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.

As we continue in these two most pivotal verses of all of Scripture we will remind you, dear reader, of the enormity of the statements of these two verses. Verse 16 is the general theme of all of the epistle to the Romans and verse 17 is the general exposition of that theme. And, it is therefore absolutely crucial that we have a most elaborated exposition of our own as to what the apostle is communicating in these two verses.

It can be very honestly said that all false gospels have taken root in the muddled soil of a wrong understanding of these two verses; yet, for the most part, the false gospels generally ignore these two verses, glossed over as it were; and, like weeds in a beautiful garden these false gospels have spread their roots and dropped their ill seed throughout this most meticulously crafted and maintained epistle of the apostle.

We have already discerned that the first reason why the apostle, and by extension we, are “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”, and that, of course, is because we have a gospel. Good news is what we have and there is no reason to be ashamed of glad tidings. In fact, we have much reason to boast and to be proud of our gospel, this is what the apostle meant by using that particular figure of speech called litotes, where the opposite is expressed in order to affirm the positive. So, by saying that he was not ashamed, in actuality, he wanted the Romans to know that indeed he was more than proud to preach this gospel of the Lord Jesus, and that he would preach it anywhere, and for these various reasons that he has put forth in these two verses, of which we are now examining. So, good news or glad tidings, as it can be well translated – this is the first reason. What is the apostles second reason?

Salvation is the second reason. This good news brings with it salvation; and salvation in its simplest form means to be delivered from harm, so, what exactly is this salvation that the apostle speaks of? I wonder dear reader, have you ever considered what this salvation of the gospel is, what does it mean, and why is it even necessary? The apostle clearly states that the gospel “is the power of God unto salvation“, there is salvation that comes with this gospel, but, again we must ask ourselves, salvation from what? It is at this point in our discussion that we feel that there is a danger of us being too quick, light, and matter of fact with our answer to this question.

This term salvation, too often is used inadequately. There are some who use this term to refer to only but a small part of salvation, and this of course will limit the perspective of which we are intended to have and be able to express as Christians. Our Lord Christ was “obedient to the death of the cross”(Phil 2:8) and all the horrors of what that death meant, so that we, who are Christians, would never have to experience what it would mean if it were that we were not safe from the wrath of God. The mere thought of these horrors and terrors are so severe that the Lord of glory Himself, knowing what these terrors and horrors would entail, prayed to the Father as He “sweat.. great drops of blood”(Luk 22:44) He certainly apprehended the reality of these terrors; and, He thus made this supplication “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:”(Luk 22:42). We must acknowledge that this cup of which our Lord speaks of is not the death of the cross, for, that would be to say that our Lord was afraid of death; and, this would make the Lord of Glory less than many a martyr who have kissed the stake of which they were bound and sung glorious hymns unto God as their flesh melted in the fires of martyrdom. No, our Lord, knew the magnitude of His Fathers hatred toward sin. The Lord knew that God the Father, on the morrow, was going to punish sin in His body on the cross for His chosen people. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”(2Cor 5:21) Our Lord also new that by taking on the sin of sinners in His own flesh would mean that He, the second eternal Person of the Trinity, would be separated from the Godhead and forsaken. “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”(Mat 27:46) The very thought of this was something so terrible that our Lord sweat blood, He was in an agony, and He prayed to the Father that if there could possibly be any other way please let this cup pass, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” There was no other way, if there were, God would have answered the prayer of His only begotten Son. But this prayer was an impossible one to be answered, our Lord knew this as soon as He prayed for it. Salvation is no light thing! So, let’s revere this holy ground on which we tread and remove the shoes from off of our feet.

In order to understand salvation we must apply it, and consider, to whom it applies, namely man. So we must enjoin our apprehension of what salvation is to what the biblical teaching of man is. We must know what man was like when God made him. What was God’s view of man when He created him in the garden? Also, what exactly happened to man as a result of the fall and of sin? When the apostle talks about salvation we must know what he means; otherwise, how will we be able to comprehend why he is not ashamed of this gospel, to the point that he is willing to preach it anywhere and to die for it?

Beginning with man then. In the Scripture the first three chapters of Genesis has the record of what is known as the creation account. Now there are many who would read the first three chapters of Genesis and throw their hands up and declare “These are not the facts of how creation came to be! Our modern science has shown that without a doubt these things just absolutely cannot be. There are billions of years that need to be accounted for, galaxies by the millions, and solar systems by the trillions, &ct.” The Theory of Evolution is considered a fact by most everyone on Earth by this time, though it be but a mere theory, unproved and indeed unprovable; it is nothing more than speculation and philosophy; and can never be anything more than this. Nevertheless, we have even come across very many Christians ‘so called’ who allegorize the first three chapters of Genesis in order to accommodate this Theory of Evolution into their theology. One attempt of this accommodation is to say that what Genesis records is merely the results of a God guided evolution, this they call theistic evolution. Indeed, there are today entire sects of modern professing Christians of whom these kinds of ideas are formed into their theology. But, this is not theology my dear reader, this is philosophy and nothing more. On one occasion, we found, one of these liberal Christians who believes this; when queried as to an explanation of the fact that our Lord acknowledges the Genesis chapters as fact, when he told the Pharisees in Matthew 19:4, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,”, the response was to this effect – the liberal Christian said that the verse in Matthew doesn’t say how God made them male and female; therefore, it seems plausible, in their estimation, that God used the evolution process put forth by Charles Darwin to bring a man and a woman to creation. Without a single Scripture to support this statement, it is seemingly without difficulty that these sort of thinkers would inject a philosophy of man into the interpretation of God’s holy Writ! Why? because they believe the wisdom of man is wiser than the foolishness of God; and, their faith stands in the wisdom of man rather than the power of God. What’s more incredible is that this very same liberal Christian acknowledges the fact that the scientists cannot produce any proof or evidence of one species coming from a different species, like a cat that evolved from a dog, what is commonly called macroevolution. So what’s their answer? It is that God through evolution did a miracle, in the same way that handkerchiefs today do not heal people, but, in the book of Acts they were used by a miracle of God through the apostles for healing. (This is not our example this is theirs!) So, they continue that in this very same way evolution today is inert and non functional, but, for millions of years, until all of creation as we know it came to be, God worked a miracle (or should we say millions of miracles?) through this ‘so called’ evolutionary process. My dear reader, this is so far fetched and fanciful that it nearly defies words! How incredibly naive must a person be to mistake philosophy, nay, fantasy for theology. We as Christians must never deny fact, and we also must never allow philosophy to dictate the way we interpret the Scripture, for, the Scripture is God’s revelation and being such it is fact.

Now no one denies microevolution, this is not even a question. There were two dogs upon the ark of Noah; and by intentional breeding (also called husbandry) and accidental breeding, we now have over 500 breeds of dogs, both domestic and wild. The same applies to all domesticated animals, horses, cattle, cats &c., there is no controversy here, plants as well have been evolved by man so that we have all types of tomatoes, apples, &c., the examples are many. As well, animals of the wild have also by processes developed into multiple species: wild cats, for example, we have read are about 40 in number, yet, they are all cats. If this is what is meant by evolution then we have no grounds for controversy. However, what is known as the Theory of Evolution is not grounded in science at all; and, what’s of greater importance for us is that it is not founded in Scripture at all; and, therefore it is alien to God and His truth.

So, let us pull this weed from the garden of truth once and for ever. If you believe in the Theory of Evolution in any philosophical form, then you do not have a need for salvation, why? Well, because there is no such thing as Original Sin. How could man have been created perfect and righteous if it took millions of years? If this is true, and the Genesis account begins where the miracle of a theist theory of evolution ends, then it would necessarily follow that man will once again become perfect, sinless, and thus redeemed to his creator in the very same manner; “just give it more time”, is this not what the believers of the theory of evolution say? You see, dear reader, this theory, which has never been anything more than a theory, completely negates any necessity of our Lord Jesus Christ having to come into this world. The Scripture is clear and cannot be broken on this fact, that Christ had to bear our sins on the cross and substitute Himself as a propitiation to God the Father. What this means is, that, by no other way would God be able to justify sinners and declare them to be righteous in His eyes, except that the perfection of Christ should be declared and imputed upon those sinners for whom Christ died specifically and in place of.

We would like to at this point in our exegesis acknowledge this fact, that salvation, being a sovereign act of God, does not depend on anything other than God’s work in the heart of the sinner, bringing that which was dead to life and that which was in darkness to light; the result of God’s work in a sinner is that of repentance and belief delivered by means of faith alone. A sinner sees their need of salvation, confesses the Lord with the mouth and believes with their heart (i.e. their entire being) that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. So, peculiar doctrines of truth, such as God’s creation and Original Sin, are not of necessity to be understood or believed by a newborn Christian babe. That being said, when these doctrines of truth are expounded and taught to growing Christians they then become absolutely necessary to be embraced by them as matters of practice and faith; the reason being, simply because, they are true and taught by the Scripture as being so. A Christian cannot stay a babe, the Scripture does not allow this to be “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,”(Eph 2:10) “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus” Christ:”(Phil 1:6) This is not to say that every Christian will grow to great strength of faith and be able to consume strong meat and articulate every great and mighty doctrine; by no means. But, it does mean that a Christian cannot simply choose what they want to believe of these doctrines, as it is the custom of some today to do. And, when certain great and fundamental doctrines come forth, as a matter of instruction, then the Christian is required to believe wether they can understand it or not. For example, we know of no person that understands, in a perfect sense, the doctrine of the Triune God; it is true that many can express it with the language that has been passed down the centuries or invent their own ways of restating the creeds, but I am certain that no one outside of God Himself truly comprehends what the facts of the Trinity are. Therefore, what of necessity must suffice for the Christian is that God has revealed it as truth; that we can be certain that it is a part of His character and attributes. We know that God is infinite in all ways and we are but creations of His, so, there are certainly very many things that we will never know, in this life or the next. It seems to us that these types of truths are very hard for the flesh to accept and there are many a professing Christian who has denied God’s majesty and unknowableness in order to preserve their own pride from dying before the Lord God creator of all. And, creator of all He is! There is absolutely nothing but affirmation of this fact in His Scripture. It is plainly stated in Genesis chapters one through three, the Lord Jesus Christ refers to the creation account (Mat 19:4), and the apostle Paul, in the 5th chapter of Romans, too draws upon the fact of Adams creation, his fall, original sin, and death’s reign throughout history because of this very same sin. “as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men”(Rom 5:12). So, the denial of God’s perfect creation is a denial of God’s Scripture, this ultimately means a denial of Christ. So, dear reader, we will not allow for this kind of heresy to go without mention.

The belief of God’s creation and Original Sin are are two doctrines that salvation cannot exist without. God created man perfect without sin, man fell into sin by the suggestion of the devil, and so, sin entered into the world; and “the wages of sin is death”(Rom 6:23) The result of the fall is that all men, being in Adam, have been constituted by God as sinners “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,”(Rom 5:19) The Scripture is very clear as to why our Lord had to come, live a perfect life, and die upon the cross; “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”(1John 3:8). We wonder what happens to the doctrine of angels when our friends, of whom profess Christ as their saviour, deny God’s creation as He has revealed it in Scripture and in fact? Do these friends believe in the devil, his works, his influence, his power over sinners and the world? Our Lord does, Christ created the devil (Col 2:16) and was tempted by him in the wilderness at the beginning of His earthly ministry. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”(Mat 4:1 ff) In fact, we are told that “having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”(Col 2:15) These two words here, principalities and powers, refer to the devil and his angels. The apostle Paul uses these same terms in describing the devil and his angels, both in Romans chapter 8 verse 38, and in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12.

You see dear reader, there is a great importance that we should both realize and know of a certainty that our dear Lord was engaged in a redemption that is far above man alone. God is redeeming all of creation, we are told in Romans chapter 8 that “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”(vss 21,22) We should never put ourselves as the sole purpose of Christ’s great redemptive sacrifice; no, we must understand that though we are the greatest of His creation, it is all of creation that is going to be gloriously redeemed. And, what it must needs be redeemed from is sin; and, sin entered by one man; and, this in turn brought death to all as a punishment for that sin; and, all of this is the work of the devil. So, Creation, Original Sin, and, the devil are doctrines that we have no ability to compromise on. If one of these doctrines be denied then salvation is denied and Christ need not of been obedient to the death of the cross.

Therefore, what is salvation then? In terms of man, it is deliverance out of the consequences of Adam’s fall and of sin; it can never be less than this!