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Romans 1:16, 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. 17 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.”
These two verses stand like a grand doorway ushering us into the great truths of Romans. They give us a summary of this epistle of Romans, the greatest piece of literature of all time by the greatest Christian of all time, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Once we enter through these two doors we’ll immediately plunge into God’s wrath on the sinful corruption of the human soul and our desperate need of salvation, but when we reach Romans 3:21 the light of the glorious truths of justification by faith alone will burst forth, and we’ll end up on the Mount Everest of the Bible, that great chapter eight – “Who can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” Our outline for Romans is sin (1-3); salvation (3-5); sanctification (6-8); sovereignty (9-11); and service (12-16).
This morning we open the doors of verses 16-17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “There are no two verses of greater importance in the whole of Scripture.” James Montgomery Boice said these two verses were “the most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature.” MacArthur declared, “They contain the most life-transforming truth God has put into men’s hands.” And Martin Luther wrote that after God opened his heart to understand these two verses, “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”
So, let’s dive in. This is exciting stuff. Paul has already told us he’s under obligation and eager to come to Rome to preach the gospel. Now he explains why he’s so motivated and what the gospel really is. We’ll turn these two verses into five words that will help us grasp Paul’s purpose and we’ll make applications to our lives as we go.
UNASHAMED – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
There is something about the gospel that tends to make us ashamed to declare it. Otherwise, Paul wouldn’t have said this. Paul is bringing to the great, powerful city of Rome this message about a country peasant back in Jerusalem who was crucified by Roman soldiers on a criminal’s cross and then claimed to have risen from the dead. Are you serious? Furthermore, Roman authorities saw Christianity as atheism because they wouldn’t recognize the deity of the Caesar. Plus, these Christians supposedly practiced cannibalism, eating a man’s flesh and drinking his blood. Roman authorities also charged them with incest because they claimed to be brothers and sister of one family.
The gospel doesn’t boost man’s self-esteem or cater to man’s pride. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 the Greeks saw the gospel as foolish and the Jews as a stumbling block. The gospel doesn’t cater to humanism, secularism, relativism, materialism, pragmatism, mindlessness, and we’ll add, subjectivism. The gospel says you aren’t good enough; you can’t save yourself. Humanism says, “We don’t need a Savior.” The1973 Humanist Manifesto II added, “There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body.” The world sees nothing attractive in the true gospel. But Paul declares, “I am not ashamed.”
Add to this the fact that the natural mind is at enmity with God, refuses to submit to the authority of God, demands moral autonomy, and says, “We’re happy in our sin.” The Jews said, “We’ll not have this man rule over us.” These are reasons why we tend to be ashamed of the gospel. We know others don’t want to hear it and will reject us. Paul exhorted Timothy.
2 Timothy 1:8, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.”
If the gospel offends, let it offend. I’m reminded of John MacArthur recently replying to the charge that his messages are offensive by declaring, “My job is to offend people.” We need to face it. The world will never accept the biblical message. They will mock and scorn it, but we dare not change it, soften it, or broaden it to make it more acceptable.
Dr. Raymond Damadian died about four weeks ago, on August 3. Dr. Damadian invented the MRI scanner that has been used to save countless lives. He was a friend of Answers in Genesis and provided free scans to the staff if needed. He even attended the opening of the Ark Encounter. He was denied the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? Because he unashamedly held to the six-day creation account in Genesis 1 and considered evolution a “tragic hoax foisted upon mankind.” The world says you can’t be credible if you believe in such fairy tales. But Dr. Damadian was unashamed of God’s truth.
The gospel condemns me, tells me I’m lost and can’t save myself, and that I am damned apart from Christ. It declares pride to be despicable and good works to be worthless in God’s sight. We’re told we should think highly of ourselves, not put ourselves down. “I can make up my own rules and determine my own identity. I am my own authentic self. Don’t tell me I need to be saved.” And yet, this good news is the one thing every living, breathing human desperately needs. We have a crisis at the southern border, a crisis in the schools, in the cities, in the White House. But the greatest crisis facing every human being is the wrath of God. And this message Paul is bringing to Rome is the only answer to this crisis. Why aren’t you ashamed, Paul?
POWER – “For it is the power of God.”
The gospel, the message of good news about Jesus Christ, is God’s unique power that eternally changes people. It’s God’s power like the power that raised Lazarus from the dead. Not man’s power. Not even the power of your own will. God alone powerfully accomplishes the work of salvation. Paul knew when he preached or spoke with others about the gospel, he was completely dependent on God to do the saving. The flesh, man’s natural ability, has no power to effect salvation. This isn’t a message of advice suggesting you try harder, twelve steps to a better life, or how to prosper in an inflationary period. No, this message contains God’s exclusive power that raises spiritually dead sinners from death to life.
The gospel is God’s power to transform lives. It transforms drunkards into sober lovers of God. It transforms adulterers into loyal, loving husbands and wives. It transforms homosexuals into God-honoring heterosexuals. It transforms angry, bitter, depressed people into joyful, grateful worshippers of Christ. It’s a life-changing exclusive power you can’t find anywhere else.
Martin Luther denied the pope’s claim to have the power to forgive sins and cancel people’s time in purgatory. This was one of the issues that prodded him to write his 95 theses. In his day, Pope Leo was building St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and because of his need for money, he appointed men to go up into Germany and hawk indulgences, which basically meant you buy your way out of purgatory. Johann Tetzel was one of these men and was good at raising money like this. He came into villages close by Luther’s village carrying papal indulgences. He waxed eloquent to the ignorant superstitious people and declared, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, another soul from purgatory springs.” “Don’t you hear your poor grandmother crying out for you to buy more indulgences to deliver her from her suffering?” Luther declared the pope has no such power. If he did and really cared for people, why wouldn’t he just declare everyone free from purgatory? No, it is God’s power and God’s power alone in the gospel that can save people from the wrath of God. Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel because he believed the gospel message contains God’s invincible power.
1 Corinthians 1:18, “The word of the cross…is to us who are being saved the power of God.”
SALVATION – “It is the power of God for salvation.”
This God-empowered message does what it promises. It saves. Humanists despise this notion of being saved and declare, “I have no need to be saved!” Well, their thinking is wrong. They’ve forgotten history. “By one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). If you’re in a church that doesn’t talk about being saved, you’re in the wrong church. Many churches assume all the people in the church are saved. Martyn Lloyd-Jones grew up in that kind of church.
When the power of God saves you, He saves you from God’s wrath, from hostility to God, from being lost, and from futility. This word “salvation” (soteria) covers all the great sixteen-cylinder words of redemption – justification, propitiation, reconciliation, and all the blessings which God alone has the power to give us to meet our greatest needs. And our first need is to be saved from the wrath of God. We are saved from God to God! From wrath to acceptance. God’s power in the gospel is the only power in the universe that can save a guilty sinner from eternal damnation. God’s saving power in the gospel rescues us from sin, from its penalty, its power, its pollution, and finally from the very presence of sin. As Peter preached in Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
FAITH – “To everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
This saving message offers hope to everyone. No one is beyond the hope of salvation as long as they are breathing earth’s air. Paul points out the Jew first because the whole message of salvation has its human origin in the Old Testament through the Jews. Plus, Jesus was Jewish, the apostles were Jewish, the early church was Jewish until Acts 10, Paul was Jewish, they used the Jewish Old Testament to affirm the gospel message, the essential message of the cross happened in Jewish Jerusalem. Paul took this message first into the synagogues and then turned to the Gentiles. The one gospel message was for Jews and Gentiles. There is one God-empowered message of salvation for all 7.7 billion people in the world.
But there is a limit. The Bible clearly doesn’t teach universalism, though many people hope it does and many teach it does, like Rob Bell in his heretical book Love Wins. God’s salvation comes powerfully into the lives and souls of everyone who believes; not everyone who tries to do their best. Or, as some teach, “God will not deny His grace to those who do their best,” or, “God helps those who help themselves.” This is how you know if God has included you in His saving plan: do you believe in Jesus Christ?
Faith has three aspects: knowing the truth of the gospel that Christ came to save sinners through the cross, agreeing that you need this great salvation God offers, and personally submitting or trusting in Christ alone to save you. God’s powerful saving good news comes to everyone who personally trusts in Christ, without distinction, not dependent on the kind of person or sinner you were. The gospels so beautifully assure us that God powerfully saves adulterers and murderers and thieves and homosexuals (1 Cor. 6:9-11) as well as sinners who didn’t dive deeply into a corrupt way of living. There is none righteous and all need this salvation.
We are saved by faith alone, and yet people don’t get it. You can explain the gospel and show from the Bible that we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and then ask, “Do you understand?” “Yes.” “Are you prepared to put your faith in Christ alone?” “Well, I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying to follow Jesus and do what He says. I pray every day. I’m really trying.” Is that what Paul says? No. Paul says it is the power of God to everyone who believes!
Then Paul comes to the most important word of all, used 35 times in Romans, the key word.
RIGHTEOUSNESS – vs. 17 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.”
Here we come to the great verse that propelled the world into the Reformation and the Protestant movement of which we are thankfully a part. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “There is no more vital verse in the whole Scripture than this 17th verse.” See that word “righteousness”? That’s the word that tormented that troubled monk in the early 16th century. Luther saw only the wrath and judgment of God in that word. God is righteous and he wasn’t, no matter how hard he tried, praying, fasting, all-night vigils, constant confessing, never coming to peace for his convicted heart, for his tormented soul. “Love God?” He confessed, “I hated God.”
But around 1517 or so Luther was preparing lessons for his Bible classes and stopped at this verse and “knocked on Paul” here to try to understand what Paul meant by the righteousness of God. Finally, God opened his eyes to see that this righteousness was not something he had to produce to merit God’s acceptance, but a righteousness that God provided by faith. That’s when he said he felt like he was reborn and had entered the gate to paradise. He wrote, “The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the righteousness of God had filled me with hate, now it became inexpressibly sweet…. This passage of Paul became to me the gateway to heaven.” That’s when the great Reformation began.
Look at this verse carefully. In it, in the gospel, God’s righteousness is revealed. Not God’s attribute of righteousness, but the gift of righteousness. In the gospel God’s righteousness for sinners is revealed or unveiled. The gospel reveals for poor lost sinners God’s gift of righteousness, a righteousness that is equal to God’s own requirement for fellowship. And it is revealed from faith to faith. God gives His righteousness to the person who believes and He saves believers always by faith, never by works. You begin the Christian life by faith alone and you end the Christian life by faith alone. God’s powerful gospel will change your life. You’ll become obedient to Christ. You’ll begin the process of progressive sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ. You will grow in loving Christ. But never forget, God doesn’t accept you based on the degree of your spiritual growth or obedience or even love. He accepts you based on your faith in Jesus Christ. I love what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said near the end of his life. “I’m just a sinner saved by Jesus Christ.” You start by faith, live by faith, and die in faith, and you’ll enter heaven by faith. Your righteousness is in Jesus Christ.
John Bunyan struggled with assurance of his salvation. One day he was walking through the fields fighting doubts of his salvation when suddenly he thought, “My righteousness is at God’s right hand.” He thought it was a specific verse in the Bible, but it is clearly what the Bible teaches. The gospel unveils Christ’s righteousness to everyone who believes. Paul will talk about this truth when we get to chapter three. Here’s a peek.
Romans 3:21-22, But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
Then Paul anchors his teaching in the Old Testament, Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous one will live by his faith.” This is the declaration of Scripture. The faith of the just or righteous person results in what? What happens to the one who believes? He will live. The righteous one will live by his faith. He will live spiritually, now and eternally. He will have that abundant life Jesus promised. This is the great blessing of the gospel. It includes forgiveness of all sins, and the placing or imputation of Christ’s righteousness to your account before God, by faith alone. By faith alone. This verse is what brought Luther to champion the great doctrine of justification by faith alone. The righteous person shall live by faith. Not by works. The gospel is not that God makes us righteous, but that God declares us righteous based on Christ’s righteousness imputed to our account.
Any gospel that says we are saved by our own righteousness is a false gospel. This teaching of faith alone turned on the spiritual lights and opened the spiritual windows all over Europe. However, Rome later at the Council of Trent around 1550 condemned this saving gospel: “If anyone says that the faith which justifies is nothing else but trust in the divine mercy, which pardons sins because of Christ; or that it is that trust alone by which we are justified: let him be accursed.” Luther refuted Rome’s words and insisted, “When the article of justification by faith alone has fallen everything has fallen…. This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed.”
SO WHAT?
What a message! No wonder Paul was not ashamed. In fact, he was as bold as a lion as he preached the gospel; he gloried in this incredible message from God that has brought salvation to people for the last 2000 years. It’s a powerful message that can completely change a person’s eternity from that of condemnation under the wrath of God to one of joy and blessing in God’s presence forever.
Imagine this week you go to visit a man in the hospital who is on his death bed, concerned about his future, about his past, wondering what he can do, how he can be accepted by God. In walks an evolutionist to share the wonders of evolution. What help will he give? In walks a Hollywood movie star and tells him all about the big winners in the box office. Then a Freudian psychologist comes and tells him about his id, ego, and superego or a Rogerian tells him he’s got the answers deep in his heart. On his heels comes a Wall Street investor telling him about the volatility of the market right now. Bring them all in. The anthropologist, the political scientist, the Mormon, the Catholic priest, the scientologist, the left-wing democrat, the right-wing republican. Then you come in with the gospel of Jesus Christ that has the power to bring him salvation if he will only believe. Which message does this man need to hear?
What about you? Have you received the gospel by faith alone in Christ alone? Can you say you know the power of God in your life? Do you know your sins are forgiven and will be accepted into heaven? If not, trust Christ along and His death on the cross in payment for your sins. He arose from death to be your Savior and place His perfect righteousness on your account before God. May this be the moment when God shines the light of His word into your heart and this passage becomes for you, like Luther, the gate to heaven!