DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.' " (Romans 1:16-17)

We are coming back to the New Testament for awhile. As we pick up in Romans chapter 1, a word needs to be said about how we will approach this book. This will not be a theological treatise of this writing of the Apostle Paul. It would be impossible to do an in depth study of Romans in the limited time we have. We will try to get the flavor of the flow of the river. But we will be flying at 15,000 feet so we will not be examining every bend in the river.

Romans was written to the saints – the believers in Jesus – who lived in Rome.

To these fellow Christians, Paul set the foundation of the Gospel – the assurance that the Gospel of Jesus is true and it is the only power that can save, for those who live by faith in Christ.

In the rest of this chapter, the Apostle contrasted this salvation to the wrath of God against all ungodliness of people who reject the truth of the Gospel. They suppress the truth of what is obvious – that there is a God who created the world. They exchange the truth of God for the lie and worship themselves as god. Since they forsake God's truth, God give themselves over to their vile passions. They know the righteousness judgment of God against sin. But they continue in their unrightousness and are deserving of death.

This is the essence of salvation. We are all sinners and have violated God's righteousness and have worshiped ourselves with our vile lusts. We deserve to be separated from God. But the Gospel of Christ provides a solution. We are saved from God's wrath on our unrighteousness by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He paid the price of redemption for us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are brought into relationship with God.

We do not need to be reticent of being called "saints" because we have been made righteous with God's righteousness through our faith in Christ, and we live in that faith. What a wonderful salvation we enjoy.

Love, Dad