Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Romans 1 | Date: August 30, 2015 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Many of you said last Sunday that you would pray for Kim, and she was so sick. I appreciate that. She’s back today. Next time around, I’d appreciate if you’d pray for me as well, that she would not make me sick. One of the biggest frustrations with that is coming to church and not being able to sing with the congregation. I love that. There’s just not many things I love more. And I couldn’t sing melody today; I certainly couldn’t sing tenor. I contented myself with singing bass under my breath.

Open your Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 1. We’re going to do today—if you saw on Facebook already, there’s a little bit of discussion about it—we’re going to survey the Book of Romans in one sermon. Cayman remarked that some pastors have preached through Romans in something like six years, and I said, well, I didn’t say how long the sermon would be. I will try to let you out for lunch. Actually, what gave rise to this is that in a couple of weeks, there’ll be the conference in Ocean City, and I’ve been asked to survey the Book of Romans in one sermon for that. So I thought it would be helpful, I hope it will be helpful for those of you who will be there, to set you up in that kind of a way as you hear the expositions through the book, through that week, that this may help set you up for that. When it comes to my session at the conference, you’ve already heard the sermon; you’re welcome to stay at the beach. Or I suppose alternatively, you could go home now.

Romans chapter one, we’ll title this “Romans, the Gospel of God.” The Gospel of God. Romans chapter one, we’ll just read verses 15 through 17 for now:

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I’m 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.

Our Father, we’re grateful for this time we have together. We’re grateful for your word and we’re grateful in particular today for this marvelous portion of your word that has been so influential over the history of the church. It is so rich with teaching regarding the gospel of Christ. We ask that you’ll open our minds and our hearts to it today as we just quickly work our way through it. We pray that you’d give us a greater grasp of the gospel through it. And through that, we pray you will give us a deeper appreciation for our Lord Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.

Finding the theme of a given biblical book can be a tricky thing. In fact, it’s often argued that some books don’t really have a given theme unless you state it so broadly as to be very useless. Some people have said, for example, the theme of Romans is God. Well, okay, that probably works. But it doesn’t tell you a whole lot either about what this book is about. Many of the letters of the Apostle Paul are what are called occasional letters. That is, they’re written—they’re occasioned by a certain thing that has happened. He has to address a certain issue. This has a little bit of that.

But overall, the Book of Romans is a little bit different than most of Paul’s letters in that it’s more of an essay, a carefully reasoned out argument from beginning to end over a specific theme. Now again, there’s some discussion as to what that theme is, but I think there are some clues to help us determine it. It seems pretty clear that chapter 1, verses 1 through 17, is an introduction to the letter. Beginning with chapter 1, verse 18, and all the way through chapter 15, verse 13, we have the body of the letter, Paul’s argument as it is worked out, and then in chapter 15, verse 14, and then all of chapter 16 is the conclusion to the book where he gives some concluding statements and some greetings and so on.

Now if chapter 1 verses 1 through 17 is the introduction to the book, then it should be helpful for us to see there in the introduction: what is Paul talking about? What does he introduce? And the first thing I think that strikes us is chapter 1 and verse 1, where Paul says that he is a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Now, parts of that greeting are common to Paul’s letters. He often identifies himself at the outset as an apostle, called to be an apostle, and so on. But what’s unique here in verse one among Paul’s letters is he says he’s set apart for the gospel of God. He includes that in part of his greeting.

So is Paul going to expound for us the gospel? Is that what he’s writing about? Is that a sufficient theme? Well, verses 2 through 6 in chapter 1, we have a compact summary statement where he identifies the gospel in, can we say, just Christocentric terms. This is what Jesus has done for us in his incarnation, coming from heaven to work this for us. In chapter 1, verses 7 and following, we have a rather usual kind of greeting, but there is a specific focus on his own gospel ministry, and that climaxes in verses 16 and 17, where Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel.” There may be something lying behind that. It has been suggested that the apostle’s been criticized for his gospel ministry to the Gentiles. And so Paul has to defend that, and that is an issue he takes up in chapters 9 through 11.

But nonetheless, Paul’s saying here—he states at the climax of his introduction—”I’m not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation.” And then he states in verse 17 that this gospel has at the heart of its message the promise of free justification in Christ. For in it, that is in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith and to faith. And then verse 18, you’ll notice the first word: “For.” That is, he’s going on now to explain this gospel of free justification in Christ. I think from the very setup, from the very beginning, Paul is telling us that he’s writing to talk about the gospel, which centers on, of course, this gift of righteousness in Christ.

Then as we work through the rest of the epistle, I think we have the same kind of emphasis dominating throughout the letter. For example, the word “gospel” occurs almost something like a dozen times, and he has expressions like “the gospel of God,” “the gospel of Christ,” “the gospel of his Son,” or alternatively, “my gospel” that I’m preaching to you, and so on. But the cohesive idea of the letter seems to work around that as well, and we’ll work it out in this order.

The Need For The Gospel

Beginning in chapter 1, verse 18, we have Paul describing for us the need for the gospel, the need for this gospel of free righteousness in Christ. And he has a lengthy discussion here then of human guilt.

Chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, is the text Paul takes for Romans. Here Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation.” An important verse for the Apostle Paul. This gospel is the message that saves. It goes first to the Jew and then also to the Greek, a subject he’ll take up several times in the book. But then he tells us in verse 17 something that’s really a bit surprising. He’s not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because—notice that explanatory conjunction there, “for”—I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because in it, the love of God is revealed. That’s not what it says, is it? You might expect that. You might expect the apostle to say the gospel is a revelation of the great love of God. And it is. That’s not what he says here. You might expect something like, “the gospel is a revelation of the kindness of God, the goodness of God, the patience of God,” or something like that.

But what Paul says is the gospel is a revelation of the righteousness of God, which is a startling thing because the righteousness of God is exactly the problem in human salvation. Because God is righteous, how can he receive sinners into fellowship with himself? But Paul says the gospel is a wonderful message of which I’m very proud to boast. It is a powerful message that saves precisely because it deals with this root problem. It reveals the righteousness of God from faith to faith. And I think in a nutshell, and as you’ll see as we see expounded in the middle chapters of the book, what he is saying here is that the gospel is a saving message because it proclaims a message of righteousness coming to us from God, received freely through faith alone. And so he quotes Habakkuk to ground his teaching in the Old Testament: “the righteous shall live by faith.” Or if I could just expand the translation a little bit to drive the point: he who through faith is righteous shall live. Not the one who through works is righteous, but the one who through faith is righteous, he shall live.

And so Paul takes his text: the gospel is this great message that saves because in it, this wonderful message is righteousness comes to us from God. You might have thought that righteousness must go from us to him in order for him to accept us. But the great message of the gospel is it is a gift of God’s righteousness received freely by faith alone to the one who believes.

Okay, there’s the setup. Chapter 1, verses 18 and following begins to expand on the need for the gospel. Why is this kind of gospel needed? And you’ll notice, again, verse 18, the first word, “for,” shows that Paul is expanding or explaining what he’s just saying. Why is this gospel of free justification necessary? Answer: because the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. This message is needed because the wrath of God is being revealed. In short, what we have in the following passages here is an exposition—an exposing—of human guilt, human inability, human depravity. Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of this gospel because it reveals the righteousness of God,” and we need this because humanity universally is guilty before him and we need precisely this kind of salvation. So in other words, it’s something like, “I love this gospel because frankly, there’s some bad news that makes this good news very necessary.” And it’s that bad news then that Paul is expounding in these passages.

Now, notice again in verse 18, “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven.” Now that’s a curious thing too. When you think of the wrath of God, what do you think of? You normally think of hell or some eternal punishment, right? But here he uses the present tense. The wrath of God is being revealed. How is the wrath of God being revealed today? You don’t have to answer audibly, but think about this. How is the wrath of God being revealed now? I think the only answer we can come up with is one that treats, that addresses the problem of what we call natural evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? There are lots of answers to that question. We’ll deal with that later. Why do these bad things happen? You’ve probably heard it from your unsaved friends. Maybe even you’ve asked it yourself when some big tsunami or tornado or something rips through and there’s terrible damage and people have died and are injured and things are upset. Why would God do that? Or maybe more gently, why would God allow that? And you’ve got to think it and say, well, it’s not an expression of his love, is it? Is it possible that God is angry?

And of course, that’s just exactly what our society will not tolerate—the idea of an angry God. At us? How could he be angry at us? And I think what Paul sets up at the beginning is in these kinds of things we have to see God is angry. Why is God angry? Verse 18: his wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. That is to say, it is sinners—it is sinners who know better. Notice, they suppress the truth. By their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth.

And Paul, beginning in verse 19, begins to expound. They know better. They see in the very created order. It is something innate to us to recognize instinctively basic norms of right and wrong, and yet we act contrary to them. What can be known of God is plain to them—the invisible attributes, his eternal power. We know this about God. And instead they worship the creature instead of the Creator. They turn against his law. They know it’s wrong to murder; they murder. They know it’s wrong to commit adultery; they commit adultery. They know it’s wrong to steal; they steal anyway. They know better than what they have done. And this, he says, is true of all of humanity. The problem with humanity is not ignorance. However desperate the world is because it has not yet heard the gospel, the basic problem of humanity is not ignorance. The basic problem of humanity is rebellion. We know better than what we have done. And because of that, God’s wrath is being revealed. That takes us all the way back to the garden. All of creation in upheaval as a result of human sin and rebellion.

The conversation or the discussion takes a turn. In verse 24, in just a terrible kind of way, “therefore, God gave them over.” God gave them up in the lust of their hearts. We have it again in verse 26: “For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” Verse 28: “since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind.” They won’t entertain this thought of God, so God finally says, “Okay, have it your way.” God gives them over to themselves, and that is precisely the worst thing that can happen to any of us. What we need is rescue from ourselves. Here we have this knowing rebellion, rebellion, rebellion, until finally God says, “Okay, have it.”

Well, that’s true of humanity generally. It is true of the pagan who has never heard of Moses or of Jesus or anybody else. We all know better than what we have done. But it is true of the religious person as well. And in chapter 2, Paul takes that up. Here’s the Jew who has heard, “thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not.” And he has heard God’s law and he knows what is right and what is wrong in much greater detail because God has revealed it. But does Israel follow its law? Paul then treats Israel as something of a microcosm of the world. Israel has received the law and all it has done is shown its rebellion, just like the whole world who has rebelled against what it knows.

It’s a fascinating statement backing up to chapter 1, verse 32: “Though they know God’s decree”—notice that—”Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things should deserve to die, they not only do them, but they approve of those who practice them.” Knowing rebellion, knowing of judgment to come. This is something that’s innate in every religion found on earth. It’s just innate in us. We know that there is a recompense for our evil behavior and for our rebellion against God. Does it stop us? Paul develops this systematically through chapters 1, 2, and 3, and he comes to the conclusion in chapter 3, verses 9 and following: “What then? Are we Jews any better off? Not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written.” And here he quotes Psalm 14 and Psalm 53: “None is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks after God. All have turned aside, together they become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive,” and so on.

Here we have Paul’s conclusion of God’s estimate of humanity: universally guilty, universally depraved, unwilling to be otherwise. And so he concludes with universal condemnation. Every last one of us lost in rebellion against God. Morally corrupt, bent on our sin, determined to do it, and knowing all the while the judgment will come. That’s a bleak picture. Now the question comes up, how in the world can a people like that ever be saved? How could God ever save people like that? Well, you might think, well, let’s give them the law. They’ll learn how to behave. Well, we’ve already taken that up, haven’t we, in chapter two and three. Paul brings it up again in chapter three, verses 19 and 20: “we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped.” That is, all the law has done is shut you up. It’s shown you clearly where you’ve sinned. “The whole world may be held accountable to God. Verse 20, for by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” All the law has done is demonstrate more clearly how guilty we are. You need to remember this every time anyone suggests that they can make their way to God or make their way to heaven by keeping his law or keeping the Ten Commandments or however they want to say it—you need to keep this in mind. Because once you bring out the law, all it does is demonstrate how sinful you are. In that sense, it just shuts our mouth.

The Essence Of The Gospel

Well then, how can God save people like this? Keep in mind, this is a righteous God. This is a God who cannot un-God himself. He cannot deny himself. He cannot pretend as though he’s not righteous. He cannot acquit the guilty. So how can he save? Well, that brings us to the next major section of the epistle, chapter 3, verse 21 and following, where he expounds the essence of the gospel. Remember in chapter 1, verse 17, the gospel is a revelation of the righteousness of God. A revelation of the righteousness of God. Now verses 21 through 26, here we have the most compact statement of the gospel that you will find anywhere in the scripture.

“Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” That’s a shocking statement. Righteousness apart from the law? I thought the law was needed to define righteousness. It is only by keeping the law that one can… How can someone be righteous apart from law? That sounds like sheer antinomianism. In fact, Paul says not only is the righteousness of God manifested apart from the law, the law and the prophets tell you so. That’s the rest of the verse. That is, the law and the prophets, rightly understood, point you away from themselves to some other way apart from law. Verse 22: “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

Now that is an amazing statement. The righteousness of God, that is God’s righteousness—we have to understand it then as God’s giving of righteousness, righteousness from God. In the end, righteousness is not something we give to God, it’s something he gives to us. And here in summary, he says, here’s the greatness of this message: righteousness from God comes to us through faith for everyone who believes. Whether Jew or Gentile, there’s no distinction. Why? Because verse 23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And we are justified”—that is declared righteous before God—”by his grace as a gift.” Or if you have the older translation, “freely by his grace.” Now that’s a redundancy, I realize. Paul’s falling all over himself to emphasize that this gift of righteousness comes to us without any cost to us. Being declared righteous by God, by his grace, as a gift.

Well, how can a righteous God just give us righteousness? How can he pronounce us to be righteous when in fact we’re not? “Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” through the work of Christ on the cross taking our place, bearing our sin. And this one, verse 25, “God has put forward as a propitiation by his blood.” Through his death, in our place, bearing our curse, the wrath of God is satisfied. God is pleased. And we now through faith in him who took our place may be received freely. This is all outside of us. God has done the work in Christ. We have it freely by grace. This is to show God’s righteousness. There we are with righteousness again. The gospel declares God’s righteousness, not just his love.

The question here, the big question we face is: how can sinners have fellowship with a holy, righteous God? The answer is God has put in our place his Son, the Lord Jesus, and standing in our place has done all that God has required and he has suffered the penalty of our sin and borne our condemnation and we now have acceptance with God freely through faith in Jesus Christ. And in this procedure now, God can receive sinners freely and maintain his justice. The gospel does not sidestep the hard questions; it faces them square on. It provides the answer in Jesus Christ. He illustrates the same with Abraham. We read in Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Paul simply raises the question, when was Abraham justified? Answer: Genesis 15. Now you’re going to say, well, Abraham kept the law, he was circumcised. And so Paul raises the next question. When was Abraham circumcised? Answer: Genesis 17. Justified long before circumcised. You cannot in any stretch of your imagination say that Abraham’s keeping of this kind of a law and his obedience somehow contributed to his justification. It’s all out of order. God pronounced Abraham righteous through his faith.

David illustrates the same, chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, from Psalm 32: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute his sin.” And all through this passage then in chapter four, you can notice it several times over where Paul uses this word “to impute” or “to count,” “to reckon,” “to put on someone’s account.” And the whole point of it is that through faith we have Christ, whose righteousness then is considered to be ours. And we stand before God and God treats us now not as we deserve, but as Christ deserves. Because his righteousness now has become ours. Chapter 4, verse 16 is an important clarification: “This is why it depends on faith.” Why is it that salvation or justification must come through faith? “In order that the promise may rest on grace.” That is, if it came by works, as Paul expounds earlier in chapter 4, you would have God in the odd position of being beholden to you. You’ve worked so hard, he owes you the wage. Paul says God doesn’t owe anyone anything, and he will never be in that position. But he saves freely through his grace, through a work that he has done in Christ, and you receive it simply by faith so that it is established forever that it is by grace and grace alone.

The Benefits Or The Accomplishments Of The Gospel

Well, we must move on. Paul has expounded that the chief problem of human salvation—the righteousness of God—that problem has been answered. It has not sidestepped it. But boy, he’s a long way from done. Beginning in chapter five, he begins to expound one after the other: what are the benefits of this justification that we have with God? What are the benefits of this gospel?

Chapter five, verses one through 11, the first benefit is peace with God. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And Paul expounds this now in these first 11 verses in two dimensions. The second half of the passage, he deals with what we call reconciliation. We’re reconciled through his blood. We were enemies; now we are made friends. The hurdle of our sin is gone. The disrupted fellowship is gone. Now we are brought into God’s fellowship as friends. Through Christ’s blood, the hurdle of our sin has been removed.

But there’s a subjective dimension to peace with God as well. And Paul talks about that early in chapter 5. You’ll notice in verse 2, “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” We rejoice in our sufferings, verse 3. Verse 5, “God’s love is poured into our hearts.” Paul’s logic here in verse 1 and following is that having been justified by faith, and not by works—having been justified by faith—we have this experienced peace with God because now our conscience has nothing against us. Every demand of God, every demand our conscience can imagine, has been met in Jesus Christ. And so, having been justified by faith, approaching God on this ground, on the ground of what Christ has done, every demand of God’s justice is answered and we experience peace and know the love of God in Christ. First benefit of the gospel that he mentions here: peace with God.

Now the next several benefits of the gospel that he mentions here we’ll just call freedom. Freedom in several dimensions. First of all, chapter 5, verses 12 through 21: freedom from condemnation. Freedom from condemnation. And here we have that marvelous passage where he begins telling us of the headship of Adam. Adam, as our representative head, stood in the place of all humanity, and he disobeyed. And because of his disobedience, he brought death and condemnation and judgment to all of humanity. The turn is taken in verse 15 where we have this Adam Christology. Christ as a second and greater Adam has stood in our place. And he did not disobey; he obeyed. And so instead of Adam the first, whose disobedience brought death and condemnation, now through the second Adam we have one who obeyed, and through his obedience we have life and justification. And so we have these two representative heads. All of us born in Adam, through faith, are united to our new head, Christ, in whom we have justification and no condemnation.

We must move on more quickly. That raises—let’s back up into chapter five a little. Paul climaxes this part of his argument at the end of chapter five. Let’s just begin reading with verse 18: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous.” All that is to say, whatever we lost in Adam, we have more than regained in Jesus. Verse 20: “now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Notice that statement in verse 20: “Where sin increased, grace increased more.” More sin, more grace. As you’ve heard me say so many times before, your twisted little mind is going to hear that and say, “Well, if more sin brings more grace, do the math. I should maybe sin a little more and get more grace, right?”

And that’s exactly the objection that Paul anticipates now in chapter 6, where we have freedom from sin. Freedom from condemnation; now chapter six, freedom from sin. Or we might call it positively, the gospel provides transformation. If more sin just brings more grace, maybe we should sin more. And Paul says, “What shall we say? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Verse two: “By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?” That is—you’re talking about square circles. How can someone who has died to sin continue to live in it? And through this whole chapter, Paul then expounds how in Jesus Christ, we have died with him and in dying with him have died to sin. That is, there are these two dimensions then to our union with Christ. There’s this judicial dimension, chapter 5: united to Christ in his death, there’s no condemnation. But also united to Christ in his death and resurrection, there’s this vital, organic kind of dimension to our union with Christ. That it is impossible to think that having died with Christ and risen with him, that somehow we’re left in the same moral and ethical state that we were before.

Paul says you’re the kind of people who’ve died to sin. This is illustrated in our baptism, verses three and following. We died with Christ, we are raised with Christ, there’s new life now. And throughout this chapter, Paul expounds to say sin does not rule over the one who is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, united to him, it is not being united to a mere idea. It is being united to the risen, powerful Lord Christ who through his Spirit indwells his people and empowers us to live for him so that sin’s rule has been broken. And the very most important thing you can remember by way of a practical application of all of this in your fighting temptation to sin is verse 11, so that you must consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God. That is, remember the gospel. Remember that you have died with Christ. You’ve been raised with him. Sin no longer rules over you. He says that as sort of a climax to his point in verse 14: “Sin will not have dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.”

Quickly, Chapter 7, we’re free from the law also. Free from the law. Starts out here with this marriage analogy. Married to the law. What a horrible husband the law was. Married to the law: condemn, condemn, condemn. Can the law help you? Can the law enable you to do better? No. All the law can do is tell you to do better and then condemn you when you haven’t. The law was a terrible husband, an abusive husband. But I’ve died to the law in Christ. And now having died, I’m free to remarry. And I’ve got a new husband now. And that husband is Jesus. And he’s much nicer than Moses. All the law could do is command, command, and then condemn, condemn. And every time I violated the law, that old husband, he would just abuse me and he’d beat me. And now I’ve got a new husband. I’ve got Jesus. And he actually enables me to keep his law. And when I fail, he forgives.

Free from the law and its ill effects. Paul makes the fascinating statement in chapter 7 and verse 5: “our sinful passions aroused by the law.” He’s clearly speaking here of the unbeliever and his response to the law of God. You know something of what that’s like. “Stay off the grass.” I’ll walk on it if I want to. “Speed limit 55.” I can do 60 if I want. There’s something about us—we get this limit imposed and we want to exceed it. And that’s the way it works with God’s law as well. God’s law comes to a depraved heart and says, “thou shalt not,” and we say, “I will if I want.” And God says, “you must do this,” and we say, “I don’t have to do that if I don’t want.” The law aroused sinful passions. That’s what it does in a depraved heart. Now that doesn’t mean the law is wicked, but it sure says a lot about us, doesn’t it?

Now in union with Christ, married to this new husband, we have freedom from those ill effects of the law. My view here is that in verses 15 and following, we have the very same thing continued to be illustrated: what it was like to be married to Moses, trying so, trying so, trying so, and failing and failing and failing. Finally, Paul comes to the climax in chapter 8. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those of you who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For what God has done, for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh”—there’s the judicial aspect—”in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” There’s this vital dimension of our union with Christ. God has accomplished what the law could never do. Joined to him, not only are we free from condemnation, but we’re free from sin, we’re free from these ill effects of the law. God has accomplished it for us through Jesus Christ.

And I’m not sure how best to say the next benefit of the gospel that Paul takes up, verses 12 and following all the way through the end of the chapter: freedom from fear. Or we might just say positively, the gospel gives us confidence before God. He speaks through this passage of the blessing of the Holy Spirit given to us, marvelous provision of the Spirit to lead us in righteousness and so on. He makes a point to say that the Spirit given to us is the Spirit of Sonship, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” That is, the Spirit of God has been sent to us to make us feel and know that we belong to God as his children, to give us this sense of assurance and acceptance as God’s children. It is one thing to tell us that we’re accepted; it’s another thing to send his Spirit to work in us so that we sense it.

And then he reasons it out. Brothers and sisters, you are joined to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s Son, God’s heir. You’re joined to Christ, co-heirs with Jesus Christ of glory. That means that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. He makes a bold statement, a wonderful broad statement in verse 28: those who love God, all things work together for good. God makes sure of it. That doesn’t mean that every little bad event in your life is going to have a happy ending, but it means in the big picture God is working all things together that it’s going to come out good. How do you know? Because this thing is big. Way back before history ever began, God foreknew. He set his love upon us and he predestined us, set the destiny that we would be glorified with Christ and be made like him. And having foreknown and having predestined, in time he called us. And having called us, we respond in faith and he justified us. And having justified us, he most certainly will glorify us. And he ends with this great, robust statement in verses 38 and 39, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We have this triumphant tone that Paul takes up in verses 31 and following. Who can say anything against God’s elect? God has positioned himself on our side. Nothing can destroy the confidence that we have in Jesus Christ. Freedom from fear. We have certainty and confidence and assured safety in Jesus Christ.

The Gospel And Israel

Well, this has gone longer than I expected. We will just summarize this quickly. Chapters 9 through 11: the gospel and Israel. The question that comes up here is: God has made promises to Israel, and you’re saying this gospel is preached now, but it’s the Gentiles who are receiving the blessings of it. What about Israel?

Paul, chapters 9 through 11, then particularly in a pointed way in chapter 11, demonstrates: one, God has not been unfaithful to Israel, he has kept a remnant. He has kept this remnant in order. He has, in large part, shut up Israel in unbelief in order that now the gospel will go to the Gentiles. We have this grand scheme of universal salvation. The gospel went to Israel. Israel has rejected it for a time so that now the gospel has gone out to the Gentiles. The Gentiles will believe, and when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, all Israel will be saved. And we have then, in my view, a revival among Israel as well so that God has set out then to save through this gospel universally. God has not turned away from Israel. He has turned away from them temporarily because of their unbelief so that the gospel will go to the Gentiles. But in time, he will bring them back in faith, graft them back in, and all Israel will be saved. And we have this marvelous picture of God reclaiming the world to his own glory. And so Paul culminates in this grand doxology at the end of chapter 11: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how unscrutable his ways.”

The Ethics Of The Gospel

Chapters 12 through 15, we have Paul giving then the ethics of the gospel. Here’s how justified people behave. It necessarily has effects on the way that we live. He talks about our relationships in the church, chapter 12; the gifts that we have to serve one another; personal relationships, chapter 12, verses 9 and following—devoted to the needs of one another, trying to outdo one another in showing honor. I love that statement in verse 10: “Outdo one another in showing honor.” There’s real good competition to have in the church. Competition is normally a bad thing, but this is really a great one. See if you can outdo one another in showing honor. And it’s this kind of thing. These are the ways in which the gospel has transformed us.

Chapter 13: our relationship to authority, submitting to governmental rule, and so on. Chapter 13, verses 8 and following are in reference to God’s law, giving obedience to God through love. Again in chapter 14, he returns to the church relationships, and here with the weaker brother, a marvelous passage of how disagreeing brothers can get along. This is the ethical demand of the gospel, the call of discipleship: give yourself to God. And all of this hinges in chapter 12, verse 1, on the “therefore.” Because of all of this—get the horse before the cart—because of all of this, now there is a way to live in a transformed way. “So I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.” This is what a redeemed life looks like. And these are the ethical demands of the gospel.

Chapter 15, verse 14 through chapter 16, we have Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. He speaks of that, where he boasts in the gospel and he gives some final greetings to the people at Rome.

In summary, the world needs divine rescue. The whole world stands condemned. Every last one of us has rebelled against God and we’re guilty before him. We have known better than what we have done. There’s precisely nothing that we can do to save ourselves in this predicament. The gospel is good news precisely because it gives to us everything that God requires of us. It sends God’s Son who stands in our place and does for us everything that God has required, and God through Jesus has made a way to save us freely—freely—and at the same time satisfy his own demands of justice.

Third, the gospel provides for us every possible saving blessing. Every blessing you can imagine comes to us with it. We have peace, we have freedom—freedom from condemnation, freedom from sin, freedom from the law, freedom from fear—we have confidence before God, we have safety with God, we even have transformation. He gives us the transformation he requires of us. And by this gospel, God has set out to save the whole world, Jew and Gentile. This whole world that was in rebellion, God has set out to reclaim it all. And this gospel then finally provides for us a pattern for living as redeemed creatures, redeemed sinners to the glory of God. This is a great gospel. It provides for us what God requires of us.

If you are not in Jesus Christ today, you are lost, and you have missed on every wonderful blessing that we have in Christ. These are found only in Him, and they are found only through faith in Him. Brothers and sisters, those of us who have come to Jesus Christ in faith, this is the stuff that is to make us rejoice every day. The fullness of God’s provision in Jesus Christ. What I needed—exactly what I needed—he gave and more in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let’s pray.

Our Father, it’s a wonderful portion of your word. We pray that this overview of it will be helpful for us. Give us a greater appreciation of this wonderful gospel. Through it, give us the joy. You’ve commanded us to have the joy that is found only in Christ. In his name we pray, amen.