FOR THE
CHILDREN:
Romans 1:16-18
Lesson #4 on Romans
By Pastor Ronnie Wolfe
The Power
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Paul tells us in verse 15 that he is ready to preach the Gospel at Rome, also. Even at the end of this life, when he believes that his life may be taken at Rome, he is yet ready to preach the Gospel to those people at Rome, too.
The reason is that Paul knows the power is not in himself. He has often said that he is nothing and that his message is nothing.
1 Corinthians 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
The Gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4). That is the message he preached.
1 Corinthians 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
This power is not "authority" (Greek EXOUSIA), but it is "power" (Greek DUNAMIS). When we preach the Gospel, the message is powerful through the Holy Spirit and explodes in the heart to bring about regeneration.
This power is to everyone who believes. Any time this power is made effective in a person, he believes. That is what this power does: it brings faith as a gift of God to the sinner, and the sinner is saved by grace.
This Gospel is to be presented to the Jew first; that is, the Jew has first need of the Gospel, because he was the first guardians of its law and mysteries.
Romans 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit [is there] of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
If any man is in a position to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the Jew, because he has the oracles of God (The Bible) in his hand and reads it consistently and believes it wholly. The Jewish Scriptures are the Jew’s basis for truth. If he will listen and hear and hearken to the truths in the scriptures, he will be saved.
John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The tendency to hear the words of the scriptures are strong among the Jews, for the Bible says in ...
Romans 11:24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural [branches], be graffed into their own olive tree?
But this Gospel is power also to the Greek, or the Gentile. The gospel is for the whole world, for every kind of man no matter what his lot in life or his ancestry.
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
How marvelous is that wonderful grace that brought us as Gentiles from the wildernesses of the world and gathered us into his Kingdom, which he promised to the Jew first.
Romans 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. See Isaiah 29:20; Isaiah 6:10.
Romans 11:12 Now if the fall of them [be] the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
God blinded the eyes of the Jews so that he might open the eyes of the Gentiles through the Gospel. This is truly the power of God.
The Righteousness
17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
The purpose of the preaching of the Gospel is to reveal the righteousness of God. Notice this quote is from Habakkuk 2:4.
Most references to the righteousness of God are in the book of Romans (See Rom. 1:17; 3:5, 21, 22; 10:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; James 1:20; 2 Peter 1:1).
This righteousness is revealed. Notice, first, that it is the righteousness of God, not the righteousness of man. It comes from God and not man, as Israel went about to establish their own righteousness (Rom. 10:3).
Then it is revealed. If God were not gracious enough to reveal this righteousness to us, we would never know about it or have it to own or use to his glory.
Matthew 10:26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
This righteousness must be revealed, because it is this righteousness, the inherent and active righteousness of Jesus Christ in his holy life, which was lived in our stead.
This righteousness was revealed as Jesus came to the earth and lived among men as the sinless One.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
But we are told here that this righteousness is revealed "from faith to faith."
1. Some say from the faith of God to the faith of man. It does not seem to me that God needs faith.
2. Others say from the faith of preachers to the faith of the hearers of the Gospel. This could be, since God has chosen the foolishness of God to save them that believe (1 Cor. 1:21).
3. Some speak of the change of faith of the Old Testament into the faith of the New Testament. This would indicate the mysteries of God being revealed in the New Testament.
4. Some say this refers to the measure of faith on one level to a higher level such as "grace upon grace" in John 1:16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace, indicating the growing of grace and here the growing of faith in Jesus Christ.
5. This grace, I believe, is revealed from the faith of one individual to another individual. It is a common spiritual process for a believer to tell someone who is lost the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then the other person believes, and that carries the faith of the one through his message to the faith of another who believes the message. This is all in the power of God.
So comes the imperative that we as God’s children shall live by faith. The reason is that, in our lives of faith, we will tell others of God’s righteousness, and faith will be given through this message. This is the way God saves his people from their sins.
The Wrath
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
The wrath of God is also revealed from heaven. It is revealed in two ways:
1. God’s wrath is revealed in the law of nature, which we will undertake shortly beginning with verse 19. In this law the Gentile, even without the law of the Jews, can see the wrath of God displayed and taught.
2. God’s wrath is revealed in the law of Moses to the Jew. He lives under that law and is subject to it. He can understand by its teachings that God is angry with sin and the ungodliness of man. Under the Mosaic law God gives many condemnations of the wickedness of man and his responding judgment and wrath to that great nation of his.
Neither of these laws is sufficient to deliver a person from God’s wrath. The wrath of God abides or dwells with the unbeliever (John 3:36).
The judgment of God’s wrath is not against his own decrees of nature, but it is against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. All men are in unrighteousness and ungodliness before the grace of God delivers them from it.
The truth of God is manifested in both the law of nature of the law of Moses, but men hold this truth in unrighteousness, for their own advantage and pride. We shall see in the following verses to what extent man will go to suppress the truth and to interpret and teach it in a deceitful way to impress himself with his own righteousness instead of seeking for God’s righteousness, which no man does on his own.
Man may hold the truth in unrighteousness in knowing the truth of the Gospel by hearing it so frequently and yet will not surrender to it or believe it with the heart, not having been enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
The Greek word translated "hold" is KATECHO and has at least two meanings. The first meaning is to "hinder," such as it is used in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [will let], until he be taken out of the way, translated here as "let" or to hinder.
So wicked men hinder the truth of God through their unrighteousness.
Also, man may hold (or literally "hold fast") the truth in unrighteousness by knowing the truth of the Gospel and believing it and yet not living the Gospel or dispensing the Gospel to others, thus holding it in unrighteousness.