In Romans 1:17-18, Paul makes a very bold declaration about the gospel
of Jesus Christ…
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 for faith, as it is
written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
The basis of our faith is the gospel of Jesus Christ, but when it
absolutely comes down to it, what exactly does that mean? What is the gospel and what is its
significance to our faith. Paul cuts to
the chase in these verses to describe the significance of the gospel, but to
really strip away all the extra and get to the core of the gospel, we have to
look to another of Paul’s letters. Paul
defines the gospel clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, where he essentially
summarizes the gospel in these 4 points
- Jesus was born
- Jesus lived the perfect life you could not live
- Jesus died as a sacrifice for your sins
- Jesus arose from the grave so that you could have eternal life
The gospel, which means “good news,” is comprised of these four
points. However, Paul gives us three
other truths about the gospel in his declaration in Romans 1.
First, the gospel is nothing to be ashamed of. Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel,
but the truth is that he had every reason in the world to be ashamed of the
gospel. First of all, Paul was a Roman
citizen writing to Christians in Rome. Paul
says in Romans 1:1 that he was a bond-servant – or voluntary slave - of Jesus.
To a Roman citizen, however, slavery was incredibly shameful. No true Roman citizen would admit to being a
slave – much less willingly enter into a live of servitude. Paul did precisely that when he committed his
life to Jesus.
Paul was also a Jew, writing to both Jewish and non-Jewish Christians
in Rome. To both Jews and Romans,
crucifixion was shameful. To Jews in the
first century, crucifixion was the modern manifestation of the tree hanging
referenced in Deuteronomy 21:22-2. As
such, all those who are crucified are cursed.
To Romans, crucifixion was the most debasing form of punishment
imaginable. Roman law forbade a Roman
citizen from being crucified (which is why Paul was ultimately killed with a
sword and not crucified. In fact, Romans
only practiced crucifixions in the remote regions away from Roman civilization. Paul, however, was worshipping and proclaiming
the good news about a convicted criminal (wrongly accused but nonetheless
convicted) who was crucified for his “crimes.”
More than that, Paul proclaimed that he himself had been crucified with
Christ through baptism.
Paul had been openly identifying himself with some of the most shameful
things in Jewish and Roman culture, but here he says “I am not ashamed of it!”
Second, Paul says the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Paul’s entire reason for not being ashamed is
that the gospel can bring about salvation.
However, we need to be very clear about what he means when he says
salvation. Paul is very specific and
clear about his choice and use of words.
Paul doesn’t say redemption. He
doesn’t say justification. He doesn’t
say conversion. He says salvation.
One of the keys to understanding all of Paul’s writings is to know what
he means when he uses that specific word.
When we say salvation, we most often are referring to that “moment” when
we “accepted” Christ or “Asked Jesus into our hearts.” However, Paul never speaks of salvation in
those terms. When Paul uses the word
salvation, he is not referring to that moment when we “got saved.” When Paul speaks of salvation, he is
referring to something much broader and much more comprehensive than just our
conversion experience. Paul is referring to the entire salvation experience
from our calling to our resurrection. From
Paul’s other writings (particularly in Romans chapter 8), Paul makes it clear
that there are four stages to our salvation, which begins with our calling.
Your salvation did
not start with you. You were dead in your sins.
God called you. John 6:44 says no man comes to the father unless the
father draws him. God issued you an
invitation to respond to his gospel. It
may have been delivered by a person or it may have been as you were reading His
word, but it was the Holy Spirit drawing you to respond to a clear message that
was delivered to you. That message and
the drawing of the Holy Spirit that accompanied that message is God’s calling –
his invitation to you to come to him for salvation.
Following your
calling comes justification – that is, assuming you respond properly to the
calling. Whether you believe the calling
is irrevocable or you believe that you have the ability to freely accept or
reject that calling makes no difference to the fact that justification occurs
when you respond to God’s call. This is what we normally speak of when we
talk about our salvation experience. We
accept God’s offer of salvation and are born again. Justification is a legal term meaning “not
guilty.” Although all of us are guilty,
when we accept the gospel by faith, our verdict changes from “guilty” to “not
guilty.” We no longer have to worry
about the punishment associated with our sins.
From that moment
forward, we begin the process of sanctification, which is a transformation
process. This is the process whereby we day by day, “beholding the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to
another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is our
spiritual growth into the image of God.
It is how we, as fallen humans, little by little regain the fullness of
the God-image that we lost in Eden.
Ultimately, we wait
for our glorification. This is the end
of our hope, when we finally see Jesus face to face – when our sanctification
is complete and our bodies are raised imperishable. It is the end of our salvation.
When Paul speaks of salvation, he means all of this. When he says we are SAVED BY FAITH – he means
ALL of this. This is why he can quote
Habakuk 2:4 and say that the righteous will live by faith. It is God’s foreknowledge of our faith that
causes him to draw us to him. It is our faith
that causes us to call upon him for salvation.
It is through our ongoing faith that we daily walk with him and are
sanctified. And it is by our faith in
the hope of the resurrection that we are ultimately glorified. We are fully saved by faith.
Finally, Paul says in Romans 1 that the gospel is righteousness from
God. We do not have a righteousness that
is our own, we have God’s righteousness.
We are not self-righteous – although we may sometimes act that way. We have nothing within us that makes us
righteous. It is a righteousness that
comes through the gospel – through the work of Jesus Christ.
Why is a righteousness from God important? God willing… that will be
the subject of next week’s blog.
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