Prayer: O God, Your love for us is matchless. We are unworthy of being called by Your name. Teach us Your righteousness Lord. Then we will glorify Your name and be pleasing to You at the same time.
Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, Your justice like the great deep. O Lord, You preserve both man and beast. How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings. (Psalms 36:5-7). Amen.
Main Scripture: Romans 1:7-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith” (vss. 16-17).
Associated Scriptures:
See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright but the righteous will live by his faith (Habakkuk 2:4).
For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love (Psalms 33:4-5).
Correlative Quotes:
This is the most life-transforming truth ever put into men’s hands. If we really understand and respond to these truths in these two verses, time and eternity is totally altered. Now I believe that these two verses form the theme and the thesis for the epistle to the Romans. It is a statement of the gospel of Christ.[1] – John MacArthur
The outcome of the Gospel - it is the power of God unto salvation (v. 16c). That word "salvation" carried tremendous meaning in Paul's day. Its basic meaning is "deliverance," and it was applied to personal and national deliverance. If men and women are to be saved, it must be through faith in Jesus Christ as proclaimed in the Gospel.[2] – Warren Wiersbe
This gospel had been demonstratively proven to be the divine dynamic bringing deliverance to all who put faith in it, whether the religious Jew or the cultured Greek. It was the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. It met every need of the mind, the conscience, and the heart of man, for in it the righteousness of God was revealed faith-wise.”[3] – H. A. Ironside
Study:
“Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?”[4] – C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
From the beginning, God had a plan for our salvation. Salvation was, from the beginning, and still is a gift from God. A gift cannot be earned or bought. The gift of salvation is something that must be received as a result of faith. The object of this faith is the person who brought the action to the plan of God, Jesus Christ. In His plan, God would become a man in physical form and die in place of our sin, the disobedience of all mankind. We would be redeemed, bought with a price, and the price was high, Christ’s blood.
This was God’s plan throughout all eternity. The plan began with the virgin birth and culminated at the resurrection and ascension. The plan became a message. The message that allows salvation to occur is what the Bible calls the Gospel. The gospel is the “good news” (vs. 16) that must be accepted through faith to bring about complete and eternal salvation. Anyone who believes that God became flesh in the form of His son Jesus Christ, accepts the resurrection as factual, and receives the gospel message of salvation by faith, will obtain the gift that brings an eternal relationship with God (1 John 5:11).
Paul’s Spirit drives him to want to share his faith. His message produces spiritual growth in those who know Christ as savior. However, this same message of faith produces salvation; “a harvest among you” (vs.13). Even though Paul mentions that he is disappointed in not being able to go directly to Rome, this issue is minor in comparison to his desire to strengthen their relationship with God and to assist them in adding numbers to the Kingdom of God. The Gospel is the only hope for all people cultured and uncultured, educated and uneducated. The Gospel of God is universal (vs. 14).
Paul describes a confident faith (Vs. 16-17). He explains to the church at Rome that his faith is so strong, that he is self-assured of the truth of God as explained in the Gospel. He is so confident of its authenticity, that Paul is “not ashamed” to preach it. His certainty is based on the “road to Damascus” experience. It is on this road that he met Jesus face to face. The light of Christ was so bright and so pure that it blinded Paul for days (Acts 22:6-21). Jesus spoke to him several times, giving Paul a personal commission; reach the gentiles.
The gospel, Paul says, “is the power of God leading to salvation to everyone who believes” (vs. 16). The word gospel in Greek means a good message or good news[5]. The authentication of the Messianic rank of Jesus was cemented by His words, His actions, and His sacrifice. Jesus is the Messiah to the Jews and savior to all. The narrative of His sayings, acts, and death came to be known as the gospel (Mark 1:1, 14). As Paul began preaching the gospel message to gentiles and they began accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior, the prophetic mystery of universal salvation was initiated.
The key to the gospel message is righteousness, God’s righteousness (vs. 17). Although salvation is offered universally, it is limited in that each individual must recognize it. God’s righteousness brings about “justification.” When we receive the gift of righteousness, we become justified in the eyes of God (Galatians 2:16).
“For therein” links verse 17 with verse 16; "for in it” that is in the gospel, is the rightness of God revealed. This explains why the gospel is the power of God. The gospel is "dynamite" because through it the holiness of God is revealed. Righteousness is that aspect of God’s holiness which is seen in His treatment of His creatures. Simply, righteousness is how God treats us. Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He is how God treats us. We are unrighteous, unholy., unlovely. Yet Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 1:30).[6] Woodward Michael Kroll
In Psalms 11:7 David writes this about God: “For the LORD is righteous; He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face.” God is righteous and we are not.
“The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.”[7] – R. C. Sproul
God’s actions are always analogous to His nature, will, and law. God’s righteousness is different from God’s holiness. Holiness is God’s fundamental attribute. Holiness means that God is separate and He is pure. Since God is pure, He won’t sin. Righteousness is an action of holiness; God is righteous because He is holy. God’s righteousness prevents Him from sinning. God won’t sin since He is holy; He can’t sin because He is righteous. In other words, holiness describes what God is while righteousness describes what God does. So, God is in no way involved in our sinfulness. He cannot be mixed with evil. The problem is in man. In man, the problem is bound up with his lust. The nature of God is such that he only gives good gifts and when God touches your life, it is to produce life, not death, to produce righteousness, not sin. To make a new creation, not exercise the old one.[8] – John MacArthur
God’s laws are holy since they come from His nature. The enforcement of His laws is always righteous. God loves righteousness (Psalm 11:7b, NKJV). Warren Wiersbe in his book The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: Old Testament writes, “God is a faithful God, a God of truth, righteousness, justice, and goodness. God's throne is built on righteousness and justice. To eyes of faith, the earth is full of His goodness The beauty of God's character should elicit from His people songs of praise and thanksgiving. Unless our worship focuses on the character of God, we have ignored the Person who ought to be the center of true worship.”[9] Christ is therefore just and at the same time our justifier.
Summary Statement:
God loves righteous men. “The Lord loves the righteous” (Psalms 146:8c, NKJV). God is not responsible for our sin. He created us to be perfect. We chose sin and continue to choose it. John 3:19 (NASB) “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”
The righteousness of God, which was witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, is the same righteousness that is manifested through Jesus Christ by faith. This righteousness is the free gift of salvation, the righteousness of God. Through Christ’s act of redemption, all those who believe in Him are now justified or made righteous in the eyes of God. Christ is our justifier, the propitiation (payment) for our sin.
Lessons within the Lesson:
What was Paul’s desire for the Church in Rome and how does that relate to our responsibility to our church?
Paul describes his faith as being strong since he actually encountered Jesus in person, what strengthens your faith?
What does Paul’s statement (vs. 17), “by faith from first to last” (NIV), “from faith to faith” (NKJV) mean?
Explain the difference between the works that are a result of unrighteousness and the works that result from the efforts of the Holy Spirit.
[1] John MacArthur, The Gospel of Christ, © Grace to You, All Rights Reserved, message 54-08.
[2] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Copyright © 1989 by Chariot Victor Publishing, and imprint of Cook Communication Ministries. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
[3] Harry A. Ironside, Lectures on the Epistle of Romans, studylight.org/commentaries/isn/view.cgi?bk=ro&ch=1#1-17.
[4] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, goodreads.com/quotes/tag/righteousness
[5] Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006, 2011 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
[6] Woodrow Michael Kroll, General Editor, Romans, Liberty Bible Commentary, © 1983 by The Old Time Gospel Hour, p. 2208.
[7] R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1985), p. 40.
[8] John MacArthur, Born to Holiness, © Grace to You, All Rights Reserved, March 2, 2003, message 59-8.
[9] Warren Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: Old Testament Wisdom and Poetry, Published by David C. Cook, Colorado Springs, CO 80918 USA, All Rights Reserved, p. 156.
Overcast, 63°