Romans 1.8-17
life by faith
Romans 1.8-17
Jason Procopio
I clearly remember the best Christmas present I ever received as a child. In part, it was so good because it was unexpected. We didn’t have a lot of money, so our Christmases were always lots of fun and very special for us, but we didn’t receive a lot of lavish gifts.
But when I was seven years old, my parents got me a bicycle. And it wasn’t just any bicycle: it was the bicycle I had secretly wanted for months. It was white with green tires (I thought that was the coolest thing, the green tires), it said “RAD” in huge letters on the piping. They had me close my eyes while my dad went into the other room and wheeled it out, then when they said, “Open your eyes!”, there it was, sitting there, waiting for me in all its glory.
I loved that bike.
I rode that bike everywhere, and I showed it off every chance I got. And seeing me get so much joy out of it gave joy to my parents in return—nothing makes a parent happier than seeing their kid genuinely thankful for something we have done. There was a reciprocity to the gift: I didn’t do anything to earn it or to pay my parents back for it, but I used it and enjoyed it and learned to ride it—and that gave my parents joy.
It’s sort of a silly example, but a similar kind of reciprocity is being displayed in today’s text.
Last week we looked at the first seven verses of Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which he simply greeted the church and gave them a very brief overview of the gospel he’ll be spending many chapters developing.
He’s going to continue that overview in today’s text. In the next nine verses—verses 8 through 17 of chapter 1—he’s going to remain fairly broad. In v. 8-15 he’s going to give them some insight into his own heart and why he is writing to them (we’ll go over those verses fairly quickly), and then he’s going to give them a monumental thesis statement for his entire letter, packed into two verses, so we’ll spend a good deal more time on those things.
Paul’s Desire (v. 8-15)
We’ll start at v. 8—Paul has just concluded his greeting to the church, and now he’s going to just chat with them a bit about why he’s writing. V. 8:
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
It’s important to read the books of the Bible for what they are: this is a letter, so we should read it as a letter. And in any letter, there are going to be sections where the person writing is just going to explain what’s going on in their lives. But it’s not unimportant: it gives us the opportunity to get a peek into Paul’s heart.
The first thing we see is Paul’s thankfulness for the faithfulness of the Roman church. He says their faithfulness to the gospel is known in all the world—that is, in all the Roman world. So the church in Rome is not like the church in Corinth; it’s not a “problem” church. They have their challenges (the Jew/Gentile interaction we talked about last week) but generally they’re doing well, and Paul is thankful for that.
The second thing: despite the fact that Paul’s never met them, he has genuine affection for them. He prays for them, he wants to come and meet them, wants to encourage them and strengthen their faith. But he also wants to be encouraged by them—so while he has affirmed his authority as an apostle, he wants to remind them that he’s a man too, he’s a brother, and he wants to be encouraged by them.
Lastly (for this part), he expresses his desire and his call, which is quite simple: to preach the gospel to everyone. Primarily the Gentiles (most of whom spoke Greek and had adopted Greek culture), but also those outside of Greek culture (“barbarians”). His ministry is primarily focused on Gentiles in the Roman world, but also to those outside. (So keep in mind that universality in his desire and his call, it will be important in a minute.)
So what we feel when we read the beginning here is Paul’s humility and his love for his brothers and sisters in Rome. He is encouraged by them, and he wants to see them in person to be even more encouraged, and to strengthen them in return.
Simply put, he wants to talk about the gospel with them (v. 15 : So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome).
At first, that might seem strange. If you don’t know the word, when we say “gospel,” we’re talking about the good news of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our rebellion against God. The gospel is what we hear when we become “Christians.”
But in this letter, Paul is writing to people who are already Christians. So it might seem strange that he would want to preach the gospel to them; they’re already Christians, why would they need to hear the gospel again?
His desire to do this is grounded in a very simple fact, which he gives as a kind of thesis statement for this entire letter. And that’s where we’ll be spending the rest of our time today. We’ll have to take it in little chunks, because he says a lot here.
The Gospel: Unafraid and Unashamed (v. 16a)
V. 16:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel…
He wants to preach the gospel to them, because he’s not ashamed of the gospel. But Paul’s an apostle of Jesus Christ, of course he’s not ashamed of the gospel. Why does he feel the need to say this?
Because he knows that in all likelihood, many members of the church in Rome are ashamed of the gospel.
Christianity was, at that time and in that culture, viewed as the religion of the weak. The most persistent critic of Christianity at that time, a man named Celsus, wrote: “[Christians] show they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, only slaves, women, and little children.” Remember, we’re still in a time in which slaves still existed, and in which women and children were regarded as second-class citizens. You could hardly insult someone more harshly, at that time and place, than by saying this.
This is how the Roman world saw Christians. Their faith was a source of derision, a reason for great shame.
Of course I don’t need to say that while things have evolved a little (no one would talk negatively about Christianity as being the religion of women and slaves), they haven’t changed that much. As Dan Allender said, “In many respects, our deepest fear [as human beings living in human society] is not death, but shame.”
How many of you have had the experience of having the opportunity to share your faith with someone, but you backed down because you were embarrassed? (Don’t raise your hands.) We’re ashamed too, we’re just ashamed for different reasons.
But there’s even more going on in this text than public embarrassment: at the time, Christianity brought with it a real danger of persecution. Just a short time later, Paul would come to Rome as a prisoner and die for his faith there. This fear of danger is a significant aspect of shame: Tom Schreiner noted that “those who are ashamed of Jesus in Mark 8.34-38 fail to confess him because they fear for their lives.”
And yet…Paul says that his is not ashamed. He’s not embarrassed by the gospel, and he is not afraid of what the gospel might bring him if he proclaims it.
The Gospel: God’s power for Salvation (v. 16b)
Now if this was all Paul had said, we could dismiss his words pretty easily. We’ve all known that annoying person who is weirdly confident in every circumstance—who never hesitates to do or say anything, even if it makes them look ridiculous. I knew a guy who used to wear overalls cut off at the knees to high school—why? Because he didn’t care. We saw that, we kind of admired his shamelessness. But at the same time, no one started dressing like him, because he looked ridiculous.
That’s not Paul. He’s not just absurdly confident. He isn’t ashamed of the gospel…but he has a very good reason to not be ashamed.
V. 16 again:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This is why Paul isn’t ashamed of the gospel. It’s because he knows that everyone in the room has cancer, and he has the cure. He’s not ashamed of the gospel because the gospel is “the power of God for salvation.”
It’s really important that we understand what he’s saying here. How is the gospel “the power of God for salvation”? What does that mean?
If you’re new to the church, I’m going to show my cards here right now. This is what we believe, and this is what we teach.
We believe that God is 100% active and sovereign over salvation, from beginning to end. That is to say that when Paul talks about the gospel being “the power of God for salvation,” he means the gospel doesn’t make salvation possible; it makes salvation happen.
Jack started middle school last week, and his school is right next to our apartment. So I gave him a key. He’s in middle school now, that means he’s old enough to walk home by himself and let himself in the door.
That’s the way many Christians view the gospel: God has given us the key to our salvation. And now all we have to do is use the key, open the door and walk through.
That is not what God has done. We didn’t get the key to salvation and then open the door ourselves. God picked us up like little children, turned the key himself, opened the door, and carried us through that door.
Paul’s going to go on at great length about this later on in the letter. If you believe in Christ and have placed your faith in him, that is not something you did. It is something that God did in you. You heard the gospel, and the Holy Spirit used that gospel to call you from death to life, to cause you to believe in the gospel rather than find it foolish. You had a part to play in the process (we’ll get to that in a minute), but even your part was not your doing; it was God’s work in you.
And he does this work—God saves us—through the proclamation and the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for salvation.
But surely you might be thinking, I know plenty of people who have heard the gospel and who aren’t saved today.
It’s a fair question: for whom does the gospel work this power? Paul answers that question right after.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
This statement is both exclusive and profoundly inclusive all at once.
It is exclusive in that he says, very clearly, the gospel is the power of salvation for those who believe. I’ll come back to the notion of belief in a minute, because Paul’s using a kind of shorthand there to say several things. The point is that he’s excluding the possibility of salvation any other way.
You can’t be saved by growing up in a Christian family.
You can’t be saved by simply agreeing with certain intellectual precepts.
You can’t be saved by simply following the tradition or rites of whatever church you’re in.
You aren’t saved because you prayed a prayer after a service one day.
You aren’t saved because you got water sprinkled on you as a baby.
And (so no one thinks I’m slamming our pedobaptist friends) you aren’t saved because you got dunked in water.
We are saved because we believe.
So yes, Christianity is exclusive.
But at the same time, it is profoundly inclusive. Paul says the gospel is the power of God for salvation to EVERYONE who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
That may not shock us overmuch, but it would have been a shock to some Jews at the time, because they had spent their entire lives hearing that because they are Jewish, they belong to God. They are God’s chosen people.
But right out of the gate, Paul is disabusing them of that idea.
The gospel came to the Jews first, yes, because Christ was born into and ministered in Jewish society, and the church got its start among Jews in Jerusalem.
But now, the gospel has also come to the Greek—that is, to other non-Jewish societies. And they get to benefit from the salvation of the gospel in the exact same way the Jews do.
In other words, anyone can come in. There are no societal hoops to jump through; there are no cultural rites of passage required. If you believe, then you have this salvation, no matter who you are, or where you came from.
That applies to nationalities and cultures, and it also applies to social status, as we saw before. Those deemed “less” by Roman society—women, children, slaves, the poor, the marginalized—are on equal footing now with rich, influential, powerful men. If we have been saved by God, we all have the same status before him.
Let me just take a minute to press on this a bit: some of you hear may be coming from a context which leads you to believe that you couldn’t be a Christian even if you wanted to. You look at the people around you, and you think, for whatever reason, No way they’d have me. No way they’d welcome me in.
There may be others of you who are the opposite. You’ve grown up in church, and you look around the room and you look down your noses at people around you: Really? They’re letting people like HER in now? You’d never say it out loud, but there’s a kind of retreat in your body language—you see that you’re walking toward someone, and you give them a wide berth.
The apostle Paul is gently but firmly calling you out. If you don’t think you belong here, friend, please let me reassure you. The gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes—absolutely no exceptions.
And if you think someone else doesn’t belong here, then you need to take a hard look at yourself, because by all rights, you shouldn’t be here either. You need to repent of that arrogance and welcome your brothers and sisters with open arms.
The Gospel: faith’s revelation (v. 17)
So the gospel works its power in those who believe. But how does it work? How does the gospel work its power?
That’s the question Paul answers next. V. 16 again:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Now this is a very loaded verse, so to make this easier, I’m going to break it down into questions that Paul answers here: firstly, What is salvation? Secondly, How does it apply? And thirdly, How does it work itself out in our lives?
So first off: What is salvation?
Salvation, at its core, is not going to heaven when we die. Salvation is seeing and benefitting from the righteousness of God: when God saves us, the gospel reveals his righteousness.
Now there has been a lot of discussion in theological circles about exactly what Paul means when he uses this term “the righteousness of God”. My favorite synthesis of the debate comes from Doug Moo (who also gives my favorite answer).
He says there are, globally, three possible meanings Paul might have in mind when he talks about the righteousness of God.”
First, it could mean the righteous standing that God gives. We can think of 2 Corinthians 5.21 as a good example of this: “For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” We were ordered to live sinless lives, in obedience to God’s commands; we have rebelled against God and thus deserve punishment; Christ came and lived our sinless life, in our place; Christ took the punishment we deserve; in exchange, he gave us his perfect life—his “righteousness”; and finally, God declares us “righteous”, on the basis of the perfect life of his Son, which he has given us.
So the righteousness of God might refer to the righteous standing that God gives to us when he saves us.
The second possibility is that “the righteousness of God” refers to the perfect character of God that we are called to imitate. That is, “the righteousness of God” is God’s moral perfection, which we are called to grow into (like we saw last week, the repeated commands to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” to “be holy as God is holy”).
The third possibility is that it refers to God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises. This is where the judicial sense of righteousness (justice) comes into play: God is a just God, and so he always does what he says he will do. His “righteousness” in this sense is the the fruit of his faithfulness to keep every promise he has ever made to his people.
So which is it?
I love Doug Moo’s answer: it’s probably all three at once. Again, Paul is a master synthesizer. Every one of these things is true, and Paul will affirm every one of these truths in this letter.
We don’t need to choose.
I agree with Doug Moo, so I’ll summarize it by saying that salvation is seeing and benefitting from the righteousness of God—that is, salvation is knowing who God is, knowing what he has done, living in response to those truths.
This is what is “revealed” by the gospel to those who believe.
Second question: How does salvation apply?
Paul tells us that in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith… How do we see the righteousness of God? We see it by faith—our seeing his righteousness, our salvation, is a result of faith.
We need to remember that faith is, first and foremost, a gift from God. It is the work he does in us through his Holy Spirit to cause us to believe in him and repent of our sin. It is something he does in us, not something we have on our own. We see the righteousness of God in the gospel because God gave us eyes to see it—his righteousness is revealed to us, not found by us. His righteousness is revealed from faith.
But Paul goes further than that. It is not just from faith, but FOR faith—as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
This is why I said that when Paul says the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, he’s using a kind of shorthand—he’s not just talking about thinking about a concept and deciding, “Yes, I think that’s true.” Faith isn’t less than intellectual, but it is more than that.
There are several facets to faith, which Kyle Worley helpfully pointed out. In faith, firstly, there is belief. That is intellectual assent: I understand a truth, and I believe it is true. I trust in it. I lean on it.
But in faith, there are also transformed desires and transformed loves. When we have faith, we start learning to want what God wants and to love what God loves. This is a big topic, because our affections don’t all change at once—we grow into godly desires and godly loves over time.
We don’t have time to cover how this works in detail, but we can see one example of it in the body, in the church, when we gather to worship: we sing in celebration of God’s work, in lament over our sin, in expectation of his coming and the renewal of all things. Our faith orients our hearts in new directions.
So in faith there is belief; there are transformed affections; and lastly, in faith, there is an allegiance to follow Christ. When God gives us faith, we respond by making a concerted commitment to spend the rest of our lives as his disciples, learning to become like him.
Faith is all of those things at once: it belief, affections, and allegiance.
In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Here’s what Paul is saying: once God gives us faith, and we believe and place our faith in Christ, every moment of our lives from that day until our death becomes an exercise in faith. Faith is what saved us at the beginning, and it is also the motor for the rest of our lives in Christ.
There will be moments in our lives when doing what God calls us to do will feel illogical, unreasonable, or even dangerous. We will have one good reason for doing something—because God tells us to in his Word—and a thousand reasons for not doing it. In those moments, we live by faith. We remember the truth we believe, we remind ourselves of the God we love, and we act in accordance to our allegiance: we do the hard thing, even though it’s hard.
Living the gospel, unAshamed
Let’s go back to what I was saying at the beginning of the sermon, about the bike my parents gave me for Christmas. I can’t overstate how awesome I thought that bike was. Like I said: it was the best Christmas present I ever received as a child.
So how weird would it have been if I had refused to ride it? If Dad said, “Jason, why don’t you ever ride your bike?” And I said, “Dad, it’s embarrassing. I didn’t work for this, I didn’t pay for it. Everyone’s going to know that this bike is charity.”
Of course it sounds ridiculous: it makes no sense. I loved that gift, so I used it. I rode it everywhere, and I showed it off every chance I got. And that gave my parents joy.
I know it’s a silly example—I chose a silly example on purpose, because our response to the gospel is, quite often, just as silly.
When it comes to the gospel, we often act like the kid who’s embarrassed to ride his awesome bike. We forget that there is meant to be reciprocity. We don’t earn our salvation, and we can’t pay God back for it, but he absolutely expects us to live by the faith he has given us. Why? Because that’s what you do with any wonderful gift! And this is the greatest gift any of us could have ever imagined: seeing the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, through the power of his Holy Spirit.
So the question is, in response to this incredible gift God has given us in the gospel, how shall we live? That’s the question, because that’s what he says when he quotes Habakkuk at the end of v. 17: “The righteous shall live by faith.” Salvation is about our life, not about our death. It’s not about where we go after we die. It’s about how we live, now and forever.
I won’t stand here and tell you that there are no reasons to be ashamed of the gospel—there are plenty. We stand to lose a lot if we live for Christ. We stand to suffer a lot if we live for Christ. There are reasons to feel shame.
But these reasons are illegitimate: when we feel shame because of the gospel, our feelings are lying to us. God’s power is so much greater, so much more formidable, so much heavier, than anything we stand to lose. We have reasons for shame, but we have infinitely more reason to be proud of the gospel—to get on the bike and ride it everywhere, to show it to everyone we can, saying, “Have you seen this?!”
We absolutely must fight to remember this—to constantly remind ourselves of what is true, and not be distracted by how we might feel—because we will not live the gospel if we are ashamed of it.
The call of Paul’s example—to be unashamed of the gospel—is the call to fully believe it is the power of God for salvation. If we don’t believe that, we won’t live in the light of that power. (Remember: from faith, FOR faith.) If we don’t believe the gospel is the power of God for salvation, and if we don’t believe that this salvation is such a monumental gift, we won’t be praying that God would put that power to work in our lives to resist temptation. We won’t be praying that God’s power would manifest itself in us through the gospel proclaimed. We won’t be praying that God’s power would show itself to others through the lives that we live. We won’t be praying that God help us share the gospel, that he might reveal his righteousness to others, from faith, for faith.
Paul understands this, and he is showing us the example. So let us follow his example, and live by faith. Trust in his power. See his righteousness, and rejoice in his righteousness, and be proud of his righteousness, from faith, for faith. Live by faith, unashamed of the gospel that brought it to you.
