A study of Romans 1:16-17
In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, you cannot help but pick up his eagerness to preach the gospel. He is on his way to Rome, he hopes, after a quick trip to Jerusalem. His stop in Rome is actually just a temporary visit on the way to his next missionary field – Spain. No matter where he is going – his goal is to preach the gospel. He says in Romans 1:15 “So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
There is no doubt that Paul’s main mission and his number one passion is to preach the gospel. He doesn’t hesitate to preach it. Nothing seems to hinder him in preaching. No one has a gun to his head forcing him to preach it. He will climb over hill and dale to bring the gospel to the nations.
This letter is written after some years of ministry for Paul. He has seen and encountered much that might discourage a man from his task. Yet, Paul is as focussed and committed and eager and happy to be in the gospel ministry as ever.
William Barclay writes: “Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica, smuggled out of Berea, laughed at in Athens. He had preached in Corinth where his message was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, and out of that background Paul declared that he was proud of the gospel.”
What is it about the gospel that makes Paul so eager to preach it no matter what the cost or consequence? Why does Paul unhesitatingly declare that he is “not ashamed of the gospel? Why is Paul proud of the gospel?
I want to suggest to you that it is the people who believe most confidently in the gospel who are most likely to share the gospel eagerly and consistently.
What had Paul discovered in the gospel that made him want to share it with others and made him unwilling to disown it, no matter what opposition or ridicule he encountered.
This is crucial to us – because if we are going to present the gospel in a convincing fashion in our day and age, and with love and joy, then we too must be absolutely convinced that this message is one that we believe in with all our hearts.
4 reasons for Paul’s proud confidence in the gospel:
I. The Effectual Power of the Gospel - Paul is confident of what the gospel is able to do.(vs.16)
The gospel doesn’t simply inform about change. The gospel has the power to change people’s lives and save them from their sin. It is the power of the gospel that makes Paul eager to preach it.
Paul is fully aware of what the gospel is able to do. It is the power of God unto salvation to whoever believes. Salvation is the general word for all that is involved in delivering people from their slavery to sin and its consequences. Remember this letter is written to garner support for Paul’s missionary journey to bring about “the obedience of faith among the Gentiles.” One of the consequences for sin is the inability to escape sin’s hold over our lives. Only the gospel, can deliver a person from the devastating effects of sin. All other solutions never work because what man needs is not advice or religious instruction. We don’t need guidelines for life. We need to be rescued from sin’s intrinsic hold upon our lives. God’s wrath exists in that God has handed us over to sin (Romans 1:18ff.) Only through the gospel, does God break the power of sin and set us free to trust in God and to follow Him.
This is what makes the gospel unique. All other teaching is just that – information. The gospel is the instrument that God uses to change peoples hearts as He brings them to faith in Christ. It has power to save lives.
Leon Morris: “The gospel is not advice to people, suggesting that they lift themselves. It is power. It lifts them up. Paul does not say that the gospel brings power but that it is power, and God’s power at that. When the gospel is preached, this is not simply so many words being uttered. The power of God is at work. When the gospel enters anyone’s life, it is as thought the very fire of God had come upon him. There is warmth and light in his life.”
II. The Universal Capacity of the Gospel – Paul is confident of who the gospel is able to reach.
The gospel has the power to save all kinds of people from all kinds of background. Paul is eager to preach it everywhere because it can transform people of every race and background.
It is for the Jew first and also the Greek. What the law could not do for the Jew and what philosophical reason (wisdom) could not do for the Greek, the gospel could do for both. The gospel had the power to turn man away from sinful foolishness and make him walk and live in truth and righteousness. The Jew could never live up to the law. The Greek could never reach the ideal. Greek philosophy was always forced to recognize the enormous gap between earthly reality and the ideal in the mind of man. The notion would arise that all matter had to be evil because while in our mind, we could imagine perfection and a utopian existence, we could never attain unto it. The gospel has the power to do what philosophy could not do, change the human heart and cause a man to live in ways that previously he had not power to realize.
The gospel has the power to save whoever believes – whether they are Jew or Greek.
III. The Righteous Revelation of God in the Gospel - Paul is confident of what the gospel reveals about God.
The God of the gospel is not an embarrassing God.The more you trust him, the more you see that God is righteous. (vs.17)
The gospel reveals the righteousness of God. There is no shame for Paul when he declares the gospel because the gospel upholds God as a righteous God who is able to rescue humanity from sin without ever acting unjustly or compromising his righteousness. In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The more you trust, the more who trust, from beginning to end, God is a righteous God who keeps His word, who upholds what is just, who promotes what is right, who provides what is best. God always comes out looking good and righteous to those who have the faith to follow Him and surrender their lives to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul is eager to preach the gospel because He is confident of the God who stands behind the gospel and He is confident of what the gospel reveals about His God.
IV. The Reasonable Requirement of the Gospel. Paul is confident of how the gospel works. (vs.17)
Paul is confident in the gospel because he knows that all it requires of people is faith.
The gospel simply requires that we trust in God. As God is trusted, God proves that He is true and right. The biblical declaration is that the righteous live because they trust God. Or, as some say, the righteous by faith will live. It has always been the expectation that those with whom God is pleased and who God saves are simply those who trust in God. If salvation depended on human effort in anyway, Paul might have not been so confident in it or eager to preach it. But, what the gospel requires is simply that we trust God to save us through His Son. That is both reasonable and glorious.
Paul is eager to preach because the gospel is effective for the most helpless of people – all they are called to do is trust in the Lord to deliver them.
