Romans – A Treatise
Chapter One
"THE GOSPEL CONCERNING HIS SON"
Scripture Reading: verses 1-4
PAUL, A SERVANT [OR BONDMAN] OF JESUS CHRIST, CALLED . . . AN APOSTLE, SEPARATED UNTO THE GOSPEL OF GOD, (WHICH HE HAD PROMISED AFORE BY HIS PROPHETS IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES,) CONCERNING HIS SON JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, WHICH WAS MADE OF THE SEED OF DAVID ACCORDING TO THE FLESH; AND DECLARED TO BE THE SON OF GOD WITH POWER, ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS, BY THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD.
At the beginning of this Epistle to the Romans we step to a high eminence in order that we might look on the vast expanse of truth entailed in this term, “The Gospel of God.” In this age the Gospel of Christ has been diluted so much that many have failed to grasp the immensity of its meaning. Too many of us think of the Gospel as only that means by which we can be saved and go to heaven. The reason for such an interpretation is that we are primarily occupied with our own benefits regarding what we might get. In other words, the pronoun “I” looms so large today that we usually regard self as the center around which everything rotates. Therefore, as we enter the portal of this wonderful Epistle it is well to contemplate the subject it introduces: “the Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Though we do not wish to belittle the understanding of “average” Christians concerning this truth, still, it is vital that we come face to face with the situation that by reducing the dimensions of the Gospel to suit our own personal concept, we rob it of its glory. The result? – we cease to be worshipers at the feet of Jesus Christ, the Center of God’s purposes, and we make the Gospel something to be weighed and measured by our own mental ability. Thus, the Christian is too easily inclined to become more occupied with the mercies of God that flow into his own tiny vessel than with the Man of God's counsels, the One who has been appointed Heir of all things, the One who is the Head and Center of the universe of God, to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The Gospel of God is not simply the way whereby we may be saved; it is far more than that. It is “the Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” In order to grasp in some small way the meaning of this tremendous truth, we must travel back to the bosom of eternity itself, into the counsel chambers of the Most High and realize that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have planned this marvelous scheme of blessing we call Christianity. The central object of this Holy Scheme is not “me” and “my blessings,” but “His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It is a reminder of the truth presented by John – “God is Love.” The exercise of that love was eternally operative between the Persons of the Godhead. In John 17, the Lord Jesus refers to that matchless love when He says to His Father: “Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” The three Persons of the Godhead are mysteriously capable of the exercise of love One toward the Other. The eighth chapter of Proverbs gives us a beautiful picture of this same truth. Reaching back into the limitless expanse of the eternal age, before the foundation of the world, the one who is the personification of wisdom says in that wonderful chapter:
The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was . . . While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face of the depth: When He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep: When He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men. (vs. 22-31)The functions of Divine love within the mysterious realm of the Trinity of the Godhead were operative from eternity. There God devised this marvelous plan – Christianity – according to the counsel of His own will, and His eternal Son the Lord Jesus Christ is the central Object of those purposes of love. We have this truth beautifully developed in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the apostle breaks forth in acclamation:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (1:3-4)There we have an expression of the counsels of the Godhead and it is this marvelous scheme of blessing and eternal love that is declared in “the Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”A new day dawns in the Christian spirit when, for the first time, we come to the realization that as individuals we form only a small part in the great spiritual machinery of God’s purposes of love. The glory of Christ is the object. God will not be satisfied until He has a universe in which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head and Central Figure, the One who is worshiped by every intelligent being to the remotest bounds of creation. It was with all this in mind that Paul was singled out, a bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. He was a servant indicating that he took the lowest place in relation to the One who is the central figure in this great spiritual drama which he had been chosen to announce. He was an apostle because the Lord Himself gave him the authority to announce so grand a subject. Then, in order that his message and apostleship might be authenticated, he was separated to this Gospel. It is difficult for us to conceive how far-reaching that expression may be. He speaks of himself elsewhere as being separated from his mother’s womb, realizing that God controlled every human and spiritual impulse to bring forth the herald of so vast a scheme of Divine glory and blessing.
