THE DOOR TO PARADISE
ROMANS 1: 16-17
INTRODUCTION
I was at one of my sons basketball games some time ago and was loudly
cheering as I always do. There were probably only 50 spectators in the
cavernous gym and so I was very conspicuous in my enthusiasm. During one
of the times when my son was sitting on the bench I happened to look over
at the bench and he was obviously looking at me and gesturing that I should
be quiet. He gestured for some time until I looked away in order to cheer
our team on. After the game I asked why he was telling me to be quiet.
He told me it was because I was an embarrassment to him. Several members
of my family have regularly told me that they are embarrassed by my loud
ways at athletic events. Often, following a game, my children will walk
a long ways ahead of me or behind me because they do not want others to
know that I am related to them. They are, in a sense, "ashamed"
of me.
Probably most of us have had a similar experience. We have been unwilling
to let people know of our association with a person or group because we
know we will be looked down upon if we are connected to the person or
group. When people criticize or mock a person or group or idea we are
ashamed of, we will either remain silent or perhaps join in the mockery.
One thing is absolutely certain, if we are ashamed of something we will
do everything in our power to make sure that people do not find out about
whatever it is we are ashamed of.
On the other hand we have all had the opposite kind of experience as
well. When we are proud of our association with a person or group we happily
tell others about our association. The bumper stickers that say things
like, "My daughter is an honor student at "Marshall Middle School"
exemplify how we love to publicly associate ourselves with the people
and things we are proud of. When people criticize or mock someone or something
that we are proud of, we quickly and enthusiastically describe what we
find to be praiseworthy. It does not matter to us how others feel about
us when we do so. We are only concerned that the excellency of that which
we are proud of is clearly displayed.
If you’ll look at the text we are considering together this morning you
will see that Paul begins by saying that he is not ashamed of the gospel.
He says this because there is a strong temptation to be ashamed of the
good news about Jesus. The world we live in is not impressed by this message
that the only way anyone will ever be in heaven is through trusting in
the death and resurrection of Jesus for our sins.
So Paul, knowing that he and we live in a world hostile to this gospel,
says that he is not ashamed of it. Or to put it positively, he is proud
of the gospel. He delights to tell people about the gospel of Christ.
He is eager to tell people who mock Christ why this message about him
is such good news. His chief concern in life is that people know the awesomeness
of the good news about Jesus. It doesn’t matter to him what people think
about him. He only cares that the excellency of Jesus is made public.
My aim this morning is to show you three reasons why Paul is not ashamed
of the gospel but rather proud of the gospel. In doing so it is my prayer
that this message about the death of Jesus will be something we are not
ashamed of but delight to make public.
MAIN POINT
The gospel is something to be proud of, not ashamed of because
I. It is God’s power in action
The more difficult an undertaking is the more power that is needed. When
I was 14 years old I was hired by a farmer to work with his dad who was
95 years old picking rocks out of his fields. Mr. Miller would drive back
and forth through the fields on an old Farmall tractor with a front-end
loader and I would walk alongside picking up rocks and tossing them in
the bucket. We would regularly come to rocks that were too big for me
to lift by myself. He would stop the tractor and get off to help me lift
it. If it was too big for both us he would use the loader to scoop it
up. If it was buried in the dirt we would dig around it and use a pry
bar as a lever to lift it out of the ground and into the bucket. Sometimes
we would need to attach a chain to a boulder to lift it out of the ground
with the tractor and then pull it to the edge of the field. The bigger
the rock or the deeper it was buried in the soil, the more we had to rely
on the tractor.
The claim of the NT is that the death of Jesus is the most powerful act
God has ever done. 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the message of the
cross is foolishness to the perishing but to us who are being saved it
is the power of God." It is the most powerful act of God because
it accomplishes something that only infinite power can accomplish—the
salvation of sinners.
This is an amazing thing to consider isn’t it? Rescuing sinners from
an eternal hell and making them fit for heaven is more difficult than
making a star. It is more difficult than healing a person with cancer.
Getting your sins forgiven and being declared fit for God’s presence requires
more power than controlling hurricanes and providing food to every living
creature on planet earth. It takes more power to rescue a person from
the kingdom of Satan and transfer her to the kingdom of God than it takes
to send a man to the moon or to Mars or to another galaxy. This is not
how we normally view the death of Jesus, nor the salvation that he accomplishes.
It seems to us way more difficult to heal people from diseases, overcome
depression, find enough money to afford a vacation, find a wife, raise
good kids or find a good job.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is God’s mighty act of power to accomplish
the salvation of his people. The phrase, "for salvation", shows
the purpose for which God exercises his power in Christ. It shows the
final outcome of Jesus’ sufferings. Just think for a moment what the word
salvation implies. "To be saved or to be rescued" means that
a person is in mortal danger and cannot rescue themselves. It’s like the
person who can’t swim and who falls out of the boat without a life preserver.
They will drown unless someone jumps in the water to save them. To put
it another way, they will drown unless someone else exerts their power
for their salvation. The NT shows that salvation is what I most desperately
need. I want you to see two of the pictures of the danger we are saved
from and the benefits we are given in Christ.
In Romans 5: 10-11 we are told this: "For if when we were God’s
enemies we were reconciled to him by the death of his Son, how much more,
having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life. Not only is this
so, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom
we have now received reconciliation." Every human being is by nature
God’s enemy. By nature, we hate him and he hates us. We are in a state
of animosity towards God and his ways. We do not like his commands and
are unwilling to submit to his rule in our life. He is the sovereign king
and will not tolerate our rebellion and treason forever. So he has planned
a day when he will put an end to all rebellion.
However, this passage tells us that in Christ we are reconciled to him.
Reconciliation always requires both parties to put away hatred and embrace
the other person in love. When a married couple is separated they can
only be reconciled when each person delights to love the other. Here is
how the death of Jesus effects our reconciliation with God. First, God
punishes Jesus in our place, thus satisfying his just anger towards our
sin and enabling him to love us. Then also, Christ’s death purchases for
us a new heart that rejoices in God. The cross of Christ makes it possible
for God to love sinners like us and it powerfully changes our heart so
we now rejoice in the one whom we used to loath and despise. In this life
we only begin to taste the joy of being in a friendship with God rather
than in mutual hostility. There is a day coming when we will enjoy this
glorious friendship in person, face to face.
Ephesians 2: 1-2 says this: "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world
and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work
in those who are disobedient." Then, in Col. 1: 13 we are told: "For
he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the
kingdom of the Son he loves." Every human being by nature is dominated
and ruled over by Satan. He holds us captive, not through coercive force,
but through appealing to our desires to be happy. We are his willing captives.
I say we are willing because the way he holds us captive is by getting
us to believe the lies of sin, which we gladly do. He convinces us, as
he did Adam and Eve, that the pleasures sin promises are greater than
the promises of God. We are not like political prisoners held in prisons
against our will. We are more like drug addicts, held prisoner by believing
that the pleasure we get from shooting up is far better than the pleasure
of staying sober. But in the death of Jesus we are set free from the dominion
of Satan’s lies. We are given a new mind and a new heart that now believes
the promises of God and rejects the promises of sin. Satan’s absolute
rule over us through our sinful passions is broken. We begin to experience
this reality now as we find ourselves freely serving God rather than sin
all the time. But we will not experience it fully until that final great
day when Satan is thrown into the lake of fire and our bodies are recreated
in the image of Jesus without the remnant of our sin nature to afflict
us any longer.
There are scores of descriptions of the salvation that the cross of Christ
accomplishes for us in the Bible. Every part of that salvation is experienced
only partially in this life. The fullness of it will not come until that
great and final day of salvation when Christ returns to take all of his
people to live with him forever in his Father’s kingdom and to cast all
of his enemies forever into the lake of fire.
The gospel is something to be proud of, not ashamed of because…
- It is God’s power in action for our salvation
- And because…
II. It reveals God’s righteousness
Do you see Paul’s logic in how these verses are connected? He is not
ashamed of the gospel because it is God’s power for salvation. It is God’s
power for salvation because it reveals the righteousness of God. I need
to note here that the NIV’s translation is not a translation but an interpretation.
The literal translation is, "For in the gospel the righteousness
of God is revealed", not "a righteousness from God is revealed."
In other words, the reason the gospel powerfully saves sinners from hell
and for heaven is because this gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
It is absolutely critical for us to understand, therefore, what is the
"righteousness of God". I cannot stress enough how important
it is for your own souls and your own salvation for you to understand
what "the righteousness of God" means.
I don’t know how many of you know who Martin Luther was. I don’t mean
Martin Luther King Jr. the great civil rights leader. I’m talking about
the original Martin Luther who lived from 1483-1546. Humanly speaking,
if it were not for Martin Luther we would not be sitting here this morning.
The good news about Jesus was but a dim flicker when he was born. It was
buried under the weight of a corrupt church that was far more interested
in maintaining its political power and its material wealth than in propagating
the saving message of God’s grace in the death of Jesus. This phrase,
in this verse, according to Martin Luther’s own words was the spark that
ignited his flaming love for Christ and released the gospel from the chains
of the corrupted church. Missions’ experts tell us that today, around
the world, 170,000 people professed faith in the gospel because God used
this phrase in this man’s life to unlock the wind of the Holy Spirit through
the saving message of Christ.
What does the "righteousness of God" refer to? There are three
things it means. First, the righteousness of God describes the
character of God. God is right and always does right. It is his unswerving
commitment always to act for the glory of his own name. The death of Jesus
reveals God’s justice and his mercy more than anything that he has ever
done or ever will do. Let me try to set forth one of the ways that God
shows his justice and mercy in Christ. Imagine with me that we are standing
with all the billions of human beings who have ever lived around the throne
of God at the final judgement. We watch as King David approaches God’s
throne. Here is a man whose sins are set forth in great detail in the
Bible. He abused his authority as king by committing adultery with the
wife of one of his most trusted officers. Then when he was unable to cover
up his sin, he had the officer killed and he married his widow, the woman
he had committed adultery with. As he approaches, God says to him, "My
son, your sins are forgiven. You have been faithful in a few things. I
will put you in charge of many. Enter into the eternal joy of living with
me." Imagine you are standing next to Uriah, the husband of the woman
David committed adultery with and who David had murdered. How would he
respond to God’s gracious forgiveness? "How can this be? How can
God reward this adulterer and murderer? Doesn’t he care about justice?
This is not fair!" Does not God’s rewarding David call God’s justice
into question? How does this display his glory? The death of Jesus shows
off God’s justice and his mercy in a way that nothing else could ever
do. God says that all the sins that David committed, including his adultery
and murder, were placed on Jesus and then God killed Jesus in place of
killing David. So God’s justice is displayed in his killing his own Son
for the sins of David. David’s sins have been punished by God pouring
out his just anger against David’s sins on his very own Son. But also,
his great kindness and mercy are revealed as we see God’s love for David
shown in the willing death of Jesus. Nothing shows off God’s righteousness
like the death of Jesus. Uriah, if he is standing there as a Christian,
which I think will be the case, will not be offended by God’s mercy but
will be rejoicing in God’s mercy towards David because he will be so aware
that he deserves the same treatment as David but is not going to receive
what he justly deserves because of the cross of Christ as well. So God
defends his reputation as a just judge and a forgiving judge in the death
of Jesus.
Second, "the righteousness of God", refers to God’s
activity of saving his people because of the promises he has made. He
promises to save his people and judge his enemies and this is what he
does in the death of Jesus. The cross of Christ is how God saves his people.
In the same way that he sent 10 plagues against Egypt and parted the Red
Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army in it in order to liberate Israel,
so the cross of Christ is God’s powerful act to fulfill his promise to
save his people. The death of Jesus is the instrument of destruction for
his enemies. He gains the right to rule and judge his enemies because
he suffered death. Heb. 10: 12-14 says, "But when this priest had
offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool."
Third, "the righteousness of God", refers to how the
cross of Christ accomplishes salvation. It is God declaring righteous
all who believe in Jesus. This is the point that was the key for Martin
Luther. Listen to what he says about his discovery of this reality, "I
greatly longed to understand Paul’s letter to the Romans, and nothing
stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God’,
because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous
and deals justly in punishing the unrighteous. Night and day I pondered
until I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness
whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he declares not guilty but perfectly
good, those who believe. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have
gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on
a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled
me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet. This passage of
Paul became to me a gateway to heaven."
Martin Luther’s great struggle was that he knew that only the righteous
would inherit eternal life. He knew that he was not righteous and that
no matter how hard he tried he could never make himself righteous. He
also knew that because God was committed to upholding the honor of his
own name he could never allow the unrighteous to remain unpunished. So
he hated the idea of God’s being righteous. He lived in terror that God
was going to kill him and send him to hell, which he knew he deserved.
The gospel became the source of all his hope and happiness when he realized
that because of Jesus’ obedience to God’s laws and because of his dying
for the sins of all who believe, God declares the believing sinner to
be righteous. You will remain ashamed of the gospel unless you too have
gone through this great struggle of knowing the terror of being under
God’s judgement and then the sweet relief when you believe that because
of Jesus God considers you righteous and loves you with an everlasting
love.
The gospel is something to be proud of, not ashamed of because…
- It is God’s power in action
- It reveals God’s righteousness
III. It is for everyone and anyone who will believe
Notice how much faith is emphasized in these two verses. First in v.
16 the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
regardless of race or politics or creed. Then in v. 17 the phrase "from
faith to faith" shows that the righteousness that is revealed in
the gospel becomes effective in a person’s life by faith from beginning
to end. There is no human work involved in becoming righteous, it is a
gift that is received by faith. To make the point even more clear he concludes
by quoting a statement from the book of Habakkuk in the OT. This quote
literally says, "The righteous person, by faith, will live."
The way it is phrased makes two points. First, a person is made righteous
by faith. Only the person who is righteous by faith will live, that is,
be given eternal life. Second, it is by faith that a righteous person
lives their life in the present. In other words, the person declared righteous
by God, lives out each day of their life depending on God’s promises and
obeying God’s commands. These two things are bound up in one another.
Here is the full translation: "Those who are made righteous by God
through their faith will be rescued out of sin and death and given eternal
life and they will live out their lives until then trusting God’s word."
Trusting all God’s promises in Christ is the mark of a person who God
has made righteous through their faith in Christ.
How many of you have seen "The Ten Commandments" or "The
Prince of Egypt?" How many of you have read the story of Israel’s
being delivered out of slavery in Egypt in Exodus 1-20? I want you to
think with me about that story for a minute. The people of Israel are
being held as slaves in Egypt. They are being harshly treated and eventually
cry out to the Lord to save them. God raises up Moses through an amazing
series of events and sends him to Pharaoh to command him to let the Hebrew
slaves go free. Pharaoh is not interested in losing all this free labor
and so tells Moses to take a hike. So God, through Moses, begins a process
of showing Pharaoh it will be far more costly to keep the Hebrews as slaves
than to let them go. He sends 10 plagues upon the nation of Egypt that
reduce this great country to rubble. After the 10th plague
Pharaoh lets the people go.
The final plague is the killing of every firstborn human and animal throughout
Egypt. I want to think about how it was that God performed this final
miracle. Do you remember? He said that he was going to send his angel
of death throughout Egypt to kill every firstborn animal and human. The
only houses that the angel would pass over were the ones that had the
blood of a healthy, year-old lamb wiped over and along the sides of the
door. Doesn’t God know who the Jews are and who the Egyptians are? Why
doesn’t he just kill all the firstborn in the homes of the Egyptians but
spare the homes of the Israelites?
He is showing in this action that salvation is not based on your race
or your religious affiliation or performance of religious duties. The
only people who will escape God’s judgement and gain God’s salvation are
those who take refuge under the blood of the sacrifice. Only those
who believed that the angel of death was truly coming and believed that
the only way to escape was to kill a lamb and put its blood on the door
were spared God’s judgement and joined in the exodus from Egypt. In
the same way, only those who believe that God is coming to judge all the
ungodly and that God only declares righteous those who trust the shed
blood of Christ, will be saved. Just think, God did all these spectacular
miracles but the only thing he commanded the Jewish people to do to remember
his deliverance was to celebrate the Passover. The sign of his salvation
that was to be remembered was the blood of the lamb placed on the doorpost
and the faith of those who took refuge under the blood.
The cross of Jesus is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who believes
because it is through this death that God displays his commitment to uphold
the glory of his own name. It is through this cross that He fulfills his
promises to save his people and destroy his enemies. And it is through
this cross that he declares not guilty but perfectly righteous wicked
people like us who believe the promise. Be not unbelieving but believing.
Don’t stake your eternal future on wishful thinking. Don’t depend upon
some imagined goodness in yourself or in a god who is not offended by
sin. Don’t presume that because Christ died, then he must have died for
you and so you don’t have to worry about it. It is only those who wholeheartedly
submit to Christ and take refuge in his death and resurrection that are
going to escape God’s righteous judgement and gain eternal life.
The gospel is something to be proud of, not ashamed of because…
- It is God’s power in action
- It reveals God’s righteousness
- It is for everyone and anyone who will believe
© Copyright
2001 John Swanson.
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