THE CANON

Before we get into the Letter of Paul to the Roman Christians it is vital that we recognise the hand of God in a sovereign superintendence directing fallible human beings to write what the Ruach HaKodesh was inspiring them to record. This is a basic fundamental for a believing Christian to acknowledge and accept. It is no coincidence that Romans finds its place immediately after the Lukan Acts which itself follows the four Gospels. The Letter to the Roman Christians is an inspired work and has been placed in an inspired location in the Word of God as I shared with our students in the previous lecture.

As lecturer and scholar Alva J. McClain stated, Romans "stands there much as the brazen altar stood in the tabernacle: when the worshiper started to approach the holy place, the first thing he came to was the brazen altar on which the sacrifice was placed. He could not pass; he could not enter the tabernacle until he came to that. The book of Romans in the New Testament corresponds to the brazen altar. It is the place where we find Christ set forth as the propitiation which justifies us and enables us, through faith in his blood, to go on in Christian truth."

He adds, "It presents the most comprehensive and outstanding interpretation of the facts of the gospels and Acts."

McClain also grasps that the information found in Romans actually protects believers from falling into a cult. After all, this letter "carries with it the blessings of salvation, security, and spiritual strength, which attend a right and thorough knowledge of the Grace which God has manifested" to us in Yeshua the Messiah, His Son. He continues, "Romans was written that men might understand what they believed" (See, Alva McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace, 1975, 18).

Believe it or not, God inspired Isaiah the prophet centuries ago to indicate prophetically that Romans would be designated (even in an apostate tabulation of 66 biblical books in lieu of the God-inspired 49 volumes) as the actual 45th volume in the Bible. We are talking here of a hidden Bible code!

As I stated in my lectures on Isaiah, way back in 2005, "God knew well in advance that man would pollute and rearrange the sacred numerical value of His Word. But God will not let man tamper without retaining His Sovereignty over all things, including reigning over the new unauthorisation of 66 books for the Bible total. If we look briefly at Isaiah, we can see that humankind has even arranged his scroll to be divided exactly into 66 chapters. (Chapters and verses are not found in the original Hebrew or Greek versions of the Scripture.) What is singularly astonishing about this distribution of chapters is that when we read carefully what each chapter has to tell us, these chapters end up consistently paralleling (or at the very least having relevance) to the central themes of each of the 66 books that we possess in our common bibles. Believe it or not! Satan may have done his job of reordering well, but the LORD God of Israel maintains control of His inspired authorship.

"I will not spend time going through each chapter of Isaiah and comparing the details to each of the ordered books in the Christian Bible. But I would encourage all of you to do this sometime when you get a spare moment or two or three. Its a fascinating study in itself.

"But just for example, please note the first chapter of Isaiah. Its theme is about creation and origins.

"That corresponds to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. As we all know, Genesis is all about creation and origins. In fact, Genesis means beginnings (Bereshit). Isaiah 2 corresponds to Exodus and it mentions the general themes of the second volume of Torah, with the wilderness journey and being surrounded by warring idolatrous nations. Israel aims, of course, to finally enter the promised land and when there to worship God in the top of the mountains. Isaiah 3 portrays the people of Israel as being in dire need of God's forgiveness and atonement, which is the purpose of Leviticus. Isaiah 4 parallels Numbers with episodes involving the glory of God as seen in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.

"And so on it goes.

"But it doesn't stop there. Check out Isaiah 39 which speaks of the Babylonian theft of the Temple treasury (and eventually the destruction of the entire Mosaic economy). Malachi, the 39th book, speaks of a time of restoration of the entire Mosaic economy and the Temple services. Isaiah 40 speaks of the same themes as Matthew , the coming of the wilderness prophet and the appearance of Yahweh as a human being. If you pick out Acts, its the 44th book in the Bible. Isaiah 44 is all about the Work of the Spirit of God and the restoration work in which it is involved. Isaiah 45 is about righteousness and God's control of good and evil in His sovereign plan of salvation , Paul's central theme in Romans, the 45th book. Isaiah 66 can be compared side by side with Revelation. This coding, remarkably, holds true right throughout each chapter of Isaiah.

"God considers the revelation of Himself through His Word as paramount. So much so that He transcends apostasy in belief, and an apostate Bible in 66 volumes, to speak loudly in His dealings with humankind.

"Unlike others who claim Jesus as their "Saviour and Lord" (in that order) we who accept Yeshua as Lord and Saviour (in that appropriate order) have our ears and eyes open to the revelations of glory" (end quote).

The Letter of Paul to the Roman Christians is indeed the 45th volume to be located in the ordinary versions of the Bible to be found today in the Christian world and its certainly a verification of the supernatural handiwork of an intimate God , Anochi I-Source.

In this lecture we now must (and this is imperative) consider Paul's adherence to the Torah. What did Paul mean when he stated in Romans that he had a strict obedience to Torah regulations? And he most certainly did state this as a fact of his life and existence which is proven by that which he testified to in his own letters.

There are many theories concerning his assessments about the Torah especially in his Letter to the Roman Christians from which we cannot afford to turn our faces in our smug ignorance. We must always thirst for the truth , right knowledge , as living water, and the bread of life that sustains our deepest need for spiritual survival.

There was a Sinai Covenant and now there exists a New Covenant made already by Our Lord Yeshua with his students and which will be articulated again in the Presence of Messiah at his second Advent when Israel is finally regathered from the Diasporas [sic].

Some people speak of a Renewed Covenant (a renewed marriage agreement between God and Israel as in ancient times). This idea of a renewed covenant is a myth of satanic proportions and Messianic believers need to be urgently disengaged from it.

THE ISSUE OF NEW COVENANT TORAH

That Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians is saturated by the author with Hebrew Scriptures (as I pointed out in my last lecture) to establish his arguments, reveals the Jewishness of the letter itself. What I am attempting to do in this new series on Romans is to bring further to light the REAL Paul of the Second Temple period. As we do so it will become entirely self-evident that the Gentilised Catholic or Protestantised Paul , a spurious caricature of Rav Shaul that has been imposed on the apostle who penned a sizable portion of the Messianic Scriptures (or, NT) as we have them today , must be jettisoned from the personality and character whom God chose in His Grace, called in His Electable everlasting love, and personally commissioned to create a new cutting-edge theology which latter, if applied with consistency over the past two millennia, would have created a veritable Utopia here on planet Earth. Sadly, the very opposite has been the case. As many a scholar has mused, "Christianity has never been attempted."

Paul stated conclusively that he was, under the New Covenant, Torah observant (Romans 7.7,12,14,16,22,25; 2.12,13; 3.31; 7.7; 10.5; 13.8-10).

Take a look also at the following clear assessments about the Torah made by Paul himself, and do try to dissociate yourself from what you have mentally and spiritually gathered from the Protestant Reformers to the contrary, and which has been swallowed by ministers and priests for hundreds of years as a consequence:

Romans 7.12 "The Torah is holy. That is, the commandment is holy, righteous and good."

Romans 7.14 "The Torah is spiritual."

Romans 7.16 "The Torah is good."

Romans 7.22 "I delight in God's Torah."

Romans 7.25 "I myself in my mind am a slave to God's Torah."

Romans 2.12,13 "It is not those who hear the Torah who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the Torah who will be declared righteous."

Romans 3.31 "Does it follow that we abolish Torah by our trusting? Heaven forbid! On the contrary we confirm [uphold, establish] Torah."

Romans 7.7 "What shall we say then? Is the Torah sin? Absolutely not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the Torah."

Romans 10.5 "Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the Torah. 'The man who does these things will live by them.'"

Romans 13.8-10 "He who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the Torah. The commandments 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Torah."

Intriguingly, the most vehement of haters of the Torah have usually never ever read the Torah (Genesis through to Deuteronomy)!

Why was the Torah given? There are a number of reasons because God always is multiconceptual when it comes to His intentions in all things. But essentially, the Torah was given to HABITUATE human behaviour in line with God's expectations of human  character. As it is written:

"The Torah of God is perfect, RESTORING the whole person" (Psalm 19.7).

The purpose of the Torah was to teach human beings to LOVE one another. That is, to LOVE one another according to God's expectations of , His rules of conduct for ,  humankind.

Now, under the "New Covenant," God's holy Spirit enables believers in the Mashiach to keep the Torah as it was intended. Does this sound like Paul is antinomian? ["antinomian" is a theological term which is taken from the Greek language. "Anti" = against, "nomos" = law; Therefore 'antinomian' = against law.]

In other words, as I have commented over decades, lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms.

The bottom line in any antinomian ministry is that these people see themselves as 'free from the law' but they expect everyone else to 'obey' certain commandments so as not to interfere in that which they determine is their freedom of expression.

They want restrictions on everybody else but not on themselves.

That's the bottom line and I care not who it is that will argue with me over it. It's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, despite clever arguments about the "indwelling Spirit of God" living in them as expressions of "God's love." I repeat , lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms.

Moreover, modern church teachings are ridiculously inconsistent. While many churches promulgate the belief that the law of God has been abrogated, they feel it in their interest to reincorporate, revive, and re-establish certain commandments and statutes and ordinances for observance in fellowship, and as a sectarian standard of appropriate behaviour (and let's not overlook another motivation, control). So all the commandments found in Moses are eliminated now, except for laws and perceived laws against sexual immorality, homosexuality, prohibitions relative to intercourse during menstruation, tithing, and common-sense cleanliness principles. These things mentioned in the Torah are acceptable, but everything else is "done away."

After all, didn't Yeshua come to give us entirely new laws about loving one another? Listen to what the logical John Stott has to say on this matter! Anglican cleric Stott finds himself jumping to the defense of the Messiah Himself:

"To say that sanctification is a natural consequence of regeneration, is not to say that it is an automatic consequence. The really regenerate Christian can still behave badly and thoughtlessly, sin grievously, fail in personal relationships, and get into marriage problems. This is evident in the New Testament and in the lives of our fellow-Christians, yes, and we know it in our own lives also. Hence the detailed moral instructions we are given in the Epistles [based on Moses]...

"But were these not Christian people, regenerate people, to whom the apostles addressed these admonitions? Yes, they were! But the apostles did not take the holiness of the regenerate for granted; they worked for it by detailed instruction, by exhortation, example and prayer...

"It is widely supposed [in Christian circles and all denominations] that Jesus [inaugurated] a new law, and that in doing so He was contradicting and repudiating the old. Nothing could be further from the truth... that He should do this is antecedently so improbable as to be impossible. Not only would this run counter to His lifelong attitude of reverent assent to [Torah] but He had just asserted that He had not 'come to abolish the law and the prophets... but to fulfill them'... He then solemnly added that 'till heaven and earth pass away not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished'... and warned His hearers that anybody who 'relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.'... it is absurd to argue that Jesus was disagreeing with the law..."

"Jesus was contradicting... [in his conflicts with the religious authorities]... not what 'is written' but what 'was said,'... the [oral] interpretations [by the Pharisees]... the Pharisees... were attempting to reduce the challenge of the divine law in order to suit their convenience, either by restricting what it commanded or by extending what it permitted... while... the Pharisees were tampering with the law to make it less exacting [or more, as the case may be] the disciple must accept its full force and all its implications...

"The [new church teaching] goes further [than the Pharisees] and insists that the category of 'law' has been altogether abolished for the Christian. He is not 'under law' they say, in any sense. Only one law has not been abrogated, namely the comprehensive law of love... It is essential to be fair [to those teaching this idea]. They are not... encouraging moral license... [However] what the biblical Christian would wish to affirm is that... love and law are not incompatible, still less mutually exclusive. FOR LOVE NEEDS LAW TO GUIDE IT. It is rather naive to claim that love has no need of any direction outside itself because it has a built-in moral compass enabling it to 'home' intuitively upon the deepest need of the other...

"Love is not infallible. Indeed, it is sometimes blind. So God has given us commandments to chart the pathways of love... Love is not the finish of the law in the sense that it dispenses with it; love is the fulfillment of the law in the sense that it obeys it. What the New Testament says about law and love is not 'if you love you can break the law' but 'if you love you will keep it'" (J.R.W. Stott, Christ the Controversialist, 1970, 145, 148, 150-152).

It is the opinion of this Messianic lecturer that there is absolutely NO WAY that Christians can divorce the Lord Yeshua from the Torah, no matter how hard some may try, because the Mashiach Himself makes it startlingly plain that he came not to abolish the Torah but to personally fulfill it. That was his aim, that was his purpose, that was his objective.

He EARNED salvation so that we could be saved by GRACE.

And indeed he did achieve his objective. He fulfilled it. He added, that "the heavens and the earth would first be dissolved before one little dot or dash from the Torah be taken away."

Isaiah prophesied that when the Messiah arrived, one of his expectations would be: "Bind up the testimony; seal the Torah among my disciples" (Isaiah 8.16).

Rather than abolish the Torah, Messiah magnified it and made it honourable as predicted by the prophet Isaiah. "He will magnify the Torah and make it honourable" (Isaiah 42.21 cf Matthew 5 & 6). Instead of doing away with Torah, Our Lord laid emphasis on the importance of grasping what attitude and spirit lurked behind any act of sinful behaviour. If anything, Messiah placed a vastly different emphasis upon the Torah than previously grasped by the rabbis of his day and age.

And so, unable from the Gospels to reduce Messiah's sovereignty regarding the issue of Torah, and despite an unhealthy and lengthy process of disparaging the Synoptics , Matthew, Mark and Luke , as being somehow inferior and thus suitable only for the "lower classes" , but especially unfit for those of higher spiritual attainment (and thus their wholehearted embrace and acceptance of John's Gospel plus the epistles of the "Paul the Protestant" apostle to the Gentiles) , the rebels and haters of God turned to Paul, who has been interpreted by Gentiles as doing away with the Torah, to seal their case with an affirmative cry, "Free as last! Free at least! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last!" as they boldly jump into the bog of aionian stench, not realising that God "justifies those who are Torah observant" (Romans 2.13).

NEW COVENANT, NEW TORAH-OBSERVANCE

In real terms, if not in effect, the New Covenant RENEWS, REFRESHES and REVITALISES in us the eternal Torah of God. It is literally FULFILLED IN US (as Paul confidently stated). "Yes, we ESTABLISH the Torah" (Romans 3.31).

Certainly, the apostle John was very familiar with sin as the act of transgressing the Torah, or law of God. "Sin IS the transgression of Torah," he wrote in 1 John 3.4. The same apostle John (the disciple whom "Yeshua loved") held his view of Torah in a tension with those immortal words he was inspired to pen at the very beginning of his Gospel: "For the Torah was given by Moshe; Grace [GK. charis] and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah" (John 1.17).

And now, I must utter a vital word of caution!

I originally fell under the spell of Messianic Judaism in my early ministry in attempting to justify the Messianic position of a Renewed Sinai Covenant. This teaching is currently flooding the Messianic congregations around the world. It seems that only we in the IMCF are standing against it. I have always held to the notion of progressive revelation. I believe that the holy Scripture was inspired by the Ruach HaKodesh, and that in its original mss was indeed inerrant. When that holy Spirit reveals a positive new truth a new understanding must be formed (and informed), inculcated and publicly articulated no matter how embarrassing such an event should prove to be.

I have always practiced confession when sharing with others a new, previously unheld position. Therefore, a few years ago, when the Spirit led me into a better comprehension of the New Covenant in opposition to a Renewed Covenant, I personally notified everyone (that I could) and published my findings, and adjusted all previous literature that I wrote on the subject matter at hand. (I am still to this day accomplishing this feat in documents I may have overlooked.) No mean feat at all. But I know the serious weight that is upon the shoulders of a teacher from God. Teachers are subject to "the greater condemnation" , or better, "subject to the stricter judgment" , when they proclaim error to be right knowledge (James 3.1).

So it came to pass that when I re-studied Romans in recent years my eyes fell especially on what the rabbi wrote in Romans 2.16 where he referred to "my Gospel." Until that particular moment I had largely entertained a Paul who was continuing to labour under the restrictions and administration of the Sinai provisions (and the vast majority of today's Messianics continue to believe this as well). After all, it is apparent that the Jewish people of the Second Temple Period , and the Jewish Christians who lived among them , were subject to the rules of a Sanhedrin who largely regulated Jewish life exercising those Sinai or Mosaic provisions with Roman political approval and the might of military backing right up to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. But the little phrase "according to my Gospel" in a direct connection in the same breath to "Yeshua the Messiah" radically altered my perception. So whatever that Torah was which Paul spoke of in his Letter to the Roman Christians , written some 30 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ , had to be oriented around the New (or a New) Covenant and not necessarily the Sinai Covenant. This remains true even allowing for a transitional period during which the Mosaic provisions slowly gave way within the Messianic Movement to the ideology of the New Covenant with its own regulations and provisions.

Moving ahead a little, my research uncovered the existence (in Paul's progressive intellect) of "a Messianic Torah" in powerful contrast to that of Sinai and Moses. This fact that a "Messianic Torah" existed during the latter decades of the Second Temple Period is substantiated by rare Messianic texts that have come down to us from that day and age in Jewish sources. Most Messianic Christians of Jewish extraction would not be cognisant that the Messiah according to rabbinic authorities, was to introduce HIS OWN TORAH when he finally arrived. Indeed, it is historical fact that the Jewish people of the Second Temple period understood that when the Mashiach came he would have no hesitation in applying entirely NEW principles to the existing Torah, and adjusting the purity codes where he wished. In other words even God considered the Sinai Torah to be fluid rather than immutable. For, it is written from the Second Temple period:

"The Torah which a man learns in this world [the Mosaic or Sinai Torah] is vanity, IN COMPARISON OF THE TORAH OF THE MESSIAH" , Midrash Kohelet (83.1).

That I am absolutely correct in this assessment that the Torah is not immutable and unchangeable can be seen in the admission by the apostle to the nations (Rav Shaul) where he refers to his recognition of the authority of the above Midrash (which was in circulation in his day) in stating that his own Rabbinic ministry was based squarely on Torah , but it was the Torah OF MESSIAH! Very few have noticed this admission. Notice it now, in two references:

"With those who live outside the framework of Torah, I put myself in the position of someone outside the Torah in order to win those outside the Torah , although I myself am not outside the framework of God's Torah but within the framework of Torah AS UPHELD BY THE MESSIAH!" (1 Corinthians 9.21).

Again, "Bear you one another's burdens, AND SO FULFIL THE TORAH OF MESSIAH" (Galatians 6.2).

Whichever way we wish to "cut it," by the time Paul penned his letters to the Christian Corinthian Greeks and to the Christian Gauls in Galatia as well as to the Roman Christians in the capitol of the empire, he readily enough was acknowledging his forward-thinking pass and spiritual graduation from the Sinai (Mosaic) Covenant to the Messianic New Covenant AND Messianic (Yeshua-oriented) Torah.

As the Ten Commandments formed the bedrock of the Sinai Covenant, so the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST (His standard of righteousness as reflected in the Ten Commandments) forms the bedrock of the New Covenant. Consider too, that the blood of the Antiquated Covenant was splashed over the gathered Israelites at Sinai (Exodus 24.8), and in our age of Grace the blood of the Mashiach is the MAIN issue for each and every one of those who believe in (have FAITH in) Yeshua as their Lord and Saviour.

QUESTION: Apart from the prime Ten Commandments, around which the entire Torah of 613 commandments constellates, are there other regulations which are appropriate for modern Messianic believers to live by?

ANSWER: This is one reason I resort to the scroll of Genesis (the first volume of the Sinai Torah but which records God's will for the entirety of humankind PRIOR to the giving of the Mosaic Torah centuries later at Sinai). If God desired people to live a certain way in the days of Abraham, and even before that time, then those laws, rules, statutes and judgments would have been revealed in Genesis LONG BEFORE the existence of Moses (blessed be his name). It is there that we find the Sabbath day revealed, the food regulations revealed, and some other judgments of God which were LATER incorporated into the Sinai Covenant. The writings of the NT corpus also substantiate these earlier regulations, PLUS modifications made to the Ten Commandments (but I have outlined all of these incidentals in the Covenant lectures in the Fundamentals section on the BRI/IMCF Members site). As a prime example of such a modification take note of the original commandment about honouring your parents (Exodus 20.12). In the Messianic Scriptures this is modified to be obedient to one's parents but only "in the Lord" (Ephesians 6.1). And as a further adjunct to this commandment we are told to "not discourage our children" (Colossians 3.21). The commandment thus is expanded to become in a balanced way more specifically "family friendly."

We in the International Messianic Community of Faith (IMCF) are the ONLY Messianic organisation that truly and authentically understands ANY of this matter concerning commandment modification and we are also unique in our appreciation of the "Torah of the Messiah" and we make no apology for being this way in the Truth.

FACT: Paul was called to spiritual mastery , and so are we.

We today have all been called to SPIRITUAL MASTERY. But it is decidedly impossible to successfully exercise spiritual discipline if we are committing the heinous sin of IDOLATRY. When I say impossible, I mean precisely that , impossible!

Idolatry is, my students, an offense that leads to a confused STATE of MIND and BEING: which, incidentally, was the enormous transgression Rav Shaul spoke of in the latter section of Romans 1... and I shall engage in explaining this issue when we arrive at the texts dealing with this heinous sin (idolatry).

SO, DID PAUL DIE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE LUKAN ACTS?

It is now generally accepted in the world of theologians and biblical scholars that Rav Shaul experienced two Roman prison sentences. This acknowledgment places the writing of his letters now known as 1 Timothy (c. 65 CE) and Titus (c. 66,67 CE) between his imprisonments. Therefore 2 Timothy (c. 67/68 CE) would have been written during his second sojourn behind bars.

Luke records Paul's two-year imprisonment in Rome (Acts 28.30,31) and surely would not have failed to mention, more than in passing, his execution if it had occurred at that time. Historical Roman records inform us that at the conclusion of a two-year period of house-arrest a Roman prisoner was automatically set free by Roman law (but for a slightly different perspective on the "two years" see (Eds) Armand Puig i Tà rrech, John M.G. Barclay and Jörg Frey with the assistance of Orrey McFarland, The Last Years of Paul, Essays from the Tarragona Conference, June 2013, 2015, 319 with sources at n.44).

Professor Kenneth Wuest states that as Luke fails to record Paul's execution at that time it "is evidence of the fact that Paul was liberated from his first Roman imprisonment" (The Pastoral Epistles in the Greek New Testament, Introduction in Vol. 11 Wuest's Word Studies From the Greek New Testament, 1973). The early ecclesiastical historian Eusebius certainly accords with this view of a second Roman imprisonment (Ecc. Hist., 2.22.,1,2).

Moreover Wuest amply demonstrates that "the condition of heresy and false teaching in the Church as reflected in the Pastoral Epistles, did not obtain during the time in which the other Pauline letters were written, which places the former after Paul's first Roman imprisonment... The style and diction of of the Pastoral Epistles is so similar, and so dissimilar to the other Pauline letters, that the former must have been written in close succession, one after another and not during the time of the writing of the other letters."

Wuest adds, "That he anticipated release from prison, is seen in the fact that he writes Philemon to have his guest room in readiness for him (22). Contrast this with his attitude towards death in 11 Timothy, where he expected martyrdom" (ibid).

It would also be well kept in mind that Paul in writing to Titus speaks of leaving him behind on the island of Crete (Titus 1.5). But Paul never visited Crete on his earlier three evangelistic journeys. This argues for his release from his first incarceration. One might just mention that in Titus 3.12 Paul states that he is planning to spend the coming winter in Nicopolis. As Wuest brings out there were three cities by that name in the ancient world of that period yet the Lukan Acts fails to recall Paul ever visiting such a place at any time during his first three evangelistic tours of duty.

And so, clearing up the matter of a New Covenant Torah we move to our next and primary step in our pursuit of a better understanding and comprehension of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians.

ANALYTICAL COMMENTARY

It's time to begin our detailed analysis of Romans. We therefore start with his Salutation.

"Paul, 'A Slave of the Emperor Yeshua the Messiah,' called an apostle, separated for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Yeshua the Messiah our Lord, through whom we have received Grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Yeshua the Messiah. To all God"™s beloved in Rome, who are called saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah" (Romans 1.1-7).

Paul openly committed treason with his exaltation of Yeshua as the authentic Emperor of the world. Nero would not have taken this affront lightly. Intriguingly, Paul created not only a new theology of that which would become an apostate Christianity by the start of the fourth century (it actually began prior to the original writing of the Apocalypse during the Neronian period and not as later contested, in the age of Domitian. Indeed, Luke tells us who it was who started the rot some years before the revolt of the Jews against the Romans) but Paul also created out of the Messianic Movement a religion with unique imperialistic claims in competition with Rome. It was therefore inevitable there would be an eventual clash between the two forms of Imperialism. What Paul did was to take the Roman Imperial Model and utilise certain of its parts and apply them to Christianity (the largely Jewish Messianic Movement with its Gentile adherents).

In line with the theme set by his reverence for the new Emperor Yeshua, and his outright rejection of a coming "Beast," we shall see in our next lecture just how precisely the "Church" , if we are excused for speaking of the early Christians as constituting such a thing , in its function paralleled the claims of Rome.

Be surprised as we venture into the largely unknown history of early Christianity.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE THREE

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