WEReveal

Paul states his cen­tral theme of Romans and of the Gospel itself in Romans 1:17 [show]Romans 1:17 [17]For in it the right­eous­ness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is writ­ten, “The right­eous shall live by faith.” (ESV)
, “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.” (NLT) There it is, the sim­ple truth that gets rejected, neglected, and mod­i­fied to the point of no recog­ni­tion. Our sal­va­tion comes out of faith and noth­ing else. It isn’t by doing, say­ing, or being any­thing that pro­vides eter­nal life. It is by faith in Christ from start to fin­ish that saves us. Yet we want more! Why?!?

The sim­ple truth is too… I don’t know… easy, hard, for­eign? We (mean­ing mankind) seem to want to think that our sal­va­tion is totally depen­dent upon how good we are. “I am a good per­son, I will go to heaven” is the phrase we often hear. If I get enough brownie points, good ol’ Saint Peter will let me in. The world’s reli­gions are all based on what we have to do to be saved. They are all based on the basic premise that we are capa­ble of sav­ing our­selves. But the Gospel is dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent, a mes­sage that isn’t easy to hear.

The Good News starts with the bad news, we are sin­ners inca­pable of doing any­thing to make our­selves right­eous. Paul will dis­cuss this start­ing in Romans 1:18 — 3 [show]Romans 1:18–3:31 [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. [26]For this rea­son God gave them up to dis­hon­or­able pas­sions. For their women exchanged nat­ural rela­tions for those that are con­trary to nature; [27]and the men like­wise gave up nat­ural rela­tions with women and were con­sumed with pas­sion for one another, men com­mit­ting shame­less acts with men and receiv­ing in them­selves the due penalty for their error. [28]And since they did not see fit to acknowl­edge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. [29]They were filled with all man­ner of unright­eous­ness, evil, cov­etous­ness, mal­ice. They are full of envy, mur­der, strife, deceit, mali­cious­ness. They are gos­sips, [30]slanderers, haters of God, inso­lent, haughty, boast­ful, inven­tors of evil, dis­obe­di­ent to par­ents, [31]foolish, faith­less, heart­less, ruth­less. [32]Though they know God’s decree that those who prac­tice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who prac­tice them. Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in pass­ing judg­ment on another you con­demn your­self, because you, the judge, prac­tice the very same things. [2]We know that the judg­ment of God rightly falls on those who prac­tice such things. [3]Do you sup­pose, O man–you who judge those who prac­tice such things and yet do them yourself–that you will escape the judg­ment of God? [4]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? [5]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. [6]He will ren­der to each one accord­ing to his works: [7]to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immor­tal­ity, he will give eter­nal life; [8]but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unright­eous­ness, there will be wrath and fury. [9]There will be tribu­la­tion and dis­tress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10]but glory and honor and peace for every­one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. [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. [17]But if you call your­self a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God [18]and know his will and approve what is excel­lent, because you are instructed from the law; [19]and if you are sure that you your­self are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in dark­ness, [20]an instruc­tor of the fool­ish, a teacher of chil­dren, hav­ing in the law the embod­i­ment of knowl­edge and truth– [21]you then who teach oth­ers, do you not teach your­self? While you preach against steal­ing, do you steal? [22]You who say that one must not com­mit adul­tery, do you com­mit adul­tery? You who abhor idols, do you rob tem­ples? [23]You who boast in the law dis­honor God by break­ing the law. [24]For, as it is writ­ten, “The name of God is blas­phemed among the Gentiles because of you.“ [25]For cir­cum­ci­sion indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your cir­cum­ci­sion becomes uncir­cum­ci­sion. [26]So, if a man who is uncir­cum­cised keeps the pre­cepts of the law, will not his uncir­cum­ci­sion be regarded as cir­cum­ci­sion? [27]Then he who is phys­i­cally uncir­cum­cised but keeps the law will con­demn you who have the writ­ten code and cir­cum­ci­sion but break the law. [28]For no one is a Jew who is merely one out­wardly, nor is cir­cum­ci­sion out­ward and phys­i­cal. [29]But a Jew is one inwardly, and cir­cum­ci­sion is a mat­ter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the let­ter. His praise is not from man but from God. Then what advan­tage has the Jew? Or what is the value of cir­cum­ci­sion? [2]Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the ora­cles of God. [3]What if some were unfaith­ful? Does their faith­less­ness nul­lify the faith­ful­ness of God? [4]By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is writ­ten, “That you may be jus­ti­fied in your words, and pre­vail when you are judged.“ [5]But if our unright­eous­ness serves to show the right­eous­ness of God, what shall we say? That God is unright­eous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) [6]By no means! For then how could God judge the world? [7]But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being con­demned as a sin­ner? [8]And why not do evil that good may come?–as some peo­ple slan­der­ously charge us with say­ing. Their con­dem­na­tion is just. [9]What then? Are we Jews any bet­ter off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10]as it is writ­ten: “None is right­eous, no, not one; [11]no one under­stands; no one seeks for God. [12]All have turned aside; together they have become worth­less; no one does good, not even one.“ [13]“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.“ “The venom of asps is under their lips.“ [14]“Their mouth is full of curses and bit­ter­ness.“ [15]“Their feet are swift to shed blood; [16]in their paths are ruin and mis­ery, [17]and the way of peace they have not known.“ [18]“There is no fear of God before their eyes.“ [19]Now we know that what­ever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held account­able to God. [20]For by works of the law no human being will be jus­ti­fied in his sight, since through the law comes knowl­edge of sin. [21]But now the right­eous­ness of God has been man­i­fested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear wit­ness to it– [22]the right­eous­ness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no dis­tinc­tion: [23]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24]and are jus­ti­fied by his grace as a gift, through the redemp­tion that is in Christ Jesus, [25]whom God put for­ward as a pro­pi­ti­a­tion by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s right­eous­ness, because in his divine for­bear­ance he had passed over for­mer sins. [26]It was to show his right­eous­ness at the present time, so that he might be just and the jus­ti­fier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [27]Then what becomes of our boast­ing? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. [28]For we hold that one is jus­ti­fied by faith apart from works of the law. [29]Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, [30]since God is one–who will jus­tify the cir­cum­cised by faith and the uncir­cum­cised through faith. [31]Do we then over­throw the law by this faith? By no means! On the con­trary, we uphold the law. (ESV)
:20. This is the part none of us wants to hear. We want to think we are good at heart but really, to use that famous phrase, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” God knows. There is good in us but it has been dam­aged beyond human repair.

I had a pro­fes­sor in col­lege who often talked about the Imago Dei, the Image of God, which is in us. God cre­ated us in His image. It is as if we we were cre­ated to be a mir­ror, that reflects God to oth­ers. Sin has shat­tered that mir­ror. Although we can still see God reflected in some of the shards, it is a dis­torted image. It doesn’t reflect the true glory of God. Worse, the mir­ror shat­tered now no longer is focused on God. The frag­ments point in many dif­fer­ent ways that reflect many other things that are not God and lead us astray.

We are totally and absolutely inca­pable of repair­ing our destroyed selves.

The Good News is God can! He knew that before He ever cre­ated us we would fall and pro­vided a way to save us before the world began. He sent His Son to take upon Himself the pun­ish­ment that He would have to place on us. We sim­ply have to believe in Christ and the Imago Dei begins to be repaired. Even though it will not be com­pletely repaired until the res­ur­rec­tion, Christ stands in our place. Being God, Christ is the per­fect reflec­tion of God and the Father accepts us even though we have not yet been made complete.

As such, our right­eous­ness is the right­eous­ness of Christ. We have that right­eous­ness from start to fin­ish by faith in Christ. We have life out of our faith in Christ and our lives are a life of faith. Yes, our faith will result in good works (see James) but it is by faith and faith alone that we are saved.

In whom do you place your faith? Do you truly believe you are capa­ble of sav­ing your­self or do you see that only God can? Have faith. Live in faith. Receive life out of your faith.