The Righteous Live by Faith (Romans 1:16-17)

Introduction

Can you remember a day when you were saved?

Some Christians can. My wife knows where she was, she remembers who explained the gospel to her, and she knows that was the day when she was born again, when she was saved, and when she began trusting and following Jesus.

Other Christians cannot point to a specific day. For me, I know I was saved sometime during my first year at college, but the best I can do is narrow it to a few months. I know I was reading a Bible one afternoon, and it occurred to me that I had been reading the Bible regularly for a while. That was completely out of the norm for me, but I had a new sense that I wanted to get to know the Jesus I’d only heard bits and pieces about during my childhood and teenaged years of church attendance.

By God’s grace, I knew enough to know that Jesus is the Savior of sinners, and it was during that time that I began to trust Christ for myself.

Can you remember a day… a time… a season of your life when there was a definite break with the sinner you used to be and the Christian you had become?

Maybe you can’t put a date on it, but Christian conversion is certainly a definitive turn or change or transformation… it’s a reset of one’s beliefs, it’s a reorientation of life-direction, it’s a recalibration of personal and social priorities, and it’s a radical change of one’s position under God.

And this is what we’re focusing our attention on this morning – our position under God or in God’s sight… our positional status or standing.

Since God is the decisive judge of all people everywhere, is His judgment of your character, your life, your behavior… is His pronouncement over you “Sinner!” or “Saint!” … “Righteous!” or “Unrighteous!”? What is your status before God today? And how do you know?

A little more than 500 years ago, a troubled German monk (named Martin Luther) was struggling with this same question. In 1513, Luther became a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg. He was almost 30 years old, and he’d been a student of Roman Catholic history, theology, and law since he was a teen.

Luther taught on the Psalms and on the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Galatians and the Romans. Luther historians debate on exactly when this titanic reformer actually started to believe that justification before God comes by faith alone in Christ alone, but it was probably sometime during his studies and teaching on Romans (from 1515-1517). Later in life, Luther said he had a “Damascus Road” or “Tower Experience” during that time, and he described what he thought was his conversion.

A couple of years before he died, Luther wrote, “I had already, for years, read and taught the Holy Scriptures, both privately and publicly. I knew most of the Scriptures by heart and, furthermore, [I] had eaten the first fruits of knowledge of, and faith in Christ – namely, that we are justified not by works, but by faith in Him.”

He went on, “Nevertheless, in spite of the [eagerness] of my heart, I was hindered by the unique word in the first chapter [of Romans]: ‘the righteousness of God is revealed in [the gospel].’”

Luther said, “I hated the word ‘righteousness of God,’ because in accordance with the usage and custom of the [church theologians] I had been taught to understand it… as… the formal or active righteousness, according to which God is righteous and punishes sinners.”

The Roman Catholic Church taught (then as now) that God’s grace is “infused” to the sinner so that he or she may become righteous, but that a Christian’s righteousness begins at baptism and grows through a life of obedience. Therefore, salvation is possible through faith in Christ and the grace of God, but only on the last day will any believer learn if God will actually approve (In other words, there is no assurance of salvation or eternal security).

It's interesting that many Americans today believe something like this. President Trump recently repeated his hope that his good deeds will be sufficient to get him into heaven, though he’s pretty sure that his sins are too big.

The president is right that sin is what keeps sinners out of heaven, but he is looking in the wrong place if he’s hoping for his own good deeds to overcome his guilt. This will never do. Our sin is too great, and even our best deeds are not genuinely holy or righteous unless they are done out of love and service to God.

Luther felt and thought the same for a while. He said, “As a monk I led an irreproachable life.” Luther once said it like this, “If anyone could be saved by monkery, it was me!” He was the most self-disciplined, he passionately pursued a righteous life, and he confessed his sins daily to the priest (sometimes for hours).

“Nevertheless,” said Luther, “I [knew] that I was a sinner before God. My conscience was restless, and I could not depend on God being [appeased] by my [efforts]… Thus, a furious battle raged within my perplexed conscience, but meanwhile, I was knocking at the door of this particular Pauline passage, earnestly seeking to know the mind of the great apostle. Day and night I tried to meditate upon the significance of these words: ‘The righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written: The righteous shall live by faith.’”

Finally, after much struggling to know the Scriptures, Luther came to understand this passage we are considering today. And when he did, Luther said, “Then… God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is a gift of God, by which a righteous man lives by faith…I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise… Just as intensely as I had now hated the expression ‘the righteousness of God,’ I now lovingly praised this most pleasant word. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate to Paradise.”

Friends, today we’re going to consider together two short verses from the Bible – those same verses that opened the door for Martin Luther. Here we will (by God’s grace) set our minds upon the central reason for the hope sinners can have in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May God help us to understand, may God grant us the gift of faith, and may He open the door of Paradise for sinners like us through the study of His word this morning.

Scripture Reading

Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)

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.”

Main Idea:

The gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s power to save those sinners who simply believe or trust Christ for the gift of true righteousness whereby they live.

Sermon

1. The Power of God to Save (v16)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God to save sinners.

The gospel or message or story or good news of the Lord Jesus Christ centers on a crucified and risen Savior-King. The Apostle Paul says (in 1 Cor. 1) that “the word of [or “about”] the cross is folly [or foolishness] to those who are perishing [i.e., those who remain in sin and are on their way to eternal death], but to us who are being saved [i.e., those who believe the “word of the cross” or the “gospel”] it [i.e., the “gospel”] is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

So, when we read (in our passage here) Paul saying, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation,” we ought to make sure we know – What is this “gospel” or “word of the cross”?

It is the message about how God came (in the person of Jesus Christ) to save sinners. Many of you know the formulation – God, man, Christ, response.

God – In the beginning, God created all things good.

God created the whole universe, including the world, for His own glory. And man (or humanity) was God’s chief creation. God created man good, and God made man to glorify Himself through man’s reflection of God’s own character and attributes in creation.

Man – Though man was created good and for God’s glory, he exchanged the glory of God for a lie.

Adam and Eve sinned against God, and through Adam’s sin, all people became sinners – guilty of Adam’s sin and inclined toward sin themselves.

Our own lives prove this fact. We come into the world with sinful desires, sinful assumptions, and sinful behavior. We don’t have to be taught how to sin; it comes quite naturally to us. We lie, we steal, we disobey our parents and other authorities, and we reject God’s own rule and commands over us.

And because of our guilt and sin, God ought to give us nothing but judgment and condemnation. We deserve His wrath, and we have no hope in ourselves to appease His righteous anger against us.

Christ – But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved sinners like us, sent His own Son into the world to be the sin-bearer.

Jesus was God before time began, but God the Son took on humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus lived rightly under God’s law (succeeding where Adam failed), and He earned perfect righteousness.

And though He had no sin of His own, Jesus was condemned to die as the worst sinner of all time. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, He was counted guilty by both God and man, and He suffered God’s judgment in full against those sinners He came to save.

And we can know this is true – that Jesus’s sacrifice was acceptable to God – because on the third day after Jesus died, He was raised from the dead, never to die again. Shortly after His resurrection, Jesus ascended to His throne of authority over all.

In this way, Jesus showed everyone that He was the one in whom God Himself was rolling back His curse against sinners and against the whole of creation which was corrupted by sin.

Response – When sinners like us hear this good news, we ought to ask, “What must we do to participate in this salvation?” or “How can we receive the blessing of forgiveness that Christ has earned?”

The answer, of course, is that we must turn from our sin and trust in Jesus Christ! We must simply repent and believe!

Friends, if you want to leave behind your sin and guilt, and if you want to enjoy the blessing of God’s favor and grace, then you must respond to Christ in this way – you must turn from your sin and unbelief, and you must throw in your lot with Jesus (believing and following Him as though your eternal soul depended on it… because it does).

And if you want to talk more about what this means or how you can receive the forgiveness promised in the gospel, then let’s talk after the service today.

Friends, this is “the power of God” to save sinners – the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The “gospel” is the story of God’s saving work (through Christ) for anyone who will simply trust Him for it. This is the good news for young Christians and old ones. This is the good news for sinners who have tried to do good and for those who have intentionally aimed at doing bad. This is for big sinners and small ones, self-loathing sinners and self-righteous ones. But it’s only for those sinners who believe.

2. Salvation to All Who Believe (v16)

The salvation God has realized in the gospel of Christ is for all who simply believe, but it is only for those who believe.

See it there in v16. Again, the Apostle Paul wrote, “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” (Romans 1:16).

Friends, the NT does not pop up at a vacant spot of human history. When Jesus of Nazareth stepped onto the scene, there was a meaningful and significant distinction between Jews and Gentiles (or Jews and non-Jews). The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… the God of Moses and Aaron… the God of king David and the later divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah… this God is the one who established a people, who made promises, and who initiated covenants that placed a high priority on ethnic, geographic, and cultural descent.

God’s covenant with Abraham announced and established a blessing upon him and his descendants (Genesis 15:1-21).

God’s covenant through Moses announced and established a tabernacle, a priesthood, and a whole system of worship and civil structures for the people of Israel, and no other nation or people on the planet (Exodus 19:1-6).

And God’s covenant with king David announced and established an eternal throne that would somehow continue Israel’s heritage and also extend it far beyond (2 Samuel 7:1-17).

And when Jesus came, He announced and established a New Covenant that was the fulfillment (and the superior) of all God’s previous covenants. The NT describes Jesus as the new and better Israel, the new and better Moses, the new and better David – Jesus is the one to whom all of God’s previous covenants pointed.

And unlike the old covenants, the New Covenant in and through Jesus Christ does not depend at all on ethnic, geographic, and cultural descent. Rather, the New Covenant in Christ depends completely and only upon one’s relationship to Jesus.

Are you in or with Christ? In other words…

Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?

Do you believe that Jesus died in the place of sinners?

Do you believe that Jesus conquered death?

Do you believe that Jesus is the reigning King of glory?

Do you believe that Jesus is coming again – to judge the wicked and to save His people?

And have you thrown in your lot with Him?

In the New Covenant, the only thing that matters is belief – true and genuine belief – the kind of belief that pervades one’s heart and life (one’s mind and behavior). And if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then the “gospel” is the “power of God” for your “salvation” (no matter your ethnicity or family lineage)!

But this also means that if you do not believe or trust or have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then the gospel has no good word to speak to you.

The Apostle Paul says (in 2 Cor. 2) that those who preach the gospel are “the aroma of Christ” or “a fragrance from life to life” to “those who are being saved,” but that same message is “a fragrance from death to death” to “those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). In other words, the message of the gospel is one of life (that smells like life) to those who believe, but it is also a message of death (that smells like death) to those who remain in their sin.

Friends, if you are not believing or trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation – if you are not clinging to Christ and following Him – then you remain under God’s judgment. Today, God’s wrath is hanging over you, and on the last day God’s condemnation of you and wrath against you will be cut loose, and you shall endure God’s righteous fury in full.

The Bible says (in Rom. 2), “you have no excuse… We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice [sin]. Do you suppose, O man… that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:1-5).

Brothers and sisters, this also reminds us about how we ought to speak of the gospel with a sense of urgency when we talk about it with our friends and family. We do want to hold out the gospel of Christ with a gentle and loving hope that those sinners we love will turn from their sin and trust in Jesus. But if they do not believe, if they are not turning, if they hear the gospel and go on their merry way (living as sinners do), then we are not indifferent to their terrifying and hard-hearted response.

We may weep over their rebellion, we may be broken-hearted to think of their ongoing lack of repentance, and we may (no we should!) plead with God that He would change their hearts and minds. But we must not let any of the sinners we love think that there is no urgency to their need to put down their objections, to throw off their excuses, and to humbly give themselves to the mercy of Christ.

One day soon, Jesus will no longer be the gentle shepherd who extends a kind hand to wandering sheep. Instead, Jesus will appear as the conquering King who has come to destroy all His enemies. All those who persist in sin, and all those who turn up their noses at His offer of grace and forgiveness will suffer His wrath.

Friends, the gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s power to save those sinners who simply believe or trust Christ, but this salvation is only for believing sinners and not for all who merely hear or know the gospel.

“I believe that Jesus saves” or “I know that Jesus forgives” will be no comfort on the last day to those sinners who continue in their sin and rebellion.

Sinners make it to heaven all the time, but unrepentant sinners never do.

May God help us to be repenting and believing sinners, and may God help us to teach the gospel to others with an urgency that they too must be repenting and believing sinners in order to take part in the salvation God provides in the gospel.

3. The Righteousness of God Revealed (v17)

In the gospel of Jesus Christ, God reveals His own righteousness and that righteousness which is a gift to all believers.

Here, now, we get to the heart of the sermon I’m preaching today… the heart of the question before us. Since God is the decisive judge of all people everywhere, is His judgment of your character, your life, your behavior… is His pronouncement over you “Sinner!” or “Righteous!”?

Or, to put it another way, what is your position or status before God? And how do you know?

As I described in my introduction, Martin Luther is a great example of what it looks like for a sinner to struggle over this question. Luther was keenly aware of the Bible’s teaching on the righteousness of God, and he was also deeply concerned over his own sin and unrighteousness.

In our day, it is far more common for people to be surprised by God’s justice and wrath, and not so much by God’s grace and forgiveness. But Luther takes us into another world, a world where it is easier to think of God as judge and executioner, where it’s actually quite difficult to think of God as gracious savior.

There’s a sense in which Luther’s perspective of God was (in some ways) a lot more biblical than ours tends to be. So far as I know, the Bible never asks nor tries to answer the question “Why would God ever send a sinner to hell?” The answer is obvious – God is holy and righteous, and He must punish ungrateful and arrogant sinners who rebel against Him. What else could be expected?

The Bible does, however, ask and answer the question “How can God ever forgive a sinner and welcome him or her into heaven?” The answer to this question is not quite so obvious – God is holy and righteous, and sinners are utterly deserving of His wrath, so how can God be both just and forgiving? How can God both curse sinners and bless them?

This is what I mean when I say that in the gospel, God reveals (1) His own righteousness and (2) that righteousness which is a gift to all believers.

God’s own righteousness revealed.

J.I. Packer once wrote, “God is not just – that is, he does not act in the way that is right, he does not do what is proper to a judge – unless he inflicts upon all sin and wrongdoing the penalty it deserves.”

This is what the Apostle Paul is getting at in Romans 3, when he says that the gospel of Christ “was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins” (Romans 3:25).

If God merely passed over sins, without punishing sinners, then He would not be just, He would not be righteous.

A good judge is one that punishes the guilty.

In our day, many judges across America have a bigger interest in showing leniency to the guilty than punishing them.

For example, Dr. Karl Menninger was a 20th-century psychiatrist who had a huge influence on judicial philosophy in America, and he wrote, “Capital punishment is… morally wrong. It has a bad effect on everyone, especially those involved in it. It gives a false sense of security to the public… Punishing – and even killing – criminals may yield a kind of grim gratification… But playing God in this way has no conceivable moral or scientific justification.”

At least Dr. Menninger acknowledged that God does make judgments that include capital punishment, but his sentiment here is dominant in our court system today.

Judges do not want to punish criminals – they want to rehabilitate them, persuade them, and even sometimes make excuses for them.

But this is unjust. It is not only the absence of justice, but the presence of injustice.

When criminals go free, or are not punished for their crimes, the ones upon whom they inflict their criminality are punished instead.

And when criminals go free, the entire system of justice is called into question, because the very judges who are supposed to deliver justice are not.

Friends, when we sin, we are acting in criminal ways against others and ultimately against God Himself.

Thus, for God to be righteous, for Him to be just, He must never let any sin (not even the ones we think are small)… He must never let any sin go unpunished.

And in the gospel, God’s righteousness is revealed in that He is able to let sinners go free without letting sin go unpunished.

In Jesus Christ, God punished sin and sinners!

This is what Paul meant when he wrote (in Gal. 2), “I have been crucified with Christ… who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

And in Rom. 6, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” and under its penalty (Romans 6:6).

Friends, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, God reveals His own righteousness… in that He has shown Himself to be the just and righteous judge who does not let sinners go unpunished.

And God also – in the gospel – reveals His righteousness as a gift to those sinners who trust Him for it.

God’s gift of righteousness revealed.

Because God is a just and righteous judge, and because He does not let any sin go unpunished, how in the world can sinners like you and me expect to have the status of “righteous” in God’s sight?

How can we be called “the righteous” (Rom. 1:17)?!

How can we be called “saints” or “holy ones” (2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1)?

Is this a legal fiction? Is this a false hope?

Friends, this was Martin Luther’s quandary, and this is the crux of the problem every honest sinner must face.

If we have never raised this question and come to feel the release of joy that the Bible gives along with the answer, then I wonder if we really understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let me explain.

Here it is in Luther’s words:

When he understood the meaning of the phrase “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith” and “The righteous shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17), he said, “Then… God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is a gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely [by] faith, and that sentence: The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, is passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”

“Now,” Luther said, “I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise… My mind ran through the Scriptures, as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as the work of God, by which He makes us strong, the wisdom of God, by which He makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. Just as intensely as I had now hated the expression ‘the righteousness of God,’ I now lovingly praised this most pleasant word. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate to Paradise.”

Friends, in order to be welcome in God’s presence – in order to experience God’s favor and not His fury, God’s mercy and not His judgment – we must be “righteous.”

But we have no righteousness of our own!

We have lived unrighteously, and we cannot undue what we’ve already done.

More than that, we still think and act and speak unrighteously, and we continue to multiply our guilt every minute we live.

What we need is a righteousness that comes from the outside – what Luther called a “passive” righteousness, or what our passage today implies is a gift of God’s righteousness that comes through the gospel of Christ to all who believe or have faith.

You see, Jesus not only died to take away our sin… He also lived to earn genuine righteousness… and in the gospel of Christ, there is the offer of what theologians have called “the great exchange” – where sinners exchange their sin and unrighteousness for Christ’s earned righteousness.

Therefore, when the Scriptures say that “The righteous shall live by faith,” we are to take from this that sinners may become righteous by simply believing or having faith in the earned righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, how is it that sinners like you and me can have the status or position of “righteous” before God?!

If we simply receive (by faith) that righteousness Christ has earned on our behalf, then we may indeed be assured that we are righteous!

Though we have sinned, and though we continue to sin even today, we may have complete assurance that God has declared us… not merely forgiven, but righteous.

Friends, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, God reveals that righteousness which is a gift to all believers.

We could never earn it, and we don’t deserve it – it is a gift of God’s gracious grace.

4. The Righteous Live by Faith (v17)

All those who receive the righteousness of God through Christ live.

I will conclude with one brief final point here – that this gift of God’s righteousness through Christ is what makes the difference between life and death.

You may remember, some of you, that the Bible teaches us that the penalty for sin is death – both suffering and sorrow and death in this world, and suffering and sorrow and death in the world to come.

If we remain in our sin, if we stand before God on the last day wearing our own thoughts, words, and deeds, then we shall surely die.

If, however, we turn from our sin and trust in the person and work of Christ on our behalf, then we will stand before God wearing the righteous thoughts, words, and deeds of another – namely Jesus Christ – and we shall surely live.

Friends, where do you find comfort or peace or hope in those trembling moments when your sin and guilt come rushing in upon you?

Do you try to think of the good you’ve done?

Do you try to remember those acts of love you’ve performed?

Do you try to bolster the strength of your own faith, as though faith itself (or faith in faith) will save you?

Where do you look? Where is your hope? How can you find comfort?

Brothers and sisters, we do not look to our work or efforts… we do not even look to our own faith to find our comfort and peace.

We look to Christ…

We look to Christ’s death upon the cross – He has suffered our penalty, and God has righteously judged and punished our sin in full.

We look to Christ’s life – He has earned the righteousness we ought to have done but have not, and He offers us His righteousness as a gracious gift.

We look to Christ’s promises – He has promised forgiveness and blessing and love and life to all who look to Him for it.

We, like beggars with no money and no bread… we come to the Lord of the feast, and we receive more than we could ever have asked for… we receive from His bounty… for no other reason than that He is the gracious God who revealed His righteousness as a gift to us… for His own glory and for our everlasting benefit.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s power to save those sinners who simply believe or trust Christ for the gift of true righteousness whereby they live.

May God help us believe Him for His gift today, and may He make us live by faith, wearing His righteousness forevermore.