Romans 1:2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

Gamaliel, a highly respected instructor of the law, was Paul’s teacher. His instructions would have been thorough, extensive, and traditional. So why didn’t Gamaliel see Christ in the Old Testament?

Cultural experience focused on national identity and left personal salvation as matter for the conscience of the individual. God brought Israel out of bondage as a nation. God prepared a place in the Promised Land for Israel as a nation. Prophets were seen as a voice to the nation and Israel was rewarded and punished as a nation.

All throughout the OT are the words that promise the gospel of peace for the individual but if you look at it from a nationalist framework, you miss it. It wasn’t until Paul was saved that he saw that the scriptures contained the message of personal salvation. It took Paul some fourteen years to come to grips with the depth of understanding required to renew his mind and reconcile what he was taught with the truth.

Are we any different? How much religion have we received prior to coming to know Christ on a personal level? How much of our religion has to be reconciled with the truth? Do we take responsibility to seek truth for ourselves or do we allow others to tell us what to think and believe? Personal salvation comes at a cost of personal responsibility. While we are all flawed and capable of error that does not relieve us of the responsibility in seeking the truth for ourselves.

The second and necessary part is in testing your understanding of those truths with others. The truth will stand up in the light while error will be seen.

Romans 1:1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

Paul, getting started on a high note, makes this clear declaration to the readers of Romans. It is found in the word separated, aphorízō in the Greek, which is similar to sanctified but not exactly the same.

Aphorízō – to mark off from others by boundaries, to limit, to separate

Paul has set boundaries, limits, a construction zone for the gospel. His intensions are not to stray from the content, purpose and power of this gospel. If you know anything about Paul it has to be this, that he was a Jews Jew, well educated in the Jewish culture, scriptures, and a zealot of the highest order. He became the perfect conversion for God to identify Christ in the Old Testament and introduce Him to the synagogues of the day and reason with them with the same passion he had in persecuting Christians.

1 Timothy 1:5-7 (NASB) But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

Paul does not stray from the boundaries he has set for himself and for his readers. His passion which he exacts in his writings can been determined to be true, even if difficult to grasp by most learned men.

2 Peter 3:15-16 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.