Christianity, the gospel, is not a new religion, it's the fulfillment of an old religion.

That's why we have a thick Bible.

We have two Testaments, not just one testament. This old part is true. We'll see that more in a minute. And the new part about Christ finishes it, fulfills it, makes it complete and whole.

Christianity is a promised religion. fulfills it, makes it complete and whole.

Christianity is a promised religion and it grows out naturally from Judaism.

Sometimes people can treat the Old Testament like it's just background noise for the real action in the new.

But what John Piper says here reminds us,

there's no Christianity without what came before.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper turns to Romans 1 versus 1 to 4

to show how the good news of Jesus is rooted in ancient

promises. This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on May 3, 1998.

Last week, we began a series of messages on the book of Romans, and we saw in verse one, as you can see there in the very first phrases, that Paul, the author, is a servant of Christ Jesus, and I argued that that meant among other things he was bought by Christ

he was owned by Christ and he was ruled by Christ and as we saw in Galatians 1, he pleases Christ alone.

He tries to please Christ and not people.

I want to qualify something lest at the very outset here we skew the whole meaning of the Book of Romans with a misunderstanding about the

nature of apostolic servanthood or Christian servanthood.

One of the great advantages to preaching through the Book of Romans when you're 52 and you've been a Christian for 46 years is that you've read it before and you know what's at the end, which helps you understand the beginning.

The author has a great advantage over the reader

in that the author knows where he's going

when he writes the first sentence

...