The Gospel is the Power of God Unto Salvation
This is part I of an exegetical sermon on Romans 1:16-17 titled The Gospel is the Power of God Unto Salvation and looks at the word “gospel”, the word “salvation”, the word “ashamed” and the word “unto.” This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on May 8th, 2005 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.
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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
May 8th, 2005
“The Gospel is the Power of God Unto Salvation”
Romans 1:16-17 (Part I)
I. Gospel
II. Salvation
III. Ashamed
IV. Unto
Introduction
In the past couple weeks we have give you a lot of information, but we don’t want to give information just for the sake of information. We care for your souls. We don’t want to rob you, that is why we are moving so slow through Romans. There is no prize for speed or for finishing our study of the book of Romans fast. We want to spend our time. It’s going to take us a couple years.
We are planting a church here and we are looking long term and hope you plan to be with us for a while. We’ll preach sermons on other passages of the Bible and responsibily teach the whole counsel of God…but the bulk of our study as a church for the next couple years is going to be in the book of Romans.
Today we are going to start a three part sermon series on Romans 1:16-17. We’ll look at about half of 16 with the goal that tonight it might give us confidence that GOD IS REAL. THE GOSPEL IS REAL. AND IT CAN-SAVE-US!
This is a key verse. Perhaps the most important verse in whole of Romans. It is the thesis statement. A heading. The whole way Romans is structured is as a support to these two verses.
Chapters 1-3 God’s righteousness and human unrighteousness.
Chapters 4-5 being made righteous through faith in Christ.
Chapters 6-8 is what happens to human unrighteousness after faith.
Chapters 9-11 is returns to God’s righteousness in light of faith.
Chapters 12-16 is practical righteousness, living out faith.)
Back and forth throughout the book the issue is righteousness and faith, righteousness and faith, righteousness and faith. This verse is Paul’s thesis statement about righteousness and faith. A very important verse.
The book of Romans itself is the most systematic presentation of the Christianity and of this clearest book this verse is thesis. Thus, it would be too far off to say that this is perhaps the most important in the whole Bible.
Romans 1:16-17 “16 For I am ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all the ones who believe, first to the Jew and then to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is unveiled/revealed from believing unto faith, just as it is written, the just will live by faith.”
Let’s pray. As we turn to the study of the ancient letter to the Romans preserved for us and our benefit…may I preach your word. May I rightly divide your word. May the meaning you intended be given for our understanding. May you open the Scriptures to us that our hearts would burn. May you enlighten the eyes of our hearts. Amen.
What I am going to do say a few preliminary things about the gospel and then about this word salvation. Then I want to come back to what it means to be ashamed and the gospel and how the gospel is the power of God unto this thing called salvation.
The reason for approaching it this way is that the entirety of this book is about gospel & salvation…and really the rest of the New Testament and the whole Bible for that matter could fall under these umbrella terms. Yet, there is an understanding of the word “gospel” here that is assumed…so we need to have it in our minds about what he is referring to.
Then I also want to spend some time with the word “salvation” because Paul sees that thing called the gospel is significant for something called salvation, whatever that means. The reason I want to address this is because both us and Paul’s original hearers certainly had some pre-conceived notions or ideas about what these things are, gospel and salvation.
GOSPEL
So first, gospel. …If I want to know what Paul thinks the gospel is at this point all I got to do is scan backward a few verses to the very opening of the letter and we get a picture of the gospel.
If you were here the first week of our introduction to this book we talked about two things: What Scripture is and means and who the Son of God is and what that phrase or title is about.
Listen to Romans 1:1-4 again.
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The Scriptures in verse 2 is an appeal to the Jew. The Greco-Roman would not care about whether Jesus fulfilled Jewish messianic prophecies in the Jewish Bible. But the Jew cared.
The Son of God in verse 4 is an appeal to both the Greek and the Jew. For the Jews angels were sons of God. For the Greeks, they had a pantheon which was a collection of gods and their sons. Progennates of gods having sex with each other and sometimes with a human.
Paul takes both of these ideas and applies them to Jesus and says that Jesus has fulfilled them in the most ultimate, pure and true way. So at its core the gospel is JESUS. Scriptures point to Jesus. The true Son of God is Jesus. Gospel of God is Jesus.
To make as basic, plain and simple as possible you could almost replace Jesus for gospel in this passage. Let me read it like that. “I am not ashamed of Jesus for Jesus is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, first for the Jew then the Gentile. For in Jesus the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”
When you hear it that way it sounds very much like Jesus’ words concerning himself in the gospels… In the gospels Jesus is constantly saying ”believe in me.” “Repent and believe the kingdom of God is here.” In Luke Jesus goes into the synogogue, opens up the Bible and reads from Isaiah this passage.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he sits down (which was a sign of rabbinic authority) and says, “This Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus claimed to be the messiah by doing this. He essentially says I AM savior. I AM
THE GOSPEL.
Jesus is the Gospel. But I think there is a reason why Paul didn’t just use the name of Jesus here. Not because the gospel isn’t Jesus, but because Paul wants to be as clear as possible and the word blankets not only Jesus but his message.
I get this because the word “gospel” itself is literally connected to a message. It is primarily an oral thing. An oral proclamation.
The word in Greek, which our English versions are translations from, is Euangelion. Euangelion means good news. The word had a long history before Jesus even came on the scene. It was always an oral communication. It was used of announcements like birth when a child was born. It was used of war victories when word spreads about the fight being over. It was used at the arrival of a king to tell the whole town to get ready because he was coming. It was used of announcements of financial gain if someone came into fortune, esecially when others were going to benefit from it.
The English word “gospel” is an English Anglo-Saxon word that developed sometime before the printing of the first English Bible in 1535. It was most likely a very common word by that time…but here is where the word “gospel” came from.
Before the word “gospel” when a person would give a speech it was often called a spell if the speech was good. Not like a magic spell, but charactistic of what was happening when a good speech was given…a large group of people are quiet with all their eyes and attention on one person who is talking. It was deemed a “good speech” when it had a certain kind of effect on the people listening…most likely penitence, jubilee, or just being mesmerized. Apparently leading up to the time of the Protestant Reformation and during it, this is exactly what happened much of the time when preachers would give speeches about Jesus from the Bible.
So what was normally called a good speech began to be referred to as a god-speech or god-spell when the speaker was talking about Jesus. Saying god-spell was either apparently too much work or just freaked people out…so they eventually just shortened it to the word, “gospel.” This still happens all the time today, this shortening of words or phrases. People from the south are really good at it. Think of the word, giterdon, short for “get her done.” Or ya’ll, you all. Thus, by the time an English Bible was made, the translators, whenever they saw the one Greek word “good-news,” they just translated it gospel because that is what everyone had been saying for a while.
So, gospel. The gospel is Jesus. A message of God. The message Jesus preached and the apostles preached concerning Him.
SALVATION
Now some things about salvation. As we have said before it is very significant in this letter that the original audience consisted of Jews and Gentiles. It’s significant because these two different groups of people had radically different ways of seeing the world and are going to hear the word soteria, salvation, in very different ways because of it.
First let’s talk about Jews…Jews in the first century lived under the roman rule. They had to pay taxes to roman government. And they didn’t like it. All their actions and lifestyle was regulated. They longed for a political military messiah to come and deliver them from Rome. Some even tried, like Simon Bar Kochba and Judas the Hammer.
Now let’s talk about Greco Romans. Salvation could refer to deliverance from the gods, or salvation from ship peril or salvation from battle. If you’ve ever read Homer’s Illiad or the Oddessy you’ll hear this kind of language and this kind salvation being talked about.
Those are some of the different ethnic associations with this word. But there is some commonality between them, in some inherent things about this word.
Salvation is always is in connotation with escape from peril or danger or something bad that is happening or is going to happen. And more than there are specific uses of the word that put it in a category where the salvation is from something internal.
For the Hebrew, the Jew…humanity is seen as afflicted and in need of help. The picture is never one of prosperity like today. Jews of that day would not say as so many do today that man is basically good or inherently good.
For the Greek this word has a nuance in passages that are referring to a condition of man and not just a outward physical or material peril, where the problem is internal.
Listen to statement of one scholar commenting on the ancient writings of Dio Chrysostom. He says salvation is in reference problem of the “inner health” of man which is set in a “constitutionally ordered” state so that true humanity is lost and man “acts like an animal and a tyrant.”
So here is the question: What kind of salvation is Paul referring to? Some outward physical salvation that will bring escape from some material harm or is he talking about an internal spiritual salvation that will bring deliverance from the corruption of human nature?
We hit a junction here because it would be very easy to skip ahead in Paul’s letter to find out what he is talking about. But I don’t want to get ahead of Paul. So let me say this… I believe it is both. But up to this point, I believe that all Paul has alluded to is internal.
Here is why…I think Paul has in mind the internal aspect primarily. But in a few weeks we will read and study how this internal spiritual problem has caused is causing and will reap a wrathful judgment of God that will be both physical and spiritual.
So that is where we are going. But right now, Paul is stating his thesis statement. A positive proposition: He is eager to preach (vs.15) and the reason is because he says he believes the “gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation.”
ASHAMED
Now that we have something in our heads about the gospel and something in our heads about salvation we can move to discussing this issue of shame and how the gospel and salvation is related to it.
Shame somewhat self-explanatory…not much has been lost in translation with this word. Shame is embarrassment, dishonor, made to look or feel degraded etc.
1st century shame was intense. It was an honor shame society. Your family and heritage is your honor and the last thing you want to do is bring shame to your family’s name.
So let me ask you a question: is Paul here saying that he escapes shame because the gospel keeps him in the best light, it always makes him look good? No. It is the exact opposite.
In 2 Corinthians 11:23-36 Paul describes how he was the recipient of many imprisonments, countless beatings often near death, fives times he received a 48 lashes whipping, three times he was beaten, once he was stoned and left for dead, three times he was shipwrecked, and he says he was in constant danger from robbers to his own people. And all of this, because of the gospel!
In Philippians 3 Paul describes how he was a converted Pharisee. How he used to be on the other side of the fence. How he used to be a picture perfect Jew and was the one giving the stonings for those who challenged and departed from Judaism. And he experience much reproach for switching
Paul experienced much shame.
There is something about believing and living out the gospel that ought to bring shame. The gospel brings shame. Not the personal feeling of shame. But the shaming from others.
This leads me to ask a question. Is Paul giving instruction for witnessing techniques…is he saying “don’t be embarrassed!”? “Scour up your will and evangelize!”? Is that what he’s doing?
I don’t think so because Paul cleary recognizes and feels shaming from others. In 1 Corinthians 1 that people consider the word of the cross folly (1 Cor 1:18) and that those who preach it are despised.
Instead of giving us witnessing techniques I think Paul is telling us how or why we can endure the shame. And that is because the gospel is true and there is a marvelous delight power in it that can actually save, no matter what anyoe says or does to those who put their confidence it it.
So I think he’s making a theological point about the actual power of the gospel. Look at the little word “unto.” I want to spend the rest of our time this morning on this one little word here and the two massive theological implications it makes:
UNTO
First of the word unto is a future word. Notice that. The word “unto” here places salvation in the future.
In the Bible salvation is spoken of in three different time frames.
One, is in the past. Ephesians 2:8 says of believes that they “have been saved through faith.” So there is an aspect of salvation that is already initiated and guaranteed, so much so that it can be spoken of as already completed in the past.
One is in the present. 2 Corinthians 2:15 says believers “are the aroma of Christ to God aont those who are being saved.” So there is an aspect of salvation that is current at work, in progress.
And one is in the future. The majority of all the passages in the Bible that mention salvation speak of it being something that happens in the future. I’ll give you one example directly from the book of Romans. Romans 5:9-10 says “having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
Salvation in the past happened, if you’re a believer, from the time you first heard the word, your heart understood it, light flooded into your soul…and you believed that Christ was sufficient
Listen to 2 Corinthians 4:4 on this, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” But then what happened is Romans 10:17, “faith (came) by hearing the gospel preached.”
Salvation in the present is the process of purification, where Christi is progressively shown to be proficient in every area of our lives. It’s what theologicans and Christians have called sanctification. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 speaks to this when it says, “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.”
Salvation in the future is when we will actually, physically, and bodily be saved. This is the tense our text Rom 1:16 fits. The gospel is the power of God that is able to keep us and take us UNTO that day of salvation.
So since salvation here is future, here is our first theological implication:
Since salvation is future in this passage, Paul cannot be saying he is not ashamed because the gospel has some magic power to make converts. He is not saying if you just open your mouth and speak, you will see, people will get saved. That might happen. But that is not guarenteed in the gospel. He is not saying there is something special about Christianity in its ability to make converts. All religions make converts but that does not make them true.
Thus, the second theological implication here is:
Since salvation is future in this passage, it is the result of one who believes and keeps believing. Salvation is not a get into heaven card. Salvation is for the believer. It is what keeps the believer believing. And this my friends is the wonder of this passage… that THE GOSPEL IS POWERFUL BECAUSE IT CAN KEEP YOU BELIEVING. It can give real faith and enable you to keep having it. The gospel really can save us! All our inner turmoil. All our trouble. Our offenses and dissatisfaction. And lack of joy. All the absence of God we feel. The gospel can and will deliver us.
You will never here a message as long as I am here at the resolved on 10 ways of how to have a successful marriage. Why? Because any and every problem you have in your life is a problem with sin and the need for salvation from the savior. The solution to every problem is just the gospel. And the gospel is not merely dealing with the deep problem of our soul but is a taking of us to salvation when we see Christ forever and ever and be so satisfied in him and his glory.
The answer for every single troubled marriage is the gospel. The answer for every depressed person is the gospel. The answer for every experience of suffering is the gospel. The answer for every challenge and difficulty in life is the gospel.
CONCLUSION
Today’s message is one of great assurance. It is one that gives us a surety and a confidence that the gospel is able and powerful and will take us to final security and joy in Jesus. It’s a surety and a confidence that promises us escape from the peril to come and the contamination of our hearts. The message today is Jesus. Jesus is sufficient.
I close with the words from a great hymn. May the words encourage you where you are weak. Rebuke and convict you where you are self-sufficient and lack trust in Christ. And most of all may they give you a vision of a glorious God and savior who is beautiful and strong and mighty and powerful and loving forever committed to those destined for salvation.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lead on Jesus’ name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
When darkness ceils His lovely face
I rest on his unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
His oath, his covenant his blood
Support me in the whelming flood
When all around my soul gives way?
He then is all my hope and stay
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
When he shall come with trumpet sound
Oh may I then in him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless to stand before the throne
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
Friends, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation!
