This lesson is an outline, for your reference, of Romans chapters 1 to 4. In these chapters Paul teaches us about faith in Christ.

Outline of Romans 1-4 (Part 1)

Paul’s Essay on Faith

1 Opening declaration

Why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:16-18)

• It is God's power for salvation to all believers
• It reveals God's righteousness and wrath
• It is the source of true faith

2 Darkness of the faithless

The wicked know about God (Rom 1:18-20)

• It is they themselves who suppress the truth
• The Creator has made himself evident to them
• They are without excuse

The wicked nevertheless dishonour God (Rom 1:21-32)

• They don't give thanks to God
• Prefer their own wisdom
• Worship the creature rather than the Creator
• Practise sexual immorality
• Approve of what they know God condemns

Think they are righteous when they are not (Rom 2:1-5)

• They condemn themselves by judging others hypocritically
• They show contempt for God's kindness by boasting of their own worthiness
• They are storing up wrath for themselves because of their impenitence

3 Faith in relation to law and judgment

How God judges man (Rom 2:6-16)

• Those who do good receive eternal life
• Those who do evil receive wrath
• All mankind, Jew or Gentile, are judged by the law God has given them

God's attitude to the Jews (Rom 2:17 to 3:18)

• God is dishonoured by those who boast of the law yet break it
• A circumcised Jew who breaks the law is regarded as uncircumcised
• An uncircumcised Gentile obeying God's law is regarded as circumcised
• It is being a Jew inwardly that counts
• When Jews break the law they prove God's attitude to be right
• God regards both Jew and Gentile to be all equally under sin

How God applies the law (Rom 3:19-31)

• God's law condemns even if broken in only one point, therefore it does not make one righteous
• God's law usefully produces a guilty conscience
• God's law itself testifies to a righteousness by faith
• God's law makes it impossible to boast before God because all fall short of its righteous requirements
• Therefore, whilst works of obedience to God's law are good and necessary, something else apart from them is essential, namely faith in Christ
• We uphold God's law not by our attempts to keep it (because we fall short) but by our faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ

Abraham’s Faith —Outline of Romans 1-4 continued.