Romans 1 Bible Study: The Gospel Revealed and the Truth Suppressed

Romans: Chapter by Chapter · Chapter 1

Romans begins with good news. Before Paul describes the depth of human rebellion, he announces what God has accomplished through Jesus Christ.

The chapter then moves from the gospel God has revealed to the truth humanity has suppressed. Paul shows us both the power of God to save and the reason every person needs that salvation.

Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible. The BSB text is in the public domain.

Romans 1:1–7: The Gospel Concerns God’s Son

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God: 2 the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

5 Through Him and on behalf of His name, we received grace and apostleship to call all those among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6 And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:1–7, Berean Standard Bible

The gospel belongs to God and concerns His Son. Jesus is the promised descendant of David, the risen Son of God, and the Lord to whom the nations are called.

Paul is not saying that Jesus became the Son of God at the resurrection. He is already identified as God’s Son in verse 3. The resurrection publicly declared Him in power as the victorious Davidic Messiah and reigning Lord.

This gospel is special revelation. God has disclosed Himself and His saving work through His words and acts, climactically in Jesus Christ, with that revelation preserved for the church in Scripture. We could not discover the gospel merely by studying nature or looking within ourselves. God had to make it known.

Related reading: God Makes Himself Known explores general and special revelation and why Christian theology begins with receiving what God has revealed about Himself.

Paul calls the nations to “the obedience that comes from faith.” Obedience does not earn grace, but grace does not leave us unchanged. Dietrich Bonhoeffer pressed this connection between faith and discipleship. Faith receives Christ, and receiving Christ means following the One who calls us.

Related reading: What Does It Mean to Believe in Jesus? examines why saving faith is more than agreement with Christian claims and includes personal trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Romans 1:8–15: Strengthened by One Another

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world. 9 God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times, asking that now at last by God’s will I may succeed in coming to you.

11 For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, how often I planned to come to you, but have been prevented from visiting until now, in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

Romans 1:8–15, Berean Standard Bible

Paul wants to strengthen the Roman believers, but he also expects to receive encouragement from them. Even an apostle needs the faith of other Christians. Ministry is not simply one person giving while everyone else receives.

Paul is also eager to preach the gospel to people who already believe. The gospel is not merely the entrance into Christianity. It remains the foundation of the whole Christian life.

Romans 1:16–17: The Righteousness of God Revealed

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. 17 For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Romans 1:16–17, Berean Standard Bible

The gospel is not merely advice about becoming better. God acts through it to save. It comes first to the Jew because it fulfills God’s promises to Israel, then extends to the nations through Israel’s Messiah.

Martin Luther later described Romans 1:17 as a turning point in the way he read Scripture. He had understood “the righteousness of God” mainly as the justice by which a righteous God condemns sinners. Through sustained attention to the verse and its context, he came to understand it as the righteousness by which the merciful God justifies sinners through faith.

N. T. Wright reads Paul’s phrase primarily as God’s own righteousness, meaning His covenant faithfulness and saving justice, rather than as a righteousness transferred from God to the believer. That is not identical to Luther’s reading, and the difference should not be blurred. Yet Romans itself holds together God’s righteous character, His faithfulness to His promises, and His act of declaring sinners righteous through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21–26).

The Berean Standard Bible renders Paul’s phrase as righteousness that comes “by faith from start to finish”; its footnote gives the more literal wording “from faith to faith.” Paul then quotes Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by faith.” From beginning to end, the Christian life rests on God’s promise rather than our ability to establish our own righteousness.

Romans 1:18–23: General Revelation and Suppressed Truth

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Romans 1:18–23, Berean Standard Bible

God’s wrath is His holy and settled opposition to evil. It is not an uncontrolled outburst. It is the righteous response of the Creator to the rejection and corruption of what He has made.

Creation is general revelation. In this passage, Paul focuses on what God makes known through the created world: His eternal power and divine nature are displayed in what He has made. Elsewhere, Scripture also speaks of moral awareness and conscience (Romans 2:14–15). This revelation is broadly available and leaves humanity accountable to the Creator.

General revelation does not announce the saving work of Jesus Christ. For that, we need the special revelation of the gospel preserved in Scripture. The problem, however, is not that humanity has received no knowledge of God. Paul says people suppress what God has made known.

This suppression produces disordered worship. Disordered worship happens when we take something in our lives, even something good, and make it the ultimate thing. We force it into a space it was never designed to occupy.

Marriage, family, career, ministry, health, reputation, comfort, or political causes may be good gifts. None can bear the weight of becoming our final source of identity, security, or meaning. When a created thing is asked to take God’s place, we eventually become fearful, controlling, resentful, or crushed when it fails us.

Romans 1:24–27: God Gave Them Over

24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 1:24–27, Berean Standard Bible

“God gave them over” describes a form of judgment. God allows people to follow the desires they have chosen apart from Him. Sin becomes both rebellion and part of its own punishment.

Paul describes both female and male same-sex sexual relations as contrary to the Creator’s design. This teaching should be stated plainly, but it should not be isolated from Paul’s larger argument or used as permission for contempt. Sexual disorder is one expression of the deeper disorder of worship: humanity has exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped created things rather than the Creator.

Romans 1 does not present this sin as beyond the reach of grace, nor does it allow other readers to imagine themselves morally untouched. The list that follows includes greed, envy, deceit, gossip, arrogance, disobedience, faithlessness, and lack of mercy. Paul’s argument is closing every person’s path to self-righteousness so that every person must look to the gospel.

Wright draws attention to the dehumanizing movement of idolatry in Romans 1. Human beings were made to reflect the Creator. When we give ultimate allegiance to something less than God, our thinking, desires, bodies, and relationships become distorted. We do not become more fully ourselves by rejecting the Creator who made us.

Romans 1:28–32: A Life That Refuses God

28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. 31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.

32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

Romans 1:28–32, Berean Standard Bible

Human rebellion spreads through the whole of life. Paul places greed, envy, gossip, arrogance, disobedience, faithlessness, and lack of mercy beside sins that receive greater public condemnation.

No reader can safely treat this passage as a description of someone else. Romans 1 is not a weapon for the morally respectable to use against other sinners. The chapter division can hide the force of Paul’s argument. Romans 2 immediately turns toward the person who judges others while overlooking his own sin.

Paul is closing every escape route. Humanity has rejected God, exchanged His truth for a lie, and become unable to repair what sin has damaged. That is why the gospel must be the power of God for salvation.

Questions for Reflection

1. How does Paul describe the gospel before explaining what the gospel accomplishes?
2. What does “the obedience that comes from faith” teach us about genuine belief?
3. What is the difference between general revelation and special revelation?
4. What good thing are you most tempted to make an ultimate thing?
5. Which sins in verses 28–32 are easiest to condemn in others but excuse in yourself?

Study References

• Romans 1, Berean Standard Bible.
• Berean Bible free-licensing information. The Berean Bible text was placed in the public domain on April 30, 2023.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 4, especially the discussion of faith, obedience, grace, and following Christ.
• Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd edition, Zondervan Academic, 2020, especially the discussions of revelation, sin, and justification.
• Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2nd edition, New International Commentary on the New Testament, Eerdmans, 2018, especially the treatment of Romans 1:1–32.
• Martin Luther, “Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Works”, 1545, translated by Andrew Thornton.
• N. T. Wright, “New Perspectives on Paul”, especially the discussion of the gospel, the obedience of faith, and God’s righteousness as covenant faithfulness.
• N. T. Wright, “Freedom and Framework, Spirit and Truth”, especially the discussion of worship, idolatry, and restored humanity in Romans.