The Gospel Rom 1:1-2
Paul in the text emphasis the gospel multiple times in the Introduction to Romans (v. 1.2.9.15.16.17). The
Gospel is
Prevailing the Gospel Gk euaggelion is a compound word eu which means wellbeing or good and aggelos which means messenger thus meaning good message or good news. The Gospel is “good news.” It is good news only to the degree that the bad news can be understood first. The bad news is that man is separated from God because of sin and on his own has no hope of reconciling the rift between them. To appreciate the goodness of the gospel we must consider the fact that aside from Christianity the religions of the world are not at all good news. On the contrary, they are bad news, a burden. Apart from Christianity all religions of the world are “self-help” or ‘works” religions. That is they tell you how to find God (or peace, happiness, whatever) by human efforts. If this was possible religion would be good news. But the task is impossible. God is too holy, too removed from us because of his holiness and our sin, for us to reach him. A religion that is based on what you and I can do is comfortless because its requirements become burdens that can never be lifted (Boice). Paul followed the legalistic religion of the Pharisees. He was defined by what he did or didn’t do. (Acts 26:4-5, Phil 3:4-6). He followed a religious idea of strict good works and high moral standards that neither brought him peace or comfort. He was “zealous” for the law, because he sought God’s approval through his works of righteousness (Titus3:5). A religion of works doesn’t get us closer to God, but in the frustration of inability to fulfill the rules, “law”, it drives us away from God in despair.
The good news is that we don’t have to work our way to God trying to find his approval or acceptance, but that God came down in the person of Jesus to accomplish through his sinless life and sacrificial death what we could not do enabling us to be accepted by him. Thus making peace with God (Rom 5:1, 8:3-4). Before we were groaning after God, but could not find him. How we are singing praises to the one who has found us (Boice). We sing in worship not to find God, but in joy and delight because he has found us. When you understand and embrace the gospel you will understand how to worship.
JD Greer states his frustration with a “gospelless” Christianity, “I felt like this so called grace often felt more to me like drudgery than delight. No matter how many rules I kept and how disciplined my life was, I walked around with an ever-present since of guilt. In the deepest part of my heart, I knew God was not really pleased with me, cause there was always something I could be doing better. My service for God was fervent, but my passion for him was cold. It seemed like God was a merciless taskmaster standing over me yelling, “not enough! I want more”. He was always there, waving damnation in my face, saying. “If you want My approval, there is something else you must do.” The more I strived to walk in His ways, the less love I felt for Him. The more closely my feet followed Him, the more my heart ran away. My head know the truth, but my heart didn’t feel it. I was motivated to walk with God primarily by my desire to stay out of Hell. Rediscovering the gospel has given me a joy in God I never experienced in all my years of fervent religion. (JD Greer Gospel). The gospel is that Christ suffered the full wrath of God for my sin. Jesus Christ traded places with me, living the perfect life I should have lived, and dying the death I had been condemned to die (2 Cor 5:21) (Greer). This is the “Great exchange’ (Saint Athanasius). When someone receives this grace in repentance and faith, God fully accepts them. Jesus lived in their place and died in their place, and then offered them a gift of eternal life. (It is known as “gift-righteousness). Greer states: “this means that God
could not love me anymore then he does right now, because He could not love and accept Christ anymore them he does right now. A believer can rightfully affirm: “In Christ there is nothing I can do that could make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes you love me less” (Greer).
“The heart of the gospel is the good news that Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. What makes this good news is that Christ’s death accomplished a perfect righteousness before God and suffered a perfect condemnation from God, both of which are counted as ours through faith alone, so that we have eternal life with God in the new heavens and the new earth. (John Piper). The Gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by
our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity. (RC Sproul)
The gospel is news of what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach God. The Good news is that God has entered the world in Jesus Christ to achieve a salvation that we could not achieve for ourselves which now converts and transforms individuals, forming them into a new humanity. The gospel is the good news of gracious acceptance. Jesus lived the life we should live. He also paid the penalty we owe for the rebellious life we do live. He did this in our place (Is 53:4-10; 2 Cor 5:21; Mark 10:45). We are not reconciled to God through our efforts and record, as in all other religions, but through his efforts and record. Christians who trust in Christ for their acceptance with God, rather than in their own moral character, commitment, or performance, are simultaneously sinful yet accepted. We are more flawed and sinful than we ever dared believe, yet we are more loved and accepted than we ever dared hope at the same time. Without this unique understanding of grace-salvation, religions have to paint God as either a demanding, holy God who is placated by back-breaking moral effort, or as what C.S. Lewis calls ‘a senile, old benevolence’ who tolerates everyone no matter how they live. The gospel is, therefore, radically different from religion. Religion operates on the principle: “I obey, therefore I am accepted”. The gospel operates on the principle: “I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey.” A lack of deep belief in the gospel is the main cause of spiritual deadness, fear, doubt and pride in Christians, because our hearts continue to act on the basis “I obey, therefore, I am accepted.” If we fail to forgive others–that is not simply a lack of obedience, but a failure to believe we are saved by grace, too. If we lie in order to cover up a mistake–that is not simply a lack of obedience, but a failure to find our acceptance in God rather than in human approval. So we do not ‘get saved’ by believing the gospel and then ‘grow’ by trying hard to live according to Biblical principles. Believing the gospel is not only the way to meet God, but also the way to grow into him. The gospel also is the good news of changed lives. Paul says to Christians, ‘your life is hid with “Christ in God’ (Col 3:3), and in numerous places he says that we are now ‘in on the one hand, that the Father accepts us in Christ and treats us as if we had done all that Jesus has done (cf. Col 3:2a). But this is also means Christ’s life comes into us by the Spirit and shapes us into a new kind of person. The gospel is not just a truth about us that we affirm with our minds, it is also a reality we must experience in our hearts and souls. (Timothy Keller)
Produced of God It is God’s gospel. It is something he announced and accomplished and what he sent his apostles and you and I to proclaim. Grammatically it is in the genitive case meaning that God creates and announces the gospel rather then that he is the object of the it’s proclamation (Boice).
Promised The gospel was a message that God had promised, not just prophesied, in the Old Testament Scriptures. The words "his" and "holy" stress the unique origin of the gospel. God had inspired the Old Testament by speaking through men as He gave His revelation. Paul did not preach an unanticipated gospel but one that God had promised through His prophets (Rom 4:13-25; 9:4; 15:8). (Constable) God sees the end from the beginning. All things in nature and grace are working out one grand scheme, which God before the creation of heaven and earth designed. The gospel was but a further and fuller development of God’s plans in Old Testament times. The stem is no afterthought; the leaves and buds are no afterthought; the flower is no afterthought; the fruit is no afterthought; for they were all wrapped up from the first in the seed. Thus the doing away with the ceremonial law and Jewish ritual, and the bringing life and immortality to light through Jesus, are no afterthought, but the forethought of God--the revealing of His glorious scheme of grace designed before the foundation of the world, and previously promised by His prophets. (C. Nell, M. A.) The Gospel is commended from antiquity It was no novel doctrine, an upstart notion, but what God had conceived in his own heart from eternity. This mystery was hid in him from the beginning of the world, and was ordained before the world was; in time God was pleased to make it known to the sons of men; he "promised" it, he spoke of it, and declared it (Gill) The gospel long promised is a scheme long in preparation, the carrying out of which seems long delayed, but was expected to be of great value and importance. The prophetic utterances extend over thousands of years—long to human estimates. No wonder Paul felt himself empowered to write with authority, as he grasped the great idea that he was separated to the gospel of God which was proclaimed by the prophets as they walked with beautiful feet upon the mountains of early time. What God promises He will fulfills. Did He promise a gospel in Eden (Gen 3:15), then in due time—which is God's and not man's time—the promise would be accomplished (Matt 1:21, Gal 4:4). The winter has in it the promise of summer, and that season must come, though the winter winds howl and the east winds tarry long. The winter carried in it the promise of a gospel summer, and that must come, though the darkness grew denser, and though devout souls were weary waiting. For God to be untrue to His promise would be for God to be untrue to Himself, and that He can never be. Sweet the thought that God's promises cannot fail. He who gave the gospel, in His own good time will give with it every promise He has made for our good. How much the gospel carries with it to devout hearts! What God has promised through four thousand years cannot have grown old in two thousand.—The tree, the seed of which was planted in Eden and was developed in Palestine, has not lost its power of bearing fruit for the healing of the nations. It still bears all manner of wondrous fruit. Some people say the gospel has grown old. Grown old indeed! God's works cannot grow old till their task is done. Ask the last convert to Christianity, who has been enriched by its treasures, if it has grown old, and he will reply, “It has to me all the freshness of youth”. It has given me "the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It has made me and for me all things new. (Preacher’s Homiletical) The antiquity of the gospel, how ancient that doctrine is, even as old as the prophets themselves; even as old as Adam himself. The gospel, or glad tidings of a Savior, was first preached to Adam by God himself, Gen 3:15 next to Abraham, Gens 15 then it was predicted by all the prophets which have been since the word began. The gospel which we preach can by no means fall under the charge of novelty: it is no new or modern doctrine, but almost as old as the word itself (Burkitt) Paul tacitly repels the accusation that it was a novel doctrine. At the same time, he states its Divine origin as a reason why nothing new is to be admitted in religion. He further shows in what respect the Old and New Testaments differ — not as containing two religions essentially dissimilar, but as exhibiting the same grand truth — predicted, prefigured, and fulfilled. The Old Testament is the promise of the New, and the New the accomplishment of the Old. The Gospel had been promised by all the prophecies which foretold a new covenant, — by those which predicted the coming of the Messiah, — by all the observances, under the law, that contained in themselves the promise of the things they prefigured, by all that preceded the Gospel (Haldane).
Pronounced by his prophets . . . in the Holy Scriptures the prophets referred to were those whose writings have come down to us. "Scripture": something written, sacred or profane. "Holy": that which belongs to God, of whose activity and tendency God is the one end and aim. Paul here applies to certain writings the solemn word "holy," and thus classes them with other holy objects—the Sabbath, temple, sacrifices, priesthood. Therefore whatever solemnity belongs to these belongs to the writings. In Paul's view these books, in a special sense, were God's; they were written, and everything within them tends, to work out His purposes. The promise of good news passed through the prophets' lips; it abides and speaks in the sacred writings. Paul pays honor to the old covenant. That the ancient prophets and Scriptures foretold the gospel increases our respect for them as well as for it. Here he establishes the inspiration of the Scriptures, by pronouncing them holy, and asserting that it was God Himself who spoke in them; and shows whence we are now to take the true word of God and of His Prophets, — not from oral tradition, which must be uncertain and fluctuating, but from the written word, which is certain and permanent. He teaches that we ought always to resort to the Scriptures. (Haldane) This good news of salvation by grace through faith is to be proclaimed indiscriminately to mankind, that is to every man, woman and child whom we can possibly reach. (Roger Nicole) God has come down to teach me his way. He has written it down in a book. Oh give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I must have it! Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a (homo unius libri) man of one book. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of man. I sit down alone. Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book -for this end, to find his way. (John Wesley).