Romans – A Treatise
Chapter One
TO ROME ALSO
Scripture Reading: verses 14-17
I AM DEBTOR BOTH TO THE GREEKS AND TO THE BARBARIANS; TO THE WISE, AND TO THE UNWISE. SO, AS MUCH AS IN ME IS, I AM READY TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO YOU THAT ARE AT ROME ALSO. 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. FOR THEREIN IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD REVEALED FROM FAITH TO FAITH: AS IT IS WRITTEN, THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.
This Epistle is a great legal document, a kind of lawyer’s brief, setting forth the entire governmental and legal processes by which the sinner is reconciled to God. As we go from chapter to chapter, we can hardly forget it is a theological argument which seems to ascend a stairway where each verse marks a step.
Notice how many verses begin with the word “for” or “because,” showing a sequence of legal steps toward a conclusion. If all true believers would lay hold on the truth of this Epistle, then doubts and misgivings regarding title to heaven would be dissipated. Because of the finished Work of Christ, Paul is able to lay the legal foundation whereby God can justify the sinner, bringing him into His presence with rejoicing. That is the underlying reason that the Gospel is presented here as “the gospel concerning God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Embraced within the term “the gospel” is the entire range of Divine truth from settlement of the sin question to the full blaze of God’s glory in a redeemed creation in an eternity of bliss. As we travel from verse to verse it is essential to keep this in mind, otherwise we will learn its truth only in a fragmentary way, no doubt failing to grasp something of the vastness of God’s purposes in relation to His beloved Son, of which purposes we, through infinite grace, form a small part.
In the light of all this Paul says he is debtor to the entire world, regardless of national, racial, intellectual or social lines of demarcation. As a last gesture of the overwhelming grace of God in this man's life, Paul says he is “ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” (v. 15)
Let us now briefly consider the significance of this in light of the day in which Paul lived. Keep in mind that under the name of Saul of Tarsus, this same great apostle had been a proud religionist, a devoted Jew with virulent zeal to the traditional faith of his fathers. Like a giant rock, the power of Rome stood amid all the fluctuating experiences of his own people, the Jews, and much of the persecution in his day could be laid at the door of the ruthless power of the Cæsars. To the heart of Saul of Tarsus, Rome represented the center of usurped world dominion that had enslaved the Jews. As a result, it was the last place on earth to which Paul the apostle by natural desire would have personally cared to go. If his thinking had been of a worldly nature, then he might have desired to carry the Gospel anywhere but to Rome. No doubt God’s grace was in his heart as he thought of this fifteenth verse.
In this age one wonders how many Christians realize the full mellowing process of the grace of God in the human heart. The mind and heart of Saul of Tarsus must have been like a living fountain gushing forth with veritable hatred against what Rome represented. The Jews, his people after the flesh, were custodians of the covenants of God and as such they were God's princes in the earth descended from Israel, “the Prince with God.” It was Rome that had trampled them under foot in ruthless disdain. What could impel the heart of this man Saul to change so completely that he would carry the glad tidings of Christ, the One whom he had formerly hated and now loved with all his heart, to the very people whom he had once also hated? We are reminded that in Elisha’s day the streams in Israel were bitter and defiled. So Elisha took a cruse of salt and put it in the waters, and they became sweet and nourished the people. It is the salt of God’s truth, as it finds an entrance into the heart of man, that sweetens the polluted stream of Paul’s impulses. At one time his heart was a fountain of iniquity gushing forth with hatred, prejudice and crime. Now in this fifteenth verse we see a heart that has become a springing well of grace and loving-kindness.
That is the background against which this excellent sixteenth verse is set:
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. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
It is hard to believe that such words could come from Paul. They are a prime exhibit of the accomplished marvel of God’s grace in a human heart. Paul had literally been turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, and as we think of Paul we are mindful of ourselves. To a certain extent, each of us knows his/her own heart. We know the pride and prejudice residing there; the natural haughtiness of spirit characterizing every one of us by nature. It is a great encouragement to see how God reached Paul, the one who, as Saul of Tarsus, was a towering citadel of human pride and religious zeal, and brought him so low in his own estimation that he could say: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” This was the Name that he had hated with all the virulence of his proud Pharisaic character. For centuries, the tradition of his fathers had filtered down through generations and instilled in his spirit a veritable caprice of religious self-sufficiency that constituted him “the chief of sinners.” It was this man that God leveled in the dust, enshrined in his heart the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It is this man who had breathed out threatenings against the Name of Christ who now says: “I am not ashamed of the glad tidings of Christ.” What a triumph of grace.
