Sin (and death) entered the world when God's created "son" Adam rebelled against his creator. God's moral and Biblical laws weren't meant to provide us with a check-list path to salvation...but rather a check-list of crimes and sins which further condemn us all. God's true son Jesus gave his life as a willing sacrifice to provide all of humanity with a path to the free gift of salvation through earnest faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah.

If salvation is based on works, then we have the power to save our own souls: grace and faith have no purpose, Jesus' ministry was pointless, the New Testament irrelevant, and God is a powerless bystander. Paul refutes these ideas by revealing that salvation is based solely on the gift, grace and power of God...and that no human being is capable of saving themselves.

"Once I'm baptized, I can continue sinning freely because I'm already saved, right?!" Paul refutes this concept of "cheap grace" by emphasizing that Christians still have a responsibility to live according to God's moral standards.

If faith in Jesus supersedes the Mosaic laws of the Old Testament, and Gentiles can achieve salvation previously reserved only for the Jews, then what was the point of the Mosaic laws? What was the value of Judaism? These are the issues Paul addresses in the second chapter of Romans.

Romans is the quintessential theological work of the New Testament and arguably the Apostle Paul's most significant work. This video provides a background of Paul's letter to the Roman church including the major themes of Romans, when it was written, the composition of the Roman church, Paul's defense of his apostleship, and an explanation of some of the Greek words used by Paul in his letter.