Why Share The Gospel - The Man On The Island
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Imagine this scene. A ship crashes into a deserted island. A young boy is the only survivor. The island has all that he needs for his sustenance, and he grows up relatively healthily, but alone.
Over the course of his life, he comes to understand that there must be more to life than himself. He looks to the majesty of creation, and realizes that some deity has created the world, and that deity is worthy of devotion.
I do realize the impossibility of that scenario, but just go with me for a bit.
The question is this: what do we do with the man on the island?
I’m going to read two passages from Romans to start us off. The first is from Romans 1:16-25
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.”
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
The second comes from Romans 2:11-16:
11 For God shows no partiality.
12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Now, we must understand that the next few minutes may not be comfortable, because I hope to challenge us all. I know I am challenged by these passages. But it does drive us to think, “why share the gospel?” Or maybe, it requires you to think, “why would God hang his mission on us?” He hangs it on us, because we were created in His image to glorify Him. That is the big idea, or the big takeaway: We are God’s plan A, there is no plan B.
As we look particularly at Romans 2 (I wanted you to have the context from Romans 1, because it is important to rightly understand Romans 2), the major thing I want you to take away from here is that this passage is not about “works” or “doing the law.” We are going to see Paul’s rhetoric tear down that line of thinking as we go along, and scripture is very clear in other places that works are not how we are made right.
What Paul is setting up for us here is the continuing idea of being without excuse (Rom 1:20; 2:1). And you may ask why he is still going on about this idea of being without excuse, but I think if we stop for a second we will see that we are as stubborn and sinful as Paul’s first-century audience, and we are absolutely as prone to chase after sin - we don’t even have to wait to be tempted, we’ll just chase it on our own!
And because we are stubborn and stiff-necked people, we think we don’t need help. We act like getting help from God or from others somehow demeans us. And we say, “God, I got this. I am good. You just let me be.” And we move from sin to sin and we are condemning ourselves under the law, because we are rejecting God and exchanging the truth - His truth - for a lie.
Because we will never measure up to the law.
We will never be able to fulfill the law.
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
James makes it pretty clear there. And that should actually scare the pants off of us. Because if we think for one second anything we do will measure up to a holy God, we are kidding ourselves. God calls us to be holy like He is holy.
2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
About the only holy I am is wholly unable to do anything in my own strength.
We must understand that when we try to drive the bus, when we try to do this “our way,” we are rejecting God. And when you start rejecting God, you are embodying all of the negative aspects of life that we’ see in Romans 1.
So, let’s take a closer look at this. And this is our first point: God Is Just.
11 For God shows no partiality.
12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
Thomas Schreiner ties verses 11 and 12 together like this:
“God is impartial (11).
In other words, those who sin without the law will perish without the law (12a), and those who sin with the law will be judged through the law (12b).”
But who is Paul talking about in verse 12? Who is without the law?
Well, he is talking about the Gentiles. The Gentiles were the ones who did not have the Law. F. F. Bruce notes, in his commentary on Romans:
“Sin unchecked leads to perdition one way or another, but Gentiles will not be condemned for failure to conform to a law-code which was not accessible to them. The principle is laid down that men and women are judged by the light that is available to them, not by light that is not available.”
What Paul is not saying is that, “well, they didn’t have the law, so they’re cool.” He has already said they are without excuse. But he does make a point to show his readers that God is just.
If I had a rule that everyone was supposed to take off their shoes when they came in my house, that’d be fine, right? Now, let’s say you don’t know that I have that rule. I haven’t told you about the rule. And I don’t have any sort of sign or anything that says, “please take off your shoes before you enter.” I invite you to dinner, you come to my house, you leave your shoes on, we have a lovely time, and when you leave, I tell you: “Well, it was great, but I’ll never have you over again because you are very disrespectful and gave no regard to my rule.”
You’d probably think I was nuts. Certainly that I am a jerk. You would not think that I was “just” or “righteous” or “holy.” Because I was judging you based on a standard you didn’t know. I didn’t give you the chance to obey or not, because you didn’t have all the information.
Now, when I invite you to my house, and I say, “hey, we have this rule, because we have some issues with dirt, or whatever, and we ask that everyone take off their shoes when they come in.” Then, you can decide: am I going to come in or not? If you choose to transgress, that’s on you.
Make no mistake, this is what the Jews were doing to Gentile Christians in the first century. See the book of Galatians for more on that. But they wanted to judge the Gentiles based on God’s law, and Paul is telling them that the law is only enough to condemn us all, it isn’t enough to save us. Because we all transgress the law. And God has already revealed enough to the gentiles for them to be convicted, even without His law. So no one is without excuse.
So, we see that the second half of verse 12 is dealing with Jews. But Paul knows the arrogance that we just talked about. That feeling of, “well, we have the law, so God loves us and not you!” **blow raspberry**
And so he indicts the Jews moving into verse 13:
13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Again, we can read verses 12 and 13 together like this (Schreiner):
“Those who sin with the law will be judged through the law (12b).
For the hearers of the law are not justified before God (13a), but the does of the law will be justified (13b).”
Paul reminds them that their heritage, their nationality, their religious identity, their membership in the Jewish synagogue are not enough. Yes, you’ve heard it. Now you have to do it.
Incidentally, I think this is why Paul uses the phrasing “the Jew first and also the Greek” in 2:9-10; The Jews should know better. They were actually given the law. The Gentiles didn’t have the law, but God had graciously revealed Himself to them anyway. But the Jews? They had Moses and the prophets. Think back to the parable Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. These two guys die, and Lazarus is with Abraham in paradise, the rich man is in hell. Remember, the rich man is a Jew. He calls Abraham “Father Abraham.” This is nor coincidental. This isn’t so we have a fun children’s song. He is using his Jewish heritage intentionally. The rich man wants Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers. What does Abraham say?
29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”
Luke 24:27 gives us another picture of how Christ uses the Law and the prophets to speak about Himself, as He discusses with the guys on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection:
27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
The Jewish people had everything they needed to see Jesus as the Messiah. But they didn’t see Him. They rejected Him. They heard the law, but didn’t do it. And so they are condemned by it.
That brings us to the second point: Only Jesus Can Fulfill The Law.
You see, those that do follow the law, or “do the law,” will be justified. Now, here again, we have to understand this in the framework of knowing that the New Testament writers are all in agreement with the idea that we cannot fulfill the law, only Jesus can do that. Again, this is Paul’s rhetoric for moving us to the need for Christ. Because we cannot fulfill the law, and because we are judged and condemned by it, we need a mediator who can make us right before God.
As we move into verse 14-16, we see again the flow of the verses together.
14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Paul is reminding the church in Rome that just having the law isn’t enough, and that even Gentiles can and do “right things.” When Gentiles do things that are morally right, what we would call “natural law;” they prove the ideas Paul laid out in chapter 1 where God has revealed Himself in creation and creation order. And we know this.
This is actually the hardest part about evangelism in the US, certainly, although it is universal.
How many of you know folks who are not Christians, or who don’t claim to be Christians, but who seem like genuinely good people? Folks that are faithful to their spouses. Folks that work hard, don’t cheat, help their neighbors and those less fortunate. We all probably know some folks like that. People that seem genuinely good, but don’t appear to have a relationship with God. And we sometimes wonder why that is.
Paul tells us why. God has revealed Himself in creation. But that isn’t enough. That is no different than the Jew who hears the law.
Verse 14 seems to contrast Jews who thought possessing the law was enough with Gentiles who didn’t have the law but do the things God asks (therefore being a law unto themselves).
Verse 15 seems to be alluding to the promise in Jeremiah 31:33
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Paul seems to be correlating the promise of God to the people after the exile and extending it to the Gentiles here.
Now, just a useful side note here: Paul uses the word “conscience” here, and according to F. F. Bruce, it is possible that Paul is the first person to use it in a way that suggests that “independent witness within,” as opposed to just a consciousness of right or wrong doing. For Christians, the Holy Spirit is our guide, our conscience. Not Jiminy Cricket.
And in all this, it seems that Paul is suggesting that the conscience of the gentile in question bears witness to what the law on their heart says. This means that, in view of their Gentile status and not having been brought up learning the law, and having not memorized the law, that in spite of all of that, God has made a way for them to still be convicted (15b - conflicting thoughts accuse and excuse) because He has made Himself known to them.
And we can relate to the “accuse/excuse” language here, right? We all do things that feel like the Holy Spirit is convicting us about, and likewise we do things and feel like the Holy Spirit is giving us a thumb’s up, like, “Hey, you got that one right. Good job!” That’s the idea: the struggle in ourselves to fight against that sin nature until we are fully sanctified (v16 - “on that day”).
And again, I think sometimes we get ourselves in knots over some of the verbiage and miss the simple point that Paul is making.
And that is our final point: God Judges All Men By Christ.
You see, ultimately, God judges all men by the law. But not the law of Moses handed down to faithful Jewish families over the generations. God judges all men by the true fulfillment of the law - Christ Jesus. Jesus is the rule by which God will judge. Because we cannot uphold the law. We cannot know everything about God by His general revelation.
And look, I know that some of you have a problem with the “man on the island” scenario, because it really isn’t realistic. We have seen or heard about ways that God will send someone at just the right time, or how former Muslims will have a dream that leads them to someone who shares the Gospel. I get it.
But in this scenario, as I presented it: the man who is stranded on a desert island and never hears about Christ has enough knowledge in nature to know God is out there, but without someone sharing who Christ is, no matter how good he may be, no matter how much he may love God as he has come to know Him in nature, if the man does not have Christ, he is lost. He is a dead man.
And that is why we must go! That is why we must go into all the the world. Because God expects us to be about His business, and if we don’t tell them, they die! Even in the stories we have heard and read about the miraculous ways God brought someone to faith, there was still a person who had to share the Gospel.
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Incidentally, preaching here is:
The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition Preaching
In the NT, preaching is ‘the public proclamation of Christianity to the non-Christian world’ (C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Development, 1944, p. 7). It is not religious discourse to a closed group of initiates, but open and public proclamation of God’s redemptive activity in and through Jesus Christ. The current popular understanding of preaching as biblical exposition and exhortation has tended to obscure its basic meaning.
The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition III. The Essential Nature of Preaching
True preaching is best understood in terms of its relation to the wider theme of revelation. Revelation is essentially God’s self-disclosure apprehended by the response of faith. Since Calvary is God’s supreme self-revelation, the problem is, How can God reveal himself in the present through an act of the past? The answer is, through preaching—for preaching is the timeless link between God’s redemptive act and man’s apprehension of it. It is the medium through which God contemporizes his historic self-disclosure in Christ and offers man the opportunity to respond in faith.
The gospel isn’t just a good idea, it’s a matter of life and death!