The gospel of God . . . concerning his Son

At the beginning of the first chapter of Romans and at the end of the last chapter reference is made to the fact that the gospel is made known to all nations for ‘the obedience of faith’. These two references stand, as it were, as two great columns on which the whole tapestry of the Epistle is hung. They inform us, firstly, that the gospel offer spreads beyond the nation of Israel (to whom the law was given) to all nations, and, secondly, that the proper response to the message is one where a person yields in faith to its claims. This is not just an intellectual or emotional assent to its truth, but a yielding of the will to Christ.

Paul was particularly the ‘apostle of the Gentiles’, 11. 13 and as such had a great desire that he might go to Rome that the believers might be established, 1. 11, and that he might have fruit among them, v. 13. Three statements tell us of the apostle’s mind as he thinks of making the arduous journey to Rome. ‘I am debtor’, v. 14, indicates that he considered that he owed it to God to preach the gospel to all kinds of people. In view of this he tells them, ‘I am ready’, v. 15, to pay that debt at Rome. This would not be out of a mere sense of duty, but he served God in his spirit, v. 9. Although there would have been many competing philosophies and ideologies at Rome, the centre of the empire, Paul indicates, ‘I am not ashamed’ of the gospel, v. 16, and then proceeds to state his reasons.

Perhaps the most important word in the Roman Epistle is ‘righteousness’. In God’s courtroom, man needs a right standing before the Judge. The Judge is righteous, and a person can stand before Him only in a righteousness as perfect as His own. The apostle will demonstrate that the law made all kinds of demands but was powerless to produce for man the righteousness that it demanded. However, the gospel fully reveals a righteousness which God has provided which is not on the basis of man’s works, as every other religious message in the world insists it must be, but on the basis of the work of Christ at Calvary. That righteousness is, in the gospel, offered to faith, and is unfailingly reckoned by God to every believer in Jesus. Truly, ‘The just shall live by faith’, v. 17.