We should glory in the gospel because it produces God’s salvation, manifests God’s power, benefits God’s people, and reveals God’s righteousness.
The Book of Romans – It’s All About The Gospel
Romans 1:16-17
This morning we begin a new sermon series in the Book of Romans, and I’m really excited to begin! Historically speaking, God has done amazing things in the lives of His people through a careful study of this book. Let me tell you about 3 of the Giants of the Christian Faith, and how the message of Romans transformed their lives.
In about 386 A.D. the man we know as St. Augustine was in deep distress of soul because he was enslaved to his lusts. As he sat weeping under a fig tree, desperately convicted of his own sinfulness, he heard a young child singing, “Take up and read…” He opened his Bible and his eyes fell upon Romans 13:13-14 “Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” At that moment, he believed, obeyed, was gloriously converted, and went onto become one of the greatest theologians of the Christian church.
Later, around the year 1515, a Catholic monk by the name of Martin Luther began to study the Book of Romans. Luther was a deeply committed monk, but miserably guilt-ridden. He had tried everything he could think of to relieve his burden of sin – fastings, confession, ill-treatment of the body – but nothing had given him peace of conscience. One day as he was meditating on Romans 1:17 he made a profound discovery. Initially, Luther thought that the righteousness of God in Romans 1:17 was that righteousness by which God would punish sinners. But eventually he discovered the true meaning. I’ll let him tell his story in his own words: “I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat urgently and persistently upon Paul at Romans 1:17, most ardently desiring to know what he wanted. At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is… the righteousness with which the merciful God justifies us by faith… Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”
Then again later on May 24, 1738, John Wesley attended very unwillingly a religious meeting in London. Wesley had just returned from America as a missionary. He had written just a few months before in his journal, “I went to America to convert the Indians; but Oh! Who shall convert me?” Well, something profound took place at that religious meeting. Wesley wrote in his journal, “About a quarter before nine I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” The message that Wesley had just heard that evening was the reading of the preface to Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans.
What have God’s people said about the Book of Romans?
Martin Luther: “The epistle to the Romans is the true masterpiece of the New Testatment and the very purest gospel, which is well worth and deserving that a Christian man should not only learn it by heart, word for word, but also daily deal with it as the daily bread of men’s souls. It can never be too much or too well studied, and the more it is handled the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”
John Calvin: “When anyone gains a knowledge of this epistle, he heas an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture.”
John Knox: “The most important theological book ever written.”
The Book of Romans is Paul’s most extensive and profound letter that he ever wrote. It is his theological masterpiece. We aren’t going to study the entire letter. Instead we are going to confine ourselves to the first 9 chapters. We will be in Romans over the next 13 weeks.
So what is Romans all about? It’s not difficult to discover. Look at 1:1-7. Right out of the shoot, Paul starts talking about the Gospel. He says that it is 1) “of God”, 2) it was Paul’s because he was set apart for it, 3) it was promised in the Old Testament Scriptures, 4) it was concerning Jesus Christ, 5) and its purpose was to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles.
Now go to the last verses in this letter – 16:25-27. We see here the exact same 5 principles. 1) It is of God because it is “according ot the commandment of the eternal God” – 16:26; 2) It is Paul’s gospel – 16:25; 3) It was promised beforehand in the Old Testament Scriptures because it is “by the Scriptures of the prophets” – 16:26; 4) it was concerning Jesus Christ because Paul’s gospel is connected to “the preaching of Jesus Christ” – 16:25; and 5) it was to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles because “it has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith” – 16:26. So, Paul starts off this letter by talking about the Gospel, and he ends the letter by referring to the Gospel, and he says the same basic things about it at the beginning and the end of the letter.
Further, the Gospel is the Theme of the entire letter. How do we know? Because 1:16-17 is the Theme of the entire letter, and the Gospel is the subject of those verses. When I took a writing class at a junior college, we were required to papers that had proposition statements. The proposition statement would come at the end of the first paragraph. It was a single, concise sentence that summed up everything that the rest of the paper would be about. Well, that’s exactly what Paul does here in Romans. Romans 1:1-15 are Paul’s introduction. Paul has been telling them about himself, how he has longed to come and visit them to help them in their progress in the faith. Then, at the end of his introduction he gives us vs. 16-17, which form the Proposition of the entire letter. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Or to use another illustration, when a piano player is playing for a group of people at a party or event, everyone is just talking and milling around. In order to get everyone’s attention, the piano player bangs out some loud chords. As the group quietens down, he now begins to play the theme of the piece of music. In Romans 1:1-15 Paul has been banging out some chords. Now, in 1:16-17, he launches into the theme of this precious epistle.
So, what I want you to understand this morning is that the Book of Romans is all about the Gospel. That is its theme. Romans is about Our Need for the Gospel, The Way God Accomplished the Gospel, the Way God Applies the Gospel, and the Way we are Transformed by the Gospel.
This morning we are going to meditate upon Romans 1:16-17, as a fitting introduction to the entire letter. The subject of vs.16 is the Gospel. Paul says that he is not ashamed of it. What he means by that is not just that he’s not embarrassed to speak of it. Rather, he glories in it! The gospel is so powerful and precious to Paul that he boasts in it, glories in it, and finds it the most thrilling thing in all the world. Now, why was Paul so thrilled by the gospel? He gives us 4 reasons:
- It Produces God’s Salvation
- It Manifests God’s Power
- It Benefits God’s People
- It Reveals God’s Righteousness
1. The Gospel Produces God’s Salvation:
The Gospel is “for salvation.” Now what do we mean by salvation. A person who has experienced salvation has been rescued, or delivered, or brought into a state of safety. If a little child is trapped inside a burning house with no way to escape, and the firefighters break his bedroom door down, place a wet cloth over his face, and carry him out of the house, that child has experienced salvation. When a little child has drowned, and the EMTs administer CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the little child revives, he has experienced salvation. In both situations, the child was delivered out of a condition of perilous danger and brought into a state of safety. Well, that’s exactly what the term means in our Bibles. All people were ruined in the Fall. We are born into this world with a sinful nature, children of wrath. Because all men are sinful, God’s holiness and justice require that He punish them. All people will face the wrath of God head on, unless they find a remedy for this desperate situation. Well, God in His mercy has provided the remedy Himself. Man could never remedy his situation, because his condition is too far gone. He is a slave to his sin and unable to change his own nature and heart. So, God in His grace has provided the Gospel – The Good News. The word “Gospel” comes from the old English word, “God-spell.” The Gospel is the spell, or story of what God has done in Christ to save sinners. Jesus Christ is the Gospel. Jesus is God’s answer to our desperate problem. All of us are in burning houses, with a wall of flames all around us and no way to escape. Or to change the analogy, we are all miners deep underground when an earthquake hits, and the only exit has been sealed shut with tons and tons of dirt and rocks. There is no way those trapped miners can escape. If they are ever to experience “salvation” it must come from outside. That is exactly what God did when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ! God’s deliverance came from the outside, because man could not save himself.
The Bible speaks of salvation in 3 ways: In the Past, the Present, and the Future.
1) Salvation In The Past: We have been saved. Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” This aspect of salvation is deliverance from the Penalty of Sin. It refers to Justification.
2) Salvation In The Present: We are being saved. 1Cor.1:18, “to us who are being saved the word of the cross is the power of God.” This aspect of salvation is deliverance from the Power of Sin. It refers to Sanctification.
3) Salvation In The Future: We will be saved. 1Pet.1:5, “we are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” This aspect of salvation is deliverance from the Presence of Sin. It refers to Glorification.
Now, it is true that the Gospel delivers us from all 3 aspects of sin – its penalty, power, and presence. However, what did Paul have in mind here? I believe Paul has primarily the future aspect of our salvation mind. Why do I think that?
Take a look at Romans 5:9 which is a very close parallel to Romans 1:16-17, “Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Well, just change the word order of that sentence around a little bit. “We shall be saved from the wrath of God because we have been justified by His blood. That is exactly what Paul is saying in 1:16-17. “We shall be saved from the wrath of God” is synonymous with “the gospel is the power of God for salvation.” “We have been justified by His blood” is synonymous with “in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.”
Another reason is in the verb tense: “Everyone who believes” is a present participle. It would be most literally translated, “everyone who is believing”. Paul doesn’t say that the gospel produces salvation in everyone who will believe. Rather, Paul is envisioning salvation for those who are currently believing. In other words, he doesn’t have unbelievers in mind – he’s thinking about believers. How do I know. Well, notice the context. 1:15 says, “So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” Who are these people? 1:6-7 give us the answer: “among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints.” Paul wanted to preach the gospel to those who were called of Christ to be saints, and beloved of God. In other words, Paul wanted to preach the gospel to born again Christians! But why? They were already saved! That’s precisely the point. They had experienced Justification – the Past aspect of salvation. But they needed to experience the Future aspect of salvation. These believers had been delivered from the penalty of their sins, but not from the presence of their sins. Though they were justified, they were not yet glorified. So Paul longs to preach the gospel to them because he knows that as they continue to believe the gospel, it will triumph in bringing them to eternal safety and joy in the presence of a holy and glorious God. Our conversion is just the beginning of our spiritual journey. We will have all kinds of enemies to fight and obstacles to overcome. We triumph over all these enemies and obstacles by believing the gospel. And that’s why Paul wanted to preach the gospel to them.
So, an ongoing faith in the gospel produces our ultimate and final salvation and deliverance over all our enemies and obstacles and brings us into the glorious presence of our holy God forever. That’s the first reason Paul glories in the gospel.
2. The Gospel Manifests God’s Power:
The gospel is the exact opposite of self-salvation. It is completely opposed to salvation based on human power and human effort. The gospel is not “trying harder”, or “turning over a new leaf”, or “doing our best to fix our sinful problems.” It is not God telling us what we must do to be saved. It is God telling us what He has done.
So what does Paul mean when he says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation? He means that salvation is God’s mighty working in us through the gospel. Through the preaching and believing of the gospel, God’s mighty power is released in the believer’s life, enabling him to persevere and triumph over every obstacle and ultimately find himself in the presence of God forever.
Every aspect of our salvation from eternity past to eternity past comes to us through God’s power. In Romans 8:29-30 we are told that we have been foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. All of that, the whole thing, is the result of God’s great power.
Since salvation is the result of God’s power, it will succeed. It is certain. It will be effective. Now, if our salvation were the result of our effort, or striving, or trying, it would end up a hopeless failure. However, it’s not! How much power does God possess? All power! Thus, God’s call is an irresistible call. Go ahead, and see if you can resist the omnipotence of God! God’s justification is effective – it can never be overruled. Those whom God justifies can never be condemned (8:33). Christ’s atoning sacrifice effectively removes all guilt from those who believe (8:34). God’s love is effective – it will keep us until the end (8:35-39). Our salvation is not an iffy kind of thing, contingent upon the fickle and weak wills of God’s creatures. It is dependent on God’s power – that’s why it is sure and certain! David knew this. He prayed, “Truly is not my house so with God? For He has made an everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all things, and secured; for all my salvation and all my desire, will He not indeed make it grow?” (2Sam.23:5).
So, Paul boasts and glories in this gospel, not only because it brings about a rescue for fallen sinners, but because it does so by God’s own power. This is the kind of gospel we can exult in! If it is dependent on God’s power, it will not fail us. Since this gospel is about what God does, not us, we don’t have to stress out. God who began the work in us will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
3. The Gospel Benefits God’s People:
Our text says, “to everyone who believes, the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Who is this gospel available to? Everyone! Who does it benefit? Everyone who believes! That’s why I said that the gospel benefits God’s people. Who are God’s people? Believers.
Notice that it is “for the Jew first and also to the Greek.” In other words this gospel is for the entire world. It is for all people everywhere. There is no race of men under heaven that have been excluded. It is for Canadians as well as for Britains. It is for Mexicans as well as Indians. It is for Africans as well as Chinese. It is for old men and little children. It is for men and women.
God has thrown open His arms wide in the gospel, because all people need it. All have been infected by sin. All are ruined by it. All will perish by it. And in God’s great heart of love, He has provided a Savior sufficient for its enormous need.
The word everyone is balanced by who believe. The gospel will not ultimately save all men. It will only save those who believe. That’s why in vs. 17 we are told that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Faith is the key. Often people say, “well we’re all God’s children, right?” Well, yes in the sense that we are all created by Him in His image. But no in the sense that we are all adopted into His family. This is the same thing that Paul stresses throughout this letter. In Romans 3:22 he says, “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for thee is no distinction.” In Romans 10:4 he writes, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Now, the fact that faith is the only requirement to benefit from the gospel is wonderful! That means that God is not looking at our performance, our rock solid obedience, our hard work, but rather He asks us to simply take Him at His word. There is nothing to do – just to believe in what has already been done. What could be more wonderful than this Good News which comes to us merely by faith!
So, we have seen that the Gospel delivers us from the Ruin of the Fall, rescuing us from God’s righteous wrath in an ultimate and final sense. We’ve seen that it does so by virtue of God’s own power, and therefore it cannot fail. We’ve also seen that it is freely offered and is made available for all people everywhere, and that is is received by faith alone, and not by any works or deeds of the Law. Are you starting to see why Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, but instead gloried in it, and boasted of it?! There is still one more aspect of the gospel that we need to examine.
4. The Gospel Reveals God’s Righteousness:
Now, notice what this text does not say. It doesn’t say, “in it the love of God is revealed from faith to faith.” That is the emphasis in popular evangelical faith today in the U.S. When people think of the gospel they think of God’s love. Now, it is true that the gospel does reveal the love of God, but that is not what Paul is talking about here. You see, no matter how great God’s love is it couldn’t just sweep our unrighteousness under the rug and let bygones be bygones. God’s love is not just some warm, fuzzy, sentimental thing in which God says, “I feel nice to you, so I’m going to be nice to you.” If that were true, there would be no need for the bloody, gruesome death of the Son of God! God’s wrath must be appeased. Our unrighteousness must be atoned for, forgiven, and then covered with God’s own righteousness. And that is the message of the gospel. The gospel takes our unrighteousness and God’s righteousness into account, and deals with that whole situation through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Now, what did Paul mean by “in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” What did Paul mean by the righteousness of God? Was Paul thinking about God’s perfect, holy, inflexible righteousness, on account of which He must judge unrighteous sinners? Our problem is that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against our unrighteousness (1:18). So how can God’s righteousness be Good News to us?
Martin Luther said that he hated Romans 1:17 until he finally understood what it was saying. Luther wrote, “I had been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But… a single word in Chapter 1 [verse 17] stood in my way, ‘in it the righteousness of God is revealed.’ For I hated that word ‘righteousness of God,’ which… I had been taught to understand is the righteousness [with which God] punishes the unrighteous sinner.”
So, does the righteousness of God refer to God’s inherent righteousness which He possesses in Himself and demands from us? No, I don’t think so, for a couple of reasons. First, because if that were true, then there is no Good News to it! That would be Bad News of the greatest kind! I can’t think of any worse news to tell people than “God is righteous, and you are unrighteous, so God will judge you!” Now, although that is true, that is not the Gospel. It’s not Good News. But this verse says that the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel – the Good News. Also, notice that although the righteousness is God’s in the first half of the verse, it is man’s in the second half of the verse. So, the righteousness of God that is revealed in vs. 17, is not mainly the fact that God Himself is righteous, but that He imputes or credits His own righteousness to us.
So, what Paul is saying is that although God is righteous, and demands righteousness of us, we don’t have it to give, so God gives it to us. That’s why the revelation of God’s righteousness is Good News! In the Gospel, God gives to us the righteousness that He demands from us. I mentioned earlier, that God imputes or credits this righteousness to us. What that means, is that God puts His own righteousness to your account. In other words God treats you as if you were Jesus, because He treated Jesus as if He were you! God put our sins to Jesus’ account as He died on the cross, so that now He can put Jesus’ righteousness to our account. Philippians 3:9 is one of the clearest statements on this truth of any in the Scriptures. There Paul writes, “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.” Notice from this text that when a person is in Him, they don’t have a self-righteousness based on their obedience to the Law, they have a righteousness which comes from God as His gift, received entirely by faith.
This is the glory of the Gospel. We are unrighteous. God is righteous. That’s why His wrath is revealed against us. That’s why He must judge us. But at the same time, God promises to credit His perfect righteousness to our account when we believe. How can God do that? He does that because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a perfect righteous life and then died as our Substitute on Calvary’s cross. God regarded Christ as if He were us, so that He could regard us as if we were Him! That’s what we mean when we talk of The Great Exchange. Jesus exchanged places with us. He was perfect. We are sinful. He took our place (we deserved to die upon that cross), so that we could take His place (He deserved eternal glory). So He gets the Cross, and we get the Glory! Hallelujah!
Life Application:
The Gospel Produces God’s Salvation! The Gospel Manifests God’s Power! The Gospel Benefits God’s People! The Gospel Reveals God’s Righteousness! So what does all this mean? It means we aren’t ashamed of the Gospel. Boy, that is an understatement, if I’ve ever heard one. Not only are we not ashamed of the Gospel, we glory in it!
We say with Paul, “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Gal.6:14). And again, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord!” (1Cor.1:31). And again, “we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
The Gospel is the answer to the world’s real problems! What is the real problem the world is facing? It’s not poverty, hunger, crime, disease, poor education, or war. These are all Effects. Let’s go to the Cause. The Cause of all these great problems facing our world is Sin! None of those things existed before the Fall. All of them came into the world as a result of the Fall. Man has been ruined by the Fall. All of these other problems stem from the one great problem – Sin. And the gospel is the only thing that can really solve the sin problem! The Gospel can atone for sin, forgive sin, remove sin, cancel sin’s debt, and then it can transform the sinner into a holy man or woman of God. Then it takes him through every obstacle all the way into the very presence of our holy and glorious God to dwell in His presence forever.
So, if you are not in Christ today, you’re one great, all consuming need is for the Gospel. The Good News is that God has sent His Son, to die and atone for your sin, and credit His perfect righteousness to your account. Believe in the gospel of Christ this morning! Trust Him! Surrender to Him! Begin to walk in communion with Him! That is the first thing you must do to find real Life! Nothing else ultimately matters if you don’t believe this Gospel. If you die without believing this gospel, you are of all men most to be pitied!
If you are in Christ this morning, I have the same message for you – believe in the gospel of Christ! We make progress in the Christian life the exact same way we began the Christian life – by faith. “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6). We not only begin the Christian life by believing the gospel, every advance we make in this Christian life is by believing the gospel! What sins are you facing? Believe the gospel. Your sin has been removed from you as far as the east is from the west. You are the righteousness of God in Christ. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And because you are in Christ, you have a new power – the power of the Holy Spirit. God has not left you all alone to try to overcome these sins. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in your mortal bodies. By the power of the Spirit you can put to death the deeds of the body. God’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith. What that means is that you can bank on this gospel of God-given righteousness from the moment you begin to believe, until you take your last breath of faith and awake in the presence of God! Christian – apply the gospel to your life today!
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