If you are a person who has achieved even a basic level of maturity, who has even a rudimentary intelligence, then you probably have come to the realization that life is not all that we wish it to be. It doesn’t take too long for the average person as they live their life to realize that something’s wrong, something’s missing. It may seem like some other people manage to get it right and things seem to work out for them, but we think for us it’s just not the case. But I think that rather than that being a personal deficiency it is actually a universal problem. It even affects those who are still in the process of maturing; such as teenagers and young adults. People that you would think should have every reason to optimistic and full of hope for the future are instead finding themselves becoming disillusioned with life. Millions of young people today are depressed and searching for answers to life in therapy and counseling and the use of anti-depressants and so forth. The suicide rate for young people has reached almost epidemic proportions in this modern age as they become disillusioned and so despondent over life.
And if that’s true for young people, then how much more so is it true for the person who has reached middle age and done all the things that society tells us are necessary to succeed at life and yet found disappointment and emptiness rather than joy and fulfillment. Yet even so, most of us manage to convince ourselves that a happy life is still achievable, if we just do a couple of things, or if we can just acquire enough things, or get enough money, or get in shape, or find true love, or whatever it is which we feel is the missing ingredient. And so we pull our shoulders back and thrust out our chin and we power on in the hope that things will get better, that we can somehow get things right and find whatever it is we need to make life satisfying and fulfilling and enjoyable.
The wisest man that ever lived wrote in the book of Proverbs; “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” And what Solomon was getting at is that though man might try every conceivable tactic, he is still unable to figure out a way to circumnavigate this life. Ultimately, no matter if you manage to get rich, no matter if you are beautiful, no matter if you achieve fame or power, one day death comes to everyone. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that all is vanity and chasing after the wind.
Peter, quoting the prophet Isaiah said, “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away.” The principle of death affects all aspects of life, turning man’s glory into decay, putting an end to all our struggles, it’s the end of life for every living creature.
And yet there is more to that quote from Isaiah. This diagnosis of life which seems so hopeless, so despondent, so depressing, has an antidote. That dire prognosis has a prescription of hope. Isaiah said it is this; “But the word of our God stands forever.” Hallelujah! That is hope. That is something to rejoice about. That’s good news. That God has spoken and His word will not fail, His word will not pass away. The life giving word of God endures forever.
This word of God is no less than the gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul is proclaiming in this epistle. Gospel means simply “the good news of God”. The angels proclaimed the good news from heaven to the shepherds at Jesus’s birth saying, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The good news is God has sent a Savior for mankind. This gospel is the hope of the world. It’s the light that shines in darkness. It’s the word of life that banishes death in all it’s degrees. It’s the truth of God that sets us free from the corruption that is in this world. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
But just as in the day when Noah was building an ark in preparation for the flood, the world thinks that the gospel is foolishness. They laughed and scorned Noah in the days before the flood, and the world has derided the gospel as foolishness ever since. 1Cor. 2:14 says, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.”
But thanks be to God that even though the world may treat it as foolishness, God makes His word known to some. In 1Cor. Paul says “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
That’s why Paul says in vs16 that he is not ashamed of the gospel. Because “it is the power of God for salvation.” Paul is not ashamed to proclaim it to everyone, in every nation, to all men and women, both young and old, Jew or Gentile. Because it cannot fail. Because there is life giving power in the word. Because the word of God stands forever. Because the gospel is the answer to life’s questions. It reveals life’s purpose and meaning. It is the answer to death. Jesus said in John 6:63, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
Paul is not ashamed because though the philosophy of men may fail, though the wisdom of man may fail, though science may fail, though attempts at religion may fail, though the heavens and the earth may fail, the word of God stands forever. It’s powerful. By the word of God the heavens and the earth came into existence. Every thing that is created exists by the word of God. Again and again in the Genesis record of creation it reads, “And God said…and God said,” and it was so. God gave life by His word. God’s word is the source of life. It’s the source of wisdom. It is truth and it is life.
Paul says he is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because he knows it is the power of God. The word of God is powerful. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The word of God is living, it gives spiritual life to that which is dead, to that which is powerless, to that which cannot help itself. It gives sight to the spiritually blind, healing to the spiritually sick, life to the spiritually dead. It is powerful. The word of God is the gospel, the good news for mankind.
Paul is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. This word “power” is dunamis in the original Greek. That’s the word from which we get our word dynamite. As I said in my opening statements, man is unable to make fundamental changes in himself that are actually able to overcome the shadow of mortality which casts a pall over all of life.
But the power of the God is powerful enough to transfer souls from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. It’s powerful enough to change men from sinners to saints. It’s powerful enough to give life to the dead. It’s able to give sight to the blind. It’s able to save men from their sins, even deliver from the penalty of sin which is death. The power of God through the gospel is able to deliver men from Satan’s power, from judgment, from death, and from hell.
The gospel is the power of God, Paul says. It’s an unlimited power, an incredible power that can transform lives. Jesus said that what was impossible with men is possible with God. With God all things are possible because there is no power that is greater, there is nothing that God cannot do, there is nothing that is beyond His reach.
Romans 5:6 says, “When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.” Man couldn’t save himself, he is powerless to give life to that which is dead. But Christ died for the ungodly in order to bring us to God, to reconcile us to God. He died that we might have life in Him.
So Paul is unashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation means deliverance, to save, to rescue. The problem of mankind is that they are on the road, so to speak, to perdition. All that life was meant to be has been corrupted by sin. Paul says in Romans 8 that all of creation groans under the weight of sin. That sin resulted in the penalty of death which is passed on to all men, for all have sinned. Sin resulted in alienation from God, who is the source of life and by whom all things have their being. And by that alienation from the source of life there comes death for all men. There is a futility in all things because nothing has permanence. Everything has become corrupted and infected with the terminal virus that is sin. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
But Paul says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation is deliverance from sin and death. Salvation is God rescuing those that are lost. Salvation is setting men free from the captivity of Satan. Salvation is a divine transformation of the unrighteous into righteousness. Salvation is from God. He is the author and finisher of our salvation.
Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. God’s salvation is available to everyone who believes. Believe means to trust in, to have confidence in, to have faith in. So Paul is saying that salvation is available to everyone who believes in what? In God? No, that is not faith unto salvation. The Bible says the devils believe in God and tremble. But they are not saved. It is believing in the gospel. And the gospel, Paul says in vs9 is the gospel of God’s Son, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.
So as Jesus said, HIs words are spirit and they are life. Believing in Him, believing in who Jesus said He was, believing in what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, believing all that He taught, constitutes trusting and believing in Christ. The power of the gospel, the life giving, transforming truth of the gospel is accessed by faith in Christ. Not faith in faith, but faith in what Jesus accomplished on our behalf.
And what Jesus did on our behalf is He left His throne in heaven and took on the form of a man, becoming our substitute, taking our sins upon Himself, and dying in our place, and taking our penalty upon Himself. The Apostle’s Creed states it this way; I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
And what Paul is saying is that those who believe in Jesus Christ, in that good news which He accomplished on our behalf, will receive salvation by the power of God. We who believe will be transferred into the kingdom of His Son and receive new life in Him.
Paul goes on to say that in it, that is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. This salvation of God is possible because we are made righteous through Christ. According to 2 Cor. 5:21, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” What we must believe about Christ is that He is righteous, He knew no sin. He was the Holy Son of God spoken of by Isaiah in chapter 53; “By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” He goes on to say that “He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”
This holy, spotless, righteous Lamb of God bore our sins on the cross, becoming sin for us, paying our penalty, and as God transferred our sins to Him, He also transferred Christ’s righteousness unto us, so that we might be declared righteous, justified by faith in what He did for us. The power of the gospel is salvation to everyone who believes in what Jesus has done, and in His righteousness. So that we may say like Paul in Phil. 3:8-9 we may say “I count all things [I once held dear in this life] to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith.” HIs righteousness credited to my account is the basis for my salvation.
The good news of the gospel is not that God commands us to be righteous and we must try to attain to His standard of it, and if we do so then we can be delivered from death and enter into everlasting life. But the good news that God commends Christ’s righteousness to us by faith. We believe in Him and what He has done and what He has said, and God transfers our sins to Him, and His righteousness to us, so that we might be justified before God, made righteous before God, made holy, and we receive the life of God, even the Spirit of God to dwell in us.
The gospel reveals Jesus Christ, our righteousness. It reveals God’s standard of righteousness. And it reveals the manner in which Christ accomplished that transference of righteousness to us.
And what Paul states here is that the gospel reveals God’s righteousness “from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith.” What Paul is saying here is that this gospel is not something new. The quotation which he gives from the prophet Habakkuk shows us that Paul is basing this principle of imputed righteousness on the Old Testament. Habakkuk said, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” What was true for OT saints is true for NT saints. And from faith to faith means God revealed his righteousness to old dispensation saints through faith, and He reveals His righteousness to new dispensation saints through faith.
All the Old Testament saints were saved by faith. Paul restates that principle in Romans 4:3 saying, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’” Justification before God is through faith, where God credits Christ righteousness to your account on the basis of faith in Him.
So then to every age and to all people everywhere, the question of “What must I do to be accepted by God?” is answered by “the righteous shall live by faith.” And that is the way the gospel is communicated; from faith to faith. We that have faith have a responsibility to tell others the good news of Jesus Christ. We must tell them that in Christ alone is there hope in this life. In Christ alone is there life that continues beyond the grave. In Christ alone are the questions of this world answered.
So let us not be ashamed of this gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. So many people are seeking for happiness and satisfaction in all kinds of things, but nothing can satisfy the searching soul like Jesus. Nothing else can reconcile us to God so that we might have life as we were designed and created to have. Let us boldly and confidently proclaim the good news, and pray that God will give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that they might believe and be saved.
At the crucifixion of Jesus, there were two thieves who were also being crucified, one on his right and one on his left. As the mob was cursing Jesus and spitting at Him, and mocking Him, one of the thieves joined in the chorus of derision. Luke 23:39-43 says “One of the criminals who were hanged [there] was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!" But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed [are suffering] justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
This incident illustrates beautifully the salvation that Paul said comes on the basis of faith in Christ. Notice first of all that the thief feared God, that is He had a holy reverence for God. I believe that indicates that He recognized that Jesus was God in the flesh. And notice also that he recognized his own sinfulness and that sinfulness rightly condemned him to death. “We are suffering justly, and are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.” Thirdly, he recognized Jesus’s righteousness. “This man has done nothing wrong.” Fourthly, he recognized Christ as Lord. “Jesus remember me when You come in your kingdom.” What a statement of faith! He was dying, and he could see Jesus was dying. And yet he has faith that Christ will come again to claim His kingdom. He recognized that Jesus, by His righteousness, was able to save him. And lastly, he received that salvation on the basis of his faith. “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
There is no other information about this dying thief in scripture. So I can only imagine what happened next. But I think I can assume that later that day, when his life ebbed away, and he closed his eyes in death, he found himself taken to the gates of Paradise. And perhaps an angel there stopped him, and said, “Stop thief! By what right do you enter these gates?" It probably seemed to him that only minutes had passed since he was hanging there on the cross, a dying thief who was getting his just reward for the deeds he had done in his life. But he remembered the exchange there on the cross with Jesus. And so he lifted up his head, and pointed through the gate at Jesus standing there, and said, “I’m with Him. I’m here because He said I could come. It’s by His righteousness that I am able to enter.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you that same question today. By what right can you enter the kingdom of heaven? If you are claiming anything other than HIs righteousness which God granted to on the basis of your faith in Christ, then you cannot enter. Only by faith in Christ will the righteous live. I hope that you have trusted in Christ, believed in Him for your salvation. There is hope in none other.
We are going to sing a closing hymn which I think illustrates this doctrine well. It’s Rock of Ages. And I want to close by reading just a line from that song before we sing it.
“Not the labors of my hands, can fulfill thy law’s demands. Could my zeal, no respite know, could my tears, forever flow. All for sin could not atone, thou must save, and thou alone.”
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