Unashamed of the Gospel Part 2 Purity
Paul is not ashamed of the gospel for two reasons:
1) The Power of God – to do what we could not do. for it is the power . . .
2) The Purity of God – to be who we could not be. For in it the righteousness
He is not ashamed of the gospel because in it
Revelation of the Righteousness of God the righteousness of God is revealed. Here is the joy of the apostle, not that God is righteous for that has already been expressed in countless ways in the Old Testament (Is 56:1), but that something of the righteousness of God is revealed. There is no misunderstanding of the text that God is righteous. Here he referring to the righteousness of God being reveled in the gospel. It is an announcement. It is a revelation. It is an unfolding, an unveiling of something. The Gk apokalupto means to uncover, lay open what has been veiled or covered up, to disclose or make bare, it is to make known, make manifest, disclose what before was unknown. It means making manifest or making plain and clear. (Lloyd Jones) Paul speaks of the gospel as a mystery that was finally made known. (Rom 16:25-26, 1 Cor 2:7-10) This gospel (the righteousness of God) was mentioned, but kept secret, in the Old Testament and manifest, or disclosed in the New Testament in Christ (Col 1:24-26, Eph 3:7-10).
Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because finally after all these years is unveiled. There is no more waiting the righteousness of God is finally revealed. (Rom 3:21-26)
Representative who is the Righteousness of God dikaiosunē theou). Subjective genitive, “a God kind of righteousness,(Robertson)” one that each must have and can obtain in no other way save “from faith unto faith”
So what then is this “righteousness of God?” It not referring to an attribute of God. It is not speaking of God’s righteous, just and holy nature. He is righteous, but that is not the meaning of the text. It means, rather a righteousness that comes from or of God (Jones). Here is man’s hope in his helpless unrighteous state, it is the righteous that God offers man through the gospel. A righteousness that will restore him to a right relationship with his creator God. We are not the least bit righteous . . . we are corrupted by sin and in rebellion against God. To be saved from wrath we need a righteousness that is of God’s own nature, a righteousness that comes from God and fully satisfies God. (Boice). This is why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, It is the only thing that make us right with God. the phrase “righteousness of God” is equivalent to God‘s “plan of justifying people; his scheme of declaring them just in the sight of the Law; or of acquitting them from punishment, and admitting them to favor.” In this sense it stands opposed to man‘s plan of justification, that is, by his own works: God‘s plan is by faith. The way in which that is done is revealed in the gospel. The object contemplated to be done is to treat people as if they were righteous. Man attempted to accomplish this by obedience to the Law. The plan of God was to arrive at it by faith. Philemon 3:9 (Barnes). There is a righteousness of God available foe sinful men. This righteousness is revealed as a “free gift” of God (Romans 5:16-17), of which they become possessed “in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and this, not as a result of their own striving or legal obedience (Romans 10:3; Philippians 3:8-9), but simply by faith in Him (Romans 3:21-22). By "the righteousness of God", is not meant the essential righteousness of God, the rectitude of his nature, his righteousness in fulfilling his promises, and his punitive justice, which though revealed in the Gospel, yet not peculiar to it; nor the righteousness by which Christ himself is righteous, either as God, or as Mediator; that righteousness which he wrought out by obeying the precepts, and bearing the penalty of the law in the room of his people, and by which they are justified in the sight of God: and this is called "the righteousness of God", in opposition to the righteousness of men: and because it justifies men in the sight of God (Gill) Of what then does this ‘righteousness of God’ consist? It is revealed to be the righteousness made available through Christ’s sacrifice of Himself (Romans 3:24-28). It is in essence His righteousness. It is ‘through the one act of righteousness (of Jesus Christ)’ that the free gift comes to all unto justification of life’ (Romans 5:18). It is ‘through the obedience of the One’ that the many can be ‘made’ (constituted, designated, appointed) righteous (Romans 5:19). ‘Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to all who believe’ (Romans 10:4). It is ‘the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe’ which results in men being freely accounted as righteous through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22; Romans 3:24). Indeed, ‘If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness’ (Romans 8:10). In the words of Paul elsewhere, ‘Christ is made unto us righteousness’ (1 Corinthians 1:30). We are ‘made the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). And it is apparent from the latter that we are ‘made the righteousness of God in Him’ by being incorporated into Him in all His righteousness, in the same way as He is united with our sin. Thus to put it in the simplest of terms, it is the righteousness of Christ set to our account. (Pett) Rom 3:21the Apostle is to show that man, having lost his own righteousness, and thereby fallen under condemnation, God has provided for him a righteousness — the complete fulfillment of the law in all its threatenings and all its precepts — by which, being placed to his account through faith, he is acquitted from guilt, freed from condemnation, and entitled to the reward of eternal life. (Haldane) 2 Cor 5:21 - can mean nothing else than that it is the sinless One's being made sin for us, that gives us who believe our righteous standing before God. And since the "sin" which Christ was "made" for us, was certainly not any personal sin of His, nor sin infused into Him, but simply sin reckoned to Him, even so "the righteousness of God," which the believer is "made in him," can be neither any personal righteousness of his own, nor any righteousness infused into or worked in him, but a righteousness simply reckoned or imputed to Him (Fausset) the righteousness for which we are justified is either anything done by us nor wrought in us, but something done for us and imputed to us. It is the work of Christ, what he did and suffered to satisfied the demands of the law. Hence not merely external or ceremonial works are excluded as the ground of justification; but works of righteousness, all works of whatever kind or degree of excellence. Hence this righteousness is not our own. It is nothing that we have either wrought ourselves, or that inheres in us. Hence Christ is said to be our righteousness; and we are said to be justified by his blood, his death, his obedience; we are righteous in him, and are justified by him or in his name, or for his sake. The righteousness of God, therefore, which the gospel reveals, and by which we are constituted righteous, by the perfect righteousness of Christ which completely meets and answers all the demands of what law to which all men are subject, and which all have broken. (Charles Hodge).
Reception of the Righteousness of God.
God set the standard of righteousness by creating Adam perfectly righteous.. Sin has marred the righteousness that Adam possessed and left all his prodigy unrighteous before God. Although man changed, God’s standard of righteousness for man has not changed. (Lev 11:44, 45, 19:2, 1 Peter 1:16) The question that this text answers is, How does a man be just or get right with God? Before he can be just with Godhe must have kept the whole law, he must have honored in every respect. He must be free and delivered from the condemnation of the law and from the punishment that the law threatens. (Jones). This is why Paul is eager to preach the gospel and not ashamed of it. The gospel tells us of the righteousness of God from God and provided by God through Jesus Christ. Jesus has perfectly satisfied the Law of God on our behalf. He rendered a perfect obedience to the law; He fulfilled God’s law completely, perfectly and absolutely. He took our guilt upon himself, and He bore its punishment. (Jones). How does this happen? From faith to faith. We receive it by faith. Faith is the instrument by which we receive faith. Our faith doesn’t justify us. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that justifies us (Rom 3:22)(Jones).
No man can put on the robes of Christ’s righteousness till he has taken off his own (Spurgeon)