Romans 1:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Romans 1:16

Comments

‘For I am not ashamed.’ What a word! It derives from Greek, which means ‘I am not ashamed of my disfigurement’. It is the kind of embarrassment or shame you might feel if you were wanting to hide some disfigurement or ugliness, so it's a powerful word. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I have no inclination to hide it. I'm not embarrassed by it. ‘But Paul, you ought to be. You're coming to Rome, or you hope to be. You long to preach at Rome, but Rome is the centre of an all-conquering empire, and very proud. You come from the Jews, and Christianity at this stage is regarded by the Romans as an almost irrelevant sect among the Jews. Who were the Jews? A small nation, a defeated nation, a subjected nation under the control of Rome. What buildings do they have? Where is their military, their army? Paul, you have every reason to be quiet and embarrassed and cautious when you go to Rome.’ As it is, he will go to Rome as a prisoner under guard to be flung into a prison – even worse. Will he still be saying, ‘I am not ashamed to preach the gospel at Rome, for it is the power of God unto salvation’? Yes, he will. The gospel would go to Rome, and when Rome was consigned to the history books for children at school, the gospel would still be winning hearts throughout the world until the end of time. So we can imagine that he smiled at the suggestion that he would be ashamed to show his face in Rome, because he knew that in the gospel was vastly greater power. The gospel had already been seen in Paul's own life. Saul of Tarsus – how he hated the Christian gospel. This great Jewish intellectual had been given the power to eradicate Christianity if he could and he set himself with all his zeal and might to do that. But one shaft of the gospel, and he was humble to the dust and he longed for salvation and was entirely changed. Gospel means good news: the good news that there is pardon and forgiveness through Christ, that the Saviour has come from heaven and assumed human flesh to be our representative, and has lived a life of perfect of overflowing righteousness to deserve heaven and glory for all his people. He has allowed himself to be nailed to a cross where God the Father would clothe him invisibly with all the guilt of everyone in the history of the world who would ever be forgiven and saved, because they trusted in the mercy of God. God the Father punished him instead of them, instead of us, if we trust in Christ, and so God can freely forgive us and transform us and draw us into communion with himself. It wouldn't be good news if you had to earn God's favour. It would empty the gospel of any good news, because you can't do it. We have no concept of the holiness and the purity of God, and sometimes we have very little awareness of the foulness of our own hearts: our pride and deceitfulness and self-seeking. What can you do about your past sin record? What can you do to live a perfect life? This gospel means good news, free salvation, freely bestowed, granted to you. There are many, many religions in the world. That is easy to explain, because God has created us as worshipping beings, and set in every life an instinct for his existence. We try to get rid of it, but it's there. If people want to satisfy that instinct, but they don't want the one true God who is holy because they would have to repent and yield their lives to him; if they want a God who will just give them things when they ask or save them from ill fortune, then naturally false religions arise. We create our own religions to our liking, thousands of them in the world. The atheist says that the presence of thousands of religions proves that not one of them is true, but that is ridiculous reasoning. The presence of thousands of religions only proves the Bible, that we have an instinct for religion, that we are worshipping beings. The one true and living God has spoken above all the clamour of man-made religions. It is Christ – the only world religion that has a Saviour who came to be our sin-bearer and to bring his righteousness to earn heaven for us. ‘For it is the power of God’ – for what? – ‘unto salvation.’ It's a wonderful word, salvation. That's what this is all about, salvation. We need to be saved. It’s as simple as that. To be saved means you are saved from something and delivered to something vastly better. You are rescued from certain death, contamination, illness, or disease. You are rescued and made whole and safe and sound. It is the power of God unto salvation – saved from eternal death, given eternal life; saved from isolation from God and alienation from him and brought into fellowship with him. Christ is your Saviour and your friend and you pray to him for guidance and blessing and help. We are saved from ignorance of God, not knowing anything about him or his ways or his plans. Your mind emancipated to understand the word of God and to understand God's purposes and plans, the whole picture of life. You are brought to believe; you are brought to depend upon Christ, to trust in him.‘To the Jew first, and also to the Greek’, the non-Jew, the Gentile. That is historical but it applies in various ways. The Jews are no different from Gentiles except that they had great privileges. But the Jews at that time, the time of the New Testament, could be very self-righteous. That is a generalisation; it is not true of every Jewish person, but a very big ruling party among them, the Pharisees, thought that you gained acceptance with God by keeping all the rituals precisely, by keeping the ceremonial law with all its detailed requirements, and they were very proud of themselves and self-righteous. And yet they too could be brought to feel their need of Christ by the power of the gospel. Gentiles, Greeks, on the other hand were so ignorant of the one true God and who he was and his attributes and his ways, that they knew nothing at all. Today also, when people talk with you about the gospel, the kind of things they say – and we remember we were all like this once – show absolute ignorance of anything to do with Christianity and God and the gospel. The Greeks were like that, completely ignorant, and yet they were converted in their droves and their eyes were opened and they learned the things of God. So it doesn't matter whether you are self-righteous or whether you are just completely ignorant of everything. The gospel has the power to change you and to bring you to Christ, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Application

It is sad today, but some Christians are ashamed of the gospel and so are churches even. They say, ‘We can't just preach the gospel, we have got to have bands and music and entertainment, and ministers have got to be comedians and tell jokes and lighten it all up and make it ‘accessible’ – that is the great word – because, although they mean well, and they say, we want to draw people, really it conceals a lack of trust in the power of the gospel. Up until the previous century the Christian church has never needed all that. Through awakenings, reformations, revivals, it has never needed all the gimmicks and all the worldliness.

Now there are always some who don't like the word ‘saved’, because they don't want to admit there's anything wrong with them. This was true of me when I was a youngster. If somebody said to me, ‘You're a desperate sinner, and you're lost eternally and under condemnation, because of your sin’, I would have said, ‘It isn't true.’ I would say I had some faults, but in my conceit I reckoned that I was better than a lot of people. Is that you too? I don't want to be made to grovel and repent. The world for the last 40 years has been saying that the engine you need within you is the engine of self-esteem. You have got to think well of yourself and then you will be well, so it is claimed, psychologically and even physically. That nonsense is fizzling out now, and fast, and a good thing too. ‘I've got to think well of myself’? I don't need any encouragement to do that! Every single heart is proud, but there may be some here who don't like the talk of being saved. I remember a lady saying of a particular preacher, ‘I won't go and hear that man again, he makes you feel a sinner. Well that's good, but she didn't like it and she didn't want it.’ God brings us down before he lifts us up. He shows us our need before he forgives and changes us. It is the power of God unto salvation, saved from condemnation, saved from the dominion of sin, because without God, sin will always get the better of us as we go down life's journey. Are we proud now? We will be even more proud as life goes on. Are we deceitful now? We will be even bigger liars as life goes on.

Rome was about earthly glory which will not last; the gospel is about heaven glory which cannot fade away. Rome is all about time; the gospel is about eternity. Rome is about physical power only; the gospel is about spiritual power and life in the soul. Rome is about military conquest; the gospel is about the conquest of love, how Christ came, how God loves, how there is a redemption for sinners. And God comes to his most distant enemies, and brings them in by love, by atonement, by suffering and death on the part of Christ, not by conquest of arms. Rome is about earthly riches and fine buildings, and the gospel is about a different type of edifice – the building up of knowledge, spiritual knowledge, knowledge of God, influence with God by the privilege of prayer. This gospel is far greater than anything that Rome has. Rome is about – on certain days, three or four times a year – crowding out into the streets in order to get a distant glimpse of Caesar in his glory. The vast majority of people will not get very close; they cannot touch him, and yet this is what is supposed to satisfy them. But the Gospel is about close communion with the King of kings and Lord of lords. Because Paul had such a high estimate of the gospel, and saw it in all its wonder and amazement, he could not stop preaching it. He would tolerate any kind of hardship and persecution in order to stand for such a gospel. If only we could think like that when we feel cowed and outnumbered there in our place of business or study, and everybody is interested in what to them are far greater things. You have the greatest message. You have access to the most amazing things. If you have a high estimate of them, surely it would help you to be bolder, to be more courageous.

If we were to get together a team of people who were good at selling things or promoting things or mounting campaigns of some sort in this world, they would be astonished at us. ‘People want to feel good’, they would say, ‘and here you are preaching a message, and your aim is to make people feel bad.’ Yes it is, before they feel better. Our aim is to so preach that people unwillingly feel that they are sinners and such bad sinners that God will condemn them forever, and that their only hope is to bow the knee to Jesus Christ and trust in what he has done to procure salvation for them. People want to feel good, and here we are making them feel bad before they can get better and have joy in the Lord. Then again, in this world people want to feel they can accomplish something. If you say that they can go to heaven by doing this or doing that, then they are much happier. People have got their pride, and they want to accomplish something, and here you are telling them that they cannot accomplish anything in the eyes of God, but only repent of sin and trust in Christ who accomplished salvation on our behalf. People want material things, and the gospel promotes spiritual things. People want earthly things, and we are promoting heavenly things. People want humour, and we are serious about condemnation and the need of pardon and forgiveness. People want to be entertained, not made serious. People are attracted to famous people, to celebrities – and what are you? You are putting into the pulpit unknown people who count for nothing in this world, who this world will never elevate or respect. So according to the wisdom of this world, we have got it entirely wrong, and yet he says, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation.’

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Romans 1:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Romans 1:16 explained