Paul,
He always identified himself as the writer of his letters, so there would be no doubt as to the authority the letter held.
a bond-servant of Christ Jesus,
He knows that humanly he is nothing but just a slave, owned by Jesus Christ.
called as an apostle,
God called him, it was not his choice, he just obeyed God's calling.
set apart for the Gospel of God,
He was put aside from the rest of the brothers to be sent out into the World to share God's Good News to everyone he could. He had to leave home.
which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,
The Old Testament prophets wrote centuries beforehand what Messiah would do, so we could recognize Him.
concerning His Son,
This is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who volunteered before anything was created, to take responsibility for this Mankind that they would make.
who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh,
Both Matthew and Luke record genealogies for Jesus, but they don't match. Why? Because Matthew is announcing that the King has been born, so he gives the genealogy of the royal line of kings of Israel, that would give this child the right and authority to claim David's throne. This is through His legal father, Joseph.
However, Luke presented Him as the genuine, human Man, so he gives us Jesus' actual human genealogy, through His mother Mary.
Both Joseph and Mary came through the line of David the king, Joseph through the Royal line through Solomon and Rehoboam and the rest of the kings of Israel, and Mary came through the line of David the king through Solomon's brother Nathan, still a royal line, but not claiming the throne.
God had cursed the last sitting king of Judah, Jehoiakim: Jeremiah pronounced,
Thus saith the Lord, of Jehoiakim king of Judah: he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: ... I shall punish him and his seed ... (Jeremiah 36:30, 31).So, since Joseph was of the royal seed coming through Jehoiakim, the curse prevented him from being able to claim David's throne, but since he was the legal but not physical father of Jesus, Jesus does have the right and authority to ascend to the royal throne of David, His ancestor, through both His mother and his legal father.
who was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Jesus was Resurrected from the dead, having died and been buried for three days; this proved that His Father really is God the Father, and that He really is the Lord God of the Universe. God the Father has made His Son Lord over all. He has put all of creation in His hand to rule.
I can imagine: Here is Father, Son, and Spirit, enjoying each others' fellowship and discussing, What shall we do now? Create? Okay, what shall we make? How will it work? What if we make sentient beings like Us and give them a choice? So what if they choose not to be reasonable and decide to harm themselves? Well, we can make them to live forever if they choose Life, but if they choose death, then they would need a Redeemer to rescue them. And the Son speaks up, and volunteers to take responsibility for this "Project" they are planning, and they go ahead and call into existence everything that is. And the Boss, the Lord in charge of it all, is the Son, who made good His determination to rescue us!
And He is our Lord God Almighty, who breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, and Mankind became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). And the Lord God has directed all of our human history (His-story) calling and speaking and inspiring and giving Law and prophesies and blessing Mankind with the abundance He has placed in this Earth for us to enjoy, and allowing us to experience the consequences of our actions, whether good or bad.
He has been our Lord, our Boss, and we belong to Him by creation, because He made us. We belong to Him by purchase, because He fulfilled that sacrifice that He gave for the whole Nation (Leviticus 4: 13, 18), when His blood poured out at the foot of His Altar, the Cross, when the soldier pierced His side, to purchase all of us, all of creation, for judgment.
And those of us who have realized that we are the criminal who deserves execution, and Jesus took our place in death, belong to Him as His own family. He fulfilled the personal sacrifice (Leviticus 1: 2-13), that the individual person was to bring, when as the Lamb of God His precious Blood splattered the sides of His Altar, the Cross. This is the first sacrifice that the Levites were to teach the people. Jesus fulfilled this for each one of us individually to save us. That's why God saves people one by one.
And when every person in each Nation that wants to follow God has made the decision to let Jesus be his/her Savior, then God's wrath will fall on the rest of the whole Nation, all who have rejected His gracious offer.
God has chosen the Race of Man to be His own children, but He doesn't want robots or puppets. He gave us free choice, to choose to love Him back. He will not violate our will, so those who choose Him are His, and those who choose themselves or other than God, will exist forever without all that God is, because they chose it.
His wrath falls on only those whose punishment did not fall on Jesus, as their Savior. He is not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance. God chooses no one for punishment or wrath, people choose it for themselves.
O my Father, thank You so much for Your wonderful Plan of the Ages, to choose us to be Your own family, and to work in each of us to grow us up into the very image of Your dear Son.
Thank You for who You are! For creating this Universe to be the environment for our Earth to dwell in, and for designing this Earth to be a perfect planet for Mankind to live on. Help us to take care of it.
Father, teach us how to love one another as You Love us! You know we are only dust, and frail and vulnerable. Strengthen us in Your Spirit to think Your thoughts, so we will have Your attitudes toward our surroundings, and so that we will respond to what happens around us as You would determine is best, for us and for those with us and around us in our World.
And You will receive all the glory, for You have done it all.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, and every tongue will proclaim that Jesus Christ is our Lord God Almighty, sovereign King of the Universe, to the glory of Almighty God the Father, forever and ever, Amen.
Even so, come soon, Lord Jesus!
