Romans 1:2 Commentary and Bible Study

‘The gospel of God, (which he had promised to fall beforehand by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures,)’ Our translators have put verse 2 in brackets as a parenthesis. Grammatically that is right, but it is still very, very important. As soon as Paul mentions the gospel, he must mention this. The gospel of Christ is the only message which has ever been prophesied, and not only so, but it has been prophesied over and over again. God has published a book and put it into the world and spread it throughout the world, the Bible. One of the things that is so prominent in the Bible is the Old Testament, and it is a very long section full of prophecies. Not vague statements that you can pin on any event, loosely describing almost anything, which you can take out and apply it to the gospel. No. These are prophecies and promises that exactly describe the coming of a Saviour, how he will come, what he will be like, what he will do, and how he will save. There was a time when some of us thought this was old myths, but there's nothing to be compared with it in world literature. God promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures.’ They were promised over so many centuries by so many mouth-pieces. Promised in the Garden of Eden, the one who would come and bruise the serpent’s head, the coming Saviour. Promised to Abraham several times over: the great descendant through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, and from the nature of the promises is such it was clear that this great descendant would be divine. Promised by Moses, concerning the prophet ‘like unto himself’ but far greater than Moses was, to whom everyone would listen one day, the coming Christ. Then too the great writing prophets. Who does not know the prophecies? Isaiah 9 – ‘For unto to us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ Promises of his work and what he would do. The prophecy of Calvary – ‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him’ – that remarkable prediction of the sufferings of Christ on Calvary’s cross. The prophecies of Jeremiah including the great prophecy of the Christian era and what it would bring for those who were God’s children who were saved by grace. ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.’ Not like the previous covenant but a covenant written in hearts, a covenant with converted people, with new lives, new hearts and the forgiveness of God.