Consistent

Romans 1:2

Verse one is complete! Today we move on to look at verse two as we continue to go through Paul’s greeting. We have seen so far what it means to be a bondservant, an apostle, and what Paul’s gospel message was. Now we will move on to look at how the Old Testament believers had the same gospel.

Romans 1:2 says, “which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.” If we look back at verse one, we can see that the “promise” is the gospel. Therefore, this is saying that we had the gospel promise in the Old Testament. The gospel has been the same since the beginning.

This gospel message was spoken and taught by the prophets in the Old Testament. Isaiah 53 is a famous passage of Scripture that focuses on Christ’s death, taking our sins with Him to the cross and defeating them. Psalm 22 also prophetically speaks about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Isaiah 64:6 shows us how we are completely unworthy and like filthy rags, full of sin and without an ounce of good.

We also see passages in different Scriptures that talk about faith. Hebrews 11 is a great chapter to break this down and look at faith. Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Moses and many others are mentioned as those who had faith. This faith is what saved them. That is not to say that they saved themselves (as I just mentioned, Isaiah 64:6 makes it clear we have no good in us), but that because of the faith they had in God they are saved and in heaven today. They got saved the exact same way that we get saved today.

God is consistent. As we have seen in our Ephesians study, His plan from before the foundations of the world was to send His Son to die on the cross for our sins. That was always His plan. It never changed. God is consistent, sovereign, and holy. With Him there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17). He did not need to have different plans for how we get saved, in fact to do so would downplay His power and control. If He had to change His plans or call an audible then how could we trust that He is in complete control?

I do want to briefly mention the end of this verse. This states that they had the Holy Scriptures. I am not sure how much they would have had, and what would have been regarded as Holy Scriptures at this time, but we do know they had at least some of the Old Testament. What is amazing is that we have books of the Bible written by Moses that we still read today! I encourage you to take a step back and ponder that for a moment. We read Scriptures that were written 6,000 years ago, books that were read and mentioned by the apostle Paul, and by Jesus in the gospels. God has preserved writings from 6,000 years ago. Isn’t that incredible?

If you are like me, you generally skip over the greetings in the scriptures, but we have already seen great, deep truths. That is why it is so beneficial to take a step back and think through every verse, every word even, to try and understand and appreciate everything in the Scriptures. God has preserved it for us, and we are blessed enough to be able to own a book with His very Words. He is a sovereign, powerful, and consistent, and He wants a relationship with you.

Follow Us on Social Media!