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“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading Rom. 1:1–17. “Thanks be to God.”
Truth be told, I don’t always understand everything about the solution when I get a problem fixed.
When I take my car to the mechanic about a sound or warning light or some way the car’s running, I usually have some idea of the broad category. I think...it’s the brakes. Looks like I’ve got an oil leak.
And when it’s fixed, they tell me what they did. And I always nod knowingly. “Yeah, boy, cars.” Yep, so what you’re saying is that there was a problem. And now it’s fixed.
And I drive away very happy that my problem is fixed.
And it’s similar when I go to the doctor. When I have another spot on my face treated for possible skin cancer, the dermatologist describes why this one spot required treatment and this other spot is just fine.
And again, I nod knowingly. “Those skin cells, boy, they’re something.”
Again, I drive away very happy that my problem is fixed. Or knowing there was no problem at all this time.
And maybe my life would be slightly better if I understood a lot more these problems and the solutions. But at big-picture level, my level isn’t very affected.
Over these last months we’ve been looking at Paul’s epistle to the Romans. And we’ve been thinking about the gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Paul has given us layers of depth to the gospel message. Maybe when we were saved, all we really understood was, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). There’s enough in that one Bible verse to save a soul who believes it!!!
And yet, there’s a lot more to the gospel itself. And Paul wants us to say more than, “Yeah, sin, boy. It stinks!” And “Yeah, Jesus. A good man!”
Knowing the depths of the gospel helps us to love God more, know God more, hate our sin more, and pursue holiness more.
To grow deeper in the gospel, we’ve been looking at Romans 1–5. The first five chapters of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Our series, “Better than you think.” Seeing week after week that as good as we thought the gospel was, it’s better.
Hopefully we’ve grown to see why Martin Luther would say this about Romans:
This Epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes
Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans[1]
“Gospel” is from a Greek word (euaggelion) that means “good news.” Not just “news.” But it’s “good.”
Sermon: The gospel is better than you think. As good as we think it is, it’s better. There’s always more to discover. Always more to love.
The gospel is better because it (1) has a More Divine Source, (2) solves the Greater Problem, (3) provides the Greater Solution, and (4) requires a Simpler Response.
Prayer – youth camp, John’s sabbatical, Israel/Iran
We start with Paul’s introduction to the letter. He does not wait long to begin to unpack the gospel for us, God’s good news. In these opening verses what stands out is the SOURCE of the Paul’s gospel. It is DIVINE. It’s not a man-made philosophy. Not the invention of a creative. Not the solution of a clever engineer. It’s not something of earth at all. It’s DIVINE. It’s of God.
Paul makes this crystal-clear. In the opening verse of the letter he calls it “the gospel of God” (Rom 1:1). The gospel from God.
Then he calls the gospel, the gospel “which HE promised beforehand through HIS prophets in the holy Scriptures” (Rom 1:2).
“In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Gen 22:18)
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matt 1:1)
In a prophecy like Genesis 22, it is not just Moses writing. It is God promising beforehand through HIS prophets” to bring about our salvation through this particular “offspring” (Gen 22:18), this “son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1).
Then Paul says that this gospel is the gospel “concerning HIS Son...” (Rom 1:3).
Jesus was not just the son of Mary, born around 5 BC. He was also the eternal Son of God, with no beginning, as divine and infinite as God the Father himself. As we read in the Nicene Creed (AD 381):
We believe...in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.
The Nicene Creed (AD 381)
There’s more to say about the DIVINE SOURCE. Paul says in Rom. 1:16 that the gospel is “the power of GOD for salvation.” God’s power focused, concentrated on this marvelous work: our salvation.
The God who displayed his power by speaking the universe into existence is saying here that his power is also at work in the gospel to bring about our salvation.
Sometimes we can think of salvation as an easy thing. But it takes nothing less than “the power of God.”
Yesterday I was reading about a famous pastor who had deconstructed, renounced his profession of faith. He was listing out the phases of his life in what he called “Christian phases.” His current phase is this:
“A Happy-Unsure-Seeker-Who-Still Prays to Jesus and Visits Church but is Less Triggered Toward Religion Because-No-One-Has-This-Figured-Out- Human-Being”
Now, it’s good to be humble. And it’s also true we get things wrong a lot in religion and Christianity.
But it’s not at all true that “No One Has This Figured Out.” There is a gospel message, a good news message, that doesn’t need to be “figured out”—it needs to be believed. Because this gospel message isn’t from humanity at all. It’s from God. It’s the “gospel of God which he promised beforehand” and which is given in the book of Romans.
The gospel has a MORE DIVINE SOURCE than you think.
Now the content of the gospel.
I have many problems. Knees that get sore when I run. Eyes not as sharp as they used to be. Not as much savings as I’d like for this stage of my life.
But these are small problems. What are the problems you have? What’s on your list?
Chances are, in the scheme of eternity, yours also are small problems. They might be bigger than the ones I mentioned, but they’re still relatively small.
In our series we spent many weeks working through Romans 1:18–3:20. A long reflection on our GREATEST PROBLEM.
The problem that the gospel solves has two aspects, inseparable from each other. These are the wrath of God and the sinfulness of humanity.
John Murray defines God’s wrath for us:
Wrath is the holy revulsion of God’s being against that which is the contradiction of his holiness.
John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans[2]
It’s a “holy revulsion.” Coming from “God’s being.” Opposed to “that which is the contradiction of his holinesss.”
Sin is that “contradiction of his holiness” in my actions or thoughts or motivations or disposition.
God’s wrath and my sinfulness are not a problem if you take one of them away. If God has no wrath, then our sin isn’t really a problem. Everyone will get saved in the end, and no one will be sent to hell.
This was Rob Bell’s solution to the problem years ago. He, too, was a pastor who left the Christianity he started with. In his book Love Wins, he explained his new perspective:
“At the heart of [my new] perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God....We do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer.”
Rob Bell, Love Wins (HarperOne, 2011), 107, 182
For Rob Bell, his solution is to take away God’s wrath. When you do that, there’s no longer a problem.
And likewise, if God is a God of wrath, but I have no sin, then there’s no longer a problem. The secular psychological worldview is that there are no sins, only neuroses. Of course, the secular psychologist sees belief in a God of wrath as one of these neuroses. But for the secular psychologist sin is only a problem because I experience unpleasant consequences in my life now.
But for them, there’s nothing eternal involved with my problems. It’s all about the present or the short-term future.
But what we care about is not the gospel of a Rob Bell or the gospel of the secular psychologist. What we care about is what Paul has already called, “the gospel OF GOD, which HE promised beforehand” (Rom 1:1–2) and is now revealing to us in Romans.
It is undeniable. Romans 1:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Rom 1:18)
God’s wrath is real and an expression of God’s holiness. Denying God’s wrath is like denying gravity: You can deny it all day long, but every time you try and jump off the earth, you’ll fall right back down.
And not only is he a God of wrath, but he has a “day of wrath” prepared. Romans 2:
But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.... There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek. (Rom 2:5, 9)
Now God’s wrath is set “on the day of wrath,” a future day when “tribulation and distress” will fall on everyone who is an enemy of God.
Sin is equally clear and undeniable.
Dramatically in Romans 3:
9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Rom 3:9-12)
There is no more negative assessment of an unconverted person than this one.
Conversion doesn’t magically remove our sinful tendencies, but it does begin to change them.
Even for the Christian, the sin in our hearts is deep and dark.
In the words of Charles Spurgeon, we “think lightly of sin”. And that has consequences. One of them is that we lose sight of the sheer glory of the Savior.
He writes,
Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer, by whose blood he has been cleansed.
Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography[3]
May we be those who take God’s wrath seriously and who take our sin seriously.
But may we see this GREATER PROBLEM only in light of the GREATER SOLUTION, the Greater Savior.
What is provided? Jesus. The GREATER SOLUTION is a WHO and not a WHAT. The solution to God’s wrath and our sin is found in God’s Own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember Rom. 1:1–3. The gospel of God is the gospel “concerning his Son.”
The SOLUTION is God’s Own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul explains how Jesus is the Great Solution. He frames it in terms of RIGHTEOUSNESS.
We see this in one of the most important paragraphs ever written.
Romans 3:21–26:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:21–26)
What’s GIVEN TO ME is the very righteousness of Christ. That’s what’s happening here with Paul’s language of “righteousness through faith.”
When faith connects me to Christ, I receive the very righteousness of Christ. I am justified, “declared righteous.”
Righteousness is that quality that means I am ACCEPTED BY GOD. I am APPROVED BY GOD. To be JUSTIFIED is to be DECLARED RIGHTEOUS in the SIGHT OF GOD.
That’s what’s GIVEN.
My problem was God’s wrath and my sinfulness. The solution for both of these is a PRICE THAT CHRIST PAID FOR ME.
Rom. 3:24: REDEMPTION is a price paid to set a captive free. The price paid for us was the blood of Christ. It wasn’t money or time served. It was the blood of our Savior.
Rom. 3:25: PROPITIATION is a sacrifice made to remove wrath. Paul speaks of “PROPITIATION BY HIS BLOOD.” This isn’t Christianity suddenly becoming a pagan make-believe religion. It is the way “the gospel of God” works. His wrath requires death.
Other religions that have some kind of sacrifice to some kind of god can only be cheap imitations. They reflect that humanity has some kind of instinctive sense that there is a holy God that we owe a great debt to. And they reflect that instinctive sense that a payment must be made to him.
But only the death of the Son of God is sufficient payment. Only Christ himself is the adequate REDEMPTION price, the complete PROPITIATION.
Faith in Christ makes us righteous by transferring his righteousness to us. Faith in Christ removes our debt by transferring our guilt to Christ.
The result? What we read in Rom. 3:26. God becomes “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
The third part of Christ as the GREATER SOLUTION has to do with WHO he is. He himself is RIGHTEOUS! Without Christ himself being righteous, he cannot transfer his righteousness to us.
That’s what we saw in Romans 5:12–21 as Adam and Christ were compared. Adam was a given a command and disobeyed that command. Christ obeyed to the end.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom 5:18–19)
Christ offered “one act of righteousness,” “one man’s obedience.” He’s the GREATER SOLUTION!
We call Christianity “Christianity” because at the very center of it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It is HIS righteousness that gives us standing before God. It is HIS death that pays the price sin requires once and for all.
Christ and Christ alone is the Mediator that can reconcile God and man. No other mediator will do.
There is no pious priest, no revered saint who can affect your standing with God the least little bit. That kind of teaching isn’t “the gospel of God” Paul preached. It’s a gospel of man and a gospel of straw. Everyone apart from Christ are sinners who need a Savior. They can do nothing for you before God the Judge.
But Christ! Christ is the one and only Savior who achieved “righteousness,” who obeyed perfectly. He can give us standing through faith!
But this gospel does require a response. It is based on what God has done and what God has said. But a response is required of us individually.
Otherwise it’s like the greatest gift in the world, wrapped and sitting under the Christmas tree. But you never unwrap it. You never receive it. And so it just sits there with all the potential in the world to change your life. But unless you receive that gift and open it, it can’t do what it was meant to do.
What kind of response is required on our end to enjoy the benefits of the gospel?
What we give in response is simpler than you think. We’re not asked to give perfect obedience like Adam in the Garden of Eden. We’re not asked to perform a complicated sacrificial system like what was given in the law of Moses. We’re asked to believe what God says. We believe his promises. We believe his offer of salvation.
Romans 1:
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 for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Rom 1:16–17)
“Everyone who believes,” “from faith for faith,” “the righteous shall live by faith.”
And beginning in Rom. 3:21 when he turns to the SOLUTION to the PROBLEM, he will emphasize FAITH time and again. That response of faith will come like a steady drumbeat in Rom. 3:22–5:2. 28 times Paul uses “faith” or “believe” in these 38 verses! In almost every single verse.
Throughout chapter 4 it will Abraham that is held up as our example of faith:
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” (Rom 4:18)
He believed this despite the fact he had no children and “his own body...was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old” and his wife was barren (Rom 4:19).
In the end, it is faith in Christ that is the SIMPLE RESPONSE God requires.
Faith requires understanding. Faith is believing that what God says is true. Faith is trusting in Christ, putting your confidence in him.
To illustrate what faith is: The great Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century Baptist preacher was converted as a teenager. As a 15-year old he was burdened by the weight of his sin. He had listened to many sermons and read many books but somewhere the RESPONSE God was after alluded him.
But then God intervened dramatically.
Spurgeon’s conversion story.
A More Divine Source: don’t be tricked by other gospels. Hold to “the gospel of God, which he promised,” “concerning His Son,” which contains, “the power of God for salvation.
Remember the Greater Problem: Take time on a regular basis. Maybe weekly or every couple weeks to think about your sins. Pray through the Ten Commandments to confess specific sins to God. Think about specific ways you have fallen short of the glory of God.
But do this in light of the Greater Solution: Christ has come! Our righteousness is in him! Our sins don’t change our righteous standing before God. Our sins have been paid for! Our standing before God doesn’t change—because it’s in Christ!
What this gospel requires is the Simpler Response: Believe God’s Words. Trust in Christ. Look to him.
This gospel is even better than we knew! More Divine! It presents the Greater Problem but also the Greater Solution. And yet, it calls us to respond with a Simpler Response than we expect.
It makes sense, then, that in the opening of chapter 5 Paul would three times tell us to REJOICE! I’ll read one of them:
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Rom 5:11)
The gospel gives us an unending reason to REJOICE IN GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!
It means peace with God (Rom 5:1–2). It means being loved by God (Rom 5:5). It means even our sufferings will be transformed into tools God uses to shape us into the people he wants us to be (Rom 5:3–5).
And so we rejoice! Now and forever!
Prayer – For the conversion of Josh Harris and Rob Bell
Closing Song – “There is One Gospel On Which I Stand”
[1] Martin Luther, “Preface,” Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Works of Martin Luther, trans. J.T. Mueller (1932), 6:447.
[2] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959), 1:35.
[3] Charles Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography (Pantianos Classics), 55.
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