Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 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...
We saw from verse 1 last week that Paul is a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, that is, he was bought and is owned and ruled by Christ. He lives to please Christ. And, lest we get the wrong idea of Christ somehow being dependent on Paul's initiative and Paul's slave labor, we should notice in Romans 15:18 that Paul depends on Christ for all that Paul himself does in the service of Christ: "I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed." In other words, Paul serves Christ in the power with which Christ serves Paul. "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve" (Mark 10:45; see also 1 Corinthians 15:10; 1 Peter 4:11). We will skew the whole meaning of Romans from the outset if we don't see that Paul serves Christ in the power that Christ supplies, so that Christ gets the glory for Paul's service (see 1 Peter 4:11).
This sovereign, all-supplying Christ is the one we met in the next phrase, "called to be an apostle." Christ called Paul on the Damascus road and commissioned him to be his authoritative representative in founding the church with true teaching. Then we saw God's sovereign, all-planning hand in the next phrase, "set apart for the gospel of God." God set Paul apart before he was born, Galatians 1:15 says. God is so jealous for the arrival and revelation of his gospel that he leaves nothing to chance.
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