Scripture Alone

Romans Chapter 1

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.

¹⁷ For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

If you tell us that you are not ashamed of the gospel then we have the right to ask you why you are not ashamed. ” be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”(1Peter3:15) And, it is very important that you have the right reason for not being ashamed. Too often do we hear the likes of, “Ever since I’ve made my choice for Jesus Christ my life has been better, I’ve never regretted believing in Christ”, or, “I grew up in the church, I confessed Jesus as Lord when I was six and was baptized at nine because it was the right thing to do; and the church has always been a home to me, it’s where I met my wife, in fact, I am now employed as a worship leader at this very same church, I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest it to anyone”, or even, “The story of Jesus is such a beautiful story, of course I believe the gospel. It’s such a wonderful tale of a great teacher, so misunderstood, so tragic, if the world would just believe the gospel of Jesus then would peace on Earth be a reality.” These are some of the reasons that ‘so called’ professing Christians might give as to why they are not ashamed of the gospel; well when we hear this sort of testimony, we who are responsible to God and His gospel have no right to call these people Christians. We do not decide who is or is not a Christian, but as the Scripture teaches what this wonderful declaration of God is, then in all reality we can never accept any of the above reasons as being valid reasons as to why a person would not be ashamed of the gospel. 

Dear reader, this is such an important question, far more important than we can even really express with only a few words; so, the only reasonable thing to do is to spend the time and search the Scripture for the answer to why this is so very important. What we will discover is that unless we have a reasoned defence of why this gospel of Christ is the most important news to mankind, then we are quite possibly lost, blind, and condemned to eternal punishment with the Devil and his angels.

These two verses of Scripture, Romans chapter 1 verses 16 and 17, are very probably the two most important verses in all of Scripture. An understanding of these two verses is essential to understanding, not only the what the gospel is in its essential form, but also, the entire epistle of Romans as Paul has set it out as a detailed exposition of the doctrinal content of this very same gospel. In verse 16 the apostle give the entire theme of the epistle in its most general form and in verse 17 he then begins to expound that general statement with some details; and then the rest of the epistle, at least from verse 18 to the end of chapter 11, the apostle works out every little detail of what he has put forth in these two verses. So, an understanding of what the apostle means in these two verses is of paramount importance. We can safely say that a misunderstanding of these two verses is certain peril to the understanding of the entirety of Romans, and the results of this perilous understanding are evident everywhere in what the world calls Christian teaching and religion.

So, why are we not ashamed of the gospel of Christ? We are not ashamed for the very same reasons as the apostle Paul is not ashamed, and he puts forth all of his reasons in these two verses; so, we too must show that we can put forth our reasons. To do this we do what God has purposed for us to do, and that is to worship Him in His majesty by prayerfully expounding His written Word, for in His Scripture we have the very blessings and gifts that our God has prescribed for our edification, that we should work out that which God is working in us. We must “work out (y)our own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in (us) both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”(Phil 2:12,13) So that we might be “…conformed to the image of his Son,”(Rom 8:29) We must “Study to shew (ourselves) approved unto God, (workmen) that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Without doctrine we do not have truth, and Scripture is the truth. It has been breathed out by God Himself (1Tim3:16), and by the blessing of the Holy Spirit we should ask of the Scripture that which we should like to understand, and by God’s mercy and His grace only shall we receive revelation and illumination of His written Word and will.

The very first reason that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ is that it is a gospel. We have a gospel, it’s good news and everyone likes good news do they not? In fact, not everyone does like good news, but this is of no concern to us, we have good news and this good news is the most important, most necessary news that has ever been published. How many times in the history of printed word have newspapers published an “Extra, Extra, read all about it!”? And, nearly every single person within earshot of a paper boy tossed him a quarter to read of ‘This Great Man Assassinated’, or, ‘Great Nuclear Explosion’, or, ‘Terrorists Attack City’, or, ‘World War Begins Today’, &ct. Dear reader, we think you get the picture, what man believes to be important historically has always been far more popular than what God declares essential! Each example of front page news that we have cited above involves death of human life, and in each case the world is very interested and declare their concern, yet the souls of all who die ultimately end up at one place, the judgement. And, the front page news that our gospel declares concerns this great judgement that every soul will face; we have good news and the good news is in this paper, it’s in this book, the Bible! We are not selling this news, it is free for all to have. Our good news may not be as popular as bad news like terrorists blowing up buildings, but, our good news is far superior to any and all news that ever was. In fact, without this good news everyone would perish and not a single soul would ever rest in peace. 

All men will die and then face the judgement of God, and only those that have lived a perfect life of holiness and righteousness will be able to enter into eternity. Who then can enter we might ask? No one! Not a single soul has or can enter into God’s eternity based on their life and record as far as being perfectly holy and righteous, all but one that is, Christ Jesus! And, this is our good news. 

Dear reader, a word about what ‘good news’ is. Good news is news, now this might seem obvious, but, we feel that it is important that we clarify this very fact. Our word for good news, which is translated from the Greek as gospel, is not something that can be reasoned, it is not a philosophy or a teaching. It has absolutely nothing to do with physical science or your spiritual and temporal experiences. What this good news is, is a declaration, it’s a publication as it were, not unlike our front page news illustrations above; the good news we speak of is exactly that, it is news. What does this mean? It means that what we speak, what we proclaim, is something that has happened. In other words, it is past, it has happened, and this is why it is news; we are reporting something that has happened and what has happened is good news, so we are glad to share it with everyone and we are not ashamed of what this news is. Also, just to be clear, our good news is also present, it is happening now; and, it is future, this good news continues beyond what it was and even what it is and continues to be; this good news has a future and this future is without end. Dear reader, the good news of which we have in our possession is so good that it is called ‘the eternal good news'(Rev 14:6).

Also, we must say a word about this word ‘preach’. This word is terribly abused and mis understood. There are two words in the Greek that are translated as preach, one as in Matthew 4:17 “From that time on Jesus began to preach, “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” means to publish or herald a message, a proclamation of an important message; and, this could be any message. The other word is the verb form of the Greek word for gospel, and this word preach contains the message of the gospel itself within it, our Lord uses it as thus in Luke 4:43 “And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.” This word for preach carries with it the entire weight of the gospel message, so, we could thus translate our Lords words as ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God..” So, as the noun for gospel means the good news, the verb of the same word means to proclaim that good news, we could say that by proclaiming the gospel that we are actually gospelling as it were. 

The point that we are eager to endorse is that preaching is no different than proclaiming that which is true, and that which is true is that which God has declared. Therefore we assert that what the Bible considers preaching is that which is contained in the Bible and what can be drawn out from it, in the form of doctrines or teachings. Anything else is not preaching! And, what the world needs more than anything else today are preachers, for “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14) Paul also tells us that these preachers are sent by God, even our Lord Christ Himself (Rom 10:15; Eph 4:11)

We are aware that many pastors in the visible church today are not preachers, they are psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists who are more concerned with logic, reason, experience and modern culture, and so this is what their ‘preaching’ consists of. We would at this time establish the fact that the Bible rejects all those who misuse the word of God in these horrible ways. In fact, the apostle Paul forbids this kind of misuse in 1 Corintians and especially in the first three chapters; in chapter 2 verse 12 and 13 the apostle says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” The world is plagued by these types of false preachers, and they are being trained to be this way in the so called seminaries that are sending them into the world. These types of preachers are truly ashamed of the gospel. If asked they are not ashamed, but they deny Scripture for the wisdom of man, and in our experience they seem to be very well pleased with themselves as they do so. They are convinced that by dragging the filth of the worlds philosophy, culture and science into their pulpits, that they are making the Scripture relevant to the modern man. We call these types of preachers liars and wolves.

So, in conclusion, as the apostle states in verse 16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ..”, and neither are we, in fact we are quite proud to preach, that is, declare the gospel of Christ. And, we have many reasons as to why we are proud and without shame concerning this great and glorious message. So, God willing we will explore all these reasons for being so proud to preach this glorious good news by examining how the apostle Paul spells them out in these two verses.