God's Righteousness and Wrath
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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
To start off, I want to take a look at what the word “Gospel” means
The Greek word for “gospel” is Euangelion and it means “good news”
And what is the “Good News”?
We can find it in the first few verses of Romans
Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and singled out for God’s good news —
which He promised long ago through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures—
concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh
and who has been declared to be the powerful Son of God by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness.
This is the good news: That Jesus Christ is the one that God has promised in the Holy Scripture! He is the King from the line of David, as far as his humanity goes, and is the powerful Son of God who has been raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit!
When Paul says, Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel… What does he mean? Why does he say it like this
He is using a figure of speech called litotes (LItOtees); he is using an understatement to express how he really feels about it.
Paul is saying that the Good News of Jesus Christ and the spreading of it is his highest honor. In fact, he can’t contain it! He has to preach it. And why is that? Because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes!
For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,
since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.
Two things about God are revealed in verses 17 and 18: God’s righteousness, and God’s wrath. We will come back and expound on God’s righteousness, but right now, we are going to take a look at God’s wrath.
For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,
since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.
For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Now there is only one truth, and it cannot be changed, that is the truth of God. “All truth is God’s truth”. But people can suppress the truth.
If we, in our hearts, desire godlessness and unrighteousness, then we will buy into a lie that suppresses the truth of God to justify our sin.
People have always done this. In ancient times (and even today) people made idols to resemble things in creation, and worshiped them. In our western culture, we may not build an image to bow down to, but we worship other gods
For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Paul is saying here that God’s fingerprints are on all of creation! He has made it evident that He is the one and only God. No one has a legitimate excuse to not believe. But people make up excuses all the time in order to serve the gods of their choosing.
For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
You can think of it like this:
Though people have no excuse, they choose not to glorify God, but rather try to glorify themselves and live by a false sense of wisdom, worshiping gods of money, sex, time, power, and security in this life.
And it brings the Wrath of God down on those who live like this!
But what is the Wrath of God then??
I’ll tell you that it is not like human wrath. The wrath of man is physical. The wrath of God is something much scarier.
But if suppressing the truth and living godless and unrighteous lives brings about the Wrath of God, then what is it???
So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.
The part that says “they did vile and degrading things with each others bodies,” that’s referring to the sexual immorality that Paul is going to address as the chapter goes on. But what I want you to notice here is the beginning of the verse… God is giving them over to the desires of their hearts.
“But My people did not listen to Me;
Israel did not obey Me.
So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
to follow their own plans.
quote
“Moral Degradation is a consequence of God’s wrath, not the reason for it.”
Robert Mounce
It’s God allowing people to destroy themselves!
What do we do then?? If we look at v. 17 & 18 again, it appears that we have two options: we can be in right standing with God (that is righteousness) or we can face God’s wrath.
But what choice do we have?!? Paul in Romans 3:10 is going to quote from the Psalms and say“as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one.”
We can’t do it! Humanly speaking, we might as well accept the fact that we have to face God’s wrath because we cannot be in right standing before God. We are sinful.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Pretty dismal to think about. Because we are sinful, we can never make ourselves right in God’s sight. Some might say it’s bad news. In fact, It’s horrible news!
Can we get some good news!?
Yes! The Good News! The Good news is that Jesus Christ — The one God promised long ago through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures — The King from the line of David who is declared to be the powerful Son of God by the resurrection from the dead in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is our Good News!
This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
How does God make us right in his sight? Look what Paul says!
For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly.
For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.
But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!
Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath.
Through Christ’s sacrificial blood, we are made right with God and are saved from wrath! This is the Good News!
God can — and he wants to — make people right in his sight. There is nothing we can do to earn it; Christ is the one who makes it possible. But there is something that we have to have to become righteous...
This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
How God makes us right in his sight is by Jesus Christ through our faith in Him. It’s where it begins and ends! Romans 10:10
One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
Jesus makes us right before God when we put our faith in him, but that’s not where it ends! Jesus makes us righteous, and as we walk along the paths of righteousness, we are walking by faith! But not a stagnant faith! No a growing faith; a faith that is being perfected! As in Hebrews 12:2 “keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.”
Praise God for His Good News! Praise Jesus for making it possible for us to be made right with God through his blood.
So, lets take this time right now to celebrate Jesus. To celebrate his victory over sin and death. Let us celebrate the way he has made us right in God’s sight. His body and blood.
We have looked at how the righteousness of God and the Wrath of God are revealed, and how God has saved us and made us right in his sigh by the Good News of his son Jesus. And it is awesome to sit and ponder that wonderful thought! To sit and reflect on the love of God that has saved you.
But y’all, what about your neighbors? Coworkers? Family, friends? Teachers? Teammates? Many of them are not experiencing the righteousness of God! Many of them are experiencing the Wrath of God! They have been given over to the desires of their darkened hearts! They know nothing but bad news!
The world could use some Good News right now.
And we have the Good News! We have the light of Christ that can shine on the darkened hearts of the world and show them the way that leads to righteousness!
Paul was not ashamed of the Good News. It was the greatest honor of his life! He could not contain it; he had to share it! I want that! I want that for all of you! I want us to take that Good News and treasure it in our hearts, and take so much joy in it that we can’t help but proclaim it!