Romans is Paul's personal testimony, and there's the rub; for, he lives the revelation given him by God. He has opened himself up to the most abusive criticism the religious world could level against him. He talks openly to a generation of the most pious opponents to His teaching. He stands passionately exposed to hundreds of years of established doctrine, traditions, and culture that has encased the hardened hearts and political ambitions of the greatest religious and philosophical minds of his day. "The Epistle to the Romans," Francis Godet taught, "is so intimately bound up with the personal experience of its author, it so contains the essence of his preaching, or, to use his own expression twice repeated in our Epistle, his Gospel, that the study of the book in this case imperiously requires that of the man who composed it. ...Paul's other Epistles are fragments of his life; here we have his life itself. ... his life as a Jew and Pharisee, his conversion, and his life as a Christian and apostle" It is remarkable in itself that he could keep his focus and composure in unwelcome debates with closed minded intellects. But then again, his doctrine of a faith by grace [Ephesians 2:7] was his life. This Epistle should be our life experience as well! There is a tenderness in his writings. being burdened for the salvation of his adversaries [Galatians 6:1-2], while showing an uncommon longing to stoke the fires of a passion for his calling in Christ in fellowship with believers he has never met. And yet somehow in his heart, he already has met them and has been in continuous prayer for their spiritual well-being.
