"Not Ashamed of the Gospel" (Romans 1:16-17) A New Episode of the Blessed Hope Podcast!
Episode Synopsis:
Paul is eager to come to Rome to preach the gospel. These words have long been familiar to Christians, and we understand Paul’s sentiment. Yet, in Paul’s day, preaching the gospel was an absolutely scandalous message. The gospel is centered on the cross of Jesus Christ. For us, a cross is a well-known Christian symbol. But for those in Paul’s day, the cross was a sign of shame and denigration. It was something people abhorred and would not speak about. The noted Roman statesman and orator Cicero spoke of the cross as so horrible that Roman citizens should never be subject to such a thing, and should never even entertain the thought of such a horrible manner of death, much less speak of it. So why would Paul be eager to preach such a message if it was likely to repulse and offend people, rather than draw or attract them?
Paul knows that this gospel—centered in the cross of Jesus Christ—is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. God uses this scandalous message to call his people unto himself, create faith, and grant them eternal life. As Paul tells the Romans, the gospel was first preached to Jews in the types and shadows of the Old Testament, and then through recounting the events associated with the messianic mission of Jesus Christ, which culminated in his suffering and death upon a Roman cross. When the crucified Jesus was raised from the dead three days after his crucifixion, God demonstrated his power—which is of a different kind and far greater than all the military might of Rome. Jesus is truly Lord—not Caesar nor any of the Roman gods. So, when Paul says he desires to come to Rome to preach this message, he is trusting the power of God to do what is impossible for sinful humans: to be given new life, the forgiveness of sins, and to be counted as righteous before God.
Paul is also eager to preach the gospel because in it the righteousness of God is revealed. Sinful men and women can be reckoned or credited as righteous by trusting in the crucified and risen Savior proclaimed by Paul. No amount of sorrow or tears, no enlightened teacher or guru, and no amount of good works can grant this righteous status to sinful people. The only proper response to Paul’s gospel is the empty hands of faith—the reception of this free gift of a perfect and faultless righteousness that is found in the gospel. This is why Paul is eager to come to Rome and preach this scandalous message.
Show Notes:
A beautiful morning in So Cal when the episode was recorded, with surprisingly few interruptions from airplanes (2). No barking dogs, cawing crows, helicopters, trash trucks, sirens, the neighbor’s air conditioning, etc., etc.
There will be a short break at the Riddleblog anf Blessed Hope Podcast—the mountains are calling
My voice sounds a bit thin—allergies.
As mentioned, Cranfield’s comments are worth repeating:
“It (faith) is not a qualification which some men already possess in themselves so that the gospel, when it comes to them, finds them eligible to receive its benefits. Faith, in the sense in which the term is used here, can exist only as a response to the gospel (or its OT foreshadowing). And it is also wrongly conceived, if it is thought of as being, as a man’s response to the gospel, a contribution from his side which, by fulfilling a condition imposed by God, enables the gospel to be unto salvation for him. In that case, faith would itself be in the last resort a human meritorious work, a man’s establishment of his own claim on God by virtue of something in himself. But it is of the very essence of faith, as Paul understands it, that it opposed to all human deserving, all human establishing of claims on God (cf., e.g., 3.20-22, 28; 4.2-5; 9:32; Gal 2.16; 3.2, 5). For Paul man’s salvation is altogether -- not almost altogether -- God’s work; and the faith spoken of here is the openness to the gospel which God Himself creates, the human response of surrender to the judgement and unmerited mercy of God which God Himself brings about -- God who not only directs the message to the hearer but also Himself lays open the hearer’s heart to the message. And yet this faith, as God’s work in a man, is in a real sense more truly and fully the man’s own personal decision than anything which he himself does of himself; for it is the expression of the freedom restored to him -- the freedom to obey God. But it is not till chapter eight that this secret of faith is revealed.” (Cranfield, Commentary on Romans, I.90).
Recommended Resources:
Select Resources for the Study of Romans
Paul Helm on covenant faithfulness and N. T. Wright
Louis Berkhof on God’s Righteousness
Tom Schreiner on the forensic character of God’s righteousness
Music:
(Shutterstock): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92m, second movement, Allegretto (A minor)