For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.
Parallel Translations
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For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.
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For I am not ashamed of the Gospell of Christ because it is the power of God vnto salvacion to all that beleve namely to the Iewe and also to the getyle.
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For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God vnto saluation to euery one that beleeueth, to the Iewe first, and also to the Grecian.
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Cross-references (38)
Passages linked to Romans 1:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Mark 8:38 For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when he comes in his Father’s glory, with the holy angels.”
- 2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God,
- 1 Peter 4:16 But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter.
- 2 Timothy 1:12 For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day.
- Psalms 40:9-10 I have proclaimed glad news of righteousness in the great assembly. Behold, I will not seal my lips, Yahweh, you know. I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great assembly.
- Luke 9:26 For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed, when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels.
- 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6 and that our Good News came to you not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with much assurance. You know what kind of men we showed ourselves to be among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit,
- 2 Corinthians 4:4 in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.
- Romans 10:17 So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
- 1 Corinthians 1:18-24 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God;
- 1 Corinthians 2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
- 1 Corinthians 2:4 My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
- Jeremiah 23:29 “Isn’t my word like fire?” says Yahweh; “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
- 1 Corinthians 15:2 by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
- Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
- 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God, in those who are saved and in those who perish: to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
- 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
- Galatians 1:7 but there isn’t another “good news.” Only there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Good News of Christ.
- Psalms 119:46 I will also speak of your statutes before kings, and will not be disappointed.
- Acts 3:26 God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to you first to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your wickedness.”
- Romans 2:9 oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
- Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed?
- Luke 2:10-11 The angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born to you today, in David’s city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
- Colossians 1:5-6 because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth,
- 1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who believe.
- 1 Timothy 1:11 according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
- Psalms 71:15-16 My mouth will tell about your righteousness, and of your salvation all day, though I don’t know its full measure. I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord Yahweh. I will make mention of your righteousness, even of yours alone.
- Romans 15:29 I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of the Good News of Christ.
- Romans 15:19 in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ;
- 1 Corinthians 9:12 If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more? Nevertheless we didn’t use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 9:18 What then is my reward? That when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.
- 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 But if all prophesy, and someone unbelieving or unlearned comes in, he is reproved by all, and he is judged by all. And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed. So he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is among you indeed.
- 2 Corinthians 2:12 Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord,
- 2 Corinthians 9:13 seeing that through the proof given by this service, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the Good News of Christ and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all,
- Romans 4:11 He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.
- 2 Timothy 1:16 May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,
- Psalms 110:2 Yahweh will send out the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule among your enemies.
- John 7:35 The Jews therefore said among themselves, “Where will this man go that we won’t find him? Will he go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 16. I am not indeed ashamed, etc. This is…
16. I am not indeed ashamed, etc. This is an anticipation of an objection; for he declares beforehand, that he cared not for the taunts of the ungodly; and he thus provides a way for himself, by which he proceeds to pronounce an eulogy on the value of the gospel, that it might not appear contemptible to the Romans. He indeed intimates that it was contemptible in the eyes of the world; and he does this by saying, that he was not ashamed of it. And thus he prepares them for bearing the reproach of the cross of Christ, lest they should esteem the gospel of less value by finding it exposed to the scoffs and reproaches of the ungodly; and, on the other hand, he shows how valuable it was to the faithful. If, in the first place, the power of God ought to be extolled by us, that power shines forth in the gospel; if, again, the goodness of God deserves to be sought and loved by us, the gospel is a display of his goodness. It ought then to be reverenced and honored, since veneration is due to God’s power; and as it avails to our salvation, it ought to be loved by us.
But observe how much Paul ascribes to the ministry of the word, when he testifies that God thereby puts forth his power to save; for he speaks not here of any secret revelation, but of vocal preaching. It hence follows, that those as it were willfully despise the power of God, and drive away from them his delivering hand, who withdraw themselves from the hearing of the word.
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At the same time, as he works not effectually in all, but only where the Spirit, the inward Teacher, illuminates the heart, he subjoins, To every one who believeth. The gospel is indeed offered to all for their salvation, but the power of it appears not everywhere: and that it is the savor of death to the ungodly, does not proceed from what it is, but from their own wickedness. By setting forth but one Salvation he cuts off every other trust. When men withdraw themselves from this one salvation, they find in the gospel a sure proof of their own ruin. Since then the gospel invites all to partake of salvation without any difference, it is rightly called the doctrine of salvation: for Christ is there offered, whose peculiar office is to save that which was lost; and those who refuse to be saved by him, shall find him a Judge. But everywhere in Scripture the word salvation is simply set in opposition to the word destruction: and hence we must observe, when it is mentioned, what the subject of the discourse is. Since then the gospel delivers from ruin and the curse of endless death, its salvation is eternal life.
First to the Jew and then to the Greek. Under the word Greek, he includes all the Gentiles, as it is evident from the comparison that is made; for the two clauses comprehend all mankind. And it is probable that he chose especially this nation to designate other nations, because, in the first place, it was admitted, next to the Jews, into a participation of the gospel covenant; and, secondly, because the Greeks, on account of their vicinity, and the celebrity of their language, were more known to the Jews. It is then a mode of speaking, a part being taken for the whole, by which he connects the Gentiles universally with the Jews, as participators of the gospel: nor does he thrust the Jews from their own eminence and dignity, since they were the first partakers of God’s promise and calling. He then reserves for them their prerogative; but he immediately joins the Gentiles, though in the second place, as being partakers with them.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain When this word Grecian, is set against this word…
When this word Grecian, is set against this word Jew, then doth it signify a Gentile.
The second part of the Epistle unto the beginning of Chap. 9. Now the whole end and purpose of the disputation is this: that is to say: to show that there is but one way to attain unto salvation (which is set forth unto us of God in the Gospel, without any difference of nations) and that is Jesus Christ apprehended by faith.
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God’s mighty and effectual instrument to save men by.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel…
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Ver. 16. For I am not ashamed] As men are apt to be; whence that fatherly charge, 2Ti 1:8. Do ye think (said John Frith, martyr, to the archbishop’s men that would have let him go) that I am afraid to declare mine opinion unto the bishops of England in a manifest truth? If you should both leave me here, and go tell the bishops that you had lost Frith, I would surely follow as fast after as I might, and bring them news that I had found and brought Frith again.
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For it is the power, &c.] Eternal life is potentially in the word preached, as the harvest is potentially in the seed.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Though Rome be the head of the empire, and…
Though Rome be the head of the empire, and the Romans bear the name of wise and learned persons; and though the gospel hath the show of simplicity, and is foolishness to the wise men of this world; yet
I am not ashamed to own and publish this gospel of Christ. I do not shrink back, and withdraw myself, as men do from these things whereof they are ashamed. Neither indeed need I, because, how mean soever it seems to be to carnal eyes, yet
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it is the power of God unto salvation, & c.; not the essential power of God, but the organical power. See the like, 1Co 1:18. The meaning is, it is a powerful means ordained of God for this purpose. Touching the efficacy and excellent power of the gospel for the conversion and salvation of the souls of men, see Isa 53:1; 1Co 4:15; 2Co 4:7; 2Co 10:4,5; Heb 4:12; Jam 1:21.
To every one that believed; the gospel is offered unto all, but it profiteth unto salvation only those that believe; as a medicine is only effectual to those who receive or apply it.
To the Jew first, and also to the Greek; the gospel was first to be published to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles, whom he here calls Greeks: see Luk 24:47; Act 1:8. This order the apostles accordingly kept and observed, Act 13:46.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. The glorious description which the apostle…
Observe here, 1. The glorious description which the apostle gives of the gospel; It is the power of God unto salvation. That is, the preaching of it is attended by, and accompanied with, an almighty power, which renders it effectual to salvation, if we do not bolt our ears and hearts against it.
Learn, That the plain and persuasive preaching of the gospel, is the chosen instrument in God’s hand, which he uses and honours for the conveyance of spiritual life into the souls of men, though it be despised and ridiculed by the men of the world. The gospel is powerful; it is the power, not of men or angels, but the power of God; not the essential, but instrumental power of God; it works as an instrument, yet not a natural, but as a moral instrument in God’s hands; freely, not arbitrarily. The word gives out to us, as God gives in to that; the power of the gospel is not from the preachers of the gospel, therefore do not idolize them; but they are instruments in God’s hand, their words are the vehicle, or organ, through which the vital power of the Spririt is conveyed; therefore do not vilify and think meanly of them.
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Observe, 2. The solemn protestation and bold profession which the apostle makes of his not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ; I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
Where note, 1. He doth not say, I am not afraid to preach the gospel; but I am not ashamed, because shame hinders our readiness more than fear; a man may be fit and ready to preach the gospel, and yet be afraid to undertake it; but he that is ashamed of the work, can never be fit for it.
Note, 2. That when the apostle says, he is not ahamed of the gospel, more is intended than expressed: I am so far from being ashamed, that I account it my glory; as if the apostle had said, "Verily I esteem it the highest honour that God can confer upon me, to preach the gospel at Rome, though it should cost me my life."
Oh how exceeding well doth a bold profession of the gospel become all the ministers and members of Jesus Christ! Let all say with the apostle, We are not ashamed of the gospel; none of the ministers of Christ to preach it, none of the members of Chrsit to profess and practise it.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Paul here enters upon a large discourse of justification,…
Paul here enters upon a large discourse of justification, in the latter part of this chapter laying down his thesis, and, in order to the proof of it, describing the deplorable condition of the Gentile world. His transition is very handsome, and like an orator: he was ready to preach the gospel at Rome, though a place where the gospel was run down by those that called themselves the wits; for, saith he, I am not ashamed of it, Rom 1:16. There is a great deal in the gospel which such a man as Paul might be tempted to be ashamed of, especially that he whose gospel it is was a man hanged upon a tree, that the doctrine of it was plain, had little in it to set it off among scholars, the professors of it were mean and despised, and every where spoken against; yet Paul was not ashamed to own it. I reckon him a Christian indeed that is neither ashamed of the gospel nor a shame to it. The reason of this bold profession, taken from the nature and excellency of the gospel, introduces his dissertation.
I. The proposition, Rom 1:16, Rom 1:17. The excellency of the gospel lies in this, that it reveals to us,
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1. The salvation of believers as the end: It is the power of God unto salvation. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, how mean and contemptible soever it may appear to a carnal eye; for the power of God works by it the salvation of all that believe; it shows us the way of salvation (Act 16:17), and is the great charter by which salvation is conveyed and made over to us. But, (1.) It is through the power of God; without that power the gospel is but a dead letter; the revelation of the gospel is the revelation of the arm of the Lord (Isa 53:1), as power went along with the word of Christ to heal diseases. (2.) It is to those, and those only, that believe. Believing interests us in the gospel salvation; to others it is hidden. The medicine prepared will not cure the patient if it be not taken. - To the Jew first. The lost sheep of the house of Israel had the first offer made them, both by Christ and his apostles. You first (Act 3:26), but upon their refusal the apostles turned to the Gentiles, Act 13:46. Jews and Gentiles now stand upon the same level, both equally miserable without a Saviour, and both equally welcome to the Saviour, Col 3:11. Such doctrine as this was surprising to the Jews, who had hitherto been the peculiar people, and had looked with scorn upon the Gentile world; but the long-expected Messiah proves a light to enlighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Israel.
2. The justification of believers as the way (Rom 1:17): For therein, that is, in this gospel, which Paul so much triumphs in, is the righteousness of God revealed. Our misery and ruin being the product and consequent of our iniquity, that which will show us the way of salvation must needs show us the way of justification, and this the gospel does. The gospel makes known a righteousness. While God is a just and holy God, and we are guilty sinners, it is necessary we should have a righteousness wherein to appear before him; and, blessed be God, there is such a righteousness brought in by Messiah the prince (Dan 9:24) and revealed in the gospel; a righteousness, that is, a gracious method of reconciliation and acceptance, notwithstanding the guilt of our sins. This evangelical righteousness, (1.) Is called the righteousness of God; it is of God's appointing, of God's approving and accepting. It is so called to cut off all pretensions to a righteousness resulting from the merit of our own works. It is the righteousness of Christ, who is God, resulting from a satisfaction of infinite value. (2.) It is said to be from faith to faith, from the faithfulness of God revealing to the faith of man receiving (so some); from the faith of dependence upon God, and dealing with him immediately, as Adam before the fall, to the faith of dependence upon a Mediator, and so dealing with God (so others); from the first faith, by which we are put into a justified state, to after faith, by which we live, and are continued in that state: and the faith that justifies us is no less than our taking Christ for our Saviour, and becoming true Christians, according to the tenour of the baptismal covenant; from faith engrafting us into Christ, to faith deriving virtue from him as our root: both implied in the next words, The just shall live by faith. Just by faith, there is faith justifying us; live by faith, there is faith maintaining us; and so there is a righteousness from faith to faith. Faith is all in all, both in the beginning and progress of a Christian life. It is not from faith to works, as if faith put us into a justified state, and then works preserved and maintained us in it, but it is all along from faith to faith, as Co2 3:18, from glory to glory; it is increasing, continuing, persevering faith, faith pressing forward, and getting ground of unbelief. To show that this is no novel upstart doctrine, he quotes for it that famous scripture in the Old Testament, so often mentioned in the New (Hab 2:4): The just shall live by faith. Being justified by faith he shall live by it both the life of grace and of glory. The prophet there had placed himself upon the watch-tower, expecting some extraordinary discoveries (Rom 1:1), and the discovery was of the certainty of the appearance of the promised Messiah in the fulness of time, not withstanding seeming delays. This is there called the vision, by way of eminence, as elsewhere the promise; and while that time is coming, as well as when it has come, the just shall live by faith. Thus is the evangelical righteousness from faith to faith - from Old Testament faith in a Christ to come to New Testament faith in a Christ already come.
II. The proof of this proposition, that both Jews and Gentiles stand in need of a righteousness wherein to appear before God, and that neither the one nor the other have nay of their own to plead. Justification must be either by faith or works. It cannot be by works, which he proves at large by describing the works both of Jews and Gentiles; and therefore he concludes it must be by faith, Rom 3:20, Rom 3:28. The apostle, like a skilful surgeon, before he applies the plaster, searches the wound - endeavours first to convince of guilt and wrath, and then to show the way of salvation. This makes the gospel the more welcome. We must first see the righteousness of God condemning, and then the righteousness of God justifying will appear worthy of all acceptation. In general (Rom 1:18), the wrath of God is revealed. The light of nature and the light of the law reveal the wrath of God from sin to sin. It is well for us that the gospel reveals the justifying righteousness of God from faith to faith. The antithesis is observable. Here is,
1. The sinfulness of man described; he reduceth it to two heads, ungodliness and unrighteousness; ungodliness against the laws of the first table, unrighteousness against those of the second.
2. The cause of that sinfulness, and that is, holding the truth in unrighteousness. Some communes notitae, some ideas they had of the being of God, and of the difference of good and evil; but they held them in unrighteousness, that is, they knew and professed them in a consistency with their wicked courses. They held the truth as a captive or prisoner, that it should not influence them, as otherwise it would. An unrighteous wicked heart is the dungeon in which many a good truth is detained and buried. Holding fast the form of sound words in faith and love is the root of all religion (Ti2 1:13), but holding it fast in unrighteousness is the root of all sin.
3. The displeasure of God against it: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven; not only in the written word, which is given by inspiration of God (the Gentiles had not that), but in the providences of God, his judgments executed upon sinners, which do not spring out of the dust, or fall out by chance, nor are they to be ascribed to second causes, but they are a revelation from heaven. Or wrath from heaven is revealed; it is not the wrath of a man like ourselves, but wrath from heaven, therefore the more terrible and the more unavoidable.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of…
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ,.... The reason why he was so ready and willing to preach it, even where he ran the greatest risk of his character and life, was, because it was "the Gospel of Christ" he preached, and he was not ashamed of it. This supposes that some were, though the apostle was not, ashamed of the Gospel; as all such are who hide and conceal it, who have abilities to preach it, and do not: or who preach, but not the Gospel; or who preach the Gospel only in part, who own that in private, they will not preach in public, and use ambiguous words, of doubtful signification, to cover themselves; who blend the Gospel with their own inventions, seek to please men, and live upon popular applause, regard their own interest, and not Christ's, and cannot bear the reproach of his Gospel. It expresses, that the apostle was not ashamed of it; that is, to preach it, which he did fully and faithfully, plainly and consistently, openly and publicly, and boldly, in the face of all opposition: and it designs more than is expressed, as that he had the utmost value for it, and esteemed it his highest honour that he was employed in preaching it: his reasons for this were, because it was "the Gospel of Christ"; which Christ himself preached, which he had learnt by revelation from him, and of which he was the sum and substance: and because
it is the power of God; not essentially, but declaratively; as the power of God is seen in making men ministers of it, in the doctrines held forth in it, in the manner in which it was spread in the world, in the opposition it met with, in the continuance and increase of it notwithstanding the power and cunning of men, and in the shortness of time, in which so much good was done by it in the several parts of the world: it is the power of God organically or instrumentally; as it is a means made use of by God in quickening dead sinners, enlightening blind eyes, unstopping deaf ears, softening hard hearts, and making of enemies friends; to which add, the manner in which all this is done, suddenly, secretly, effectually, and by love, and not force: the extent of this power is,
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unto salvation; the Gospel is a declaration and revelation of salvation by Christ, and is a means of directing and encouraging souls to lay hold upon it. The persons to whom it is so, are in general,
everyone that believeth: this does not suppose that faith gives the Gospel its virtue and efficacy; but is only descriptive of the persons to whom the Gospel, attended with the power and grace of God, is eventually efficacious: and particularly it was so,
to the Jew first; who as they had formerly the advantage of the Gentiles, much every way, through the peculiar privileges which were conferred on them; so the Gospel was first preached to them by Christ and his disciples; and even when it was ordered to be carried into the Gentile world, it was to begin with them, and became effectual for the salvation of many of them:
and also to the Greek; to the Gentile; for after the Jews had rejected it, as many being called by it as Jehovah thought fit, at that time, it was preached to the Gentiles with great success; which was the mystery hid from ages and generations past, but now made manifest.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the gospel -…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel - To the world, indeed, it is folly and weakness, 1 Cor. i, 18; therefore, in the judgment of the world, he ought to be ashamed of it; especially at Rome, the head and theatre of the world. But Paul is not ashamed, knowing it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth - The great and gloriously powerful means of saving all who accept salvation in God's own way. As St. Paul comprises the sum of the gospel in this epistle, so he does the sum of the epistle in this and the following verse. Both to the Jew, and to the gentile - There is a noble frankness, as well as a comprehensive sense, in these words, by which he, on the one hand, shows the Jews their absolute need of the gospel; and, on the other, tells the politest and greatest nation in the world both that their salvation depended on receiving it, and that the first offers of it were in every place to be made to the despised Jews.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 16. I am not ashamed of the Gospel…
Verse 16. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ] This text is best illustrated by Isa 28:16; Isa 49:23, quoted by the apostle, Ro 10:11: For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him, shall not be ashamed; i.e. they shall neither be confounded, nor disappointed of their hope. The Jews, by not believing on Jesus Christ, by not receiving him as the promised Messiah, but trusting in others, have been disappointed, ashamed, and confounded, from that time to the present day. Their expectation is cut off; and, while rejecting Christ, and expecting another Messiah, they have continued under the displeasure of God, and are ashamed of their confidence. On the other hand, those who have believed on Christ have, in and through him, all the blessings of which the prophets spoke; every promise of God being yea and amen through him. Paul, as a Jew, believed on Christ Jesus; and in believing he had life through his name; through him he enjoyed an abundance of grace; so that, being filled with that happiness which an indwelling Christ produces, he could cheerfully say, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. And why? Because he felt it to be the power of God to the salvation of his believing soul. This appears to be the true sense of this passage, and this interpretation acquires additional strength from the consideration that St. Paul is here most evidently addressing himself to the Jews.
It is the power of God unto salvation] δυναμις γαρ θεου εστιν: The almighty power of God accompanies this preaching to the souls of them that believe; and the consequence is, they are saved; and what but the power of God can save a fallen, sinful soul?
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To the Jew first] Not only the Jews have the first offer of this Gospel, but they have the greatest need of it; being so deeply fallen, and having sinned against such glorious privileges, they are much more culpable than the Gentiles, who never had the light of a Divine revelation.
And also to the Greek] Though the salvation of God has hitherto been apparently confined to the Jewish people, yet it shall be so no longer, for the Gospel of Christ is sent to the Gentiles as well as the Jews; God having put no difference between them; and Jesus Christ having tasted death for EVERY man.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Rom 1:16. For — In whatever contempt that sacred…
Rom 1:16. For — In whatever contempt that sacred dispensation, and they who publish it, may be held on account of the circumstances and death of its Author, the character of its ministers, and the nature and tendency of its doctrines; I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ — But rather glory in it. To the world, indeed, it appeared folly and weakness, 1Co 1:18; 1Co 1:23. Therefore, in the judgment of the world, he ought to have been ashamed of it; especially at Rome, the head and theatre of the world. But Paul was not ashamed of it, knowing it to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth — The great and gloriously powerful means of saving all who accept salvation in God’s own way, namely, the way of faith in Jesus, as the Son of God and Saviour of the world, and in the declarations and promises of God made through him: faith preceded by repentance toward God, accompanied by love to God and all mankind, and productive of all inward and outward holiness. To the Jew first — Who is far from being above the need of it, and to whom, by the special command of the Lord, it is to be first proposed and preached, wherever its ambassadors come; yet it is not to be limited to the Jew, but proclaimed also to the Greek — And the Roman, and Gentiles of every nation under heaven, who are all, with equal freedom, invited to partake of its important benefits. There is a noble frankness, as well as a comprehensive sense, in these words of the apostle; by which, on the one hand, he shows the Jews their absolute need of the gospel, and, on the other, tells the politest and greatest nation of the world, both that their salvation depended on receiving it, and that the first offers of it were in every place to be made to the despised Jews. As the apostle comprises the sum of the gospel in this epistle; so he does the sum of the epistle in this and the following verses. With regard to the names, Jews and Greeks, it maybe proper to observe here, that “after Alexander’s generals had established their empire in Egypt and Asia, the inhabitants of these countries were considered as Greeks, because they generally spake the Greek language; and, as the Jews were little acquainted with the other idolatrous nations, they naturally called all the heathens Greeks. Hence in their language, Jews and Greeks comprehended all mankind.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed ... - The Jews…
For I am not ashamed ... - The Jews had cast him off, and regarded him as an apostate; and by the wise among the Gentiles he had been persecuted, and despised, and driven from place to place, and regarded as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things 1Co 4:13, but still he was not ashamed of the gospel. He had so firm a conviction of its value and its truth; he had experienced so much of its consolations; and had seen so much of its efficacy; that he was so far from being ashamed of it that he gloried in it as the power of God unto salvation. People should be ashamed of crime and folly. They are ashamed of their own offences, and of the follies of their conduct, when they come to reflect on it. But they are not ashamed of what they feel to be right, and of what they know will contribute to their welfare, and to the benefit of their fellow-men. Such were the views of Paul about the gospel; and it is one of his favorite doctrines that they who believe on Christ shall not be ashamed, Rom 10:11; Rom 5:5; 2Co 7:14; 2Ti 1:12; Phi 1:20; Rom 9:33; 2Ti 1:8; compare Mar 8:38; 1Pe 4:16; 1Jo 2:28.
Of the gospel - This word means the “good news,” or the glad intelligence; see the note at Mar 1:1. It is so called because it contains the glad annunciation that sin may be pardoned, and the soul saved.
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Of Christ - The good news respecting the Messiah; or which the Messiah has brought. The expression probably refers to the former, the good news which relates to the Messiah, to his character, advent, preaching, death, resurrection, and ascension. Though this was “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness,” yet he regarded it as the only hope of salvation, and was ready to preach it even in the rich and splendid capital of the world.
The power of God - This expression means that it is the way in which God exerts his power in the salvation of people. It is the efficacious or mighty plan, by which power goes forth to save, and by which all the obstacles of man’s redemption are taken away. This expression implies,
(1) That it is God’s plan, or his appointment. It is not the device of man.
(2) It is adapted to the end. It is suited to overcome the obstacles in the way. It is not merely the instrument by which God exerts his power, but it has an inherent adaptedness to the end, it is suited to accomplish salvation to man so that it may be denominated power.
(3) It is mighty, hence, it is called power, and the power of God. If is not a feeble and ineffectual instrumentality, but it is “mighty to the pulling down of strongholds,” 2Co 10:4-5. It has shown its power as applicable to every degree of sin, to every combination of wickedness. It has gone against the sins of the world, and evinced its power to save sinners of all grades, and to overcome and subdue every mighty form of iniquity, compare Jer 23:29, “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” 1Co 1:18, “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.”
Unto salvation - This word means complete deliverance from sin and death, and all the foes and dangers that beset man. It cannot imply anything less than eternal life. If a man should believe and then fall away, he could in no correct sense be said to be saved. And hence, when the apostle declares that it is the power of God unto salvation “to everyone that believeth,” it implies that all who become believers “shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (see 1Pe 1:5), and that none shall ever fall away and be lost. The apostle thus commences his discussion with one of the important doctrines of the Christian religion, the final preservation of the saints. He is not defending the gospel for any temporary object, or with any temporary hope. He looks through the system, and sees in it a plan for the complete and eternal recovery of all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. When he says it is the power of God unto salvation, he means that it is the power of God for the attainment of salvation. This is the end, or the design of this exertion of power.
To everyone that believeth - Compare Mar 16:16-17. This expresses the condition, or the terms, on which salvation is conferred through the gospel. It is not indiscriminately to all people, whatever may be their character. It is only to those who confide or trust in it; and it is conferred on all who receive it in this manner. If this qualification is possessed, it bestows its blessings freely and fully. All people know what “faith” is. It is exercised when we confide in a parent, a friend, a benefactor. It is such a reception of a promise, a truth, or a threatening, as to suffer it to make its appropriate impression on the mind, and such as to lead us to act under its influence, or to act as we should on the supposition that it is true. Thus, a sinner credits the threatenings of God, and fears. This is faith. He credits his promises, and hopes. This is faith. He feels that he is lost, and relies on Jesus Christ for mercy. This is faith. And, in general, faith is such an impression on the mind made by truth as to lead us to feel and act as if it were true; to have the appropriate feelings, and views, and conduct under the commands, and promises, and threatenings of God; see the note at Mar 16:16.
To the Jew first - First in order of time, Not that the gospel was any more adapted to Jews than to others; but to them had been committed the oracles of God; the Messiah had come through them; they had had the Law, the temple, and the service of God, and it was natural that the gospel should be proclaimed to them before it was to the Gentiles. This was the order in which the gospel was actually preached to the world, first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Compare Acts 2 and Acts 10; Mat 10:6; Luk 24:49; Act 13:46, “It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Compare Mat 21:43.
And also to the Greek - To all who were nor Jews, that is, to all the world. It was nor confined in its intention or efficacy to any class or nation of people. It was adapted to all, and was designed to be extended to all.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain For it is the power of God unto salvation…
For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one; that is, it brings powerful helps to all, both Gentiles and Jews, in order to their salvation. --- To the Jew first, inasmuch as the gospel is to be first preached to the Jews. (Witham) --- The promises of salvation were first made to the Jews. Jesus Christ preached to the Jews only, and forbad his disciples, during his life-time, to preach to any other nation. And after his resurrection, when they had full powers to preach every where, they did not turn to the Gentiles, till the Jews had refused to hear them. A miracle was necessary to determine St. Peter to communicate the gospel to the uncircumcised; and St. Paul, in every place, first addressed himself to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. The apostle here sweetly endeavours, in an indirect manner, to silence the presumption of the Romans, who seemed to raise themselves above the Jews, and believed they had merited the grace of vocation to the faith. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain The Fundamental Theme
III
The Fundamental Theme
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Rom_1:16-17
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ58 [omit Christ]: for it is the power of God [God’s power] unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first,59 and also to the Greek. 17For therein is the righteousness of God [God’s righteousness] revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just [The righteous] shall live by [of] faith (Hab. 2 4).60
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Third Section.—The fundamental theme. The joy of the Apostle to proclaim the gospel of Christ, since it is a power of God for Jews and Gentiles as a revelation of the righteousness of God—a righteousness by and for the faith.
Rom_1:16. For I am not ashamed [not even in the metropolis of the heathen world.—P. S.]. Evidently, this general declaration refers not merely to Rom_1:15, but also to Rom_1:14. There could be no difficulty to the Apostle to preach to the believers in Rome; but it was difficult to preach to the whole Gentile world, especially to its wise men, who were so much inclined to despise the gospel as foolishness. And finally, it was particularly difficult to preach to the Gentiles in the proud metropolis of Rome, the central seat of the culture and pride of the ancient world. It is plain from Rom_1:15, you that, are at Rome, that he would not confine himself to the congregation of Christians in Rome. The designation of his disposition is exact in relation to that pride of wisdom which everywhere opposed him, as he had experienced particularly in Athens and Corinth. He is not afraid of the threats of the world; he does not avoid the offence of the Jews; nor is he ashamed in view of the contempt of the Greeks and of the wise men. And this is not only expressive of his real joy in general, but of his Christian enthusiasm, by which he could glory in the cross of Christ (Rom_5:2; Gal_6:14). [I am not ashamed, is an answer, by anticipation, to an objection which was readily suggested by the word Rome, with all its associations of idolatry, worldly power, pride, pomp, corruption, decay, and approaching persecution of Christians. Tacitus, the heathen historian, says of Rome, that there cuncta undiquc atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque (Annal. Rom 15:44). See Chrysostom, Alford, Wordsworth, Hodge in loc. Meyer explains the term more with reference to the past experiences of Paul in other heathen cities, as Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and to the general character of the religion of the cross (1Co_1:18). It is true that human nature, as such, in its carnal pride, is apt to be ashamed of the gospel. But this carnal pride culminated at the time in Rome, and found a fit expression in the blasphemous worship of the emperors as present deities. That Paul has special reference to Rome, is also evident from his definition of the gospel as a power of God, which puts to shame the world-power of Rome (ῥώμη, strength). Dealing with the Greeks, who excelled in wisdom, he defines the gospel to be the wisdom of God, which turns the wisdom of this world into folly. When afterwards a prisoner in Rome, Paul was not ashamed of his bonds (2Ti_1:12), in which he felt more free, mighty, and happy than the emperor on the throne.—P. S.].
Of the gospel of Christ. Here, also, we can not separate the concrete unity of the gospel and its promulgation.
For it is a power of God.61 The for announces the reason: it is the highest manifestation of the power of God—the highest manifestation of the compassionate love and grace of God; it is the blessing of salvation for faith throughout the world. The power of God. This cannot apply to the preaching of the gospel alone, but to the objective gospel itself, which combines with evangelization for complete operation. The question whether there is a metonyme62 here (see Tholuck), becomes important only when that unity is dissolved. The gospel, in the objective sense, implies: 1. The revelation of God in Christ; 2. redemption by Christ; 3. the victory, the glory, and the kingdom of Christ; 4. the presentation of this salvation through the medium of the Church in word and sacrament, under the operation of the Holy Spirit.63
Unto salvation. Both the negative and positive sides of the idea of the σωτηρία must be elucidated, the former denoting redemption, the latter adoption. The operation of σωτηρία reaches from the depths of hell to heaven. When man is truly delivered, he is always delivered from the depths of hell, and raised to the heights of heaven; because he is saved from the condemnation of his conscience, and from the judgment of wrath, and is made a participant of salvation through the righteousness of faith which leads to righteousness of life. The expression, blessedness, denotes the highest effect and the highest aim of the σωτηρία. Comp. Act_4:12; Act_13:26; Rom_10:1. The opposite is ἀπώλεια, θάνατος, and similar terms.
To every one that believeth. De Wette: “The παντί is opposed to Jewish particularism, and the πιστεύοντι to Jewish legalism.”64 The highest operation of God’s power is not at all a fatalistic or mechanical operation; it is a personal dealing of love, and presupposes personal relations. For as it cannot be said, on the one hand, that faith completes objective salvation, so we cannot say, on the other, that it is a compulsory operation of salvation. It is the condition of the efficacy of salvation (Joh_3:16, &c.; see Genesis 15), the causa apprehendens.
To the Jew first. This priority is economical, as it rests upon the Old Testament revelation of God, and the faith of Abraham (Rom_4:9); and as such it is: 1. The genetic priority. “Salvation is of the Jews” [Joh_4:22]. 2. The historical priority (Chrysostom, and others). 3. A legal priority (as to form) of the nearest claim to the gospel in accordance with the direction given to the apostles, Act_1:8 (Calov, De Wette, Tholuck). But notwithstanding all this, the Jew had no real right to the gospel, since salvation, 1. is not a product of Judaism, but of free grace; 2. faith is older than Judaism (chap. 4); 3. faith itself is the reality and substance of which Judaism was only the symbol.65
And also to the Greek. The Ἔλλην is here the representative of all who are not Jews. [Jew and Greek here refer not to the national distinction, as Greek and Barbarian, Rom_1:14, but to the religious antagonism of the world at the time, so that Greek is equivalent to Gentile. Ἔλλ. κ. Βάρβ. is the Greek, Ἰουδ. κ.̓́ Ελλ. the Jewish, designation of all mankind; comp. Act_14:1; 1Co_10:32.—P. S.]
Rom_1:17. For therein is the righteousness of God. Proof of the previous proposition. The δν́ναμις θεοῦ εἰς σωτηρίαν is ἀποκάλυψις of the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, &c.
[Preliminary Philological Remarks on δικαιοσύνη and the Cognate Terms.—These are of primary importance in Paul’s Epistles, especially the Romans and Galatians. Their root, according to Aristotle (Eth. Nic. v. 2), is δίχα = twofold; hence δικάζειν, to divide into two equal parts, to judge; δικαστής, judge, dispenser of justice. Others derive them from δίκη (the daughter of Zeus and Themis), custom, right, judgment. At all events, the fundamental idea of δικαιοσύνη is an even relation between two or more parts where each has its due, or conformity to law and custom, a normal moral condition. According to Homer, he is δικαιότατος who best fulfils his duties to God and men. Plato develops the idea of righteousness in his Polieia, and identifies it with moral goodness. In the Bible, the will of God, as expressed in the written law, and more fully in the perfect life of Christ, is the standard both of morals and religion, which are always viewed as essentially connected. God Himself is righteous—i.e., absolutely perfect in Himself, and in all His dealings with His creatures, and requires man to aim at this perfection (Mat_5:48). Accordingly, we may define the several terms (referring to the dictionaries and concordances for passages) as follows:
δίκαιος, צַדּיק, conform to the law, inwardly as well as outwardly, holy, perfect. It is used in the absolute sense of God, in a relative sense of man, also of things. Du Cange: “Δίκαιος dicitur vel de re vel de persona, in qua nee abundat aliquid nec deficit, quœ muneri suo par est, numeris suis absoluta.”
δικαιοσύνη, צְרָקָה, justitia, the normal, moral and religious condition. If used of man, it means conformity to the holy will and law of God, godliness, or true piety toward God, and virtue toward man. If used of God, it is one of His moral attributes, essentially identical with His holiness and goodness, as manifested in His dealings with His creatures, especially with men.
δικαιόω (λογίζειν εἰς δικαιοσύνην), הִצְדִּיק, justificare, to put right with the law, i.e., to declare or pronounce one righteous, and to treat him accordingly. Etymologically, the word ought to mean, to make just (since the verbs in όω, derived from adjectives of the second declension, signify, to make a person or thing what the primitive denotes, as τυφλόω, δουλόω, ὀρθόω, φανερόω, τελειόω=τυφλόν, &c., ποιεῖν). But in Hebrew and Hellenistic, and often also in classical usage, it has a forensic sense, to which, however, when used of God, the objective state of things, either preceding or succeeding, must correspond, for God’s judgment can never err, and His declaration is always effective. More of this, ad Rom_2:13 and Rom_3:21-31. Now for the particular explanation of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in our passage.
δικαίωσις (λογισμὸς τῆς δικαιοσύνης) justificatio, the act of putting a man right with the law, or into the state of δικαιοσύνη.
δικαίωμα, a righteous decree, judgment, ordinance.—P. S.]
In view of the widely divergent explanations, it is necessary to make close distinctions. The righteousness of God, understood absolutely in its complete New Testament revelation, or ἀποκάλυψις, cannot apply immediately to righteousness before God (ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ), in which case the genitive is taken objectively in a wider relation (thus Luther, Fritzsche, Baur, Philippi). For this righteousness of faith presupposes justification. Nor can the word of itself denote the act of justification, even if we connect with it the result, the righteousness of faith, the genitive being taken in this case subjectively66 in this sense: “the rightness which proceeds from God, the right relation in which man is placed by a judicial act of God” (Meyer, after Chrysostom, Bengel, De Wette, and others).67 For the justification presupposes the atonement (Rom_3:25), and the atonement is founded on the exercise of God’s righteousness. To this exercise the Apostle evidently refers in Rom_3:25-26, and he therefore does it here also in the theme, which, from its very nature, must encompass the whole idea of the Epistle. Absolute righteousness, like absolute grace and truth, is first revealed in Christianity. It is the righteousness which not only institutes the law of the letter, and requires righteousness in man, and, in its character of judge, pronounces sentence and kills, but which at last reveals itself in union with love, or as grace in the form of righteousness, and produces righteousness in man. It accomplishes all this: 1. As law-giving—that is, establishing the right—it institutes the law of the Spirit; that is, it reveals it in the life of Christ as the personal power of the atonement. 2. In the power and suffering of this personal righteousness, it satisfies the demands of the righteousness of the law, and thus changes the symbolical ἱλαστήριον into a real one. The atonement. 3. It communicates to believers the work and efficacy of Christ’s righteousness, by the spirit of His righteousness, as a gift of grace and principle of the new life in creative, operative justification.
Or briefly: The righteousness of God is the self-communication of the righteousness which proceeds from God, which becomes personal righteousness in the person of Christ, which, in His passion as propitiation, satisfies the righteousness of the law (in harmony with the requirement of conscience), and, by the act of justification, applies the atonement to the believer for the sanctification of his life.
As the δόξα, which avails before God, can be none other than the δόξα, which proceeds from God, and became personal in Christ, so can the righteousness which avails before God be none other than a righteousness which comes from God. It is the δικαιοσύνη ἐκ θεοῦ, in opposition to the δικ. ἡ ἐμή, Php_3:9; and therefore the δικαιοσύνη ἐνώπιον θεοῦ, Rom_3:21, in opposition to the δικαιοσύνη ἐκ τοῦ νόμου, Rom_10:5. Therefore it is God’s righteousness also in this sense, that man can never make out of it a righteousness of his own, though the Divine justification becomes the principle of his new life. Tholuck likewise allows a combination of the objective and subjective meanings, but decidedly rejects the interpretation of δικαιοσύνη, as an attribute of God, which he considers incompatible with the prophetic passage adduced. But this quotation does not explain righteousness, but faith. The statement of Tholuck, that Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 625 f.) describes the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ as an attribute of God, is not exact; he declares it only as a righteousness existing on the part of God.68 We go so far as to understand by righteousness here a synthesis of righteousness and of love—a synthesis which, as grace according to its different relations under the supremacy of righteousness, and as the grace that establishes the new and the absolute right of the Spirit, is called righteousness, but which, under the supremacy of love, as the fountain of the new life, is called love. This impartial righteousness is revealed to believers as grace, and to unbelievers as wrath. When Tholuck says that δικ. is not the righteousness of God in fulfilment of the promises (Ambrose), nor retributive justice (Origen), nor the essential righteousness which belongs to God (as Osiander once taught, and recently Hofmann), nor the goodness of God (Morus), nor impartiality toward Jews and Gentiles (Semler), he has collected into one all the disjecta membra of the central idea, that the δικαιοσύνη (from δίχα, a relation between two, according to the Aristotelian derivation of the word), establishes, maintains, and restores the relation between the personal God and the personal world according to their respective character (for the protection of personality). The omission of the article does not justify us in reading here, a righteousness of God; being inseparably connected with θεοῦ, it means rather the proper righteousness of God (see Winer’s Gramm.).69
[Upon the whole, I agree with this interpretation. The majority of evangelical commentators restrict the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ to God’s justifying righteousness; some even ungrammatically identity it with justification (δικαίωσις), or God’s “method of justification.” The fundamental idea of the Epistle as set forth in the theme, every expression used in Rom_1:16-17, and the contrast presented in Rom_1:18, point to a more comprehensive meaning, answering to the definition of the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation,” full and final, from “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” This implies a righteousness imputable as well as imputable, or sanctifying as well as justifying—a righteousness inherent in God, and manifested in Christ, which, by a living union with Christ, is to become the personal property and higher nature of the believer, so that, at the final judgment, no trace of unrighteousness will remain. Wordsworth (an Anglican) and Forbes (a Scotch Presbyterian LL.D.) independently arrive substantially at the same view with Lange. Wordsworth in loco says: “This significant phrase, the righteousness of God, is not to be lowered, weakened, and impaired, so as to mean only the method of justification by which God acquits and justifies mankind. But it is the very righteousness of God Himself, which is both imputed and imparted to men in Jesus Christ ‘the Righteous’ (Joh_2:1), who is ‘the Lord our righteousness’ (Jer_23:6; Jer_33:16), and who, being God from everlasting, and having also taken the nature of man, is made righteousness to us (1Co_1:30), and does effectually, by His incarnation, and by our incorporation into Him, justify us believing on Him, and making Him ours by faith, so that we may not only be acquitted by God, but may become the righteousness of God in Him (2Co_5:21).” Forbes, in a long and able dissertation (Anal. Com., p. 102 ff.), combines here the three Scripture meanings of δικαιοσύνη, when used of God, viz.: “1. God’s retributive righteousness or justice (now manifested in God’s condemnation of sin, shown in giving His Son to die for man’s sin on the cross—to induce thereby the believer to concur cordially in its condemnation in himself); 2. God’s justifying righteousness (now manifested in Christ’s exhibiting in the character of man a perfect righteousness—imputable to and appropriable by the believer, for his pardon and acceptance with God); 3. God’s sanctifying, righteousness (also manifested in Christ as “the Lord our righteousness,” changing the believer’s heart the moment he is united by faith to Christ, and progressively mortifying within him all sin, and imparting eventually to him universal righteousness—appropriable in like manner through faith by the believer).” For further information, comp. the Exeg. Notes on chaps. Rom_2:13, and Rom_3:21-31; Doctrinal and Ethical on Rom_3:21-31, No. 5; also the following works: Winzer, Progr. de voce. δίκαιος, δικαιοσύνη et δικαιοῦν in P. ad Rom. Ep., Leipzig, 1831; Rauwenhoff, Disquisitio de loco Paulino, qui est de δικαιώσει, Lugd. Bat., 1852; Lipsius, Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, mit Vorwort von Liebner (who differs from Lipsius), Leipzig, 1853 (220 pp.);70 Schmid, Biblische Theologie, Stuttg., 1853, vol. ii. p. 331 ff.; Wieseler, Com. on Gal_2:16, Gött., 1859, p. 176 ff. (who very learnedly and ably defends the orthodox Protestant view); Hodge, on Romans, 3:20 (new ed., Philad., 1866, p. 126 ff.); Forbes, on Romans (Edinb., 1868), pp. 102–144. The doctrinal treatises on justification by faith will be mentioned below, ad Rom_3:21-31, Doctrinal and Ethical, No. 5, pp. 138 f.—P. S.]
Is revealed [ἀποκαλύπτεται is being revealed; the present tense marks the continuous, progressive revelation of righteousness.—P. S.]. The αποκαλύπτειν is distinguished from the φανεροῦν by being God’s revelation, which proceeds from God, and addresses itself to the inward spiritual world (Gal_1:16); while the φανεροῦν denotes the same revelation as manifested in the outward life from the inward spiritual world (Joh_2:11). The revelation of wrath is also an ἀποκάυψις (Rom_1:18), although the wrath is revealed in external manifestation; for it is only by the conscience, that the facts connected therewith are first recognized as the phenomena of wrath, and it is only in the light of the New Testament truth that they are recognized completely. ἐν αὐτῷ. The gospel is the medium.
From faith to faith. [It is connected with the verb ἀποκαλύπτεται by De Wette, Meyer, Tholuck (ed. 5), Alford; with the noun δικαιοσύνη (sc. οὐσα or γενομένη) by Bengel, Philippi, Hodge, Forbes. The former agrees better with the position of the words, and with εἰς πίστιν, the latter with ἐκ πίστεως, comp. Rom_9:30; Rom_10:6.—P. S.] The idea of faith appears here in accordance with the comprehensive idea of righteousness, and therefore as a hearty, trustful self-surrender (to rest and lean upon, הֶאֱמִיו), which includes both knowledge and belief, assent and surrender, appropriation and application. [Faith is neither the efficient cause nor the objective ground of justification, but the instrumental cause and subjective condition; as eating is the condition of nourishment. As the nourishing power is in the food, which, however, must be received and digested before it can be of any use, so the saving power is in Christ’s person and work, but becomes personally available, and is made our own, only by the appropriating organ of faith. This appropriation and assimilation must be continually renewed; hence ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν.—P. S.] The distinction between from faith and to faith is variously explained. Origen refers it to Old Testament and New Testament faith.71 Œcumenius [Olshausen, De Wette, Alford, Philippi]: ἀπὀ πἱστεως εἰς πιστεύοντα [for the believer; comp. Rom_3:22, where the δικ. θεοῦ is said to be εἰς πἀντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας.—P. S.]. Theophylact, and others: For the promotion of faith. Luther: From weak to strong faith.72 Baumgarten-Crusius: From faith as conviction to faith as sentiment. De Wette: 1. Faith as conditional; 2. faith as receptive. For other meanings, see Tholuck (also the view of Zwingli, that the second πίστις means the faithfulness of God). [Meyer: The revelation of righteousness proceeds from faith and aims at faith, ut fides habeatur (similarly Fritzsche, Tholuck). Bengel and Hodge connect ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πὶστιν with δικαιοσύνη, and take it as intensive, like the phrase, “death unto death,” “life unto life,” so as to mean fidem meram, entirely of faith, without any works. Ewald understands ἐκ πὶστεως of Divine faith (?), εἰς πίστιν of human faith, which must meet the former.—P. S.] It may be asked, if the key to the passage may not be sought in Rom_3:22, since the second half of that chapter is in general a commentary on this passage. Comp. Heb_12:2 : “The author and finisher of our faith.” At all events, the Apostle acknowledges, like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the difference between a degree of faith which receives the revelation prophetically and apostolically, in order to proclaim it, and a more general degree of faith, which, through the agency of preaching, extends into the world. Comp. Heb_11:1 ff.
As it is written. The same quotation from Hab_2:4 is found in Gal_3:11 and Heb_10:38. The Apostle will here (as in Rom_1:2 and chaps.4 and 10) prove the harmony of the gospel with the Old Testament. The passage in the Prophet Habakkuk declares: The just shall live by his confidence, his faith (Isa_28:16). Therefore the most of the elder expositors, and some of the recent ones (Philippi, and others), thus explained the maxim of the Apostle: The just shall live by his faith. But according to Beza, Meyer [Hodge], and others, the Apostle’s expression must be construed thus: The man who is justified by faith, shall live. Meyer properly says: Paul had a good reason to put this meaning into the prophetic expression: since the just man, if he would live by faith, must have been justified by faith. We read in Habakkuk two concrete definitions: “Behold, puffed up [חִנֵּה עֻפְּלָה], not upright is his soul [his life] within him [לֹא־יָשְׁרָה נַפְשׁוֹ בּוֹ]. But the just man, he shall live by his faith.” That is, as the puffed-up soul is puffed up because it is not upright, and has no sound life, so is it the mark of the just man that he acquires his life by faith. The additional profundity which the New Testament gives to this Old Testament expression, does therefore not really change even the expression, much less the sense. [I prefer the connection of ἐκ πίοτεως with ζήσεται, which is more agreeable to the Hebrew (although the other is favored by the Masoretic accentuation), and this is adopted also by Tholuck, De Wette, Philippi, Delitzsch (ad Hab_2:4), Ewald, Forbes. See Textual Note 3above. The sense, however, is not essentially altered. The emphasis lies, at all events, on πίστις, which is, of course, living faith. ζήσεται is to be taken in the full sense of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος, as revealed in Christ. The Apostle, as Delitzsch remarks, puts no forced meaning into the words of the prophet, but simply places them into the light of the New Testament. Habakkuk ends where Paul begins.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The fundamental theme. The joyfulness of the Apostle in anticipation of preaching the gospel without shame even in Rome, the central seat of the conceit of human wisdom. The source of this cheerfulness: The gospel is the power of God, &c. The heroic spirit of faith, philanthropy, and hope, elevates him above all hesitation. But how far is the gospel a power of God? See Rom_1:17, and the Exeg. Notes thereon. Especially on the righteousness of God, and the two fundamental forms of faith (the faith which has established preaching, and the faith which is established by preaching).
[2. St. Bernard: Justus ex fide sua vivet, utique si vivat et ipsa: aliter quomodo vitam dabit, si ipsa sit mortua (The just man shall live by his faith, if his faith itself live; otherwise how shall that which is itself death, give life?).—P. S.]
[3. “If the subject of the Epistle is to be stated in few words, these should be chosen: τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, δύναμις Θεοῦ εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι. This expresses it better than merely ‘justification by faith,’ which is, in fact, only a subordinate part of the great theme—only the condition necessitated by man’s sinfulness for his entering the state of salvation: whereas the argument extends beyond this, to the death unto sin and life unto God and carrying forward of the sanctifying work of the Spirit, from its first fruits even to its completion;” Alford. Forbes (Anal. Com., p. 7.) likewise denies that justification by faith, especially if presented in a bare, forensic form, is the leading doctrine of the Epistle. “The grand truth here enunciated is the warm, living reality of a personal union with Christ (contrasted with the previous union with Adam), by which, in place of the sin unto death communicated by the first head of humanity, Christ’s righteousness and life are communicated to the believer, and become the inward quickening mover of every thought, feeling, and action. Thus is the distinction preserved, yet the indissoluble connection clearly evinced, between justification and sanctification, as being but two aspects of one and the same union of the believer with Christ—just as the dying branch ingrafted into the living vine is then only reckoned, and may justly be declared to be, a sound, living branch, when the union has taken place—because the assurance is then given of its being made so finally and fully, the vital juices of the vine having already begun to circulate within it.”—P. S.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Whence is it that many are ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Either, 1. They do not know it fully; or, 2. if they know it, they have not the courage to confess it.—Why do we not need to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Because, 1. It is of Divine origin; 2. of Divine import; 3. of Divine operation.—He who is ashamed of the gospel, is also ashamed of the Lord. True shame comes from God, false shame from the devil. Shame and shame.—Christianity the universal religion.—The shades of the law vanish; the stars of Greece grow pale at the rising sun of the gospel.—The righteousness which God approves is the chief import of the gospel.—The fundamental thought of the Epistle to the Romans is also the fundamental thought of the Reformation.
Luther: The power of God is such a force as to elevate man from sin to righteousness, from death to life, from hell to heaven, from the kingdom of the devil to the kingdom of God; and gives him eternal salvation.
Starke: As the gospel is a power of God, he denies it who constantly appeals to his weakness, and presents it in opposition to the gospel.—Though the gospel is the power of God, no one will be compelled to be saved, but every one possesses his own freedom to resist, and is therefore responsible.—Hedinger: Who would be ashamed of medicine when he is sick? or of light when he is blind, and would like to see? Wo to those who are ashamed of the words and office of Christ!
Lange: Many a person is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; but yet, if he is ashamed to follow Christ, he is in reality ashamed of the gospel itself in its true application and appropriation.—Faith is like a bucket, by which we draw grace for grace from that fulness of Jesus which contains the gospel.
Spener: Faith in Christ, confidence in the grace of God in Christ, is the beginning of our salvation, and will remain its instrument to the end. Therefore, faith must always endure and increase, and will thus grow from faith to faith—from one degree of light and power to another.
Bengel: No one need be ashamed of what is mighty and Divine (Rom_1:16).
Gerlach: There is something in the gospel of which the natural man is ashamed; therefore the Apostle confesses that this shame is conquered in his own case.—The effective power of God is not merely in the gospel, but it is the gospel itself. It is not merely a strength, from God, but it is His own strength. He works in and through the gospel.
Lisco: The gospel is a power of God; that is, a power in which He operates Himself. Therefore it is a holy, mighty, creative force, capable of saving all who believe it. On our part, faith is the condition that we must fulfil, the way to which we must conform, in order to obtain real salvation and deliverance from temporal and eternal destruction by the gospel.
Heubner: The danger of being ashamed of the gospel is easily incurred. Yet it is a shame which is very reprehensible; for, 1. It is a miserable weakness and want of principle to be ashamed of what is best; 2. It is the grossest contempt of God to place the world higher and fear it more than Him; and, 3. it is the meanest ingratitude toward God.
Fr. A. Wolff: The more the world boasts of its unbelief, the less should true Christians be ashamed of their faith. This is required: 1. For the honor of the truth; 2. the conversion of unbelievers; 3. the salvation of our own souls.
J. P. Lange: How sad the contrast between the false shame of Christians and the boldness and shamelessness of the world.—Who should be ashamed of the gospel? i.e., 1. Of God’s power and honor; 2. of the deliverance of men for their final salvation; 3. of the grand task of uniting Jews and Greeks (the law and culture) into a higher life.—The twofold confirmatory power of the gospel: 1. The first for: its Divine operation (Rom_1:16); 2. the second for: its Divine import (Rom_1:17).—The threefold for (Rom_1:16-17), or the three grounds of joyous, evangelizing activity.—The righteousness of faith: 1. Very old (Habakkuk); 2. eternally new (Paul, Luther); 3. always confirmed by true life.
[Burkitt: The power of the gospel is not from the preachers of the gospel; therefore do not idolize them. But they are God’s instruments, and their words are the organ of the Spirit’s power; therefore do not think meanly of them—A justified man lives a more holy, useful, and excellent life than all others; but the life that a justified man lives is always one of faith.—Henry (condensed): The reason why the Apostle made such a bold profession was, that sinners might be saved and believers edified.—Macknight: The Apostle insinuates with great propriety that the gospel is not an institution like the heathen mysteries, which were concealed from all but the initiated. The precepts of the gospel, being honorable in themselves and beneficial to society, cannot be too openly published.—Hodge: The salvation of men, including the pardon of their sins and the moral renovation of their hearts, can be effected by the gospel alone.—The power of the gospel does not lie in its pure theism, or perfect moral code, but in the cross—in the doctrine of justification by faith in a crucified Redeemer.—Whether we be wise or unwise, orthodox or heterodox, unless we are believers, and receive “the righteousness which is of God” as the ground of acceptance, we have no share in the salvation of the gospel.—Sermons on Rom_1:16, by B. Whichcote, John Owen, Bishop Ward, G. Esty, J. Erskine, Bishop Gilbert, Isaac Watts, Bishop Stillingfleet, Zollikofer, E. Brackenbury, Geo. Burder, W. E. Channing, R. McCheyne, and Thomas Arnold.—J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
[58]Rom_1:16.—The Codd, A. B. C. D., &c., read τὸ εὐαγγέλιον without the addition of τοῦ Χριστοῦ. [Cod. Sin. likewise omits τοῦ Χριστοῦ, as do nearly all the critical editors, Mill, Bengel, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Wordsworth, &c. The words are found in the Complutensian Text and in Elzevir, and are defended by Wetstoin and Matthaei.—P. S.]
[59]Rom_1:17.—The πρῶτον is left out by Codd. B. and G. [not A., as Lange has it]; probably because it had an offensive appearance. [MSS. א. A. C. D. K. L. have it Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, and others retain it. Lachmann puts it in brackets.—P. S.]
[60]Rom_1:17.—[This is a free translation of the Hebrew (Hab_2:4): וְצַדִּיק בֶּאֶמוּנָ־ו̇ יִחְיֶה, lit., the righteous shall live in (by) his faithfulness. The Masoretic accentuation, however, connects the first two words: The righteous in his faith, shall live. The Hebrew אֶמוּנָה and the Christian πίστις both rest on the fundamental idea of trust in God. Paul follows in his rendering the Septuagint, but properly omits the μου which these insert: ὁ δίκαιος μου ἐκ πίστεωςζήσεται. Vulgate: justus in fide sua vivet. Most commentators connect ἐκ πίστεως with the verb ζήσεται. But Dr. Lange, with Beza and Meyer, connects ἐκ πίστεως with ὁ δίκαιος, and translates: He that righteous by faith, shall live. See the Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
[61][To δύναμις θεοῦ, comp. 1Co_1:24, where Christ is called θεοῦ δύναμις and θεοῦ σοΦία.—P. S.]
[62][i.e., here rei per instrumentum effectæ pro instrumento, as if we say, the knife cuts, while it is the hand of man that cuts with the knife. So it is the Holy Spirit that operates through the gospel as the instrumentality.—P. S.]
[63][δύναμις θεοῦ is not to be resolved into divine power (Jowett), but the gospel is a power in and through which God Himself works efficaciously, i.e., so as to save the sinner by rousing him to repentance, faith, and obedience. θεοῦ is gen. autoris or rather possessivus. Comp. 1Co_1:18. Alford explains: “The bare substantive δύναμις hero (and 1Co_1:24) carries a superlative sense: the highest and holiest vehicle of the divine power, the δύναμις κατ̓ ὲξοχήν.” Umbreit remarks that the law is never called God’s power, but a light or teaching, in which man must walk.—P. S.]
[64][Or rather: every one, implies the universality; that believeth, the subjective condition, of the gospel salvation; faith being the apprehending and appropriating organ. Paul says not: to every one who is circumcised, or baptized, or obeys the law, but, to every one that believeth. Without faith, sacraments and good works avail nothing. But true saving faith is of course a living faith, including knowledge of the truth, assent to the truth, and trust or confidence in Christ; it submits to all the ordinances of Christ, and necessarily produces good works.—P. S.]
[65][Alford: “Not that the Jew had any preference under the gospel; only he inherits and has a precedence.” Wordsworth: “First, in having a prior claim, as the covenanted people of God: first, therefore, in the season of its offer, but not in the condition of its recipients after its acceptance.” Dr. Hodge refers πρῶτον merely to the priority in time, which is not sufficient.—P. S.]
[66][Or as genitive of origin and procession. See Meyer.—P. S.]
[67][So also Alford: “God’s righteousness—not His attribute of righteousness, ‘the righteousness of God,’ but righteousness flowing from and acceptable to Him.” He then subjoins De Wette’s note. Hodge: “The righteousness which God gives, and which He approves.” He also quotes the remark of De Wette: “All interpretations which overlook the idea of imputation, as is done in the explanations given by the Romanists, and also in that of Grotius, are false.” M. Stuart confounds δικαιοσύνη with δικαίωσις, and explains: “δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is the justification which God bestows, or the justification of which God is the author.”—P. S.]
[68][Hofmann says, l. c., p. Rom 626: “Einerseits bezeichnet δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ eine Gerechtigkeit, welche Gottes ist; andererseits muss nach dem Zusammenhange etwas gemeint sein, das uns zu Theil wird.” He takes the word to mean, not an attribute of God, but a righteousness which God has established, and which constitutes the subject of the gospel preaching, and makes it a power of God unto salvation to every believer. Hence the apostolic office is called ὴ διακονια τῆς δικαιοσύνης. in opposition to the διακονία τῆς κατακρίσεως, 2Co_3:9.—P. S.]
[69][Seventh ed. by Lünemann, § 19, No. 26, p. 118. The article is often omitted before such substantives as are followed by a genitive of possession, e.g., εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ, Rom_1:20; ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αύτῶν, Mat_17:6; νοῦν κυρίου, 1Co_2:16, &c.—P. S.]
[70][Lipsius says, p. 22, without proof: “The general Greek significance of the word δικαιόω remains justum facere, and must therefore have the preference before justum habere.” To this Dr. Liebner, and Wieseler, on Gal_2:16, p. 179, justly object. Lipsius admits, however, that δικαιόω in Paul means justum habere, only not always, nor exclusively.—P. S.]
[71][So also Chrysostom and Theodoret. A modification of this view is Tertullian’s: Ex fide legis in fidem evangelii.—P. S.]
[72][This is only a modification of the preceding explanation, and is substantially held also by Erasmus, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, Wordsworth, Forbes. The sense is: Beginning and ending with faith from one degree of faith to another; faith is a vital principle and constant growth, receiving grace for grace, going from strength to strength, till it is transformed from glory to glory. Development is the law of spiritual as well as physical life; but in all the stages of growth of Christian life, the vital principle is the same; hence ἐκ πίστεως εὶς πίστιν, from or out of faith as the root, unto faith as the blossom and fruit; faith, as Bengel says, the prora et puppis, the fore-deck and hind-deck of a ship—i.e., all in all. Comp. ἀπὸ δόξης εὶς δόξαν, “from glory to glory,” 2Co_3:18, and “from strength to strength,” Psa_84:7.—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the gospel--(The words,…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel--(The words, "of Christ," which follow here, are not found in the oldest and best manuscripts). This language implies that it required some courage to bring to "the mistress of the world" what "to the Jews was a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness" (Co1 1:23). But its inherent glory, as God's life-giving message to a dying world, so filled his soul, that, like his blessed Master, he "despised the shame."
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth--Here and in Rom 1:17 the apostle announces the great theme of his ensuing argument; SALVATION, the one overwhelming necessity of perishing men; this revealed IN THE GOSPEL MESSAGE; and that message so owned and honored of God as to carry, in the proclamation of it, GOD'S OWN POWER TO SAVE EVERY SOUL THAT EMBRACES IT, Greek and Barbarian, wise and unwise alike.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 16. Not ashamed—Though it be the Gospel of the…
16. Not ashamed—Though it be the Gospel of the Jesus crucified as a Jewish malefactor, and though it be in the centre of proud and powerful Rome, with the whole Gentile world pouring contempt upon it, yet is he ready to stand up unshamed and hold forth the cross.
Power—The Gospel is as it were a concrete power, yet power to a given result.
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Every one— Here is universality without limit.
That believeth—And here is the limit. The salvation is intrinsically universal; the limitation is the rejection by those who might accept.
Jew first—Perfectly uniform was the practice of Paul, as appears by the narratives in Acts, to offer the Gospel in every place first in the synagogues of the Jews. (See note on Act_27:18.) The grand reason for this was that the mission of Israel was to be a nation of priests and preachers for the conversion of the world to Jesus Messiah, and so long as a remnant of hope remained that the Jews would be true to this offer, so long to them the first offer should be made. The word Jew, contracted from Judean, is derived from the name Judah, and from the name of a tribe became the name of the race. Greek here stands for Gentile, as the Jews had mostly to do with Greek-speaking Gentiles.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 16. For I am not ashamed] The “for” links…
16. For I am not ashamed] The “for” links this verse to the last thought. At Rome, if anywhere, he might be “ashamed” (Mar_8:38) of the message of a crucified Saviour; a message, too, which pronounced “the whole world guilty before God.” But he was not ashamed of his message, and so was ready to “see Rome.”
the gospel of Christ] Omit the words “of Christ,” on evidence of MSS., &c.
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the power of God] So 1Co_1:18, where “the message of the cross” is spoken of. See too ibid. 23, 24: “we preach Christ crucified … Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Cp. 1Co_2:5. The doctrine of the true Messiah brought to bear God’s energy, to the result of “salvation.”
salvation] This word is here probably used in its largest meaning, including the whole process of mercy from the time of belief onwards; deliverance from doom, sin, and death. Its very frequent reference in N. T. is to the resurrection-glory (see Rom_13:11; 1Th_5:8-9; 2Ti_2:10; Heb_1:14; Heb_9:28; 1Pe_1:5), but it is also used of the present results of grace (2Co_6:2) as (much more often) its cognate verb, to save. See Mat_1:21; Rom_8:24; Eph_2:5; Eph_2:8; 2Ti_1:9; Tit_3:5. The Greek verb and noun include the ideas of rescue from peril, and (more rarely) healing, according to their connexion. But their prevailing reference (in religion) is to rescue rather than to amelioration.
to every one that believeth] Here is given out the “theme” of the Epistle, or more properly of the first chapters; viz., Faith, a trustful acceptance of the Divine Saviour; Faith as the only way of rescue for the human soul from doom and sin; absolute and alone, because of the supreme and absolute glory of the Person, and so of the Work, accepted by “the believer.”—See Appendix C.
to the Jew first] More strictly, both Jew, first, and Greek. So it was historically. But the reference is also to the special relationship of the Jew to the Messianic hope. The Deliverer was of the seed not of Adam only but of David; and the Deliverance therefore had a peculiar and endearing claim on the acceptance of the Jew. The reasoning of the Epistle quite excludes the thought that a Gentile, once believing, was in the least less welcome or less secure than a believing Jew; but this fact leaves room for such a “priority” as that indicated.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (16) The Apostle will not be ashamed of his…
(16) The Apostle will not be ashamed of his mission, even in the metropolis of the world. He cannot be ashamed of a scheme so beneficent and so grand. The gospel that he preaches is that mighty agency which God Himself has set in motion, and the object of which is the salvation of all who put their faith in it, to whatever nation or race they may belong. He has, perhaps, in his mind the reception he had met with in other highly civilised cities. (Comp. Act_17:32.) He had himself once found a “stumbling-block” in the humiliation of the Cross; now, so far from being ashamed of it, it is just that of which he is most proud. The preaching of the Cross is the cardinal point of the whole gospel.
Of Christ.—These words are wanting in the oldest MSS., and should be omitted.
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Power of God.—A powerful agency put forth by God Himself—the lever, as it were, by which He would move the world.
Unto salvation.—The object of this gospel is salvation—to open the blessings of the Messianic kingdom to mankind.
To the Jew first.—Here again we have another exhaustive division of mankind. “Greek” is intended to cover all who are not “Jews.” Before the Apostle was making, what may be called, the secular classification of men, here he makes the religious classification. From his exceptional privileges the Jew was literally placed in a class alone.
It is not quite certain that the word “first” ought not to be omitted. In any case the sense is the same. St. Paul certainly assigns a prerogative position to the Jews. They have an “advantage” (Rom_3:1-2). To them belong the special privileges of the first dispensation (Rom_9:4-5). They are the original stock of the olive tree, in comparison with which the Gentiles are only as wild branches grafted in (Rom_11:17 et seq.). It was only right that the salvation promised to their forefathers should be offered first to them, as it is also said expressly in the Fourth Gospel, that “salvation is of the Jews” (Joh_4:22).
First.—A difficult question of textual criticism is raised here. The word is not found in the Vatican MS. in a citation by Tertullian (circ. 200 A.D.), and in the Græco-Latin Codex Boernerianus at Dresden. In all other MSS. and versions it appears. The evidence for the omission is thus small in quantity, though good in quality; and though it shows, in any case, a considerable diffusion in Egypt and Africa as far back as the second century, internal considerations do not tell strongly either way, but it seems a degree more probable that the word was accidentally dropped in some early copy. Of recent editions, it is bracketed by Lachmann, and placed in the margin by Tregelles and Vaughan.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the gospel (of…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel (of Christ, in the Authorized Version, is very weakly supported by manuscripts; neither is it required), for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and to the Greek. In saying he was "not ashamed," St. Paul may have had in his mind our Lord"s own words (Mar_8:38 and Luk_9:26) We are reminded in this verse of the passage, 1Co_1:17-31, where the idea here shortly intimated is enlarged on. He was fully aware that the pride of Greek philosophy would be likely to despise the message of the cross as "foolishness." It would be strange to them at first, and out of accord with their intellectual speculations. But he was convinced too that in it was contained the one view of things to meet human needs, and such as to commend itself in the end to thinkers, if their consciences could be roused. In preaching to the Corinthians he had indeed purposely refrained from presenting the gospel to them in "words of man"s wisdom," lest the simple message, addressed alike to all, should lose any of its essential power, or be confounded with the human philosophies of the day. But to them also, in his First Epistle, he declares that this was not because it was not "wisdom," as well as "power," to such as could so receive it. Among the more advanced, and therefore more receptive (en toiv teleioiv), he does, he says, "speak wisdom", (1Co_2:6) Christianity having, in fact, its own philosophy, appreciable by them. As is well said in the Exposition of 1 Corinthians in the "Speaker"s Commentary," "No contrast is here at all between reason and revelation, as some think, but strictly between two philosophies the philosophy of God and the philosophy of the world." Therefore to the Greek, as well as to the Jew, he is not ashamed to preach the cross; and in this Epistle, suitably to its purpose more, it may be supposed, than his ordinary preaching he does set forth the Divine philosophy of the gospel. But the message, he adds, is "to the Jew first," because it was to the people of the covenant (cf. Rom_9:4, etc.) that the salvation in Christ was in the first place to be offered. Hence also, in all his missionary work, he first addressed himself to the synagogue, and only when he was rejected there, turned exclusively to the Gentiles. So at Rome too, when he afterwards went there. (Act_28:17-29)
"Not ashamed of the gospel.
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When these words were written by St. Paul, Christianity did not occupy in the world the position that it does now. In the mind of the ordinary Roman, the Jew was regarded almost always with contempt. And when the Christian was at all distinguished from the Jew, it was only to be the subject of more reproachful terms. Some of the most eminent and well-informed of the Roman writers speak of the Christian religion as a pernicious and detestable superstition. The humble origin, too, of the early founders of Christianity was not calculated to impress favourably the worldly mind. If the gospel which told of Christ crucified was a stumbling-block to the Jew, it was indeed foolishness to the Greek and to the Roman too. Yet Paul had not been ashamed of this gospel at Athens; he was not going to be ashamed of it at Rome. He had proclaimed the message of the Nazarene in the city of Plato and Socrates; he would preach it also in the city of Cicero and Seneca. Paul is not afraid to teach where they have taught. He was right. The name of Jesus is a greater name than Plato"s. The religion which Jesus taught has moulded and purified the world. The apostle assigns two reasons why he is not ashamed of the gospel. These are
I ITS PURPOSE. This is indicated by the words "unto salvation" The Greek preposition which is translated "unto" expresses purpose, or tendency, or aim. The purpose of the gospel is the salvation of all who will receive its message. To effect this purpose, the Son of God left the glory of the eternal, and descended into the misery and weariness of a life on earth. For this, he suffered the assaults of the tempter; for this, he passed through the agony of Gethsemane; for this, he bore with patience the lingering torments of the cross. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." The purpose of the gospel is salvation. Let us understand fully the meaning of that great word. Salvation is indeed deliverance from guilt, deliverance from condemnation. But the purpose of the gospel is something more than this. It is to save us also from the power of sin in our hearts and lives. Many professing Christians forget this. They think that faith in Christ is simply to deliver them from punishment in the day of judgment, while they do not allow it to have present, practical influence upon their lives. Let us not deceive ourselves. There is no true salvation where there is not an evidence of present departure from sin and present following after holiness. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Faith, if it is real, will show itself. Salvation is a present thing. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God"s Son, cleanseth us from all sin." The purpose of the gospel is to save us now There are many who long for some power that might save them from themselves, from some evil propensity or passion, from the influence of bad companionships. This salvation it is the purpose of the gospel to effect. "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
II ITS POWER. The gospel, says the apostle, is "the power of God." Here is an encouragement for our faith. This is the second reason why St. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel. Its purpose, no doubt, seemed a very difficult one, but the apostle had no fear for its success. Its earliest messengers were humble men. But the success of their message was in higher and mightier hands than theirs. That sin should be overcome, and men delivered from its power, was the purpose of the Almighty God, and his purpose never fails. In the history of nations we see the gospel proving itself to be the power of God. The moral miracles of Christianity, as Prebendary Row has shown, are the strongest evidence of its Divine origin and power. It has changed barbarism to civilization. It has emancipated the slaves. It has put an end to the cruel sacrifices performed in honour of the heathen gods. It has accomplished moral and social revolutions that to the human eye seemed utterly impossible. So also in the history of individuals. Men who have sunk so low beneath the power of degrading vice that their friends despaired of rescuing them, by the power of the gospel have been brought from death unto life. Jesus, and Jesus only, can cure men of sin"s power. If we but touch his garment, we shall be made whole. No one has any reason to be ashamed of the gospel. Its purpose is a high and noble one, the highest and noblest mission ever undertaken. Its power is not the power of a feeble or a puny arm. It is the power of the living God. These are thoughts to inspire, and not to make ashamed. C.H.I.
Vers. 16, 17. Not ashamed!
Why should he be ashamed? The great metropolis of a world-empire, with its wide-reaching power and permeating law; and he and his gospel! What a contrast it might seem! and how the supercilious Romans might overwhelm him with contempt! For they were not, as the Athenians, ever desirous to hear some new thing. And his gospel? it would be their laughing-stock. Nay, he shall not be ashamed. He will take his stand in the very centre of Rome"s power, and at her fountain-head of righteousness, and there present his gospel. For it was a power, and in it was revealed a righteousness the power of God, the righteousness of God. Let us regard these two aspects now.
I GOD"S POWER. Man plumes himself with pride on the possession of might, but how impotent he is in the grasp of the great God! So, too, the "great powers" of the world"s history: Daniel"s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar"s vision. (Dan_2:31, Dan_2:45) And "the powers that be are ordained of God." God"s power is manifold. The governance of nature, the control of the affairs of men, the influence on the heart. And of this manifold power of God the gospel of Christ is a pre-eminent display.
1. Its aim. "Unto salvation." Life narrow restriction of this term; coextensive with the loss: the man, the life, the world. See Ro 8 for this wide meaning of the word. Man"s very self: ignorant, enslaved, corrupt, and withal estranged from God, and under condemnation. The gospel of Christ works light and liberty and love; it brings pardon and God. Man"s life-history: the gospel of the resurrection. Man"s world: the gospel of the new creation. What splendid visions were these! and how, in comparison, the splendour of Rome"s power paled!
2. Its condition. To him "that believeth.
(1) A reception of the power. Man"s power of resisting God"s grace, through sin; the humble acceptance of God"s grace, through faith.
(2) A realization of the power. God"s grace not merely accepted by the obedient will, but transfused through the whole consciousness.
3. Its range. "To every one;" "To the Jew first, and also to the Greek." God"s large love, whether there had been privilege (the Jews) or non-privilege (the Gentiles), polity or non-polity (ver. 14), culture or non-culture (ver. 14). And all had been prepared of God. Oh, if he might but help towards making the potential into the actual! Rome"s cosmopolitanism was as nothing to this. Was it not a "power of God" that he might be proud to preach?
II GOD"S RIGHTEOUSNESS. The imperial law of Rome. It could not command all the complexities of social intercourse, nor the governance of the man"s self; much less could it lay its grasp on the heart. Nor can man himself make himself righteous; he lacks the heart and the power. But what an empire"s laws can never do, what a man"s own strength can never do, is done by the gospel of Christ: "For therein is revealed," etc.
1. The Divineness of the righteousness. "Of God.
(1) Divine in its origin. All true good from the Creator to the creature. Especially for recovery from a fall.
(2) Divine in its inspiration. Only as having God with us can we be right with God,
(3) Divine in its aim. God the supreme end of all thoughts, desires, purposes, and works.
2. The distinctions of the righteousness. To be brought out more fully in the sequel of the Epistle.
(1) A status: by the atonement of Christ"s redemption. Objectively.
(2) A state: by the constraining love of the redemption. Subjectively. Man seeks to work out his righteousness in the reverse order; from a state to a status. Whole Epistle combats this false principle.
3. The reception of the righteousness. "By faith unto faith.
(1) Of the prerogative of righteousness through Christ: acceptance pure and simple.
(2) Of the power of righteousness through Christ: assiduous, increasing, strong. So all is of faith: the beginning, the progress, the perfecting. "As it is written, The righteous shall live by faith, by believing with all his heart in the saving love of God. Was it not a "righteousness of God that he might be proud to preach?
What is God"s gospel to us? A name? so many words? so many truths? Or a living power, already healing, and working towards the perfect life? "Not in word only, but in power". (1Th_1:5) Again, is it a veil, covering our deformity, and a cloak for our sins? Or a purifying power, making us right that it may make us righteous? "In power, and in the Holy Ghost". (1Th_1:5) Yes; a gospel of holy power, so shall it be a gospel of "much assurance;" and, as Paul was not ashamed to preach it, we also shall learn what those words mean, "Whosoever believeth shall not be ashamed". T.F.L. (Rom_9:33)
Glorying in the gospel
For many reasons the apostle might be supposed ashamed to preach the gospel at Rome. He had been long delayed from fulfilling his purpose to visit that city. The "good news" centred in the mission of a Jew, belonging to a race despised by their masterful conquerors. The story of the cross could not fail to excite ridicule when the Romans heard that this Messiah had been rejected by his own countrymen, and handed over to an ignominious death, and that his disciples Seriously believed that he had risen again from the dead. A kingdom founded on humility and love would seem a fanatical dream. Nor could the preachers point to many of the upper classes who had imbibed this new "superstition." Yet the apostle wavered not; he felt that the gospel could bear strictest scrutiny and comparison, and that it contained a moral force worthy of recognition even by the most slavish worshippers of power. He gloried in the gospel
I AS OVERCOMING MEN WITH MORE THAN HUMAN MIGHT. The desire of power is innate in the breast, and an exhibition of it is eagerly witnessed. The apostle had the intense conviction of the power of the cross, which arose from its mastery over himself and the changes he had seen it effect in his converts everywhere. As the magicians said of old, "This is the finger of God," and as the Samaritans said of the sorcerer, "This man is the great power of God," so the apostle still more logically discerned in the peace of mind, the spiritual liberty and gladness, the lofty aspirations and renewed nature which came to Christians, the demonstration of a supernatural energy, a miraculous power whose source could only be Divine. Believing that Jesus Christ was God"s lever for raising men from death to life, how could the apostle be ashamed of calling attention to this mighty instrument of human elevation? To speak and teach and live with this consciousness of wielding a Divine power is to lose faintheartedness, and to let the ring of conviction in our tones beget acceptance in the listeners. The cure for many doubts is to note historically what Christianity has achieved. Then the very peculiarity of its introduction to the world, of its principle of operation and of its tenets, will the more strongly evidence its origin from above. It is at every point unlike the workmanship of man.
II AS SECURING AN EMINENTLY DESIRABLE RESULT the salvation of men. We may be terrified and disgusted at a force which threatens cruelty and oppression. But the might of the gospel of love is only beneficent in its design and effects. It aims at saving men from the wrath to come, at present deliverance from evil passions, at the development of all that is fairest and most lovely. Its triumph means the healing of the sin-sick soul, the entrance of light into the understanding, and holy joy into the heart. The Romans hated slavery, and proudly exulted in their freedom. They cultivated dignity of manner, and gloried in their world-wide empire and the privileges of their citizenship. Surely they too might perceive that the gospel promised and procured membership in a heavenly indissoluble kingdom, whose subjects were not only guarded from instability of happiness and the domination of mean desires in this life, but should also receive (what their favourite stoical philosophy never proposed) a blissful immortality radiant with honourable service under the King of kings.
III AS OPERATING BY A METHOD UNIVERSALLY AVAILABLE, viz. by faith. It is essential to a panacea intended to bring help and strength to our race, that it should touch the plague-spot of universal disease and recognize the deepest need of man, however his customs, clothing, and language might differ. It is equally necessary that the remedy should assume such a form as to permit of its being received and applied by all, whether learned or uneducated, wealthy or poor, old or young, civilized or barbarous. To hear of the Saviour"s life and death and resurrection as the revelation of Divine holiness seeking the reconciliation of man, to respond to the appeal by simple trust in the Redeemer, this requires no more than the use of the common faculties with which all have been endowed. The news might be long in travelling from Jerusalem to Rome; pride, or gaiety, or intellectualism might stumble at the tidings; but, the Spirit showing the things of Christ to men, the responsibility rested with themselves if by unbelief they barred the heart against the truth. "To every one that believeth" does the gospel prove the spiritual "dynamite," not of destruction, but of salvation. Embrace it, own it, preach it! S.R.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the gospel of…
Rom_1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
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The gospel
What grand truths lie concealed in this Scripture, as in a kaleidoscope! The gospel being its focal point, several easy turns bring into clearest view some of the most precious things of our Christian faith.
I. The first turn presents its efficacy: It is … power.
II. The second its Divinity: It is the power of God.
III. The third its object: It is the power of God unto salvation.
IV. The fourth its impartiality: It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone.
V. The fifth its conditionality: It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
VI. The sixth the order in which it was to be preached to and employed by guilty man: To the Jews first, and also to the Greek. A man who can define it so comprehensively and grandly, could not well be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. In more than the sense of willingness he is ready to preach it anywhere. (W. H. Luckenbach.)
The apostles estimate of the gospel
I. Pauls estimate of the gospel.
1. The gospel is a power. This power is manifested--
(1) In overcoming deeply rooted prejudices. Perhaps no man was more prejudiced than was Paul. Yet he embraced it.
(2) In triumphing over cruel persecutions.
(3) In overturning systems of long-established idolatry. Diana of the Ephesians, worshipped by the world, lost her adherents when the gospel was proclaimed. All the deities of Greece and Rome were soon dethroned. Buddhism, Brahminism, and other isms are furnishing unmistakable signs of decay.
(4) In its influence over mens lives. When imprisonment, stripes, destitution, and disgrace have been powerless to reform, the gospel of Christ has succeeded.
2. The gospel is the power of God. The Jews said this power was of Beelzebub. The Pagans that it was the power of fanaticism. Paul said it was of God.
(1) The gospel scheme was originated by God.
(2) The success of the gospel is of God. Not by might … but by My Spirit, etc.
3. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, Nature exhibits His power in creation. The Deluge furnished proof of His destructive power. The gospel reveals His power to save. It saves--
(1) From present sinfulness. Thou shalt call His name Jesus, because He shall save His people from their sins.
(2) From future wrath.
4. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to believers. The Lord has a perfect right to fix the terms of our salvation.
5. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
II. Pauls personal feelings concerning the gospel. I am not ashamed. Being satisfied of its Divine origin.
1. The poverty of its adherents did not make him ashamed of it. Though our religion had a carpenter for its founder, fishermen for its advocates, and the poor for its supporters, yet Paul was not ashamed.
2. The illiterateness of its adherents did not make him ashamed of it. Paul was a learned man. The vast majority of Jewish rabbis and heathen philosophers despised the gospel. The bulk of Christians were unlearned and ignorant men. Yet Paul was not ashamed.
3. The persecutions of its adherents did not make him ashamed.
Lessons:
1. The apostle was not ashamed to profess the gospel.
2. The apostle was not ashamed to live the gospel.
3. The apostle was not ashamed to preach the gospel.
4. Are you ashamed of the gospel? (W. Sidebottom.)
Not ashamed of the gospel and why
?--The success of Christianity has won for it the respect even of its enemies.
I. The subject which it emphasises--the gospel. In the context we have clearest evidence that a knowledge of certain facts and truths associated therewith existed among those to whom the apostle wrote. These facts and truths all clustered around the person, life work, example, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bare historical record of these, however, was not the gospel any more than mere creeds or systems of Christian truth, however important these may be. The members of the body are the servants of the living soul; so the gospel is the animating spirit which employs as its instruments facts and doctrines, precepts and institutions.
II. The reference which our text implies--Not ashamed of the gospel! Strange language, surely, for Paul to use, is it not? Did he not love the gospel with a most ardent affection? Did he not prize it above all things, and glory in it as an ineffable trust Divinely committed to his charge: How could Paul content himself with declaring that he was not ashamed of the gospel? The reference here implied brings us back to the words in which Christ described His mission to the world at its commencement (Luk_4:18), and also, when replying to the messengers sent to Him by John the Baptist, from the prison (Luk_7:22). Christs heart glowed with love to all; but most intensely towards the poor, the vast struggling masses of humanity, denied universally the rights of citizens and of manhood. Slavery and class privilege were the cornerstone of that Pagan civilisation, then so powerful, and to these the gospel did not offer any terms of compromise; and so its advocates, as Paul tells us, were made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things. Enemies were constantly asserting that this new religion drew to it the dregs of the population--peasants, mechanics, beggars, and slaves. Even long after the time of Paul, when Christianity had won many triumphs, we find Celsus, a haughty, heathen philosopher, remarking that even the Christian teachers were wool workers, cobblers, and fullers--the most illiterate and vulgar of mankind. We can easily understand that some might waver in the good cause, and that others, though favourable, might shrink from embracing it through fear of being treated as persons who had degraded themselves in the social scale. So the apostle Paul comes down for the moment from his wonted high position of glorying in the gospel and adopts a lowlier strain; he was not ashamed of the gospel:
III. The argument upon which this declaration rests. (J M. Cruickshank.)
The distinguishing features of Christianity
Whether religion in general has any rational ground or not, it is certain that human society in the long run is quite impossible without religion. You have heard of the ten great religions of the world. Of these only three have been expansive and conquering religions--Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. To these three the struggle is narrowed down. And as between the three, whether legitimately or illegitimately, the hard, historic fact is, that Christianity is certainly carrying the day.
I. I name as the first distinctive feature of Christianity, the incarnation of God in Christ. History teaches that human nature cannot endure a bald spiritual theism. We have two thoughts of God equally necessary. We think of Him as an Infinite Spirit, wholly separate from matter and superior to it--wise, just, awful in holiness. Hence the pure monotheism now recognised as lying in the background of all the better mythologies. But human weakness, and, above all, human depravity necessitate another conception of God. The human heart, yearning for sympathy in its weakness, and stricken with terror in its defilement, cries out passionately for an Incarnate God. Call it reason and conscience, or call it finite limitation and guilty fear, this uniform importunate demand for an Incarnate God is answered only by our God in Christ.
II. The second distinctive feature of Christianity is atonement. Both Testaments are full of it.
III. The third distinctive feature of Christianity is regeneration. Confession of sin is not confined to Christendom. Universal sacrifice is universal confession. Christianity begins its curative work by a better diagnosis of the disease. It sets in clear light the original rectitude of man, discloses the tempter, and proclaims the fall. (R. D. Hitchcock, D. D.)
On Christianity
I. The character of its Author recommends Christianity to particular regard.
II. The intrinsic excellence of Christianity marks its superiority to every other religious system.
III. Consider the mode of its establishment. (T. Laurie, D. D.)
The Christian evangel, its contents and results
In these words we have exhibited the true spirit of this ambassador of Christ, and the nature of the message he was commissioned to make known. The gospel is no feeble utterance, no mere human speculation composed of sentiments light as air. It is charged with Divine energy, and works out the salvation of all who receive it.
I. Notice that by these words we are assured there is a Divine positive message to man. Paul did not appear before the world as a philosopher, who by the workings of a powerful intellect could solve all the problems of being and knowing which had baffled those who went before him. He did not assume the position of a reformer, whose business was to set in order those things which pertained to the social and political conditions of life. Neither did he maintain the position of an educator who should train minds in the mental products of human genius. Paul was a herald of the King of grace and of glory; he was an ambassador of Christ, a preacher of a positive message of truth and love to all mankind, and which came from the heart of the Eternal. God has looked down from His high and holy abode in tenderest love and righteous mercy, and has made known to us His purposes and desires.
II. Our text teaches us that the burden of this Divine message to man is a person. The gospel is the gospel of Christ--concerning Christ. It came from Him and it is occupied with Him and nothing else.
III. The Christian evangel is charged with Divine power. The magnetism of great men--which is the resultant of their personalities--has more power with those they influence than their wisest counsels. So it is with the gospel. It is powerful, not only because of its truthfulness, or merely because of the love it reveals, but because God in the person of His own Son is in it, and with it, dealing personally with the sinful and the lost. Its efficiency is from Heaven, and the spiritual revolutions it has wrought have been produced, not only by power as power, but by the living spirit of the Lord.
IV. We advance a step further by noticing that the gospel is a saving power. The Roman power was in its outgoings, in very many instances, a power unto destruction. It pulled down, injured, and destroyed; and the more destruction it produced, the greater it was feared, and the more loudly it was applauded. This destroying power is a low, vulgar power. Any person--no matter how weak and wicked--is capable of destroying the finest work of art which ever proceeded from the reason and hand of man. On the other hand, it takes one who is wise, tender, and good inspired by more than human genius--to raise and to save the human soul, and secure the advance and development of the human race. Of all beings who ever appeared in this world, no one has ever been equal to this Herculean task except the Man of Sorrows. He alone can build up the temple of humanity which was pulled down by sin.
V. Finally, it is to be observed that the salvation the gospel works out is to be possessed and enjoyed by faith. Faith is the door by which all spiritual power and upbuilding influences enter the soul. It is receptive in its nature, and takes into the inner man those thoughts, feelings, and persons, which regulate the heart out of which flows the issues of life. He that believeth the testimony of the gospel takes Christ and all that is in Christ into the deepest parts of his spirit. By faith Christ dwells in us the hope of glory and the power of an endless life. (W. Adamson, D. D.)
Gods power unto salvation
If he had been ashamed, could we have so much wondered? Consider the time and the place, and the man and the message. The time was the hideous time of Nero; the place was the city of Rome, in which, as in a sort of moral sewer, all the detestable, and, to us, in many respects, inconceivable wickedness of the world festered. The man was a Jew, one of an ancient and indestructible race, which then, even more than now, the world despised, ill-used, and robbed. The message was this: that a crucified Hebrew had risen from the dead, being the Son of God, with power. And the apostle felt no sort of reluctance with this message. Of this gospel, the apostle tells us these magnificent statements. First, he calls it a gospel, a good news--a good news which could have been discovered only in one way, by revelation from heaven, a good news declared in a life sealed by death, confirmed by resurrection, and written in a book. And this great revelation, which none of the great thinkers of the day had been able to think out, tells us of three great things. It is a revelation of the fatherhood of God, of the redemption of Christ by the power of grace. Then, in the power of this grace, we go on free, reconciled, and strengthened for the duties of life and for the city of God. This is the gospel, there is no other--the free, full, present forgiveness of sin in Christ our Lord. And it is called the gospel of Christ; Christ is the gospel; Christ reveals the Father. And Christ is our Redeemer. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. The gospel of Christ, the apostle calls it, and he goes on to tell us that the gospel of Christ is the power of God. How is it the power of God? It is the power of God because God uses it to convert, and to instruct, and to console, and to inspire. This book that brings us to God makes us like God, it makes us thirst for God, it helps us to be filled with God. And once more it inspires ideas of the power that rules the world; and this power, with its lofty ideals, with its moral principles, with its wonderful history, with its life-giving promises, is the one book in all the world which has done more than anything else to break the chains of the captive, to lift up mortal man to the true dignity for which God intended him. It is the power of God; and yet there is another sense in which it is the power of God, because only God can make it powerful. I think it is upon this great truth that we preachers need to rely more than we have ever relied yet. Not by might, nor by power, but My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. The apostle further defines what he means by power; he says, unto salvation. Salvation from the power of sin; from the dominion of the world; from the yoke of selfishness; from the misery of small, wretched faults which eat and ulcerate the soul like venomous insects; salvation from all that makes life poor and mean; salvation from low idea; salvation from forgetting God. It is the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation, because it tells us whence we came, and to what we go: that we are the sons of God. But there is a limitation to this--unto everyone that believeth. God never makes a man good against his will, He never takes from any one of us our awful freedom. He knows that one day we shall stand to be judged for our works before His Son, to whom He hath committed judgment. How could He punish us for the evil we have done, how could He recompense us for the good which, by His grace, we may have done if He did not leave us free? To everyone that believeth is the gospel a power, and to no one else. It was of this gospel of which the apostle was not ashamed first to accept it for himself, and then to proclaim it to others. He knew, if any man ever yet knew, on whom he had believed. With these last three truths I will leave the subject in your hearts. First, St. Pauls reason for writing to Rome, and afterwards going to Rome, was the sense of his indebtedness. I am a debtor, so we are debtors to God, to the world, to the Church, and in a sense to ourselves and to those who come after us; and just so far as we know what we owe to Christ, and what Christ has done for us, shall we feel the blessed duty and obligation of passing on to others what has been given to us. And then when this is the case, when we feel our obligation, and when each takes such share as we may in what Christ gives us to do, we shall feel the reasonableness of faith--the reasonableness of a reasonable faith. (Bp. Thorold.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ--
I. Because of the heroic character of its witnesses.
II. Because of the influence it has had on civilisation.
III. Because of its adaptability to human necessities.
IV. Because of the promise it gives of eternal life.
I. The heroic character of its witnesses. I think it is Thomas Carlyle who says that the history of a nation is the history of its great men. On the same principle it may be said that the history of Christianity is the history of its heroes. For it is from them and by them that we have given to us practical illustration of the power and processes of the great God-sent religion. And first we turn to Him who was at once the Founder and Finisher of the faith, Jesus Christ, whose life may be said to epitomise the biography of mankind. But perhaps it may be said, Time has lent a fascination to their labours; what they did perforce has been transfigured into something done for love. If it was done perforce, it was the force of Christianity--the force of Jesus Christ, and that is the force of devotion and love. I do not know that history and the lapse of time have done anything to magnify their work. The gospel of Jesus Christ prompts men to acts of as great heroism today as it did in the darker times of history.
II. Because of its influence on civilisation. So silently has this power been exercised, that we are very apt to lose sight of its influence upon the morals of men. And yet in its very secrecy has lain its strength. It began by enforcing the truth of universal brotherhood: the duties of each to all, and of all to each. It flung aside the superstitions of the age. Civilisation without religion! It is impossible. It is fire without warmth; it is motion without progress; it is existence, but it is not life. It becomes in time the very apotheosis of immorality. I have said that the influence of religion is spiritual. But all work which is spiritual eventually reveals itself in the natural, the material. So is it especially, I think, with the Christian faith. What has Christianity done for men in the mass? Each phase of its spiritual activity has its equivalent in the natural world, in society.
III. Because of its adaptability to human necessities. Herein lies the beauty and the blessedness of our religion. It is to this that what in the most sacred sense may be called its success is due. To go back to its earliest days, how did it attract men? It gave rest to the weary, and comfort to the sad; it cheered the mourning and raised the dead to life. Today its methods are the same. How are we to account for this power? Simply, I think, because its Founder was the Man Christ Jesus. He knew what was in man.
IV. Because of the promise it gives of eternal life. It is not a reward; it is a development. And even if it were only a reward, I am too human to disregard its value as an element in the teaching of Jesus Christ. A religion which provides for this world only is no religion at all. (R. Barclay, M. A.)
The nature and claims of the gospel
I. What are we to understand by the gospel of Christ? Christianity, or the scheme of religion revealed in the New Testament.
1. The things it proposes to our faith. These are of several sorts. Some of them are merely historical; others purely authoritative, and some partly historical and partly authoritative. Of this latter class are the truths relating to the Incarnation of Christ.
2. The things which the gospel commands to be practised.
II. What are the reasons for not being ashamed of this gospel, but, on the contrary, for embracing it, and glorying in it, with all the heart?
1. Its incontrovertible truth.
2. Its incomparable excellence. Compare the system, in its doctrines and duties, with all other systems.
(1) What has been the worship of the heathen religions? Ceremonies, penances, and orgies; many that were puerile, painful, cruel, and obscene. And are these to be compared with a worship contemplative, devout, reverential, filial, such as that of Christianity?
(2) What have been the duties inculcated by other religions? How questionable and scanty their moral code! But what weed escapes in the moral garden of Scripture?
(3) It is, however, in its state of future rewards and punishments that the gospel far outshines every other system.
3. Its sovereign efficacy. It is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth. Its objects and sentiments are not merely to fall upon the ear, or to remain before the eye, but to enter into the mind and accomplish its renovation.
III. What are the objections urged by men against this system and by which they attempt to justify their neglect of it? These may be easily shown to be trivial.
1. Do they object that they can arrive at the knowledge of the truth of the New Testament history, only in a secondary way--only from the testimony of others--and that, therefore, they are not so responsible for their unbelief as these other would be? This, however, is felt to be no prejudice to the truth of any other history, and no argument for its disbelief.
2. Do they object to severity of the gospel requirements? The gospel requires us to crucify only our sins; to deny ourselves only what would be injurious to us. The virtues it inculcates it renders easy to us by a new nature, and productive of a present happiness surpassing every other kind of happiness.
3. Do they object the incomprehensibleness of many things which the gospel states to exist? If God has not revealed them, reject them for their incomprehensibleness; if He has, receive them for His veracitys sake.
Conclusion:
1. How awful is their condition who oppose the gospel! What excuse can there be for this? What evil has the gospel done? What attestation does it lack? What good has it not done?
2. How pitiable is their condition by whom the gospel of their salvation is practically disregarded! We are about to be wrecked; the gospel is the only plank left for our escape to the shore; and while we neglect to seize it, our danger increases, and the destructive waves bear us nearer and nearer to our doom.
3. Let them who have received the gospel, and who, in addition to all other evidence, have that of experience in its favour, attach themselves closely to it.
4. The gospel is a subject of triumph to Christians, as through life, so especially at the hour of dissolution. Its grandest objects are those of another world. (J. Leifchild.)
St. Pauls confidence in the gospel
St. Pauls enthusiasm for Christ is one of the great problems of history. That such a man should deliberately renounce all his advantages, and embark on a career which involved obloquy and suffering, is a fact that has to be accounted for. His own explanation is clear enough, viz., that the Lord Jesus appeared to him under circumstances which left no room for doubt as to His person and His claims; that the evidences he received of Christs love acted on him like an irresistible constraint to yield to those claims; and that to discharge them he had become a preacher of a gospel which he knew to be the power of God unto salvation to a perishing world. The world, therefore, was his creditor until the glad tidings had been everywhere proclaimed. By the time he wrote this letter Paul had been able to wipe off no inconsiderable portion of his debt. But he felt that until he had seen Rome the greatest portion of the debt must remain unpaid, and that at Rome the most favourable opportunities would be afforded for paying it. Once firmly rooted there the gospel would spread its branches everywhere. So he says, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome. Here the apostle seems to pause to take breathing time, so that he might calculate his resources for an enterprise the like of which he had never yet attempted. At Rome! Yes, at Rome also, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. I was not ashamed of it at sacred Jerusalem, at philosophical and artistic Athens, at commercial Ephesus and Corinth, any more than among my own friends at Tarsus, or among the unsophisticated heathen at Lystra. And now, although I shall have to confront in combination at Rome all the forces I have elsewhere met singly, I am not ashamed of the gospel.
I. The apostles confidence in the gospel. To fully appreciate this we must--
1. Reflect where the apostle was writing to. If St. Paul could have been ashamed of the gospel it would certainly have been when brought into juxtaposition with Rome. The incredible tenets of some obscure Hindoo or Chinese sect would hardly appear to greater disadvantage in London than would Christianity in that proud capital of the world. For Rome was now in the zenith of her glory. Yet before this wondrous city, where all that constituted what was then thought greatness existed in colossal proportions, the advocate of a creed which was everywhere spoken against, and to whom, as a provincial, the grand metropolis, we may be sure, would lose none of its glamour, says, I am ready to preach the gospel at Rome; for I am not ashamed of the gospel.
2. Notice where the apostle was writing from. St. Paul had only recently been prosecuting a vigorous ministry in Ephesus which had been brought to a riotous close. From Ephesus Paul went to Corinth, where he wrote to Rome, and where there was enough to put a far less sensitive mind than his to the blush, and enough for some men to utterly discredit the pretensions of a religion claiming to be heavenly and Divine. And again, he had just learned how the gospel had fared among the Churches of Galatia, and the memorable Epistle to these Churches unfolds one of the most tragic of all the stories of early Christianity. Riot and scandal and failure had been the result of three of the most recent experiments of the gospel, and Paul knew the impression that they would make at Rome. And besides, were these results to be repeated there on a gigantic scale? But such was the apostles faith in the gospel that, with Ephesus, Corinth, and Galatia behind him, and Rome, with its unmeasured and complicated problems before him, he nevertheless declares, I am ready to preach the gospel in Rome, etc.
3. Consider what that gospel was of which he was not ashamed at Corinth when writing to Rome.
(1) It was a system of vast pretensions, with no apparent means of supporting them. The Roman government was exceeding tolerant of the diverse faiths of its heterogeneous peoples. But the gospel scorned to ask for a simple toleration as it afterwards declined to receive an honourable patronage. It aimed at universal supremacy. And what were its means for furthering its amazing pretensions? There was no known force in the world beside which it did not look contemptible. It had no history. It was a word, and therefore could not compete with the power of arms. It had no public buildings, and scarcely anything that could be called a ceremonial. From a political, intellectual, and religious standpoint nothing seemed so feeble as the gospel. Nor did its advocates dissemble in the least in this particular. Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble were called. The chiefest among them were fishermen and tent makers, and the rest, for the most part, artisans or slaves. They came in much weakness, and were content to let the gospel go on its own merits, and on those merits they insisted with a confidence that startled the world.
(2) It was a system whose principles seemed least likely to succeed. Its Author belonged to a race nowhere so detested as at Rome, and yet the Romans were asked to accept the crucified Jew as the Son of God, who had died and had risen again to be their Saviour. Forgiveness and salvation, words of insult to patrician and plebeian alike, must be sought on the humiliating conditions of penitence and faith. In urging these the gospel appealed to sentiments which were a degradation for a Roman soldier to encourage, and to hopes and fears which he scorned to entertain, Those who embraced it were charged with duties alien to their nature, and with the exercise of virtues for which no existing vocabulary could provide a name. In return it offered privileges in this life on which the Romans would set no value, and a destiny in the next from which they would turn with scorn. And Paul had discounted all this, He had once himself regarded and persecuted the gospel as a foolish and offensive thing, And so had people everywhere. In Rome, of all places, was this general verdict least likely to be reversed. Nevertheless, he says, I am ready to preach the gospel in Rome, etc.
II. The grounds of the apostles confidence in the gospel.
1. Paul sounded the apparent power of Rome and found it weakness. As the apostle gazed at Rome he saw a colossal fabric whose foundations were sand. The empire was built up in utter disregard of the forces on which power has ultimately to depend. The mere lust of power was satiated; but with its gratification everything that made it worth the having went to wreck.
(1) The nations poured their luxury into the lap of Rome; but with their treasures came their filth, and that which made her the embodiment of this worlds glory, made her the receptacle of its corruption and its shame. Military plunder brought vast wealth into hands that knew not how to use it. It had, however, to be spent, and an era of extravagance set in. Family life was extinguished. Divorce, and worse, was rife, and infanticide was fearfully prevalent. What political life had become may be guessed by the positions to which a Caligula and a Nero, a Pilate and a Felix, might attain, and the means they employed to attain them. The consequences were inevitable. The age was fast wearing itself out. Wholesale indulgence was inducing an intolerable lassitude which refused relief from the ordinary means of excitement. A monstrous ingenuity had to be called into play to invent new pleasures and hitherto inconceivable vices, and the end could not be far off when death by suicide was recommended and embraced as a refuge from the tedious superfluity of a life which had exhausted all possible means of gratification.
(2) Equally gigantic evils in another direction also sprang from the satiated lust of power. The swarms of captives who survived the butchery which celebrated the military triumphs had to be provided for. A system of slavery was therefore introduced, for which it would be impossible to find a parallel. Not the least evil of the system consisted in its wholesale adoption in trade and agriculture, from which the freemen were gradually driven, to the extinction of a middle class. Thus there grew up a free population, released from the obligations and opportunities of labour, and eventually despising it as beneath the dignity of a Roman citizen, who became mere loafers and parasites. This teeming, lazy, and because such, dangerous class had to be kept quiet. It was not enough that they were fed by the State, and that they received occasional doles from their lordly patrons. They caught the prevalent unrest and craving for excitement, and developed vicious instincts, which had, at all costs, to be gratified. Hence the savage amusements of the amphitheatre. Hence the open and unabashed practice of every form of moral abomination, of which there was an unlimited provision at a cheap rate. Is there, then, no relief to this terrible picture? Was there no salt that could purify this poisoned fountain? The answer is--none. Religion, which had been powerless to check the progress of corruption, became incurably tainted with it, and eventually succumbed to it. Worship was but one of the outlets for the passion for excitement, and was made the cover for the most licentious orgies. Of course, widespread infidelity prevailed; but the very Atheists surrendered themselves wholesale to still baser systems of superstition and imposture. Philosophy was the last hope of the age; but that, alas! was dying of despair. The apostle saw all this moral rottenness and had already predicted its doom. Christianity, however humble, he felt, could not suffer by comparison. He said, therefore, with the utmost confidence, I am ready to preach the gospel at Rome, etc.
2. Paul proved the apparent weakness of the gospel and found it power. He knew that under the seeming weakness of its infancy lay the germs of a mighty manhood, which would soon measure itself with Rome and wrest from its senile grasp the sceptre of the world. This knowledge was born of a personal experience of its power.
(1) It was the power of God. It might seem weak, but then he felt that the weakness of God is stronger than men. The gospel was a word, but it was the word of God. A word of God brought the universe into being, and by the Divine word it is still upheld. It was but a word that was spoken at the grave of Lazarus, but at that word the power of death was shattered. To the Word of the gospel a Divine power was guaranteed in a special sense. Its preachers were filled with His inspiration, and were endowed by Him with tongues of flame. Mighty promises urged them forward with it; and so, as they preached it, their word was with power, and it grew mighty and prevailed. The want of this Divine power reduces the greatest human force to impotence. Rome was built up by force of arms, but were is Rome today? Our schools of thought are created by the power of intellect, but how many survive their own generation? Human power, like its embodiment, is as grass, and the glory thereof is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of our God shall stand forever. And this Word is that gospel of which, in the presence of the splendid rottenness of Rome, St. Paul was not ashamed, because it was the power of God.
(2) It was the power of God directed to the mightiest result. The weakness of Rome largely lay in the inability of its leading men to measure the worlds needs, and in the inadequacy of the best systems of the age to supply them. But the power of the gospel consisted in the fact that it could penetrate the secret of the worlds wretchedness and despair, and articulate it. The gospel met man at once with the most searching diagnosis of sin, but told how that God commended His love toward men in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for them. And men began to realise what it was to be saved. This was what men wanted, and what nothing else could give them. The gospel succeeded in accomplishing results that nothing else was competent to reach--nay, even to conceive. And the apostle was therefore not ashamed of the gospel, etc.
(3) It was a power available for all men.
(a) It was offered to every man. It began, as it has continued, not by dealing with the mass, but by dealing with individuals.
(b) This universal offer was to be accepted on the condition of faith. The embrace of the hearts faith was and is necessary to quicken it into a salvation. The word could not profit where it was not mixed with faith in them that heard, but it worked effectually in them that believed.
(c) This condition was within the compass of every mans ability. The evils which the gospel proposed to remedy were worldwide. If the remedy therefore were to be equal to the evil, the conditions of its application must be within the reach of all. All the gospel asks is to be embraced, and surely every man can do that. Paul lived long enough to repeat this boast after a ministry at Rome. With what emphasis would he repeat it could he stand where we stand today! And how he would endeavour to make those tongues which, eloquent on every other, are dumb on this great theme aflame with a live coal from off the altar, and the vehicles of this solitary boast, I am not ashamed of the gospel, etc. (J. W. Burn.)
Pauls holy audacity in regard to the gospel
Courage is of two kinds. There is the hardihood which can face danger, and there is the intrepidity which can confront shame. The former can only be where the danger is without dishonour, and the latter where the shame is without desert. The former is an instinctive and animal endowment, while the latter is an acquired virtue and a moral quality possessed only by man. It is physical courage which we admire in the soldier who stands unmoved in front of blazing musketry; in the sailor, lashed to the wheel, and steering his tumbling vessel across the foaming waves, or in the traveller of science scaling untrodden heights: but it is a much higher, rarer, and Diviner quality which we admire in the pious workman who rebukes the ribaldry and oaths of his fellow craftsmen. Rarely does it happen that these two kinds of courage meet in the same individual. You may see the undaunted hero of a battlefield crimson with shame and rage to be twitted for his virtue, or the firm heroine of the household tremble to hear an unusual noise. In Paul, however, the union may be found; and it is this which ranks him among the kingliest of men. Let us ponder a few of the reasons of Pauls holy audacity. Note--
I. The end proposed: Mans salvation, an object not only aimed at but achieved.
1. Salvation may be viewed either as an individual benefit or as a social one. On the one hand, it is a blessing for everyone that believeth; on the other hand, it is needed by the race at large, and the gospel proposes to accomplish the salvation of mankind in both these aspects. In saying this we oppose those who speak and act as if the whole aim of the gospel was to pick out themselves, and a few other individuals, from the mass devoted to destruction, and translate them one by one to a better world. And we also oppose the vague dreams of rationalistic philosophers who profess to be engrossed with a noble concern for the good of mankind at large. The peculiarity of the gospel is that it begins with the individual, and so seeks, as its last result, the salvation of the community.
2. It may be regarded as either an inward or outward process. Inward salvation is sanity or soundness; outward salvation is deliverance and safety. Each one of us needs to be both restored to righteousness and rescued from hell.
3. It is negative and positive. There is much sin and suffering from which we are saved by it; but there is also much of holy attainment and heavenly joy to which we are raised by it.
II. The power employed.
1. Its source is Divine; and this in so direct a way that its very nature is Divine. It is the power of--
(1) Gods truth, revealing to us both His nature and our own state.
(2) Love appealing to us to subdue our enmity and incite us to gratitude and trust.
(3) All urgent motives addressed to our hopes and to our fears.
(4) Precious promises whereby we are offered a filial position in Gods family, and a final lot among all the sanctified.
(5) The power of the Holy Ghost, who helpeth all our infirmities. This is the gospel, the power of God unto salvation, because it has God Himself in it and with It.
2. Its extent. The gospel is as strong as God. It can do all that He can do.
(1) As to individual souls, it can save any and it can save all. It can deliver from all sin, and enrich with all the treasures of holiness.
(2) And so for society generally and the world at large. Here is a Divine and all-availing expedient for the regeneration of the species, and the establishment of righteousness and peace through all the earth. (W. M. Taylor.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
We have no reason to be ashamed of--
I. The evidence by which it is supported.
1. Historical. Take the testimony of Paul. He was a contemporary of Christ; he conferred with the apostles; he saw the Lord. In his four undisputed Epistles he embodies all the facts of gospel history. His testimony is unexceptionable, for he was too sane to be imposed upon, too disinterested to be an impostor.
2. Prophetical. The canons of prophecy are that it should be long anterior to the event; that it should be so constructed that the story of its fulfilment could not be manufactured out of the mere study of its terms, and that its fulfilment be undesigned and in full correspondence with it. Apply these to Isa_53:3. Moral. How can we account for the difference between the character of Christ and that of His age? The age could produce a Nero, but not a Christ.
II. The intellectual calibre of its chief representatives. Although not exclusively fitted for intellectual giants, but for the least intelligent also, yet in every age it has produced champions able to cope with the most gifted of its opponents.
III. The effects it has produced.
1. Individually. It has made the drunkard sober.
2. Domestically. It has given sanctity to the marriage tie and blessed little children.
3. Socially. It has stood between class and class as the good Samaritan.
4. Politically it has laid the foundation of liberty. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
I. The nature of this avowal. Not ashamed.
1. Of what is this spoken? Of the gospels--
(1) Doctrines.
(2) Precepts.
(3) Threatenings.
(4) Promises.
(5) Privileges.
2. By whom? Paul--
(1) The gifted.
(2) The disinterested.
(3) The self-sacrificing.
3. To whom? Rome--
(1) The great.
(2) The intellectual.
(3) The cruel.
4. What is implied in it?
(1) That he gloried in the gospel.
(2) That he held everything else in comparative contempt.
II. Its ground.
1. The Divine energy of the gospel.
2. The powerful combination against which it has to contend.
3. Its saving efficacy.
4. Its impartiality.
Learn--
1. The evil of religious cowardice.
2. The necessity of consistency in religion.
3. Your obligation to make it known.
4. Your duty to expect that your efforts will be successful. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
I. What there is in the gospel, to make carnal men ashamed of it.
1. It proceeds upon principles so contrary to the natural man, and so brings down human reasoning and the pride of intellect, that men are shocked at its positions and requirements.
2. It exposes a mans great idol.
3. It demands absolute submission.
4. The world attributes regard to it to weakness of either the head or heart.
5. It levels men.
II. Why Paul was not ashamed of it. Because he knew it to be--
1. The power of God.
2. The power of God to the greatest end--salvation. (R. Cecil, M. A.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
The solitary grandeur of the imperial city; Pauls knowledge of Romes own and its borrowed glories, as a centre of power; his courage in meeting the contemptuous estimate which ancient society passed upon the truth of God.
I. Some elements of power in the gospel.
1. Great in--
(1) Motives.
(2) Penalties.
(3) Sacrifices.
(4) Inspirations.
2. These forces Paul had seen exerted on individuals and on communities. They were--
(1) Moral forces.
(2) Universal.
(3) Permanent.
II. Having seen and felt these beneficent influences, Paul gloried in the same. We urge--
1. Pauls interpretation of the gospel is vital in its power. The doctrines of sin, atonement, the Holy Spirit and eternal retribution, cannot be eliminated and any power remain. A glass crowbar could as well tunnel the Alps.
2. That each of us trust the gospel as heartily as did Paul. Exemplify its power here, and enjoy its fruition in the perfect felicity of heaven. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
There were reasons which made it needful for Paul to say this. The gospel was then a contemptible thing. Its Author had been despised and executed. Its character was at variance with the traditions of men, and, above all, of the Pharisees. Its followers were looked upon as the scum of the earth. But, amid all this, there was a man of the highest intellect and the noblest powers, who knew the gospel and knew the world, standing forth and declaring in the face of all that he was not ashamed of it. Consider it--
I. Intellectually. As a scheme it is more magnificent than any mind of man could have conceived. No systems of philosophy possess its grandeur or power. The gospel is no puny, drivelling, or paltry imitation. Other systems have been propounded, but all are borrowed more or less from the gospel.
II. Morally. It is the purest system of morality which the world has known. Gods spotless purity is made the model for human conduct. But the gospel is not only a system of morality, it is a means thereto. It teaches men how they may become holy. Its chief object is to purify and to destroy the evil which is in the world.
III. Historically. It affords an outline of history of which but for it we should know nothing. That which it is requisite for us to know--the life of Christ, and the particulars of the way of salvation--are fully developed.
IV. Its purpose. It is the gospel--good news, and it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation is a great word. What can we wish for more than it includes? Its object is to transform human nature. It is to glorify the soul, to exalt the spirit, to give us thrones in the kingdom of heaven, to purge us from the dross of sin. Is this a thing whereof to be ashamed? (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Not ashamed of the gospel of Christ
There are three gradations of artists. The lowest is one who is able to reproduce an exact representation of natural objects as they appear to ordinary eyes. A higher type is where one brings to objects a clearer eye than belongs to most men. There is a third and rare artist power, where the things represented are, as it were, but instruments to represent the effect produced upon the mind of the artist by the scene, or the event, or the thing. Now, upon this scale Paul was the greatest moral artist of the world. All the way through, it was the unconscious endeavour of the apostle to represent truths as they reflected themselves upon the sensitive surface of his glowing soul. Instead of showing what were all the wonderful elements that in his view constituted it, he reflects what the impression was of the whole gospel of Christ upon his sensitive soul. I am not ashamed. Well, why should he have been? Every one of us would say it now; but not one of us would have said it in his time, perhaps. In our time, yes. And it is a matter of much interest to imagine what would be Pauls thought if he were permitted to discern the Christianity of the present age and all its triumphs, its monuments, its power, its wealth, its learning, its refinements.
1. If he had looked out into the world and at the external forms and organisations of the Church, what would he have had occasion to be ashamed of?
2. And if Paul had seen the pomp of their worship, and their worship in the pomp of architecture which had been inspired and created by them, he would not have occasion to express a feeling of shame.
3. Still less could he have been insensitive to the literature and the learning that have been inspired among devout scholars all over the world, and that have sprung from Christianity.
4. And still more would he have been in sympathy with the outpouring of the spirit of manhood, the enthusiasm of humanity, that has sprung from the temper of the gospel, and has gradually crept into the laws, and ameliorated the theory of morals, and softened and sweetened the whole intercourse of human life; and that, moreover, has made man helpful to man.
5. More beautiful still to Paul, who had the art of discerning much from little, would have been the exhibitions of the Christ spirit in its humbler workings among Christian men and in Christianity unorganised, or but slightly organised.
6. More yet, to him, would it have been to have seen what a class of men and women had arisen in every household, and become scattered up and down through every village and hamlet of the land. Domestic life, its purification and its exaltation, would have been a glorious sight to his eyes. As one that should go across a prairie and carry a bag filled with the rarest seeds and give them to the north wind that scattered them south, and to the south wind that scattered them north, every whither, might, years afterwards, when he goes over the same ground, rejoice to see, in the midst of many coarse weeds and much choking grass, here and there ledges and beds of flowers; so if Paul should come down to our day, and see the seeds he has sown which are every day springing up in the household, would not he be filled with more than gratitude and wonder--with transcendent transport? Of course he would not be ashamed. Nobody is ashamed of the gospel now except those of whom it is ashamed. (H. W. Beecher.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
We are not ashamed of the gospel because it is--
I. Divine power.
1. The history of Christianity among the nations of the earth has established its claim to power. Its progress has often been in the face of bitterest hostility, without the help of worldly patronage. It proved more than a match for the iron despotism of Rome, and it has never failed for eighteen centuries to make its enemies its footstool.
2. The secret of this amazing power is that God is behind it. Nothing but Divine influence could account for such uniform and unfailing triumphs. Other systems may show the power of man, but the gospel shows the power of God. It brought into the world a force unknown before.
II. Saving power. The power seen in creation and providence is truly Divine, but not necessarily saving. Nor will the power that resides in the gospel result in salvation, unless it is accompanied by the influence of the Spirit. The gospel--
1. Comes with a message of forgiveness to guilty man. Sin is the disease, and in Gods hands alone is the remedy.
2. It is a power for the renewal of mans nature. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? This is a task beyond unaided human resources. Man can neither begin the work of grace in his heart nor carry it on after it is begun.
III. Universal power. To everyone that believeth. The glory of the gospel consists not only in its Divine origin or saving efficacy, but also in its universal adaptation. It suits the needs of mankind everywhere. It reaches out a helping-hand to all, without respect to nation or social standing. (D. Merson, M. A.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
I. Justify the high claim here made for the gospel. Paul was not ashamed of--
1. Its origin. The advocates of other systems had reason to be ashamed of their origin.
2. Its sentiments--
(1) Of God. God is light, love, purity.
(2) Of man. His degradation, guilt, helplessness.
(3) Of salvation and of the influences of the Spirit to make that salvation known with power to every heart.
(4) Of a future state. Which of these sentiments can cause shame?
3. Its practical tendency. It is a system of purest morals springing from the purest motives--gratitude and love. It shows us a temper without a flaw, and a life without a stain; and it says, We ought to walk as He also walked.
4. Its efficacy. The efficacy of the ancient systems was nothing. But the gospel is the power of God to salvation.
II. Who are guilty of being ashamed of the gospel? One would suppose that none could ever be ashamed of it; but, alas! there is reason to fear that some are.
1. Such are those preachers and writers who know the truth, but conceal it by specious arguments.
2. In the social circle how many are ashamed of the gospel!
3. In private life there is not that attention to religion which there should be. Young Christians are too often ashamed because of the sneers of those around them. (B. Rayson.)
Not ashamed of the gospel
The botanist is not ashamed of the insignificant plant which he prefers before the rose and the jasmine, because of its healing properties and powers. The gardener is not ashamed of the tiny, dusky little seed, because he knows that God has endued it with hidden virtues which He has denied to the diamond and ruby. Thus the apostle was not ashamed of the gospel, because it could accomplish what the law was powerless to do; and because from his own personal experience he knew that it was able to produce a mighty and spiritual change in a mans whole character and life. (C. Nell, M. A.)
Not ashamed of the gospel of Christ
1. Years ago the subject of the extension of the Church would have suggested questions of one kind only--viz., that it was desirable, and possibly discussions would have turned upon the best means of carrying it out. Now you only raise in certain minds the previous question, whether it is worth the effort.
2. St. Paul is led to use this expression by an association of ideas which is easy to trace. In Rome also. Before his imagination there rises the imperial form of the mistress of the world. And this vision for a moment produces a momentary recoil, so that, like a man whose course has been suddenly checked, he falls back to consider the resources at his disposal. There is a moments pause and then, I am not ashamed, he says.
3. He is not ashamed of the gospel. We are struck at first by the reserved and negative phrase. It seems to fall so far below the requirements of the occasion and the character of the man. Elsewhere the apostle uses very different language from this. He loves to call the gospel, just as the Jews call their law, his boast. The truth is the apostle is not using a rhetorical figure at all. His negative and measured phrase is imposed on him by the thoughts which rise before him. He is resisting the feeling which threatens to overawe him, and it is in protesting against this feeling, and in thus disavowing it, that he cries, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why, you may ask, should he be ashamed of it? Note--
I. The apparent insignificance of the gospel relatively to the great world of thought and action represented by and embodied in Rome.
1. The very name was a symbol of magnificence and power. Rome was the seat of empire, the centre of society, the home and the patroness of learning and thought, the great centre of the current religions. She was in ancient civilisation what Paris is to France; everything else was provincial.
2. And the gospel--how did it look when placed in juxtaposition with Rome? Was it not relatively to everything else, as far as the natural sense and judgment of man could pierce, poor and insignificant?
(1) The estimate which a French academician might be supposed to form of Quakerism is probably not unlike the estimate which approved itself to the most cultivated minds in Rome respecting the religion of St. Paul.
(2) And then if it meant to propagate itself, what was its organisation? How could a few unnoticed congregations challenge any sort of comparison with the mighty system of the imperial rule?
(3) Where was its literature? How could it compete with the genius of poets and historians who had the ear of the world?
(4) Where were its leading men when set side by side with the accomplished statesman who had created, and who still from time to time ruled the empire? Yes, Rome must overawe, by the magnificence of its collective splendours, the pretensions of any system, or of any teacher coming from an out-of-the-way corner of the empire, on a commission to illuminate and to change the world.
3. True enough Paul had his eye on higher things; but his was too sympathetic a nature not to be alive to what was meant by Rome. Yet the splendours of Rome do not overawe him. He is not enslaved by the apparent at the cost of the real; he knows that a civilisation which bears a proud front to the world, but which is rotten within, is destined to perish. Already, five years before, he has shown in one line in 2 Thessalonians that he forsees the end of all this splendour. In Christian eyes Alaric and his Goths were at the gates of Rome before their time.
4. St. Paul was well aware of the insignificance of the gospel when measured by all ordinary human standards. It was his own observation that not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But then, in his estimate of the relative value of the Divine and the human, this did not matter; for God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty.
II. The appearance of failure which had clung to the gospel.
1. Remember that he was writing from Corinth, and what was the Church there a short year before in the judgment of the apostle himself. Its discipline forgotten; its unity rent by schisms; fundamental articles of the faith were denied among its members; scandals permitted such as were not even named among the heathen. Of all this the apostle was sufficiently conscious; and yet with Corinth behind him, and Rome with its gigantic and unattempted problems before him, he still exclaims, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
2. And the truth is that in this matter St. Paul distinguished between the ideal revealed from above as in his Masters mind, and the real, embarrassed by the conditions imposed on it by fallen human nature. He knew that the treasure of the faith was deposited in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the glory might be of God and not of us. And, therefore, Paul for his part was not surprised. The failure lay not in the gift, but in the recipient. It was still possible to believe that a new power had entered into human nature which was not therefore incapable of raising and saving human nature, because it did not suspend mans free will and overrule his instincts of resistance and mischief.
III. The substance of the message.
1. Paul was well aware that there were features in the Christian creed which were in the highest degree unwelcome. Less than this he cannot mean by the offence of the Cross, or Christ crucified foolishness to the Greeks. How was this teaching, familiar enough to our generation but strange beyond all measure to the men who heard it from its first preachers, to compass acceptance and victory? Was it the cogeny of the evidence? No doubt much of the earliest teaching of the apostles was devoted to enforce this. Certainly the resurrection of Christ was sufficiently well attested, and yet its witnesses were not believed. Mere demonstrative evidence, although at first hand, has no effect against a strong and hostile predisposition of the will.
2. And here it is that the apostle may give us his own reason for not being ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for not despairing of its capacity to win a cynical and scornful world. He says that it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. There is lodged in it a secret impetuosity which pours forth from it into the human soul, with the result of bearing down all opposition and landing it safely on the eternal shore. And by this gospel he means no mere fragment of it, such as Christian morality without Christian doctrine, or as the atonement without the grace and power of the sacraments. For all, all is really included in that free unmerited gift of righteousness which faith receives at the hands of Christ, and which robes the believer in the garments of salvation. St. Paul knew that this had been his own experience. Since that scene on the road to Damascus he had been another man, he had lived a new life. Old things had passed away, and all things had become new. And as with himself, so with others. The gospel had made many a man, whom he knew, utterly unlike his former self. The religion of Jesus Christ is here upon ground peculiarly its own. There are many claimants in our modern world for the throne which it has owned for eighteen hundred years. But whether the eye rests upon the masters who have done so much for mind, or upon the masters who have spent themselves in manipulating matter, what has been achieved by these great and distinguished men that could be described as the power of God unto salvation? No: the deeper aspects of human life, and much more the grave and real significance of death, are quite beyond them.
3. And yet, even here, a lingering feeling might well be experienced, I do not say of shame, but of hesitation. Those to whom the saving power of Christs gospel is intimately certain, cannot without difficulty bring themselves to talk about it. We do not any of us readily talk about that which really touches us. Men have no objection to talk politics, because politics address themselves to those common sympathies and judgments which we share with others. But no man will consent to discuss, if he can help it, his near relations or some family interest in public. This motive operates not infrequently in the case of religion. Religion twines itself round the heart like a family affection. The relations of each soul to the Lord of souls are quite unique; and therefore the very best of men are not unfrequently the least able to talk freely on the one subject respecting which they feel most deeply. Doubtless so human and sympathetic a nature as St. Pauls would have felt this difficulty in its full force, and yet we know how completely he overcame it. If he did not yield to the instinct which would have sealed his lips and stilled his pen, this is so because he knew that the gospel of his Lord and Master was not really, like some family question or interest, a private matter for him. The friend of his soul was the rightful, the much-needed friend of every human being. And therefore no false reserve could permit St. Paul to treat the gospel as a private or personal interest. Conclusion: In their degree the feelings which may have been present to St. Pauls mind will have been our own. Pagan Rome has perished, and yet that which it represented to the apostles eye is still in a modified form before us. And yet to those who can take a sober measure of men and things there are no reasons for being ashamed of Christs gospel. The world which confronts us is really not more splendid nor yet more solid than the empire which has long since gone its way. The religious weakness and disorganisation which alarms us in the Church is not greater than that which was familiar to St. Paul. Modern attacks upon the faith are not more formidable than those which he refuted. And the gospel is now what it was then, only to a much greater multitude of souls, the power of God unto salvation.
1. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Here is a fitting motto, not merely to Christs great apostle, but--
(1) To the humblest and weakest of His ministers. No man who wears His livery can be ashamed of His gospel without incurring even the scorn of the world.
(2) For every young man who is entering upon life. You know what is practically meant by being ashamed of the gospel. The creed is best confessed in the life of the believer.
(3) For a nation which owes to Christs gospel so great a debt as England has owed it now for 1,400 years. They tell us, indeed, that the gospel is an admirable guide of life for the individual, but that it has no business to enter into the sphere of politics. But if the religious principle is worth anything, it applies to a million of human beings just as truly as to one. Yet many a man who is exemplary in all the private relations of life, is in his public conduct and political opinions too often ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Let us be honest. Let us either have the courage not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ in any one department of life and thought, or let us own that we have really adapted the ethics of the New Testament to suit a state of feeling and conduct which they were intended gradually to render impossible. (Canon Liddon.)
Who are ashamed of the gospel
I. The wise, because it calls men to believe and not to argue.
II. The great, because it brings all into one body.
III. The rich, because it is to be had without money and without price.
IV. The gay, because they fear it will destroy all their mirth. (R. M. McCheyne.)
The gospel ashamed of some of its preachers
Dr. Murray was made warden of Manchester by James
I. There was little to do, and Murray had neither the ability nor the inclination to do much. He was expected to preach but seldom, and he did not intend to preach at all. Once, however, he did preach before the king, and his text was, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. True said James, but the gospel may well be ashamed of thee.
The shame of the gospel of Christ is its glory
I. In its relation to the human intellect. Its mysterious character.
II. In its relation to the moral constituting. Its humiliating character.
III. In its relation to other kinds of religion. Its transcendent character.
IV. In its relation to this life. Its unworldly character. (H. G. Weston, D. D.)
Reasons for glorying in the gospel
There are three things in connection with this avowal which invest it with great significance: the distinguished character of the author--the great apostle; the universally execrated nature of the subject--the religion of the crucified malefactor; and the class of persons to whom it was addressed, the cultured, intrepid inhabitants of the imperial city. For such an avowal there must have been good reasons and here they are specified:--The gospel is--
I. A system of Divine power.
1. There are three manifestations of Divine power.
(1) Material, as seen in the production, support, and order of the universe.
(2) Intellectual, as seen in the plan upon which the whole, the vast and the minute, is organised.
(3) Moral, as seen in the influence of Gods thoughts and feelings upon the minds of His intelligent creatures. The last is the power of the gospel, Gods truth.
2. All truth is powerful. But there are three things that make gospel truth peculiarly powerful.
(1) It is moral, appealing to the conscience and heart.
(2) Remedial, graciously providing for our deeply-felt spiritual wants.
(3) Embodied in the living example of God Himself. There then is one reason why Paul was not ashamed of it. Had it been a weak thing, he as a strong-minded man might have blushed to own it.
II. A system of Divine power to save. What is salvation? Some persons speak of it as if it were a local change, a transporting of man from one world to another. But the mind is its own place. Salvation may be regarded as consisting in the restoration of a--
1. Lost love. We were made to be governed in all things by a supreme affection for God, but nothing is more clear than that man is not so governed now. The gospel comes to restore it.
2. Lost harmony. The soul is all in tumult. This cannot be the normal state.
3. Lost usefulness. Our relations to each other and our social instincts and powers are such as to show that we were intended to be useful to each other. But we are injurious. The gospel makes us useful. This is another reason which made Paul glory in it. If it had been a power to destroy, his generous nature would have been ashamed of it. Any power can destroy.
III. A system of Divine power to save all.
1. The Jew first, because--
(1) He has the best opportunity of testing the foundation facts of the gospel.
(2) When converted he would become the most effective agent in converting others.
(3) It exhibits more strikingly the merciful genius of the gospel. The Jew, the murderer of the prophets and of Christ, etc.
2. The gospel is, like the air and sun, for humanity. Had it been for a sect, or class, Paul might have been ashamed of it.
IV. A system of Divine power to save all on the most simple condition. To everyone that believeth. Man as man--
1. Has this power to believe. It requires no peculiar talent or attainment.
2. Has a strong tendency to believe. He is credulous to a fault. Conclusion:--Who are ashamed of the gospel?
1. Any in heaven? No! They owe their blessedness to its discoveries, and chant the praises of its Author.
2. Any in hell? No! There are thousands there ashamed of themselves for having been ashamed of the gospel.
3. Who on earth? Not the best parents, etc., the greatest sages, poets, patriots and philanthropists. They are to be found in the lower strata of moral life. They are to be found amongst men who ought to be ashamed of themselves. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Moral courage ready to encounter shame
Let us not pass over the intrepidity of Paul, in the open and public avowal of his Christianity. We call it intrepidity, though he speaks not here of having to encounter violence, but only of having to encounter shame. For, in truth, it is often a higher effort and evidence of intrepidity to front disgrace, than it is to front danger. There is many a man who would march up to the cannons mouth for the honour of his country, yet would not face the laugh of his companions for the honour of his Saviour. We doubt not that there are individuals here who, if they were plied with all the devices of eastern cruelty to abjure the name of Christian, whose courage would bear them in triumph, and yet whose courage fails them every day in the softer scenes of their social and domestic history. The man who under the excitements of persecution was brave enough to be a dying witness to Jesus, crouches into all the timidity of silence under the omnipotency of fashion. There is as much of the truly heroic in not being ashamed of the profession of the gospel, as in not being afraid of it. Paul was neither: and yet when we think of what he once was in literature, and how aware he must have been of the loftiness of its contempt for the doctrine of a crucified Saviour; and that in Rome the whole power and bitterness of its derisions were awaiting him, and that the main weapon with which he had to confront it was such an argument as looked to be foolishness to the wisdom of this world--we doubt not that the disdain inflicted by philosophy was naturally as formidable to the mind of this apostle as the death inflicted by the arm of bloody violence. So that even now, and in an age when Christianity has no penalties and no proscriptions to keep her down, still, if all that deserves the name of Christianity be exploded from conversation--if a visible embarrassment run through a company when its piety or its doctrine is introduced among them--if, among beings rapidly moving towards immortality, any serious allusion to the concerns of immortality stamps an oddity on the character of him who brings it forward--if, through a tacit but firm compact which regulates the intercourse of this world, the gospel is as effectually banished from the ordinary converse of society as by the edicts of tyranny the profession of it was banished in the days of Claudius from Rome:--then he who would walk in his Christian integrity among the men of this lukewarm and degenerate age--he who, rising above that meagre and mitigated Christianity which is as remote as Paganism from the real Christianity of the New Testament, would, out of the abundance of his heart, speak of the things which pertain to the kingdom of God--he will find that there are trials still which, to some temperaments, are as fierce and as fiery as any in the days of martyrdom; and that, however in some select and peculiar walk he may find a few to sympathise with him, yet many are the families and many are the circles of companionship where the persecution of contempt calls for determination as strenuous, and for firmness as manly, as ever in the most intolerant ages of our Church did the persecution of direct and personal violence. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
The power of the gospel
I. The power of the gospel.
1. We can quite understand that to a man of such singular force of character as St. Paul, the power of the gospel would be its leading idea. To St. John, it might be its sweetness. And we can follow the current of St. Pauls feelings when he said that he could not be ashamed of anything which was so very strong.
2. What we all want is to treat religion more as a thing of power. We think and speak of it, and act about it, too softly. It is a thing of beauty, poetry, enjoyment,--but would not it be far better if we held it more as a grand fact for vigorous thought, manly action, and practical effort? The piety of the day is too enervated. Hence its watery literature, its feeble hold on the minds of working men, its pettiness, unreality, and small results. There would be less shame if there were more power.
3. I need scarcely say that before the gospel can be this power, it must be gospel indeed--not a theory, a system of theology, an abstract truth, a diluted joy, something half fear and half hope, but Gods spell.
II. Some facts in reference to this power.
1. The Christian religion is the only one which has ever had power to set in motion real missionary action. Why? The selfishness and sluggishness of human nature is exclusive, and it requires an immense lever to stir it, and nothing in the world has ever been found equal to do it, except the love of such a God as we have in Christ. That, and that only, can thrust out labourers into the vineyard. We have something to say worth making a mission for--we have a motive which can send us forth to say it.
2. See what the gospel of God does in all lands wherever it is planted--what softening of savagery, what civilisation it carries along with it. True, it may be hindered by the inconsistencies of Christians. But in itself the gospel always grows into an improvement in everything.
3. Look over this world at this moment. There are about two hundred millions of Christians upon the earth--once there were twelve. The increase without war--the great engine of Mahometanism--with very little to please and attract flesh and blood into it, rather with the greatest opposition to all which is natural to us, what power lies in that single historical fact!
4. Or let me tell you the experience of every Christian minister. It is when he preaches the full simple gospel that he gets all his success. If he preach morality, or an abstract divinity, or a gospel which is half gospel, he has no results whatever. But Christ carries everything.
5. Or listen to the witness of your own heart.
(1) What have been the best hours of your life? The hours when Christ was most to you.
(2) Who is the really composed man, but the man who is at peace in his own soul. That man does everything with confidence, and rest is power--the power of God.
III. Ways in which you may use this power.
1. Perhaps you are a weak character. You long for more strength of mind, and will, and purpose, and for capacity and power to persevere. Now nothing will give what you want but real personal religion--union with Christ, the gospel of Christ in you, and that gospel is power.
2. Or you may have a habit, and you want to conquer it. Bring Christ to bear upon that habit, have motive enough, make the effort for Christs sake, because He has loved you, do it to please Him, and show that you love Him. That principle will command all victory.
3. Or, perhaps, there is someone you very much wish to influence, but you cannot move him. Lead him to your object through the peace you bring into his own soul, and Christ will be stronger than the strong one.
4. Or, you are conscious of a want of moral courage in speaking of religious subjects; there is only one remedy, Christ must be more to you, and then you will be able to say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, etc. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The gospels power: it is great
I. In the revelation it embodies. It is the power of God, because it not only emanates from God, but God is in it. The Father has centred all His thoughts in the words of His gospel, and these words retain their power because they are the only satisfying portion of the human heart.
II. In the deliverance it effects. It was with a mighty hand that Israel was delivered from Egyptian bondage. No less wonderful is the power demonstrated in the deliverance of man from under the thraldom of sin.
III. Is the transformation it produces.
IV. In the motives it inspires. Men are actuated by a desire to gain wealth, fame, learning; and what unflagging energy this inspires! The gospel inspires us with a hope of being kings and priests unto God. But love to God and our fellow men is to be the great motive for our actions. This is to be the ruling power of our lives, and this will render us godlike.
V. In the universality of its application. To everyone that believeth. It is the gospel for mankind, and among all nations it has gained its trophies. Its power has not waned. Conclusion:--Its hindrances are in the individual soul. Sin makes the barrier. But the gospel brought home by the Spirit can overcome all. There is nothing in it of which we should be ashamed. (A. Huelston, Ph. D.)
The power of the gospel contrasted with other theories
Suppose that two persons start upon a philanthropic mission. One shall be a preacher determined to preach the old-fashioned gospel; and the other shall be a nineteenth century lecturer, whose great article of faith is, I believe in the nineteenth century, Each of us addresses congregations, and at the end of one of my sermons I say, Now then, if there are any of you who feel yourselves tied and bound with the chain of your sins, while you are longing to lead a better life, stay behind and I will endeavour to make the way as plain as I can. Well, suppose also that the lecturer has delivered his oration, the place is crowded, and a great amount of enthusiasm is kindled by the wonderful oratory of the man. At the end, suppose again that he too says something of the same kind: Now then, I have been speaking of the progress of civilisation, and the development of humanity, and what we may expect as years roll away and as man rises to a higher level. But I wish to be practical, and to endeavour to benefit any now present who feel they need some help. Should any of you tonight feel as if you are failing to benefit by this general advance that is being made, just remain behind and I will offer you a few words of advice. Suppose that in both cases the invitation is accepted by some. I come down, and there approaches me a miserable-looking specimen of humanity. I have only to look in his face to see the marks of sin there. A few minutes conversation discloses the fact that there is scarcely a sin which that man has not committed; tears stand in his eyes as he says to me, I wish you could tell me, sir, what I must do to be saved. To such a one I should have no difficulty in making answer--My dear brother, you are just the person I have to preach to. My Master came to seek and to save the lost. Tell me, are you altogether out of conceit, nay, out of heart, with yourself? I can imagine the melancholy reply. What hope have I left in myself? Unless a higher power than mine do something for me, there is nothing before me but despair. If such be the response, I can hail that self-despair as the harbinger of true hope. I am able to lead the forlorn and hopeless wretch out of self and into Christ; show him the provision that has been made to meet the case of the helpless, and guide him step by step, till at length he claims Christ as his all-sufficient Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost. Well, in such a case, the man will become a changed person. The intervention of the Creator will have made him a new creature, and he who before delighted in sin, will suddenly find himself hating sin and loving purity and holiness, blow let us turn to the other scene. The lecture is just closing, and the lecturer gives such an invitation as I have suggested. One man comes up and addresses himself to the lecturer: I am a very bad man, and have lived a very bad life, and I want to know if you can give me any advice that shall make me better. Well, my friend, reasoning on utilitarian grounds, I assume that you have found your evil course not much to your advantage. Advantage! Why, I have stripped my house of every comfort, and turned it into a wild beasts den rather than a human home; I have lost my situations; and it is all through that cursed drink. Then your case is very clear, my friend. You can see without any lecture on utilitarianism that drunkenness is unprofitable to you. Well, I know that; but the point is how I am to overcome this craving. Well, first reflect seriously that you are injuring yourself. But I am convinced of that already. Well, then act in accordance with that conviction; sign the pledge. I have signed the pledge, over and over again, but I cannot keep it. Why not? Have you been really in earnest? Yes, sir; but I could never keep it for any length of time. Well, but you had better sign it again. I have signed it a dozen times, sir. Well, I dont know what to advise; struggle more earnestly. But I have struggled my very utmost. Then can you keep out of the way of bad company? I may try, sir; but the bad company wont keep out of my way. What is the lecturer to say next? My own impression is that there is nothing left for the apostle of the new creed but to admit his failure, unless he has the assurance to say to him, Very well, then, your only chance is to believe in the nineteenth century! But where is there one who would dare to say this? No! the individual must perish, while the lecturer comforts himself with the hope that the species will improve. You ask me to lay aside the gospel, and take in place of it one which leaves me in such a position that I am morally helpless and incapable of grappling with the infirmities of human nature, or of holding out a helping hand to those around me who are sinking down to perdition. We are asked to accept the dictates of science, or the theories of philosophers, or what are supposed to be exhibitions of supernatural power, or some enthusiastic visionary who sets himself up as a religious reformer, and bids us accommodate our convictions to his dreams. But we go back to that question, Where is the power? As I look around on all the various substitutes for the gospel, I seek an answer, and I seek in vain. Where is the man who is ready to tell me how a bad man is to become good, how a weak man is to become strong? From all these I turn to the cross of Emmanuel. The power of God in redemption is felt, and from the cross I see men going forth, new creatures in Christ Jesus, possessed of new desires and new affections, and animated by a new power. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
The gospel a power unto salvation
(Text and Mat_6:13; Act_1:8). The first of these verses declares that power belongs to God, and, by implication, that we have power only as we borrow it from God; the second, how this power is, in the moral and spiritual realm, to be bestowed upon men; the third, through what instrumentality this power shall be bestowed--the gospel.
I. The religion of the Bible is, then, characteristically a power-bestowing religion. It is this which distinguishes it from all other religions.
1. All the significance of the miracles of the Old Testament and the New Testament lies in this, that they are witnesses to a help that lies beyond humanity, but which is extended to humanity. The entire Old Testament is the history of a power not belonging to humanity, and yet working for the benefit of Israel. It is by the power of God that the Israelites are summoned from their bondage, that the waves of the Red Sea part for them, and that one after another victory crowns their campaigning in Palestine. The history is not the history of what the Jews did or Jewish great men did, but of what a power not themselves was doing for them. As this is the Old Testament history, so this is the Old Testament experience of the individual. It reappears in David, in Isaiah, in every prophet.
2. The old doctrine that power belongeth unto God, and that God bestows this power upon His children, reappears in the New Testament, but in a new form. It is now the spiritual helpfulness of God that comes to the front. We speak as though a mans power had greatly increased our power during the past few centuries; but all the power of civilisation is a power that is not our own. We have increased a little our individual muscular power, but the increase is very little, while it is stored in nature, and we lay hold upon it and use it. And I will not go to an orthodox authority, but I will ask Herbert Spencer what this power is in that famous definition: Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the absolute certainty that we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from whom all things proceed. What is this but the old Hebrew Psalmists Power belongeth unto God? And what is the result of all modern science but this: a skill to lay hold on this power that is not our own, and to make it our own by obedience to its laws?
3. Now, the New Testament, as a spiritual appendix to the Old, confirmed by modern science, adds the declaration that there are powers not our own that make for human helpfulness and lift us up in the spiritual realm. The power that is of God is a power unto spiritual salvation. As there is a power to help man in the material and physical world, so there is a power to help him in the realm of virtue and truth. A hopeful man can inspire hope; a weak-willed man can be made stronger in will by leaning upon a man whose will is stronger than his own; there is power in a great heart to fill vacant hearts full of noble, Divine love.
4. And as the individual imparts to the individual, parents to their children, the teacher to his pupils, the pastor to his congregation, so generations impart to other generations. It is not all a fiction, this Roman Catholic idea of works of supererogation stored up, on which men may draw. The world has accumulated a great reservoir of virtue, and we draw on it every day. You are stronger men and women today for your Puritan ancestry, for your Anglo-Saxon blood.
II. Salvation is not something you are to get in heaven by and by, on condition that you do believe, think, or experience something here on earth now. That man will be saved from future punishment through faith in Christ is true, but it is not the burden of the Bible declaration. The great good news of the Bible is this: men are saved from the burdens of their present life; from the darkness of their scepticism; from the bondage of their superstition; from inhumanity, weakness of will, and sin, here and now. This universe is stored with great spiritual powers. Do not fight your battle alone; lay hold on those powers and ask their help in the conflict. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. What is that? A narrow declaration? Not at all. I find a man trying to lift a great stone, which is too heavy for his strength; and I say to him, Get out your tackle and pulleys, and then you can lift it. Is that narrow? No man can take the fruits of civilisation unless he lays hold on powers other than his own; and no man can take the fruit of Divine culture unless he reaches out and lays hold of powers that are not his own, that make for righteousness.
III. Faith is not belief. It is not belief in a long or a short creed. Faith does in the spiritual realm that which reason does in the material realm. It is simply reaching out a heart of sympathy and laying hold on the heart of God, and receiving strength that God pours into the children whose souls are open to receive His help. What virtue is there in the mere declaration of an opinion? This is not faith. Faith in Christ is an appreciation of the quality that is in Christ, a sense of His worth, a desire to be like Him, a resolute purpose to follow after Him. (Lyman Abbott, D. D.)
The power of the gospel to save
The gospel manifests the power of God.
I. In the revelation it makes of what God has done for us in the work of His Son.
1. As transgressors the law held us in bondage, and bound us over to endure the wages of sin in everlasting death. But in the obedience which Christ has rendered to the law, and the satisfaction He has made to its demands, He has opened a new and certain way of life for the guilty. Satan also held us captive, but Christ has overcome him who had the power of death.
2. The influence of this work is displayed--
(1) In heaven in the acceptance there of Christs sacrifice, in His prevailing intercession, and in the continual crowning of the subjects of His redemption.
(2) On earth in the increasing testimony that is borne to the glorious redemption, in the providence which causes all things to work together for the good of the redeemed, and in the continual progress of the truth.
(3) In hell, in the subjection which it compels Satan to acknowledge to the Lord Jesus.
II. In the exhibition of the work which God accomplishes within us by His Spirit. Take a view of this as given--
1. In the past history of the Church. Reflect on the progress of the gospel, and the multitudes who have been actually rescued.
2. In the experience of the individual.
(1) Who awakens and converts the careless sinner?
(2) Who justifies the penitent believer, and gives him peace and acceptance with God?
(3) Who carries on in increasing holiness the work thus commenced?
(4) Who upholds and preserves to final salvation those who are thus brought to God?
(5) Who finally crowns the subjects of grace in glory?
III. In the proper ground for hope which it thus affords.
1. If you look upon yourselves you find yourselves utterly weak and unworthy; but there is offered to you in the gospel a sufficient and abiding hope.
2. Let the Christ have all the praise for this work of salvation. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The gospel the power of God
There are two reasons for which we may be ashamed of anything--
1. If it be base in itself, or shameful in its aim.
2. Though good in itself, and honourable in its aim, if it be weak and powerless to achieve the good it aims at. For example: we are ashamed of a traitor who sells his country for gold; and of a general who, though loyally fighting for his country, ruins its cause through ignorance or incapacity. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel because--
I. It was not base in itself, nor shameful in its aims. Its facts were true, its morals pure, its doctrine ennobling. Its aim is salvation. You have seen at a railway station carriages labelled London, Edinburgh, etc., signifying that the company engaged to carry the passengers to these places. So the gospel is labelled as intended to carry passengers unto salvation. Anything short of that would be to fail in its promise. But what is this salvation? The common idea is, that when a man dies he shall be saved from hell and have a place in heaven. But salvation implies more than this--deliverance from the corruption of sin as well as from its condemnation; from its power as well as from its punishment--in short, deliverance from sin itself.
II. It was not feeble and unable to achieve its aim. Its power is as great as its purpose is good. This is what most of all we need? We know the doctrines of the gospel, the sins it forbids, the duties it requires, the hopes it teaches. But somehow we feel that these things do not influence us as they ought. What we need is power to convince us, to subdue us, to rule over us, to sustain us, power to resist the devil, to overcome the world. In some things the gospel has come to us in power. For example, we believe in the forgiveness of sins through Christs blood. And that belief has brought us peace from the fear of punishment. But oh I how we long that the words, Go and sin no more, would come in power. Behold, then, gospel promises do not speak more truly of pardon than they speak of power for present duty by Christs living grace.
3. Its offer is not limited to any one nation or class, but is free and sure to everyone that believeth. To as many as received Him, to them gave He power, etc. Everyone who believes on Jesus receives of the Holy Spirit. They receive this power, but they must use it. The power of God is laid up for them in Christ; but out of His fulness they must go on to draw grace for grace. (W. Grant.)
The gospel the power of God
1. The apostle here gives his reason for the statement that he was willing to preach the gospel in Rome. In characterising the gospel as the power of God, he showed his usual tact. It was his object to present the gospel to his readers in such an aspect as would commend it to their peculiar disposition as admirers of power. At Athens, on the other band, he was amongst a people who spent their time in telling or hearing some new thing. The apostle, therefore, observing an altar to the unknown God, presents himself as one who had the key to this mystery. The effect upon men of such an inquisitive turn of mind may be easily conceived. The Corinthians, again, made great pretensions to wisdom; to them, therefore, the apostle represents the gospel as the highest wisdom--the wisdom of God. Whilst, however, representing the gospel as power, to the Romans the apostle is careful to say that it was the power of God, not that military and political power so much desiderated by them.
2. In the text we have three terms, salvation, gospel, and power. The gospel effects the salvation, and the power is the reason why.
(1) Salvation must be regarded in the light of the exposition of it given in this Epistle. Three words describe it--justification, sanctification, and glorification. The first is the souls deliverance from the condemnation and penalty of sin (chaps. 1-5); the second, its emancipation from its dominion as a ruling principle (chaps. 6, 7); and the third, the bestowment upon it of everlasting happiness and glory (chap. 8).
(2) The gospel as a record embodies a scheme of truth based upon a series of transactions of transcendent glory, the incarnation of the Son of God, His life, death, resurrection, exaltation, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As a message of mercy, the truths it records are presented for acceptance as a means for effecting salvation.
(3) The power of God. The gospel is--
I. The product of Divine power. The transactions it records testify to the power of God in the same way that every authors power is revealed by his works. Power has three qualities, Moral, which indicates the motive, and has regard to the end in view; intellectual, which contrives, and has regard to the means; physical, which executes, i.e., applies the means devised to the end contemplated. Thus, power manifests itself in force, contrivance, and purpose. The Divine operations ever display these qualities. These qualities, however, in the gospel show different degrees of combination from those which obtain in creation--e.g., all physical objects are distinguished by some one particular colour, although all the other hues of light are there. In the light falling upon objects which appear blue, all the hues of light are present, but by the operation of a certain law, the blue alone presents itself to the eye. So in creation physical power prevails, at least to our senses. The multiplicity of its worlds and their vast magnitude divert the mind from the equally glorious, but less obtrusive, manifestations of intellect and beneficence. Now the gospel is a marvellous manifestation of power in its several phases. As the product of Gods moral power it is defined as the exceeding riches of His grace (Eph_2:5). As an exhibition of His intellectual power it is represented as making known the manifold wisdom of God (Eph_3:10; 1Pe_1:10). Its manifestations of physical power, instanced in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, are described as the working of His mighty power (Eph_1:19). But its moral power is its crown and glory. One characteristic will suffice to show this. Its pith and marrow is its provision for the forgiveness of sin, and this is the grandest exercise of moral power possible. Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity? So far was the idea of forgiveness from the hearts of men that when they came to create gods they never imagined gods possessed of the power to pardon sin. Does not this prove that the religion which presents this fact to us must be, as regards its conception, absolutely Divine?
II. An instrument of Divine power. The power of God unto salvation. The transactions it embodies were characterised by superlative condescension and self-sacrifice. As such they were replete with power in the two senses of legal merit and spiritual influence--the one frowning the ground of mens reconciliation with God, the other forming the instrumentality for weaning them from sin, for changing their disposition, subduing their passions, and kindling in their hearts the love of Christ. But this is not all. The gospel possesses instrumental fitness for securing justification and sanctification, but in order that these may become experimental realities men must, believingly, accept, as the ground and instrument of their salvation, the transactions it records. Hence powerful influences are necessary to overcome mens indifference and stubbornness. The gospel is the power of God to this end. The transactions it embodies are presented as messages of love. This message is instinct with the moral and Divine power of the transactions which form its theme. No wonder the gospel is called the word of salvation--the word which both reveals salvation and opens the heart, by conviction, to its reception. (A. J. Parry.)
The gospel the power of God
The gospel is the power of God--
I. In its most paradoxical and yet highest form.
1. Of course, the message was power only as being the record of power; the real energy lay in the Incarnate Word. And Pauls thought is, that high above all other manifestations of the Divine energy, rises that strange paradox, the omnipotence of God declared in weakness. Sinai is impotent, compared with the tremendous forces which stream from the little hillock, where stand three black crosses, and a dying Christ on the midmost.
2. There is the power of God; for material force is not power; nor majesty, which being deprived of its externals becomes a jest; nor the rule over mens wills by iron constraint; nor is the rule of ideas the highest power; but the Divinest force in God is tenderness, and the true signature of omnipotence is love.
(1) What a discovery of the depths of the Godhead that is! The world has heard of gods of physical force, lustful, whimsical, benevolent by fits and starts, vengeful when mood suits them; gods apathetic and indifferent, but it never dreamed until this Man came of a God whose power could drape itself in weakness, and was guided by love.
(2) What a lesson as to where the true strength and greatness for man lies! We have had enough of the worship of genius; of the beating of drums and singing hosannas over the achievements of poet and philosopher, and artist and scholar. Let us remember that there is a stronger thing in the world than all these, and that is patient gentleness that bows, and bears, and suffers, and dies.
II. In its mightiest operation. Rome gathered its forces for destruction. And Paul is thinking of the contrast between the devilish use of human strength which generally attends it, and the Divine use of Divine power which dedicates it all for salvation. Salvation is negatively the deliverance from everything that is evil; positively it is the endowment with every good.
1. Think of the strange audacity of Christianity in calmly proposing to itself such an end as this. People tell us that the gospel idea of men is dark and depressing. Why? but because the gospel can afford to look facts in the face, inasmuch as it knows itself able to overcome all that is evil, and to reverse and supplant it by perfect good. And there is nothing in the New Testament that is more of the nature of a demonstration of its Divine energy than the unruffled composure with which it declares, looking on the ruins that lie round about it, I have come to set all that right, and I know that I can do it. And it has done it. I do not know any other religion that would not be laughed out of court if it strode forward and said, I have come here to abolish all evil, and to make every soul of man like God. Well, then; do it! would be the simple answer; and if with your philosophers stone you can turn the smallest grain of a baser metal into gold, we will admit the claim and believe that the transmutation of the rest is a question of time. Well, Christianity has done it, and there are millions of people in this world today who will say, One thing I know, there are a great many things I do not know, but one thing I do: whereas I was blind now I see. Look at my eyes if you doubt it.
2. This transforming and saving power is clearly beyond mans ability. It will take God to change a mans relations to the Divine government, and to hold back the consequences which, if there were no God, by the law of cause and effect, would certainly follow every transgression and disobedience. And it needs no less than God to renew the spirit into a loftier life. And the world knows it, and instead of salvation it talks about reformation, restraint, culture, etc.; all very good in their way, but not going deep enough down into the facts of mans condition, not being able to lift him high enough up towards the destined good, to be accepted as a substitute for the Divine idea of salvation. There tower the great white summits of the Himalayas; down at their feet stand palaces, temples, porches for philosophers. Measure the height of the one by the other, and you get an approximation to the difference between human efforts upon human society and the Divine design for every soul of man upon earth.
3. This restoring work of salvation is not only exclusively a Divine work, but is the most energetic exercise of the Divine power. Creation is great and Divine. The new creation, which is restoration to more than primeval blessedness and beauty, is greater, inasmuch as it is accomplished not by a word but by toil, sacrifice, and death, and inasmuch as the result is man more truly and gloriously the image of God than was he over whose appearance angels shouted for joy, and God said, It is good. It is great to preserve the stars from wrong, and to keep the most ancient heavens fresh and strong, but the conception of the Divine power that is gathered from those majestic regions where His finger works is low compared with that which flows from the redeeming work of Christ. God never has done, and never will do a mightier thing than when He sends His Son with power to save a world.
III. In its widest sweep.
1. Rome wielded an empire which approached to universality, so far as the world then knew. But Paul has a vision of an empire that overlaps it, as some great sea might a little pond, and sees the Dove of Christ outflying the Roman eagle, and the raven, sin. For to him his Christ is everybodys Christ; and that which changed him from persecutor to apostle can never have a more obstinate block to hew into beauty.
2. The text may seem to narrow the universality which the apostle proclaims, but not really, For to believe is nothing more than to take the power which the gospel brings. Faith is the belt by which we fasten our else still and silent wheels to the great engine, and the power then begins to drive. You would not say that a universal medicine was less universal because it did not cure people that did not take it.
3. Nay! rather the intention and power of the gospel to save everybody can only be preserved by faith being the condition of its operation. For the condition is one that everybody can exercise, and just because men do not get saved by things that belong to classes it comes about that not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty after the flesh are saved. The wise man wants a religion that will give culture its proper high seat in the synagogue. The noble does not like to have his robes crumpled by a crowd of greasy jackets going in at the one common door. And so they turn away because they would like to have a little private postern of their own, where a ticket of a special colour would let them and their friends in. Conclusion: Are you exercising this faith, and therefore saved? You can separate yourselves from the power, notwithstanding the Divine purpose and adaptation of the gospel to everybody. And although God wants all of us to come to His heart, you can, if you will, stand apart. You do not need to do much. Putting your hands behind your back, or letting them hang languidly at your sides, is enough. Not to accept is to reject. You can waterproof your souls, as it were, and so lie there as dry as a bone, whilst all around you the dew of His blessing is refreshing others. Christs power received is life; Christs power not received is not negatived, but reversed, and becomes death. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The gospel the power of God unto salvation
By affirming this the apostle lays down the fundamental doctrine which he intends to establish against the legalistic pretensions of the Jews. Here are no less than five cardinal terms, keywords, which suggest a five-fold antithesis between Christianity and Judaism. The gospel is--
I. The power of God--a hint as to the weakness of the law in reference to salvation. This contrast is brought out fully and clearly in chap. 8:2-4, God Himself is powerless to save anyone righteously except through the gracious provisions of the gospel of His Son, whom He accordingly set forth to be a propitiation, etc. (Rom_3:25).
II. The power of God. He who wins souls in the presentation of the gospel is wielding a power not human, but Divine; and the resulting justification before God is based, not on the righteousness of man, but the righteousness of God. Here we have another antithesis of the apostles great theme, which is fully presented in Rom_10:3 and Php_3:7-9. The Jews, being ignorant of Gods righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. It is only on the ground of merit that law can justify. If, then, a man could merit his acceptance with God, his justification would not be due to the gracious power of God, but would rest upon his own inherent goodness.
III. The power of God unto salvation. This the law could not accomplish in that it was weak through the flesh, But as regards the very opposite result, condemnation and death, it has, indeed, tremendous power (Rom_7:9-10; 2Co_3:6-7). Thus the only hope for man is to pass from under a legal system, which can only justify the sinless, to a dispensation of grace which is clothed with Divine power to justify the ungodly.
IV. The power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. But the Jew, supposing that he had kept the law sufficiently to stand before God in the strength of his own righteousness, very naturally limited the favour of God to legalistic worshippers, and looked upon all others as inevitably doomed to death without mercy. Now the argument of the Epistle, in dispelling this double delusion, enables us to discern the broad contrast between the universality of grace and the exclusiveness of legalism (Rom_3:21-23). We are again and again reminded that this blessedness cometh not upon the circumcision only, but upon the uncircumcision also; that the same God over all is rich unto all who call upon Him, and that, consequently, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
V. The power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. The contrast between the gospel and the law is the significant antithesis of faith and works so extensively developed in this Epistle. The dictum of the law is, Do this and thou shalt live. The maxim of the gospel is, The just shall live by faith. Doing is the ground of legal justification. Believing is the condition of gracious justification. The radical opposition between these, together with the inapplicability of the former to man as a sinful being, undergoes thorough discussion, especially in chaps. 3 and 4. (Prof. I. B. Grubbs.)
To the Jew first and also to the Greek.--
Our duty to Israel
The gospel should be preached first to the Jews, because--
I. Judgment will begin with them (Rom_2:6-10). Why is this? Because they have had more light than any other people. God chose them out of the world to be His witnesses. Every prophet, evangelist, and apostle was sent first to them. Christ said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Word of God is still addressed to them. Yet they have sinned against all this light and love. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, etc. Their cup of wrath is fuller than that of other men. Is not this a reason, then, why the gospel should first be preached to the Jew? They are ready to perish--to perish more dreadfully than other men. In an hospital the physician runs first to the worst case. When the sailors have left the shore to save the sinking crew they first help those that are readiest to perish. And shall we not do the same for Israel? The billows of Gods anger are ready to dash first over them--shall we not seek to bring them first to the Rock that is higher than they? Yes, and some of you are in a situation very similar to that of Israel--you who have the Word of God in your hands and yet are unbelieving and unsaved, Think how like your wrath will be to that of the unbelieving Jew.
II. It is like God. It is the chief glory and joy of a soul to be like God. Too many rest in the joy of being forgiven. We should be like God in understanding, in will, in holiness, and also in His peculiar affections; and the whole Bible shows that God has a peculiar affection for Israel (Deu_7:7; Lam_4:2; Jer_12:7). Shall we be ashamed to cherish the same affection as our heavenly Father?
III. There is peculiar access to the Jews.
IV. They will give life to the dead world. A reflective traveller, passing through the countries of this world, and observing the race of Israel in every land, might be led to guess, merely from the light of his natural reason, that that singular people are preserved for some great purpose in the world. There is a singular fitness in the Jew to be the missionary of the world. They have not that peculiar attachment to home and country which we have. They are also inured to every clime; they are to be found amid the snows of Russia and beneath the burning sun of Hindostan. They are also in some measure acquainted with all the languages of the world, and yet have one common language--the holy tongue--in which to communicate with one another. But what says the Word of God? (Read Zec_8:13; Zec_8:23; Mic_5:7) (R. M. McCheyne.)
To the Jew first
The preaching of the gospel to the Jews first, served various important ends. It fulfilled Old Testament prophecies, as Isa_2:3. It manifested the compassion of the Lord Jesus for those who shed His blood, to whom, after His resurrection, He commanded His gospel to be first proclaimed. It showed that it was to be preached to the chief of sinners, and proved the sovereign efficacy of His atonement in expiating the guilt even of His murderers. It was fit, too, that the gospel should be begun to be preached where the great transactions took place on which it was founded and established; and this furnished an example of the way in which it is the will of the Lord that His gospel should be propagated by His disciples, beginning in their own houses and their own country. (R. Haldane.)
The usefulness of converted Jews
A Jewish convert says: It is a well-known fact that men celebrated as theologians, as lawyers, as teachers of the young, as professors at the various universities of Europe, have been or are converts from Judaism. The late Mr. Fould, the great French finance minister, was a Jewish convert. The late Dr. Neander, the author of one of the most erudite works on the Church of Christ, and professor of theology at the University of Berlin, was a converted Jew. Dr. Crippadorn of Holland, physician to his Majesty the King of Holland, is a converted Jew. The late Dr. Dufosty, one of the greatest poets which Holland has ever produced, and the author of Israel and the Gentiles, A Harmony of the Gospels, and several other works, was a Jewish convert. Prof. Leone Levi, of Kings College, is a Jewish convert. The late Dr. Alexander, the first bishop of Jerusalem, was a converted Jew; while not less than a hundred and thirty clergymen of the Church of England are converted Jews. He states further that, in London, there are between two and three thousand Jewish converts, whose conduct, whether as heads of families, as citizens, or as men, is an honour and credit to the churches with which they are connected.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 16, 17. For I am not ashamed of the…
16, 17. For I am not ashamed of the gospel. Hence he is ready to preach it in Rome, in the very citadel of heathen pride and power. If there was any place where one would be ashamed of a crucified Savior that place was Rome in the reign of Nero. The gospel. God's plan of salvation in Christ. Its three great facts are the death, burial, and the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1–4). For. He now states why he is not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is God's only appointed means of salvation. The name of Jesus Christ “is the only name . whereby we must be saved.” All God's saving power is manifested through the gospel. To every one that believeth. The great fundamental facts of the gospel (see above) must be believed, in order to the enjoyment of this saving power. They are embraced in the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The gospel does not save unconditionally. Belief is a condition. To the Jew first. The first to enjoy this saving power were Jews. To them the gospel was first offered. But it is offered to the Greek also, on the same conditions.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel…
GOSPEL DEFINED
16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” How fortunate we are to have a clear, unequivocal, lexical definition of gospel, than which the inspired vocabulary, except the Divine epithets, has no more important word; since on this a world of theological controversy has accumulated with the roll of ages. Here we have every problem solved and controversy circled in a clear and unequivocal definition furnished by the infallible Author of revealed truth. The Greek word here used by the Holy Ghost to define “gospel” is dunamis, i. e., dynamite; a word recently introduced into the English vocabulary by the men of science, who discovered the most wonderful and paradoxical of all the mechanical powers in the scientific and artistic world. Ransacking the Anglican vocabulary of 150,000 words, and finding none adequate to reveal their wonderful discovery, they went to the classic Greek and took the very identical word used by the Holy Spirit to define gospel. Hence it is a simple and indisputable fact that gospel is nothing more nor less than “the dynamite of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” People universally stumble over the sheer simplicity of Bible truth; e. g., wagon-loads of books have been written by learned theologians in an attempt to tell the world what the gospel is. Millions of brains have grown dizzy studying over these controverted exegeses, and wound up utterly puzzled, dumfounded and farther from the truth than when they began. The six thousand sectarian denominations in the world all try to make us believe that the respective creed of each is the Gospel, which is utterly and demonstratively untrue. They are every one wrong. The Gospel is no creed, confession, theology, dogmatism nor ritualized ecclesiasticism. Neither does it consist in scholastic learning, oratorical power, natural gifts nor theoretical magnetism. It is simply the dynamite of God which reaches the heart through faith alone, as you see this is the only condition specified, and blowing all sin and debris out. When the awful convicting truth of the Sinai Gospel is faithfully preached, revealing hell and damnation for impenitent sinners, and this truth is believed by wicked, hell-ward bound people through their faith in this awful revelation of their damnation and doom, God’s dynamite reaches the deep interior of their depraved hearts, blowing them up into a knock-down conviction, bringing them wallowing and roaring at the mourner’s bench. Then when the Gospel of Calvary is faithfully preached to this heart-broken penitent, and he believes the wonderful truth of the vicarious atonement while contemplating the stupendous magnitude of redeeming love, through his humble faith in the converting truth of God, the dynamite of conversion gives him another wonderful blowing up, lifting him out of Satan’s kingdom, giving him a glorious balloon ride with Jesus, and dropping him down in the kingdom of God’s redeeming grace and regenerating love. Again, when the truth is preached of inbred sin in a subjugated state surviving in the heart of God’s children till all the debris of the fall is expurgated through the cleansing blood applied by the Holy Ghost, then through the medium of simple faith in God’s plain and unmistakable word, another conviction takes hold of him bringing him down low at the feet of Jesus, terribly humiliating him while contemplating the disharmony with the Divine administration and disconformity to the image and likeness of God, he goes mourning night and day. Finally when the wonderful Gospel of entire sanctification through the cleansing blood of Jesus and the consuming fires of the Holy Ghost is faithfully preached to him till his faith apprehends and appropriates the glorious promise of God to sanctify his children by way of consecration and faith; then through the medium of his faith in the sanctifying truth of the infallible God, the dynamite of entire sanctification is transmitted into the deep interior of his fallen nature, when a spark from heaven’s altar, through his humble faith, ignites the blast, blowing inbred sin out by the roots and transporting the man far away out of the old, howling wilderness into the ever green fields of Beulah land where the sun and moon both shine night and day, and no one says, “I am sick.” Now do not forget that this dynamite administered through the faith of the recipient is the only definition of Gospel. Hence you see that the dead churches belting the globe, whether Papal or Protestant, are literally heathenized without a scintillation of actual Gospel. They all have more or less truth, which is a valuable auxiliary in salvation, but utterly inefficient in the absence of the Holy Ghost dynamite. If the truth alone could save, the devil would have been lifted from hell long ago, for I trow he knows more truth than any of us, yet not a scintillation of Heavenly dynamite can ever reach him, because he and all the inmates of hell, demoniacal and human, have passed the borne of probation, the former when they fell from the heavenly state (Isa 14:12 and Jud 1:7), and the latter when they passed out of time into eternity. An illiterate old Negro, full of the Holy Ghost, has more Gospel in his own soul ready to transmit to others through his great thick dictionary and grammar-butchering lips than a whole car-load of plug-hatted theologians without the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. The reason why the Gospel is butchered and perverted on all sides is, because the people do not use their common sense and utilize the blessed Holy Spirit. God says the way to heaven is so plain that “wayfaring men, though fools, need not err therein” (Isaiah 35). Oh, how egregiously uninspired men with great heads and human learning have complicated it. All this is a trick of the devil to obscure the way to heaven till he can dump the people by millions into hell. You do not need a college to qualify you to preach the gospel. You have only need to “tarry at Jerusalem till you are endued with dynamite from on high.” Then you will preach the gospel soon enough “with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” Since Satan has manipulated to side- track the churches on the line of human learning (not that we object to per se), God is stirring all the world with the holiness movement, raising up millions of men and women to preach the genuine old-time Pentecostal Gospel with no human power but the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, ministering the dynamite of conviction, regeneration and sanctification through their humble instrumentality. Reader, will not you be one?
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Romans
THE GOSPEL THE POWER OF GOD 1
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Rom 1:16.
To preach the Gospel in Rome had long been the goal of Paul’s hopes. He wished to do in the centre of power what he had done in Athens, the home of wisdom; and with superb confidence, not in himself, but in his message, to try conclusions with the strongest thing in the world. He knew its power well, and was not appalled. The danger was an attraction to his chivalrous spirit. He believed in flying at the head when you are fighting with a serpent, and he knew that influence exerted in Rome would thrill through the Empire. If we would understand the magnificent audacity of these words of my text we must try to listen to them with the ears of a Roman. Here was a poor little insignificant Jew, like hundreds of his countrymen down in the Ghetto, one who had his head full of some fantastic nonsense about a young visionary whom the procurator of Syria had very wisely put an end to a while ago in order to quiet down the turbulent province; and he was going into Rome with the notion that his word would shake the throne of the Cæsars. What proud contempt would have curled their lips if they had been told that the travel-stained prisoner, trudging wearily up the Appian Way, had the mightiest thing in the world entrusted to his care! Romans did not believe much in ideas. Their notion of power was sharp swords and iron yokes on the necks of subject peoples. But the history of Christianity, whatever else it has been, has been the history of the supremacy and the revolutionary force of ideas. Thought is mightier than all visible forces. Thought dissolves and reconstructs. Empires and institutions melt before it like the carbon rods in an electric lamp; and the little hillock of Calvary is higher than the Palatine with its regal homes and the Capitoline with its temples: ‘I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.’
Now, dear friends, I have ventured to take these great words for my text, though I know, better than any of you can tell me, how sure my treatment of them is to enfeeble rather than enforce them, because I, for my poor part, feel that there are few things which we, all of us, people and ministers, need more than to catch some of the infection of this courageous confidence, and to be fired with some spark of Paul’s enthusiasm for, and glorying in, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I ask you, then, to consider three things: {1} what Paul thought was the Gospel? {2} what Paul thought the Gospel was? and {3} what he felt about the Gospel?
I. What Paul thought was the Gospel?
He has given to us in his own rapid way a summary statement, abbreviated to the very bone, and reduced to the barest elements, of what he meant by the Gospel. What was the irreducible minimum? The facts of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as you will find written in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. So, then, to begin with, the Gospel is not a statement of principles, but a record of facts, things that have happened in this world of ours. But the least part of a fact is the visible part of it, and it is of no significance unless it has explanation, and so Paul goes on to bind up with the facts an explanation of them. The mere fact that Jesus, a young Nazarene, was executed is no more a gospel than the other one, that two brigands were crucified beside Him. But the fact that could be seen, plus the explanation which underlies and interprets it, turns the chronicle into a gospel, and the explanation begins with the name of the Sufferer; for if you want to understand His death you must understand who it was that died. His death is a thought pathetic in all aspects, and very precious in many. But when we hear ‘Christ died according to the Scriptures,’ the whole symbolism of the ancient ritual and all the glowing anticipations of the prophets rise up before us, and that death assumes an altogether different aspect. If we stop with ‘Jesus died,’ then that death may be a beautiful example of heroism, a sweet, pathetic instance of innocent suffering, a conspicuous example of the world’s wages to the world’s teachers, but it is little more. If, however, we take Paul’s words upon our lips, ‘Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached . . . how that Christ died . . . according to the Scriptures,’ the fact flashes up into solid beauty, and becomes the Gospel of our salvation. And the explanation goes on, ‘How that Christ died for our sins.’ Now, I may be very blind, but I venture to say that I, for my part, cannot see in what intelligible sense the Death of Christ can be held to have been for, or on behalf of, our sins-that is, that they may be swept away and we delivered from them-unless you admit the atoning nature of His sacrifice for sins. I cannot stop to enlarge, but I venture to say that any narrower interpretation evacuates Paul’s words of their deepest significance. The explanation goes on, ‘And that He was buried.’ Why that trivial detail? Partly because it guarantees the fact of His Death, partly because of its bearing on the evidences of His Resurrection. ‘And that He rose from the dead according to the Scriptures.’ Great fact, without which Christ is a shattered prop, and ‘ye are yet in your sins.’
But, further, notice that my text is also Paul’s text for this Epistle, and that it differs from the condensed summary of which I have been speaking only as a bud with its petals closed differs from one with them expanded in their beauty. And now, if you will take the words of my text as being the keynote of this letter, and read over its first eight chapters, what is the Apostle talking about when he in them fulfils his purpose and preaches ‘the Gospel’ to them that are at Rome also? Here is, in the briefest possible words, his summary-the universality of sin, the awful burden of guilt, the tremendous outlook of penalty, the impossibility of man rescuing himself or living righteously, the Incarnation, and Life, and Death of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, the hand of faith grasping the offered blessing, the indwelling in believing souls of the Divine Spirit, and the consequent admission of man into a life of sonship, power, peace, victory, glory, the child’s place in the love of the Father from which nothing can separate. These are the teachings which make the staple of this Epistle. These are the explanations of the weighty phrases of my text. These are at least the essential elements of the Gospel according to Paul.
But he was not alone in this construction of his message. We hear a great deal to-day about Pauline Christianity, with the implication, and sometimes with the assertion, that he was the inventor of what, for the sake of using a brief and easily intelligible term, I may call Evangelical Christianity. Now, it is a very illuminating thought for the reading of the New Testament that there are the three sets of teaching, roughly, the Pauline, Petrine, and Johannine, and you cannot find the distinctions between these three in any difference as to the fundamental contents of the Gospel; for if Paul rings out, ‘God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,’ Peter declares, ‘Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,’ and John, from his island solitude, sends across the waters the hymn of praise, ‘Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.’ And so the proud declaration of the Apostle, which he dared not have ventured upon in the face of the acrid criticism he had to front unless he had known he was perfectly sure of his ground, is natural and warranted-’Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach.’
We are told that we must go back to the Christ of the Gospels, the historical Christ, and that He spoke nothing concerning all these important points that I have mentioned as being Paul’s conception of the Gospel. Back to the Christ of the Gospels by all means, if you will go to the Christ of all the Gospels and of the whole of each Gospel. And if you do, you will go back to the Christ who said, ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.’ You will go back to the Christ who said, ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.’ You will go back to the Christ who said, ‘The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ You will go back to the Christ who bade His followers hold in everlasting memory, not the tranquil beauty of His life, not the persuasive sweetness of His gracious words, not the might of His miracles of blessing, but the mysterious agonies of His last hours, by which He would have us learn that there lie the secret of His power, the foundation of our hopes, the stimulus of our service.
Now, brethren, I have ventured to dwell so long upon this matter, because it is no use talking about the Gospel unless we understand what we mean by it, and I, for my part, venture to say that that is what Paul meant by it, and that is what I mean by it. I plead for no narrow interpretation of the phrases of my text. I would not that they should be used to check in the smallest degree the diversities of representation which, according to the differences of individual character, must ever prevail in the conceptions which we form and which we preach of this Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want no parrot-like repetition of a certain set of phrases embodied, however great may be their meanings, in every sermon. And I would that the people to whom those truths are true would make more allowance than they sometimes do for the differences to which I have referred, and would show a great deal more sympathy than they often do to those, especially those young men, who, with their faces toward Christ, have not yet grown to the full acceptance of all that is implied in those gracious words. There is room for a whole world of thought in the Gospel of Christ as Paul conceived it, with all the deep foundations of implication and presupposition on which it rests, and with all the, as yet, undiscovered range of conclusions to which it may lead. Remember that the Cross of Christ is the key to the universe, and sends its influence into every region of human thought.
II. What Paul thought the Gospel was.
‘The power of God unto salvation.’ There was in the background of the Apostle’s mind a kind of tacit reference to the antithetical power that he was going up to meet, the power of Rome, and we may trace that in the words of my text. Rome, as I have said, was the embodiment of physical force, with no great faith in ideas. And over against this carnal might Paul lifts the undissembled weakness of the Cross, and declares that it is stronger than man, ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ Rome is high in force; Athens is higher; the Cross is highest of all, and it comes shrouded in weakness having a poor Man hanging dying there. That is a strange embodiment of divine power. Yes, and because so strange, it is so touching, and so conquering. The power that is draped in weakness is power indeed. Though Rome’s power did make for righteousness sometimes, yet its stream of tendency was on the whole a power to destruction and grasped the nations of the earth as some rude hand might do rich clusters of grapes and squeeze them into a formless mass. The tramp of the legionary meant death, and it was true in many respects of them what was afterwards said of later invaders of Europe, that where their horses’ hoofs had once stamped no grass ever grew. Over against this terrific engine of destruction Paul lifts up the meek forces of love which have for their sole object the salvation of man.
Then we come to another of the keywords about which it is very needful that people should have deeper and wider notions than they often seem to cherish. What is salvation? Negatively, the removal and sweeping away of all evil, physical and moral, as the schools speak. Positively, the inclusion of all good for every part of the composite nature of a man which the man can receive and which God can bestow. And that is the task that the Gospel sets to itself. Now, I need not remind you how, for the execution of such a purpose, it is plain that something else than man’s power is absolutely essential. It is only God who can alter my relation to His government. It is only God who can trammel up the inward consequences of my sins and prevent them from scourging me. It is only God who can bestow upon my death a new life, which shall grow up into righteousness and beauty, caught of, and kindred to, His own. But if this be the aim of the Gospel, then its diagnosis of man’s sickness is a very much graver one than that which finds favour amongst so many of us now. Salvation is a bigger word than any of the little gospels that we hear clamouring round about us are able to utter. It means something a great deal more than either social or intellectual, or still more, material or political betterment of man’s condition. The disease lies so deep, and so great are the destruction and loss partly experienced, and still more awfully impending over every soul of us, that something else than tinkering at the outsides, or dealing, as self-culture does, with man’s understanding or, as social gospels do, with man’s economical and civic condition, should be brought to bear. Dear brethren, especially you Christian ministers, preach a social Christianity by all means, an applied Christianity, for there does lie in the Gospel of Jesus Christ a key to all the problems that afflict our social condition. But be sure first that there is a Christianity before you talk about applying it. And remember that the process of salvation begins in the deep heart of the individual and transforms him first and foremost. The power is ‘to every one that believeth.’ It is power in its most universal sweep. Rome’s Empire was wellnigh ubiquitous, but, blessed be God, the dove of Christ flies farther than the Roman eagle with beak and claw ready for rapine, and wherever there are men here is a Gospel for them. The limitation is no limitation of its universality. It is no limitation of the claim of a medicine to be a panacea that it will only do good to the man who swallows it. And that is the only limitation of which the Gospel is susceptible, for we have all the same deep needs, the same longings; we are fed by the same bread, we are nourished by the same draughts of water, we breathe the same air, we have the same sins, and, thanks be to God, we have the same Saviour. ‘The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’
Now before I pass from this part of my subject there is only one thing more that I want to say, and that is, that you cannot apply that glowing language about ‘the power of God unto salvation’ to anything but the Gospel that Paul preached. Forms of Christianity which have lost the significance of the Incarnation and Death of Jesus Christ, and which have struck out or obscured the central facts with which I have been dealing, are not, never were, and, I may presumptuously venture to say, never will be, forces of large account in this world. Here is a clock, beautiful, chased on the back, with a very artistic dial-plate, and works modelled according to the most approved fashion, but, somehow or other, the thing won’t go. Perhaps the mainspring is broken. And so it is only the Gospel, as Paul expounds it and expands it in this Epistle, that is ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ Dear brethren, in the course of a sermon like this, of course, one must lay himself open to the charge of dogmatising. That cannot be helped under the conditions of my space. But let me say as my own solemn conviction-I know that that is not worth much to you, but it is my justification for speaking in such a fashion-let me say as my solemn conviction that you may as well take the keystone out of an arch, with nothing to hold the other stones together or keep them from toppling in hideous ruin on your unfortunate head, as take the doctrine that Paul summed up in that one word out of your conception of Christianity and expect it to work. And be sure of this, that there is only one Name that lords it over the demons of afflicted humanity, and that if a man goes and tries to eject them with any less potent charm than Paul’s Gospel, they will turn upon him with ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?’
III. What Paul felt about this Gospel.
His restrained expression, ‘I am not ashamed,’ is the stronger for its very moderation. It witnesses to the fixed purpose of his heart and attitude of his mind, whilst it suggests that he was well aware of all the temptations in Rome to being ashamed of it there. Think of what was arrayed against him-venerable religion, systematised philosophies, bitter hatred and prejudice, material power and wealth. These were the brazen armour of Goliath, and this little David went cheerily down into the valley with five pebble stones in a leathern wallet, and was quite sure how it was going to end. And it ended as he expected. His Gospel shook the kingdom of the Roman, and cast it in another mould.
And there are temptations, plenty of them, for us, dear friends, to-day, to bate our confidence. The drift of what calls itself influential opinion is anti-supernatural, and we all are conscious of the presence of that element all round about us. It tells with special force upon our younger men, but it affects us all. In this day, when a large portion of the periodical press, which does the thinking for most of us, looks askance at these truths, and when, on the principle that in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is the king, popular novelists become our theological tutors, and when every new publishing season brings out a new conclusive destruction of Christianity, which supersedes last season’s equally complete destruction, it is hard for some of us to keep our flags flying. The ice round about us will either bring down the temperature, or, if it stimulates us to put more fuel on the fire, perhaps the fire may melt it. And so the more we feel ourselves encompassed by these temptations, the louder is the call to Christian men to cast themselves back on the central verities, and to draw at first hand from them the inspiration which shall be their safety. And how is that to be done? Well, there are many ways by which thoughtful, and cultivated, students may do it. But may I venture to deal here rather with ways which all Christian people have open before them? And I am bold to say that the way to be sure of ‘the power of God unto salvation’ is to submit ourselves continually to its cleansing and renewing influence. This certitude, brethren, may be contributed to by books of apologetics, and by other sources of investigation and study which I should be sorry indeed to be supposed in any degree to depreciate. But the true way to get it is, by deep communion with the living God, to realise the personality of Jesus Christ as present with us, our Friend, our Saviour, our Sanctifier by His Holy Spirit. Why, Paul’s Gospel was, I was going to say, altogether-that would be an exaggeration-but it was to a very large extent simply the generalisation of his own experience. That is what all of us will find to be the Gospel that we have to preach. ‘We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen.’ And it was because this man could say so assuredly-because the depths of his own conscience and the witness within him bore testimony to it-’He loved me and gave Himself for me,’ that he could also say, ‘The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’ Go down into the depths, brother and friend; cry to Him out of the depths. Then you will feel His strong, gentle grip lifting you to the heights, and that will give power that nothing else will, and you will be able to say, ‘I have heard Him myself, and I know that this is the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’
But there is yet another source of certitude open to us all, and that is the history of the centuries. Our modern sceptics, attacking the truth of Christianity mostly from the physical side, are strangely blind to the worth of history. It is a limitation of faculty that besets them in a good many directions, but it does not work anywhere more fatally than it does in their attitude towards the Gospel. After all, Jesus Christ spoke the ultimate word when He said, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ And it is so, because just as what is morally wrong cannot be politically right, so what is intellectually false cannot be morally good. Truth, goodness, beauty, they are but three names for various aspects of one thing, and if it be that the difference between B.C. and A.D. has come from a Gospel which is not the truth of God, then all I can say is, that the richest vintage that ever the world saw, and the noblest wine of which it ever drank, did grow upon a thorn. I know that the Christian Church has sinfully and tragically failed to present Christ adequately to the world. But for all that, ‘Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord’; and nobler manners and purer laws have come in the wake of this Gospel of Jesus Christ. And as I look round about upon what Christianity has done in the world, I venture to say, ‘Show us any system of religion or of no religion that has done that or anything the least like it, and then we will discuss with you the other evidences of the Gospel.’
In closing these words, may I venture relying on the melancholy privilege of seniority, to drop for a minute or two into a tone of advice? I would say, do not be frightened out of your confidence either by the premature paean of victory from the opposite camp, or by timid voices in our own ranks. And that you may not be so frightened, be sure to keep clear in your mind the distinction between the things that can be shaken and the kingdom that cannot be moved. It is bad strategy to defend an elongated line. It is cowardice to treat the capture of an outpost as involving the evacuation of the key of the position. It is a mistake, to which many good Christian people are sorely tempted in this day, to assert such a connection between the eternal Gospel and our deductions from the principles of that Gospel as that the refutation of the one must be the overthrow of the other. And if it turns out to be so in any case, a large part of the blame lies upon those good and mistaken people who insist that everything must be held or all must be abandoned. The burning questions of this day about the genuineness of the books of Scripture, inspiration, inerrancy, and the like, are not so associated with this word, ‘God so loved the world . . . that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,’ as that the discovery of errors in the Second Book of Chronicles shakes the foundations of the Christian certitude. In a day like this truth must change its vesture. Who believes that the Dissenting Churches of England are the highest, perfect embodiment of the Kingdom of God? And who believes that any creed of man’s making has in it all and has in it only the everlasting Gospel? So do not be frightened, and do not think that when the things that can be shaken are removed, the things that cannot be shaken are at all less likely to remain. Depend upon it, the Gospel, whose outline I have imperfectly tried to set before you now, will last as long as men on earth know they are sinners and need a Saviour. Did you ever see some mean buildings that have by degrees been gathered round the sides of some majestic cathedral, and do you suppose that the sweeping away of those shanties would touch the solemn majesty of the mediæval glories of the building that rises above them? Take them away if need be, and it, in its proportion, beauty, strength, and heavenward aspiration, will stand more glorious for the sweeping away. Preach positive truth. Do not preach doubts. You remember Mr. Kingsley’s book Yeast. Its title was its condemnation. Yeast is not meant to be drunk; it is meant to be kept in the dark till the process of fermentation goes on and it works itself clear, and then you may bring it out. Do not be always arguing with the enemy. It is a great deal better to preach the truth. Remember what Jesus said: ‘Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind, they will fall into the ditch.’ It is not given to every one of us to conduct controversial arguments in the pulpit. There are some much wiser and abler brethren amongst us than you or I who can do it. Let us be contented with, not the humbler but the more glorious, office of telling what we have known, leaving it, as it will do, to prove itself. You remember what the old woman, who had been favoured by her pastor with an elaborate sermon to demonstrate the existence of God, said when he had finished; ‘Well, I believe there is a God, for all the gentleman says.’
As one who sees the lengthening shadows falling over the darkening field, may I say one word to my junior brethren, with all whose struggles and doubts and difficulties I, for one, do most tenderly sympathise? I beseech them-though, alas! the advice condemns the giver of it as he looks back over long years of his ministry-to be faithful to the Gospel how that ‘Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’ Dear young friends, if you only go where Paul went, and catch the inspiration that he caught there, your path will be clear. It was in contact with Christ, whose passion for soul-winning brought Him from heaven, that Paul learned his passion for soul-winning. And if you and I are touched with the divine enthusiasm, and have that aim clear before us, we shall soon find out that there is only one power, one name given under heaven among men whereby we can accomplish what we desire-the name of ‘Jesus Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, and also maketh intercession for us.’ If our aim is clear before us it will prescribe our methods, and if the inspiration of our ministry is, ‘I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,’ then, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, they shall know that there hath been a Prophet among them.
1 Preached before Baptist Union.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek .
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain The Heb. and (Greek - ἀλεκτοροφωνία, safety, preservation, healing,…
salvation
The Heb. and (Greek - ἀλεκτοροφωνία, safety, preservation, healing, and soundness). Salvation is the great inclusive word of the Gospel, gathering into itself all the redemptive acts and processes: as justification, redemption, grace, propitiation, imputation, forgiveness, sanctification, and glorification. Salvation is in three tenses:
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(1) The believer has been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin Luk 7:50; 1Co 1:18; 2Co 2:15; Eph 2:5; Eph 2:8; 2Ti 1:9 and is safe.
(2) the believer is being saved from the habit and dominion of sin Rom 6:14; Php 1:19; Php 2:12; Php 2:13; 2Th 2:13; Rom 8:2; Gal 2:19; Gal 2:20; 2Co 3:18.
(3) The believer is to be saved in the sense of entire conformity to Christ. Rom 13:11; Heb 10:36; 1Pe 1:5; 1Jn 3:2. Salvation is by grace through faith, is a free gift, and wholly without works; Rom 3:27; Rom 3:28; Rom 4:1-8; Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8. The divine order is: first salvation, then works; Eph 2:9; Eph 2:10; Tit 3:5-8.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Theme of the Letter. 1:16-17
The Theme of the Letter. 1:16-17
v. 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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v. 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Paul had declared his readiness to preach the Gospel at Rome, the capital of the world. And all the wisdom and pride of the haughty metropolis would not deter him from it. "Anywhere, no doubt, one might have misgivings about identifying himself with a message which had for its subject a person who had been put to death as a criminal; anywhere the Cross was to Jews a stumbling-block and to Greeks foolishness. But at Rome, of all places, where the whole effective force of humanity seemed to be gathered up, one might be ashamed to stand forth as the representative of an apparently impotent and ineffective thing. But this the Gospel is not; it is the very reverse of this, and therefore the apostle is proud to identify himself with it. " In no way is Paul ashamed of the Gospel, the glorious message of salvation. For he knows and confesses that a power of God it is unto salvation. What no human doctrine, no worldly philosophy is able to accomplish, the simple message of Jesus Christ brings about. It is not merely accompanied by the power of God under certain circumstances, but it is in itself, at all times, a power of God. Herein it serves the highest, the most wonderful purpose: it brings salvation to everyone that believes. In delivering sinners from sin, death, and damnation, it brings and transmits to them life and salvation. The power is there always, whether the Gospel-truth is accepted or not; "but a man can experience and enjoy this power only when he accepts it by faith. " 1Co 15:1 ff. ; Jas 1:21. And this power and glory of the Gospel is intended for everyone, for the Jew first, but for the Greek as well. To the Jewish people God had revealed Himself first, in their midst the Savior had lived, a continual living manifestation of the Gospel, a revelation of the merciful power of God. But the glad tidings were not confined to the Jews: Jews and Greeks were alike in need of the message of salvation. For neither Law and the works of the Law, on the one hand, nor wisdom and culture, on the other, can deliver mankind from the misery of sin and its consequences. Salvation is possible only through the power of the Gospel.
Just how the Gospel is a divine saving power Paul now explains, namely, since the righteousness of God is revealed in it. Righteousness, the state of being righteous, which is a condition of salvation, is lacking in every member of the human family since the Fall. But now righteousness, the state or condition in which a person is acceptable before God, has God on his side, is revealed, is made known in the Gospel. It is the righteousness of God, not merely a righteousness which has its source in God and comes from God, but a righteousness valid before God, one which finds full recognition in His sight, 2Co 5:21. It is not a righteousness which has its seat in man, the result of man’s own efforts, but a righteousness which is imputed to man by God, and therefore has full standing in His sight. This righteousness is revealed, uncovered. It is present, has been present from eternity, in Jesus Christ, whose vicarious, active obedience has brought about a merciful judgment of God. But this fact would remain unknown to man without the revelation of the Gospel, and therefore the righteousness which was gained through the merits of Christ is revealed and offered to all men in the Gospel. It is being revealed out of faith into faith: it is a righteousness out of faith, it becomes our full possession as a consequence of faith; and it is a righteousness into faith, it is expressly intended for faith, it can be obtained only by faith. As soon as a person accepts the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he becomes a partaker of the righteousness which is ready for him in the Gospel; a person must simply take what God gives him, and he has the possession and enjoyment of the great blessing upon which life and salvation depend. And in order to show that the doctrine which he here teaches is in full accordance with the writings of the Old Covenant, St. Paul quotes the word of a prophet, Hab 2:4: The just will live by faith, in consequence of, through faith; he will never see destruction, but will be in full enjoyment of the highest form of life, in and with God, forever. And so Paul has given a summary of his Gospel; he has stated, in these two sentences, the theme or thesis of his letter to the Romans.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 I am not ashamed of the gospel
I am not ashamed of the gospel
You can translate this in a positive form. AT: "I trust completely in the gospel" (See: Litotes)
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it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes
Here "believes" means that one puts his trust in Christ. AT: "it is through the gospel that God powerfully saves those who put their trust in Christ" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
for the Jew first and for the Greek
"for Jewish people and also for Greek people"
first
Here "first" means coming before all others in order of time.
For in it
Here "it" refers to the gospel. Paul explains why he completely trusts in the gospel.
God's righteousness is revealed from faith to faith
Paul speaks about the gospel message as if it were an object that God could physically show to people. You can translate this in an active form. AT: "God has told us that it is by faith from beginning to end that people become righteous" (See: Active or Passive)
as it has been written
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "as someone has written in the Scriptures" (See: Active or Passive)
The righteous will live by faith
Here "righteous" refers to those who trust in God. AT: "It is people who trust in God that he considers right with him, and they will live forever" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
good news
power
save
believe
Jew
Greek
righteous
reveal
faith
written
life
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:16 Paul consistently emphasizes that the Good News is…
1:16 Paul consistently emphasizes that the Good News is for everyone. He also insists that God first chose the Jews to be his people, made promises to them, and gave them a unique place in the continuing plan of God (3:1-8; 9:1-5). They have a special responsibility to respond to the Good News and will be judged first if they turn away (2:9-10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.